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Jim Smith – whose concurrent roles as a Pfizer board member and Reuters CEO appear to pose a conflict of interest – serves as a board member of the World Economic Forum’s anti-corruption initiative.
Smith’s leading role with the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Partnering Against Corruption Initiative follows controversy over his position at the pharmaceutical giant and mainstream media outlet, which frequently reports on Pfizer. Reuters has published tens of thousands of articles covering or mentioning Pfizer, though the articles never disclose Smith’s affiliation with either entity.
Smith serves on the board of the WEF’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative, dubbed the “leading business voice on anti-corruption and transparency.”
“It is one of the Forum’s strongest cross-industry collaborative efforts and is creating a highly visible, agenda-setting platform by working with business leaders, international organizations and governments to address corruption, transparency and emerging-market risks,” explains a WEF synopsis.
“Today’s common struggle against corruption goes far beyond compliance. More problematic is the profound and worsening trust deficit that exists between institutions and individuals,” Smith begins before lamenting the public’s loss of trust in mainstream media outlets:
“The widespread perception that institutions—both public and private—are not acting in the interests of the people they serve pervades the thinking of communities across the globe. News organizations, which have historically served as the watchdog for governments and business leaders, are less trusted by the public than ever before.”
“Public confidence has been corroded by a concentration on near-term priorities and payoffs, propelled by election-cycle politics or quarterly results targets that too often leave children worse off than their parents,” laments Smith.
The article, however, comes amidst the Federal Drug Administration and Pfizer attempting to delay the release of documents related to the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine.
The WEF has been accused of exploiting COVID-19 to advance its “Great Reset” agenda to advance its radical agenda of abolishing private property ownership.
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Natalie Winters is the Lead Investigative Reporter at the National Pulse and co-host of The National Pulse podcast.
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Thanks to US blockade and other factors, Cuba’s economy is in very bad shape. So-called freedom protests are set to kick off again, and Cuban Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja sudden death, due to a heart attack, has possibly created a kind of power vacuum, as he was a potential next leader. A year ago, the largest protests in decades took place in the island, on July 11 and July 12. They were motivated mostly by problems regarding shortages, power outages, and long lines for food items and fuel. Today, the same problems remain, albeit with some improvements.
COVID-19 restrictions have been relaxed and that has partly revitalized the country’s tourism sector. It depends heavily on foreign tourism and foreign currency. However, the economy remains in crisis. Even though American President Joe Biden has eased some of the North American sanctions, most of the ones imposed by the former President (Donal Trump) remain in force and the Cuban economy thus remains squeezed. Havana’s government has taken some measures, albeit still timid, such as allowing the opening of some small businesses, but these too have had limited effect so far. Inflation is on the rise and so is emigration. In this sense, Cuban economic policy is much more strict than that of other socialist nations, such as China and even Vietnam.
The recent shift to a single Cuban currency, as well as the loss of Venezuelan subsidies do not seem to have worked very well. Of course, the global economic situation does not help. Of course, this gives an opportunity for dissidents to attack the Cuban system itself and to demand liberal democratic reforms and so on. In any case, the Cuban government fears an American-fueled “spring” of protests aimed at “regime change” – a goal Washington has long pursued – and therefore conducted a severe crackdown of the demonstrations last year.
However this might have backfired in the sense that it has generated further dissatisfaction among many sectors of Cuban society. The authorities insist that people have been charged with crimes such as vandalism for violating public order and therefore they cannot be considered political prisoners.
To make things even worse, the sugar harvest this season has been only half of what was expected. It will cover domestic demand but meeting international commitments will not be possible. The causes of this lie in pandemic related shortage of oxygen, but are also worsened by US sanctions.
The problem is that the Cuban economic crisis is also a migration crisis: since the beginning of the year at least 2,000 Cubans who tried to emigrate to Florida by sea have been deported by North American authorities, and last month 25,000 crossed the Mexican border after emigrating to different Central American countries. Emigration in fact has reached a new peak, with a total of 140,000 Cuban citizens having illegally entered US territory since October last year. Those are higher figures than that of the famous Mariel exodus crisis of 1980. All of this creates just the right climate for further demonstrations. And the economic and emigration crisis are also part of a larger domestic political crisis.
Even though Washington focuses mostly on countering Beijing on the Indo-Pacific, by broadening its engagement in South Asia and beyond, it cannot help but notice that China has also increased its presence in the Caribbean. In November 2020 I wrote that Havana should be in the spotlight in the near future, due to its increased cooperation with Beijing since at least 2018, when Chinese National Defense Minister Wei Fenghe and Cuban Minister of the Armed Forces Cintra Frias pledged to deepen both nations’ military and security ties. Since then, there were some signs of Chinese military presence on the island, although this has not been confirmed. Washington in turn has been quite busy militarizing the Caribbean Sea since at least 2020 to encircle Venezuela. The two great powers also compete for influence in both Guyana and Suriname, in the context of major oil discoveries in the region in 2020.
On July 1, Cuban representatives signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese company Zhongyulidu Technology Ltd to promote Cuba’s cultural heritage and tourism on Chinese digital platforms. A month ago Cuba-China cooperation presented their jointly-produced Pan-Corona Vaccine. Overthrowing the government in Havana and supporting pro-Western political actors would certainly serve American geopolitical interests in the region.
To sum it up, one should expect an escalation of protests in Cuba over the domestic crisis and one should also expect an attempt by Washington to exploit the situation by pushing for regime change in the island through the usual means of clandestinely fomenting “spring” revolutions – as it has attempted to do so in recent years in Belarus and elsewhere.
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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
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The United States Ambassador to Tripoli, Richard Norland, who is also his country’s Envoy to Libya, has been openly pushing forward a plan to deny the Libyan State the freedom of using the oil revenues in accordance with Libyan sovereignty over its resource. Oil makes roughly 98 per cent of the country’s foreign currency earnings and the country has plenty of it.
In a tweet on 28 June, the US embassy has, for the first time, unveiled what it called “efforts” to “establish a Libyan-led mechanism to provide transparency regarding how oil revenues are spent”. The idea is not new, but the way it is being presented now is completely unheard of before and remains vague, with very little details.
Basically what is being floated by Ambassador Norland was agreed to in the first Berlin Conference on Libya in January 2020. As part of stalling the Libyan conflict, the Conference agreed to establish a Libyan-led economic commission of experts to oversee “structural economic reform”, creating the economic track of the settlement process facilitated by the United Nations. The aim, then, was to make sure that oil revenues are equally distributed among Libyans through a unified mechanism to avoid any suspension of oil production and exports of the country’s lifeline, oil, ultimately de-weaponising oil in the conflict.
But what Mr. Norland’s proposal goes far beyond a process to, equally, share oil revenues among Libyans and, if implemented, it will, literally, strip the Libyan State and its relevant sovereign institutions, like the Central Bank and Audit Bureau, of any freedom in handling oil money. Any present or future government will not be free to budget freely as it is supposed to, until the entire conflict is settled.
Critics believe what the US Ambassador is proposing is an amended copy of the notorious “oil for food program” that was imposed on Iraq in 1995 to deny Iraq the freedom of managing and utilising its oil revenues. The program, part of sanctions against late Saddam Hussein’s government, ultimately became highly corrupt bureaucracy, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as more of them became poorer and unable to afford food and medicine. Under that mechanism, Iraq was unable to buy its needs without the approval of the program management, which usually investigated every single purchase including baby formula and other basic necessities.
Ambassador Norland’s idea, which he dubbed “Mustafeed” beneficiary in Arabic, lacks clarity and very little has been said to clarify it. Yet, it has been the subject of wider debate among Libyans across social media with most comments criticising what they see as serious infringement of Libya’s independence and sovereignty. However, in a tweet on 28 June, after meeting the current Prime Minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, in Tripoli, Richard Norland tweeted “I complimented the PM’s engagement on Mustafeed so far,” implying that Mr. Dbeibeh is supporting the proposal.
“Mustafeed” refers to a supervisory process in which all oil money is allocated into the budget of Libya through recommendations of a panel made up of the UN, European Union, Egypt, US and Libya as its Chair. Until a political settlement is reached, all oil money, usually used to finance imports of food, medicine and other essentials, will not be spent on any other budgetary items, except essentials. Furthermore the accounts of the Libyan State will be reviewed by a third party—likely to be an independent accounting firm—illegal under current Libyan laws.
The aim is to deny the militias the funding they have been enjoying over the years through their nominal support and sometimes blackmail of the successive governments that came to power in Libya over the last decade.
