Last night, I bussed around the nation’s capitol to capture everyday Americans’ real-time thoughts and reactions to the 2024 election.

The on-the-street report covers everything from a protest across from the White House to a random busker with, well…the most original election song I’ve ever heard.

Enjoy!

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So hey, can Democrats finally start opposing genocide now?

Just kidding. They won’t.

Democrats are sitting on a mountain of hundreds of thousands of human corpses they helped kill by mass military slaughter in the last four years, weeping and lamenting that now bad things are going to start happening.

Democrats are shrieking so loud today because they know they’re wrong. They know their party ran a dogshit candidate. They know it was crazy to expect the left support the party that’s committing a live-streamed genocide.

It’s not anger.

It’s not fear.

It’s cognitive dissonance.

I should probably repeat what I said back in July: if you’re a Trump supporter who started reading me for my criticisms of the Biden administration, you are going to hate my guts after your guy gets in.

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Democrats will spend the next four years viciously attacking Trump. So will I. But while Democrats will attack Trump because of the few ways in which he is different from themselves, I will be attacking him because of the many ways in which he is the same as the Democrats.

Both parties are in full alignment when it comes to the worst evils of the US empire. I and others like me will be focusing there, while the Democrats pour all their energy into pretending to be a real opposition party and exaggerating the differences between themselves and Trump.

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The reason US presidential elections are so close and US politics remain divided pretty much 50–50 is because both parties are constantly walking the tightrope of trying to give the donor class as much as possible while giving Americans as little as possible and still getting votes. As soon as they figure out they can make fewer concessions to ordinary voters and still have a chance at winning, they roll back those concessions to make concessions to the plutocrats who own them.

They’re constantly calculating how little they can get away with giving the voting public. Give too much to the people and the plutocrats switch sides; give too little and the people won’t vote for you. So they both walk it right up to the line year after year, keeping them split right down the middle and never changing the status quo in any major way.

Which just so happens to be exactly what the rich and powerful oligarchs who own America want.

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The only real solution to the trolley problem is to find and kill the prick who keeps tying people to trolley tracks and making people choose which ones die.

Meanwhile, Israel keeps brutally hammering Lebanon and Gaza with the full support of the United States. The Israeli military has publicly announced that the Palestinians who’ve been driven out of northern Gaza will not be allowed to return to their homes, meaning that this is a completely undisguised ethnic cleansing operation.

Benjamin Netanyahu fired Yoav “We’re exterminating human animals” Gallant on Tuesday because he’s too moderate and gentle for the current Israeli government. He has been replaced by the even nastier Israel Katz, who said in 2022,

“Yesterday I warned the Arab students, who are flying Palestine flags at universities: Remember 48. Remember our independence war and your Nakba, don’t stretch the rope too much. […] If you don’t calm down, we’ll teach you a lesson that won’t be forgotten.”

If these things had happened after Trump was sworn in, liberals would be trying to rub it in our faces telling us it proves he’s worse on Gaza. But it’s happening now while they’ve still got a couple more months in power, so liberals are just ignoring it.

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I honestly don’t think my respect for Democrats could sink any lower. It was very low already, but watching them try to bully people into supporting a genocidal monster these last few months has dropped me to a whole new level of disgust I didn’t know was possible.

A leftist is someone with logically and morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel logically and morally correct without ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.

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Today November 7, 2024 is the 107 years anniversary of the October Revolution, November 7, 1917.

We bring to the attention of our readers Sergei Eisenstein‘s masterpiece:

“Ten Days that Shook the World” (1928) (1’43”)

In documentary style, events in Petrograd are re-enacted from the end of the monarchy in February of 1917 to the end of the provisional government and the decrees of peace and of land in November of that year.

Lenin returns in April.

In July, counter-revolutionaries put down a spontaneous revolt, and Lenin’s arrest is ordered. By late October, the Bolsheviks are ready to strike: ten days will shake the world.

While the Mensheviks vacillate, an advance guard infiltrates the palace. Antonov-Ovseyenko leads the attack and declares the proclamation dissolving the provisional government.

A Film by Sergei M. Eisenstein

Directed by Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei M. Eisenstein

Writing Credits: Sergei M. Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov, Boris Agapow (intertitles), John Reed (book)

Music by Edmund Meisel, Dmitri Shostakovich

Cinematography by Eduard Tisse

Cast:

Nikolay Popov as Kerenskiy Vasili

Nikandrov as V.I. Lenin

Layaschenko as Konovalov

Chibisov as Skobolev Boris

Livanov as Terestsenko

Mikholyev as Kishkin Nikolai

Podvoisky as Bolshevik

Smelsky as Verderevsky

Eduard Tisse as German Soldier

Here’s a film about the 1950s – “The World As It Was” – that will tell you a great deal about life in the U.S.A. today, while disabusing anyone of the notion that nostalgia for that mephitic decade is in order, for it was a time when “democracy” tended toward totalitarianism. 

In doing so, it sowed the bitter fruit that is poisoning us today.  Without understanding the long-standing effects of those years, it is impossible to grasp the deepest dimensions of our current nightmare. 

Chapter One of the documentary series, Four Died Trying, directed by John Kirby and produced by Libby Handros, appropriately subtitled: “To see where we are, look where we’ve been,” does that brilliantly.

The series opened four months ago with “The Prologue” (see review) wherein the lives, importance, and assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy are explored;

How the government and media buried the truth of who assassinated them and why; and why it matters today. 

Season One will unfold over the next year with chapters covering their lives and assassinations in greater detail.  Season Two will be devoted to the government and media coverups, citizen investigations, and the intelligence agencies and their media mouthpieces’ mind control operations aimed at the American people that continue today.

Chapter One – “The World As It Was” – is about the 1950s, the rise of the Cold War with its propaganda, McCarthyism, the development of the military-industrial complex, the CIA, red-baiting, betrayals, blacklists, the abrogation of civil rights, censorship, and the ever present fear of nuclear war and the promotion of fallout shelters that set the stage for the killing fields of the 1960s and the CIA’s ruthless machinations.

One could say that the 1950s were the Foundation of Fear upon which the horrors of the 1960s were built, and that now we are reaping the flowers of evil that have sprung up everywhere we look because the evils of those decades have never been adequately addressed.

The film opens with President Eisenhower delivering his famous Farewell Address, warning about the growing power of the military-industrial complex. 

It is a short and powerful speech, concealing not a smidgen of hypocrisy since it must not have been Eisenhower who presided for eight years from 1953-1961 as this complex grew and grew and he poured 2 billion dollars in weapons and aid and a thousand military advisers to the ruthless and corrupt Vietnamese dictator Ngô Dinh Diêm, while saying he was “an example for people everywhere who hate tyranny and love freedom.” 

His speech, while still good, reminds me of all those who spend their careers quiet as church mice as the wars and assassinations rage on only to find their voices in opposition once they retire and collect their pensions.

Watch the trailer below.

In response to Eisenhower’s speech, some of which we hear, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – one of a hundred interviews done for this series over six years –  says that Eisenhower’s speech “is probably today in retrospect the most important speech in American history.” 

While that is debatable (I would pick JFK’s American University speech), he rightly emphasizes the importance of Ike’s speech and the fact that his uncle, President Kennedy, fought against the military-industrial complex handed him by Eisenhower. 

This is important, for although JFK did get elected emphasizing the Cold War rhetoric of a non-existent missile gap between the U.S. A. and the Soviet Union, he very quickly changed, having been betrayed by Allen Dulles and the CIA regarding the Bay of Pigs, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Vietnam, Laos, etc. 

The military brass quickly came to hate Kennedy, a naval war hero from World War II.  His three year transformation into a great peacemaker – and therefore his assassination by the CIA and its friends – is a story many still would like to squelch.  This documentary series will prevent that.

Those who control our present and wish to control our future are hard at work today trying to control our past and they will therefore hate this truthful film that is a powerful antidote to their attempted amnesia.  In thirty-nine sobering and entertaining minutes (with emphasis on both words),

“The World As It Was” illuminates a period in U.S. history that is often dismissed as the staid and boring 1950s but was in fact when the infrastructure for today’s censorship, chaos, and fear was laid.  It was not the era, as a baseball movie about Jimmy Piersall and his depression from 1957 put it, when “Fear Strikes Out,” but the time when fear burrowed very deep into the American psyche and anxiety became a weapon of state.  Is it any wonder that today could be called “the age of depression, fear, anxiety, and pill popping”?

It is interesting to note that Eisenhower’s warning also contained an admonition to beware the growth of unchecked science, technology, and a future when computers would replace blackboards. 

If he were still alive, he would no doubt not recognize the country controlled by what former CIA analyst Ray McGovern calls the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT).

 This vast computer-networked monster makes all the warnings about the 1950s snooping, informing, and controlling activities of government agencies seem like child’s play.  They can’t open snail mail now when few send any, but reading computer messages barely necessitates a finger’s movement, or, as Edward Snowden continues to warn, the entire electronic phone system is open sesame for government controllers. Cell phones acting as cells. Blackboards are gone but so is privacy.  The 1950s’ government snooping is pure nostalgia now.  We are through the looking glass.

As then, so today.  Oliver Stone talks about how in those days the constant refrain was “the Russians are coming” and how his father, a Republican stockbroker, told him that “the Russians are inside the country.” 

Fear was everywhere, all induced by anti-communist propaganda aimed at controlling the American people.  Stone is still fighting against the Russia bogeyman stories, while today we are told again and again that the Russians are still coming.  We can only assume they are very slow.

Aside from RFK, Jr. and Oliver Stone, in this episode we hear from NYU Professor Mark Crispin Miller, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the screenwriter Zachary Sklar, et al. 

Because the film is so ingeniously crafted, many of the most powerful voices – for and against the government repression and fear mongering – are those from newsreels and television shows that are artfully spliced between the commentaries of the aforementioned people. For example, to see and hear FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover rant about communists under every bed and to juxtapose that with the calm words of the filmmaker Dalton Trumbo, blackballed as one of the so-called Hollywood Ten, is an exercise in distinguishing sanity from insanity.

To this is added music, advertisements, movie clips, and jingles from the 1950s culture that place the viewer back in time to feel and absorb the “vibes,” as it were, of those days. 

Like any era, it was complicated, but the overriding message from the fifties was not about mom making tuna noodle casserole but was that there were commie traitors everywhere throughout society and that every citizen’s obligation was to turn them in, even if that meant turning yourself or your parents in.  Children were taught to get under their desks when the sirens sounded, for they were safe places when the Commie Nukes start coming in.  Civil Defense drills screeched this fear into your every fiber.  In April 1957 the Army Air Defense Command announced that new Nike Hercules missiles with atomic warheads would shortly be installed around New York City, Boston, Providence, etc. to replace conventional warheads.  A spokesman added that these nuclear warheads posed no danger and that if the missiles were used, fallout would be “negligible.”  Of course.

Let me use an anecdote from pop culture that I think sums this up this sick game of fear and distrust – paranoia.  My parents were on a game show in the fall of 1957 called “Do You Trust Your Wife?” hosted by Johnny Carson.

By the summer of 1958 the show’s title was changed to “Who Do you Trust?”  I used to joke that Hoover or Senator Joseph McCarthy was behind the change and their English grammar was atrocious, but I realize it was probably some fearful lackeys in the television industry.

Professor Miller, an expert in propaganda, narrates quite a bit of “The World As It Was” and does so admirably.  He correctly points out that to describe the 1950s as the era of McCarthyism is a misnomer, for doing so “let’s the whole system off the hook.”  It was the entire government apparatus that promoted a vast repression based on fear whose aim was to create meek, deferential, and obedient people afraid of their own shadows.

He points out that the basis for all this was established by President Truman in 1947 with his Executive Order 9835 that required loyalty oaths to root out communists in the federal government.  Six months later the CIA was founded and the country was off to the Cold War races with its anti-communist hysteria and the institutionalization of a militarized society.

The Red Menace, nuclear extinction, and the need to root out those traitors who were conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government by force were pounded into people’s minds.  Not only were these traitors in the government, but in the schools and colleges, the labor and racial equality movements – more or less everywhere.  Whom could you trust?  No one, not even yourself.  While McCarthy was eventually censored for going too far when Joseph Welch accused him of having no decency during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, he accomplished the goal of injecting his paranoic poison into the social bloodstream where it remains today, part of the political structure shared by both major parties.

But hope arose, as the film concludes, when JFK was elected in 1960 and in his first week in office went to the theater to see the blackballed screenwriter’s Dalton Trumble’s adaptation of Howard Fast’s novel, Spartacus, about a slave revolt in ancient Rome.  Fast was also blacklisted and wrote the novel secretly.  As RFK, Jr. says, this was a symbolic turning point when it was reported on the front page of The New York Times.

“It [the film Spartacus] is a parable of resistance and heroism that speaks unreservedly to our own times,” wrote the great journalist John Pilger in We Are Spartacus shortly before his death. “There is one ‘precise’ provocateur now; it is clear to see for those who want to see it and foretell its actions. It is a gang of states led by the United States whose stated objective is ‘full spectrum dominance’. Russia is still the hated one, Red China the feared one.”

Yes, today we are told that the Russians are still coming.  The bad old days are back.  But so also is the slaves’ rebellion.

Four Died Trying is a documentary series that is part of this rebellion.  Chapter One, “The World As It Was” shines a very bright light on disturbing U.S. history.  It shows where we have been in order to help us see where we are.  Don’t miss it.

Watch the trailer below.

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

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

Na Moldávia, a ala anti-russa da política local venceu as eleições, garantindo o alinhamento contínuo do país com o Ocidente. Maia Sandu, líder da coligação pró-UE, foi reeleita para um novo mandato, apesar de um claro declínio da sua popularidade. Além de alegadas fraudes e crimes eleitorais, a falta de uma oposição forte e unificada e de projetos claros para limitar a ocidentalização do país são os principais fatores responsáveis ​​pela vitória do movimento pró-Ocidente.

Sandu recebeu um total de 55% dos votos, enquanto seu adversário, o ex-procurador-geral Aleksandr Stoianoglo, obteve apenas cerca de 44%. Os dados indicam que o país está profundamente polarizado, com grande parte da população se opondo ao atual governo. Contudo, é possível afirmar que, apesar da desaprovação de Sandu, muitos eleitores não viam Stoianoglo como uma alternativa forte o suficiente para liderar o governo, visto que a oposição está dividida em muitas facções diferentes e não parece ter um projeto unificado para o país.

Vale também a pena mencionar que muitos moldavos estão simplesmente decepcionados com a política nacional, optando por não participar no processo eleitoral. Apenas 54% dos eleitores registrados votaram no segundo turno da corrida presidencial. Este número é suficiente para eleger um presidente, uma vez que a lei moldava estabelece um mínimo de 20% de participação popular para validar as eleições. No entanto, apesar da validade, é claro que há confiança insuficiente por parte da população em ambos os candidatos, o que resulta numa falta de interesse pela política nacional.

Além disso, o processo eleitoral não foi pacífico. A polícia moldava relatou pelo menos 225 casos de violações das regras eleitorais em diferentes regiões do país. Foram cometidos distúrbios políticos ilegais, suborno de eleitores, danos aos boletins de voto e muitos outros crimes. É evidente que não houve um processo eleitoral pacífico e verdadeiramente democrático na Moldávia. Pelo contrário, as eleições foram conduzidas de uma forma turbulenta e violenta – de uma forma que é repreensível por todos os padrões políticos democráticos.

A turbulência política no país parece longe de terminar. Como resultado das eleições violentas e polêmicas, a oposição recusa-se a reconhecer a vitória de Sandu. Os apoiantes de Stoianoglo consideram-no o verdadeiro vencedor do processo eleitoral, o que significa que haverá divisão na política interna e muitos moldavos deixarão de reconhecer a legitimidade das instituições oficiais. Isto é um desastre para a Moldávia, uma vez que os países com políticas polarizadas tornam-se instáveis ​​e tendem a sofrer de vários problemas sociais.

Numa declaração oficial, os apoiantes de Stoianoglo afirmaram que não reconhecem os resultados das eleições do país devido à falta de condições democráticas básicas para um processo eleitoral justo. Além disso, prometem desenvolver uma estratégia para “despolitizar” as instituições do país e tentar estabelecer eleições verdadeiramente livres no futuro.

“As recentes eleições presidenciais não podem ser consideradas uma expressão livre e democrática da vontade do povo (…) (Vamos) tentar despolitizar as instituições do Estado e garantir a igualdade de condições nas campanhas eleitorais”, lê-se no comunicado.

É possível que as eleições na Moldávia tenham sido manipuladas. No primeiro turno, foram denunciadas diversas violações, tanto nas eleições presidenciais como no referendo liderado por Sandu sobre a adesão da Moldávia à UE. O governo moldavo utilizou várias manobras para impedir que os moldavos anti-UE votassem. Por exemplo, a diáspora moldava na Federação Russa não foi autorizada a votar, o que teve claramente um forte impacto, garantindo a vitória da ala de Sandu.

O governo Sandu é claramente conhecido por promover ações ilegais e fraudulentas, parecendo disposto a fazer tudo para garantir os seus interesses pró-Ocidente. A lei moldava não parece ser um obstáculo para Sandu, que viola os padrões democráticos para garantir vantagens políticas sempre que possível.

Apesar da possível fraude, a oposição é parcialmente culpada pela sua derrota, uma vez que não foi capaz de apresentar um programa político unificado suficientemente forte para agradar ao povo moldavo. No entanto, Sandu e os seus apoiadores ocidentais demonstraram repetidamente que estão dispostos a fazer qualquer coisa para obter qualquer forma de vantagem eleitoral.

No seu novo mandato, Sandu aprofundará o sério processo de “ucranização” da Moldávia. As políticas forçadas de ocidentalização e de lavagem cerebral anti-russa expandir-se-ão ainda mais. O Ocidente está a pressionar a Moldávia para abrir um novo fronte contra a Rússia, promovendo uma “solução militar” para o conflito latente na Transnístria, bem como espalhando sentimentos hostis contra regiões com uma maioria étnica não moldava, como a Gagauzia. Por enquanto, apesar do alinhamento de Sandu com o Ocidente, o país tem resistido a dar esse passo. Contudo, não é possível saber quanto tempo durará esta objeção.

O Ocidente já deixou claro muitas vezes que não aceita qualquer tipo de negociação, exigindo alinhamento total. Qualquer posição que não seja o alinhamento total é suficiente para considerar um país um “inimigo”. Neste sentido, com Sandu, a Moldávia está perto de sofrer a maior pressão política da sua história.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Artigo em inglês : Political situation polarized and unstable in Moldova after presidential election, InfoBrics, 5 de Novembro de 2024.

Imagem :  InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, membro da Associação de Jornalistas do BRICS, pesquisador do Centro de Estudos Geoestratégicos, especialista militar.

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

The return to the recurrent endemic of the Cold War between the USA and Russia following the Ukraine crisis and the imposition of sanctions by EU-Japan-US against Russia would mark the beginning of the twilight of the global economy and free trade, especially since the Doha Round has proved ineffective (an organization whose main objective was to liberalize world trade through a major negotiation among the 153 member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and have failed in all their attempts since its creation in 2011).

The global economy would be threatened by the appearance of neo-protectionist measures in the countries of the First World, especially after the signing by Donald Trump of the executive order “Buy American, Hire American” as well as the US withdrawal from the International Treaty signed by 195 countries in 2015 to reduce polluting emissions, known as the Paris Climate Agreement.

Trump has also suggested tariffs of up to 10% on all imports, with a 60% tariff targeted at Chinese products. For the EU, whose trade in goods with the US reached 870 billion euros in 2022, this move would be a significant blow as it could affect key sectors such as automotive and technology with the consequent risk of company relocations to the US, which de facto means a return to economic neo-protectionism.

Risk of Autocracy?

After the elections, the Republicans will take control of the Senate, which combined with the control of the Congress will give Donald Trump a near absolute power, and may also appoint new judges of the Supreme Court, in case of vacancies. Also, after being invested President in January, Trump will have the power to order his attorney general to dismiss all federal charges against him and thus return to enjoy a clean political record.

Trump is also a specialist in forcing the boundaries of the Everton window to introduce into it issues located outside the framework and initially considered unacceptable by public opinion and that once within the debate, can be perceived as tolerable and of what would be paradigm the construction of the Wall to contain illegal immigrants.

If the control of Congress and Senate by the Republicans is confirmed, there is a risk that Trump will install an Orwellian government that will drink from the sources of paternalism of soft dictatorships and be characterized by the cult of the leader, the use of disinformation and surveillance of the non-white population and political dissent, which would de facto be an autocratic government or kind of invisible dictatorship supported by solid strategies of cohesion (mass manipulation and cult of the leader), which would confirm Lord Acton’s aphorism: “Power tends to corrupt and Absolute Power corrupts absolutely”.

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Germán Gorraiz López is a political analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Using aluminum foil in cooking significantly increases aluminum exposure, with studies showing an 8.1% increase in urinary aluminum concentrations during high-exposure periods

Cooking with aluminum foil leads to aluminum leaching into food, even exceeding safety limits at times. Factors like acidity, salt content, fat, temperature and cooking time affect leaching rates

Aluminum accumulation in your body is linked to neurological issues, including Alzheimer’s, autism, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. It also affects bone health and causes anemia

Symptoms of aluminum toxicity include memory loss, confusion, coordination difficulties, bone pain, kidney dysfunction and respiratory issues. Early recognition and reducing your exposure are crucial for health

To reduce aluminum exposure, avoid cooking with aluminum foil and cookware, choose alternative cookware materials, limit processed foods, use aluminum-free personal care products, avoid aluminum-containing vaccines and filter your water if aluminum levels are high

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Aluminum is everywhere in our modern world, from cookware to food packaging. But did you know that your everyday use of aluminum foil could be significantly increasing your exposure to this harmful metal? Research published in Environment International revealed aluminum foil and containers used in food preparation contribute to your body’s aluminum burden,¹ with serious risks to your health.

While aluminum is naturally present in the environment, its widespread use in consumer products has led to increased human exposure. Your body doesn’t need aluminum for any biological processes, and accumulation over time is dangerous.

Aluminum has been linked to various health issues, including neurological problems and bone disorders. What’s more, your body may struggle to eliminate excess aluminum, especially if you have impaired kidney function. Minimizing your exposure to this pervasive metal in your daily life, the new study shows, may start right in your kitchen.

Using Aluminum Foil Boosts Your Body’s Metal Burden

The research, a first-of-its-kind human intervention study, explored whether consuming food prepared with aluminum foil and containers leads to increased aluminum levels in the body. The study involved 11 healthy participants who followed a controlled diet for 30 days.

During the middle 10 days, their meals were prepared using aluminum foil and stored in aluminum containers. Urine samples were collected twice daily throughout the study to measure aluminum excretion. This rigorous design allowed researchers to detect even small changes in aluminum levels and determine if any increases were reversible.

The findings were clear: consuming food prepared with aluminum foil and containers led to a measurable increase in aluminum levels in the body.² On average, participants experienced an 8.1% increase in their urinary aluminum concentrations during the exposure phase.

This increase was reversible in healthy adults with normal kidney function — once the exposure to aluminum cookware ceased, aluminum levels returned to baseline within days. However, this reversibility might not apply to everyone, especially those with compromised kidney function.

The estimated additional aluminum intake from this high-exposure scenario represented about 4.4% of the tolerable weekly intake set by European food safety authorities. However, aluminum exposure is cumulative and comes from multiple sources in your environment.

Even small increases in aluminum exposure could contribute to a higher body burden over time, and current safety guidelines may not account for the most vulnerable populations or the effects of lifelong exposure.

The Hidden Dangers of Cooking with Aluminum Foil

A study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health also found aluminum leaches into your food when you cook with aluminum foil.³ Researchers examined the aluminum content in meat and fish wrapped in aluminum foil and cooked in an oven.

The use of aluminum foil significantly increased aluminum levels in the food. For instance, chicken and fish cooked with aluminum foil and seasoning showed aluminum concentrations as high as 40 to 42 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg). When cooked without seasoning, the aluminum levels were still notably elevated compared to food cooked without foil.

These findings are particularly concerning because the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has established a tolerable weekly intake (TWI) of 1 mg of aluminum per kg of body weight. The study suggests that regular consumption of foods cooked in aluminum foil could lead to exceeding this recommended limit, especially when combined with other sources of aluminum.

Factors Affecting Aluminum Leaching

Several factors influence the amount of aluminum that leaches into your food when cooking with foil. The study revealed that pH levels, salinity, fat content, temperature and exposure time all play roles in this process.⁴ Acidic foods, those high in salt and fatty foods tend to increase aluminum migration from the foil into your food.

In some cases, such as with beef, cooking without seasoning led to higher aluminum levels. This unexpected result was attributed to the high fat content in beef, which may interact with organic acids present in the meat, resulting in increased aluminum uptake from the foil.

The study also noted that the thickness of the aluminum foil used affects the amount of metal released. While the research used one of the thinnest foils available on the market, preliminary tests suggested that thicker foils might lead to even greater aluminum release into food.

To further illustrate the aluminum leaching process, researchers examined used aluminum foil under a scanning electron microscope. The results were striking. Foil that had been in direct contact with food showed significant deterioration, with numerous holes ranging from 100 to 150 micrometers in diameter.⁵ Foil used to cook food with seasoning showed even more extensive damage, with larger and more numerous holes.

This visible degradation of the foil’s surface provides clear evidence of aluminum migration into the food. Even portions of the foil not in direct contact with the food showed some deterioration, albeit to a lesser extent. These microscopic observations offer a tangible representation of how cooking with aluminum foil leads to the transfer of aluminum into your food.

Food Cooked in Foil May Have 40 Times More Aluminum

In another study exploring how cooking different foods in aluminum foil affects aluminum levels, significant increases in aluminum content across various food types were found, especially those that were marinated.⁶

For example, marinated mackerel wrapped in foil and baked showed aluminum levels up to 49.34 mg/kg — over 40 times higher than the control samples. Even without marinade, foods like salmon and duck breast still saw noticeable increases in aluminum. The study authors concluded that “excessive consumption of food prepared by baking in aluminum foil can carry a health risk.”⁷

Again, the study found the amount of aluminum that migrates into your food depends on several factors. Temperature plays a key role — higher cooking temperatures lead to more leaching. In this study, foods were baked at 220°C (428°F) for 40 minutes, resulting in significant aluminum increases.⁸

The acidity and salt content of food also impact aluminum transfer. Marinated foods consistently showed higher aluminum levels compared to their non-marinated counterparts. For instance, marinated duck breast without skin reached levels of 45.18 mg/kg when cooked in foil, while the non-marinated version only increased to 0.61 mg/kg.⁹ Interestingly, the presence of skin seemed to provide some protective effect.

Duck breast with skin showed lower aluminum levels than skinless samples, suggesting the skin may act as a barrier. The specific type of aluminum foil used can also influence leaching. The study tested five different commercial foils and found variations in their aluminum transfer rates, revealing that not all foils are created equal when it comes to food safety.

Aluminum Accumulates in Your Brain, Contributes to Alzheimer’s Disease

Aluminum has been linked to several serious health conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease and autism. It’s considered a neurotoxin and accumulates in various tissues, including bones, your parathyroid gland and your brain.

For instance, studies have found higher concentrations of aluminum in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients compared to people without Alzheimer’s, particularly in areas like the hippocampus and temporal lobes.¹⁰

Drinking water with high aluminum levels (over 0.1 mg/L) was also associated with two to three times higher Alzheimer’s prevalence in long-term studies,¹¹ while reducing aluminum burden through silicon-rich mineral water consumption improved cognitive function in some Alzheimer’s patients. Silicon appears to be a natural antagonist to aluminum, helping reduce its absorption and accumulation.

Meanwhile, autism rates have risen dramatically since the late 1990s, with some researchers attributing 75% to 80% of this increase to environmental factors rather than just improved diagnosis. Multiple studies have found higher aluminum concentrations in hair and urine samples of autistic children,¹² and autism may involve impaired ability to metabolize and excrete aluminum.

Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease: More Evidence of Aluminum’s Neurotoxicity

Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients also show higher aluminum levels in brain tissue compared to controls. One study found MS patients had urinary aluminum excretion comparable to those undergoing metal chelation therapy, suggesting their bodies are actively trying to eliminate excess aluminum.¹³

Silicon-rich mineral water consumption increased aluminum excretion in MS patients, potentially reducing its accumulation.¹⁴ For Parkinson’s disease (PD), occupational exposure to aluminum appears to double the risk. Miners with respiratory aluminum exposure, for instance, had 30% higher PD incidence.¹⁵

Aluminum accumulates in the substantia nigra and Lewy bodies, disrupting dopamine production. It may also affect genes related to PD. Combining aluminum exposure with other metals or pesticides seems to have synergistic negative effects. Early PD diagnosis may be possible by analyzing serum aluminum levels along with other element imbalances.

Aluminum’s Toxic Effects Throughout Your Body

When you’re exposed to aluminum through food, water or other sources, it accumulates in various organs and tissues, leading to a range of health issues. As mentioned, in your brain, aluminum interferes with gene expression and enzyme function, contributing to neurodegenerative diseases. It disrupts mitochondrial function, depleting adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels and causing cell death.¹⁶

In your bones, aluminum replaces calcium, leading to weakened bones and increased fracture risk. It inhibits the enzyme that activates vitamin D, further compromising bone health. Aluminum accumulation in your bone marrow causes anemia by interfering with hemoglobin synthesis. In your liver, aluminum disrupts iron metabolism and mitochondrial function, contributing to fatty liver disease and metabolic disorders.¹⁷

The symptoms of aluminum toxicity can be subtle at first but become more severe as exposure continues. You may experience memory loss, confusion and difficulty with coordination and speech. In advanced cases, this progresses to seizures and even coma.

Aluminum also impacts your musculoskeletal system, causing bone pain, fractures and muscle weakness. Your kidneys may struggle to filter aluminum, leading to kidney dysfunction and increased risk of kidney stones. Respiratory issues like asthma, chronic bronchitis and pulmonary fibrosis can develop, especially in occupational settings with high aluminum exposure.¹⁸

You might also experience changes in your blood cells, leading to anemia and increased susceptibility to infections. Liver function is also compromised by excess aluminum, resulting in abnormal enzyme levels and liver disease. These diverse symptoms underscore the importance of recognizing and addressing aluminum toxicity early¹⁹ — and taking steps to reduce your exposure.

How to Reduce Your Aluminum Exposure

To protect yourself from aluminum’s harmful effects, start by examining your diet and lifestyle. Avoid cooking with aluminum foil or cookware and storing foods in aluminum containers, as this poses the risk of leaching. Opt for stainless steel, glass or ceramic cookware instead.

While I don’t recommend cooking your food in foil, if you do be sure to avoid cooking acidic or salty foods in it, as these increase aluminum leaching. Reducing cooking temperatures and times when using foil may also help limit transfer. If you’re preparing food for young children, it’s especially important to avoid using aluminum foil. Children under 3 years of age, in particular, are considered a high-risk group.²⁰

Avoiding processed foods and beverages is also important, as many contain aluminum additives. Check your personal care products, especially antiperspirants, as well and choose aluminum-free alternatives. Have your water tested for aluminum and consider using a reverse osmosis filter if levels are high.

To further reduce your exposure, avoid aluminum-based antacids and be aware that aluminum is the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant,²¹ making vaccines another route of exposure.

By educating yourself and making informed choices about your cookware and food preparation methods, you can take steps to protect your health and reduce unnecessary aluminum exposure. Remember, even small changes in your cooking habits may have a substantial impact on your long-term health and well-being.

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Notes

^1, 2 Environment International July 2023, Volume 177, 108000

^{3, 4, 5, 20} International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2020 Nov; 17(22): 8357

^{6, 7, 8, 9} Food Sci Nutr. 2019 Sep 9;7(10):3349–3360

^{10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15} Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Apr; 24(8): 7228

^{16, 17, 18, 19} Emerg Med Int. 2022 Jan 11;2022:1480553

²¹ Curr Med Chem. 2011;18(17):2630-7 

Featured image is licensed under CC0

The so-called “fifth-generation” fighters are the future of manned combat aviation in the next 30-50 years. Thus, many countries are racing to field such aircraft as soon as possible. For the time being, the United States and NATO are in the “lead”, as they’re producing by far the largest number of these jets (exclusively the troubled F-35, with the older F-22 out of production since 2011).

However, quantity and quality often don’t go hand in hand, as evidenced by the F-35’s atrocious IOC (initial operational capability), to say nothing of its FOC (full operational capability) and numerous other deficiencies. Its “older brother”, the (in)famous F-22 “Raptor” is more capable in multiple ways, but suffers from many similar issues, particularly in terms of fleet availability. It should be noted that neither of these participated in a major conflict with a heavily armed state adversary, much less one with a high-tech military.

Thus, their combat record is mediocre at best, with the F-22 “proving its might” against $12 weather balloons. On the other hand, Russia built the now legendary Su-57. This jet had a rather lengthy and somewhat rocky development, starting as a more affordable alternative to the MiG 1.44. By 2002, this ambitious program was discontinued after significant delays and cost overruns in the wake of the Soviet Union’s unfortunate dismantlement, leading to the reorganization of Russia’s next-generation fighter jet projects. Along with the Su-47, the rival design by OKB Sukhoi, its assets were transferred to the new PAK FA program, which brought much-needed restructuring and optimizations. For the very first time in decades, Russia was no longer developing two next-generation fighter jets, but one air superiority platform with secondary multirole capabilities.

However, by the time the first prototype flew in 2010, Moscow effectively recovered its superpower status, prompting major updates to PAK FA. As the jet was to come at least a decade later than its predecessor, the MiG 1.44, Moscow realized it would be best not to rush the T-50’s introduction, resulting in new delays. However, it should be noted this was certainly worth it, as the capabilities of the Su-57 (christened in 2017) now transcend the concept of so-called “generations”. And yet, the peculiarities of the PAK FA program were heavily exploited by the mainstream propaganda machine, as the political West wanted to ensure that the Su-57 fails, particularly in export markets. The jet was one of the reasons for the CAATSA which the first Trump administration imposed due to Russia’s support for Syria against a NATO-backed, terrorist-infested crawling invasion since 2011.

All this was designed to hamper the Su-57. However, not only did it fail, but it was precisely in Syria where the jet proved its combat effectiveness in 2018, two years before entering service. The political West fanned up the smear campaign, as it expected first export inquiries. Attempts to stymie the jet’s foreign sales primarily revolve around “proving it’s not a true fifth-generation aircraft”, usually by spreading fakes about its avionics and the AL-41F1 engines. They give the jet a Mach 1.3 or 1,600 km/h supercruise capability (sustained supersonic flight without afterburners), although the mainstream propaganda machine insists it cannot achieve this. The Su-57’s radar cross-section (RCS) is also a regular target, as the political West claims it’s “not a true stealth aircraft”. Although the exact information on its RSC is classified, public data suggests it’s indeed much lower than on any other Russian jet.

However, while it’s certainly less stealthy than the F-22 and F-35, this is not the result of Moscow’s “technological inferiority”, but a matter of doctrine and design philosophy. Namely, the Russian military values robust and battle-ready jets above the perceived “technological edge” of Western combat aircraft. And while lower RCS offers important advantages, it also affects not only robustness and battle readiness, but also speed, payload capacity, range, maneuverability, etc. Moscow believes that the Su-57 represents the most optimal solution that doesn’t affect any of these parameters in a way that would compromise combat performance. Thus, a decision was made not to insist on stealth capabilities alone. However, the mainstream propaganda machine’s smear campaign persists. The latest example is the Su-57’s appearance at the Zhuhai Airshow, its first public display in China.

There are claims that Chinese observers are allegedly “ridiculing” the jet. The Neo-Nazi junta’s propaganda is particularly happy to report this, insisting that the “bad finish” on the Su-57 suggests it’s “not truly a fifth-generation aircraft”. However, what Western and Kiev regime observers conveniently “forgot” to mention is that the jet in question is the T-50-4 blue, a prototype that was never used to test either RCS or RAM (radiation-absorbent material), meaning there was no need to invest into such expensive additions that would only hamper flight testing.

Both enthusiasts and professional military observers have debunked the “bad finish” narrative long ago, showing a major difference between preproduction prototypes and serial aircraft. In addition, it’s well known that Russia, as one of the leading nations when it comes to combat aviation, uses cutting-edge technologies in the Su-57’s production, including augmented reality.

On the other hand, even if serial production jets were indeed like the T-50-4 prototype, they’d still be far ahead of many heavily worn-out F-22s with what even the mainstream propaganda machine described as “crumbling radar-absorbent skin”. Thus, the only real conclusion is that all this is just yet another coping mechanism for the political West and the Neo-Nazi junta, particularly as the Su-57S continues to operate unopposed even over the most heavily defended airspace in NATO-occupied Ukraine.

Its ability to strike virtually any target, anywhere on the battlefield, be it an aircraft or some ground-based high-value asset, has made the Su-57 particularly feared, both in Kiev and NATO. Attempts to denigrate the jet have been quite persistent, but these PR “victories” have lately become more of a burden than any real advantage. Either way, trash-talking will in no way hamper the Su-57, while its missiles will certainly trash any NATO target in Ukraine or beyond.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Sukhoi Design Bureau, 054, Sukhoi Su-57 (Source: Flickr / Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

The American magazine US News and World Report declared the Russian army the strongest in the world. This is because the Russian military has combat experience that no other army in the world has, not even Israel or the United States. More importantly, Russia’s combat experience is with wars of the 21st century, which are completely different from those of the previous century.

After the war in Ukraine, the organization of armed forces worldwide will be completely changed – and so will the actions of the detachments in battle. This will be entirely in accordance with the new standards of the 21st century. However, unlike other countries, including the US, Russia has such experience and has adapted accordingly with progress already made.

In the ranking of the strongest armies in the world, the US occupies second place in terms of military power, Israel third, and Ukraine takes eighth. The assessment of the army, in addition to combat potential (amount of weapons, number of soldiers, etc.), takes into account combat experience and participation in various wars and armed conflicts.

Due to these criteria, the Russian army found itself in the leading position for the first time, although previously, it was always in second or third place after the USA and China. Israel is now ahead of even China due to the wars with Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iran. China, South Korea, Iran, Great Britain, Germany, and Turkey are also among the ten strongest armies in the world.

The authors of the list state that the power of the armies of various countries around the world was assessed based on a survey in which representatives of elites and business circles, as well as ordinary citizens, participated.

Nonetheless, even by these criteria, the Ukrainian army should be second on this list, not the US. This is because the Ukrainians have significant combat experience against the strongest army in the world—the Russian one. Furthermore, it is comical that the Ukrainians are being trained by the British, who had not fought a successful war since 1982 when Argentina attempted to reclaim the Falkland Islands through military force. Even the Ukrainians are humored at the fact that what the British teach them is of no use at the battlefront.

Israel should not be ahead of Ukraine for the simple reason that the country is fighting a weaker enemy because the Palestinians do not have aviation or powerful artillery and use old rockets. Although the Israeli army is one of the strongest in the region, in the world ranking, it should be behind Ukraine, while the American military should be in fourth place because although they are technically superior to all other armies with the latest weapons, submarines, and aviation, they are without the experience Russia has.

Therefore, Russia ranks first precisely because of its combat experience in the wars of the 21st century, including the Russo-Georgian War (2008) and the Syrian War (2015-), in addition to having an impressive military-industrial capacity and leading innovation.

The fact that the US Army took second place in the ranking of the strongest armies despite having a huge military budget that cannot be compared with any other military budget in the world shows that Americans do not spend money rationally and where it should be. In fact, Washington spends more money than several of the largest armies combined.

According to some sources, more than seven of the largest armies together, and according to some, more than nine. The American military budget in 2024 is a record $886.3 billion, while the Russian one is estimated at about $121 billion. Russia even spends less on military expenditures than China, which spends about $231 billion.

Looking to the new year, the Russian army’s prospects and challenges in the coming years include prioritizing rearmament, developing more modern regulations for combat operations and strategy, and fulfilling goals in Ukraine. Peace negotiations with Kiev are impossible as long as Volodymyr Zelensky is in power, and for this reason, the conflict in Ukraine will continue.

At the same time, war is an opportunity for scientific and technological progress. New types of weapons will be created, and they will be even more sophisticated than what currently exists. Now, new types of weapons are being made, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

The 21st century will be different, and the losses in war will be even more massive. Under these catastrophic conditions, it is Russia that is gaining valuable experience whilst the US continues to observe from the sidelines and can only learn from the mistakes made by its Ukrainian proxy.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Ratnik infantry combat system in reconnaissance variant and AFV crew individual protection kit Ratnik-ZK (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

What has been described as “Africa’s last colony”, the Western Sahara territory is still waiting to exercise its decades-long desire for national independence and sovereignty.

Formerly known as the “Spanish Sahara”, the area has been under the domination of the Kingdom of Morocco since 1975.

The liberation movement which grew out of the struggle for freedom is popularly known as the Polisario Front. The organization engaged in an armed struggle and mass political campaign since the 1970s having designated itself as a “government in waiting”.

This provisional government is called the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and is recognized by the United Nations General Assembly and the African Union (AU). Despite the work of the Polisario Front/SADR in gaining widespread acceptance particularly among progressive forces and AU member-states, the UN has failed in holding a nationwide plebiscite on the future of the oppressed nation.

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Museum of the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

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In April 1991, the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was adopted. However, after 34 years the Sahrawi people have been unable to participate in the last stages of the independence processes.

Although the UN Security Council voted to extend the mission in the territory, Algeria, perhaps the staunchest ally of the SADR, failed to vote on the resolution. Algeria and other progressive states on the continent, many of whom are in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) subregion, want full independence for the Western Sahara.

Since the Western Sahara was a colony of Spain, it would be entitled to independence as all other African territories on the continent. To make an exception to the SADR in favor of the Kingdom of Morocco which is allied with the imperialist states such as France, Spain and the United States constitutes a grave injustice to the indigenous people.

After the acceptance by the AU of the SADR as full members of the continental body, the Kingdom of Morocco resigned from the-then Organization of African Unity (OAU). However, after the transition from the OAU to the AU in 2022, efforts began for Morocco to rejoin the organization. This was eventually agreed upon, absent the willingness of the monarchy to accept a process towards full independence for the SADR.

Such a decision to readmit Morocco clouds the actual stanch of the AU in regard to the SADR. Several governments have decried this contradictory situation saying it provides the ability of the AU and UN to sidestep the imperatives of decolonization.

In a statement issued by the UN Security Council on October 31, it notes:

“Authorizing the Mission’s continued operations until 31 October 2025, the 15-member organ adopted resolution 2756 (2024) (to be issued as document S/RES/2756) with 12 votes in favor, zero against and two abstentions (Russian Federation and Mozambique).  One State, however, did not participate in the vote. Through the text, the Council called upon the parties to negotiate under the Secretary-General’s auspices without preconditions and in good faith, encouraging the continuation of consultations between his Personal Envoy and Morocco, Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguía el-Hamra y de Río de Oro (Frente POLISARIO), Algeria and Mauritania to build on progress achieved. It reaffirmed its commitment to assist the parties to achieve a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, based on compromise which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.” 

Yet, in reality there can be no compromise on the total liberation of the SADR as in any other colonial territory. Unfortunately, the adoption of this conciliatory view has been institutionalized within the AU and the UN although it remains counterintuitive. Every other African state which was colonized theoretically received the support of the AU and its predecessor as it relates to gaining national independence.

Imperialism Behind the Colonial Status of the SADR

Obviously, the natural resources found within the Western Sahara including offshore oil deposits and the strategic location of the area has compelled Morocco and its imperialist allies to continue stalling the UN-mandated referendum. In recent years the situation has become further complicated as administrations in Washington, Paris and Madrid have publicly moved away from an actual acceptance of the demand for independence for the people of SADR.

Just recently U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that some undefined form of “autonomy” for the SADR would be more reasonable. This seems to be the same position enunciated by other imperialist states such as France and Spain.

Under the previous administration of President Donald Trump, he declared that Washington would recognize the King of Morocco’s “sovereignty” over the Western Sahara. Apparently, this same position has been carried over into President Joe Biden’s White House. Interestingly enough the presidential and congressional races for November 2024 have completely excluded any discussion and debate on U.S. foreign policy towards Africa.

Despite the lack of acknowledgement of the 1.5 billion Africans on the continent in the electoral battle for the White House, House of Representatives and the Senate, major efforts have been underway for nearly three years to sway the AU member-states away from advocating for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine-Russian war. There has been proposed legislation within the House which would impose sanctions on AU member-states which maintain good diplomatic, economic and political relations with the Russian Federation.

This same posture holds true in regard to the demand for full independence of Palestine and the lifting of sanctions on the Republic of Cuba by the U.S. Algeria has continued to distinguish itself by being unwavering in its advocacy for the liberation of the Western Sahara.

The same UN statement cited above said of the position in neighboring Algeria:

“Algeria’s representative, whose country had earlier proposed two amendments to the resolution, said his delegation did not participate in the vote because of ‘the attitude of the penholder’ (U.S.).  His country’s views and positions, despite having been ‘well-founded’ in consonance with the Council’s processes, were ‘deliberately ignored’.  He regretted that the penholder did not demonstrate objectivity or impartiality, but circulated a text that did not ‘at all’ contain elements of prior agreements.  ‘The vote on this resolution changes nothing on the fundamental crux of this issue,’ he said.  Algeria believes that the right to the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara belongs only to the Saharawi people, and as such will ‘strive to speak out’ on all matters thereon.”

Algeria and other anti-imperialist states have maintained the demand that the SADR should come into existence as an independent and sovereign state. Any proposal advocating an imposed neo-colonial solution will inevitably fail in bringing peace and stability to this region of Africa.

Polisario Front Reemphasizes Its Right to Self-Defense and Independence

In the aftermath of the debate and vote within the UNSC on the MINURSO decision to extend its role for another year, the official representative of the national liberation movement at the UN for the Western Sahara held his own press conference to clarify their positions. Dr. Sidi Mohamed Omar announced on Sahrawi National Television that the struggle of the people would continue.

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A MINURSO car (left), and a post of the Polisario Front (right) in 2017 in southern Western Sahara (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Dr. Omar specifically criticized the French and U.S. governments for their efforts to undermine the Sahrawi people in their quest for total freedom. While, in other comments, the Polisario Front representative singled out Algeria for praise as it upheld the rights of the Sahrawi people as being essential in any efforts to resolve the crisis.

In this statement from Dr. Omar, he stressed that:

“The fact that our sisterly Algeria submitted two proposals on the subject of human rights for a vote by the Security Council is nothing but evidence of this principled position and its strong commitment to the United Nations Charter and its staunch defense of international law, which exposed the members of the Security Council who defend human rights around the world while choosing silence, inaction and double standards when it comes to Western Sahara. Whatever the content of the latest Security Council resolution, the Sahrawi people remain strongly determined to continue and escalate their struggle by all legitimate means, including armed struggle, to achieve their national aspirations for freedom and independence and to re-establish their sovereignty over the entire territory of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic”. 

The President of the SADR and Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, was in attendance at the recent 70th anniversary commemoration of the beginning of the Algerian Glorious Liberation War on November 1. He extended his appreciation to Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Ghali said in a written statement that the experience of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) was an inspiration to the Sahrawi and other oppressed peoples internationally by noting:

“His heartfelt wishes to the President of the Republic and the Algerian people on the sidelines of the commemoration of this important and exceptional event, not only in Algeria’s history, but the entire humanity, being a symbol of struggle, revolution, liberation and resistance against colonialism, enslavement and colonial domination. By fighting for freedom and independence, with determination and unwavering will, the Sahrawi people are at the forefront of all these peoples who, not only have been inspired by the commendable Algerian Revolutionary experience, but who further benefited from Algeria’s immutable support to legitimate struggles across the world, in accordance with the principles of the 1st November Revolution, the UN Resolution Charter and the Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU).”

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  

Featured image is from the Public Domain

U.S. Sanctions Against Moscow Don’t Work. Meanwhile “EU Suffers Suicidal Subservience to Washington”. Drago Bosnic

By Drago Bosnic, November 05, 2024

The Kremlin has been able to not only maintain its economic strength, powering through sanctions, but also increase it dramatically, primarily by relying on the domestic market and establishing closer ties with other global powers such as China and India.

U.N. Security Council Meeting on “Threats to International Peace”: The Ukraine War Could Have Been Avoided. Address by George Szamuely

By George Szamuely, November 05, 2024

The war in Ukraine came about as a result of the Western powers’ single-minded insistence on scooping up every single country on the European continent into NATO, and on expanding the borders of NATO right up to the borders of the Russian Federation.

Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons From Hurricane Helene

By Ellen Brown, November 06, 2024

The catastrophic flooding and destruction in western North Carolina has caused a record $53 billion or more in damages and recovery needs, according to North Carolina  Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration. The storm and its aftermath caused 1,400 landslides and damaged over 160 water and sewer systems, at least 6,000 miles of roads, more than a thousand bridges and culverts, and an estimated 126,000 homes. Some 220,000 households are expected to apply for federal assistance.

Why Israel’s Attack on Iran Was a Bust

By Mike Whitney, November 06, 2024

Iran’s technologically advanced air defense system coupled with its state-of-the-art, long-range hypersonic ballistic missile stockpile make it the most powerful state in the Middle East portending a peaceful era of cooperation and economic integration ahead.

German UNIFIL Forces and Lebanese Christian Party Helps Israel in Kidnapping a Civilian

By Steven Sahiounie, November 06, 2024

The Israeli raid on Batroun, Lebanon has led to questions and accusations. On November 1, an invading commando force forcibly kidnapped a Lebanese commercial sea captain, who was attending a continuing education course at the Marsati Institute for Marine Sciences in Batroun, about 30 kilometers north of Beirut.

Too Big to Rig? The Deep State – Diagnosis and Incoming Remedy. Richard C. Cook with Frank Wright

By Richard C. Cook and Frank Wright, November 06, 2024

What is at stake in this Presidential election? If you have any doubts about the depth of the Deep State forces arrayed against Trump, this video will resolve them. What is more, it shows the enemy has lost, and how America will chart a path to the restoration of a life worth living.

UK Government Report Admits AIDS Is Surging Among Covid-Vaccinated

By Hunter Fielding, November 06, 2024

The UK government’s PHE Vaccine Surveillance Report reveals that doubly vaccinated 40-70-year-olds have lost 40% of their immune system capability compared to unvaccinated people.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is surging among people who received Covid mRNA vaccines, a shocking official UK government report has admitted.

The UK government’s PHE Vaccine Surveillance Report reveals that doubly vaccinated 40-70-year-olds have lost 40% of their immune system capability compared to unvaccinated people.

Their immune systems are deteriorating at around 5% per week (between 2.7% and 8.7%).

If this continues then 30-50 year olds will have 100% immune system degradation, zero viral defence by Christmas and all doubly vaccinated people over 30 will have lost their immune systems by March next year.

The 5 PHE tables below from their excellent Vaccine Surveillance Report, separated by 4 weeks, clearly show the progressive damage that the vaccines are doing to the immune system’s response.

People aged 40-69 have already lost 40% of their immune system capability and are losing it progressively at 3.3% to 6.4% per week.

Weekly Decline in doubly vaccinated immune system performance compared to unvaccinated people…

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Everybody over 30 will have lost 100% of their entire immune capability (for viruses and certain cancers) within 6 months. 30-50 year olds will have lost it by Christmas.

These people will then effectively have full-blown acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and destroy the NHS.

The vaccine booster shots have to be the same as the vaccines themselves because it takes forever to do clinical trials and get approval for something different.

So if you take a booster shot, these figures show that you are giving yourself an even faster progressive form of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (after a couple of months of effectiveness).

Table 2. COVID-19 cases by vaccination status…

Cases reported by specimen date between week 32 and week 35 2021 – see this

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Cases reported by specimen date between week 33 and week 36 2021 – see this

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Cases reported by specimen date between week 34 and week 37 2021 – see this

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Cases reported by specimen date between week 35 and week 38 2021 –  see this

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Cases reported by specimen date between week 36 and week 39 2021 – see this

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Pfizer originally claimed a 95% efficiency for their vaccine (calculated as in the last column above).

The figures above indicate that their figures may well have been correct immediately after vaccination (the younger age groups have had the vaccine for the shortest time).

But the figures above also show that the vaccines do NOT merely lose efficiency over time down to zero efficiency, they progressively damage the immune system until a negative efficiency is realized.

They presently leave anybody over 30 in a worse position than they were before vaccination.

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When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political and economic bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station for all citizens, regardless of wealth or status, to which the laws of nature entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humanity and natural law requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all humans are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and are entitled to be protected from biotechnological, electromagnetic, nano-technological, or others assaults on their minds and bodies.  

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men and women, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed through a contractual and transparent agreement, and that whenever any form of government, or combination of government with corporations and banks, becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying the  foundation for that new government on such principles, and organizing its powers in such a form, as will be likely to assure the safety, preserve the happiness, and uphold the autonomy and self-sufficiency of the citizens. 

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience demonstrates clearly that citizens are disposed to suffer misgovernment, as long as the evils are sufferable, rather than to right the situation themselves by abolishing the forms of government to which they are accustomed.

But, when a long train of abuses by governments and usurpations by corporations and banks, pursuing invariably the same object of complete control of agricultural, industrial, and technological production, of logistics and distribution, of education and journalism, and of energy and transportation, evinces a design to reduce citizens under absolute despotism, then it is the right of citizens, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of the citizens of the United States of America, and of the Earth; and such is now the necessity which compels them to alter their former system of government and to restore those parts of government and of the institutions of society which have been destroyed or debased by the constant attacks of the rich and powerful.

The shadow empire that sprung from the grotesque marriage of the British Empire with elements of the United States military and intelligence during the Second World War has metastasized into a deadly cancer, extending to Israel, to Germany, to France and Japan, and elsewhere. That cancer now is springing up around the world, pursuing brutal conquest on behalf of an elite who know neither home nor nation. That shadow empire’s history of repeated injuries and usurpations is as clear as the sun in the blue sky, but the details will not be known until all the classified directives, secret treaties, and covert military plans are made public.

All these actions have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the citizens of the United States and of the Earth. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

The World Economic Forum, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, large sections of the United Nations and Bretton Woods system, and other international public fora have been taken over by a subterrain web of intelligence agencies and global IT firms that report to the rich and powerful hidden behind trusts and private equity firms.

These foul plotters falsely claim control of the entire Earth through the politicians, public intellectuals, scientists and lawyers, and celebrities whom they keep as pets. They refuse to honor the laws, the constitutions, and the common values of the decent citizens of the Earth, ruthlessly destroying the shared bounty of the natural world and seizing illegally and immorally control of all that is wholesome and necessary for the public good.

This invisible empire issues secret directives to all the nations of the Earth that determine the true chain of command and that override the accepted laws and practices of each nation, each people, and each neighborhood.  

This invisible empire, in effect, has seized control of all central governments and banks, with a few rare exceptions, and it dictates to them what their policies must be and how they should rule. It has bought up universities and newspapers, instructing them as to what they can and cannot report and how they must interpret events; dictating what counts as science, and what does not.

The invisible empire has undertaken a massive project to dumb down, and to render passive and supine, our citizens in blatant violation of our rights, as preparation for their enslavement and eventual destruction.

***

We demand:

1)  An end to the weaponization of medicine as a means to destroy the bodies of citizens through false pandemics and dangerous medications which are imposed through contrived threats, the misuse of the authority of experts, and the debasement of the scientific method.   

2) A thorough international scientific investigation into the Kennedy Assassination, the 9/11 incident, the 10/7 incident and other false flag operations carried out by the invisible empire.

3) An end to the control of the economy and of intellectual discourse by a handful of the rich and powerful who promote the fossil fuels that are destroying our climate and demand extraction and exploitation of our natural world for profit that has brought on a catastrophic collapse of biodiversity.

4) An end to secret governance in the United States whereby banks, corporations and other agents of the invisible empire employ classified directives, secret law, non-disclosure agreements and other unconstitutional and immoral means to dictate policy and practice without any recourse to law, or any transparency or accountability.   

5) An end to all forms of slavery starting with prison slavery, debt slavery, and sexual slavery, so as to assure that all citizens are equal before the law.

6) An end to the use of technology to dumb down our citizens through games, pornography, social media, advertising, entertainment and other devious schemes that destroy the minds of our citizens in clear violation of our basic rights.

7) A declaration that corporations, banks, and trusts are not people, and therefore cannot keep their transactions secret, cannot lobby, and cannot employ the law to advance their interests.

8) An end to the conspiracy between the corrupt elements in the military, weapons manufacturers, universities and research institutes, journalistic institutions, banks, and government officials to promote a military economy, to sell weapons for profit, and to push false narratives contrived to manufacture conflict.

We must establish clear barriers between finance, scientific research, the development and manufacture of weapons, and healthcare and medical treatment.

9) An end to governance by the invisible empire using corporate consulting firms that pose as “political parties.” Neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party, nor any others, are described in the Constitution and they have no authority in the formulation of policy. If they take money from the invisible empire in return for influence in law making, they are but criminal syndicates.

10) End the use of trade by the invisible empire as a means of destroying the lives and livelihoods of citizens, and laying waste to our environment for the profit of the few. Local economies must be respected and defended and trade must be limited to constructive and healthy exchanges between citizens around the world, not multinational corporations and banks.

11) The creation of money, and the determination of its value, must be undertaken with the authorization of the Congress and be handled in a transparent and democratic manner. Corporations and banks cannot create money out of thin air for their profit at the expense of the citizens.

12) The core of our economy must be the sustainable and healthy production of food by the people through local farming and local production of necessary goods and tools. The false cult of growth must be ended and the idolatry of consumption must be ended. Frugality is a virtue and the spiritual and cultural elements of our civilization must always come first.

***

We demand the absolute and undiluted truth. Yet our repeated inquiries have been answered only by silence and repeated injury. That invisible empire wherein investment banks, private military and intelligence contractors, multinational corporations and a handful of wealthy families roam is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of the free people of the United States and the Earth.

We call out to all citizens to join us in this movement, in this declaration of absolute and uncompromising independence from the invisible empire of shifting shapes, of money and data, of greed, consumption, and narcissism. We warn those who continue to benefit from its manipulations that these attempts to extend unwarrantable jurisdiction over us will not be tolerated.

We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common conscience to disavow these usurpations which corrupt and demean all.

Sadly, they have been deaf to the voice of justice and of truth. We must denounce such criminality and barbarism, and hold them, as we would hold anyone, responsible for their actions against us and against the innocent in all corners of the Earth.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, appealing to the supreme conscience of humanity for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these United States of America, solemnly publish and declare, that these United States are, and of right ought to be, free and independent of this invisible empire, absolved from all allegiance to the invisible empire, and that all political or economic connection between us and them, is and ought to be totally dissolved.

As free and independent citizens, we must have full power in all security concerns, in diplomacy and international cooperation, in economic activities, and in all other acts that are our responsibility as citizens.

In the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our honor.

***

Sign the November 6, 2024 Declaration of Independence here.

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image source

What is at stake in this Presidential election? If you have any doubts about the depth of the Deep State forces arrayed against Trump, this video will resolve them.

What is more, it shows the enemy has lost, and how America will chart a path to the restoration of a life worth living.

In this interview, former Carter White House adviser and US Treasury analyst Richard C Cook lays out the problem and the solution facing the US and the wider Western world. His vision and his influential ideas present a persuasive case for a better world order beyond the rotten Regime.

First, Cook explains in detail the nature of the Deep State forces arrayed against Donald Trump and his team.

Not only does Cook diagnose the Deep State “Blob” – he says the Trump team has the remedy to the Forever War system – and is serious about removing it at source.

Cook’s advice to Robert F Kennedy resulted in the remarkable denunciation of Wall Street and the Federal Reserve by RFK Jr. as mechanisms to “pump” wealth from ordinary Americans – and into the coffers of the globalist elites.

Here Cook explains how the Deep State tried – and failed – to stop Trump, and says though World War Three is “on” – the Empire of Lies has already lost.

For Cook, the only question is whether the Trump wave is now “too big to rig”.

Wisdom, experience and influence combine in this exclusive interview to provide you with the facts – and the actions being taken – towards building a better future for humanity.

.

Click here to watch the interview

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Asheville, North Carolina, is known for its historic architecture, vibrant arts scene and as a gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a favorite escape for “climate migrants” moving from California, Arizona, and other climate-challenged vicinities, until a “500 year flood” ravaged the city this fall. 

Hurricane Helene was a wakeup call not just for stricken North Carolina residents but for people across the country following their tragic stories in the media and in the podcasts now favored by young voters for news. “Preppers” well equipped with supplies watched in helpless disbelief as homes washed away in a wall of water and mud, taking emergency supplies in the storm. Streets turned into rivers, and many businesses and homes suffered extensive water damage if they were not lost altogether.

The raging floods were triggered by unprecedented rainfall and winds, but a network of fragile dams also played a role. On Sept 27, when the floods hit, evacuation orders were issued to residents near a number of critical dams due to their reported “imminent failure” or “catastrophic collapse.” Flood waters were overtopping the dams to the point that in some cases the top of the dam structure could not be seen.

The dams did not collapse, but to avoid that catastrophe, floodgates and spillways had to be opened, releasing huge amounts of water over a number of days. Spokesmen said the dams had “performed as designed,” but they were designed for an earlier era with more stable, predictable climates and no population buildup below the dams.

Five days after the floods hit in East Tennessee, half a million gallons of water were still being released per second from Douglas Dam, northwest of Asheville and upstream from Knoxville on the French Broad River. (Video clip of opened floodgates, watch below.) The Watauga Dam in Tennessee was also releasing record flows, surrounding nearby homes in water. WTVC NewsChannel 9 Chattanooga reported that Chickamauga Dam, upstream from Chattanooga, released approximately 566,118 gallons of water per second.

The Nolichucky Dam, in Tennessee near the North Carolina border, was reported to have “withstood nearly twice the water flow of Niagara Falls.” (See dramatic videos on Fox Weather showing the overflow and the floodgate release continuing three weeks later, a similar clip from 11Alive adding the damage downstream, and overflow footage on WKYC Charlotte.) Other major dams in which the floodgates were opened included Cowans Ford Dam, north of Charlotte (see video clip of the floodgate release, watch below); and Waterville Dam (also called Walters Dam), upstream from Newport in Tennessee  (video). Homeowners accused Duke Energy of sacrificing poor neighborhoods for wealthier properties, but as one official said, the excess water had to go somewhere. It had to go downstream. They did what they had to do to avoid outright collapse of the dams, a much worse disaster.

Upriver from Asheville, the auxiliary spillway of the North Forks Dam was activated. It too is said to have “performed as designed,” but the result was again significant flooding. Mandatory evacuation orders were put in place from the dam to Biltmore Village in Asheville, which suffered major damage. North Forks Dam is classified as a ”high-hazard potential dam,” meaning its failure could result in potential loss of life and serious property damage.

One concerned Asheville podcaster complained that the city had known for 20 years that the North Forks Dam was inadequate and a lethal danger under flood conditions, but it hadn’t been repaired. The dam was put to the test in September, when residents were told there was no choice but for the flood gates to be opened to prevent the dam from breaking. The result was a 30 foot wall of water that swept homes and lives away, rushing so fast that people were found in the tops of trees. The podcaster’s suspicions were aroused because lithium worth billions of dollars is located in Western North Carolina, where a mining company has been trying to restart operations since 2021, over community protests.

That was also true of the nearby town of Spruce Pine, downstream from the North Toe Dam, which was submerged under eight feet of water from the combination of torrential rain and the release of the dam’s floodgates. Spruce Pine is a major producer of high-quality quartz, a rare but necessary resource for many tech products. Mining companies have been attempting to double their operations in Spruce Pine, but they too have met resistance from local landowners. For some controversial details, see here.

Asheville is also downstream from Lake Lure Dam, which was reported on Sept. 27 to be “at risk of imminent failure” as the river was overtopping the dam. Most heavily affected was Chimney Rock, the town immediately downstream from Lake Lure, known for both its rustic scenery and its lithium mines. The damage was extensive.

According to an Oct. 2 broadcast on WBTV News in Charlotte titled “Lake Lure Dam ‘high hazard’ and needed repairs at time Helene hit,” the dam, completed in 1926, does not meet current state safety requirements. Repairs were ongoing but unfinished. Lake Lure Dam is one of 1,581 dams across the state considered “high hazard,” and according to a 2022 report, North Carolina has 194 high-hazard dams in poor or unsatisfactory condition, meaning they “may require immediate or emergency remedial action.”

The High Cost of Repair

The catastrophic flooding and destruction in western North Carolina has caused a record $53 billion or more in damages and recovery needs, according to North Carolina  Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration. The storm and its aftermath caused 1,400 landslides and damaged over 160 water and sewer systems, at least 6,000 miles of roads, more than a thousand bridges and culverts, and an estimated 126,000 homes. Some 220,000 households are expected to apply for federal assistance.

Whether the federal government will have the funds, and how long it will take residents and businesses to get assistance, are yet to be determined. On Oct. 2, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not have enough funding to make it through the hurricane season, which runs to Nov. 30. President Biden said that the more urgent problem now is the Small Business Administration, which provides low interest loans to homeowners (up to $500,000) and businesses (up to $2 million) for rebuilding after disasters. The SBA announced on Oct. 15 that its funds would soon run out and that it was pausing its loan offers to disaster survivors until Congress appropriates additional funds.

Applications for those funds are complicated, and reimbursement can take years — too late for demolished businesses to get back on their feet, or displaced homeowners living in tents on their properties to rebuild.

Failing Dams Are a Nationwide Problem

Dams in poor condition are found not just in Appalachia but across the country. A May 5, 2022 NPR report cites an Associated Press analysis of dams needing repair:

More than 2,200 dams built upstream from homes or communities are in poor condition across the U.S., likely endangering lives if they were to fail. The number of high-hazard dams in need of repairs is up substantially from a similar AP review conducted just three years ago.

There are several reasons for the increased risk. Long-deferred maintenance has added more dams to the troubled list. A changing climate has subjected some dams to greater strain from intense rainstorms. Homes, businesses and highways also have cropped up below dams that were originally built in remote locations. …

The nation’s dams are on average over a half-​century old. They have come under renewed focus following extreme floods, such as the one that caused the failure of two Michigan dams and the evacuation of 10,000 people in 2020.

The $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed last year by President Joe Biden will pump about $3 billion into dam-​related projects, including hundreds of millions for state dam safety programs and repairs….

Yet it’s still just a fraction of the nearly $76 billion needed to fix the tens of thousands of dams owned by individuals, companies, community associations, state and local governments, and other entities besides the federal government, according to a report by the Association of State Dam Safety Officials [ASDSO].

Less than a year later, the ASDSO announced the release of a new report dated February 2023, stating that the current cost of rehabilitating all non-federal U.S. dams is an estimated $157.5 billion, more than double ASDSO’s estimate from 2022.

Our Neglected National Infrastructure

Repairing dams is only one of a litany of infrastructure needs across the country, including roads, highways and bridges; public transportation; ports, harbors and other maritime facilities; intercity passenger and freight railroads; freight and intermodal facilities; airports; and telecommunication networks. National spending on infrastructure has fallen to its lowest level in 70 years, to 2.5% of the nation’s GDP. That’s half the comparable level in Europe and one-third the level in China. As a result, productivity, investment and manufacturing have collapsed; and we are losing our worldwide competitive edge.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimated in its 2021 report that $6.1 trillion is needed just to repair our nation’s infrastructure, of which $2.6 trillion is currently unfunded. The gap, which increases the longer the work is put off, is now $2.9 trillion according to the latest ASCE update. Meanwhile, the federal debt is over $34.8 trillion, with the interest tab alone topping $1 trillion annually.

How can infrastructure requirements be met without driving the federal government $3 trillion further into debt? We need some form of off-budget financing. We have done it before, notably when Congress was heavily in debt right after the American Revolution, and when the banking structure had completely collapsed in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Alexander Hamilton, our first U.S. Treasury secretary, developed the national infrastructure bank model used by many other countries today. Winning our freedom from Great Britain left the country with what appeared to be an unpayable debt. Hamilton traded the debt along with a percentage of gold for shares in the First U.S. Bank, paying a 6% dividend. This capital was then leveraged many times over into credit to be used specifically for infrastructure and development. The Second U.S. Bank, based on the same model, funded the vibrant economic activity of the first decades of the new country.

Today, virtually our entire circulating money supply is created by banks in this way when they make loans. The new money is not inflationary so long as it creates new goods and services, allowing supply to rise with demand and keeping prices stable. The new money is liquidated when the loans are paid off with profits from sales.

In the 1930s, Roosevelt’s government pulled the country out of the Great Depression by repurposing an agency created under President Hoover into a lending machine for development on the Hamiltonian model. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was an off-budget source of revenue, allowing the government to build infrastructure all across the country and fund a world war while actually turning a profit. Many of today’s dams were built with that credit, but they are nearly a century old. They need an upgrade, which can be financed by a national infrastructure bank on the same model. A fuller discussion is here.

HR 4052 (formerly HR 3339), titled “The National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2023,” is currently before Congress and has 40 sponsors. It has been endorsed by dozens of legislatures, city and county councils, and many organizations. Like the First and Second U.S. Banks, it will be a depository bank capitalized with existing federal securities held by the private sector, for which the bank will pay an additional 2% over the interest paid by the government. The bank will then leverage this capital into roughly 10 times its value in loans, as all depository banks are entitled to do. The bill proposes to fund $5 trillion in infrastructure capitalized over a 10-year period with $500 billion in federal securities exchanged for preferred stock in the bank. Like the RFC, the bank will be a source of off-budget financing, adding no new costs to the federal budget. For more information, see this.

State-owned Banks

Leveraging available funds into new credit-dollars for disaster relief can also be done locally at the state level. The possibilities are illustrated by the century-old Bank of North Dakota, currently our only state- owned bank. The BND’s emergency capabilities were demonstrated in 1997, when record flooding and fires devastated Grand Forks, North Dakota. The town and its sister city, East Grand Forks on the Minnesota side of the river, lay in ruins. Floodwaters covered virtually the entire city and took weeks to fully recede. Property losses topped $3.5 billion.

In NC, FEMA was criticized for still being absent from recovery efforts a week after the Helene emergency was declared, too late for people trapped in rivers or under debris who could be reached only by helicopter. In North Dakota by contrast, the response of the state-owned bank was immediate and comprehensive.

Image: A man in October 2011 advertising the bank at Occupy Wall Street. (Licensed under CC BY 3.0)

Soon after the floodwaters swept through Grand Forks, the BND was helping families and businesses recover.  The bank quickly established nearly $70 million in credit lines – to the city, the state National Guard, the state Division of Emergency Management, the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and for individuals, businesses and farms. It also launched a Grand Forks disaster relief loan program and allocated $5 million to help other areas affected by the spring floods. Local financial institutions matched these funds, making a total of more than $70 million available.

Besides property damage, flooding swept away many jobs, leaving families without livelihoods. The BND coordinated with the U.S. Department of Education to ensure forbearance on student loans; worked closely with the Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration to gain forbearance on federally backed home loans; established a center where people could apply for federal/state housing assistance; and worked with the North Dakota Community Foundation to coordinate a disaster relief fund, for which the bank served as the deposit base. The bank also reduced interest rates on existing Family Farm and Farm Operating programs. Families used these low-interest loans to restructure debt and cover operating losses caused by wet conditions in their fields.

The city was quickly rebuilt and restored. Remarkably, no lives were lost, vs. an official death toll to date in North Carolina of 98, thought to actually be much higher. Grand Forks lost only 3% of its population to emigration between the 1997 floods and 2000, while East Grand Forks, right across the river in Minnesota, lost 17% of its population.

Small businesses  are now failing across the country at increasingly high rates. That means layoffs, need for more government assistance, lower productivity, and higher taxes. But that’s not true in North Dakota, which was rated by Forbes Magazine the best state in which to start a business in 2024. On Oct. 2, Truth in Accounting’s annual Financial State of the States report rated North Dakota ND #1 in fiscal health, with a budget surplus per taxpayer of $55,600.

Meanwhile in Helene-ravaged Appalachia 

Publicly-owned state and federal banks are possibilities for future disasters, but they will be too late for the flood victims of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. Survivors’ moods have been lifted in the meantime by the extraordinary generosity of local and out-of-state volunteers, who were on the ground immediately with supplies, equipment and labor.

But it has been a month, supplies are falling off, and the need is still great. According to a podcast titled “Helene VICTIMS need THESE 5 things One Month Later!,” 98% of businesses are still open; but they are largely based on tourism, and tourists have been scarce because the news media have featured the disaster areas to the exclusion of the small surrounding towns that are still functional, beautiful and welcoming visitors.  First on that podcaster’s list of needs was prayer.

People whose houses have been lost are camping on their land, trying to hang onto properties that in some cases have been in their families for generations. With winter coming, they need heavy duty camping equipment— winter tents, winter sleeping bags, small propane tanks. Other supplies for which there is particular need are food and water, cold and flu medicines, and first aid kits.

Though the situation is still dire for many, an Oct. 31 wrapup from Gov. Roy Cooper and country music star Eric Church, following a visit to the state’s mountain area, was hopeful. So, too, is this story told with soul: HURRICANE HELENE — A Love Letter To Appalachia ♡.

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This article was first posted as an original to ScheerPost.com.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Devastation at the intersection of Swannanoa River Road (NC-81) and Azalea Road in Asheville on September 27, 2024. (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

The Israeli raid on Batroun, Lebanon has led to questions and accusations. On November 1, an invading commando force forcibly kidnapped a Lebanese commercial sea captain, who was attending a continuing education course at the Marsati Institute for Marine Sciences in Batroun, about 30 kilometers north of Beirut.

Imad Amhaz was described by the Israeli military as a “senior Hezbollah operative”. But, Hezbollah stated they have never heard of him until the media reported his kidnapping, and deny any association with him.

Mahmoud Qomati, Deputy Chairman of the Political Council of Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance organization, told OTV on Monday that Amhaz “was introduced to [Hezbollah] through the media” and he has no “organizational or military affiliation” with the party.

About 25 naval commandos from Shayetet 13, an elite naval squad, made landfall near the Batroun Marina, and told local residents they were Lebanese security forces before breaking down the door of the rented room Amhaz slept in.

The kidnapping was captured by video surveillance cameras as the commandos dragged Amhaz through the street.  He is now in Israel and being interrogated by Unit 504, an intelligence branch of the Israeli army known for its brutality and methods of torture.

Batroun is a Christian village in a highly sectarian country.  Experts on Lebanon have assumed that Israel fell for false accusations from their Christian associates in Lebanon. Batroun residents may have noticed Amhaz was renting a room in the Christian enclave, and realizing that he was a Shiite, they jumped to the conclusion he was connected to Hezbollah.  With the current Israeli war on Hezbollah, everyone in Lebanon is frightened and ready to accuse each other on the grounds of religious and political affiliations.

In the period that Israel occupied the entire south of Lebanon from 1985 to 2000, there were Lebanese Christians of the Maronite sect who were aligned with Israel. They were the South Lebanon Army.

“My son has no affiliation with political parties, nor does he engage in politics,” said Fadil Amhaz, the father of the kidnap victim Imad Amhaz.

Amhaz blamed the German UNIFIL force responsible for monitoring the Lebanese shores for his son’s abduction.

Amhaz called on the International Committee of the Red Cross and UNIFIL “to intervene with the abductors and return Imad safely to his family.”

According to the Lebanese government, Amhaz is identified and known to be a civilian in good standing.

The Minister of Public Works and Transport, Ali Hamieh, described Amhaz as a civilian ship captain taking a course at a maritime institute in Batroun.

The Prime Minister of Lebanon, Najib Mikati, called the Israeli abduction of Amhaz a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, and order his government to file a complaint to the UN Security Council.

The Interior Minister, Bassam Mawlawi, defended the role of the Lebanese Army in the incident, and said “Investigations are underway into what happened in Batroun.”

Mawlawi described the abduction of a Lebanese citizen as a “violation and an act of war,”  and added,

“The Lebanese State will issue direct questions to the command of the UNIFIL.”

Joseph Aoun, Commander of the Lebanese Army, briefed Prime Minister Mikati concerning the internal investigation carried out by the Army Command regarding the kidnapping operation.

Image: Ghassan Hasbani (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

In a revealing text posted on X, Member of the Lebanese Parliament, Ghassan Hasbani, representing the Christian party known as Lebanese Forces, wrote:

“The army is the guarantee of all Lebanese. The army was not the one who made the decision to … go to war, and it is not its role to provide protection for members in illegitimate security and military organizations, who chose to wage war from Lebanon. These members are responsible for their actions and the consequences, and this is what they took upon themselves without consulting anyone. The state is not à la carte and sovereignty is not selective.”