While this is a noble cause that would limit the financial attrition of the country, it is also a clear attempt to deny the Libyan State its sovereign decision-making over its resources by simply handing it over to foreign powers that are, essentially, the main cause of the country’s ills since 2011. Before “Mustafeed” was unveiled, many foreign players in Libya were calling for some kind of sharing of the oil revenue, a step many criticised because it could lead to partition of the country along its geographical regions: East, West and South—an idea supported by many politicians, particularly in eastern Libya, disguising it as federalist system similar to what Libya used to be in the wake of its independence in 1951.
Many believe the international military intervention in Libya in 2011 was, partly, to dominate and control part of the country’s huge oil wealth. Today, as it was then, Libya remains a wealthy nation with proven oil reserves estimated to be more than 48 billion barrels, the third in Africa, but the decade-long conflict has diminished its production capacity. Because of the conflict and lack of central government, the country is producing less than half a million barrels/day, when it should be capitalising on higher energy prices through increased production. International oil prices have skyrocketed since the start of the war in Ukraine, but Libya, despite its potential, has not benefited from this windfall.
The “Mustafeed” plan, if implemented, will not be anything but another form of “oil for food program”, since the country is still considered as a threat to international peace and security. Dozens of UN Security Council resolutions, since 2011, were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN designating Libya as security threat.
However, “Mustafeed” is very likely to be a difficult political sell for any politician who might be tempted to sign up to the idea. Despite everything that happened in the country, the majority of Libyans still reject foreign meddling in their affairs.
Foreign interference in Libya has been one of the triggers of the recent wave of public demonstrations that has been taking place across Libya over the last two weeks.
In a wider context, Ambassador Norland also linked “Mustafeed” to the White House initiative of conflict prevention and resolution unveiled by the Biden administration last April. In this case, taking control of Libya’s oil money will certainly limit the potential of waging war among different Libyan protagonists, but will not end the conflict while it will certainly eat away whatever sovereignty Libya has left.
As the political stalemate continues, similar ideas to “Mustafeed” are likely to become part of the debate about how to end the country’s political conflict which is poisoning every aspect of life, but fail to offer a solution.
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Dr. Patrick Provost, microbiology and immunology professor at the Université Laval (ULaval) in Quebec province, was punished for remarks he made in front of a panel of doctors and scientists back in December 2021. He said that the risks of injecting children with an experimental gene-altering mRNA COVID shot outweigh the potential benefits.
His remarks were not without basis as he studies mRNA in his own laboratory as part of his position at the university.
“Being censored for doing what I’ve been trained to do – and hired to do – well, it’s hard to believe,” said Provost. “I had some concerns about something, [so] I searched the literature, I prepared a speech [and] delivered it to the public.
The professor only learned on June 14 that ULaval was suspending him for eight weeks without pay.
“We need to be allowed to question again,” Provost remarked. “We should be able to discuss any ideas [and] any opinions. Because I express opinions against the narrative of the government, I was suspended.”
Provost was not the only academic who was punished for standing up against COVID-19 vaccines for children. ULaval also suspended biology professor Nicolas Derome for bringing up his concerns about the shots back in November 2021.
Simon Viviers, vice president of ULaval’s faculty union, said a grievance against the “attack on academic freedom” had been filed. He added that the penalties on Provost and Derome will make other professors think twice about making public comments on certain issues.
“To allow [a university] to judge the validity of the comments made by a university professor in public and to sanction him in this manner is extremely problematic,” he commented. “It could really have a dissuasive effect [and] even lead to self-censorship.”
MSM takes down Provost’s article shortly after publishing it
Apart from his suspension from ULaval, Provost’s article titled “The true portrait of COVID-19 in Quebec” was removed by the mainstream media outlet that first published it.
The piece published on June 22 in Le Journal de Quebec debunked the mainstream COVID-19 narrative. Provost wrote that the COVID-19 death rate is “greatly overestimated” due to a number of factors, including an infection rate “several times higher than reported” and the inclusion of “deaths with, and not because of, COVID-19” in the tallies.
He went on to say that a higher rate of “all-cause” death amongst the elderly only took place during the first wave from April to June 2020, as well as shortly after the imposition of the holiday lockdown or curfew and the deployment of the third vaccine dose in January 2022.
While he did not associate the vaccines with higher death rates, he presented the data from around the world compiled by insurance companies showing an almost 40 percent spike of excess death-rate claims in largely vaccinated or boosted populations.
Provost asked: “Did the pandemic … justify imposing such severe and comprehensive health measures, rather than targeted ones, to circumscribe a threat that targeted a well-known category of people?”
Quebecor, the parent company of Le Journal de Quebec, took down the article – but independent media outlets such as Libre Media have republished it.
“You are condemned by the media, by the government, and you are chased and put down,” lamented Provost.
Visit MedicalCensorship.com for more stories about the silencing of doctors critical of COVID-19 vaccines.
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The reason why Pfizer’s Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccine” was declared to be “safe and effective” by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is because Pfizer lied about the outcomes of its clinical trials.
Pfizer’s clinical trial documents, which started getting released on June 1 by the FDA as part of a lawsuit and court-ordered disclosure schedule, reveal that the company classified nearly every severe adverse event that occurred as being “not related to shots.”
The 80,000-page document pile from Pfizer includes an extensive set of Case Report Forms (CFRs) from the company’s Phase 3 trials, which were conducted at various locations throughout the United States.
“The CRFs included in this month’s documents contain often vague explanations of the specific symptoms experienced by the trial participants,” writes Michael Nevradakis, PhD, for The Defender, a project of Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
“They also reveal a trend of classifying almost all adverse events – and in particular severe adverse events (SAEs) – as being ‘not related’ to the vaccine.”
Just like they did with covid itself, vaccine deaths were blamed on everything but the jabs themselves
In one instance, a woman in her 50s who participated in a Pfizer clinical trial at the Sterling Research Group in Cincinnati, Ohio, died of an apparent myocardial infarction on Nov. 4, 2020, after receiving two injections two months prior.
“The patient had a medical history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, hypothyroidism, osteoarthritis of the knees and attention deficit disorder,” reports explain.
“Her death was listed as ‘not related’ to the vaccine, and was instead attributed to ‘hypertensive cardiovascular disease.’”
Another female of roughly the same age, also out of Cincinnati, died of cardiac arrest on Oct. 21, 2020, after getting shot in the months prior. Her death was categorized as “not related” to the injections as it “occurred 2 months after last receipt of study agent.”
A mid-60s male who participated in a Texas-based Ventavia Research Group trial got jabbed in August 2020 and died in November 2020 from an apparent myocardial infarction. His death was blamed on a “failed cardiac stent” and pneumonia attributed to an undisclosed “infection.”
A fully injected teenage female who was diagnosed with right lower extremity deep vein thrombosis on Nov. 15, 2020, was hospitalized for her “serious” condition and later died, only to have Pfizer list the cause of death as a “fracture.”
A male in his mid-70s who was jabbed around the same time and quickly developed abdominal adhesions, altered mental status, and acute hypoxic respiratory failure later died from congestive heart failure. His death was blamed by Pfizer on a “prior surgery.”
Another male of roughly the same age out of Boston received both Pfizer injections and developed pneumonia and a peripheral edema. He later died after being hospitalized for pneumonia, only to have his death attributed by Pfizer to “existing neuropathy.”
“During his hospitalization with pneumonia, his blood pressure was measured as high as 179/72, with a heart rate reaching 105 beats per minute and an oxygen saturation level that fell to 92.0,” Nevradakis writes.
“In total, he had three emergency room visits during the observation period.”
On and on the list goes with patient after patient clearly dying from the jabs, but not being categorized as such in Pfizer’s trial results. This is what you call fraud, and it is what Pfizer engaged in to participate in and profit from Operation Warp Speed.
“Now are people understanding why this information was not supposed to be released for 70 years?” wrote a reader at The Defender. “They tried to bury this … After 70 years, everyone who had taken the ‘clot-shot’ would have been dead.”
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TikTok is facing multiple lawsuits from parents who say their children died of strangulation attempting the “blackout challenge,” after the app showed them videos of other people trying it. One suit filed against the company in June alleges that at least seven specific children died last year while attempting the challenge, which the complaint says “encourages users to choke themselves with belts, purse strings, or anything similar until passing out.” All the children who reportedly died were under 15 years old.
We’re not going to get into the distressing details of the cases, but you can read the full complaint below for more background on some of the children, and how they ended up doing the challenge.