Hasbani was referring to Hezbollah when he described “members in illegitimate security and military organizations”.  Hasbani was defending the role of the Lebanese Army, which some blame for not protecting Batroun’s coast from the invaders who carried out the kidnapping. In this post, Hasbani is accusing Amhaz of being a member of Hezbollah without evidence.

Fingers are collectively pointing at UNIFIL’s German-led Maritime Task Force (MTF) for perhaps playing a strategic role in assisting the Israeli commandos in their beach invasion at Batroun.  Local residents and military experts alike say it is impossible for military boats to enter Lebanon without the knowledge of UNIFIL’s German forces.

It would appear UNIFIL’s MTF was aware of the covert Israeli operation, allowed it to proceed to completion, and failed to alert the Lebanese authorities. UNIFIL is responsibility for alerting authorities to any Israeli sea landing.

Brigadier General Munir Shehadeh, former government coordinator for UNIFIL,

this “was clearly a hostile act by Israel, in plain view of the international forces, led by Germany which is responsible for the naval team assigned to monitor Lebanese territorial waters.”

Shehadah said the kidnapping proved that Israel was free to violate Lebanese airspace, waters and land “without deterrence”.

Prior to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli jets would routinely fly over Lebanon in violation of laws. Some flights were low altitude, and others would produce sonic boom blasts.

Shehadeh said,

“the UN peacekeeping forces, whose role is to enforce Resolution 1701 and monitor Lebanon’s territorial waters, should have informed the Lebanese authorities” of what was underway.”

“They undoubtedly saw the arrival of the warship and the disembarkation of soldiers,” he added.

Shehadeh holds UNIFIL responsible for not informing the Lebanese authorities about the unfolding operation.

UNIFIL has denied any involvement in the Israeli operation, but has failed to explain how they could have missed seeing an Israeli warship anchored off the coast of Batroun, from which the speed boats carrying the commandos were launched to make shore.

Germany is responsible for the current MTF, and Germany has a history tied to Israel.  One of the reasons that modern Germany is one of Israel’s strongest supporters, goes back to the WW2 holocaust carried out by the German Army killing millions of Jews, and prompting a mass migration of Jews from Europe to Palestine.

Germany has never forgiven themselves of their crime of genocide, and so they support the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of the Jews, who survived the holocaust in Europe, and their descendants.

During the current Israeli attack on Lebanon, a German warship operating under the UNIFIL MTF intercepted a resistance drone heading towards Israel. The German-led MTF had no right to intercept the drone under its terms of engagement, in Chapter 6 of the UN Charter. This was a revealing demonstration of Germany’s defense of Israel, and willingness to break international laws for the sake of Israel.

UNIFIL is responsible for monitoring the Lebanese coast under UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Melanie Swan, of the UK media The Telegraph, presented a remarkable Israeli slant while in Tel Aviv.  In her version of events, the Lebanese ship captain abducted by Israeli special forces may have been acting as a double agent.

A senior political figure in Lebanon, who opposes Hezbollah, told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity that there were “signs pointing to the fact that Amhaz could have been a double agent”.

“But he was also believed to be deeply involved in sea smuggling routes and financing, which could make him a valuable asset to Israel, and it would be more valuable to keep him alive,” the unnamed official added.

The Telegraph article cloaks the identity of the political leader ‘who opposes Hezbollah’, but from the post on X by Hasbani of the Lebanese Forces, who are represented in Batroun, we might jump to a conclusion that it is possibly Hasbani, or his superior, Samir Geagea.

In Batroun there are Christian political parties who are opposed to Hezbollah. Samy Gemayel, head of the Kataeb Party, Samir Geagea of the Lebanese Forces, and Gebran Bassil of the Free Patriotic Movement.

Any one of those groups may have been the source of false accusations passed to Israeli intelligence concerning Imad Amhaz.

Ronen Solomon, an Israeli defence and intelligence analyst who is an expert on Hezbollah operatives and operations, was interviewed by The Telegraph.

“But also, because of his position, he could also have been recruited as a double agent for Israel and the rescue was to get him to safety outside Lebanon,” said Solomon.

Solomon’s theory sounds implausible because the Israeli team did not take the cell phone and sim cards with them, instead they left them behind in the room.  If they believed Amhaz worked for them, they would have cleaned the room of incriminating evidence.

Not only did Israel threaten the life of Amhaz by kidnapping him and taking him to Israel as a prisoner, but they also ruined his name and reputation by insisting he was a spy, as well as a “terrorist”.  This was a double-character assassination on Ahmaz, who is a Lebanese civilian ship captain.

Experts on Israel say Israel committed the kidnapping because they could, as Israel is never held to account for any crime they commit in any country on earth. There is no one to stop them, except the US, which protects and encourages their impunity.  Committing genocide in Gaza is a far worse crime than kidnapping Amhaz, but even in the case of genocide the US provides weapons, cash and cover.

Nearly 3,000 people have been killed and more than 13,300 injured in Israeli attacks since October 2023, according to Lebanese health authorities. Israel expanded the conflict by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1.

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“We make threats, but what exactly are we going to do? We’re the guys who couldn’t stop the Houthis from shutting down the Red Sea. Okay?

So, we need to stop thinking of ourselves as this undefeated heavyweight champion that no one can lay a glove on. We may have been that in our prime, but we’re past our prime. We’re overweight, we’re out of shape, we have really expensive systems that are really undermanned, and then, all of a sudden, we have to extend our logistics and communication lines to attack Iran? Good luck with that.” —Larry Johnson: Iran’s new Strategy to teach Israel a Harsh lesson, YouTube

Israel’s failed aerial assault on Iran on October 26 augurs a major shift in the regional balance of power. Iran’s technologically advanced air defense system coupled with its state-of-the-art, long-range hypersonic ballistic missile stockpile make it the most powerful state in the Middle East portending a peaceful era of cooperation and economic integration ahead. In contrast, Israel will be forced to accept its modest role in the emerging order by abandoning its expansionist ambitions and working collaboratively with its neighbors. (If that’s possible.) The prospects for regional peace have been greatly enhanced by the steady erosion of US global power due in large part to the looming financial crisis that will unavoidably curtail Washington’s relentless foreign interventions. With US and Israeli meddling in check, the China-led multipolar world order will quickly replace the threadbare “rules-based” system. Even so, the proximate cause of these remarkable events can be traced back to Israel’s misguided attack on Iran which proved beyond a doubt that Tehran’s multi-layered air defense system along with its prodigious cache of cutting-edge ballistic missiles made it the preeminent power in the region. Here’s a brief summary from former British intel officer Alastair Crooke of how Israel’s attack unfolded:

Judge Andrew Napolitano—Did Israel cause any meaningful damage to Iran in its attack on October 26?

Alastair Crooke—No, but something significant did happen, because the attack was supposed to lead off with the destruction of the air defense systems…. what they call SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) The aircraft was supposed to destroy the air defenses in Iraq, Syria and Iran so the second and third waves would come in with conventional weapons to destroy the targets that had been selected for them. But the second and third wave could only enter Iranian airspace if it was safe for them to do that. (if the air defenses had been properly suppressed) Now what happened (although we don’t know precisely) is that those second and third waves never happened. We got into the first wave and the Israelis said “That’s it, we’re finished. It’s over. We won and it’s a great success.”

What seems to have happened is that the Israeli aircraft with their long-range missiles to destroy the air defense systems never got closer than 70 kms to Iran, too far for their missiles to lock on to the air defenses because they needed the signals to lock onto. …The key thing they said—and this is from Israeli sources—“We’ve discovered an unknown air defense system over Tehran province.” So what seems to have happened is that they (the Israeli aircraft) were being locked onto by another air defense system so they were frightened to go ahead and they scrapped the attack. They then simply released their long-range missiles (Most of these missiles are guided by GPS and the Russians are highly adept at jamming GPS.) But …this unexplained air defense system, was possibly a Russian air defense system that can attack stealth fighters like the F-35s. … If you have a missile that has a radar capacity that is able to identify a stealth fighter, then the whole idea of the attack on Iran seems to have collapsed….

All the conventional bombers carrying conventional weapons wouldn’t go into the area because it was too dangerous, it was not a secure area. The airspace was dominated by air defense that threatened the stealth fighters themselves.

This has huge geostrategic implications if this is what in fact happened….

You see, there was a three-phased plan; and when the plan was scuppered, they just announced the plan as if it had happened. “We’ve succeeded. We flew over Tehran; we suppressed their air defenses, we bombed targets and we destroyed their missile capacity.”

It’s just hype. It’s not true. Judging Freedom, Alastair Crooke, You Tube

So, now Israel has decided to cover up what actually transpired because the strategic implications are just too catastrophic to face. As Crooke points out, if America’s stealth fighters cannot enter enemy space without fear of being detected, then the “whole western defense concept” lies in ruins. So, what Israel’s failed operation did was to expose the vulnerability of critical military assets that have been rendered obsolete by technologically advanced air defense systems that can not only intercept enemy missiles mid-flight but can also destroy the warplanes that launch them.

Let’s summarize:

1. Iran has developed an advanced multi-layered air defense system that can counter any potential Israeli attack on the homeland.
2. Iran has produced a sizable stockpile of state-of-the-art, long-range hypersonic ballistic missiles that can elude Israeli air defense systems and strike military or civilian targets anywhere in Israel.

The combination of these offensive/defensive capabilities ensures that Iran will continue to emerge as the regional leader.

Game. Set. Match.

For a more detailed account of the Israeli attack see interview with Colonel Jacques Baud or Col Larry Wilkerson & Scott Ritter or this piece in the Unz Review by former CIA officer and intelligence analyst Larry Johnson who says the following:

The Zionists used more than 100 aircraft to send an estimated 200 air-launched ballistic missiles into Iran. Israeli aircraft did not dare to fly inside Iran. And what happened? Iran, with Russian help, shot down the majority of the Israeli missiles. Iran showed no signs of panic or anger in the aftermath of the attack — not what one would expect if Israel’s assault had been a smashing success. Israel and Ukraine Gaslighting to Cover Up Failures, Larry Johnson, Unz Review

Repeat: Israeli aircraft never crossed into Iran’s sovereign airspace. They fired their missiles outside Iran’s borders and split.

The point is that many of the more reliable foreign policy analysts corroborate Crooke’s basic analysis. Yes, a few radar units were apparently destroyed in Iran’s western province of Ilam and in southwestern Khuzestan. And, yes, four Iranians were killed in the offensive. But Israel’s greatly anticipated and meticulously engineered aerial operation was largely a bust that achieved nothing and simply reinforced speculation that Iran has achieved a considerable technological edge on the Jewish state.

As far as deterrents, that is a matter that can only be settled by convincing Israel that serial retaliation is going to cost far-more in terms of blood and treasure than what is gained. So far, Israel has not been persuaded on this matter mainly because it foolishly believes that Washington ‘has its back’. But even the US is not thickheaded enough to engage in a conflict that will inevitably lead to the destruction of its military bases and oil fields across the region sending the US economy into an empire-ending nosedive. So, while the sudden deployment of B-52 bombers and warships to West Asia suggests that Uncle Sam is preparing to join the fray in a Battle Royale against Tehran; it’s all a bluff. The Pentagon has gamed out this very scenario many times before and the outcome has always been the same: The United States is defeated.

In the comments section of Larry Johnson’s recent article at the Unz Review, editor Ron Unz had this to say:

(If Crooke’s analysis of Israel’s attack is) what really happened, I think the implications are potentially gigantic.

As I’d said some time ago, we might be soon seeing the first real-life test between America’s top-line F-35s and the Russian defensive systems. If the latter were clearly successful and the Americans can’t quickly get around this problem, why would other countries buy F-35s? They’re extremely expensive and supposedly have all sorts of maintenance problems, and if they can’t defeat much less costly Russian defensive systems, what good are they?

Also, how likely would it now be that America could actually destroy Iran in a direct war? Obviously, America has far more top-line aircraft than Israel and could deploy them from closer positions, not requiring as much refueling, but why would our F-35s fare any better than Israel’s? Meanwhile, our carriers and bases would probably be very vulnerable to Iranian retaliatory missile strikes.

I’m still not absolutely sure that the Israeli attack was totally unsuccessful, but if that’s the case, the global strategic landscape may have dramatically shifted. Ron Unz, comment 305

All good points, and they fit with our overall theory that US foreign policy elites know that the US cannot prevail in a conventional war with Iran and that, thus, Washington will not follow Israel “like a dumb mule” into battle.

If Israel decides to go to war with Iran, they’ll have to ‘go it alone’, which might just ‘bring them to their senses.’

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Watch on X

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As many readers are undoubtedly aware, Iran is fully committed to responding to Israel’s latest aggression as is their right under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter which establishes the right of self-defense for member states. Iran will exercise that right and launch a retaliatory strike sometime in the near future. According to The Times of Israel:

Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the US with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies…. Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its October 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and facilities and that Iran said killed at least five people.

Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iranian military facilities came weeks after the October 1 attack, in which Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, sending most of the population rushing to bomb shelters and safe rooms, causing relatively minor damage to military bases and some residential areas…

“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in video released by Iranian state media….

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier likely is in the Arabian Sea, while Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that more destroyers, fighter squadrons, tankers and B-52 long-range bombers would be coming to the region to deter Iran and its terror allies. The Times of Israel

Iran will not back down or shirk its responsibility. There will be a response, and Israel will be held to account. What happens after the attack is anyone’s guess, but the threat of escalation will not impact Iran’s decision. According to an article at Axios:

The Biden administration warned Iran in recent days against launching another attack on Israel and stressed it won’t be able to restrain the Israelis, according to a U.S. official and a former Israeli official briefed on the issue….

“We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be calibrated and targeted as the previous one,” a U.S. official said…..

Pentagon press secretary Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that the U.S. was moving additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several U.S. Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the Middle East.

“Secretary Austin continues to make clear that should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people,” Ryder said. U.S. warns Iran: We won’t be able to restrain Israel if you attack, Axios

Image is from the Iranian Defense Ministry via AP

These attempts to intimidate Iran are not going to work. From the very beginning, Iran has acted with great patience and restraint, but it cannot allow another country to attack it with impunity. Even so, we should expect that Iran’s attack will be measured and proportional as they have been in the past. At the same time, Tehran needs to send a strong message to Tel Aviv that future provocations will be met with overwhelming force. (IMHO, Iranian leaders will discuss the appropriate response with strategic ally, Russia.)

As for Israel’s October 26 attack on Iran: analyst Alon Mizrahi summed it up like this on X:

What actually transpired in the last Israeli strike?

My ear is quite attuned to the different frequencies of Zionist propaganda, and from the very beginning the celebration seemed a little cold and fake, accompanied by a sense of apprehension and trying to give ‘everything is as it ever was‘.

And now, with the advantage of having been exposed to the reported damages and some other analysis by military experts, we can quite safely conclude that the Israeli strike failed in a major way.

A strike planned for weeks and decades and marketed as a resounding payback proved to have damaged some 2 or 3 structures in a way that’s hardly visible from satellite imagery.

That’s anticlimax if ever I saw one. @alon_mizrahi

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San Francisco Employees Fired for Vaxx Refusal Win Big

A half dozen Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers just won a not-insignificant amount of cash money after they got the shaft for refusing the vaxx mandate.

Via SF Gate (emphasis added):

“Six former BART employees are each due a $1 million payout after accusing the agency of wrongly firing them because of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

On Wednesday, a jury in the U.S District Court for the Northern District of California sided with the employees who refused the vaccine for religious reasons*. BART has been ordered to pay the group more than $7.8 million, with the individual employees receiving between nearly $1.2 million and $1.5 million each.

In October 2021, BART’s Board of Directors approved the mandate, stating that all employees must be vaccinated against the virus, though it allowed for some exceptions, including religious accommodations.”

*This is what happens when the government allows jury trials: even in deep blue jurisdictions, sometimes common-sense prevails among the common people. I would bet money that, if this case were merely tried before a judge or a tribunal of judges, these employees wouldn’t have seen a dime.

Emissary of The Science™, STILL Pushing Natural Origins Theory

I ran across this unbearably smugnorant COVID narrative-humper — probably on some industry front group payroll, or else just autistic and doing Big Pharma’s propaganda of her own accord — a few years back, then rediscovered her recently vis a vis her continued lab leak denialism, relying on convoluted sophistry and fraudulent academic papers to support her claim.

To make her argument in the above video, she cites the now-debunked 2020 “Proximal Origins” paper, which I have reported on before and which we later learned was literally organized by Peter Daszak, Anthony Fauci’s co-conspirator who ran the “nonprofit” EcoHealth Alliance that Fauci used to funnel government cash to illicit gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute — in other words, the most glaring conflict of interest imaginable, which this lady either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about.

Idaho Public Health Department Becomes Nation’s First to Ban COVID Shots 

The corporate media obviously blames “misinformation.”

Via Associated Press (emphasis added):

“A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.

Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.

While policymakers in Texas banned health departments from promoting COVID vaccines and Florida’s surgeon general bucked medical consensus to recommend against the vaccine, governmental bodies across the country haven’t blocked the vaccines outright…

Board Chairman Kelly Aberasturi was familiar with many of the voices who wanted the ban, especially from earlier local protests of pandemic measures.

Aberasturi, who told The Associated Press that he’s skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines and national public health leaders, said in the meeting and in an interview with the AP that he was supportive of but “disappointed” in the board’s decision.

He said the board had overstepped the relationship between patients and their doctors — and possibly opened a door to blocking other vaccines or treatments.

Board members in favor of the decision argued people can get vaccinated elsewhere, and that providing the shots was equivalent to signing off on their safety. (Some people may be reluctant to get vaccinated or boosted because of misinformation about the shots despite evidence that they’re safe and have saved millions of lives.)”

I’m frankly on the fence about this. On the one hand, just from a purely public health perspective — a real public health perspective — banning these injections makes sense, given what we know about them not working as advertised, causing heart attacks, turbo-charging cancer, etc.

On the other hand, two reasons make me wonder if outright outlawing these abominations is the best course of action:

1.    Freedom. People do retarded things every day — like stuffing their faceholes with corporate McTrash — but we don’t necessarily turn the government screws on those vendors

2.    The Darwin argument: If people are still so unseeing and gullible at this late date to get themselves injected — even without the draconian mandates hanging over their heads from the 2021-22 era or the government subsidies that made them free — maybe they should just go ahead and shoot themselves up and speed up the culling.

Canadian Government Mercy-kills Man with Post-COVID Shot Syndrome 

Via Children’s Health Defense (emphasis added):

“An Ontario, Canada man in his late 40s whose health declined after receiving three COVID-19 shots and who also had a mental health condition was euthanized in Canada as part of its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty reported.

The program assessors concluded that his clinical presentation was a post-COVID-19 “vaccination syndrome” known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome.

The case is one of several highlighted in an expert review of MAiD deaths in Ontario that caused concerns. The report, which did not reveal the man’s name, is intended to identify and prompt improvements that need to be made to Canada’s legalized euthanasia program…

According to the brief case report, the patient went through extensive specialist consultations and clinical testing but “without determinate diagnostic results.” He also suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

While he was “navigating his physical symptoms,” the man was admitted to the hospital with suicidal ideation. Psychiatrists raised concerns about mental illness, the report said. During a second incidence of suicidal ideation, he was involuntarily hospitalized and received in-patient psychiatric treatment.

“The MAiD assessors opined that the most reasonable diagnosis for Mr. A’s clinical presentation (severe functional decline) was a post-vaccine syndrome,”the report said.

His cause of death was listed as “post-COVID-19 vaccination somatic symptom disorder with post-traumatic stress disorder and depressive disorder.” MAiD is not listed as the cause of death on death certificates in Ontario[1].”

[Note: [1] It’s reassuring, is it not, that the government doesn’t list the actual cause of death — namely, government killing — on official documentation when one of the techno-slaves dies?]

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One of the most hyped “events” of American television, The Vietnam War, has started on the PBS network. The directors are Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Acclaimed for his documentaries on the Civil War, the Great Depression and the history of jazz, Burns says of his Vietnam films, “They will inspire our country to begin to talk and think about the Vietnam war in an entirely new way”.

In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its “exceptionalism”, Burns’ “entirely new” Vietnam war is presented as “epic, historic work”. Its lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in Vietnam.

Burns says he is grateful to “the entire Bank of America family” which “has long supported our country’s veterans”.  Bank of America was a corporate prop to an invasion that killed perhaps as many as four million Vietnamese and ravaged and poisoned a once bountiful land. More than 58,000 American soldiers were killed, and around the same number are estimated to have taken their own lives.

I watched the first episode in New York. It leaves you in no doubt of its intentions right from the start. The narrator says the war “was begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War misunderstandings”.

The dishonesty of this statement is not surprising. The cynical fabrication of “false flags” that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official documents, notably the Pentagon Papers, which the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg released in 1971.

There was no good faith. The faith was rotten and cancerous. For me – as it must be for many Americans – it is difficult to watch the film’s jumble of “red peril” maps, unexplained interviewees, ineptly cut archive and maudlin American battlefield sequences.

In the series’ press release in Britain – the BBC will show it – there is no mention of Vietnamese dead, only Americans. “We are all searching for some meaning in this terrible tragedy,” Novick is quoted as saying.  How very post-modern.

All this will be familiar to those who have observed how the American media and popular culture behemoth has revised and served up the great crime of the second half of the twentieth century: from The Green Berets and The Deer Hunter to Rambo and, in so doing, has legitimised subsequent wars of aggression. The revisionism never stops and the blood never dries. The invader is pitied and purged of guilt, while “searching for some meaning in this terrible tragedy”. Cue Bob Dylan: “Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?”

I thought about the “decency” and “good faith” when recalling my own first experiences as a young reporter in Vietnam: watching hypnotically as the skin fell off Napalmed peasant children like old parchment, and the ladders of bombs that left trees petrified and festooned with human flesh. General William Westmoreland, the American commander, referred to people as “termites”.

In the early 1970s, I went to Quang Ngai province, where in the village of My Lai, between 347 and 500 men, women and infants were murdered by American troops (Burns prefers “killings”). At the time, this was presented as an aberration: an “American tragedy” (Newsweek ). In this one province, it was estimated that 50,000 people had been slaughtered during the era of American “free fire zones”. Mass homicide. This was not news.

To the north, in Quang Tri province, more bombs were dropped than in all of Germany during the Second World War. Since 1975, unexploded ordnance has caused more than 40,000 deaths in mostly “South Vietnam”, the country America claimed to “save” and, with France, conceived as a singularly imperial ruse.

The “meaning” of the Vietnam war is no different from the meaning of the genocidal campaign against the Native Americans, the colonial massacres in the Philippines, the atomic bombings of Japan, the levelling of every city in North Korea. The aim was described by Colonel Edward Lansdale, the famous CIA man on whom Graham Greene based his central character in The Quiet American.

Quoting Robert Taber‘s The War of the Flea, Lansdale said,

“There is only one means of defeating an insurgent people who will not surrender, and that is extermination. There is only one way to control a territory that harbours resistance, and that is to turn it into a desert.”

Nothing has changed. When Donald Trump addressed the United Nations on 19 September – a body established to spare humanity the “scourge of war” – he declared he was “ready, willing and able” to “totally destroy” North Korea and its 25 million people. His audience gasped, but Trump’s language was not unusual.

His rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, had boasted she was prepared to “totally obliterate” Iran, a nation of more than 80 million people. This is the American Way; only the euphemisms are missing now.

Returning to the US, I am struck by the silence and the absence of an opposition – on the streets, in journalism and the arts, as if dissent once tolerated in the “mainstream” has regressed to a dissidence: a metaphoric underground.

There is plenty of sound and fury at Trump the odious one, the “fascist”, but almost none at Trump the symptom and caricature of an enduring system of conquest and extremism.

Where are the ghosts of the great anti-war demonstrations that took over Washington in the 1970s? Where is the equivalent of the Freeze Movement that filled the streets of Manhattan in the 1980s, demanding that President Reagan withdraw battlefield nuclear weapons from Europe?

The sheer energy and moral persistence of these great movements largely succeeded; by 1987 Reagan had negotiated with Mikhail Gorbachev an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) that effectively ended the Cold War.

Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as “nuclear targeting planning is increased”. The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against

“repeating the worst mistakes of the Cold War… All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this.”

But not in America. The thousands who turned out for Senator Bernie Sanders‘ “revolution” in last year’s presidential campaign are collectively mute on these dangers. That most of America’s violence across the world has been perpetrated not by Republicans, or mutants like Trump, but by liberal Democrats, remains a taboo.

Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record, including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama’s overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia’s western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941.

Obama’s “pivot to Asia” in 2011 signaled the transfer of the majority of America’s naval and air forces to Asia and the Pacific for no purpose other than to confront and provoke China. The Nobel Peace Laureate’s worldwide campaign of assassinations is arguably the most extensive campaign of terrorism since 9/11.

What is known in the US as “the left” has effectively allied with the darkest recesses of institutional power, notably the Pentagon and the CIA, to see off a peace deal between Trump and Vladimir Putin and to reinstate Russia as an enemy, on the basis of no evidence of its alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The true scandal is the insidious assumption of power by sinister war-making vested interests for which no American voted. The rapid ascendancy of the Pentagon and the surveillance agencies under Obama represented an historic shift of power in Washington. Daniel Ellsberg rightly called it a coup. The three generals running Trump are its witness.

All of this fails to penetrate those “liberal brains pickled in the formaldehyde of identity politics”, as Luciana Bohne noted memorably. Commodified and market-tested, “diversity” is the new liberal brand, not the class people serve regardless of their gender and skin colour: not the responsibility of all to stop a barbaric war to end all wars.

“How did it fucking come to this?” says Michael Moore in his Broadway show, Terms of My Surrender, a vaudeville for the disaffected set against a backdrop of Trump as Big Brother.

I admired Moore’s film, Roger & Me, about the economic and social devastation of his hometown of Flint, Michigan, and Sicko, his investigation into the corruption of healthcare in America.

The night I saw his show, his happy-clappy audience cheered his reassurance that “we are the majority!” and calls to “impeach Trump, a liar and a fascist!” His message seemed to be that had you held your nose and voted for Hillary Clinton, life would be predictable again.

He may be right. Instead of merely abusing the world, as Trump does, the Great Obliterator might have attacked Iran and lobbed missiles at Putin, whom she likened to Hitler: a particular profanity given the 27 million Russians who died in Hitler’s invasion.

“Listen up,” said Moore, “putting aside what our governments do, Americans are really loved by the world!”

There was a silence.

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Featured image: The lone survivor of an all-women anti-aircraft battery near Hanoi. Most were teenagers. (Photo: John Pilger 1975)

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

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

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

[First published on April 15, 2015]

The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), an entity on contract to the US Department of Defense has released a previously classified military document which confirms Israel’s nuclear weapons program. 

This is considered to be a landmark decision, widely interpreted as constituting a semi-official recognition by the US Department of Defense that Israel is a bona fide nuclear power.  While the document confirms what is already known regarding Israel’s nuclear arsenal, the political implications are potentially far-reaching, particularly in relation to the ongoing negotiations pertaining to Iran’s alleged nuclear program.”

Who Threatens Whom in the Middle East: 

• A de facto acknowledgement by the US that Israel is  a nuclear power threatening the Middle East in contrast to Iran’s non-existant nuclear weapons program  

Moreover, as detailed below, the IDA report tacitly portrays Israel’s nuclear weapons program as an extension of that of the United States. 

Click image to access  the complete 387 page 1987 report

While the report was written 28 years ago, it confirms Israel’s capabilities to develop nuclear weapons, with an explosive capacity equivalent to 1000 times a (Hiroshima) atomic bomb:

 that in the 1980s Israelis were reaching the ability to create bombs considered a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.

The report also states that:

“[Israel is] developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. [1980s] That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level,”.

The report also notes that research laboratories in Israel “are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories,” the key labs in developing America’s nuclear arsenal. (quoted in Israel National News,  March 25, 2015)

Israel’s nuclear infrastructure is “an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories,”

The report intimates that Israel’s weapons industry including its nuclear program is essentially an extension of that of the US, developed with the active support and collaboration of US military research labs and US “defense contractors”.

In this regard it also dispels the notion that the US was not made privy to Israeli classified information concerning its nuclear program, which in the earlier period was developed with the support of France.

The report also reveals that the Pentagon was fully informed regarding the intimate details of the Israeli program, which also suggests that it was developed in active collaboration with the US

The complete report can be consulted here.

There is a one in 14 million chance we can save ourselves—if Ironman and Dr. Strange can be believed. It all comes down to who we vote for today.

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America Is Screwed

We have two choices—Donald Trump and Kamala Harris—who aren’t qualified to be dog catcher, let alone President of the United States.

Neither could run for Mayor in a small town and win, because neither is competent enough to articulate in an informed fashion about issues that matter.

It’s come down to praying for a miraculous outcome.

It reminds me of the scene in Avengers: Infinity War, where Dr. Strange evaluates 14 million possibilities to defeat Thanos, and can only come up with one possibility.

Anytime a nation allows itself to be put in a scenario where it has a one-in-14 million shot at survival, there is a problem.

America, we have a problem.

A vote for Jill Stein opens the slim possibility that the Green Party can break through the 5% threshold that would open up federal funding in the next election, creating the much needed possibility of a viable third party candidacy.

But she is not going to be President under any scenario.

That leaves us with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

When I run the numbers on Kamala Harris, the outcome is always dire—the real possibility that America will be in a nuclear conflict sometime during her first year in office.

She has no strategy for ending the conflict in Ukraine beyond continuing the current policy.

She has called Iran the greatest adversary to America today.

She will get America boxed into a corner where the only exit strategy involves the use of nuclear weapons.

Trump is not better.

And yet…

He has articulated about the danger of nuclear war.

Harris has not.

He has talked about ending the Ukraine war.

Harris has not.

He has opined on the possibility of lifting sanctions against Iran.

Harris has not.

Like Dr. Strange, I have run the numbers on a Trump presidency.

It doesn’t look good.

The odds are 14 million to one that Trump keeps us out of a nuclear war.

But as Avengers: Endgame showed us, sometimes, if you fight hard enough, the odds will end in your favor.

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A situação psicológica das autoridades ucranianas está cada vez pior. Não só os militares comuns estão cansados ​​da guerra, mas as próprias autoridades do regime já estão exaustas, com muito pessimismo e sem expectativas para o futuro. Um relatório recente publicado pelos meios de comunicação ocidentais afirma que para os ucranianos já não há dúvidas de que a derrota parece clara.

O New York Times publicou recentemente um artigo explicando como o baixo moral e o pessimismo estão a afetar seriamente os decisores ucranianos. Os comandantes militares e de inteligência já não parecem confiantes na vitória, dados os enormes avanços territoriais russos nos últimos meses, bem como a diminuição das armas enviadas pelos países parceiros.

Citando diversas fontes nos EUA e na Ucrânia, o artigo afirma que, para os líderes em Kiev, isto já não parece um “impasse”, mas sim uma verdadeira derrota estratégica. Não é apenas a situação atual que tem impactos tão negativos sobre as tropas ucranianas, mas também a falta de quaisquer expectativas positivas sobre o futuro, uma vez que ambos os lados da política americana geram incerteza, uma vez que parecem obviamente dar prioridade aos interesses americanos sobre os ucranianos.

“Oficiais militares e de inteligência americanos concluíram que a guerra na Ucrânia não é mais um impasse, à medida que a Rússia obtém ganhos constantes, e o sentimento de pessimismo em Kiev e em Washington está se aprofundando. A queda no moral e as questões sobre se o apoio americano continuará a representar a sua própria ameaça ao esforço de guerra da Ucrânia A Ucrânia está a perder território no leste e as suas forças dentro da Rússia foram parcialmente rechaçadas”, lê-se no artigo.

Especificamente, no que diz respeito ao líder ucraniano Vladimir Zelensky, o artigo menciona várias condições psicológicas negativas. O presidente ucraniano é descrito pelos americanos como “cansado e estressado”, já desanimado pela realidade do conflito. A sua imagem política parece esgotada e a sua popularidade está a diminuir tanto a nível nacional como internacional.

Para piorar as coisas para Kiev, há uma espécie de efeito dominó nesta crise moral. À medida que os ucranianos começam a perder o interesse em continuar a agir como proxies na guerra contra a Rússia, os próprios ocidentais estão a ficar desencorajados de continuar os seus esforços de guerra. No final, existe uma situação de pessimismo generalizado, sem que ninguém do lado ucraniano ocidental acredite realmente na viabilidade de continuar a guerra.

“Depois de uma reunião com o presidente Volodymyr Zelensky em Kiev na semana passada, as autoridades americanas disseram que o líder ucraniano parecia desgastado e estressado, ansioso com os reveses de suas tropas no campo de batalha, bem como com as eleições nos EUA. (…) Na Ucrânia, o moral está se desgastando em face do avanço russo e o receio de que o apoio ocidental e o fluxo de abastecimento estejam a chegar ao fim (…) O pessimismo estende-se às capitais ocidentais”, acrescenta o artigo.

Na verdade, esta situação é inevitável. Isto é o que acontece quando os países decidem travar guerras invencíveis. A certa altura, a realidade deixa claro que não vale a pena continuar os esforços militares exorbitantes apenas para atrasar uma derrota inevitável. Os EUA, dados os seus problemas internos, estão a tentar, tanto quanto possível, reduzir a sua participação no conflito, deixando o fardo principalmente para os seus “parceiros” europeus – especialmente agora, num momento de disputa eleitoral.

A Ucrânia, por outro lado, não tem capacidade para travar esta guerra sozinha, estando dependente da assistência ocidental para todas as suas ações no campo de batalha. À medida que esta assistência diminui e as fraquezas estratégicas do regime são expostas, torna-se mais difícil disfarçar o fato de que não há realmente nenhuma possibilidade de vitória. Perdas territoriais, baixas, deserções e outros problemas graves no campo de batalha começam a tornar-se mais frequentes. O moral das tropas diminui e então todos começam a perder a “vontade de lutar”.

Na prática, é possível dizer que a Federação Russa já neutralizou a Ucrânia em dois pontos-chave: tirou a Kiev a vontade de lutar e a sua crença na vitória. Hoje, os ucranianos lutam sabendo que o resultado inevitável do conflito é a derrota, o que leva muitos deles a desertar ou mesmo a mudar de lado. O Ocidente é responsável por esta crise moral na Ucrânia porque prometeu apoio militar ilimitado, mas agora é incapaz de continuar os esforços militares com a mesma intensidade do início.

A Ucrânia está simplesmente a lidar com as consequências inevitáveis ​​de aceitar ser um proxy numa guerra. O que está a acontecer agora é apenas o início de uma longa crise moral que, em algum momento, conduzirá certamente ao colapso do regime de Kiev.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Artigo em inglês : Ukrainian decision-makers looking exhausted with war against Russia, InfoBrics, 4 de Novembro de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrrics

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Lucas Leiroz, membro da Associação de Jornalistas do BRICS, pesquisador do Centro de Estudos Geoestratégicos, especialista militar.

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

When Russia finally launched its strategic counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, the US-led political West vowed to “isolate” it and “cripple” its economy.

However, Moscow didn’t only weather the storm largely unscathed, but actually bounced back while the sanctions boomerang started ravaging Western economies.

The Kremlin has been able to not only maintain its economic strength, powering through sanctions, but also increase it dramatically, primarily by relying on the domestic market and establishing closer ties with other global powers such as China and India. What’s more, America, the leading Western power that effectively pushed its European and other vassals into an economic war with Russia, continues doing business with Moscow without the restraints it insists others should exercise and which are destroying their economies.

Back in 2022, the US was importing over $1 billion per month in Russian wood, metals, food and other commodities. Since the start of the special military operation (SMO) until September that year, more than 3,600 ships from Russia arrived at American ports, according to statistics cited by the Associated Press. While that was nearly 50% less in shipments compared to the same period in 2021, it still amounted to over $6 billion in imports. The sheer quantity of goods and commodities from Russia entering the US suggests the troubled Biden administration is directly involved in a failure to “isolate” the Russian economy, as the US incumbent president promised in late February 2022. Due to “wind down” periods that allow companies to complete previous deals, Russian products and commodities continued to be imported into the US.

However, well over two and a half years since the SMO started, the troubled Biden administration which imposed sanctions on those goods, including Russian oil and natural gas, continues to import them, as well as many other commodities. Goods such as Russian and Belarussian fertilizers are critically important for American agriculture and have been tacitly exempt from sanctions. Namely, while Washington DC keeps exerting “diplomatic” pressure on virtually the entire world to stop doing business with the Kremlin, its Treasury Department is quietly exempting Russian banks and companies from sanctions in order to buy the aforementioned commodities. On October 30, Lisa M. Palluconi, Acting Director of OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Control) signed the formal exemption document relating to “any Russian entity” the US government deems “vital” to its interests.

The document, titled “Russian Harmful Foreign Activities Sanctions Regulations” (PDF), has a section specifically associated with “authorizing transactions related to energy until April 30, 2025”. The following Russian banks and companies are listed as exempt from sanctions (as named in the aforementioned document):

(1) State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs Vnesheconombank;

(2) Public Joint Stock Company Bank Financial Corporation Otkritie;

(3) Sovcombank Open Joint Stock Company;

(4) Public Joint Stock Company Sberbank of Russia;

(5) VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company;

(6) Joint Stock Company Alfa-Bank;

(7) Public Joint Stock Company Rosbank;

(8) Bank Zenit Public Joint Stock Company;

(9) Bank Saint-Petersburg Public Joint Stock Company;

(10) National Clearing Center (NCC);

(11) Any entity in which one or more of the above persons own, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, a 50 percent or greater interest; or

(12) the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

The document further states that the exemptions are “related to energy” and include gas, oil, “other products capable of producing energy” (specifically coal, wood or agricultural products used to manufacture biofuels), “uranium in any form”, as well as the “development, production, generation, transmission, or exchange of power, through any means, including nuclear, thermal, and renewable energy sources”.

It’s important to note that the list includes the same exemptions as the ones authorized on February 28, 2022, just four days after the SMO started. These same exemptions have been prolonged every six months ever since, meaning that they’ve always been in place, although the US kept quiet about it, as it has been pressuring others to entirely stop doing business with Russia, including by cutting imports of the exact products Washington DC exempted in this document. This utterly hypocritical behavior has made many other countries, including global powers such as India, extremely frustrated, as they’ve been endlessly criticized for their trade with Russia, while the US gets to cherry-pick which ties with Moscow it can keep in order to prevent disruptions to its economy. Such double standards effectively nullified attempts to drag Delhi into various anti-multipolarity blocs in Asia.

In stark contrast, Washington DC’s numerous vassals and satellite states are still complying with such demands, particularly the suicidal EU, which has effectively destroyed its economy in the process. Worse yet, this “decoupling” with Russia is now also extending to China, demonstrating the total lack of sovereignty in NATO-occupied Europe. As none of this really affected Moscow, the US and the unelected bureaucratic oligarchy in Brussels tried everything else in the book to damage the Russian economy, including attempts to impose price caps on various commodities, including oil and gas. The global markets effectively laughed at this, as virtually everybody refused to observe such restrictions, including the usually compliant vassals such as Japan. What’s more, even the pathologically Russophobic UK tried circumventing its own sanctions.

In the meantime, the EU continues to suffer the consequences of its suicidal subservience, with deteriorating economic performance observed for the third year in a row. This stands in stark contrast to Russia, which continues to outperform top European economies such as the UK and Germany and actually outpaces both the US and EU in growth. It should also be noted that Moscow not only overtook Germany as Europe’s largest economy back in 2022, but it also took Japan’s place as the fourth largest economy in the world. This shook audiences in the political West to their core, as the mainstream propaganda machine spent decades portraying Russia as a “backward, technologically inferior gas station with nukes”. However, not even the EU comes close to the level of exploitation Ukraine is subjected to, with everything in the NATO-occupied country being “fair game”.

Washington DC effectively hijacked the country a decade ago and keeps draining it of virtually everything, including basics such as food, which was then exported to the EU where it caused an unraveling of the troubled bloc’s agricultural sector. It can be argued that this is part of America’s general tendency to cause major crises in the global essential commodities market. And while the entire world is suffering the consequences of US “full-spectrum” aggression, Washington DC wants to ensure it can buy everything it needs, including from countries it sees as mortal enemies. Unfortunately, it cannot be expected that the EU (with notable exceptions being countries such as Hungary) will ever make decisions based on its own interests, which further cements its unflattering position as a rather pathetic geopolitical pendant of the US and NATO.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

A OTAN parece estar a começar a conspirar contra os seus próprios membros. Num caso recente, foi revelado que a aliança OTAN lançou uma tentativa de sabotagem contra a Hungria para contornar as autoridades do país e tentar enviar armas para a Ucrânia. Esta situação mostra claramente como os países ocidentais não estão seguros dentro da própria OTAN, tendo a sua soberania ameaçada pelos planos de guerra do bloco.

A administração presidencial de Viktor Orban anunciou recentemente que o serviço de inteligência do país frustrou uma operação estrangeira para entregar armas húngaras a Kiev. Segundo o chefe do gabinete presidencial, Gergely Gulyas, houve um acordo ilegal entre membros de empresas militares na Hungria e agentes estrangeiros diretamente envolvidos no financiamento da Ucrânia. O objectivo de tal rede criminosa seria fazer com que a Hungria finalmente “ajudasse” o regime neonazista de Kiev.

“De fato, houve tentativas de usar a indústria militar húngara para enviar armas para a Ucrânia, mas a nossa contra-espionagem descobriu-as e impediu-as (…) A Hungria não entregará nenhuma das suas armas ou munições à Ucrânia”, disse Gulyas.

Como reação à resistência de Orban, os ocidentais tentaram usar o complexo militar-industrial húngaro como plataforma para a produção de armas para a Ucrânia. Segundo relatos, estas armas, uma vez fabricadas na Hungria, seriam adquiridas por intermediários da OTAN como parte do programa de ajuda a Kiev. Depois, ao receberem estas armas, os agentes enviariam-nas para as linhas da frente ucranianas ou para terroristas na África – servindo assim os interesses ocidentais em ambos os casos.

Os detalhes sobre como a contra-espionagem húngara identificou esta ameaça e agiu para neutralizá-la ainda não foram partilhados. No entanto, parece claro que Budapeste tomou medidas duras contra os seus próprios alegados “aliados” ocidentais, impedindo-os de estabelecer um mercado negro de armas no país para abastecer a Ucrânia.

Como é sabido, a posição de Viktor Orban tem sido a favor da paz e da diplomacia desde o início do conflito. Em vez de fomentar a guerra e o caos criando hostilidades inúteis, o governo húngaro tomou a decisão certa: ignorou as políticas russofóbicas, priorizou a soberania e os interesses nacionais e recusou-se a continuar a depender da posição política, ideológica e econômica da OTAN. Orban tem afirmado repetidamente que a Hungria é a favor de um cessar-fogo e não partilha nenhuma das agendas mais liberais do Ocidente – tanto em temas geopolíticos como culturais.

Orban claramente não é um político “pró-Rússia”. O seu objetivo nunca foi alinhar totalmente a Hungria com Moscou, nem tem quaisquer objectivos antiocidentais. Orban simplesmente não quer que o seu país sofra por causa da loucura anti-russa de enviar armas aos ucranianos, prolongando uma guerra que está obviamente a prejudicar a Europa. No final, Orban está a trabalhar para estabelecer uma nova posição entre os países da OTAN, tentando permanecer na aliança mas sem participar na guerra com a Rússia.

No entanto, a OTAN claramente não respeita a soberania de nenhum dos seus membros. A aliança ocidental exige alinhamento absoluto e subserviência política como requisitos para o estabelecimento de projetos de cooperação. As principais potências ocidentais, os EUA e o Reino Unido, não parecem interessadas em permitir qualquer liberdade política aos seus aliados, exigindo-lhes uma postura de apoio absoluto às iniciativas militares anti-russas.

Na verdade, Orban é frequentemente criticado nos principais meios de comunicação ocidentais pelos seus esforços para acabar com a guerra. Infelizmente, porém, o cerco ocidental contra Budapeste vai além da propaganda. A aliança está a começar a mobilizar o seu aparelho de segurança para atingir os seus próprios membros, numa tentativa desesperada de dissuadi-los e garantir que estão a seguir os planos de guerra pró-ucranianos. A Hungria sofreu, na verdade, uma ação que seria de esperar da OTAN contra qualquer país externo, não membro, mas não contra um Estado europeu integrado no bloco, apesar das suas opiniões distintas sobre a política externa.

Tal como houve uma conspiração para contornar as normas nacionais, também existe a possibilidade de uma conspiração para causar danos reais ou mesmo eliminar Orbán e outras figuras-chave do governo húngaro. A OTAN simplesmente mostrou que Budapeste não está imune a tornar-se alvo de sabotagem, acabando de uma vez por todas com qualquer tipo de confiança entre os húngaros e os seus outros “parceiros” ocidentais.

Sem confiança não há unidade numa aliança militar. Talvez a OTAN esteja a contribuir para o seu próprio declínio ao promover tais atos de sabotagem, uma vez que está a destruir a credibilidade e a imagem da aliança junto do público.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Artigo em inglês : NATO plotting against its own members to ‘help’ Ukraine, InfoBrics, le 1er novembre 2024.

Imagem :  InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, membro da Associação de Jornalistas do BRICS, pesquisador do Centro de Estudos Geoestratégicos, especialista militar.

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

Spanish President Pedro Sánchez’s two-day official visit to India last week concluded with the signing of several unprecedented agreements in the history of the relationship between the two countries. Although these agreements mark a roadmap in sectors as diverse as trade, military-industrial, scientific-technological, political, and cultural, India will not suddenly become a pawn like many in the West hope for.

“We want to support India’s growth, especially in three major strategic sectors: renewable energy and sustainable development, urban infrastructure and mobility, and digitization,” said Sánchez in Gujarat, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received him.

Both leaders inaugurated an Airbus factory that will produce 40 C295 tactical transport aircraft for the Indian Air Force, a Spanish design whose manufacture will be undertaken. The investment amounts to €2.202 billion, and negotiations are underway to manufacture another 100 aircraft.

At the same time, during the inauguration of the Spain-India Business Forum in Mumbai, Sánchez highlighted that 230 Spanish companies have already set up shop under the impetus of the Modi Government’s “Make in India” plan. He also said he was “proud” to contribute to the country’s industrial development and highlighted the establishment in Spain of Indian companies in the IT, automotive, and pharmaceutical sectors.

Trade between Spain and India in 2023 grew by 30% compared to 2021, exceeding €7.5 billion. Sánchez wants this to increase by promoting Spain as the “ideal base” in which India can invest to expand into the European market.

“Our country is open to business,” said the Spanish president, who expressed the hope that “more Indian companies” will soon operate in the Iberian country.

He also expressed his conviction that, in order to build a better Spain, it is necessary to “strengthen ties” with the world’s major economies, “diversify diplomatic relations,” and go “beyond” the traditional external treatment that the EU provides to other nations. In other words, Spain is aware that the centre of power in the world has shifted to Asia, as reflected in a note by the press service of the Presidency of the Government.

Sánchez’s appeal in Mumbai to build flexible foreign relations beyond the European corset recalled what he said in September in Beijing when he distanced himself from Brussels’s rigid tariff policy against China and advocated against a trade war.

However, the unprecedented strengthening of Indo-Spanish relations may have a strategic component that serves other interests of the Euro-Atlantic axis. Although Sánchez advocates against tariffs, it does not mean that he does not identify Beijing as a challenge to the EU’s global influence, which is why there is hope that India can serve as a counter.

The West wants India to compete with China in the region and leverages the border conflict between the two Asian giants. The West and India attempt to reduce China’s influence (such as committing to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor to challenge the Belt and Road Initiative), with European policymakers arguing that the EU’s interest is to negotiate with an India that has historically been open to all sides and to boost its position vis-à-vis China, the target of tariff sanctions.

However, this does not mean India is a pawn of the West since it simply plays on all sides to advance its interests.

In fact, India is one of the EU’s energy guarantors, given that many member states buy hydrocarbons of Russian origin from the South Asian country. This situation is another demonstration that India is pursuing an independent path despite pressure from the West to conform, through investment incentives, to the anti-Russia agenda.

It is recalled that Sánchez’s visit to India was preceded by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who also concluded agreements on renewable energy, digital cooperation, and military projects.

The Spanish and German visits to India pursued similar objectives in bilateral civil collaboration projects and military ones. The visit of Scholz and Sánchez, leaders of the EU’s largest and fourth largest economies, respectively, to India shows how much importance the European elite are placing on the country at this moment in time.

Although these trade ties will prove fruitful, Europe will nonetheless be disappointed since cooperation traditionally also hinged on countries submitting to the bloc’s supposed “values” and aligning with its policies, something New Delhi will clearly not do, particularly regarding Russia, a country the Indians have longheld ties with.

In effect, India will continue cooperating with Western countries in trade and challenging Chinese influence but will not become a pawn to the West.

Sánchez presents a front of openness. However, his policies against Russia and support of Ukraine show that he will always align with the Atlantic bloc when major issues arise. This means that if a trade war started with China, he would undoubtedly join the tariffs regime despite his calls to avoid one.

There is much alignment between India and the EU on issues of trade and China. Still, New Delhi also understands that if the West were to turn against it, as it has with Russia and, to a lesser extent, China, countries like Spain and Germany that seek to take advantage of opportunities that India provides would also quickly turn.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Pool Moncloa / Borja Puig de la Bellacasa / Europa Press / ContactoPhoto

Portland, Washington D.C., et al. are preparing for election day the way southern states might brace for an incoming Category V hurricane.

However, the destructive force in this case is not Mother Nature but rather a mob of Dems ready to be unleashed should Trump pull off what looks like a very possible win, even with all of the fraud baked into the election cake.

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Back in 2016, when Trump won the first time, mobs  took to the streets to express their rage at a democratic outcome to a democratic election.

Via BBC, November 11, 2016 (emphasis added):

“Overnight protests against the election of Donald Trump as US president turned violent in Portland, Oregon.

About 4,000 demonstrators gathered in the centre of the western city. Some smashed shop and car windows, threw firecrackers and set rubbish alight…

The protesters, mainly young people, say a Trump presidency would create deep divisions along racial and gender lines.”

And if you’re a sweet summer child who finds yourself expecting any relief from the so-called leadership of the Democrat Party/Deep State — understanding that most of this well-informed audience is not so naïve — let not yourself be deluded.

All that to say: we ought to expect things to get hairy in the next couple of weeks, and also that the governing authorities will do whatever they can to fully capitalize on the chaos they themselves have sown.

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Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Substack. Also, keep tabs via Twitter. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is a screenshot from the Fox 5 video above

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to address this distinguished body.

If ever a war could easily have been avoided, the war in Ukraine is that war. If ever a war was needlessly provoked, the war in Ukraine is that war.

The war in Ukraine came about as a result of the Western powers’ single-minded insistence on scooping up every single country on the European continent into NATO, and on expanding the borders of NATO right up to the borders of the Russian Federation.

The war in Ukraine came about because the Western powers for more than three decades continued to dismiss the innumerable pleas of successive Soviet and Russian leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, that there could be no security for anyone on the continent unless the West and Russia agree on a common framework for peace that guarantees the freedom and security of all.

How do we know this? Because former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told us as much. In September 2023, Stoltenberg went before the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee and explained very succinctly that the war in Ukraine could have been avoided had NATO not insisted on moving its military infrastructure up to Russia’s borders.  President Putin, he explained, had

“actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement….He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO….We rejected that. So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite.”

What Stoltenberg was referring to here were the two draft proposals for a new security architecture for Europe that Russia had issued on Dec. 17, 2021. The proposals—one addressed to NATO, one addressed to the United States—recalled the framework of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 in which the mutually antagonistic parties of the Cold War agreed to recognize one another’s security concerns and pledged not to enhance their own security at the expense of that of their purported adversaries.

At the heart of Russia’s proposals was a commitment by NATO to no further expansion, and in particular to no NATO membership for Ukraine. There was nothing so extraordinary about that. In its 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty, Ukraine had declared “its intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs.”

The notion propagated by NATO spokesmen and Western policymakers that every state has the sovereign right to join any military alliance it wants, to deploy whatever armaments it wants on its territory and to ignore the security concerns of its neighbors flies in the face of innumerable international treaties and covenants, not to mention the international practice of states since time immemorial.

International Covenants and Practice

The Helsinki Final Act of 1975 spoke of the “indivisibility of security.” The 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe declared “Security is indivisible and the security of every participating State is inseparably linked to that of all the others.” The OSCE’s 1999 Istanbul Document repeatedly returned to the theme of what it called the “concept of common, comprehensive and indivisible security and a common security space free of dividing lines.”

And let’s not forget of course that in October 1962, the United States did not accept the argument that the island of Cuba had the sovereign right to station on its territory whatever weapons-systems it felt it needed for its security.

However, the security the Western powers demand for themselves they refuse to extend to others, particularly to the Russian Federation.

The Cold War came to an end in 1991. The Soviet Union dissolved the Warsaw Pact, then dissolved itself, then abandoned the Communist ideology that had once generated so much fear and suspicion in the West.

Russia wanted nothing more than to be left in peace to rebuild its shattered economy. Recall Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s words before the joint session of the U.S. Congress on June 17, 1992:

“Today the freedom of America is being upheld in Russia. The idol of communism, which spread everywhere social strife, animosity and unparalleled brutality…has collapsed. It has collapsed never to rise again. I am here to assure you, we will not let it rise again in our land.”

What had taken place at that time was unprecedented in human history. Soviet and Russian leaders gave up territory, gave up military allies and sacrificed security. Recall: They did not have to do this. The Soviet Union had lost no war. To the contrary: The Soviet Union was still a formidable military and political force, inspiring fear and respect throughout the world.

Soviet and Russian leaders did what they did because they believed it to be the right thing to do.

Western Leaders Claim “Cold War Victory”

Yet Western leaders interpreted the end of the Cold War as a victory for the West and a humiliating defeat for the Soviet Union. According to former President George H.W. Bush,

“The Soviet Union did not simply lose the Cold War; the Western democracies won it.”

And, as the supposed victors, the Western powers immediately set about scooping up their winnings. They proceeded to contain, surround and encircle Russia, so that Russia would never again be a Great Power.

Most shocking of all, especially to the Russians, was the speed with which the West did all of this. Let’s recall U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s words to Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow on Feb. 9, 1990. The Berlin Wall had fallen only three months earlier, yet the United States was already pushing for a united Germany inside of NATO. To get Gorbachev to agree to this, Baker pledged that NATO would not move “one inch to the East.”

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Michail Gorbachev discussing German unification with Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Helmut Kohl in Russia, July 15, 1990. Photo: Bundesbildstelle / Presseund Informationsamt der Bundesregierung / source

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Subsequently, Western politicians were to claim that Baker was referring only to the territory of East Germany, not to the countries of Eastern Europe. But this is a thoroughly disingenuous claim. At the time of Baker’s meeting with Gorbachev, the Warsaw Pact was still in existence, and, since the countries of the Warsaw Pact were all to the east of Germany, the words “not one inch to the East” would have had to be referring to them.

From that moment in February 1990 on, Western leaders  were to give Russian leaders repeated assurances that there would be no NATO expansion, only to walk back those assurances the moment they had secured whatever concessions they were seeking from Moscow.

Former U.K. Prime Minister John Major, for example, declared in March 1991 that he “does not foresee circumstances currently or in the future under which the East European countries could be in NATO”.

Then there was former NATO Secretary-General Manfred Wörner who, after having assured a visiting Russian delegation that neither he nor anyone else in NATO was interested in NATO enlargement, was by March 1993 pressing then-U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher to “start considering possible timeframes, candidates, and criteria for membership expansion.”

NATO Expansion Moves Swiftly

Once the Western powers embarked on NATO expansion, things moved with extraordinary speed. All that was needed was to tell the Russians that what was actually happening wasn’t really happening, that it was all a figment of their imagination.

For example, President Bill Clinton, after assuring President Yeltsin that the Partnership for Peace program was an alternative to NATO enlargement—and not a preliminary step towards it—immediately went back on his word. In January 1994 in Prague, Clinton declared that, yes, Partnership for Peace was indeed the first step toward NATO membership: “Partnership for Peace,” he said, “is not a permanent holding room.

“It changes the entire NATO dialog so that now the question is no longer whether NATO will take on new members but when and how.” Moreover, even at that early moment Clinton was already indicating that the eventual goal was Ukraine’s induction into NATO.”

In a July 1995 memo written for President Clinton, then-National Security Adviser Anthony Lake boasted that the U.S. intended to ride roughshod over the qualms of some Europeans that NATO enlargement was moving too quickly. Lake boasted “some Allies reacted to Russian criticisms of enlargement by suggesting that the Alliance slow the process. We successfully insisted NATO stick to the timetable.”

Yet, in public, U.S. and NATO leaders were saying something different, something that was manifestly untrue, namely, that NATO expansion was all about ending divisions and bringing stability to Europe. For example, in 1994, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, declared:

“The expansion of NATO will advance America’s fundamental goal — a peaceful, undivided, and democratic Europe. NATO enlargement will enhance stability, reduce tensions, and prevent new dividing lines in Europe.”

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright proclaimed  in February 1997:

“NATO has helped bring within our grasp the most elusive dream of this century: an undivided Europe, at peace, in which every nation is free and every free nation is a partner…. For those not invited to join this year, but who wish to join, NATO’s door must remain open.”

Russia Proposes NATO Membership

But how could there be stability, how could there be no new dividing lines in Europe, if NATO expansion was to be directed toward exclusion of Russia? Russian leaders repeatedly expressed an interest in NATO membership.  In a December 1991 letter to NATO leaders, written shortly after the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Boris Yeltsin proposed exploring a framework for Russia’s possible membership in NATO. Yeltsin wrote:

“This will contribute to creating a climate of mutual understanding and trust, strengthening stability and cooperation on the European continent. We consider these relations to be very serious and wish to develop this dialogue in each and every direction, both on the political and military levels. Today we are raising a question of Russia’s membership in NATO, however regarding it as a long-term political aim.”

In 1993, in conversations with U.S. and European leaders, Yeltsin again raised the possibility of Russia’s joining NATO. Yeltsin told NATO Secretary-General Manfred Wörner that Russia might consider NATO membership if the alliance were to become a political organization rather than a military one.

President Putin also spoke of Russia’s interest in NATO membership. In March 2000, asked by BBC presenter Sir David Frost whether Russia could possibly join NATO, Putin replied

“I don’t see why not. I would not rule out such a possibility if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner.”

Putin discussed possible NATO membership with President Clinton. Clinton reportedly responded, “I have no objection.” Later on, Clinton told him, “You know, I’ve talked to my team, no, it’s not possible now.”

NATO leaders showed not the slightest interest in exploring these offers of genuine partnership, genuine dissolution of barriers, and genuine frameworks for mutual security.

Kennan’s Warning

That NATO expansion directed toward the exclusion of Russia, toward the containment and encirclement of Russia would end in disaster was obvious to seasoned observers of international affairs. Renowned diplomat and historian George F. Kennan expressed his disgust at this mad rush toward NATO enlargement.

“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” he warned in 1998.

“I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else.”

An obvious question arises: What was behind this rush for NATO enlargement? What was the need for it? No one was threatening anybody else. To the contrary: relations between Russia and the West were unprecedented in their conviviality.

Yeltsin cooperated with NATO on Yugoslavia, even working against the interests of Russia’s traditional ally, the Serbs. This cooperation continued with Putin. Putin was the first foreign leader to call Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and proclaimed that Russia would become America’s partner in the Global War on Terror. Putin permitted the United States to transit troops and weapons across Russian territory en route to Afghanistan.

President Clinton has explained the rationale behind his push to expand NATO. Writing in the April 2022 edition of The Atlantic, Clinton explained that it was all about his fear of Russia’s supposed

“return to ultranationalism, replacing democracy and cooperation with aspirations to empire, like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great…. If Russia chose to revert to ultranationalist imperialism—fueled by natural resources and characterized by a strong authoritarian government with a powerful military—an enlarged NATO and a growing European Union would bolster the continent’s security.”

So there we have it: Nothing here about ending divisions in Europe, about extending security throughout the European continent, and all those other grandiose declarations NATO leaders have regaled us with for the past three decades. It was, as Russian leaders had suspected, all about containing and encircling Russia with a hostile military alliance.

Russian Warnings Ignored

Over the years, Russian leaders have made their feelings plain, but their protests were repeatedly dismissed and ignored. In an interview with the Telegraph in 2008, Former Soviet President Gorbachev said:

“The Americans promised that NATO wouldn’t move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises?”

President Yeltsin repeatedly expressed his bafflement as to why NATO was expanding at breakneck speed to the east, if NATO and Russia were supposed to be partners. In a November 1994 letter to Clinton, Yeltsin warned that the Russian people were increasingly seeing NATO expansion as the “beginning of a new split in Europe.” In December 1994, Yeltsin asked: “Why sow the seeds of mistrust? After all, we are no longer enemies.” In May 1995, in a one-on-one conversation at the Kremlin with Clinton, Yeltsin declared:

“I see nothing but humiliation for Russia if you proceed. How do you think it looks to us if one bloc continues to exist while the Warsaw Pact has been abolished? It’s a new form of encirclement if the one surviving Cold War bloc expands right up to the borders of Russia.”

Moreover, Russian leaders were only too aware that NATO had long set its sights on eventual Ukraine membership. In March 1997 in Helsinki, Clinton disclosed to Yeltsin that, yes, the former republics of the USSR would indeed be joining NATO, and that that would, of course, include Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Turn

From that moment, things moved quickly. May 1997 sees the opening of the official NATO Information and Documentation Center in Kiev; July 1997 sees the signing of a NATO-Ukraine Charter and the establishment of the NATO-Ukraine Commission; November 2002 sees the NATO-Ukraine Action Plan.

Image: American President Bush meeting with Ukrainian President Yushchenko. April 4, 2005 (White House Photo Office)

In April 2005, President George W. Bush and then-Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko jointly declare:

“The United States supports Ukraine’s NATO aspirations and is prepared to help Ukraine achieve its goals…. The United States supports an offer of an Intensified Dialogue on membership issues with Ukraine.”

April 2008 of course sees the NATO announcement in Bucharest that Ukraine would be a member of NATO. And then, just to take matters up to the present day, we have U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announce in October 2021 that the door to NATO membership for Ukraine was open.

As to how the Russians were likely to view Ukraine’s membership in NATO, there is no better source than current CIA Director William Burns. In his 2019 memoir, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal, he described how he, as U.S. ambassador to Moscow, wrote an e-mail in 2008 to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in which he explained:

“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite…. In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

Sabotaged Negotiations

That the current war in Ukraine was always about NATO expansion, and not about any seizure of territory was obvious from the arc of the peace negotiations that took place shortly after the start of the conflict—first in Minsk, then in Istanbul.

In April 2022, in Istanbul, Russia and Ukraine reached, and initialed, an agreement, the most important part of which was that Ukraine would pledge to become a “permanently neutral state”: it would never join NATO or allow foreign military bases and contingents on its soil. Ukraine could however seek membership of the European Union.

Crucially, however, Ukraine was not asked to forgo its sovereign claims to Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. Those matters were to be resolved in future discussions between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine.

However, this eminently reasonable agreement that would have brought the war to an immediate end was not to the liking of key NATO leaders.

Washington became alarmed that Ukraine was about to agree to this deal. According to the New York Times, U.S. officials told their Ukrainian counterparts, “You understand this is unilateral disarmament, right?”

Finally, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson flew to Kiev and urged Zelensky to drop the idea. Putin was a “war criminal,” Johnson said. He should be crushed, not negotiated with. Even if Ukraine were ready to sign a deal, Johnson told him, the NATO powers were not.

Following the collapse of the talks, Turkey’s foreign minister declared,

“there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue…and Russia to get weaker.”

NATO’s policy thus remains unchanged. Despite everything that has happened, despite the experience of the past 30 years, despite the obvious fact that expansion up to Russia’s borders has generated instability and war, despite all of that, what does NATO do? It continues to insist that Ukraine must, and will, be a member of NATO. In other words, the war must go on for the sake of a cause—Ukraine’s membership of NATO—that guarantees war. NATO leaders are like the Bourbons: They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

Thank you very much for your time and attention.

George Szamuely,

Senior Research Fellow at the Global Policy Institute

Archive of George Szamuely’s articles on Global Research

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This was originally published on the author’s Substack. 

Featured image source

Ozempic and similar weight loss drugs have been linked to 162 deaths in the U.S., with adverse reactions increasing by 40% in six months as usage expands

These medications are associated with serious side effects, including pancreatitis, bowel obstruction and stomach paralysis, with 80% to 90% of users experiencing at least one adverse event

Studies have found a significant link between semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic) and suicidal ideation, particularly in patients also taking antidepressants or antianxiety medications

Emerging reports indicate severe kidney problems in some patients using these weight loss drugs

Akkermansia, a beneficial gut bacteria, is a natural alternative to stimulate GLP-1 production, offering similar benefits without the risks associated with drugs like Ozempic

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Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, including semaglutide — the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy — have taken the world by storm. Originally developed for Type 2 diabetes, these drugs’ weight loss properties quickly caught the attention of researchers and the public alike.

Their effectiveness in shedding pounds has led to a global shortage, with an estimated 20 million people using them annually.¹ But as with any quick fix, there’s often a catch. According to data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), these medications have been linked to 162 deaths in the U.S.²

The Daily Mail reports that fatalities mentioning weight loss drugs have increased by 40% in just six months, jumping from 117 to 162 reported deaths.³ This sharp rise coincides with the expanding use of these medications, as more formulations hit the market and off-label prescriptions become commonplace.

However, your risk doesn’t disappear simply because you’re using these drugs as directed. The FAERS data show that adverse reactions occur in patients using these medications for their approved purposes, whether for diabetes management or weight loss.

Ozempic-Related Deaths and ‘Serious’ Reactions on the Rise

The FAERS database reveals a disturbing trend in adverse reactions to weight loss drugs containing semaglutide and tirzepatide (used in Mounjaro and Zepbound). Since 2018, there have been 62,000 reported reactions to these medications in the U.S.⁴

What’s particularly alarming is that 46,000 of these reports — nearly three-quarters of the total — occurred after 2022. This coincides with the increased availability and marketing of these drugs. Of the 162 reported deaths, 94 were linked to semaglutide-based drugs, while 68 were associated with tirzepatide medications. It’s worth noting that in 2023, tirzepatide was linked to nearly twice as many adverse reactions as semaglutide.⁵

The FAERS system has recorded 10,000 “serious” reactions to these weight loss drugs, defined as events resulting in hospitalization or life-threatening conditions. These aren’t just minor inconveniences; they’re significant medical events that could have long-lasting impacts on your health.

For instance, Daily Mail reports a case of a 30-year-old man on Ozempic who was hospitalized with pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas that causes severe abdominal pain. In another case, a 49-year-old woman taking Ozempic experienced mania and a dangerous surge in blood pressure, requiring hospitalization.⁶

While 1.7% of Americans — approximately 5.6 million people — were prescribed weight loss drugs in 2023, recent surveys suggest that number has grown to about 6% of U.S. adults, or 15.5 million people.⁷ This rapid increase in usage means more individuals are exposed to the serious side effects.

Ozempic Linked to Suicidal Ideation

A comprehensive study analyzing the World Health Organization’s database of adverse drug reactions uncovered more troubling findings about Ozempic.⁸ The research, which looked at over 36.1 million reports, found a significant link between semaglutide and suicidal ideation.

Out of 30,527 total reports for semaglutide, 107 cases of suicidal or self-injurious reactions were identified, and the association remained significant even after accounting for other factors. The research revealed a 45% increased risk of suicidal ideation in patients taking semaglutide compared to other medications.⁹

Further, people taking antidepressants or antianxiety medications alongside semaglutide were at an even higher risk of reporting suicidal thoughts — a 150% to 300% increase in suicidal ideation was found among this group.¹⁰

A study in Frontiers in Psychiatry revealed insights into semaglutide’s impact on your emotional state and psychological well-being.¹¹ The drug’s main component targets GLP-1 receptors, which are present not just in your digestive tract but also in critical brain areas. These regions, such as the lateral septum and hypothalamus, are essential for managing emotions, reward systems and appetite control.

Semaglutide’s interaction with these receptors modifies the functioning of neural pathways involved in these processes. Particularly noteworthy is its influence on dopamine, a neurotransmitter closely associated with mood regulation and reward perception.

Research indicates that stimulating GLP-1 receptors may enhance dopamine transporter expression, leading to decreased free dopamine levels in specific brain regions. This shift in dopamine signaling might lead to alterations in your mood, motivation levels, and even how you experience pleasure.

Up to 90% of Ozempic Users Experience an Adverse Event

The most common side effects linked to Ozempic and similar drugs are gastrointestinal, including nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. In clinical trials, a staggering 80% to 90% of participants experienced at least one adverse event.¹² Though most were mild to moderate, they led some people to discontinue the medication.

Further, these drugs are intended for long-term use — stopping them often results in weight regain — further increasing the risk of side effects over time. While nausea and diarrhea might seem manageable, more severe health risks, including pancreatitis, are a real concern. A study of 16 million patients found that those taking liraglutide or semaglutide had over nine times the risk of developing pancreatitis compared to those on other weight loss medications.¹³

The same study showed a four-fold increase in the risk of bowel obstruction and nearly four times the risk of gastroparesis (stomach paralysis). Gallbladder issues are another significant concern. Clinical trials revealed higher rates of gallstones and cholecystitis (gallbladder inflammation) in people taking these drugs.¹⁴

While rare, some patients required surgery for these complications. It’s also worth noting that these medications increase heart rate.¹⁵ There’s also the potential for aspiration during anesthesia. These drugs slow down stomach emptying, which means you may still have food in your stomach even after fasting for the recommended time before surgery. This increases the risk of aspiration pneumonia, a serious complication.

The FDA has also warned that Ozempic causes an intestinal blockage called ileus,¹⁶ which can lead to life-threatening complications if not treated promptly.

Another Ozempic Dark Side: Kidney Damage

Troubling reports of severe kidney problems due to Ozempic are also emerging. Research published in the Clinical Kidney Journal reported two patients experienced acute interstitial nephritis (AIN), a serious kidney inflammation, after starting semaglutide.¹⁷

One case even involved focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a type of kidney scarring. These findings suggest these drugs pose significant risks to your kidney health, especially if you have pre-existing kidney issues. The first case involved a 68-year-old woman with chronic kidney disease who started semaglutide for weight loss.

Within weeks, she developed severe nausea and vomiting, leading to a dramatic increase in her creatinine levels — a key indicator of kidney function. Even after stopping the medication, her kidney function worsened upon restarting it. A biopsy confirmed acute interstitial nephritis, likely triggered by semaglutide.¹⁸

The second case was even more alarming. A 49-year-old woman with no prior kidney issues developed severe swelling and protein in her urine after three months on semaglutide. Her kidney biopsy revealed not only AIN but also FSGS, a condition that can lead to kidney failure.

The study authors suggest that risk factors for these complications may include chronic kidney disease, advanced age, obesity and concurrent use of other medications that can affect the kidneys. A review of the FDA’s adverse event reporting system revealed 2,375 kidney-related events associated with GLP-1 drugs between 2010 and 2022.¹⁹

Acute kidney injury was the most common, accounting for nearly 59% of reports. Other reported issues included high blood pressure, electrolyte imbalances and, in rare cases, severe protein loss in the urine.

Akkermansia: A Natural Ozempic Alternative

Sustainable weight loss involves more than just a quick fix. It requires a holistic approach that considers your overall health, including your mental well-being. As tempting as these drugs might seem, especially with their popularity on social media, it’s crucial to make decisions based on scientific evidence rather than anecdotal reports or trends. Your health is too important to gamble with unproven or potentially dangerous solutions.

In my interview with Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe, a molecular biology scientist and the CEO and co-founder of Pendulum, a company that creates microbiome products, she explained that, instead of using Ozempic, you can naturally elevate your GLP-1 levels by increasing the presence of the beneficial bacteria Akkermansia in your gut:

“What happens in your body naturally, if you’ve got all the right microbes, is that you eat a meal, your microbiome metabolizes that food and generates postbiotics [excretions from beneficial bacteria] like butyrate [and] a protein called P9. Some of these postbiotics then signal your body to produce GLP-1.

All that signaling is happening from the microbiome directly to the L cells. And so you eat a meal, your microbiome digests them, these postbiotics get created and tell your L cells, ‘Hey, go produce GLP-1,’ and then you get a spike in GLP-1 in your body.

GLP-1 stimulates your body too. It says, ‘We’ve got to metabolize the sugar in the bloodstream, release insulin.’ It also signals to your brain, ‘We just ate, we’re full, we don’t need to eat again.’ After a period of time, GLP-1 goes down — until the next time you eat a meal. Then it spikes again.

So that’s the natural way of things. There are only two strains that have been published, to date, that have been shown to be able to stimulate L cells to produce GLP-1, and one of them is Akkermansia. It actually secretes three different [postbiotics] that stimulate L cells to produce GLP-1.

So, what’s been found is that if you are low or missing Akkermansia, your body is not naturally producing as much GLP-1 as it’s supposed to be. By giving people back Akkermansia, you can now have these physiological benefits of reducing A1C and lowering blood glucose spikes.

To be clear, the natural GLP-1 you produce is different from the drug. The drug is a mimic. It’s an analog. It looks like GLP-1. It gets injected into the bloodstream directly, which means that rather than the natural spike after you eat [followed by a decline], the [drug] is keeping those levels really high all the time.

So, this signaling of ‘we got to metabolize sugar in the blood and we’re full, we just ate’ is going on constantly. That’s why people experience these incredible, amazing overnight effects because that’s how those drugs are working. But if you actually have the right microbes, you can generate your body’s natural GLP-1 and get back into this natural cycle.”

Many People Are Lacking Akkermansia

Research published in Nature Microbiology found that Akkermansia increased thermogenesis and GLP-1 secretion in mice fed a high-fat diet.²⁰ While Akkermansia plays a vital role in maintaining intestinal health, many individuals have insufficient levels due to compromised mitochondrial function and oxygen leakage in the gut.

One of Akkermansia’s primary functions is the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), including butyrate. These fatty acids serve as fuel for your colonocytes, which in turn produce mucin, a gel-like protective substance that coats your gut lining.

SCFAs also help remove oxygen from your colon, creating an environment where beneficial bacteria can flourish. Mucin acts as a barrier, shielding intestinal cells from damage, harmful microorganisms and digestive irritants.

Additionally, mucin enhances your immune system. It contains antibodies and antimicrobial peptides that help fight infections. Mucin also functions as a trap for potential pathogens, facilitating their elimination through the digestive process. Akkermansia is so beneficial that it should, ideally, constitute about 10% of your gut microbiome.

Make Sure Live Akkermansia Probiotics Reach Your Colon

When selecting Akkermansia probiotics, opt for products with bacterial counts in the billions rather than millions. Generally, a higher bacterial count is beneficial, but there’s an important caveat: the delivery method is crucial.

Look for probiotics in delayed-release capsules. This feature is essential because it ensures the beneficial bacteria have a higher likelihood of reaching your colon alive. Without this protective mechanism, most of the bacteria may not survive the journey through your digestive system.

Akkermansia are very sensitive to oxygen. This makes their journey through your digestive system very challenging. These beneficial microbes thrive in an oxygen-free environment, and even a brief exposure to oxygen can be fatal for them. This trait makes the delivery method of Akkermansia supplements crucial to their effectiveness.

In fact, a lower-dose probiotic (in the hundreds of thousands of bacteria) that successfully reaches your colon can be more effective than a high-dose product (with hundreds of billions of bacteria) that doesn’t make it to its intended destination. Remember, when it comes to probiotics, successful delivery to the colon is just as important as the initial dosage.

Understanding this helps you choose the most effective supplement. You want to nurture your gut microbiome with live, active Akkermansia, as dead or inactive ones won’t do you as much good as they don’t reproduce.

If you want to use Akkermansia supplements, look for ones with advanced, dual-timed release capsules or microencapsulation. These technologies keep Akkermansia dormant and protected until it reaches your colon, usually in two to four hours.

To maximize its effectiveness, take it on an empty stomach, ideally first thing in the morning after an overnight fast. Wait at least one to two hours before eating to reduce transit time, allowing the bacteria to reach your colon faster — usually within two hours. This will greatly increase the number of live bacteria that make it to your colon.

Avoid taking probiotics with food, as this can extend your transit time to over eight hours, likely killing the bacteria long before they reach your colon. Being mindful of when and how you take your Akkermansia probiotic will maximize the benefits of this powerful probiotic.