The most recent lawsuit was filed by the parents of eight-year-old Lalani Walton, and nine-year-old Arriani Arroyo. However, it cites several other children that also died after attempting the challenge as evidence that TikTok was aware of the problem. In addition to Walton and Arroyo, the cases it lists are:
A 10-year-old in Italy who reportedly died in January 2021
A 12-year-old in Colorado who reportedly died in March 2021
A 14-year-old in Australia who reportedly died in June 2021
A 12-year-old in Oklahoma who reportedly died in July 2021
A 10-year-old in Pennsylvania who reportedly died in December 2021
The mother of the Pennsylvania 10-year-old, Nylah Anderson, is also suing the company, alleging that the app “pushed exceedingly and unacceptably dangerous challenges.” In response to that suit, TikTok told The Washington Post that it had blocked users from searching for the blackout challenge — instead, users see one of its warning screens, saying that “some online challenges can be dangerous, disturbing, or even fabricated,” and get linked to a page in the app about assessing challenges and warnings.
The screen TikTok shows when a user searches for the blackout challenge. (Source: The Verge)
However, Smith and Arroyo’s newer suit alleges that their children weren’t searching for challenges when they saw the videos. Instead, it says, TikTok put it right in front of them on the app’s main screen, the For You page. The suit accuses the company of having “specifically curated and determined that these Blackout Challenge videos – videos featuring users who purposefully strangulate themselves until losing consciousness – are appropriate and fitting for small children”.
On the record, TikTok spokesperson Mahsau Cullinane would only provide the company’s previous statement:
This disturbing ‘challenge,’ which people seem to learn about from sources other than TikTok, long predates our platform and has never been a TikTok trend. We remain vigilant in our commitment to user safety and would immediately remove related content if found. Our deepest sympathies go out to the family for their tragic loss.
Challenges are a core part of the TikTok experience — to the point where competitors have started trying to integrate them into their platforms in an attempt at appealing to TikTok users. Some challenges simply involve doing a dance move, while others are less benign. One infamous challenge that spread among the platform’s users encouraged students to steal or destroy school property. The platform is so well-known for its challenges that the company is sometimes linked to ones that spread on other sites or apps, or even ones that are seemingly made up.
Smith and Arroyo’s suit argues that because TikTok advertises and pushes some challenges, it has a “duty to monitor the videos and challenges shared, posted, and / or circulated on its app and platform to ensure that dangerous and deadly videos and challenges were not posted, shared, circulated, recommended, and / or encouraged.”
The company has faced lawsuits and fines over the access children have to its platform before. In 2019, it agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it allowed users under 13 to sign up without a parent’s permission. About a year later, it introduced Family Pairing mode, which lets parents link their accounts to their children’s and control the amount of content they see and how much time they can spend on the app.
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Featured image: Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
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Under normal circumstances inflation occurs, when too many monetary units (US dollars, Euros, Chinese Yuan) chase too few goods. But we are not living in normal times. To the contrary. We are living in an increasingly divided world, not only in political terms – West vs. East / Global North vs. Global South – but also in monetary terms.
The gradual but ever faster faltering of the US dollar hegemony, followed by related so-called hard currencies, like the Euro, the British Pound, the Japanese Yen, as well as the Australian and Canadian dollars, is giving eastern currencies, especially the Chinese Yuan and to some extent also the Russian Ruble a thrive towards stability.
Why is that? For a number of reasons. First, the Chinese Yuan and the Russian Ruble, as well as many other eastern currencies, are backed by their economies and in both cases also by gold. For that reason alone, they have an inherent stability, western fiat currencies – which are based on nothing – do not have.
A new and coming eastern currency stability mechanism may soon be a basket of some twenty commodities that are widely and universally used, in addition to the strength of the local economy.
This idea is not new, but has recently been reintroduced by Russia’s Sergei Glazyev. As of 2021, he is the Commissioner for Integration and Macroeconomics within the Eurasian Economic Commission, the executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union. Sergei Glazyev is also President Putin’s economic advisor.
It is a clear distinction from western fiat currencies which are based on no solid substance, other than debt creation. In other words, western dollar-based currencies – beginning with the US dollar itself – are unsustainable pyramid schemes which sooner or later are bound to implode, or at best gradually collapse.
What we are witnessing today, is a steady decay of western currencies which are currently been artificially propped up by manipulation of interest rates, as well as artificially caused inflation, based on artificially created shortages of food, energy and other commodities. The pretext used for such shortages – totally false indeed – is the Russian-Ukraine war.
Such shortages, especially food shortages and resulting mass famine, had been planned for over ten years and were already reflected in the 2010 Rockefeller Report. They are being carried out now.
In today’s (western) world, inflation and monetary (in)stability are manufactured or manipulated. They are being used like “cold war” weapons by the west internally, initiated by the US, to play western currencies against each other and to assure dollar hegemony will continue.
To the extent possible and especially through the east-west trade-related interdependency, mostly through the powerhouse China, the west is hoping to also destabilize the economies of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members, especially China.
China’s western currency reserves amounted in May 2022 to some US$ 3.12 trillion equivalent, at least two thirds of which are in US dollar denominated assets. Given the Chinese – US, as well as western economies’ trading interrelation, dedollarization remains a challenge for China.
The Federal Reserve
Despite forecasters’ expectations of a half-a basic point increase, under the pretext of fighting inflation, the FED announced on June 15 the largest interest rate hike in 28 years, namely an increase of three-quarters of a percentage point — the biggest hike since 1994. That follows a quarter-point increase in March and a half-point jump in May. On July 5, 2022, the FED’s base rate was between 1.5% and 1.75%.
This, the FED said, was a move towards regaining control over soaring consumer prices.
However, consumer prices were up 8.6% from a year ago. In other words, the FED pretends to fight an 8.6% annual inflation with an interest rate hike of less than 2%. This is unrealistic.
The real reason for these sudden interest rate increases is to be sought elsewhere. Namely, the gradual but steady loss of the US dollar’s value in the global monetary market. This has to do with a number of factors, among them, the steadily faltering trust in the US economy, but predominantly with Washington’s dollar-based worldwide “sanctioning” of countries that do not conform to US policies, but instead want to preserve their political and economic sovereignty.
Increasing interest rates is expected to draw investors to dollar denominated assets – at least temporarily; thereby “postponing” the collapse of the US dollar hegemony.
The global flow of US dollars accounts today for between 50% and 60% of all trading currencies in the world. With this quantitative supremacy. Plus, interest rates increases, the US dollar may be able to extend her currency domination provisionally – but the fall of the dollar and dollar-related and dependent currencies will undoubtedly follow.
The result of this FED interest hike can already be seen, in as much as the exchange rate US dollar and Euro is almost 1:1, and the dollar is moving in the same direction vis-à-vis the British Pound.
The inflation-driven price increases reflect not only rising costs for gasoline and groceries, but also for rent and airfares and a wide range of services.
Overall, however, the FEDs interest hike, even at a record-level over the past almost 30 years, does not stop or even brake inflation which is expected to soon enter the two-digit dimension. The gap between base-interest and inflation is too wide. But it may bring temporarily more stability to the US dollar.
China’s Yuan
What is China doing for their currency’s – the Yuan’s – stability?
In addition to having already a real economy-based currency, and the prospect of moving towards commodity-based and backed currency, the State Council of China issued at the end of May 2022 a policy package, including 33 measures covering fiscal and financial policies, as well as policies on investment, consumption, food and energy security, industrial and supply chains and people’s livelihoods. These are some highlights of the package:
In finance, China will further enhance value-added tax credit refund policies and quicken its fiscal spending schedule. Local government special bonds issuance and utilization will be accelerated with a service extension. Government financing guarantee policies will be activated and social security premiums deferral and employment support policies will be enhanced;
In terms of monetary and financial policies, China encourages delayed repayment of capital and interests on loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, self-employed individuals, truck drivers, and personal housing and consumption loans affected by COVID-19. Inclusive loans to micro and small businesses will be expanded. Real lending rates will be stable with a slight decline, and improvements will be made to the financing efficiency of capital markets;
In stabilizing investment and promoting consumption, China will accelerate some approved water conservancy projects and speed up investment on transportation infrastructure, continue to build urban underground pipelines, stabilize and expand private investment, promote the healthy and standardized development of the platform economy, and stimulate purchases of cars and home appliances;
Regarding food and energy security, policies on grains profit guarantee for farmers will be intensified. Quality coal will be produced while ensuring safety, environment-friendliness and efficient utilization. In addition, some major [alternative] energy projects will be launched;
To stabilize industrial and supply chains, China will reduce utility costs for market entities, gradually reduce and exempt their rent, and help ease the burden on sectors and companies severely affected by the pandemic. Enterprises’ work resumption, and smooth transportation and logistics policies will be optimized. More support will be provided to logistics hubs and enterprises. Major foreign-funded projects will be prioritized to attract foreign investments; and
As for policies concerning people’s livelihoods, China will implement support policies for housing provident funds, bolster the employment and entrepreneurship of rural migrant population and rural labor, and enhance social security guarantee measures.
From a Uni-Polar to a Multi-Polar World
The future points clearly away from a western-dominated unipolar world – or On World Order (OWO) to a multi-polar world, that may be based on some strong economic “hubs”, while preserving individual countries’ sovereignty.
The above policies are to strengthen and stabilize in the long-term the Chinese economy – which will be further enhanced by trade and political association with other related regional economies, like those of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the SCO, as well as further down the road the BRICS+ countries.
Among the particular socioeconomic achievements that will keep China’s and associated currencies and financial systems stable and apart from the western shortage and inflation-driven economies, is the ASEAN+ Five world’s largest and most comprehensive free-trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
The RCEP is a free trade agreement among the Asia-Pacific ASEAN nations of, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The trade deal also includes five non-ASEAN signatories, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and China.
The RCEP is the world’s largest free trade agreement. It was negotiated during eight years and entered into effect on 1 January 2022. According to a recent UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) study, it represents 30.5% of the world’s GDP. The only other blocs coming close to that are the US-Mexico-Canada agreement – NAFTA (28%) and the EU (17.9%).
The RCEP is expected to expand quickly, as the 15 countries will likely generate world-embracing dynamics, while at the same time, remaining self-contained as a sovereign bloc, meaning trading within and protected from western influences.
The bloc’s trading currencies will be predominantly the Yuan (a digital yuan primarily for international trade is expected to be rolled out possibly as early as later this year or early 2023), but also local currencies – but not the US dollar and other western currencies under the dollar hegemony.
Another element for enhancing eastern financial stability, is the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Earlier this year, Iran applied for BRICS membership. Iran is already a member of the SCO.
At present, the BRICS represent 40 percent of world population, 25 percent of the global economy, 18 percent of world trade. The BRICS are the fastest growing bloc of countries, contributing some 50% to world economic growth.
Finally – but not least – are the interrelated Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), initiated by President Xi Jinping in 2013. The BRI is also called the New Silk Road, inspired by the concept of the Silk Road established during the Han Dynasty over 2,000 years ago – an ancient network of trade routes that connected China to the Mediterranean via Eurasia for centuries.
In March 2022, the number of countries that have joined the BRI by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China is 146, plus 32 international organizations.The countries of the BRI are spread across all continents: 43 countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The BRI has several trading routes, including maritime routes, connecting countries with transport and other infrastructure links, as well as joint ventures for energy exploitation or industrial production processes, cultural and educational exchanges – and many more country and regional links. It is “Globalization” with Chinese characteristics, where individual autonomies are respected.
This initiative goes hand in hand with another one, the Global Development Initiative (GDI), announced by President Xi Jinping at the UN General Assembly in 2021.
GDI complements BRI as a support and cooperation mechanism for large international financial and development bodies, such as the South-South Cooperation Fund, the International Development Association (IDA is part of the World Bank Group), the Asian Development Fund (ADF), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
This eastern, China-based network of mutually enhancing financial institutions, trade agreements, economic policy think tanks – and much more – shield against western attempts to interfere with and destabilize these eastern bloc financial, economic and monetary mechanisms.
These networks also represent a stronghold for a sound future for an easter-led socioeconomic development framework – a solid base for a common future in PEACE for mankind.
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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 lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
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***
„Wir leben in einem Zeitalter der Angst, die durch Desinformation hervorgerufen und durch absolute Tyrannei noch verstärkt wird. (…) Ist dies die Art von ‚Demokratie‘, die wir an künftige Generationen weitergeben.“ Mit diesen Worten beginnt der „Newsletter“ der globalen Plattform „Global Research“ vom 8. Juli 2022.
„Jeder Mensch besitzt einen mehr oder weniger großen Einflussbereich in einer scheinbar hoffnungslosen Situation“, schrieb Albert Camus zur Zeit des Zweiten Weltkriegs in einem „Brief an einen Verzweifelten“.
Das heißt, jeder Bürger kann das „Salz der Erde“ sein, wie es in Matthäus (Mt 5,13) geschrieben steht. In der Bergpredigt vergleicht Jesus seine Jünger mit dem damals wichtigen und wertvollen Salz und sagt: „Ihr seid das Salz der Erde.“
Salz ist das erhaltende Prinzip, das Verderben oder Fäule entgegenwirkt. Die Bildrede vom „Salz der Erde“ äußerte vor kurzem eine wunderbare Interviewpartnerin, was mich sofort für sie einnahm. Diskussionsthema war das menschliche Gemeinschaftsgefühl als unerschütterliche Logik menschlichen Zusammenlebens und die Frage: Werden menschliches Gemeinschaftsgefühl und der Geist der Verantwortlichkeit Machtgier und Gewalttätigkeit überwinden?
Wir waren uns einig, dass wir etwas Geduld aufbringen müssen: Viele Mitbürger wachen langsam auf und beginnen, selbst zu denken und zu handeln: Siehe die ermutigenden Berichte über regierungskritische Proteste der Bauern in den Niederlanden, Spanien und Portugal sowie die zunehmenden Proteste in anderen Teilen der Welt.
Ein „leuchtendes Beispiel“ für den Appell, Salz der Erde zu sein, war der ehemalige Mitarbeiter von Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, Prof. Dr. Dr. med. Siegwart-Horst Günther, einer der ärztlichen Vorbilder der Neuzeit, der sich über seine humane ärztliche Tätigkeit am einzelnen Menschen hinaus auch unbestechlich für die wissenschaftliche Wahrheit und die Humanität in unserer Welt einsetzte.
Opfer von Kriegen ins Auge fassen und für Mütter und Kinder der Welt Verantwortung übernehmen
Als im Vietnamkrieg das hochgiftige Entlaubungsmittel „Agent Orange” und die Brandwaffe „Napalm“ eingesetzt wurden, waren die Menschen der Welt entsetzt. Das war kein Krieg mehr, sondern es war Schlächterei an Zivilbevölkerung und Natur.
Die Waffenindustrie – auch die Atomwaffenindustrie – hat seit Vietnam ihr Geschäft hinter dem Rücken aller internationaler Abkommen zügig weiterentwickelt, sodass die illegalen Angriffskriege immer mörderischer, hinterhältiger, flächendeckender und genozidaler wurden. Oder wie das US-Imperium sagt „effizienter“.
In der vorderasiatischen Republik Jemen sterben inzwischen alle zwei Stunden eine Mutter und sechs Babys.
Bereits am 19. Februar 2019 veröffentlichte der Autor den Artikel „Beihilfe zum Genozid. Der vom Westen unterstützte Krieg Saudi-Arabiens im Jemen könnte für Millionen Kinder den Hungertod bedeuten.“ (1)
Heute haben wir Krieg in der Ukraine – und: „Wer das Weinen verlernt hat, der lernt es wieder bei der Bombardierung der Ukraine.“ (2)
Alle Bürger dieses Planeten müssen dringend beginnen, die Folgen dieser Kriege, das heißt die Opfer der weltweiten Waffengeschäfte ins Auge zu fassen.
Multiple Formen von Karzinomen und missgebildete Neugeborene hat es bei der Zivilbevölkerung des Iraks, Afghanistans und Ex-Jugoslawiens (Serbiens) in der Vergangenheit nicht gegeben. Sie sind das Resultat barbarischer Kriege.
Wir alle haben eine Verantwortung für die Mütter und Kinder dieser Welt. Schauen wir hin und beginnen wir, das Leid zu lindern, weiteres zu verhindern und auf die Beendigung der Kriege hinzuwirken.
„Jeder Mensch besitzt einen mehr oder weniger grossen Einflussbereich.“
Literaturnobelpreisträger Albert Camus, einer der wichtigsten Intellektuellen des 20. Jahrhunderts äusserte sich in seinem Tagebuch auch zum Zweiten Weltkrieg und zur Rolle des Individuums in einer als hoffnungslos empfundenen Situation. Es sind Gedanken, die Camus‘ Aktualität bis in unsere heutigen Tage dokumentieren und zutiefst berühren (3).