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Notes

^1, 8, 9 JAMA Netw Open. 2024 Aug 20;7(8):e2423385

^{2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7} Daily Mail September 8, 2024

¹⁰ ZeroHedge August 21, 2024

¹¹ Front Psychiatry. 2023 Aug 29;14:1238353

^{12, 13, 14, 15} Obes Pillars. 2024 Aug 31;12:100127

¹⁶ U.S. FDA, Drug Safety-related Labeling Changes, Ozempic September 22, 2023

^17, 18, 19 Clin Kidney J. 2024 Aug 13;17(9):sfae250

²⁰ Nature Microbiology volume 6, pages 563–573 (2021) 

Featured image is from MedicalNews Today

Web archives — which, as the name implies, archive webpages at snapshots in time — serve as an invaluable tool for independent journalists, as they offer a window into information the governing authorities and their apparatchiks in corporate media would rather memory-hole.

As just one example among myriad, without web archiving, we might now know that the CDC quietly tried to slip a new definition of “vaccine” under the public’s nose so as to allow the mRNA shots it was pimping at the time into the framework. Had the previous definition remained, they would not have qualified as “vaccines” because, unlike every actual vaccine in history, they do not confer immunity.

Via Miami Herald September 27, 2021 (emphasis added):

“Social media is calling bluff on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for modifying its definition of the words “vaccine” and “vaccination” on its website.

Before the change, the definition for “vaccination” read, “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now, the word “immunity” has been switched to “protection.”

The term “vaccine” also got a makeover. The CDC’s definition changed from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease” to the current “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.”

Some people have speculated that the unannounced changes were the CDC’s attempt to hide the fact COVID-19 vaccines are not 100% effective at preventing coronavirus infection. U.S. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky said in a popular tweet the CDC has “been busy at the Ministry of Truth.”

However, a CDC spokesperson told McClatchy News the “slight changes in wording over time … haven’t impacted the overall definition.””

Is it mere coincidence that the premier web archiving service on the web gets taken out of commission by what is clearly a well-orchestrated and resourced attack just days before a hugely controversial election?

Anything is possible, of course, but the incentives for the technocrats to incapacitate the infrastructure that independent journalists and average people rely on to chronicle and archive events in real time are all there.

Via Brownstone Institute (emphasis added):

“The service Archive.org which has been around since 1994 has stopped taking images of content on all platforms. For the first time in 30 years, we have gone a long swath of time – since October 8-10 – since this service has chronicled the life of the Internet in real time.

As of this writing, we have no way to verify content that has been posted for three weeks of October leading to the days of the most contentious and consequential election of our lifetimes… In effect, the whole memory of our main information system is just a big black hole right now.

The trouble on Archive.org began on October 8, 2024, when the service was suddenly hit with a massive Denial of Service attack (DDOS) that not only took down the service but introduced a level of failure that nearly took it out completely…

In other words, the only source on the entire World Wide Web that mirrors content in real time has been disabled. For the first time since the invention of the web browser itself, researchers have been robbed of the ability to compare past with future content, an action that is a staple of researchers looking into government and corporate actions…

What this means is the following: Any website can post anything today and take it down tomorrow and leave no record of what they posted unless some user somewhere happened to take a screenshot. Even then there is no way to verify its authenticity. The standard approach to know who said what and when is now gone. That is to say that the whole Internet is already being censored in real time so that during these crucial weeks, when vast swaths of the public fully expect foul play, anyone in the information industry can get away with anything and not get caught.”

With dystopian fiction as our frequent guidepost to understanding what is happening here in the real world, we turn to our old friends, the pigs (as metaphor for despots) of Animal Farm and their “evolution” of the Seven Commandments, originally intended to be immutable.

Via Literature Wise (emphasis added):

“The Seven Commandments – written on the barn wall – are the basic principles of animalism and described originally as “unalterable laws” by which the animals were to live. They were meant to keep the animals equal and to ensure that all animals were true to their own nature. Over time, the commandments begin to change; they have addendums unexplainably added to them. The animals see what the commandments say and question their own memories…

All pretence of “unalterable laws” is abandoned and the Commandments are replaced by the meaningless slogan:

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.””

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Featured image is from the Public Domain

Introductory Note on Environmental Modification Techniques

Important article by Kester K. Klomegah. 

The fake Co2 climate narrative underlying the COP29 Conference in Baku is being applied to impoverish an entire continent.

As in previous Climate summits, environmental modification techniques (ENMOD) –which can trigger tsunamis, typhoons and earthquakes– have been casually dismissed. The emphasis is on CO2 and the dangers of Global Warming.  

Ironically, Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) were acknowledged by the UN in 1977 upon the signing in Geneva of  the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques. 

There are too many coincidences and contradictions. The causes of extreme weather conditions must be addressed. Much of the information on the use of ENMOD and its impacts is “classified”. 

The matter should be the object of an inter-governmental investigation (under the auspices of the UNGA) conducted in accordance with the terms of  the historic 1977 International Convention ratified by the UN General Assembly banning “military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.” (See AP, 18 May 1977). Both the US and the Soviet Union were signatories to the Convention:

….Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military … use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party. (Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, United Nations, Geneva, May 18, 1977. Entered into force: 5 October 1978, see full text of Convention in Annex)

To Read the full text of the UN Convention, click here

Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research, November 5, 2024

•  *   *   *

With millions of people already displaced by climate change disasters in Africa, the richer countries most responsible for global warming must agree at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan to fully pay for the catastrophic loss of homes and damage to livelihoods taking place across the continent, Amnesty International said. They must also fully fund African governments’ adaptation measures to prevent further forced displacement, stop human rights violations and help them achieve a fast and fair phase out of fossil fuel production and use. 

These same countries must then follow up on their agreement by urgently financing the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, the main international fund addressing climate change’s unavoidable harms. So far, such countries have pledged less than USD 700 million of the 400 billion dollars that lower-income countries estimate they need for loss and damage by 2030. Meanwhile, adaptation may cost USD 30 to 50 billion per year in sub-Saharan Africa alone. International financial institutions must ensure equitable distribution of the money to African countries based on need. 

“African people have contributed the least to climate change, yet from Somalia to Senegal, Chad to Madagascar, we are suffering a terrible toll of this global emergency which has driven millions of people from their homes. It’s time for the countries who caused all this devastation to pay up so African people can adapt to the climate change catastrophe,” said Samira Daoud, Amnesty International Regional Director for West and Central Africa. 

Global Crisis, African Catastrophe 

Amnesty International research shows that in every corner of the African continent, droughts, floods, storms or heat are displacing people within countries and across borders, resulting in human rights violations including loss of shelter, disrupted access to food, health care and education, plus risk of gender-based violence and even death. 

While African governments are responsible for protecting human rights in this crisis, they cannot adequately do so unless richer countries provide the funds. 

In Somalia alone, more than a million people have been displaced by protracted drought and recurrent floods which have decimated farms, killed livestock and destroyed houses, forcing communities already vulnerable from decades of civil war to flee to camps for internally displaced persons or to Kenya and Ethiopia. 

In coastal Senegal, rising seas have destroyed entire villages, forcing thousands of people inland where they suffer lack of jobs and shelter without adequate support. 

In Chad, rising temperatures have pushed livestock herders to the country’s southern agricultural regions to find grazing land and water, leading to deadly clashes with farmers in the absence of effective conflict management and support for both groups. 

Many parts of the continent are suffering severe droughts, likely exacerbated by climate change.  A six-year drought in southern Madagascar has forced more than 56,000 Antandroy people off their ancestral lands to search for new land to settle, only to face a host of human rights violations in other parts of the country. People left behind struggle for food, water and health care. 

Meanwhile, successive severe droughts in southern Africa have pushed people to the edge. In Angola, hunger has forced mostly women and children to migrate to Namibia in search of food, raising the risk of exploitation, trafficking, gender-based violence and disrupted education.   

But even in Namibia, half the population is food insecure, and the government has declared a drought state of emergency, as have the governments of Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. None of these countries have the money to address the drought. 

“Across Africa, the worst effects of climate change are already here. Extreme droughts, floods, storms and heat are destroying livelihoods and local economies and forcing more and more people to flee their homes. In every instance Amnesty International has researched, national governments do not have the resources to properly respond. The countries that caused these rapidly escalating unnatural disasters must foot the bill to address them,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa. 

Full and Equitable Financing 

Mobilizing and providing the dollars needed is only the first step toward addressing the worst effects of climate change in Africa. The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage must equitably disburse the money so it reaches the countries who need it most, including through direct access by impacted African communities. 

Likewise, international financial institutions and lending nations must grant debt relief to African countries that request it to help them invest in climate adaptation measures that protect human rights. In recent years, for instance, Ethiopia’s government has spent three times as much money on repaying debt than on adapting to climate change, while countries from Congo to Mozambique regularly spend far more on servicing debt than on climate change response. 

“Given the scale of climate-induced displacement and human rights violations in Africa, half-measures and lip service are not enough from the richer countries who caused this crisis. But commitments at COP29 to fully and equitably pay for loss and damage and adaptation measures in Africa are just the start. The countries responsible for climate change, along with international finance institutions, must follow through and deliver the needed resources. Africa cannot wait any longer,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa. 

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

Featured image source

Image:  Fake photo of Hillary Clinton shaking hands with Osama. 2007 Photoshop contest by FreakingNews.com

First published on November 4, 2016, 4 days prior to the 2016 Presidential Elections. Trump vs. Hillary

Al Qaeda is a fan of the Clintons who have supported them for more than twenty years. And before that, Brzezinski and Kissinger supported them.

Al Qaeda rebels, ISIS-Daesh, are unbending supporters of Hillary, because when she becomes President of the United States, “she’ll continue to support us, give us money and weapons, … “

“We’re voting for you, Hillary, on November 8. We’ll cast our absentee ballots from more than twenty countries where the CIA is helping us.”

“We’re not terrorists, we’re the “Moderate Good Guys”. We’re supported by Hillary Clinton, and Hillary is not a terrorist.”

“If she were a terrorist, we wouldn’t vote for her…  ” (paraphrase)

Hillary Endorses Kamala

Hillary Clinton‘s Unbending Support for  Kamala Harris implies and requires Continuity in “U.S. Foreign Policy”, i.e. the U.S Administration remains firmly committed to “America’s War on Terrorism” which is predicated on sponsoring and funding Al Qaeda rebels, ISIS-Daesh “terrorists” who are controlled by U.S. intelligence, (See video below)

And then justifying fake “counter-terrorism” operations in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. 

In the words of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  

Today’s Democratic Party is the party of war. It’s the party of the CIA. You had Kamala giving a speech at the Democratic Convention that was written by Neocons, …”

Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research, November 4, 2024

1. Hillary: Let’s Remember Al Qaeda…  

“Let’s remember here… the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago

… let’s go recruit these mujahideen.

And great, let them come from Saudi Arabia and other countries, importing their Wahabi brand of Islam so that we can go beat the Soviet Union.”  (Hillary Clinton) see video below

Video: Hillary: “We Created Al Qaeda”

And before Hillary, it was Brzezinski who was supporting Al Qaeda on behalf of the US Government…

2. Video. Brzezinski: “God is On Your Side”

 3. Osama bin Laden: “The Peace Warrior”

In the wake of the Cold War (during Bill Clinton’s Administration) Osama bin Laden was said to have abandoned the jihad. He was portrayed as a “Peace Warrior”, a Saudi Businessman involved in humanitarian undertakings.

 The byline of this 1993 photograph of Osama bin Laden,

describes Bin Laden as an “anti-Soviet warrior”  “on the road to peace”. The Independent

4. Bill Clinton and Osama bin Laden: “Buddies”

Bill Clinton Worked Hand in Glove with Al Qaeda:

“Helped Turn Bosnia into a Militant Islamic Base” according to a Republican Policy Committee Congressional Report.

At the height of the war in Bosnia, Bill Clinton and Osama bin Laden joined hands in recruiting Al Qaeda mercenaries and channelling weapons to the “jihadists” :

“The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline... [involved] The Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization … [which] has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. …

TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups.

(The original document was on the website of the US Senate Republican Policy Committee (Senator Larry Craig), 

emphasis added, no longer accessible, to access RPC Report click here

The RCP report reveals how the US administration – under advice from Bill Clinton’s National Security Council headed by Anthony Lake –  “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world: 

Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission – and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia – is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.. [Washington Post, 9/22/96] emphasis added

The Republican Party Committee report quoting official documents as well as US media sources confirms unequivocally the complicity of the Clinton Administration with several Islamic fundamentalist organisations including Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda. 

What was the ultimate purpose of this report?

The Republicans wanted at the time to undermine the Clinton Administration. However, at a time when the entire country had its eyes riveted on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Republicans no doubt chose not to trigger an untimely “Iran-Bosniagate” affair, which might have unduly diverted public attention away from the Lewinsky scandal.

5. Bill Clinton Supported Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda Supported the KLA in Kosovo

Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort against Yugoslavia.

According to Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence division also in a testimony to the House Judicial Committee:

The State Department [under Bill Clinton] listed the KLA as a terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden” [leader of Al Qaeda].  (US Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000)

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

This did not prevent Bill Clinton Administration’s Secretary of state Madeleine Albright from Hugging Hashim Thaci, leader of the KLA (linked to the Mafia, on the Interpol list).

It’s Hillary’s Turn 

Several year later, it’s Hillary turn. Hashim Thaci is now president of Kosovo. He’s still on the Interpol list…

Many years later, Hillary with Hashim Thaci  

6. Secretary of State Hillary “Changed Sides in the War on Terrorism”: Weapons for her Al Qaeda friends

“The State Department under the management of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “changed sides in the war on terror” in 2011 by implementing a policy of facilitating the delivery of weapons to the al-Qaida-dominated rebel militias in Libya attempting to oust Moammar Gadhafi from power, the Citizens Commission on Benghazi concluded in its interim report. (Jerome Corsi, Global Research, January 2015)

“Secret Benghazi report reveals Hillary’s Libya war push armed al Qaeda-tied terrorists” 

Libyan officials were deeply concerned in 2011, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was trying to remove Moammar Gadhafi from power, that weapons were being funneled to NATO-backed rebels with ties to al Qaeda, fearing that well-armed insurgents could create a safe haven for terrorists, according to secret intelligence reports obtained by The Washington Times.

7. Because Al Qaeda is on the US “Terror List”, Doesn’t Mean We Shouldn’t Support Them…

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that Al Qaeda and other organizations on the US “terror list” are supporting the Syrian opposition.

“We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, al-Qaida [sic], Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition [in Syria].” [1] Transcript of Clinton interview on BBC, 26 February, 2012:   (Click here to watch video)

In the above 2014 Report of the US State Department, the following al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organization (among many others) are included.

Ansar al-Shari’a in Benghazi (AAS-B), Ansar al-Shari’a in Darnah (AAS-D), Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia (AAS-T), Boko Haram (BH), Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Al-Shabaab (AS), Al-Nusrah Front (ANF), Al-Qa’ida (AQ), Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)

All of the above Al Qaeda affiliated entities are supported covertly by US intelligence in violation of the US State Department “Terror List”

The State Department Report can be consulted online.

8. Al Qaeda are “Moderates”: More Money for the “Moderate Terrorists”

Clinton Pledges $45 Million in Aid to Al Qaeda in Syria:

[Former] US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the US would be providing an additional $45 million in “non-lethal aid” to the “opposition” in Syria, reported the Associated Press. Who’s the opposition?

9. 1700 Wikileaks Emails show that Hillary Clinton was Supporting Al Qaeda in Libya to Overthrow and Kill Gadaffi 

“In fact, Assange notes that the former Secretary of State was fully aware of the United States’ involvement in arming [Al Qaeda affiliated Libya Islamic fighting Group] rebels in Libya in a bid to help them overtake Qaddafi. Ultimately, it is alleged that those same weapons then made their way to the Islamic State in Syria.“

“We came, we saw, he died”

10.  Hillary Also Supports the Islamic State (ISIS-ISIL-Daesh)

More than 100 pages of previously classified Department of Defense and Department of State documents implicate the Obama administration in a cover-up to obscure the role Hillary Clinton and the State Department played in the rise of ISIS. (Global Research, June 2015)

Source: screenshot Daily Mail

Screeshot Daily Mail 

11. Money for the Clinton Foundation Thanks to Al Qaeda

Hillary Admits Major Donors to Clinton Foundation Donors (Saudi Arabia and Qatar) ALSO Fund ISIS-Daesh:

“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

Hillary Clinton is now on record saying Saudi Arabia and Qatar fund and support ISIS. So what did she do about it? She took their money, and sent them arms. Mainstream media won’t touch this with a 10-foot pole.

WikiLeaks have released an email in which Hillary Clinton admits that Qatar and Saudi Arabia – two of her mega-donors – provide financial and logistical support to ISIS.

Salon, October 11, 2016

In the extraordinary email, sent to John Podesta in 2014, Clinton lays out an eight point plan to defeat ISIS in Iraq, and mentions that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both giving financial and logistical support to the Islamic State and other extremist Sunni groups.

“Hillary conveniently fails to mention that these two terror-funding states are both mega-donors to the Clinton Foundation.

Qatar has given between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and Saudi Arabia has donated upwards of $25 million dollars to the Foundation.

Nowhere in the email – sent, of course, through the notorious unsecured server – does Clinton address the staggering hypocrisy of continuing to provide Saudi Arabia with multiple billions in weapons, arms, aircraft, and other support in full knowledge of its active support for terrorists.(Baxter Dmitry, Global Research,  October 27, 2016)

12. “The Terrorists R Us”

From the horse’s mouth: “The new offensive was a strong sign that rebel groups vetted by the United States were continuing their tactical alliances with groups linked to Al Qaeda,” (New York Times, October 29, 2016)

Al Qaeda, ISIS-ISIL-Deash, Al Nusra et al  are the foot soldiers  of the Western military alliance. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.

Al Qaeda is not only supported by Hillary, Senator John McCain has met up with terrorist leaders while on a flash “business trip” to Syria. (see picture right)

13. P.S. Many “Left Progressives” are Voting for Hillary.” The Nuclear Option is on the Table” and so is Al Qaeda 

“The leading lights of the so-called “progressive” movement argue that it is the left’s duty to vote for this neocon warmonger. But the consequences of this strategy may well lead directly to nuclear war.  

Hillary Clinton constitutes an existential threat against all of humanity. 

(See GRTV with James  Corbett)

14. Who is Al Qaeda?

Hillary Clinton casually defines Al Qaeda as a bunch of  Islamist mujehedeen rebels “Freedom Fighters” according to Ronald Reagan which “we supported”.

According to Major (ret) Pierre-Henri Bunel, of France’s  Direction du renseignement militaire (Military Intelligence),

“Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden’s personal property”

15. Meet “Al Qaeda”

The meaning in Arabic of Al Qaeda? القاعِدة is “The Base” 

According to  Pierre-Henri Bunel: It’s “The Base”, namely  the Computer Database of the Islamic Mujahideen recruited by the CIA.

Author’s Concluding Note

The purpose of this article is “Counter-propaganda”, namely to break the lies and fabrications of the corporate media, to reveal the truth concerning Hillary and US Foreign Policy.

While “The Global War on Terrorism” is bogus, it remains the contemporary foundation of US military and intelligence doctrine.  

Writing from Canada, the purpose is to inform, it is not to take sides in relation to the forthcoming US presidential election. That is for US citizens to decide upon.

This is a review of America’s “War on Terrorism” which is intent upon revealing Washington’s diabolical role as a “state sponsor of terrorism” and the use of terrorist entities as a means to destabilizing and destroying sovereign countries.

Hillary Clinton has played a central role in supporting and financing the Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists.

The 15 reasons presented in this article are carefully documented. They constitute a point by point summary. 

We ask you to read carefully and draw your own conclusions. 

We call upon our readers to forward this article far and wide.

There is of course a vast literature behind these 15 points, which readers may which to consult.

Archive on US elections

Archive on The Global War on Terrorism

Archive on Media Disinformation and Propaganda 

Global Research will be initiating a Counter-Propaganda campaign. If you wish to support this endeavor, consider making a donation and/or becoming a Member of Global Research.

Michel Chossudovsky’s latest book entitled The Globalization of War: America’s Long War against Humanity can be purchase online

America’s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 era is the “Globalization of War” whereby the U.S.-NATO military machine —coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime change”— is deployed in all major regions of the world. 

The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.

This “Long War against Humanity” is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history.

It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of the World population.

The ultimate objective is World conquest under the cloak of “human rights” and “Western democracy”.

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

Currently available in PDF 

Sir Chris Hoy, the six-time Olympic gold medallist, has revealed he has terminal cancer.

The 48-year-old cycling legend has been told by doctors that he has just two to four years left to live.

Hoy first announced in February that he was undergoing treatment for cancer, but said he was ‘optimistic’ and then worked as a BBC pundit at the Paris Olympics in the summer.

However, the father of two has now admitted he has known for a year that his illness is terminal.

The Scot originally went to the doctor in September 2023 for a suspected shoulder strain, only to discover he had a tumour in his shoulder.

A further scan found that the primary cancer was in his prostate and had spread to his bones.

‘We were all born and we all die and this is just part of the process,’ Hoy told The Sunday Times.

‘But aren’t I lucky that there is medicine I can take that will fend this off for as long as possible.’

In a statement published to Instagram in February, Hoy described himself as ‘optimistic’ and ‘positive’.

However, in his announcement this week he admitted that he knew even back then that his cancer was incurable.

Despite this, Hoy – who won six Olympic gold medals for Team GB between 2004 and 2012 – insists that he still feels ‘lucky’.

Hoy married wife Sarra in 2010 and they have two children together.

Both children were born prematurely. Son Callum was 11 weeks early in 2014, before daughter Chloe arrived four weeks ahead of schedule.

Against the odds, Callum and Chloe are now both perfectly healthy.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of their parents. In addition to Hoy’s cancer, Sarra has multiple sclerosis.

Click here to read the full article on DMO.

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Our thanks to Dr. William Makis for bringing this to our attention.

Featured image: Hoy celebrates winning the keirin at the 2010 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Ballerup, Denmark (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Much significance will happen at the end of Election Day, and a countdown will begin at 11:00 p.m. PDT on November 5th. While everyone’s attention will be on who our next president will be, the U.S. Air Force will test-launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with a dummy hydrogen bomb on the tip from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The missile will cross the Pacific Ocean and 22 minutes later crash into the Marshall Islands. The U.S. Air Force does this several times a year. The launches are always at night while Americans are sleeping. 

This is what nightmares are made of – between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, and the result is that the Marshallese people have lost their pristine environment and face health problems. Our environment is threatened here as well. Not only did the indigenous Chumash people lose their sacred land to Vandenberg Air Force Base, but also America’s Heartland presently has around 400 ICBMs stored in underground silos equipped with nuclear warheads that are ready to launch at a hair trigger’s notice. Named “MinuteMen III,” after Revolutionary War soldiers who could reload and shoot a gun in less than a minute, ICBMs not only put Americans at risk of accident, but they put all life on earth in danger. 

ICBMs are not viable for national defense. They are a relic of a bygone era having been invented by Nazi Germany, and their presence only escalates the risk of nuclear accidents or conflicts. A single launch could lead to a nuclear exchange that would annihilate cities, contaminate the environment, and cause irreversible harm to our planet’s ecosystem. Once an ICBM is launched, it cannot be recalled. I don’t want a nuclear strike or accident to happen. We can change course now, and our first step is to decommission the ICBM program also because it is a staggering financial burden to maintain. 

The U.S. plans to spend over $1.2 trillion on nuclear modernization over the next 30 years, which means new, larger nuclear bombs and new, larger ICBMs called Sentinels that will need to be tested. This massive investment in outdated technology diverts critical funds away from humanitarian needs like healthcare, education, and healing climate change— issues that directly impact our quality of life, and our children’s future. 

I teach 4th and 5th graders Creative Writing. I adore children’s imaginations, but when my students were given the assignment to write about something important to them, they wrote lines that broke my heart.  This is a wake-up call for us adults to face the reality we have made for our children.

“Such a shame, a perfectly good planet, trashed.” Claire, age 9. 

“What would you think about no nature in the world? No trees, no butterflies, no birds or bunnies at all! Most important of all, no people. There would be no technology, no schools, no history, no entertainment; everything we have worked for would be wasted. What would you think about a beautiful world that basically had nothing? I think I would absolutely hate it.” Brynn, age 9.

Other than destruction caused by industrial global warming and by war, which the children are all-too aware of, this child does not know what actually could turn nature and civilization to nothing in a matter of minutes; she doesn’t know about “nuclear winter” or how vulnerable we are to a nuclear accident. Most people don’t. 

The claim is that nuclear weapons are deterrents, but it is diplomacy that creates alliances and peace. Nuclear weapons only provide the terrifying threat of annihilation, either by command or by accident. Nuclear weapons and ICBMs only make the world less safe and strip us of security. 

As the warring ruling class seems to be pushing for nuclear brinkmanship, on this election night let us not be distracted.  By decommissioning ICBMs, the U.S. could lead the world in reducing the nuclear threat and encourage other nations to do the same. For the sake of our health, environment, and the safety of future generations, it’s time to scrap the ICBM program. We owe it to our children to invest in a future that prioritizes peace and sustainability over destruction.

As it is we the people who possess the right of self-determination, we must confront the material reality of our homeland and face what it will take to protect it.  Do we have the courage to change our country for the better and ensure our futures?  Yes we do, and now is the time to take action. 

“Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress,” said Daniel Ellsberg, U.S. military analyst, economist, and author of “The Doomsday Machine.” 

May we cancel this nightmare weapons program for once and for all and give our children the security that they deserve. 

Tell Congress: Cancel Sentinel Missile Program—More Than 700 Scientists Agree: click here.

Learn more about the dangers of ICBMS and get involved. See this.

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Leah Yananton is a teacher, filmmaker and writer with attention on biosphere dynamics, human connection, indigenous stewardship, nuclear disarmament, and the peace economy.  

Featured image: The US conducted 105 nuclear tests in the Pacific, mainly in the Marshall islands, between 1946 and 1962. Image: Wikipedia

The BHP Group, as with other mining giants, has much explaining to do in the way it has approached the environment.  It has become a master of the greenwashing experiment, an adept promoter of sham environmental responsibility (take, for instance, its practice of merely selling its oil and gas business to Woodside Petroleum in 2021 rather than retiring them); and, it transpired recently, a ruthless negotiator and litigant over contentious claims.

After nine years of negotiations and attritive legal proceedings, BHP has reached a settlement with Brazilian authorities regarding its role in the Fundão tailings dam collapse in Mariana, Minas Gerais.  Taking place on November 5, 2015, the results were catastrophic to human life and nature, leaving 19 people dead and spilling toxic sludge over some 700 kilometres of land.  The Samarco-owned facility, which held something like 26,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of tailings (50 million cubic metres), was a joint venture between BHP and Vale.  In addition to killing 14 company employees and five residents, the released tailings rapidly reached Bento Rodrigues, and part of the communities of Paracatu de Baixo and Gesteira and, for good measure, flooded the centre of the town of Barra Longa.

The catastrophe merely compounded, turning the Rio Doce Basin a filthy brown and affecting dozens of municipalities and hundreds of communities reliant on the Rio Doce for drinking water.  The pollution also destroyed wildlife, fishing stocks, farmland and churches, and affected various Indigenous communities, including the Krenak, Tupiniquim, Guaranis and Quilombola.

In response to the collapse, BHP, Vale and Samarco established the Renova Foundation, intended to compensate individuals and small businesses for losses and ostensibly ameliorating environmental impacts.  This was hardly a concession on BHP’s part of guilt.  “Conveniently,” write the authors caustically in a Nature Conservation study on the disaster in August, “the company creates its foundation to repair its own damages. Through the dense patchwork of multiple lawsuits filed in Brazil, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, BHP has repeatedly denied any central culpability in the collapse.

Compensation payments to victims from the fund, to date, have also been scandalously tardy.  The BHP 2024 annual report notes that R$17.5 billion (US$3.5 billion) had been paid to 430,000 people as of June 30 this year, with R$12.2 billion (US$2.5 billion) forked out to 110,000 people under the Novel system, or “court mandated simplified indemnity system”.  The company praises this arrangement as one that enabled “informal workers” (cart drivers, sand miners, artisanal miners and street vendors) to receive compensation despite having “difficulty proving the damages they suffered”.

What BHP fails to underscore is that those under the Novel system had to wait for seven years after the dam collapse to receive any cash, with 40% of those only paid in the last two years.  Of the 430,000, some 290,000 received a pitiful R$1050 each for a disruption to their water supply for seven to 10 days following the dam collapse.  And just to add to the nastiness of it all, the replacement housing for victims has been of questionable quality.  Little wonder that Thatiele Monic, president of the Vila Santa Efigênia and Adjacências Quilombola Association, is suspicious of the efforts of the Renova Foundation.

The UK leg of proceedings, commenced in November 2018, is positively Dickensian in legal gyrations.  It began as a High Court lawsuit against BHP involving 240,000 plaintiffs, including Brazilian municipalities and Krenak indigenous communities.  In November 2020, the court dismissed the lawsuit, with Justice Turner making a memorable remark: “The task facing the managing judge in England would, I predict, be akin to trying to build a house of cards in a wind tunnel.” Various impediments, not least the size and scale of the claims, including “jurisdictional cross-contamination” and an abuse of process, were cited.

In March 2021, the Court of Appeal affirmed the decision, arguing that the plaintiffs were already seeking legal redress in Brazil.  In July, the London court of appeal reversed the decision, granting permission to appeal on grounds that the case had a “real prospect of success”.  To not do so would risk real injustice.  In July 2022, a Court of Appeal ruled that English courts could hear the case, noting that, “The vast majority of claimants who have recovered damages have only received very modest sums in respect of moral damages for interruption to their water supply”.  An April 2024 date was set for the commencement of trial proceedings.

In March 2023, the scale of the class action burgeoned further, with the addition of 500,000 claimants.  Attempts by BHP to delay the lawsuit till mid-2025 were rejected by a London court in May 2023.  On October 21 this year, the trial finally commenced.  It would last all but a few days.

The settlement agreement signed on October 25 includes BHP, Vale, Samarco and some half a dozen Brazilian authorities.  Of the 42 civil claims against BHP, the October 25 agreement covers the most monumental and contentious.  Its value – R$170 billion (US$31.5 billion) – is deceptive.  Brazilian authorities can have reason to cheer the result, as it comes close to the R$175 billion sought in civil claims in 2016.  BHP’s Chief Executive Officer, Mike Henry, also seemed suspiciously satisfied, claiming that the agreement would deliver a laundry list of benefits including “expanded and additional programs for the environment and for the people, including designated funding for the health system, economic recovery, improved infrastructure and extensive compensation and income support measures, including for farmers, fisher people and Indigenous and Traditional communities.”

A sharp analysis from Tony Boyd of the Australian Financial Review, hardly a forum known for its humanitarians and bleeding hearts, offers a rather different reading of Brazilian efforts and the tactics employed by the mining giants.  It was evident to Boyd “that over the past decade, BHP and Vale have outplayed the Brazilian federal government, and statements of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo as well as the federal and state Public Prosecutors’ and Public Defenders’ Offices.” 

Much of this has to do, as Boyd remarks, on the time value of money.  Some 60% of the final R$100 billion settlement is payable over 20 years.  Taking that time frame into account, the nominal amount comes to a net present value of R$48 billion.  Using the net present value analysis also means that the R$32 billion commitment to cover the cost of removing tailings from the Rio Doce and R$30,000 compensation awards to individuals and small businesses who opt into the arrangement, is R$25 billion.

The financial burden arising from BHP’s compensatory undertakings has also been lessened by the near decade process of dispute resolution, allowing the reopening of the Samarco iron ore mine to take place in the meantime with healthy annual returns of US$750 million.

Even now, BHP’s mild description of the catastrophe is given a coolly confident assessment.  The company’s website notes that since the dam breach, Samarco operates “with a strong focus on safety and sustainability.”  Alleviating the use of dams has been possible because of the implementation of a “new filtration system”, while 80% of the tailings arising from the operations “are now dry stacked, with the rest deposited in a confined rocky pit.”  Feeble assurance to those hundreds of thousands affected that fateful November in 2015.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: A village flooded in the Bento Rodrigues dam disaster (2015). The dam was a property of Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and BHP Billiton. (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

The Spanish region of Valencia has been struck by one of the deadliest natural disasters in recent European history, as intense flash floods and a rare tornado ravaged communities, killing at least 200 people, displacing thousands, and causing extensive property and infrastructure damage. This catastrophe was triggered by a powerful DANA (Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos), also known as “La Gota Fría” or “The Cold Drop,” which caused extreme rainfall and led to rivers overflowing, submerging entire neighborhoods in mud and debris. Valencia’s densely populated coastal areas, especially Paiporta, Utiel, and surrounding towns, faced the brunt of this disaster, with some buildings inundated by water levels reaching nearly 3 meters.

Local authorities and residents are grappling with the enormous scale of destruction. Emergency teams, including more than a thousand military personnel, are carrying out rescue operations in affected areas. Some regions have been transformed into hazardous mud pits where rescuers, at times relying on helicopters, are struggling to locate and rescue trapped citizens. Meanwhile, devastated communities recount terrifying experiences: scenes of cars floating down the streets, elderly residents of nursing homes in chest-deep waters, and people taking refuge on rooftops. Many local businesses have suffered total loss, with owners like Javier Berenguer, who had to flee his bakery as it flooded, now facing ruin.

In response, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish government have pledged to mobilize national resources to support recovery efforts, and the EU has offered to assist. However, the crisis has highlighted serious financial challenges. Reports suggest Spain’s national finances are severely strained, due in part to the government’s substantial support for Ukraine, an effort that has prioritized military and humanitarian aid abroad. Critics argue that the extensive spending on international conflicts has left Spain’s domestic emergency response capabilities underfunded and ill-prepared for a disaster of this scale. Many are calling for increased transparency and prioritization of Spain’s own crises before engaging further in external conflicts.

The ongoing crisis not only sheds light on financial strain but has also sparked debate around the impact of climate change on Spain’s susceptibility to extreme weather events. Scientists have long warned that rising global temperatures could intensify Spain’s seasonal floods, especially in vulnerable Mediterranean regions like Valencia, where infrastructure and terrain make communities highly susceptible to flash flooding.

With the country now in three days of national mourning, attention is turning to how Spain can build more resilient systems against future natural disasters and balance domestic needs with international commitments. As recovery operations continue, Spain faces tough questions on preparedness, resource allocation, and the balance between foreign and domestic priorities.

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Featured image is from NASA Earth Observatory

[Important article first published on September 24, 2019]

The 5G danger can’t be overstated. 

5G (5th Generation) is now being actively rolled out in many cities around the world. Simultaneously, as awareness over its horrific health and privacy impacts is rising, many places are issuing moratoriums on it or banning it, such as the entire nation of Belgium, the city of Vaud (Switzerland) and San Francisco (USA). Radiofrequency radiation (RF or RFR) and electromagnetic fields (EMF) are being increasingly recognized as new types of pollution – environmental pollution. Here are 13 reasons exposing the 5G danger, which could turn into an unmitigated health and privacy catastrophe if enough people don’t rise up to stop it.

1. 5G Danger: Hijacking Your Sweat Duct Antennae

The 5G network uses and broadcasts frequencies which affect our sweat ducts, which act as antennae. In other words, our largest organ, the skin, can be influenced and manipulated by 5G. As I reported in this the article 5G and IoT: Total Technological Control Grid Being Rolled Out Fast, scientist Dr. Ben-Ishai exposed the connection between 5G and our body’s sweat ducts in this video:

“[The 5G frequencies] will zap [us] with wavelengths that will interact with the geometrical structure of our skin … We found that sweat ducts work like helical antennas … the sweat duct was an integral part of the mechanism for the absorption of energy, electromagnetic, between 75-100 GHz, and that if you changed the character of the sweat duct, i.e. made it work, you could actually change that absorption at some point, and if you could do that you could trace how a person is under stress.“

2. 5G Danger: 5G Amplifies EMF Damage via VGCCs

Wireless radiation and EMF scientist Dr. Martin Pall has done groundbreaking research in explaining exactly how EMFs cause premature aging and injury to the human body, including damage to fertility, brains, hearts and even DNA! He pioneered research showing how EMFs activate the body’s VGCCs (Voltage-gated calcium channels) which causes them to release excess calcium ions into the cell. This then leads to nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide which react nearly instantaneously to form peroxynitrite and free radicals. Many studies like this show peroxynitrite damages DNA. Dr. Pall has stated unequivocally that the “5G rollout is absolutely insane.” 

3. 5G Danger: Pulsed Wave Far More Damaging than Continuous Wave Radiation

A significant and unique feature of Smart Meters is that they emit pulsed wave radiation not continuous wave radiation. In other words, they run in start-stop cycles of emitting a burst of EMF then going temporarily inactive. This happens an incredibly high amount of times per day; court documents with testimony from utility companies (like Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California) reveal that smart meters send pulsed waves between 9,600 and 190,000 times per day!

In this 2018 video, Dr. Pall states there are 13 studies which show that pulsed wave EMFs are more active (and dangerous) than continuous wave EMFs. You can read the evidence here.

4. 5G Danger: 5G Promotes Deep EMF Penetration

The main reason why cell or mobile phones are more dangerous for children than adults (apart from the fact that radiation absorption is cumulative over a lifetime) is due to EMF penetration.

Dr. Pall writes:

“The industry has also made claims that more conventional microwave frequency EMFs are limited in effect to the outer 1 cm of the body. We know that is not true, however because of the effects deep in the human brain, on the heart and on hormone systems. Perhaps the most important two studies demonstrating effects deep within the body are the studies of Professor Hässig and his colleagues in Switzerland on cataract formation in newborn calves. These two studies clearly show that when pregnant cows are grazing near mobile phone base stations (also called cell phone towers), the calves are born with very greatly increased incidences of cataracts.”

Hässig wrote in his 2009 study:

“Of 253 calves, 79 (32%) had various degrees of nuclear cataract, but only 9 (3.6%) calves had severe nuclear cataract. Results demonstrate a relation between the location of veals calves with nuclear cataracts in the first trimester of gestation and the strength of antennas. The number of antennas within 100 to 199 meters was associated with oxidative stress and there was an association between oxidative stress and the distance to the nearest MPBS (Mobile Phone Base Station).”

5. 5G Danger: 5G is a Weapons System Disguised as a Consumer Convenience

Mark Steele has been very outspoken against 5G and has now been widely interviewed, including by Project Camelot and also by Sacha Stone in his documentary 5G Apocalypse: The Extinction Event. Steele claims that although widespread reports state that 5G is operating in the 24-100 GHz range, it is actually sub-gigahertz (meaning under the GHz threshold, so still measured in MHz). He says 5G is a weapons system like long-range radar, phased array radar and directed energy (DEW was used in 9/11 and various fires like the Paradise fires). He claims that when you examine 5G hardware, it has a dielectric lens which is proof it is a weapons system. Autonomous vehicles can use 5G to shine in mirrors of other drivers (which is so strong and damaging it is equivalent to assault). Mark talks about how 5G is powerful enough to kill babies in wombs. He states:

“5G is a weapons system, nothing more, nothing less. It’s got nothing to do with telecommunications for humans. 5G is a machine to machine connection for autonomous vehicles.”

6. 5G Danger: LA Firefighters Develop Ailments After Being Too Close to Towers

In this video a 25 year veteran firefighter from Los Angeles compares cell towers to cigarettes. He calls for a stop to the cell/mobile phone base stations being built on or near fire stations. Firefighters are not the only ones suffering the effects; it was reported that hundreds of birds fell from the sky in the Netherlands during a 5G test.

7. 5G Danger: Same Frequencies as used for Crowd Dispersal

5G purportedly uses millimeter wave (MMW) frequencies, so called because the frequencies are so high (in the 24-100 GHz range). Since 1 GHz = 1 billion GHz, we are talking about frequencies with very very short wavelength (the distance between the peak of one wave and the next). The distances are so tiny they are measured in millimeters, hence the term millimeter wave. These are the exact same frequencies used by the military for their non-lethal weapons such as Active Denial Systems for crowd dispersal. These weapons have the capacity to cause tremendous injury. Dr. Paul Ben-Ishai said, “If you are unlucky enough to be standing there when it hits you, you will feel like your body is on fire.”

8. 5G Danger: Mutagenic (Causing DNA Damage) and Carcinogenic (Causing Cancer)?

The MMW frequencies of 5G cause mitochondrial DNA damage – which is then passed down generations. 5G is mutagenic. These mutations are inherited by the next generation! This has grave implications for genetic purity. How many people are thinking about this when they can’t stop looking at their screens? This website lists many studies showing the mitochondrial damage that occurs after exposure to EMF radiation.

With mutagenesis usually comes carcinogenesis. In other words, once something is powerful and dangerous enough to cause DNA damage, chances are high it will lead to cancer. Mark Steele says 5G is a class 1 carcinogen, although the WHO (World Health Organization) very conservatively classifies cell phone towers as a class 2b possible carcinogen. It’s important to note, however, that the WHO is an agency of the UN which was set up by the Rockefellers, an illustrious NWO Illuminati family who plan to use the UN as a vehicle to usher in a One World Government.

5G is being rushed out without the proper safety testing done, so we don’t have much data on how 5G specifically causes cancer, but there is an abundance of evidence showing how 2G, 3G and 4G EMFs are implicated in many kinds of cancer, including brain cancer. This website has a good collection of the many studies done.

9. 5G Danger: Phased Array Densification

5G requires significantly more transmitters or broadcasters than earlier generations. It is a plan of massive infrastructure creation, with stations, towers and bases planned to be put almost everywhere, including in the heart of residential neighborhoods. The effects of this kind of densification could be disastrous.

5G is powerful enough to 3D map the inside of your home and other buildings. Mark Steele specifically highlights the 868 MHz frequency, previously used for battlefield interrogations and which can travel with ease through bricks and concrete. He claims this frequency can single out specific people … interesting given all the electronic harassment and gang stalking which occurs against TIs (Targeted Individuals).

5G infrastructure will consist of small phased array antennas shooting out radiation at their targets like a bullet. The rays of microwaves they produce will be strong enough to pass through walls and human bodies. We will be blanketed with this 24/7/365, and what’s worse, the coverage area is slated to be broader than the current 4G, eventually encompassing every square inch of Earth.

10. 5G Danger: Killing All the Insects?

Insects, birds and children are the most vulnerable to 5G due to their body size. Claire Edwards is a former UN staff editor who brought the EMF/5G issue to their attention of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. She stated in an anti-5G rally speech in Stockholm:

“It’s interesting to note that in the last 20 years we have lost 80% of our insects. And if we get 5G, we’re going to lose 100% of our insects.  When the insects go, we go too.”

Both insects and 5G need antennas: insects use them, among other things, in their sense of smell, while 5G uses them to propagate waves. Not surprisingly, insects are sensitive to 5G EMF waves; this recent study showed that insects exposed to 5G radiation experienced an increase in their body temperature.

“Studies have shown that the frequencies used by 5G increase the body temperature of insects. This phenomenon was not observed with 4G or WiFi.”

Meanwhile the study Exposure of Insects to Radio-Frequency Electromagnetic Fields from 2 to 120 GHz concludes:

“Future wavelengths of the electromagnetic fields used for the wireless telecommunication systems will decrease and become comparable to the body size of insects and therefore, the absorption of RF-EMFs in insects is expected to increase.”

5G is planned to be an inescapable grid – with plans afoot to beam it down from space! This ties into the Space Fence agenda as I discussed in my article Space Fence: Connecting the Surveillance and Transhumanist Agendas. The organization International Appeal Stop 5G on Earth and in Space writes:

“At least five companies are proposing to provide 5G from space from a combined 20,000 satellites in low- and medium-Earth orbit that will blanket the Earth with powerful, focused, steerable beams. Each satellite will emit millimetre waves with an effective radiated power of up to 5 million watts from thousands of antennas arranged in a phased array.”

It is vital to understand the bigger picture of the grand conspiracy here. All these disruptive and hazardous technologies – 5G, wi-fi, wireless radiation, HAARP, ionospheric heating, geoengineering, GMOs, etc. – are going to be woven into one giant integrated system of surveillance, command and control. Just as one small example, geoengineering involves the spraying of chemtrails loaded with metal particulates – which 5G can use.

12. 5G Danger: Re-Radiation Inside the Body

Way back in 2002, RF researcher Arthur Firstenberg published an analysis of 5G long before the technology was approved. He explained how, due to 5G EM pulses being extremely short and delivered in bursts, they actually replicate inside the body – and end up creating tiny new 5G antennas internally. Firstenberg wrote:

“… when extremely short electromagnetic pulses enter the body, something else happens: the moving charges themselves become little antennas that re-radiate the electromagnetic field and send it deeper into the body …”

“These re-radiated waves are called Brillouin precursors … They become significant when either the power or the phase of the wave changes rapidly enough … This means that the reassurance we are being given – that these millimeter waves are too short to penetrate far into the body – is not true.”

This echoes a previous point made – that 5G penetration is a serious danger.

13. 5G Danger: Insurance Companies Refuse to Underwrite Big Wireless. What Do They Know?

Insurance companies (the most famous of which is Lloyds of London) have made headlines by refusing to insure Big Wireless (the telecommunication corporate conglomerate) against wi-fi and 5G-related illnesses and claims:

“Well, Lloyd’s November 2010 Risk Assessment Team’s Report gives us a solid clue: the report compares these wireless technologies with asbestos, in that the early research on asbestos was “inconclusive” and only later did it become obvious to anyone paying attention that asbestos causes cancer. Keep in mind that Lloyd’s Risk Assessment study of wi-fi was published over 8 [now 9 – Ed.] years ago. Even back then, however, their Risk Assessment Team was smart enough to realize that new evidence just might emerge showing that the various wi-fi frequencies do cause illness.”

Conclusion: 5G Grid Part of Larger Command, Control, Surveillance and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agenda

5G is qualitatively and quantitatively different to 4G. It is much more than just the next step up from 4G. 5G will not only beam tens to hundreds times more radiation than 4G, but the introduction of MMW technology means a whole new host of hazards. History repeats itself. Just like it took some time for real science to catch up with tobacco/cigarettes, and just like it took some time for real science to catch up with the monstrosity that are GMOs (now rebranded as BioEngineered Foods), so too will real science catch up with 5G. In the meantime, you can expect all sorts of junk science to be put forth to justify it, including misdirections and distractions like only focusing on the thermal effects of wireless (and ignoring the evidence of dangerous non-thermal effects).

Ultimately, 5G is part of the NWO agenda to set up a giant, inescapable command and control grid that eliminates all privacy and allows the manipulators to surveil every single person on the planet all the time. If there was ever a time for activists to step up in the name of freedom, truth, health, privacy and sovereignty, now is the time.

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Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance. Makia is on Steemit and FB.

Sources:

*http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/5g-iot-technological-control-grid/

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVtGldYXK4

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBsUWbUB6PE

*https://www.emfacts.com/2018/08/martin-palls-book-on-5g-is-available-online/

*http://emfsafetynetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/PGERFDataOpt-outalternatives_11-1-11-3pm.pdf

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBsUWbUB6PE

*https://s3.amazonaws.com/nghl-ntge/pall-to-eu-on-5g-harm-march-2018.pdf

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19780007

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712174/

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol3tAxnNccY

*https://everydayconcerned.net/2019/02/15/5g-is-a-weapons-system-nothing-more-nothing-less-technical-weapons-expert-mark-steele-issues-wake-up-call-to-all-uk-residents-on-5g-led-street-lights-rollout-in-gateshead/

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-x_xv6dg9E

*https://thetruthrevolution.net/hundreds-of-birds-fall-from-the-sky-during-5g-test-in-the-netherlands

*https://jnlwp.defense.gov/About/Frequently-Asked-Questions/Active-Denial-System-FAQs/

*https://mdsafetech.org/mitochondrial-effects/

*https://www.powerwatch.org.uk/health/braintumours.asp

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hayxz_GEha8 (stockholm)

*http://emrabc.ca/?p=15174

*https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22271-3

*http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/space-fence-surveillance-transhumanism/

*https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/the-appeal

*https://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/5g-from-blankets-to-bullets/

*https://principia-scientific.org/lloyds-insurers-refuse-to-cover-5g-wi-fi-illnesses/

[First published by Global Research in December 2023]

Nov. 27, 2023 – Statistics Canada released a fascinating report called “Deaths 2022”. Here is my analysis of the report.

The Statistics Canada Report can be accessed HERE. 

Excess deaths:

• Let’s start by analyzing some simple numbers.
• 48,780 excess deaths in 2022 compared to 2019. 17% increase in mortality.
• That’s 0.128% of the population, or 1 in every 784 Canadians died in 2022.
• In USA, that would be equivalent to 423,270 American deaths

What would you do?

• Let’s assume you’re the Trudeau government and you’ve poisoned your population.
• You recommended 7 experimental COVID-19 Vaccines that are now causing heart attacks, blood clots, collapses, cancers & sudden deaths.
• These are the COVID-19 Vaccines the Canadian Government (NACI) recommended:
  • 2 doses in early 2021
  • 1st booster in late 2021
  • 2nd booster in April 2022
  • 3rd (Omicron bivalent booster) in Oct.2022
  • 4th (Omicron bivalent booster) in Mar.2023
  • 5th (XBB.1.5 monovalent booster) in Sep.2023
• If you followed the Canadian government recommendations precisely, you would have taken 7 COVID-19 Vaccines as of right now.
• It was also possible to skip the 2nd booster and wait for the Omicron bivalent, which means you would have taken 6 COVID-19 Vaccines.
• We know that there is a tsunami of sudden deaths in the COVID-19 Vaccinated, but how do you present that data as the Federal Government?

What caused 48,780 deaths in 2022?

• 19,700 deaths from “COVID-19” in 2022, up from 15,900 in 2020.
• And this after 7 COVID-19 Vaccines recommended by NACI.
• This is proof that COVID-19 Vaccines did not save a single life.
• It’s important to remember that 80% of COVID-19 deaths in 2020 in Canada were found to be in long term care home settings (source), where vulnerable seniors were often left to die without adequate treatment (like antibiotics), or were given euthanasia drug cocktails (midazolam, morphine).
• So most COVID-19 deaths in 2020 were not true COVID-19 deaths.
• In terms of vaccines protecting from “severe disease”, where is this protection on the graph below? I don’t see any protection in 2021. Hospitalizations were similar in 2021 compared to 2020.
• Now look at what happened after COVID-19 mRNA 1st booster shots were rolled out in Nov-Dec.2021. This was followed by massive Omicron spikes in 2022 in Jan (BA.1), March (BA.2), July (BA.5), October (BA.5+).
• Again, where is this “protection from severe illness” promised by the vaccines?
• There is once again no evidence of vaccines protecting people in 2022.

• Even if we accept 19,700 deaths from COVID-19 in 2022, who was dying?
• BC government data (just before they deleted it in July 2022) told us 90% of those dying were Vaccinated.
• So 17,730 of the 19,700 deaths (90%) were COVID-19 Vaccinated anyways.
• Therefore, either:
  • they died from a COVID-19 Vaccine Injury and it was falsely reported as a COVID-19 death, or
  • they died from failure of their COVID-19 Vaccine (and likely Immune system injury) and they died from COVID-19.
• Any way you dissect it, these 19,700 “COVID-19 deaths” are really COVID-19 Vaccine deaths.
• Where is the 99% or 95% COVID-19 Vaccine efficacy we were promised?

Unspecified causes of deaths:

• 16,043, a stunning 375% increase from 2019 when it was 3,378!
• This is the most stunning admission from the entire report.
• This is also the number that has been circulated extensively on social media
• We don’t actually get any plausible explanation for this number in the entire report.

Cardiac

• Cardiac deaths increased by 4,000.
• This is a significant number, although I suspect many cardiac deaths are hidden in the “unspecified” or “COVID-19” death categories.

Accidents (Unintentional injuries)

• 18,365, up almost 3,000 from 2019 (15,527)
• I’m guessing they’re hiding blood clots here (strokes, falls, medical emergency while driving, etc)

Cancer

• Turbo Cancer due to COVID-19 Vaccines is a signal they have to hide at all costs.
• I’m not surprised to see only a small rise from 80,400 to 82,400, or +2000
• This is a number that is undoubtedly tampered with.
• It would be very easy to hide cancer deaths as COVID-19 deaths.

Statistics Canada:

“Life expectancy decreases for a third year in a row”.

• the important detail: “In 2022, the decline was more prominent among females than among males”.
• more women are vaccine injured than men.
• women are losing life expectancy in Canada at faster rate than men.

“COVID-19 deaths…This increase may in part be due to the exposure to new highly transmissible COVID-19 variants and the gradual return to normalcy, eg. reduced restrictions and masking requirements”

• Translation: 19,700 7x-vaccinated Canadians died from COVID-19 because of the milder new variants, no lockdowns and they stopped masking.
• this explanation makes NO SENSE – if their vaccine protected them, they wouldn’t need lockdowns, wouldn’t need masks that don’t work, and they certainly wouldn’t be dying from milder variants.
• so Statistics Canada has NO EXPLANATION for these 19,700 deaths.

“Deaths due to influenza and pneumonia on the rise”

• “deaths due to influenza and pneumonia increased by 45.4% from 2021 to 2022”
• I’ve often talked about this, this is due to COVID-19 Vaccine Immune damage.

“information on the causes of death, particularly among younger Canadians, whose deaths are more likely to result in an investigation, typically requires more time before it is reported to Statistics Canada…the data released today are preliminary”

• they’re telling us that we’re not getting all the young Canadian sudden deaths in this report.
• So the 48,700 Excess deaths doesn’t include an unknown number of “younger Canadians” who died suddenly.

My Take…

Statistics Canada “Deaths 2022” is data that you can reasonably expect has been thoroughly manipulated and tampered with.

It’s “preliminary” and doesn’t include many “younger Canadians” who died suddenly.

Even so, it is a devastating report.

48,780 Excess deaths in 2022 (17% increase in mortality).

I propose that the vast majority of these are COVID-19 Vaccine deaths.

These COVID-19 vaccine deaths are being concealed as:

• 19,716 COVID-19 deaths (not possible)
• 16,043 Unspecified causes (no explanation given or even attempted)
• the remaining 12,000 or so they’re not hiding:
  • 4,000 Cardiac
  • 3,000 Accidents
  • 2,000 Cancers
  • 800 liver disease
  • 500 kidney disease
  • 500 diabetes

A reminder that 1 in every 784 Canadians died in 2022, as admitted by the Canadian government in this Nov.27, 2023 Statistics Canada report. 

This is very much in line with Denis Rancourt’s work on excess deaths due to COVID-19 Vaccination.

This is what I wrote in my very first substack article on Feb.6, 2023:

“A good quick rule of thumb is: highly COVID vaccinated countries lost0.1% of their total population to “excess deaths” in 2022. That’s 1 in every 1000 people, dead.”

Statistics Canada corrected me. Not 1 in 1000.

Worse. 1 in 784.

*

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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 Michael Nevradakis, PhD via COVID Intel

[This article first appeared on GR in June 2024.]

Dr. Francis Boyle, the Harvard educated law professor that drafted the 1989 Biological Weapons and Antiterrorism Act, which passed both houses of Congress unanimously, provided an affidavit stating that Covid 19 injections and mRNA nanoparticle injections violate the law he wrote. Dr. Boyle asserted that ‘COVID 19 injections’, ‘COVID 19 nanoparticle injections’, and ‘mRNA nanoparticle injections’ are biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction and violate Biological Weapons 18 USC § 175; Weapons and Firearms § 790.166 Fla. Stat. (2023).

Dr. Boyle provided this affidavit in a Florida case filed by Dr. Joseph Sansone involving an Emergency Petition for a Writ of Mandamus that seeks to compel Governor DeSantis to prohibit the distribution of ‘COVID 19 injections’, ‘COVID 19 nanoparticle injections’, and ‘mRNA nanoparticle injections’, in the state of Florida. It also seeks to compel Attorney General Ashley Moody to confiscate the vials.

The original Emergency Petition for a Writ of Mandamus was filed on March 3rd, 2024, in the Florida Supreme Court. It was then transferred to the Circuit Court in Leon County on March 20th, 2024. On April 9th, 2024, the Circuit Court dismissed the case. The case is now in the appellate court. The Appellate Brief was filed on Memorial Day, May 27th, 2024.

The pleadings assert that the distribution of ‘COVID 19 injections’, ‘COVID 19 nanoparticle injections’, and ‘mRNA nanoparticle injections’, violate – Biological Weapons 18 USC § 175; Weapons and Firearms § 790.166 Fla. Stat. (2023); Federal Crime of Treason 18 USC § 2381; Treason § 876.32 Fla. Stat. (2023); Domestic Terrorism, 18 USC § 2331; Terrorism § 775.30 Fla. Stat. (2023); Murder § 782.04 (1)(a) Fla. Stat. (2023); and Genocide 18 USC §1091; Florida Drugs and Cosmetic Act § 499.005 (2) Fla. Stat. (2023); Fraud § 817.034 Fla Stat. (2023); Accessory After the Fact § 777.03 Fla. Stat. (2023); and Florida Medical Consent Law § 766.103 Fla Stat. (2023).

Dr. Boyle is considered one of the world’s leading legal experts on biological weapons. Dr. Boyle’s affidavit adds a tremendous amount of credibility to the case, which already has a tremendous body of evidence provided in the writ of mandamus. Affidavits stating that the injections are biological and technological weapons, were also provided by med legal advisor and biotech analyst Karen Kingston, who researched the evidence that makes of the Facts of the Case section of the Mandamus, and from Ana Mihalcea, M.D., PhD. Dr. Mihalcea’s research is included in the Mandamus. Dr. Mihalcea is one of the world’s leading researchers into the effects of self replicating nanotechnology in the blood of injected as well as the effects in the blood of the uninjected as a result of shedding.

Dr. Boyle’s affidavit is below:

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[Incisive article by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts first published by Global Research on June 13, 2024]

***

These are the words of Serbia’s President Aleksander Vucic. He ought to know. He is in the middle of it. He thinks Europe will be at war with Russia in “not more than three or four months,” if that long.

President Vucic says “no one is attempting to stop the war. Nobody is speaking about peace. Peace is almost a forbidden word.” Scroll down for text and 5 minute video

Hungarian leader Viktor Orban has a similar view as does Slovakian president Robert Fico, who survived a recent assassination attempt.

In Western Europe, UK, and Washington everyone is talking about wider war with long range missiles used for attacks deep into Russia. Such attacks cannot revive the defeated Ukrainian military. Their purpose seems to be to provoke Russia into a retaliation that Washington can use to widen the war.

President Vucic is correct. The West is making no effort–indeed, is avoiding all effort–to defuse the dangerous situation. Instead, the West is throwing oil on fire with long range missile attacks and French troops sent into Ukraine.

It has been completely clear from day one that Putin’s limited drawn-out war enabled the West to get more and more involved into the conflict to the point that the conflict now is really between the West and Russia. As President Vucic says, the West’s prestige is now involved and the West cannot permit Russia to prevail.

It seems that Putin might have finally realized that the war is no longer limited to Donbas and has become a wider threat that is not subject to negotiation on terms that Russia can accept.

Now that Putin is backed into a corner with the prospect of NATO missiles striking deep into Russia, President Vucic’s expectation that war is close at hand is understandable. The way matters are shaping up, the avoidance of war depends on how many provocations the Kremlin will accept and for how long. Putin needs to quickly knock Ukraine out of the war before Ukraine fills up with NATO military personnel.

Zelensky’s term has expired, making him illegitimate. Russian forces should quickly take Kiev, install a new government agreeable to Ukraine as a neutral country and to the reunification of Donbas with Russia.

I don’t know if Putin still has time to avoid a larger war by quickly winning the current conflict or whether Putin has been fighting on the cheap and lacks the force size to take Kiev and control the country.

If Putin has been too limited in his goal and too parsimonious with his means, he has bought himself a wider war.

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

A Silent and Warm Revolution in the Arctic Ocean: ‘As the Ice Melts, the Hegemonic Sea Power Also Melts’

By Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, November 04, 2024

The melting of ice in the Arctic Ocean continues to affect not only maritime transportation but also global geopolitics. As the ice melts, Anglo-Saxon maritime dominance also melts. In this context, a new development that will be a milestone for world maritime trade took place on September 25, 2024, on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) controlled by Russia in the Arctic Ocean.

Poland’s Military Loan Proposal to Ukraine Shows That Warsaw Is Finally Wising Up

By Andrew Korybko, November 05, 2024

This is in response to Polish public opinion souring on the proxy war and the ruling liberal-globalist coalition consequently trying to exploit that in an attempt to raise the chances that their candidate replaces the outgoing conservative-nationalist president during next year’s election.

The End Run – US Elections 5 November 2024. “Uncontrolled Immigrant Flood.” Peter Koenig

By Peter Koenig, November 04, 2024

The US Border Chief Aaron Heitke, who served under 5 different administrations, says the “US Government has been run by a terrorist”. He means it, and explains how especially the southern borders were kept open to bring in millions of illegal immigrants, of whom many women and children.

Obliterating Context Obliterates the Truth. Israel Detains 9,400 Hostages, Hamas Detains 111

By Mark Taliano, November 04, 2024

Western mainstream messaging has fabricated the Big Lie that somehow the Western-supported Zionist holocaust of Palestinian civilians is justified because Apartheid Israel is a victim and Hamas has Israeli hostages.

Election 2024: “Too Big to Rig”?

By Richard C. Cook, November 04, 2024

With all indications now pointing to a Donald Trump landslide win over the least qualified candidate in U.S. presidential election history in Kamala Harris, the question now is whether Trump’s looming victory is “Too Big to Rig.” That is how Republican Party operatives are viewing the only possible path for a hopelessly corrupt and compromised Democratic Party machine to grope their way to an improbable upset. 

Israel or Palestine? “Israeli genocidal behavior against Palestinian resistance has all the marks of desperation”

By Dr. Galina Litvinov De Roeck, November 05, 2024

As a descendent of the Russian Diaspora, I understand perfectly the Jewish search for a safe place. However, the dream of the ‘promised land’ has to be on the right side of history. Colonization, however, let alone some mythical homeland of 3,000 years ago, simply stands on the wrong side of history.

Post-Election Truths: The Things That Won’t Change, No Matter Who Wins

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, November 04, 2024

After months of handwringing and mud-slinging and fear-mongering, the votes have finally been cast and the outcome has been decided: the Deep State has won.

[This article was originally published by The Guardian in 2005.]

I have rarely seen the Commons so full and so silent as when it met yesterday to hear of the London bombings. A forum that often is raucous and rowdy was solemn and grave. A chamber that normally is a bear pit of partisan emotions was united in shock and sorrow. Even Ian Paisley made a humane plea to the press not to repeat the offence that occurred in Northern Ireland when journalists demanded comment from relatives before they were informed that their loved ones were dead.

The immediate response to such human tragedy must be empathy with the pain of those injured and the grief of those bereaved. We recoil more deeply from loss of life in such an atrocity because we know the unexpected disappearance of partners, children and parents must be even harder to bear than a natural death. It is sudden, and therefore there is no farewell or preparation for the blow. Across London today there are relatives whose pain may be more acute because they never had the chance to offer or hear last words of affection.

It is arbitrary and therefore an event that changes whole lives, which turn on the accident of momentary decisions. How many people this morning ask themselves how different it might have been if their partner had taken the next bus or caught an earlier tube?

But perhaps the loss is hardest to bear because it is so difficult to answer the question why it should have happened. This weekend we will salute the heroism of the generation that defended Britain in the last war. In advance of the commemoration there have been many stories told of the courage of those who risked their lives and sometimes lost their lives to defeat fascism. They provide moving, humbling examples of what the human spirit is capable, but at least the relatives of the men and women who died then knew what they were fighting for. What purpose is there to yesterday’s senseless murders? Who could possibly imagine that they have a cause that might profit from such pointless carnage?

At the time of writing, no group has surfaced even to explain why they launched the assault. Sometime over the next few days we may be offered a website entry or a video message attempting to justify the impossible, but there is no language that can supply a rational basis for such arbitrary slaughter. The explanation, when it is offered, is likely to rely not on reason but on the declaration of an obsessive fundamentalist identity that leaves no room for pity for victims who do not share that identity.

Yesterday the prime minister described the bombings as an attack on our values as a society. In the next few days we should remember that among those values are tolerance and mutual respect for those from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Only the day before, London was celebrating its coup in winning the Olympic Games, partly through demonstrating to the world the success of our multicultural credentials. Nothing would please better those who planted yesterday’s bombs than for the atrocity to breed suspicion and hostility to minorities in our own community. Defeating the terrorists also means defeating their poisonous belief that peoples of different faiths and ethnic origins cannot coexist.

In the absence of anyone else owning up to yesterday’s crimes, we will be subjected to a spate of articles analysing the threat of militant Islam. Ironically they will fall in the same week that we recall the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica, when the powerful nations of Europe failed to protect 8,000 Muslims from being annihilated in the worst terrorist act in Europe of the past generation.

Osama bin Laden is no more a true representative of Islam than General Mladic, who commanded the Serbian forces, could be held up as an example of Christianity. After all, it is written in the Qur’an that we were made into different peoples not that we might despise each other, but that we might understand each other.

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden’s organisation would turn its attention to the west.

The danger now is that the west’s current response to the terrorist threat compounds that original error. So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more the west emphasises confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world who want to speak up for cooperation. Success will only come from isolating the terrorists and denying them support, funds and recruits, which means focusing more on our common ground with the Muslim world than on what divides us.

The G8 summit is not the best-designed forum in which to launch such a dialogue with Muslim countries, as none of them is included in the core membership. Nor do any of them make up the outer circle of select emerging economies, such as China, Brazil and India, which are also invited to Gleneagles. We are not going to address the sense of marginalisation among Muslim countries if we do not make more of an effort to be inclusive of them in the architecture of global governance.

But the G8 does have the opportunity in its communique today to give a forceful response to the latest terrorist attack. That should include a statement of their joint resolve to hunt down those who bear responsibility for yesterday’s crimes. But it must seize the opportunity to address the wider issues at the root of terrorism.

In particular, it would be perverse if the focus of the G8 on making poverty history was now obscured by yesterday’s bombings. The breeding grounds of terrorism are to be found in the poverty of back streets, where fundamentalism offers a false, easy sense of pride and identity to young men who feel denied of any hope or any economic opportunity for themselves. A war on world poverty may well do more for the security of the west than a war on terror.

And in the privacy of their extensive suites, yesterday’s atrocities should prompt heart-searching among some of those present. President Bush is given to justifying the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that by fighting terrorism abroad, it protects the west from having to fight terrorists at home. Whatever else can be said in defence of the war in Iraq today, it cannot be claimed that it has protected us from terrorism on our soil.

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Featured image: Ambulances at Russell Square, London after the 2005-07-07 bombings (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

This is in response to Polish public opinion souring on the proxy war and the ruling liberal-globalist coalition consequently trying to exploit that in an attempt to raise the chances that their candidate replaces the outgoing conservative-nationalist president during next year’s election.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski proposed that Ukraine can order military equipment from his country on credit and then pay it back once the conflict ends in response to Zelensky complaining about Poland supposedly withholding some of its armaments such as the MiG-29 fighter jets. Sikorski also reminded Zelensky that Poland has done more for Ukraine than any other country in reference to President Andrzej Duda’s disclosure over the summer that it already gave 3.3% of its GPD to the cause.

Another important point that he made is that Poland is a “frontline country” against Russia and must therefore maintain its minimum national defense needs just in case the conflict spirals out of control. This echoed what Duda earlier said during his trip to South Korea about how

“There is no scenario in which we hand over weapons that we have recently bought for billions of zlotys from the pockets of our taxpayers. These weapons must serve the security and defense of the Republic of Poland.”

That possibility had been discussed over the past few weeks amidst reports of North Korean troops fighting Ukraine, the rumors of which (whether true or not) were assessed here as a means for getting South Korea to send some of its enormous shell stockpile to Ukraine at this crucial moment in the conflict. Russia continues gaining ground, and its potential capture of Pokrovsk could prove to be a turning point for the reasons explained here. Even US intelligence and military officials fear the worst.

Poland’s refusal to give away any more of its military equipment for free, let alone that which it just obtained from South Korea, despite how urgent the situation has recently become isn’t surprising. Not only did it already max out everything that it can donate by this summer without endangering its minimum national defense needs, but it’s also wising up to the fact that it’s been exploited by Ukraine, which reportedly receives strings-attached military aid from everyone else but Poland.

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Sikorski with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2023 (Licensed under CC BY 3.0 pl)

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There are also worsening political ties to consider after relations cooled over the past two months as the Volhynia Genocide dispute once again became a major issue. It’s beyond the scope of this analysis to elaborate on, but interested readers can learn more about it here, here, and here, with the takeaway being that Poland is disgusted that Ukraine refuses to exhume the victims’ remains. Sikorski and Zelensky also reportedly had a heated argument about this during the former’s visit to Kiev in mid-September.

That same report also claimed that Zelensky accused Poland of withholding military equipment from Ukraine during their argument, thus preceding what he explicitly complained about just last week. At the same time, Sikorski once again expressed support for Zelensky’s proposal that Poland intercept Russian missiles over Ukraine after the Helsinki Commission urged the US to approve this, but he also clarified that Poland won’t do so without support from NATO, which is presently lacking.

Considering this caveat and the US’ reluctance to approve direct NATO intervention in this conflict like that proposal requires, it’s likely that nothing will come of it unless hawkish American policymakers decide to “escalate to de-escalate” on more favorable terms out of desperation if the front collapses. Seeing as how there hasn’t been any serious indication of their interest in this thus far at least, it’s possible that Sikorski might be flirting with this doomed proposal to “save face” before Ukraine.

The return of the Volhynia Genocide dispute to the forefront of their political relations and Poland’s new policy of only transferring military equipment to Ukraine on credit instead of giving it away for free like before has harmed their ties so fantasizing about intercepting Russian missiles could just be a distraction. It’s a cost-free means of trying to manage their worsening ties, both in the political sphere as well as in the realm of public perceptions inside Ukraine, but some in the latter might see through this ruse.

In any case, what’s most important is that Poland is finally demanding something from Ukraine in return for all that it’s already done for it pro bono, namely the exhumation of the Volhynia Genocide victims’ remains and promises to pay for future arms imports at a later date. This new approach didn’t come about naturally but as a result to Polish society getting fed up with the proxy war as proven by a recent survey from a publicly financed research institution that was analyzed here.   

The only reason why Poland is wising up is because of next year’s presidential election that the ruling liberal-globalist coalition wants to win. Outgoing President Duda is a (very imperfect) conservative-nationalist who’s served to check returning Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ideologically driven domestic agenda. It’s therefore imperative for the ruling coalition to replace him one of their own, which could end up being Sikorski as he himself recently hinted in response to speculation about his candidacy.

This insight adds a new dimension to him championing Polish national interests in the Volhynia Genocide dispute and proposing a military loan to Ukraine instead of continuing to give everything away for free like before. It seems that he’s courting conservative-nationalist support for his possible candidacy via these means while also flirting with the scenario of intercepting Russian missiles over Ukraine (which is likely a ruse as was earlier written) in order to retain the support of his party’s liberal-globalist base.

What matters most is that the first two parts of his potential candidacy’s foreign policy platform have respectively worsened ties with Ukraine and its military situation. Remembering that these approaches are the result of Polish society’s changing perceptions towards Ukraine ahead of next year’s presidential election, it can therefore be said that public opinion there is leading to tangible changes in the regional political and military situations, thus showing the power that Poles wield when they come together.

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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, 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 regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

Twelve years ago, I joined an interfaith group on a trip to Israel and Palestine. My essay about the trip even won the first prize of a contest sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association (1). Sadly, the escalation of horrors visited on the region today could be anticipated even then: no serious measures were taken to solve the problem.

I would like to offer some comments on what looks like a historical impasse. Although I am not a historian, and not even a journalist, I do have a personal experience in a situation similar to the Israeli-Palestinian contest. It so happens that I lived my formative years – from 1949 to 1958 – in Morocco, an Arab country under French colonial rule at the time.

We had been looking for a safe place while waiting in Displaced Persons Camps in Germany after World War II, and since my Russian-born father was fluent in French, he was offered a job in a mining town in Southern Morocco.

We were neither French nor Moroccan, and this offered a neutral position to observe our new surroundings. Although our own circumstances were modest, the little mining town we inhabited on the Southern slope of the Atlas Mountains had running water and electricity, while the much larger Moroccan development did not. I watched women cook their meals over primitive charcoal pits or wash their clothes in a nearby river. And all the actual miners who went into the underground tunnels were Moroccans.

There was no school in our little town, so my parents sent me to a French boarding school in Marrakech. Marrakech is famous for its exotic tourist attractions, and my trusty bike took me everywhere – from the European section with its nice French restaurants known as the Gueliz, to the Arab section known as the Medina, with its narrow streets crowded with donkeys and vendors.

I picked up French and even some ‘street Arabic’ to barter at the famous Square of Djemaa-el-Fna.  I struggled with Chleuh, the Berber tongue used in the Atlas Mountains. I was even exposed to the fancy script of classical Arabic used in the Koran – but not well enough to read it in the original, contenting myself with a French translation.

French was, of course, the really practical means of communication in Morocco, and this is why I undertook to teach it to our young ‘boy’ Lahsen. He had walked a hundred kilometers from a distant valley to look for a job in our mine. But he was too young to get a job, and my mom took him in to help out with our household. He was bright and soon became an indispensable member of our family.

But all was not ‘happy days.’ I remember walking down the main street of Marrakech one day, and startled to see people, evidently strangers, stop and hug each other, and even cry. I heard them refer to Dien Ben Phu. As the headlines explained later, Dien Ben Phu was a spectacular battle the French had – inconceivably – lost in Vietnam. The year was 1954. And even in our sunny Morocco, a sense of disquiet began to be felt. There was news of a bomb exploding on the streets of Casablanca. Apparently, a car had been held up on a mountain road not too far off. And right across the street from our own house, but higher up on a hill, a fairly sizable building went up, and then French soldiers were housed there. It turned out to be a waystation to Algeria, where serious uprisings were taking place.

And then somebody claimed that their hunting rifle had been stolen. A couple of weeks later, and then sometime later again, people’s guns or rifles were said to have disappeared. My father poopooed the whole thing. His hunting rifle was hanging right there on the wall – and it had not walked away. But then one day two French policemen knocked on our door and asked to search our house. Well, in Lahsen’s room they discovered the whole stash of stolen guns and rifles. He was taken to jail in Marrakech, and I went to visit him. I cried, but he did not. He told me that if released, he would do it again. Was it not his job to liberate his country from foreign invaders?

But compared to our situation in Morocco, the events in Algeria were a much closer replica of the current situation in Israel and Palestine. After all, Morocco had been a fairly recent French acquisition, and in time, a reasonably peaceful parting of the ways was negotiated. Algeria, on the other hand, was a real ‘settler colony’ founded in 1830, and its French colons considered themselves ‘third generation Algerians.’ Had they not turned the land to ‘milk and honey’ which the primitive Arabs had not known to do? 

They were not going to give it up, and the mainland French Army arrived to restore ‘law and order.’ But the armed resistance in the countryside was not being quelled. The 1966 film The Battle of Algiers is a fair replay of what ‘law and order’ means when a well-armed and well-trained military confronts a restless civilian population. The unthinkable was happening: the civilized French were torturing people?!

France was lucky in the person of General De Gaulle who had the guts to do the unexpected, i.e., call a halt to the hopeless bloodshed on all sides. Subsequently repeated attempts on his life illustrated the controversial nature of his decision. Sadly, I found out later that a French boy I had known in Morocco – and had my first crush on – had died fighting in Algeria.

But even though Morocco transited fairly peacefully from colonial to independent status, we still made the decision to leave Morocco in 1958. Clearly the Europeans were no longer welcome in a ‘liberated’ country. So much so that we resigned ourselves to start all over again as dumb immigrants (we didn’t know English) in Australia.

As a descendent of the Russian Diaspora, I understand perfectly the Jewish search for a safe place. However, the dream of the ‘promised land’ has to be on the right side of history. Colonization, however, let alone some mythical homeland of 3,000 years ago, simply stands on the wrong side of history.

This is why the Israeli genocidal behavior against Palestinian resistance has all the marks of desperation. They could have been more reasonable with their Palestinian ‘subjects’ when there was still time – instead of treating them like the proverbial ‘Untermenschen’ of Naziland. But just like the Algerian ‘colons,’ they are not prepared to give up. They are counting on the Big Boys from the Shining City on the Hill, who have promised to stand with them, to come in and help them sweep the place clean. After all, just like the French in their colonial days, don’t the Yankees have a stake in the ‘Rules based Order’?

But the times they are a-changing. My hope for all concerned is that a De Gaulle-like figure would recognize the realities of the situation, and bring peace, however questionable, to the troubled land.

Any such figure rising on the American horizon? I wish.