Gleich nach Ausbruch des Krieges schreibt er: „Nichts ist unentschuldbarer als der Krieg und der Aufruf zum Völkerhass. Aber ist der Krieg einmal ausgebrochen, ist es zwecklos und feige, sich unter dem Vorwand, man sei nicht für ihn verantwortlich, abseits zu stellen.“ (4)
Was der einzelne Mensch in einer solchen Situation seines Erachtens zu überdenken und zu tun hat, beschreibt Camus in einem „Brief an einen Verzweifelten“:
„Sie haben eine Aufgabe, zweifeln Sie nicht daran. Jeder Mensch besitzt einen mehr oder weniger grossen Einflussbereich. Er verdankt ihn seinen Mängeln ebenso wie seinen Vorzügen. Aber wie dem auch sei, er ist vorhanden, und er kann unmittelbar genutzt werden. Treiben Sie niemanden zum Aufruhr. Man muss mit dem Blut und der Freiheit der anderen schonend umgehen. Aber Sie können zehn, zwanzig, dreissig Menschen davon überzeugen, dass dieser Krieg weder unabwendbar war, noch ist, dass noch nicht alle Mittel versucht worden sind, ihm Einhalt zu gebieten, dass man es sagen, es wenn möglich schreiben, es wenn nötig hinausschreien muss! Diese zehn oder dreissig Menschen werden es zehn anderen weitersagen, die es ihrerseits weiterverbreiten. Wenn die Trägheit Sie zurückhält, nun gut, so fangen Sie mit anderen von vorne an.“ (5)
Abschließend ermutigt Camus den Ratsuchenden, nicht an der Geschichte zu verzweifeln, in der das Individuum alles vermag: „Individuen sind es, die uns heute in den Tod schicken. Warum sollte es nicht anderen Individuen gelingen, der Welt den Frieden zu schenken? Nur muss man beginnen, ohne an so große Ziele zu denken. Vergessen Sie nicht, dass der Krieg ebenso sehr mit der Begeisterung derer geführt wird, die ihn wollen, wie mit der Verzweiflung derer, die ihn mit der ganzen Kraft ihrer Seele ablehnen.“(6)
An anderer Stelle seiner Tagebucheintragungen bekräftigt Camus seinen Standpunkt: „Es gibt ein einziges Verhängnis, nämlich den Tod, und darüber hinaus gibt es keines mehr. In dem Zeitraum, der von der Geburt bis zum Tod reicht, ist nichts festgelegt: Man kann alles ändern und sogar dem Krieg Einhalt gebieten und sogar den Frieden erhalten, wenn man es inständig, stark und lange will.“ (7)
Prof. Dr. Dr. med. Siegwart-Horst Günther
Prof. Günther (1925-2015) war einer der beeindruckendsten Ärztepersönlichkeiten unserer Zeit. Während seines ganzen Lebens war er in den Kriegs- und Krisengebieten des Mittleren Ostens tätig. Tausenden von Menschen hat er ganz konkret vor Ort geholfen. Auch war er Begründer der Vereinigung „Gelbes Kreuz International“, einer Hilfsorganisation für Kinder in Not auf der ganzen Welt.
Als junger Mann war Günther ein Gegner Adolf Hitlers und wurde deshalb bis zum Ende des Krieges ins Konzentrationslager Buchenwald gesteckt. Von 1945 bis 1950 studierte er Medizin, Philosophie und Ägyptologie. Als fertiger Arzt arbeitete er bei Albert Schweizer im Urwald-Hospital von Lambaréné. Schweitzer begrüßte ihn mit den Worten: „Schön, dass du kommst und uns hilfst.“ (8)
Von 1990 bis 1995 lehrte und arbeitete Prof. Günther an der Universität und im Universitätshospital in Bagdad (Irak). In seiner Dankesrede zur Verleihung des „Nuclear-Free-Future-Awards“ am 18. Oktober 2007 sagte er: „Als ich 1991, nach dem 1. Golf-Krieg, entdeckte, dass die Alliierten in diesem für mich völkerrechtswidrigen Krieg Uran-Geschosse eingesetzt hatten, mit allen ihnen schon damals bekannten schrecklichen Konsequenzen, war ich wegen dieser Ungeheuerlichkeit zutiefst empört. Krieg sollte sowieso obsolet sein, aber der Einsatz dieser Munition und Bomben aus abgereichertem Uran ist eine Menschen und Umwelt verachtende Ungeheuerlichkeit.“ (9)
Diese Ungeheuerlichkeit, die Professor Günther aufgedeckt hatte, brachte ihm viel Ärger ein, besonders in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, wo er in den 90er Jahren dafür geradezu diskreditiert und verfolgt wurde. Doch auf die Frage eines Freundes auf einer beschwerlichen und nicht ungefährlichen Autofahrt im Irak, antwortete der bereits 79jährige:
„Wissen Sie, mein junger Freund, ich bin Arzt und meinem hippokratischen Eid verpflichtet, und dieser Eid kennt keine Altersgrenzen.“ (10)
Günthers Name und seine Erkenntnisse über das von ihm entdeckte „Golf-Kriegs-Syndrom“ werden unter anderem durch den Film „Der Arzt und die verstrahlten Kinder von Basra“ und den Film „Todesstaub“ (2004-2007) in Erinnerung bleiben (11).
In seinem Buch „Hunger und Not der Kinder im Irak“ von 2007 schrieb Prof. Günther: „Als ehemaliger Mitarbeiter von Dr. Albert Schweitzer bin ich seit vielen Jahren im Rahmen humanitärer Hilfeleistungen in Spannungsgebieten tätig und sehe dort täglich die große Not und das Sterben von Menschen, vor allem von Kindern. In Kosovo, wie auch in der Golf-Region, werden in letzter Zeit immer wieder neu UN-Diskussionen geführt, aber der Hunger und das Sterben gehen weiter.“ (12)
Albert Schweitzer war der Überzeugung, dass die Gefahr neuer Vernichtungskriege nicht durch internationale Vereinbarungen oder irgendwelche Institutionen, sondern allein durch die sittlich bestimmte Haltung aller Verantwortlichen gebannt werden kann. Unerschütterlich glaubte er daran, dass sich nur vom Geiste her, in der sittlichen Haltung des Einzelnen und der Nationen, jene entscheidende Wirkung vollziehen kann, die der Welt den Frieden sichert (13).
Im Nachwort seines Buches “Hunger und Not der Kinder im Irak“ schrieb Prof. Günther: „Als Teilnehmer des Zweiten Weltkrieges, der viele Verbrechen miterleben musste und selbst Leidtragender war, bin ich mit wachsendem Mitgefühl den Verbrechen der neuen Kriege und ihrer Folgen nachgegangen. Dazu hat mich nicht zuletzt meine Freundschaft zu Albert Schweitzer und unsere gemeinsame Tätigkeit im Urwaldspital in Lambaréné veranlasst. Ich werde deshalb nicht müde, auch an dieser Stelle an alle Menschen zu appellieren, Frieden zu erhalten und Hilfe dort zu leisten, wo sie gebraucht wird. Am Golf, in Ex-Jugoslawien, in Afrika, in Lateinamerika. Und wenn diese Gedanken auch nur beim Leser eine nachhaltige Wirkung hervorrufen sollte, schon dann hätte sich die Mühe gelohnt.“ (14)
„Uran-Geschosse: Nach Zyklon B eine neue deutsche Kampf- und Massenvernichtungstechnologie“
Abschließend ist es dem deutschen Autor ein Anliegen, von den bewegenden persönlichen Begegnungen mit Prof. Günther in der Schweiz zu berichten, die sich tief in dessen Bewusstsein eingegraben haben und deshalb nicht vergessen werden:
Bei vielen weltanschaulichen oder pädagogisch-psychologischen Gesprächs-Abenden war auch Prof. Günther anwesend – mit fast 90 Jahren gesundheitlich etwas angeschlagen. Ging es in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion um das Thema Depleted Uranium (DE) und den Einsatz der hochgiftigen und radioaktiven Urangeschosse in den Kriegen im Irak, in Afghanistan oder Ex-Jugoslawien, dann trat Prof. Günther jeweils kurz an den Rednertisch, setzte sich und sagte ruhig, aber entschieden:
„Urangeschosse sind eine deutsche Technologie, eine deutsche Erfindung! Nach Zyklon B eine neue deutsche Kampf- und Massenvernichtungstechnologie!“ (15)
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Lehrer (Rektor a. D.), Doktor der Pädagogik (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Schwerpunkte: Klinische-, Pädagogische- und Medien-Psychologie). Als Pensionär arbeitete er viele Jahre als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und pädagogisch-psychologischen Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung und eine Erziehung zum Gemeinsinn und Frieden.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Noten
1. „RUBIKON“
2. „Global Research“, May 01, 2022
3. Marin, L. (Hrsg.). (2013). Albert Camus – Libertäre Schriften (1948-1960)
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
“We live in an age of fear, caused by disinformation and reinforced by absolute tyranny. (…) Is this the kind of ‘democracy’ we are passing on to future generations.” These are the words with which the “Newsletter” of the global platform “Global Research” of 8 July 2022 begins.