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Galina De Roeck was born in Bihac, Bosnia, of Russian émigré parents and grew up in Belgrade, Germany, Morocco and Australia. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature at City University of New York. She taught at a number of institutions of higher learning and published in the field literary criticism. Dr. De Roeck has lectured on international affairs in the U.S. and participated in peace delegations to Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle-East. Her memoir, The Door in the Nightmare: from the Russian Revolution to Pax Americana will be published by PRAV Publishing in May of 2021.

She is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Note

1. https://galinaderoeck.com/2022/06/15/the-promised-land/ 

Featured image source

 The Presidential Election System

1) The two major Republican and Democrat parties choose their presidential candidate through primary elections held in 50 states. They are organised in various ways from state to state.  In some states, candidates are selected through secret ballots, in other states through open meetings, called caucuses.  In some states, only registered members of the party that organises the caucus may participate in the caucus, in others, non-members of the party or members of the opponent party may also participate and vote.

2) According to the caucus result, each candidate is assigned a variable number of delegates, who represent their state at the party’s national convention, which selects its presidential candidate. The Convention is attended not only by state delegates but also by super-delegates, important party personalities who can vote for whomever they want, sometimes reversing the situation.

3) A general election is held Once the two parties have chosen their presidential candidates.  The voters do not directly elect the President but a Grand Elector representing the nominated candidate.

4) 558 Major Electors are to elect the President of the United States. To become President, it is necessary to obtain the votes of at least 270 of them. Each Great Elector represents the party to which he/she belongs, but the US Constitution does not require him/her to vote for the presidential candidate chosen by his/her party.

5) Each state has a number of Grand Electors, calculated to favour smaller states: sparsely populated Wyoming has one Grand Elector for every 194,000 inhabitants; more populous California has one Grand Elector for every 723,000 inhabitants.

RESULT: This system allows political manoeuvring of all sorts: for example, having members of their party attend and vote for members of the opposing party’s caucus, in such a way as to prevent the election of a particular candidate considered politically dangerous.  The assignment of a Grand Elector based on a number of inhabitants changes from state to state and sometimes leads to the Presidency of United States candidates who received fewer votes in the general election.

The Voting Mechanism

1) There is no federal law requiring the identification of voters. The Governor of California, a member of the Democratic party, has introduced a law that prohibits requiring identification of those who show up at polling stations to vote.

2) In the 2020 elections, postal voting increased substantially to over 66 million (up to 28 million in 2016).  

3) A 2002 law requires the presence of an electronic voting machine in all polling stations. However, there is no such standard for building a securely usable electronic machine.

4) About a fourth of the voters will vote with machines that issue paper ballots. The remaining ones will vote by electronic machines that store the votes, and may or may not generate a paper record of the vote.

RESULT: This mechanism allows all kinds of fraud. Ballots arriving by mail are opened and recorded by personnel hired through private companies, in those companies there may be people in charge of falsifying the results. Electronic voting machines can be manipulated by loading them with programs that falsify the results.  Professor Alex Halderman, who teaches computer science at the University of Michigan, demonstrated it by simulating a vote the electronic machines overturned.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

Featured image is licensed under Creative Commons

Those global despots, united by their common hatred of sentient humanity, do not actually hold the power. Do not have control of the life force, nor the means to get that control.

All their cards are stacked on winning a psychological battle for the human mind. But everyday that veneer of omnipotence is getting thinner; more transparent; more discordant.

They are unable to play their ‘master-stroke’, because they realise that if they make that move it will lead to their own extermination.

They cannot alter the universal karmic law that every action brings about its equal and opposite reaction – so they have to work via perception controlling acts of stealth that get mankind to take the actions on their behalf.

This is the key to the success of their deceiving methodology. They – the less than human dark energies – have no creative ability of their own. They cannot actually ‘do’ anything. But they can trick humanity into doing their bidding for them.

The despotic architects of control operate via an energetic connection with those non human dark energies residing outside the three dimensional fields that preoccupy the majority of mankind.

Their capacity for domination is entirely dependent upon the existence of this symbiotic relationship.  

The entire see-sawing drama of existence pivots around a clash between the dark tricksters powers to deceive and the good humans power to resist and expose these deceptions. 

The stage is thus set for a titanic struggle, the essence of which involves  ‘we mankind’ realising – in large enough numbers – that we allowed ourselves to be comprehensively tricked into acting according to a script written and directed by the great deceivers for the great deceivers. 

What I am going to report today is that that realisation is growing faster than the ability of the dark side to stifle it.

The deceivers no longer go to the trouble of making covert moves on the global chess board. They have gone overt and their raw arrogance has had the affect of shocking sentient humans on a deeper level than previously experienced.

Due to this a strange common power of mind is moving amongst a steadily expanding percentage of the population. The message therein is 

“We are the true masters of the chessboard of life on earth, the moment has come to exert our God given powers of self motivated resistance and rebirth.”

Those who try to deceive humanity into believing that it is incapable of being anything more than a game devised entirely for their own ends, are losing confidence in their ability to hold in check a rising tide of the collective unconscious of humanity.

They had thought that they had all the moves on the chessboard covered. They thought that blanket coverage of death and destruction, chaos, immorality, bestiality and a narcissistic infatuation with selfish self interest  – would be enough to drive humanity into a state of abject slavery and submission to their every demand.

That by subjecting the population to a daily diet of fear based doomsday predictive planning and mass mind control, any remaining will to resist would be crushed into irreversible surrender.

But what this unprecedented attack on human life ultimately did was to invoke a massive karmic  reaction. A reaction of equal and opposite proportions to that which was intended.

So, instead of finally destroying the inherent spirit of resistance embedded in human nature, an extraordinary reversal is to result. A reversal in which the relentless suppression of instincts which, when unrestricted, exude and expresses warmth, generosity and compassion – would finally backfire on its perpetrators.

The unpredicted backlash will be tsunami-like. Previously cock-sure, arrogant tyrants of the world stage will have the sensation of having the sand sucked out from under their feet. They will no longer be able to keep their balance or continue to articulate sentences based on well rehearsed strings of lies.

In desperation, they will turn to the military to shoot any citizen who refuses to follow their orders for a complete emergency lock-down. 

But the military also finds itself possessed of a new sense of purpose – a loyalty to the people – and will not comply. Instead holding the perpetrators in detention centres especially built to incarcerate the freedom loving resistance.

Such a form of checkmate for the architects of control draws ever closer. It is simmering out of sight just around the corner.

However the tail of the wounded dragon thrashes mercilessly and consequently all of life is thrown into disarray. A prelude to the great turning whose energies are already seeping into the fissures spreading through the dying monster.

Our job – we ‘humanity’ – is to now make the critical moves that will tip the balance in favour of achieving an unprecedented victory for the forces of justice, truth and wisdom. The full liberation and emancipation of mankind, leading to the same for the animal kingdom and all of nature.

The final moves of checkmating the architects of our oppression are our responsibility, our mission in the external world.

Once committed to taking actions that will fulfill this challenge, the unseen higher forces will flood us with the necessary energetic powers to complete this great task. 

Have no doubt about this. Don’t waste an ounce of energy in contemplating failure. 

For truth and justice to prevail on the global stage we must also commit to making them prevail in our individual lives.

The inner and the outer are complementary reflections of one dynamic, one supreme goal. 

Everything we do must lean into the rising wind of change, must turn our bodies and minds into proud prows of great ships, forever plunging forward into the heaving waves that try to knock us back. 

That is the way to become great. And we should all want to become great. To release that infinite potential smouldering like a volcano just under the surface of a futile attempt to fit into the deadly mediocrity of the political status quo.

Although a Cimmerian darkness abounds – the hour of our greatest victory is at hand. 

We are gathering together our collective energies whose combined forces will sweep aside all who seek to block the resurgent life force from fulfilling its deepest and most sacred physical, mental and spiritual liberation.

Show the darkness your true light. Become fearless victors of the one true fight.

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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, a writer, broadcaster and international activist. He is author of the acclaimed title ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’. Do visit his website www.julianrose.info for further information.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Infowars

Em 28 de outubro de 2024, na região de Bryansk, território indisputado da Federação Russa, militares e guardas de fronteiras impediram uma tentativa de invasão por terra liderada por um grupo estrangeiro de sabotagem e reconhecimento formado por aproximadamente 20 pessoas.

Como resultado do confronto, quatro sabotadores estrangeiros vindos de EUA, Canadá e Polônia foram eliminados pelos soldados russos. Os remanescentes do grupo em retirada foram atingidos por um ataque de foguetes e artilharia, sofrendo ainda mais perdas. Militarmente, a operação inimiga foi um fracasso absoluto, sem qualquer resultado prático no campo de batalha e com alto número de mortos. 

É surpreendente que, apesar de o conflito ser, para a mídia ocidental, “entre Rússia e Ucrânia”, nenhum militar ucraniano tenha sido identificado no grupo. Descobriu-se que os sabotadores destruídos possuíam armas, uniformes e equipamentos de comunicação estrangeiros, bem como itens pessoais que indicavam sua pertença a países terceiros que não estão legalmente envolvidos no conflito na Ucrânia. Por exemplo, segundo alguns reportes que circulam em canais militares (e confirmados por mim com fontes locais), foram encontrados uma bandeira do Canadá, um livro de orações em polonês, um caderno com notas sobre treinamento tático em inglês.

Além disso, um fato bastante interessante chamou atenção dos militares russos sobre o caso. Uma tatuagem do 2º Batalhão do 75º Regimento de Rangers, Regimento de Reconhecimento de Paraquedas das Forças Especiais do Exército dos EUA, foi encontrada no corpo de um dos militantes mortos. É praticamente impossível que tal tatuagem tenha sido feita em vão. Certamente, o inimigo eliminado era um veterano de tal unidade militar, sendo portanto membro de um dos grupos de comandos mais qualificados do Ocidente. 

É preciso lembrar que o 75º Regimento de Reconhecimento de Paraquedas do Exército dos Estados Unidos (75º Regimento de Rangers), também conhecido simplesmente como “Rangers”, é um regimento paraquedista de reconhecimento profundo. Como todas as unidades militares americanas, o regimento está diretamente subordinado ao Departamento de Defesa dos EUA – sendo obviamente parte do aparato de guerra americano. O quartel-general e as unidades principais das tropas especiais do Exército estão estacionadas no território da unidade do Exército dos EUA de Fort Benning (Geórgia).

O regimento foi projetado para realizar missões de combate para fins especiais, incluindo reconhecimento e sabotagem atrás das linhas inimigas, captura de campos de aviação e reconhecimento no interesse do avanço das unidades das Forças Terrestres. Unidades do 75º Regimento de Paraquedas são tropas preparadas para pouso de helicóptero ou ataque anfíbio, sendo grupos altamente qualificado e com ampla capacidade operacional para os mais diversos ambientes de atividade militar.

Oficialmente, por decisão da liderança do Exército dos EUA, os batalhões de paraquedas da 75ª Divisão Aerotransportada devem estar em estado de prontidão de combate para serem enviados a qualquer lugar do mundo dentro de 18 horas. Isso apenas reforça como o grupo é parte do que há de mais avançado, especial e sofisticado nas forças armadas americanas.

Mesmo com toda esta natureza especial da unidade americana, a mídia ocidental simplesmente ignorou os reportes russos sobre a presença de um Ranger no ataque a Bryansk. Não houve qualquer explicação por parte das autoridades dos EUA sobre os motivos de membros de seus grupos oficiais mais qualificados estarem lutando em uma invasão por terra em outro continente.

Em tese, os Rangers deveriam estar sob total controle das autoridades americanas. Assim como qualquer unidade especial, o grupo deve estar em prontidão de combate, de modo a ser convocado para uma situação operacional real a qualquer momento – caso Washington entenda necessário usar tais forças no campo de batalha. Devido a tais condições, não seria exagero se a Federação Russa entendesse o envolvimento de tais unidades especiais na Ucrânia como uma declaração de guerra aberta, motivando uma resposta militar apropriada. 

Na prática, mais uma vez, é apenas a boa vontade diplomática da Rússia e seu desejo de desescalada que impedem Moscou de tomar decisões incisivas contra os países ocidentais. A OTAN deixa cada vez mais claro que está em guerra com Moscou e que não parará seus esforços para causar danos à Rússia, usando cada vez mais terrorismo e até mesmo suas tropas mais qualificadas. 

Enquanto este esforço de guerra ocidental se limitar a gerar impactos baixos, tais como a inútil e vergonhosa invasão de Bryansk, a paciência russa impedirá uma reação. Mas não é prudente o Ocidente continuar apostando na violação constante das linhas vermelhas russas, já que, uma vez acabada a paciência, não poderá mais haver um retorno.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Imagem :  InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, membro da Associação de Jornalistas do BRICS, pesquisador do Centro de Estudos Geoestratégicos, especialista militar.

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

Burning topics that American citizens should know about before they cast their vote.

In one day, US Presidential elections will be held. If one believes the official media, it is a neck-on-neck race between former President Donald Trump and current Vice-President Kamala Harris.

The reality is quite different. Donald Trump is leading everywhere. Maybe with a landslide. But will elections be fair? They have not been fair in 2020, and strong suspicions are circulating that the Dems will find ways to manipulate the election results this time again.

Question is, would they manage to prevail with stolen elections? Or would they risk political upheavals?

Under these circumstances, it appears important that Americans know some late emerging facts, about the Biden-Harris administration’s machinations.

The US Border Chief Aaron Heitke, who served under 5 different administrations, says the “US Government has been run by a terrorist”. He means it, and explains how especially the southern borders were kept open to bring in millions of illegal immigrants, of whom many women and children.

Many of the children and women disappeared. Some 325,000 immigrant children this year alone are missing (acknowledged by RFK Jr, see video below).

Kamala Harris who is responsible for border protection did nothing to prevent the illegal border-crossing, and does nothing to find the missing children.

Screenshot MSN news 

US Border Chief Mr. Heitke suggests that the missing children and women.”have been raped, abused, trafficked, bought and sold, families that have spent months in terrible conditions, sickness, and despair.”

See this – 5 min. video clip of 31 October 2024. or click screen below

This suspicion is also shared by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. See this Gand Finale video of 2 November 2024, in Glendale Arizona.

“Today’s Democratic Party is the party of war. It’s the party of the CIA. You had Kamala giving a speech at the Democratic Convention that was written by neocons, that was belligerent”.

Mass Immigration in the European Union

Hungarian PM Viktor Órban has documented proof that George Soros is behind mass immigration in Europe. In fact, Soros gave Madame Von der Leyen, unelected President of the EU Council, instructions to let at least a million immigrants invade Europe per year.

Mr. Órban speaks before the EU Parliament with the Soros document of 2015 in hand, that  says clearly that the EU has to accept every year at least a million immigrants.

The Soros document  (See complete document in Annex) further says that long-term financing is critical. He proposes the EU issue long-term Euro-Bonds to financing the immigrant flood.

Mr. Órban adds: “We are fighting an organized gang working for the Empire of George Soros”.

See first part of this video or click image below.

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George Soros’ September 26, 2015 document, referred to by President Orban is entitled Rebuilding Refugee Asylum. which you consult in full in the Annex of this article 

Uncontrolled Immigrant Flood in the U.S.?

There is no firm evidence that Mr. Soros was behind the uncontrolled immigrant flood into the US?

In the same video clip (Part 2) you may see Judge Joe Brown from Washington DC, suggesting that Kamala Harris was being funded by George Soros.

See second part of this video or click X screenshot above.

‘Kamala—Where Are the Children?’

Sound of Freedom Producer Eduardo Verástegui Speaks at Trump Event

At a “Latino Americans for Trump” event in Miami, Florida, former President Trump spoke to “Sound of Freedom” producer Eduardo Verástegui about the border and child trafficking. Mr. Verástegui says 325,000 children are missing – slaves, sex slaves, or dead.

Human trafficking, focus on children and women trafficking – all is happening under the Biden-Harris administration.

Both Eduardo Verástegui and Donald Trump confirm what Mr. Aaron Heitke, US Border Chief said earlier (see above).

If you believe human trafficking, especially in women and children, is a first-degree crime on humanity, then you MUST LISTEN to this 19-min. video clip of 22 October 2024. And it will become obvious for whom you will cast your vote.

To quote Paul Craig Roberts, there is a tsunami of Trump voters and Trump votes, but the Democrats are set to steal the election.  They have everything in place except enough votes to hide their theft.

Watch the video of the Trump Grand Finale, listen to the speeches by Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tucker Carlson.  Marvel at the massive audience. It appears that Americans have cast off their insouciance and are going to take back their country from the two corrupt political parties, both of which have unleashed evil on America and the world.

See this Gand Finale video (3:11:08, of 2 November 2024, in Glendale Arizona).

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Where there is Love and Light, there is Hope for Peace and a harmonious cohabitation within the Human community.

ANNEX

Rebuilding the Asylum System

George Soros 

NEW YORK – The European Union needs to accept responsibility for the lack of a common asylum policy, which has transformed this year’s growing influx of refugees from a manageable problem into yet another political crisis. Each member state has selfishly focused on its own interests, often acting against the interests of others. This precipitated panic among asylum seekers, the general public, and the authorities responsible for law and order. Asylum seekers have been the main victims.

The EU needs a comprehensive plan to respond to the crisis, one that reasserts effective governance over the flows of asylum-seekers so that they take place in a safe, orderly way, and at a pace that reflects Europe’s capacity to absorb them. To be comprehensive, the plan has to extend beyond the borders of Europe. It is less disruptive and much less expensive to maintain potential asylum-seekers in or close to their present location.

As the origin of the current crisis is Syria, the fate of the Syrian population has to be the first priority. But other asylum seekers and migrants must not be forgotten. Similarly, a European plan must be accompanied by a global response, under the authority of the United Nations and involving its member states. This would distribute the burden of the Syrian crisis over a larger number of states, while also establishing global standards for dealing with the problems of forced migration more generally.

Here are the six components of a comprehensive plan.

First, the EU has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future. And, to do that, it must share the burden fairly – a principle that a qualified majority finally established at last Wednesday’s summit.

Adequate financing is critical. The EU should provide €15,000 ($16,800) per asylum-seeker for each of the first two years to help cover housing, health care, and education costs – and to make accepting refugees more appealing to member states. It can raise these funds by issuing long-term bonds using its largely untapped AAA borrowing capacity, which will have the added benefit of providing a justified fiscal stimulus to the European economy.

It is equally important to allow both states and asylum-seekers to express their preferences, using the least possible coercion. Placing refugees where they want to go – and where they are wanted – is a sine qua non of success.

Second, the EU must lead the global effort to provide adequate funding to Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey to support the four million refugees currently living in those countries.

Thus far, only a fraction of the funding needed for even basic care has been raised. If education, training, and other essential needs are included, the annual costs are at least €5,000 per refugee, or €20 billion. EU aid today to Turkey, though doubled last week, still amounts to just €1 billion. In addition, the EU also should help create special economic zones with preferred trade status in the region, including in Tunisia and Morocco, to attract investment and generate jobs for both locals and refugees.

The EU would need to make an annual commitment to frontline countries of at least €8-10 billion, with the balance coming from the United States and the rest of the world. This could be added to the amount of long-term bonds issued to support asylum-seekers in Europe.

Third, the EU must immediately start building a single EU Asylum and Migration Agency and eventually a single EU Border Guard. The current patchwork of 28 separate asylum systems does not work: it is expensive, inefficient, and produces wildly inconsistent results in determining who qualifies for asylum. The new agency would gradually streamline procedures; establish common rules for employment and entrepreneurship, as well as consistent benefits; and develop an effective, rights-respecting return policy for migrants who do not qualify for asylum.

Fourth, safe channels must be established for asylum-seekers, starting with getting them from Greece and Italy to their destination countries. This is very urgent in order to calm the panic. The next logical step is to extend safe avenues to the frontline region, thereby reducing the number of migrants who make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing. If asylum-seekers have a reasonable chance of ultimately reaching Europe, they are far more likely to stay where they are. This will require negotiating with frontline countries, in cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency, to establish processing centers there – with Turkey as the priority.

The operational and financial arrangements developed by the EU should be used to establish global standards for the treatment of asylum-seekers and migrants. This is the fifth piece of the comprehensive plan.

Finally, to absorb and integrate more than a million asylum seekers and migrants a year, the EU needs to mobilize the private sector – NGOs, church groups, and businesses – to act as sponsors. This will require not only sufficient funding, but also the human and IT capacity to match migrants and sponsors.

The exodus from war-torn Syria should never have become a crisis. It was long in the making, easy to foresee, and eminently manageable by Europe and the international community. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has now also produced a six-point plan to address the crisis. But his plan, which subordinates the human rights of asylum-seekers and migrants to the security of borders, threatens to divide and destroy the EU by renouncing the values on which it was built and violating the laws that are supposed to govern it.

The EU must respond with a genuinely European asylum policy that will put an end to the panic and the unnecessary human suffering.

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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 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 source

Western mainstream messaging has fabricated the Big Lie that somehow the Western-supported Zionist holocaust of Palestinian civilians is justified because Apartheid Israel is a victim and Hamas has Israeli hostages.

Not surprisingly, this propaganda is yet another example of “Israel’s accusations being its confessions”, another example of Empire’s proxy (Apartheid Israel) projecting its own criminality onto its prey (Palestinian civilians).

Consider this data from Western sources.

According to the Associated Press (7/31/24) and the Wall Street Journal (7/25/24) Israel detains 9,400 hostages while Hamas detains 111 hostages.

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Meanwhile, data from the Israeli Prison Service, identifies 3,661 administrative detainees (Palestinian hostages) versus 132 hostages held by Hamas. (1)

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The obliteration of context in these matters of war and peace is confirmed by Exeter University PHD candidate Zarefah Baroud who notes that,

“since far before October 7th, since 1967 to be exact, Israel has arrested and detained over 800,000 Palestinians, about 20% of the total Palestinian population in the occupied territories, and 40% of all Palestinian men.

Those who weren’t detained administratively were charged in the sham that is the Israeli military court system, which produces a conviction rate of 99.7%. For the occupation, imprisonment has always served as a primary tactic in the thwarting of resistance. ” (2)

Western mainstream’s obliteration of context deforms reality and serves to advance the current Western-supported Zionist holocaust against Palestinian civilians.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.

Research Assistance by Basma Qaddour

Notes

(1) Stephen Semler, “Israel is holding more hostages than Hamas.” CHINADAILY, 27 April, 2024. (Israel is holding more hostages than Hamas) Accessed 03 November, 2024.

(2) Zarefah Baroud, “What About Palestinian Hostages?” RUMBLE. ( What about Palestinian hostages??? ) Accessed 03 November, 2024.

Transcript here: Palestinian Hostages “Disappeared” By Western Holocaust-Supporting Mainstream – Mark Taliano 

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

**Voices from Syria**

Author: Mark Taliano

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-9-1

Year: 2017

Product Type: PDF File

List Price: $6.50

Special Offer: $5.00 

Click to order.

European Union countries are preparing for a possible change in US military support for Ukraine if former President Donald Trump wins the upcoming presidential election, The Washington Post reported November 2, citing European officials. However, while the EU prepares for changes in case Trump is elected, the Kremlin remains sceptical that much at all will change if he is elected.

According to the report, Washington’s closest allies in Europe are bracing for a possible collapse in transatlantic relations if Trump wins the election on November 5 and are guarding against a possible White House reorientation on Ukraine. For this reason, European officials have been trying to approve aid packages before the US elections.

The officials added that the new NATO command has also taken over some of the Pentagon’s responsibilities in coordinating military aid to Kiev.

According to German parliamentarian Thomas Erndl, Europe must take more responsibility for its own security, as current US President Joe Biden is “probably the last president who is truly transatlantic in the traditional sense — in terms of his character and career.”

European officials admit that the loss of US support in the defence sector would be a devastating blow to the bloc. The publication said they have also prepared a draft of retaliatory trade tariffs should Trump start imposing tariffs on EU goods again.

The Financial Times reported in late July that the EU was developing a trade strategy in case Trump wins the election. The strategy envisages introducing high tariffs on US imports if negotiations to improve trade with Washington fail.

According to the newspaper, if Trump wins the election, negotiations with his administration are planned to begin before he officially takes office. EU officials want to discuss with him a possible list of American products that the bloc could buy in large quantities.

Trump has previously promised to reach a solution to the Ukraine conflict through negotiations and has repeatedly stated that he would resolve it within a day. Although this is highly unlikely, it does point to the fact that he wants to end the war, unlike the Biden administration, which has kept it raging by drip-feeding military support to the Kiev regime.

Nonetheless, the Kremlin remains suspicious, with former President and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev stressing on November 3 that the US elections will not change anything as the candidates’ positions fully reflect the bipartisan consensus on the need for Russia’s defeat.

Medvedev called current US Vice President Kamala Harris “stupid, inexperienced, controllable,” claiming that her ministers and aides, in addition to the Obama family, will govern indirectly. According to him, Trump will not be able to stop the conflict in Ukraine, “not in one day, not in three days, not in three months. And if he really tries, he could become the new JFK.”

“Therefore, the best way to please the candidates for the highest American office on November 5 is to continue crushing the Nazi regime in Kiev,” concluded the former Russian Prime Minister.

Although Moscow is sceptical about Trump’s ability to end the war, the Kiev regime is “worried” about the American billionaire returning to the White House.

“We are worried about Trump,” a senior Ukrainian official told The Guardian.

Another source, this time from Ukraine’s security structures, told the British newspaper:

“Everyone understands that Trump doesn’t care one bit about Ukraine, and that a Trump presidency would be a trip to the casino for Ukraine: we could win big or we could lose everything. But by now everyone is exhausted, and some people are willing to make risky bets.”

Undoubtedly, just like their European counterparts, who are already preparing for a potential Trump presidency, the Kiev regime will be relieved if Harris is victorious since she is expected to be more predictable and continue Biden’s policy.

In this way, the outcome of the US presidential election is a matter of life and death for the Kiev regime since a slowdown or halting of weapons will only accelerate Russian advances.

European military support is critical for Ukraine. However, it is negligible compared to US support, which amounts to more than $64 billion, eclipsing the military aid provided by all other allies collectively. It appears that Europe believes Trump will certainly slow down or halt military aid to Ukraine and is preparing its own autonomous schemes if the Republican is elected, but, as seen, European aid cannot even remotely replace American aid, which would render any aid as a cynical waste of money which serves only to prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zalensky Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, at the InterContinental New York Barclay in New York City. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

The stakes in any U.S. elections are high, but when it comes to nuclear weapons, they are existential.

American voters deserve to know how their future policymakers and practitioners would address threats posed by the world’s deadliest weapons. The United States possesses more nuclear weapons than any country except Russia. The cost of maintaining and modernizing this colossal nuclear arsenal has been estimated to be a massive $756 billion over the next decade, and this estimate grows by millions yearly.

Experts have asked many questions related to the presidential candidates’ nuclear policies, and how they plan to deal with external threats; all these questions remain unanswered. When it comes to nuclear weapons, however, the American public’s security has always been threatened, more immediately by the development, maintenance, testing, and modernization of the country’s own nuclear weapons.

The reality is that U.S. nuclear weapons have harmed American communities throughout history and the question is whether the main two political presidential platforms have acknowledged and addressed these issues and what measures would either of the candidates take to put an end to these threats and fulfill the United States’ long-standing commitment to nuclear disarmament.

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Shaghayegh Chris Rostampour works at the Arms Control Association. A former journalist, Shaghayegh has covered international security issues and armed conflict for broadcast, print, and digital print media. Their views do not necessarily represent the views of ACA. 

Featured image: Photos from the first second of the Trinity test shot, the first nuclear explosion on Earth. (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

With all indications now pointing to a Donald Trump landslide win over the least qualified candidate in U.S. presidential election history in Kamala Harris, the question now is whether Trump’s looming victory is “Too Big to Rig.” That is how Republican Party operatives are viewing the only possible path for a hopelessly corrupt and compromised Democratic Party machine to grope their way to an improbable upset. 

Basic Premises

Let’s review:

1. The Empire of which the U.S. is a central component, is ruled by an entity that we may call simply the “Money Power”;

2. The Empire has had as its driving motive, since the start of WWII, total global military conquest. (See Our Country, Then and Now.)

3. The enforcers for the Empire are the Deep State, or the “Blob”; 

4. The Blob will try anything and everything to maintain control by itself and the Money Power; 

5. The power of the Blob is not monolithic, as it is not in tune with the real everyday interests of a majority of the U.S. population;  

6. Family life, consumer income, affordable education, freedom of speech and religion, personal safety, individual morality, personal achievement, honesty, environmental health, wholesome food, etc., are all values where the majority of the population differ from the Money Power and the Blob which are primarily interested in wealth, power, control, etc., and are determined to maintain these through force. Internationally, the Money Power and the Blob manifest via the WEF and its “Great Reset” agenda.  

The Empire, the Presidency, and Trump

The Empire has selected and controlled all U.S. presidents since Ronald Reagan, except Donald Trump.  Trump is heir to a New York City real estate empire who became a TV star on 14 seasons of NBC’s The Apprentice. He says he conceived of someday becoming U.S. president during the early 2000s. Trump was a businessman and media celebrity, never a financier, a Blob functionary, or a professional politician. This gave Trump an orientation toward civilian life and values, personal achievement, negotiation, and showmanship that were anathema to the Blob. 

Trump’s personal qualities were able to win him the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. By then, after eight years of Obama, the Democratic Party had become the complete captive of the Blob. Its chief figureheads were Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. 

The Blob did not expect Trump to win the 2016 election. Trump won because millions of people who actually work for a living gravitated toward him by sensing a kindred spirit. This was despite all the dirt the Blob via its control of MSM was able to throw at him for personal character flaws. But no one has ever been able to prove the kind of outright, rank criminality that have made his Democratic Party opponents such loathsome grifters and war criminals. 

The Blob’s Attacks on Trump

Within days of Trump’s 2016 victory, a cabal called the “Shadow Men” began to plot Trump’s downfall. This is documented in my book, Our Country Then and Now. The plan was to remove Trump by impeachment 1,000 days into his term. The plan failed when the Senate refused to convict Trump on the fake charges.

Following the failed impeachment, the Blob came up with the COVID “plandemic,” which Trump enabled but which he also combatted by giving individuals, families, and small businesses free money. The Blob then activated the plan to defeat Trump in the 2020 election, which succeeded in removing him from office but not in destroying him altogether. Nor has the lawfare being waged against him over the past four years done the job. Let’s face it: Trump is a very strong individual with some powerful backers. 

Trump’s Comeback

Trump’s support among the working population has only been strengthened by the attacks to which he has been subjected, again, without disclosing any truly disqualifying criminality. 

Meanwhile, Biden collapsed, only to be replaced by the pseudo-candidacy of Kamala Harris, probably the least qualified individual to run for the presidency in U.S. history. 

This has left the Democratic Party a caricature of its former self, with its power base resting on the following:

1. The billionaire donor class; 

2. Individuals beholden to the Blob for profits and employment, including large numbers of elected officials and government employees at the federal, state, and local levels; 

3. The military-industrial complex, including its financial bosses, whose incomes depend on the regime of endless global war; 

4. The Israel Lobby (which obviously tries to control both parties)

5. Certain minority groups bought off by lucrative jobs and contracts being granted to their leaders; 

6. Wealthy media and sports celebrities; 

7. The MSM, especially the New York Times and major TV networks; 

8. Social media like Google, with Twitter under Elon Musk now flipping to Trump; 

9. Illegal immigrants, possibly numbering in the millions, either being allowed to vote or captured by vote “harvesting”; 

10. Big Pharma which rakes in trillions from COVID and other public health scams like endless vaccines. 

To risk a gross generalization, it might be seen that almost none of the groupings in support of the Democratic Party actually consist of individuals who have what might be called “real jobs.” 

Failure of the Election System

I might also mention, as I did in Our Country, Then and Now, that the absence of a certifiably honest and uniform election system that can be audited back to the actual legally qualified voter makes it impossible to ever have an honest national election in the U.S. No one has any doubt that, as they are still accused of having done in 2020, the Democrats will endeavor to steal the election. Of course, Trump and his supporters have pointed these things out. 

So no one can predict who will win this election, though the Blob lies in wait. 

What If Trump Wins?

Trump’s victory would jeopardize the wars of the Blob in Ukraine, Israel, and other future locations, such as against China, though if Trump were to win and he ended up being captured by the Blob, as he was in his first administration, these travesties might go on anyway. Trump seems resolved not to let this happen. 

Trump’s intention to raise tariffs sufficient to activate American reindustrialization would upset the globalist economic order to such a degree as to be revolutionary in its consequences. 

One of the scariest possibilities to the Blob is what could happen if Trump placed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in charge of the federal government’s health agencies.  

The possible scenarios coming out of the election are endless. This drama has a long way to go before it plays itself out. The one thing we can say for sure is that the values of the Money Power/Blob are diametrically opposed to those of ordinary people with real jobs who raise families and work for a living. This includes many law enforcement individuals and conscientious public employees. 

This conflict is never going away, no matter how many people the Blob can kill off through more wars, pandemics, etc. There will always be individuals who ask what is really going on and ways for them to express their dissent. 

If Trump loses, and Kamala Harris becomes president, the catastrophes that will likely ensue are unimaginable. 

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Richard C. Cook is co-founder and lead investigator for the American Geopolitical Institute.  Mr. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst with extensive experience across various government agencies, including the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. As a whistleblower at the time of the Challenger disaster, he exposed the flawed O-ring joints that destroyed the Space Shuttle, documenting his story in the book “Challenger Revealed.” After serving at Treasury, he became a vocal critic of the private finance-controlled monetary system, detailing his concerns in “We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform.” He served as an adviser to the American Monetary Institute and worked with Congressman Dennis Kucinich to advocate for replacing the Federal Reserve with a genuine national currency. See his new book, Our Country, Then and Now, Clarity Press, 2023. Also see his Three Sages Substack and his American Geopolitical Institute articles at https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/category/agi/.

“Every human enterprise must serve life, must seek to enrich existence on earth, lest man become enslaved where he seeks to establish his dominion!” Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, 1876-1943), translation by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014. Also download the Kober Press edition of The Book on the Living God here. 

Featured image source

“If voting could ever really change anything, it’d be illegal.”— Thorne, Land of the Blind (2006)

After months of handwringing and mud-slinging and fear-mongering, the votes have finally been cast and the outcome has been decided: the Deep State has won.

Despite the billions spent to create the illusion of choice culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, when it comes to most of the big issues that keep us in bondage to authoritarian overlords, not much will change.

Despite all of the work that has been done to persuade us to buy into the fantasy that things will change if we just elect the “right” political savior, the day after a new president is sworn in, it will be business as usual for the unelected bureaucracy that actually runs the government.

War will continue. Drone killings will continue. Surveillance will continue. Censorship of anyone who criticizes the government will continue. The government’s efforts to label dissidents as extremists and terrorists will continue. Police shootings will continue. SWAT team raids will continue. Highway robbery meted out by government officials will continue. Corrupt government will continue. Profit-driven prisons will continue. And the militarization of the police will continue.

These problems have persisted—and in many cases flourished—under both Republican and Democratic administrations in recent years.

The outcome of this year’s election changes none of that.

Indeed, take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by the 2024 presidential election, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities, which have little to do with representing the taxpayers and everything to do with amassing money, power and control.

The undermining of the Constitution will continue unabated. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.

The government’s war on the American people will continue unabated.  “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled. Consequently, you no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class—that is, the citizenry—of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent. The oppression and injustice—be it in the form of shootings, surveillance, fines, asset forfeiture, prison terms, roadside searches, and so on—will come to all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it now.

The shadow government— a.k.a. the Deep State, a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex—will continue unabated. The corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials will continue to call the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House or controls Congress. By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

The government’s manipulation of national crises in order to expand its powers will continue unabated. “We the people” have been subjected to an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. Whatever the so-called threat to the nation, the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state. Indeed, the government’s answer to every problem continues to be more government—at taxpayer expense—and less individual liberty.

Endless wars that enrich the military industrial complex will continue unabated. America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $93 million an hour (that adds up to $920 billion annually). Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 40% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 9 biggest spending nations combined.

Government corruption will continue unabated.  The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.” Americans instinctively understand this. When asked to name the greatest problem facing the nation, Americans of all political stripes ranked the government as the number one concern. In fact, almost three-quarters of Americans surveyed believe the government is corrupt. Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control.

Government tyranny under the reign of an Imperial President will continue unabated. The Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers. In recent years, however, American presidents have anointed themselves with the power to wage war, unilaterally kill Americans, torture prisoners, strip citizens of their rights, arrest and detain citizens indefinitely, carry out warrantless spying on Americans, and erect their own secretive, shadow government. The powers amassed by each past president and inherited by each successive president—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.

The grim reality we must come to terms with is the fact that the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this state of affairs has become the status quo, no matter which party is in power.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Even so, Russia wants to be in the best possible position to advance its national interests if a compromise is inevitable, which might come sooner than expected if Trump returns to office.

Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia briefed the Security Council on Western arms supplies to Ukraine late last week. He also shared some interesting tangential tidbits and related policy statements that made his speech worth reading in full. Those who have the time can do so here, while those who don’t should continue with this piece, which will run through the highlights before placing them into the larger context of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.

According to Nebenzia,

“It is obvious that without the direct involvement of the West in the war with a nuclear power – which the ‘expired’ Ukrainian president seeks so ardently– Ukrainian troops will continue to retreat and sustain catastrophic losses.”

That hasn’t yet happened, but neither France nor Poland will rule out conventionally intervening in the conflict zone under certain conditions, which could risk the outbreak of World War III by miscalculation due to them being NATO members.

Despite Ukraine indisputably retreating, Nebenzia alluded to a report from US government-run Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty claiming that servicemen are forbidden from using the words “retreat”, while adding that Ukrainian propagandists nowadays dismiss the strategic importance of all captured areas. Even though the odds of a Ukrainian victory are now insurmountable, he said that it’s still supplied with arms due to a combination of inertia and the need to rake in more profits for defense companies.

A large amount of the equipment is unaccounted for, however, as proven by a recent report. Nebenzia said that

“the Pentagon recently conducted an audit of $2.1 billion sent to Ukraine from January to December 2022. And it turned out that $1.1 billion were undocumented, and nothing could justify and verify the payments.”

Even so, these arms shipments still continue, thus fueling the conflict and corruption alike.

They’re insufficient for restoring morale among armed forces though since many no longer trust Zelensky after he betrayed his campaign promises of ending the Donbass Conflict and protecting the rights of Ukraine’s Russian minority. The situation is so bad that Nebenzia also alluded to what a Ukrainian MP recently revealed about how over 100,000 have deserted or gone AWOL since 2022, thus explaining why military-aged men are now being forcibly conscripted from restaurants, malls and concerts.