“Every human being possesses a greater or lesser sphere of influence in an apparently hopeless situation”,wrote Albert Camus at the time of the Second World War in a “Letter to a Desperate Man”.
That is, every citizen can be the “salt of the earth”, as it is written in Matthew (Mt 5:13). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus compares his followers to salt, which was important and precious at that time, and says: “You are the salt of the earth.”
Salt is the sustaining principle that counteracts corruption or rot. The imagery of the “salt of the earth” was recently expressed by a wonderful interviewee, which immediately won me over. The topic of discussion was the human sense of community as the unshakeable logic of human coexistence and the question: Will human sense of community and the spirit of responsibility overcome greed for power and violence?
We agreed that we have to be patient: Many fellow citizens are slowly waking up and beginning to think and act for themselves: see the encouraging reports of anti-government protests by farmers in the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, and the increasing protests in other parts of the world.
A “shining example” of the appeal to be salt of the earth was the former co-worker of Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, Prof. Dr. Dr. med. Siegwart-Horst Günther, one of the medical role models of modern times, who, beyond his humane medical work on the individual, was also incorruptibly committed to scientific truth and humanity in our world.
Focusing on the victims of war and taking responsibility for the mothers and children of the world
When the highly toxic defoliant “Agent Orange” and the incendiary weapon “Napalm” were used in the Vietnam War, the people of the world were horrified. This was no longer war, but butchery of civilians and nature.
Since Vietnam, the arms industry – including the nuclear weapons industry – has rapidly developed its business behind the back of all international agreements, so that the illegal wars of aggression have become ever more murderous, insidious, widespread and genocidal. Or, as the US empire says, “more efficient”.
In the Near Eastern Republic of Yemen, a mother and six babies now die every two hours.
Back on 19 February 2019, the author published the article “Aiding and abetting genocide. Saudi Arabia’s Western-backed war in Yemen could mean starvation for millions of children.” (1)
Today we have war in Ukraine – and: “Those who have forgotten how to cry are learning it again in the bombing of Ukraine.” (2)
All citizens of this planet must urgently begin to consider the consequences of these wars, that is, the victims of the global arms trade.
Multiple forms of carcinomas and malformed newborns have not existed in the civilian populations of Iraq, Afghanistan and former Yugoslavia (Serbia) in the past. They are the result of barbaric wars.
We all have a responsibility to the mothers and children of this world. Let us look and begin to alleviate the suffering, prevent further suffering and work towards ending the wars.
“Every human being possesses a greater or lesser sphere of influence.”
Nobel laureate in literature Albert Camus, one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century also commented in his diary on the Second World War and the role of the individual in a situation perceived as hopeless. These are thoughts that document and deeply touch Camus’ relevance to our own day (3).
Immediately after the outbreak of the war, he wrote: “Nothing is more inexcusable than war and the call to hatred of nations. But once war has broken out, it is futile and cowardly to stand aside under the pretext that one is not responsible for it.” (4)
What he thinks the individual has to think about and do in such a situation is described by Camus in a “Letter to a Desperate Man”:
“You have a task, do not doubt it. Every man possesses a more or less large sphere of influence. He owes it to his defects as much as to his merits. But be that as it may, it is there, and it can be used immediately. Do not drive anyone to riot. You have to be sparing with the blood and freedom of others. But you can convince ten, twenty, thirty people that this war was not inevitable, nor is it, that all means have not yet been tried to stop it, that it must be said, written if possible, shouted out if necessary! These ten or thirty people will spread the word to ten others, who will in turn spread it. If inertia holds you back, well, start all over again with others.” (5)
In conclusion, Camus encourages the advice-seeker not to despair of history, in which the individual is capable of everything: “Individuals are the ones who send us to our deaths today. Why should other individuals not succeed in giving peace to the world? Only one must begin without thinking of such great goals. Remember that war is waged as much with the enthusiasm of those who want it as with the despair of those who reject it with all the strength of their souls.” (6)
Elsewhere in his diary entries, Camus reiterates his point: “There is one doom, death, and beyond that there is none. In the period that extends from birth to death, nothing is fixed: One can change everything and even put a stop to war and even preserve peace if one wants it fervently, strongly and for a long time.” (7)
Prof. Siegwart-Horst Günther
Prof. Günther (1925-2015) was one of the most impressive medical personalities of our time. Throughout his life he was active in the war and crisis areas of the Middle East. He helped thousands of people on the ground in a very concrete way. He was also the founder of the association “Yellow Cross International”, an aid organisation for children in need all over the world.
As a young man, Günther was an opponent of Adolf Hitler and was therefore sent to Buchenwald concentration camp until the end of the war. From 1945 to 1950 he studied medicine, philosophy and Egyptology. As a finished doctor, he worked for Albert Schweizer in the jungle hospital of Lambaréné. Schweitzer greeted him with the words, “It’s good of you to come and help us.” (8)
From 1990 to 1995, Prof. Günther taught and worked at the university and university hospital in Baghdad (Iraq). In his acceptance speech for the “Nuclear-Free-Future-Award” on 18 October 2007, he said: “When I discovered in 1991, after the 1st Gulf War, that the Allies had used uranium shells in this war, which to me was illegal under international law, with all the terrible consequences known to them even then, I was deeply outraged because of this monstrosity. War should be obsolete anyway, but the use of these depleted uranium munitions and bombs is a human and environmental monstrosity.” (9)
This monstrosity that Professor Günther had uncovered brought him a lot of trouble, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany, where he was virtually discredited and persecuted for it in the 1990s. But when asked by a friend on an arduous and not harmless car journey in Iraq, the already 79-year-old replied:
“You know, my young friend, I am a doctor and I am bound by my Hippocratic oath, and this oath knows no age limits.” (10)
Günther’s name and his findings on the “Gulf War Syndrome”, which he discovered, will be remembered for the film “The Doctor and the Radiated Children of Basra” and the film “Death Dust” (2004-2007), among others (11).
In his 2007 book “Hunger und Not der Kinder im Irak” (Hunger and Need of Children in Iraq), Prof. Günther wrote: “As a former employee of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, I have been active for many years in the context of humanitarian aid in areas of tension and see the great need and dying of people, especially children, there every day. In Kosovo, as in the Gulf region, UN discussions have been renewed recently, but the hunger and dying continue.” (12)
Albert Schweitzer was convinced that the danger of new wars of extermination cannot be averted by international agreements or any institutions, but only by the morally determined attitude of all those responsible. He unshakably believed that only from the spirit, in the moral attitude of individuals and nations, can that decisive effect take place which secures peace for the world (13).
In the epilogue of his book “Hunger and Need of the Children in Iraq”, Prof. Günther wrote: “As a participant in the Second World War, who had to witness many crimes and was himself a sufferer, I have followed the crimes of the new wars and their consequences with growing compassion. Not least, my friendship with Albert Schweitzer and our joint work in the jungle hospital in Lambaréné prompted me to do so. I will therefore never tire of appealing to all people to keep the peace and provide help where it is needed. In the Gulf, in former Yugoslavia, in Africa, in Latin America. And if these thoughts should evoke even a lasting effect in the reader, already then the effort would have been worthwhile.” (14)
“Uranium bullets: after Zyklon B, a new German combat and mass destruction technology”
Finally, it is the German author’s concern to report on the moving personal encounters with Prof. Günther in Switzerland, which have etched themselves deeply into his consciousness and will therefore not be forgotten:
Prof. Günther was also present at many ideological or pedagogical-psychological discussion evenings – at almost 90 years of age, his health was a bit frail. If the scientific discussion was about the topic of Depleted Uranium (DE) and the use of the highly toxic and radioactive uranium shells in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or former Yugoslavia, then Prof. Günther always stepped briefly to the speaker’s table, sat down and said calmly but firmly:
“Uranium shells are a German technology, a German invention! After Zyklon B, a new German combat and mass destruction technology!” (15)
*
Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a teacher (retired headmaster), doctor of education (Dr. paed.) and graduate psychologist (specialising in clinical, educational and media psychology). As a retiree, he worked for many years as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and educational-psychological articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral values education and an education for public spirit and peace.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Notes
(1) “RUBIKON”
(2) “Global Research”, May 01, 2022
(3) Marin, L. (ed.). (2013). Albert Camus – Libertarian Writings (1948-1960).
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
When politicians die, especially an untimely death in tragic circumstances, obituaries tend to go overboard. A sense of perspectives is lost when obituaries become eulogies. But you can’t falsify history. And in the final analysis, it is the forces of history that write the course of politics rather than individuals, and the fact is Japan has a gory past, a blood-soaked and brutal imperial past.
Almost all of Japan’s neighbours paid a high price for its hegemonist ambitions and thirst for territorial conquests. Shinzo Abe’s grandfather who founded Japan’s ruling party was himself a war criminal.
Japan perpetrated unspeakable crimes on conquered peoples even by the standards of colonialism, especially the Korean and Chinese peoples. Therefore, when Abe’s legacy gets evaluated dispassionately some day, as it surely will, what may well stand out as his single most outstanding contribution is that he summarily turned around ‘pacifist’ Japan and dragged it back unwillingly to its ‘militaristic’ past. There is no question about it.
But how this will pan out in Asian politics and Japan’s political economy in a medium and long term leaves troubling question marks.The point is, Abe did not even ascertain his countrymen’s wishes to change the country’s constitution but was uneasy that the nation might not endorse his agenda.
What moved the young assassin to commit such an abominable crime we do not know, but his abject surrender owning the crime suggests that he was a man of strong convictions and the murder was far from an impulsive act. What it reminds us is that Abe was a controversial figure within Japan.
Abe’s reform programme widened the gap between the rich and the poor and fuelled social discontent while Abe’s abandonment of Japan’s ‘pacifism’ did not enjoy a national consensus. Abe’s populism obfuscated his real agenda, and his use of baser instincts such as racial and ethnic prejudices and his manipulation of the media and suppression of free press damaged Japan’s democratic foundations.
Therefore, a big question mark needs to be put on his ‘vision,’ as his admirers tend to put it. Frankly, Abe has become a polariser in the world opinion — simply put, one-dimensional Sinophobes warm up to him like nobody’s business and in the process overlook his flawed legacy in an outpouring of emotions.
The Quad’s troika itself used a catching expression in its curious obituary for Abe. It praised Abe as a “transformative leader for Japan” and discreetly left it at that. The Quad’s troika is right in estimating that Abe “played a formative role in the founding of the Quad partnership and worked tirelessly to advance a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.” He was indeed an ardent votary of the containment strategy against China.
But Abe was also a master of doublespeak and once made significantcontributions to improving Japan’s ties with China and even publicly expressed willingness to cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative! Quad was almost entirely built on the strength of the relationship Abe worked out with Prime Minister Modi, with whom he shared a deep distrust of China.
However, Japan’s Indo-Pacific policy has since morphed into robust support for accelerating the pace of NATO’s entry into Asia. That said, the fact remains that throughout its history, Japan always tenaciously sought to maintain its autonomy in the international system. How this contradiction gets resolved remains to be seen. Clearly, Japan finds it difficult to get accustomed to its status behind China in Asia’s power dynamic and needs NATO support to level with China.
Abe, without doubt, was a close friend of India. His regards for India harks back to the Manmohan Singh government. Yet, how far India subscribes to this new dimension to Japan’s Indo-Pacific strategy in the direction of pioneering an “Asian NATO” is unclear. Traditionally, India never had a bloc mentality. Besides, Quad or Indo-Pacific strategy is not to be equated with India’s Act East policy, either.
Abe’s place as the longest serving Japanese prime minister (9 years) is largely due to his charisma, the force of his personality, and his formidable political talent. But his legacy for Japan’s future in terms of his ambitious domestic reform agenda — “Abenomics” or the surge in state spending and super-easy monetary policy aimed at kickstarting Japan’s stagnant economy — is rather patchy. Japan’s debt increased dramatically and Abe’s reforms indeed weakened the yen.
The reforms’ promise to reshape an economy hobbled by low productivity, a rapidly ageing population and a rigid labour market, proved elusive. On top of it, COVID-19 wiped out the short-term benefits brought by Abenomics, such as an inbound tourism boom, reflated growth and rising job availability. Looking ahead, Abe’s death could stimulate the extreme Japanese right wing to promote populist, xenophobic and even extreme political goals.
Japan’s two giant neighbours China and Russia are increasingly coordinating their security presence in the Far East. These two big powers will counter Japan’s partnership with the NATO, no matter what it takes, and that may become the salience of the geopolitics of Asia-Pacific in the period ahead. Moscow has openly accused Japan of revanchist tendencies vis-a-vis Kuril Islands, which pose threat to regional security and stability.
If the US and NATO’s prestige suffers a lethal blow in Ukraine, which seems likely, Japan’s political and policy goals would lose traction. But Prime Minister Kishida is firing all cylinders to inject swagger into Japan’s ties with major European powers — especially, with Germany, with which it once had an alliance known as the Anti-Commintern Pact (1936) built on the common concerns of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan over the steady rise of Soviet power under Josef Stalin.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Kishida recently visited each other’s capitals in quick succession to renew the historical bonding in the current circumstances. To be sure, Abe’s departure comes at a time when Japan may find itself at the crossroads of Asian politics and world order.
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On June 25, the U.S. Navy sent a warship, the USS Benfold, to the South China Sea, only one day after a U.S. spy plane provocatively flew over the Taiwan Strait under the close monitoring of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Satellite image of USS Benfold entering South China Sea on June 25 through Verde Island passage. [Source: twitter.com]
From China’s point of view, the U.S. spy plane mission on June 24 was especially provocative because it was the first U.S. military activity in the region after China made it clear that there are no “international waters” in the Taiwan Strait.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China claims jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait.
The PLA Eastern Theater Command organized aerial and ground forces and tracked the spy plane’s movements on high alert throughout its entire course on June 24 according to Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesperson of the PLA Eastern Theater Command.
Ever since the Obama administration launched a “pivot to Asia,” the U.S. has expanded its military forces and provocative military maneuvers in an effort to encircle and intimidate China. The Biden administration, following Trump, has extended this policy, with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stockpiling the National Security Council (NSC) with China hawks.[1]
When Biden made a commitment to backing Taiwan militarily, he effectively overturned the “One China Policy”—established when the U.S. resumed diplomatic relations with China in 1979—recognizing Beijing to be the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.[3]
Rejecting China’s Claim of Sovereignty over the Taiwan Strait
In line with this latter strategy, the Biden administration rejects China’s claims to sovereignty over the Taiwan Strait. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said that the spy plane’s transit demonstrates the United States’s “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
According to the Global Times, the USS Benfold—a guided missile destroyer built by Ingalls Shipbuilding—is a habitual aggressor in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
In January 2022, the destroyer illegally entered the Chinese territorial waters off the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea without authorization from the Chinese government, leading the PLA Southern Theater Command to organize naval and air forces to warn it away.
We should remember that the name of the Sea where the U.S. is sending its naval vessels and spy planes is the South China Sea—and not the Gulf of Mexico.
If China were sending its warships on provocative missions off the coast of Mexico or Canada, U.S. leaders would respond with hysterics and probably immediately begin bombing.
Rising Specter of Nuclear War
Mark Selden, the editor of The Asia-Pacific Journal and academic expert on China, raised concern in an interview about “the rising specter of nuclear war,” particularly “in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine” and “at a time when [the] U.S. calculus has shifted from welcoming growing Chinese economic and geopolitical strength, notably in the Nixon era, to across-the-board pressures on China.”
According to Selden, the shifting U.S. calculus “includes mounting U.S. military support for Taiwan and stepping back from its position of calculated ambiguity on the future of the island in favor of direct and indirect challenges of China’s claims. The result is the largest increase in U.S. military spending since World War II in the form of $70 billion in aid…at a time when U.S.-China conflict again centers on Taiwan.”
Tally of Provocative Military Maneuvers
The Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy, an activist group that aims to prevent war, has compiled a tally of provocative military maneuvers and close encounters between the U.S. and China since January 2021 in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
Joseph Gerson and Michael T. Klare, the founders of the committee, write that “almost every day, China and/or the United States deploy their ships and warplanes in a menacing (“muscle-flexing”) fashion to demonstrate resolve and to throw the other side off balance….While officials on both sides claim that their forces are merely conducting military drills that pose no threat to their rival, these mock combat operations in the vicinity of opposing forces send an unmistakable signal of hostile intent. It is not unusual, moreover, for ships and planes of one side to monitor the operations of the other, and even, on occasion, to interfere with them. When this occurs, there is always the risk of a collision or unintended shooting incident, leading to further military action and full-scale conflict.”