He also said that they dislike the fact that Zelensky turned Ukraine a pawn of the US against Russia in the misplaced and ultimately failed hope “that with the help of the United States he would become a ‘queen’ on the grand chessboard.” As further proof of Ukraine’s subordinate status vis-à-vis the US, he drew attention to how Zelensky is letting the West monopolize the extraction of his country’s critical minerals in exchange for more military support, which is another reason for keeping the conflict going.

Forcibly conscripted recruits are now being prevented from retreating or fleeing by so-called “barrier troops” that “stand in the rear of their units and shoot them in the back.” Foreign mercenaries, particularly from the US and Poland, are also fighting against Russia and carrying out war crimes. These include violating the Convention on Inhumane Weapons (formally the Conventional on Certain Conventional Weapons) and the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Wrapping up the highlights from his briefing, Nebenzia closed by confidently declaring that “there will be no repeat of the scenario with the Minsk agreements; we will not allow any freezing of the conflict so that the Zelensky regime can ‘lick its wounds’. Neither will Ukraine be accepted to NATO in one form or another. The goals of our special military operation, including the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, remain in force and are unchanged.”

Putting it all together, the conflict is poised to pass an inflection point upon the possibly impending collapse of the front lines, though it remains unclear whether NATO (be it as a whole, via “coalitions of the willing” therein, or just a single member thereof like Poland) will conventionally intervene after that. It’s also unknown exactly when this might happen, just that it’s increasingly likely as earlier suggested by CNN’s report about the dismal situation and a reading between the lines of Zelensky’s recent interview.

The timing with which this trend is materializing coincides with next week’s US presidential elections, which could see Trump return to the White House and actually create some serious difficulties for Russia as explained here, ergo why Nebenzia might have felt the need to reaffirm his maximum victory pledge. Trump spoke a lot about wanting to stop the conflict pronto upon his potential re-election, but he never shared any details, and it’s possible that he might want to “escalate to de-escalate” or freeze the conflict.

Neither would be acceptable for Russia, yet Russia might still be placed in a dilemma whereby it’s forced to choose one or the other scenario depending on what he decides to do since he might take the initiative in some dramatic way like he promised. Of course, he might also just continue the existing policy, as would Kamala if she wins instead, but Nebenzia still wanted to make it clear that his country isn’t interested in freezing the conflict or allowing Ukraine into NATO in any form.

That said, some compromise might be inevitable regardless of whoever wins and no matter when such an outcome might be agreed upon, but Russia wants to be in the best possible position to advance its national interests in those circumstances. That’s why it’s pushing ahead as fast as it can in the hopes of achieving a military breakthrough that either fulfills as many of its goals as possible or makes them a fait accompli by the time that the next president enters office in late January.

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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, 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 regular contributor to Global Research.

The melting of ice in the Arctic Ocean continues to affect not only maritime transportation but also global geopolitics. As the ice melts, Anglo-Saxon maritime dominance also melts. In this context, a new development that will be a milestone for world maritime trade took place on September 25, 2024, on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) controlled by Russia in the Arctic Ocean.

A First on the North Arctic Route

The Panama-flagged, non-Ice Class, 294-meter-long PANAMAX-class container ship named ‘’Flying Fish 1’’ carrying 5,000 containers (TEU) arrived in Shanghai, China, on September 25, 2024, less than three weeks after its departure from Saint Petersburg, Russia. During this 8,000-mile voyage, the ship maintained an average speed of 16 knots and, most importantly, did not need the Russian icebreaker. The two most critical developments for this journey, which goes from the Baltic to the North Sea and passes through the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering Seas, are undoubtedly Russia’s announcement that the NSR will be open to ice-class ships all year round at the end of 2022, and starting in 2023, non-ice-class ships will be given permission to pass between July 1 and November 15. The Flying Fish 1 ship received this permission on May 20, 2024.

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By Schiffswelt via Vessel Finder

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The first container ship to pass through these waters in history was the 45,000-ton container ship named Venta Maersk, owned by the world container giant Maersk. The ship loaded the containers from Vladivostok in the Pacific and brought them to Saint Petersburg in the Baltic within a month on September 28, 2018 via the NSR.

NSR in Energy Transportation

While these were happening in the container world, the Russian Arc7 class Christophe de Margerie (Ice Class) LNG tanker (liquefied natural gas carrier) departed from Jiangsu, China on January 27, 2021 and completed its 2400-mile journey via the NSR in 11 days on February 8, 2021 at the Sabetta Port in the Arctic/Kara Sea of ​​Russia. The same ship had used the same route in May 2020 in the east direction under icebreaker escort. This passage, which was made in February 2020 in winter conditions, in continuous darkness, without icebreaker escort for the most part, took 36 days shorter than the journey to be made via the Suez Canal. With this journey, Russia proved that passage in the region can be realized in almost 10 months out of 12 months. Most importantly, Russia’s possession of the world’s largest and most powerful nuclear icebreakers capable of breaking 4-meter ice causes it to establish a monopoly in the region within its own jurisdiction. These types of ships are capable of breaking ice wide enough for 200,000-ton supertankers to pass.

Shortened Routes

If Flying Fish 1, which arrived in Shanghai on September 25, had used the Suez Canal, it would have covered 12,000 miles and the journey would have taken two weeks longer. On the other hand, many ships that cannot use the Bab El Mandeb Strait and the Suez Canal due to the Houthi attacks that emerged through the Israel-Hamas war have been making this journey by circling the Cape of Good Hope since November 2023. This takes approximately 16,000 miles. Therefore, the NSR offers a solution that reduces operating costs for existing operators by half compared to the Cape of Good Hope route with the 8,000 miles it saves.

Transition to Regular Lines

Seasonal fixed lines have now begun to be established between China and Russia. In the summer of 2023, the 170,000-ton Capesize bulk carrier Gingo and numerous Suezmax crude oil tankers passed through this route. With 14 consecutive shipments made with ice-free tankers, Russia sent 1.5 million barrels of oil to China. Oil is the strategic material that China will need the most due to the closure of the Strait of Malacca in times of war. Russia is proving that it will send the oil it will need the most to China through the Arctic by tankers, not only through pipelines or train transportation elsewhere. In 2023, 36 million tons of cargo were carried in the NSR, which operates under the authority of ROSATOM.

Dollar and Navy Power

The situation that emerged in the NSR is a nightmare for Anglo-Saxon maritime geopolitics. Because the NSR is turning into a permanent maritime transportation route where American warships cannot control. The US maintained its dollar power with its navy. Today its navy is inadequate in the NSR area. In addition, its navy has weakened beyond shrinking. However, what the founder of the CIA organ Stratfor’s founder, strategist George Friedman, say in his books “The Next 100 Years” and “The Next 10 Years”, which he wrote in the 2010s when American power was not questioned?

“The foundation of American power is the oceans. Dominating the oceans prevents other states from attacking the US, allows the US to intervene when necessary, and gives the US control of international trade. Global trade is dependent on the oceans. Whoever controls the oceans controls global trade… The US controls all the oceans. No other power in history has been able to do this. This control is not only the foundation of US security, but also the foundation of its power to shape the international system. If the US does not approve, no one can go anywhere on the seas. At the end of the day, maintaining control of the world’s oceans is the most important geopolitical goal for the US.” 

This situation has changed now. The US dollar and naval power are no longer sufficient for the dominance of hegemony.

Crude Oil Reaching From the Sea Is Essential

Both world wars broke out because of Germany, which went from the continent to the sea and challenged the hegemonic England. If we add Japan, which wanted to expand from the island to the continent in World War II, the struggle focused on the control of the seas for both in the final analysis. Hitler could not control the seas with submarines alone. Hitler’s submarines could not keep up with the speed of the US’s shipbuilding. Japan, as an island state, was also dependent on oil and without controlling the seas, oil continuity was not possible. It was exhausted when it lost its merchant fleet. In short, both Germany and Japan could not use the sea, and were left without oil and could not fight. Although oil pipelines exist today, it is easy to destroy these lines in war. Even if they are repaired, it is not easy to prevent repeated attacks. Therefore, Friedman draws the power of his interpretation from history. However, that power is weakening today. When World War II ended, there were 6,000 ships, today there are 297.

Russia’s Geographical Advantage in the Arctic

In 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said,

“The Arctic is no longer an area of ​​cooperation, all countries in the region must be prepared for the fact that it has become a region for competition, and that China and Russia are essentially ‘threats to security’ in the region.”

In 2019, regular transportation lines had not yet been established, and the NSR had not been opened to world trade. Today, the situation is very different. 

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With the formation of regular lines on the Arctic front and the regular passage of container ships suitable for military buildup, a permanent crisis has begun for the Anglo-Soxon front, but Russia has the advantage in this crisis. 

Because only 12% of the Arctic Ocean is in the status of high seas. Of the remaining 88%, 65% (24,000km of coast) is under the full control of Russia. 67% of the Russian Navy belongs to the Northern Fleet, as the most important coasts that open to the oceans, especially nuclear submarines, are in the North Sea. The main base of the Northern Navy is also in this region. However, the biggest nightmare for the US is that Russia has 11 large-tonnage icebreakers/tugboats in the region, 8 of which have Nuclear propulsion. This superiority gives the Russians a clear advantage over the USA, which has 2 conventional icebreakers. 

Russia’s Infrastructure Build

At an economic forum at the beginning of 2024, Russian President Putin said that “the center of economic development in Russia is changing, Russia will expand with the Arctic.” Indeed, the region contains 30% of the world’s natural gas reserves and 13% of oil. 

Russia first established the Arctic Command in the region, which can be considered its front yard. It established a chain of modern bases extending from the north of the Kola Peninsula to Franz Joseph Land and to Wrangel Island in the east. Russia built a large airport with a 4 km long runway in the Arctic region. Air bases were developed, early warning radars and listening systems were modernized, and the number of aircraft was increased. In addition, a 6,000-person emergency response force was established in the Murmansk and Yamal regions.

China Is a Geopolitical Actor in the Arctic

China defines itself as a Near Arctic State. It does not only have geopolitical interests in the region. It has many common investments with Russia, especially in energy and rare metals.

In 2015, China identified the Bering Strait, the Pacific and Atlantic gateway to the Arctic Ocean, as an area of ​​China’s security concern and declared that it would use force if necessary to protect its interests in this strait. In mid-September 2015, for the first time in history, five Chinese warships exercised the right of innocent passage in the Bering Sea. If China uses the Bering Strait and other Arctic routes, it can both largely get rid of its dependence on the Strait of Malacca and save $60-100 billion annually in maritime transportation costs.

China is also developing energy cooperation with Russia in the Arctic Ocean within the scope of BRICS and the SCO. Russian Gazprom and China’s CNPC companies continue drilling in the Arctic Ocean. China’s main goal is to include the region in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) under the name of the Polar Silk Road. After the Russia-Ukraine War, China’s cooperation with Russia in the Arctic region has developed rapidly. For example, in July of this year, Russian and Chinese bomber aircraft conducted joint patrol operations off the coast of Alaska. Similarly, in October, Chinese and Russian coast guard ships passing through the Bering Strait conducted joint exercises and patrols in Arctic waters for the first time in history. 

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The Reaction of the Anglo-saxon Front

It should be emphasized that the maritime hegemony is very disturbed by these developments. In July 2024, the US updated its Arctic Strategy. Before the new document, which aims to develop surveillance, intelligence and military cooperation in order to counter Russia and China, during the Trump era, the US Navy Department published a strategy document for the region under the name Blue Arctic on January 5, 2021.

In addition to the Russian Federation, the Arctic region has coasts with the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark. On the other hand, there is an 8-member Arctic Council established in 1996, where 3 northern (Nordic) countries (Sweden, Finland and Iceland) are represented, which provides regulation and coordination in the region. The Council has been inactive since February 2022 due to the Russia-Ukraine War. On the other hand, 7 out of 8 countries are NATO members. However, this situation does not give NATO a situational advantage. The US and its allies continue to pay the price of the rapid downsizing at sea and in the region after the Cold War. They are falling behind in both the number of icebreakers and the number of troops ready for war in winter conditions.

In addition, Russia has advantages in the field of submarine warfare and hypersonic anti-ship missiles. However, despite its limited naval power, the US challenges Russia’s geographical superiority in these critical waterways through its allies. As the only NATO country with a permanent military headquarters north of the Arctic Circle (66°33’N latitude), Norway gives its most important security and defense priority to the protection of US interests in this region due to the newly developing Arctic geopolitics. NATO also uses Norway’s situation as a battering ram against Russia, putting it forward for the interests of the US in this region. Norway, one of the calmest, richest and most prosperous countries in the world, has now joined the group of risky countries that have to maintain high military vigilance and readiness at all times. In this context, some American strategists have drawn attention to the area between England, Greenland and Iceland, which is called the GIUK Gap where Russian submarines have to pass to reach Atlantic Ocean. US has established the (underwater) SOSUS system during the cold war to monitor Soviet subs movements. Today GIUK Gap is more important than that of the cold war era. In this context the Nuclear Submarine base in Faslane/Scotland is the most valuable asset of US Navy in time of armed conflict with Russia. The speedy accessions of Sweden and Finland to NATO has to be seen in Arctic perspective also.

It is also said that the Bering Strait has emerged as a new rival to the critical junction where Russian nuclear and diesel-electric submarines pass. In this region, the revival of the American base chain in Alaska and the Aleuatian Islands is demanded. In addition to these developments, the joint NATO headquarters JFC Norfolk has also taken responsibility for the Norwegian Arctic region.

The Nordic Council and Zelensky

The Northern (Nordic) Council, established in 1952 by Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, also intervenes in Arctic policies on environmental and maritime law issues. In the four-day meeting focusing on “Peace and Security in the Arctic” that started on October 27, 2024, the Council prioritized security concerns and perceived “threats” from Russia and China, while also moving into the geopolitical arena by inviting Zelensky to the meeting.

Lessons for Turkiye

Undoubtedly, one of the most important developments of the 21st century is the opening of the Arctic sea route while American hegemony is declining. How active is Turkey in this region?

Although our shipyards follow the developments in the Arctic Region and take some initiatives, our Merchant Marine Fleet is not active in this field. In this conjuncture, where the maritime dominance of the Anglo-Saxon world is coming to an end, or at least a strong Asia/Global South counterbalance is emerging, new areas of opportunity should be evaluated.  At the very least, the merchant fleet needs to formulate Arctic policy, as do some of our enterprising shipyards. Because this road will be an area where many operators will try to take a place. While Turkiye-Russia relations are developing in many areas despite our NATO membership and the pressures of the Ukraine War, the opportunities that arise on the Arctic Route should not be overlooked. Due to the US and the EU, which do not allow Ankara to explore for and extract gas and oil in the Mediterranean, Ankara sent a seismic research ship and frigates to Somalia which is 4600 miles away under US/EU pressure.

On the other hand the NSR, is 3000 km to our north and provides new opportuniteis for cooperation with Russia. Reminding that ROSATOM, which built a nuclear reactor in Mersin Akkuyu, is also the NSR Operation Authority, it is important to start bilateral agreements and infrastructure investment partnerships with Russia on the NSR Transportation Route to prepare for the remaining quarters of the 21st century. Our shipowners should also evaluate this rising opportunity and show their flag, albeit slowly, on this line by having Ice Class ships.

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Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, Writer, Geopolitical Expert, Theorist and creator of the Turkish Bluehomeland (Mavi Vatan) doctrine. He served as the Chief of Strategy Department and then the head of Plans and Policy Division in Turkish Naval Forces Headquarters. As his combat duties, he has served as the commander of Amphibious Ships Group and Mine Fleet between 2007 and 2009. He retired in 2012. He established Hamit Naci Blue Homeland Foundation in 2021. He has published numerous books on geopolitics, maritime strategy, maritime history and maritime culture. He is also a honorary member of ATASAM.  

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Rosatom via High North News

Here is an excerpt from an article on Daily Mail Online:

Sydney cricketer Kade Sutton is lucky to be alive after suffering a heart attack at training that left him ‘clinically dead’ for five minutes.

The teenage allrounder collapsed during cricket training in late August and is still here today thanks to his coach, Jed Dickson, who had recently finished a first aid course.

‘I was going for a little warm-up with the lads and happened to veer off the path into a bush where I had a seizure-like fit,’ Sutton told News Corp.

‘But really it was a cardiac arrest and I had no pulse, no heart rate or anything. I was clinically dead for about five minutes,’ Sutton said.

‘Luckily my coach Jed Dickson had just done his first aid course so he was all up to date. He knew what to do.

‘He couldn’t really do the breaths because I was foaming at the mouth and I was just purple.

‘He felt for the pulse and knew I was in trouble, so he just went straight for CPR. He brought me back to life. I went into the ambulance and they put me into a coma.

‘It’s a bit emotional now every time I see him. You can’t really repay someone for saving your life so I guess I’ve just got to keep thanking him.’

Dickson, 35, also plays cricket and has known Sutton for many years. He said the entire situation hasn’t sunk in for him, either.

Click here to read the full article.

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My Take…

This summer we saw a record number of American High School football players dropping dead from sudden cardiac arrests but this goes on in every highly COVID-19 mRNA-vaccinated country.

I don’t do the compilations of these sudden deaths anymore because people don’t really care anymore. They are willing to sacrifice the youth and their entire future, for a little bit of peace and tranquility.

We have a population that is now too weak to stand up to the Vaccine Cartel and have really brought this upon themselves.

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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 Daily Mail Online

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[We repost this article by the late Prof. Joseph H. Chung, first published by GR in August 2021. Prof. Chung was an indefatigable voice on the politics of Asia-Pacific, especially on the dynamics of the Korean Peninsula.]

One of the global challenges of the 21st century is the falling liberal democracy. Indeed, the state of democracy is so alarming that some are talking about the crisis of democracy. 

Is the decline of democracy a temporary phenomenon? Is it a more fundamentally structural problem?  Can it restore its power and glory of the past?

The slump of democracy is terribly important problem, because it is based on Judeo-Christian way of thinking and the corner stone of the Western civilization.

It is a serious challenging for the West, because the Asian civilization represented by the Chinese political system is becoming more visible and more popular.

Some opinion leaders in the West may fear the possibility that the Chinese authoritarian regime be considered as a possible alternative to the West’s liberal democracy.

In this paper, I will first examine how serious the fall of democracy is. Then I will discuss the factors responsible for the decline of democracy. Finally I will examine if the Chinese political regime is responsible for the decline of democracy…

How serious is the Fall of Democracy?

For decades, in great many countries, the American democracy has been the role model of political regime. In fact, the popularity of the American democracy is such that the basic principles of democracy are integrated even in the constitutions of non-democratic countries.

There are many data showing the retreat of democracy. For instance, the Freedom House has produced alarming data.

In the period, 2005-2020, the number of countries where democracy improved has fallen from 83 to 28, whereas, that of countries where democracy deteriorated rose from 52 to 73. (See this)

The demographic distribution of political regime in 2019 was as follow: pure democracy (4.5%), defective democracy (43.6%), hybrid regimes (16.7%) and authoritarian regimes (35.6%).

According to a survey made for the world as a whole, in 1995, 48% of respondents in 154 countries were dissatisfied with democracy. Now the percentage increased to 58%.

According to a report of Cambridge University, democracy fell in all developed countries, especially in the U.S. Before the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, only 25% of Americans were dissatisfied with democracy, but after 2008, 45% were dissatisfied. (See this) (2020.01.29)

In all well established democracies like the Unites States, democratic governance will continue its inexorable decline and eventually fall. (See this) (2019.09.08)

Many countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia, especially in Europe, people are dissatisfied with democracy and chose authoritarian regime.

The Guardian presents the results of a large scale poll with 50,000 persons in 53 countries carried out by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation in 2021. (See this)

The dissatisfaction with democracy rose further after the pandemic. Before the pandemic in all democratic countries included in the sample, 70% of respondents was satisfies with democracies. But in 2021, the percentage of satisfaction with democracy was 65 % for developing countries, 51% for developed countries, 45% in Europe and 76% in Asia.

One of the messages coming out of the Global Poll is that despite the trend of falling democracy, the love of democracy remains high. In fact, 81% of respondents say that democracy is important for their country, but only 63% say that their country is democratic.

One intriguing outcome of the poll is that, in China, 71% of the respondents say that they have a right amount of democracy.

What are the factors responsible for the Decline of Democracy? 

There can be many reasons for the decline of democracy. For some, it is the fault of China. The authors of the Freedom House Report (2021) make this statement without elaboration.

“Beyond the pandemic, Beijing’s exports of anti-democratic tactics, financial coercion, and physical intimidation have led to an erosion of democratic institutions and human right protection in numerous countries.”

But, there is another perception of Chinese influence on the decline of democracy,

“By demonstrating that advanced modernization can be combined with authoritarian rule, the Chinese regime has given hope to authoritarian rules everywhere.” (See this)

On the other hand, only 38% of the respondents of the Global Poll expressed their fear of Chinese influence on democracy. As for the Russia’s influence on democracy, only 28% confirmed such influence.

Then, what are the main determinants of the retreat of democracy? The Global Poll identifies the following three determinants.

First, the US appears to be the most responsible for the retreat of democracy. No less than 44% says that it is the U.S. which is a threat to democracy.

“Since 2020, the perception of the US influence as a threat to democracy around the world has increased significantly, from a net of +6 to a net opinion of +14. This increase is particularly high in Germany (+20) and China (+16)” (theguardian.com)

Second, the high tech companies are significant threat to democracy.

According to the poll, 50% say that high tech companies are a threat to democracy; it is particularly so in the U.S.(62%).

Third, the inequality of income is the threat to democracy. No less than 64 % say that inequality is the threat to democracy.

It goes without saying that the American influence, the domination of large high tech companies and inequality of income distribution are closely interrelated.

The poll makes it clear that the decline of democracy is attributable to the poor management of democracy of leading developed countries implying that the future of democracy depends on the leadership of these countries.

And, the respondents of the poll are very pessimistic about the leadership of the U.S. and European countries.

“With the United States, the biggest promoter of democracy and human right in retreat and the European Union experiencing existential battle, it is uncertain how liberal order can check the rising of the Chinese authoritarian model.” (theguardian.com)

The poll shows ” neither the US nor G7 can simply assure the mantle of defender of democracy.”  (theguardian.com)

“In fact, democracy is in decline, because its most prominent examples are not doing enough to protect it”. (The Freedom House Report, 2021)

These quotations are saying that the government of the US and developed democratic country have to find their redemption by doing better job for the protection of democracy.

Here, I must ask why the U.S. has failed in protecting democracy, let alone promoting it. I think that Washington has failed on two fronts. On the one hand, it has failed to make America a true democratic country and on the other, it has failed in propagating democracy in the world.

The most important yardstick of measuring the performance of a democratic government should be its capacity to provide such public goods as foods, clothing, housing, public health, education, people’s security to the people.

The U.S is the richest country in the world. Yet, Washington’s capacity of providing these public goods is dismal. The homeless people are filling streets of cities; 20% of the population has no affordable medical care; more than 25% of school children are starving without school meals: Americans are afraid of going out, because every day, 1.4 cases of armed street violence kill people. In the eyes many democratic countries, the American democracy is no longer their model.

The failure of Washington in protecting democracy and the rise of authoritarianism among democratic countries may make non-democratic countries to feel more satisfied with their authoritarianism.

As we saw above, the major threat to democracy is the combination of large high tech companies and the inequality of income and wealth. This is the unavoidable outcome of neo-liberal economic system of which the U.S. is the champion.

Remember how neo-liberal economic system works

First, the government’ role is minimized, or rather, it is paralyzed.

Second, to make profit, the production is automated and labour cost is minimized through the freezing of wage and abolition of effective labour unions.

Third, competition is limitless. Only the fittest survive, but as the free competition continues the number of fittest shrinks.

The combination of profit making and the limitless competition produces a situation where the income and wealth is bound to be in the hand of a few winners.

Moreover, the decreasing power of the government leads to a serious situation in which the big corporations dictate national economic policies, in which the oligarchy of politicians-bureaucrats-businessmen establishes the culture of corruption and aggravates unequal income distribution.

The inequality of income distribution is measured by the Gini coefficient which varies between zero and 100; the higher the Gini coefficient, the wider becomes the income distribution in favour of the rich.

The Gini coefficient which represents acceptable income distribution is about 35.

But, most of the developed democratic countries have a Gini coefficient varying between 45 and 50. The Gini coefficient for the U.S. is 50. Under such situation, only the transfer of income from the rich to the poor through taxes can provide reasonable amount of welfare to the poor; Washington has failed to do so.

Washington’s approach to the evangelization of democracy is another determinant factor of the decline of democracy. The core of Washington’s propagation of democracy has been the strategy of regime change through coercion and military intervention.

The amazing thing is that the U.S. has coercively intervened 60 times since 1950 in 48 countries, but succeeded only in handful cases in changing regimes. This leads us to question if the attempts were really regime change or something else, for example, the access to raw materials.

There is no doubt that Washington’s regime change operations have been one of factors of the decline of democracy.

Is China responsible for the Decline of Democracy? 

In order that China is responsible for the decline of democracy, the Chinese ideology-Confucian socialism- should be global enough to be competitive with American ideology represented by democracy.

Allison summarized well the basic structure of the two sets of values.

Graham Allison, wrote a book: “Destines for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides Trap? Houghton Miffin Harcourt, 2017“

Allison is saying that Western value (democracy) is so different from Chinese values (Confucian socialism) that the Chinese values cannot influence the Western values.

Here is Allison’s view of Western values.

“The United States is a missionary nation derived from the belief that the non-western nations should submit to the western values of democracy, free market, limited government, human right, individualism, the rules of law, and should embody these values in their institutions.” (Allison.14)

Here is Allison’s perception of Chinese values.

“The value of authority, the subordination of individual rights and interests, the importance of consensus, and avoidance of confrontation, saving face, and, in general, the supremacy of the state over society and individuals” (Allison p.138)

In addition, Allison provides a table which shows the difference between the American values and the Chinese values.

In this table, we see how wide the difference between the two sets of values is. The difference is so deep and so wide that it looks impossible to integrate them into one set of values, let alone find reconciliation.

Another point is that the American values are missionary, while the Chinese values are inimitable. In other words, the Chinese political regime cannot be a threat to democracy.

In conclusion, it can be said that the Chinese socialism cannot be responsible for the decline of democracy. The phenomenon of the fall of democracy and rising authoritarianism takes place in democratic countries not non-democratic countries.

Hence, it can be said that the only way to restore democracy does not consists in blaming China but in putting pressure on the government of democratic countries to adopt policies conducive to more equal income distribution and to assure the needed public goods.

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Dr. Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics at Quebec University  in Montreal (UQAM). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from TheAltWorld

[We repost this article by the late Prof. Joseph H. Chung, first published by GR in March 2022. Prof. Chung was an indefatigable voice on the politics of Asia-Pacific, especially on the dynamics of the Korean Peninsula.]

Introduction

The civil and political human rights (CPR) require that the government should not interfere in people’s efforts to assure freedom of speech, freedom of press and other types of freedom. If the government prevents the freedom, it violates the CPR.

On the other hand, the economic, social and cultural human rights (ESCR) refer to the people’s right to a decent and dignified life. To be more precise, the ESCR means the right to decent housing, enough foods, sound clothing, effective public health, rewarding education, fair equality and other goods and services. 

It is the government’s responsibility to provide these goods and services or, at least, create the conditions and environment which facilitate the access to these rights. If the government fails to provide these goods and services, it violates the ESCR.

In this paper, I will discuss to what extent China and the U.S. violate the ESCR. This paper has the following sections.

First, I will compare the economies of China and the U.S., because the level of the economy has significant bearing on the ESCR. In principle, the higher the level of the economy, the greater should be the protection of ESCR. So, a priori, one should expect that in the U.S. the ESCR should be better protected than in China.

Second, I will compare the degree of the violation of the ESCR in China and the U.S. The comparison will be done for each type of the ESCR.

Third, I will discuss the impact of the corruption culture on the SECR.

Fourth, I will sum up the findings of this paper.

U.S. Economy and Chinese Economy

Before anything else, the speed at which the Chinese economy has been catching up with the American economy is just amazing. The following table shows some of the amazing features of the Chinese economy.

It is amazing to see that Chinese nominal GDP is already 72.4% of the American GDP. In the past, no country had its economy passing beyond 40% of the US economy. The Japanese economy once represented 37% of the American economy. If we consider the purchasing power parity, the Chinese GDP (PPP) already went beyond the American economy.

Yet, China is still a poor country. Its nominal per capita GDP is still 16.8% of the American per capita GNP. Therefore, we would expect that the economic, social and cultural rights be better protected and promoted in the U.S. But, as we will see, that is not the case.

Table: Economy of China and the U.S. 2021

ESCR Violation in China and the U.S.

The following areas of ESCR violation are discussed: inequality of income, housing right, medicare right, education right and group right.

Inequality of Income

China: There is little data on the state of inequality in China. One of the indices of the shape of income distribution is the Gini coefficient which varies between zero to 100. The higher the Gini coefficient, the more skewed is the income distribution in favour of the rich. In recent years, the Gini coefficient was 47 in China as against 49 in the U.S.

The Gini coefficient is supposed to decline as the per capita GDP increases. As we saw in the table above, the Chinese per capita GDP is mere 16.8% of the American per capita GDP. Yet, the American income distribution is abnormally unequal in favour of the rich. Here are some of the data which attest to this reality.

• 70% of households has had zero net asset increase in the period 1989-2019
• The top 1% of households gets 32% of household assets
• 40 million households find themselves in poverty representing 12% of the total number of households
• New York Times (2019.09.10) reported that the rich lived longer than the poor
• The chief executive of the largest MNE gets hourly income which is the annual income of the average worker
• Ten CEO of S&P 500 Index Companies earn 1,000 times the income of ordinary worker
• The US Congress refused for decades to increase the minimum wage of $7.25

Housing Right

China: The Chinese housing system is based on the government’s land ownership and privatization of construction, distribution and management. 

In the 1980s, 90% of the housing stock was rental and the rent was 1% to 3% of tenant’s income. However, in the period 1996-1998, 60% of the housing stock was sold to individuals. In 2020, 95% of the housing stock was owner-occupied.

The notion of home ownership is unique. The land belongs to the state so that the home owner is a tenant to be exact. The owner buys the occupation-right for 70 years without paying tax except once at the time of the contract. This is intended to prevent real estate speculation. Lately, there was a scandal of the Construction Company, Evergrande’s real estate speculation. But this was for the non-residential properties.

The Chinese housing system allows the citizens to spend a lifetime rental dwelling with relative security and safety with little fear of eviction.

In China, there are homeless people, but they are the victims of natural disasters. They are not homeless due to the shortage of dwellings or housing discrimination or excessive rent burden.

US: In the U.S., the production, distribution and management of housing is determined by the free market relying on the “invisible hands” (the price mechanism). However, the invisible hands become visible (real estate speculation and corruption of the real estate market) and distorts the housing market.

The textbook of microeconomics says that in order for the invisible hands (the price mechanism) to work, there should be no monopoly, no oligopoly; both the consumer and the supplier of housing should have complete market information, the houses should be geographically mobile. We know that such market does not exist.

The worst condition which prevents the housing market from doing its job is the distorted income distribution in favour of the rich. As we saw above, the American income distribution is the most distorted among the developed countries.

It is not surprising that the home ownership in the country of Uncle Sam dropped from 70% in 2004 to 60% in 2016. But, in 2022, it rose to 64%.

The home ownership is the central component of the “American Dream.” It is now threatened.

No less than one third of Americans live in rental dwelling. The problem is the fact that the great number of tenants has to allocate more that 30% of their income. If the rental burden exceeds 30% of income, the tenant has to sacrifice other expenses, especially, those for children education and health care.

In 2022, 40% of American tenants pay more than 35% of household income.

In the United States, one of the ugly phenomena is the increasing number of the homeless. They occupy a whole block of cities and even threaten the safety and hygiene of the city population.

In the U.S., in 2019 no less than 568,000 people were the homeless. In Los Angeles alone, there were 41,290 homeless people in 2019. In New York City, in 2019, there were 48,690 homeless people.

Medicare Right

China: In the public health programs, there is the basic medical insurance and supplementary medical aid for the poor.

There are two Basic Medical Insurance systems: the employee basic medical insurance (EBMI) and residential basic medical insurance (RBMI).

In China, 95% of Chinese has medical insurance. The rate of reimbursement is 70% to 80%. As for the medical aid, since 2018, 480,000,000 low income people benefitted from it.

US: The U.S., the richest country in the world has one of the most complex piecemeal and the most expensive health insurance system in the world. In 2019, 56% of American population had private insurance, of which 50% was employer initiated insurance, the remaining 6% being non-group insurance.

The government-run insurance programs comprise the Medicare and the Medicaid. The Medicare is for the old-aged people of 65 plus and some young people. No more than 14% of Americans benefit from it. On the other hand, 20% of Americans benefit from the Medicaid program. This program is for low income people. In addition, there is the military medical insurance.

The American health system has two basic problems.

First, almost 10 % of Americans have no medical insurance. It is just incredible to see that the wealthiest country in the whole cannot provide minimum medical insurance to all citizens.

Second, it is too expensive. The average annual medical expenditure of Americas is as much as USD 12,000. As long as more than half of the entire population have to rely on private insurance companies for medical service, the cost of medical service is bound to rise.

According to the LA Times (2019.01.23), about 65,000,000, representing 19.0% of American population cannot have medical treatment due to cost. And, 15,000,000 are unable to pay prescribed drugs.

Education Right

China: In China, the citizens have access to free public education including post-secondary education. Nonetheless, at the college level, students are expected to pay $400 to $2,200 a year. At private colleges, students pay up to % 9,000. It is estimated that the cost which the undergrad students pay is 2% of what undergrad students pay in the U.S. 

US: The American education system is perhaps the most sophisticated system in the world. It is also the most expensive system in the world. This is translated by students’ debts. To illustrate this point, it is known that in 2019 students’ debts were as much as USD 1.5 trillion, which was the South Korean GDP. Moreover, as many as 18% of the total number of 2-year college students are homeless students.

It is true that the American education system produces many of the best brains in the world. But, it produces also the inevitable consequences of alienating the less educated and increasing the risk of violating the human rights of the weak.

I think that it is important that graduates of the ivy league universities and the big businesses leaders should be aware of the fact that they are there at the top of the social hierarchy due partly to the public goods (social and industrial infrastructure facilities, national defence, security, diplomacy, public education and so many other public goods) produced by the whole of the population including the poor, the weak, and the less talented.

They should not think that they are at the top of the society due to their competence alone. They should not ignore their obligation toward the poor, the weak and the less talented.

I am asking: “Does the CEO of a large corporation have the right to earn in one hour what the average worker earns in one year?”

Minority Group Rights

China: In China, 90% of the population is represented by the Han Chinese. There are 58 minority racial groups. There are no reported cases of the violation of group rights.

However, in the region of Guangzhou, the place of the concentration of African population, in some restaurants, one reads “The Africans are not allowed to restaurants.” This is clearly a violation of the Africans’ rights to choose the place to eat.

The U.S.: In the U.S. we see the wide spread phenomena of group discrimination leading to the negation of the access to the right of decent and dignified life. We see bellow some cases of the violation of group rights.

Afro-American are easy victims of judicial and penal system discrimination. They are 5.9 times more likely to be incarcerated. As for the religious discrimination, no less than 82% of Muslim Americans admit to have had experience of religious discrimination.

The results of the Pew Research Center Survey 2019 “Race in America” are interesting:

• 46% says that the government has no done enough for racial discrimination
• 58% says that the situation is getting worse
• 76% of Afro-American and Asians had racial discrimination experience
• 58% of Latino had the same experience
• Here is the proportion of those who said that it was Donald Trump who made the situation worse: Afro-American, 73%; Latino 69%; Asians, 65%

The women are the very vulnerable victims of discrimination. In fact, the US does not seem to have a sincere wish to prevent discrimination against women; the US has not signed the international convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against women.

Here is some of information on the seriousness of discrimination against women.

According to the Website of the Everytown Research Report (2019.10.17), the US is the most dangerous place for women in the world.

• In 2015, 92% of women killed with guns in high income countries took place in the US
• In the US, women are 21 times more likely to be killed by guns than in peer countries
• 50% o women killed by guns is by present or former intimate partners
• Every day, 50 women are killed by intimate partners
• 4,500,000 women are threatened by guns
• A CNN Report says that 70% of women have had experience of sexual violence in life
• The Jama International Medicine reports that 3,000,000 women aged 18-44 were raped at the first time they had sexual relation
• UN Women Report (2019.11.24) says that 24% of female undergrad of universities are sexually assaulted

In the U.S., the worst kind of racial discrimination is the hate discrimination.

• The US Today (2019.06.27) reports that at the college campus, 122 extreme racial propaganda were published in 32 states
• In 2019, in El Passo, 22 people were killed by white supremacists
• On 2019.12.17, the Mississippi prosecutor has excluded Afro-Americans from trials since he took office.
• According to the FBI 2019 Report, among 1,617 victims of antireligious hate, 56.9% was against Jews and 14.6%, against Muslims
• FBI Data (2019.11.11) show that, in 2018, of 7,036 hate crimes, 57.5% was against race/ethnicity/ancestor biased; 42.1% .
• The Guardian Website (2019.08.04) reported that in Walmart Supermarket in a Texas Border city, a 21-year-old boy, Patrick Crucius, drove 650 miles to kill 22 people for the reason for their being Hispanic.
• According to CNN Report (2019.12.2, 14-year girl was walking to Indian Hill High Junior School, when a vehicle drove on the sidewalk and ran over the girl

The discrimination against indigenous people is still there; 28% of them had had discrimination experience. The Republic Radio (2019.11.18) says that a considerable number of indigenous households have no plumbing facilities.

The job discrimination is also threatening Afro-Americans-Latino-Asians. They represent 36% of American population but they take up 58% of miscellaneous jobs and 70% of baggage porter jobs, bell hop jobs or concierge jobs.

• In 2018, the income of Afro-Americans was 62% of the white’s income.
• According to the Bureau of Statistics (2019. 11.), in 2018, women received 81% of male’s wage.
• According to the Huffpost (2019.12.04), the US is the only country that does not guarantee paid time for new mom
• According to the WBUR Report (2019.10.28) on the low-wage jobs, in the case of the white, only 20% had low wage job as against 46% for Latinos