In short, the specter of war between the U.S. and China has never been greater. It is up to us, consequently, to try to avert conflict and restore legality and sanity to U.S. foreign policy through concerted political activism.
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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].
Notes
One of the hawks was Kurt Campbell, an architect of Obama’s pivot who declared that “the period that was broadly described as engagement [with China] has come to an end.”
Peter Symonds, “U.S.-China tensions flare over Taiwan Strait,” World Socialist Website, June 24, 2022, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/25/pbhh-j25.pdf. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company produces more than 90% of the world’s most advanced computing chips.
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***
On July 7th, Bloomberg News headlined “EU Bureaucracy Seen Blocking 1.5 Billion-Euro Loan to Ukraine”, and reported that, “The executive arm of the European Union is blocking a 1.5 billion-euro ($1.5 billion) loan for Ukraine as caution prevails over the country’s urgent needs, according to officials.”
America alone has donated and loaned, during this year, $54 billion to Ukraine, mostly for U.S.-made weapons, which have been rushed there from existing U.S. stockpiles, which stockpiles will need to be restocked with new weapons-orders from firms such as Lockheed Martin, whose corporate stock value is up 12% thus far this year. However, this is a mid-term election-year in America, and inflation is already running against political incumbents, especially Democratic Party ones. On June 10th, the AP bannered “US inflation at new 40-year high”, and reported that “Consumer prices surged 8.6% last month from a year earlier.” Already, on May 20th, the AP had bannered “War fuels surging prices in Europe”and reported that “The war has accelerated inflation across Europe and the world, with prices for energy, materials and food surging at rates not seen for decades. It’s causing sticker shock at the grocery store, gas pumps, electricity bills and construction sites.”
A new loan of $1.5B to Ukraine being turned down means that any larger loan by the EU to Ukraine will now be impossible. For the U.S. Government to jump in and fill the mounting voids in Ukraine would be virtually impossible, under present political conditions. However, unless those voids become somehow filled, what are the prospects for The West to win its war in Ukraine, against Russia?
The West (U.S. and its allies) is becoming terrified at how deep a financial hole Ukraine has cost it, and so is now stopping to lend it more money. That’s sudden.
I wrote today to a friend who ardently supports Ukraine in this war:
Should The West now invade Russia in order to prevent the collapse of Ukraine? What do you, who condemn Russia and support Ukraine in this war, propose that Western ‘democracies’ now do?
You support NATO/U.S.’s January 7th decision to ignore Putin’s long-repeated (and as-of 17 December 2021, formal) demands for NATO to roll itself back to its 1991 borders like it had many times promised to Gorbachev that it would permanently remain (move “not one inch eastward”), and you also support Obama’s February 2014 coup to grab Ukraine (the part of Russia’s border that’s the nearest to Moscow) to add Ukraine to EU and then to NATO for U.S. missiles ultimately to become placed there, a five-minute flight-time away from blitz-attacking Moscow; but should Biden and company now invade Russia because Russia will no longer tolerate this — Putin’s saying that these “provocations” have gone too far and he’ll no longer tolerate it? Is that what you would do, if you were Biden & co.? What do you think the ‘democrat’ Biden should do, now? I would like to know your view regarding this very-much-real-world, here-and-now, practical problem.
He responded: “I no longer want to talk about Ukraine. … So let’s just put this behind us.”
I think it’s instead a question that everybody should be thinking about, now, because it’s very much in front of us — all of us — no matter how much a person wants to retain existing prejudices. Ignoring Russia’s essential national-security needs has already cost the world (except for weapons-makers) a lot (and might now cost Ukrainians everything), and will cost everyone vastly more if it doesn’t stop soon. What U.S./NATO did on January 7th is turning out to have been disastrous for virtually everyone.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s next book (soon to be published) will be AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change. It’s about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
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***
Earlier today we wrote that Germany’s largest landlord, Vonovia, had taken the unprecedented step of restrictring heating at night, a terrifying preview of what lies in stock for the “most advanced” European nation this winter. Alas, it’s going to get worse, much worse.
According to the FT, Germany is now rationing hot water, dimming its street lights and shutting down swimming pools as the impact of its energy crunch begins to spread like the proverbial Ice-Nine wave, from industry to offices, leisure centers and residential homes.
The reason behind Germany’s slow motion paralysis is well-known: the huge increase in gas prices triggered by Russia’s move last month to sharply reduce supplies to Germany has plunged Europe’s biggest economy into its worst energy crisis since the oil price shock of 1973 (see “What’s Unfolding In Europe In Recent Days Is A Fresh Big Negative Supply Shock“)
With electricity prices hitting never before seen levels, gas importers and utilities are fighting for survival while consumer bills are going through the roof, with some warning of rising friction (not to mention the infamous wheelbarrows full of cash).
“The situation is more than dramatic,” said Axel Gedaschko, head of the federation of German housing enterprises GdW. “Germany’s social peace is in great danger.”
Unfortunately, as tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine escalate, officials fear the situation could get worse. On Monday, as we reported last week, Russia is shutting down its main pipeline to Germany, Nord Stream 1, for 10 days of scheduled maintenance. Many in Berlin fear it will never reopen.
Commenting on the infamous July 22 day when Russian gas flows are expected to resume, DB’s Jim Reid writes that “while we all spend most of our market time thinking about the Fed and a recession, I suspect what happens to Russian gas in H2 is potentially an even bigger story. Of course by July 22nd parts may have be found and the supply might start to normalise. Anyone who tells you they know what is going to happen here is guessing but as minimum it should be a huge focal point for everyone in markets.”
The bank also conveniently warns that “if the gas shutoff is not resolved in coming weeks this would lead to a broadening out of energy disruption with material upfront effects on economic growth, and of course much higher inflation.”
Anticipating the worst case outcome, Germany last month took a crucial step towards rationing gas when economy minister Robert Habeck activated the second stage of the country’s gas emergency plan. “The situation on the gas market is tense and unfortunately we can’t guarantee that it will not get worse,” he said on Tuesday. “We have to be prepared for the situation to become critical.”
Habeck, who says he is now taking shorter showers, has appealed to the population to save energy — and municipalities and property owners have heeded the call.
As we reported this morning, Vonovia, the country’s largest residential landlord, said it would be lowering the temperature of its tenants’ gas central heating to 17C between 11pm and 6am. It said the measure would save 8 per cent in heating costs.
A housing association in the Saxon town of Dippoldiswalde, near the Czech border, went a step further this week, saying it was rationing the supply of hot water to tenants. From now on they can only take hot showers between 4am-8am, 11am-1pm and 5pm-9pm.
“As we announced in our general meeting, we have to save for the winter,” a notice in the affected blocks reads.
Such measures could become routine in the coming weeks. Helmut Dedy, head of the German Association of Towns and Cities, said the “whole of society” must now cut down on its energy consumption, saving in summer “so we have warm flats in winter”.
“Every kilowatt-hour we save helps to fill the gas storage a bit more,” he said as he appealed to town councils up and down the country to take emergency action. He had a few suggestions: turn off traffic lights at night; shut off hot water in council buildings, museums and sports centres; adjust air conditioners; and stop illuminating historic buildings
Some have already taken measures. The district of Lahn-Dill, near Frankfurt, is switching off the hot water in its 86 schools and 60 gyms from mid-September, a move it hopes will save it €100,000 in energy costs, and Düsseldorf has temporarily closed a massive swimming pool complex, the Münster-Therme. Meanwhile, Berlin has turned down the thermostat on open-air swimming pools, reducing their temperature by 2 degrees. In western Germany, Cologne is dimming its street lighting to 70 per cent of full strength from 11pm.
Residential customers are also taking action, reactivating wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. Sales of firewood, wood pellets and coal, as well as of gas canisters and cartridges, have shot up.
It is unclear how far such measures will soften the impact of higher heating bills, which which be through the roof. The GdW said the Ukraine war will push up energy prices for consumers by between 71 per cent and 200 per cent, amounting to additional annual costs of between €1,000 and €2,700 for a one-person household and up to €3,800 for four people, compared with 2021 levels.
Costs could increase even more as a result of a new law working its way through the German parliament. This would allow the government to impose an emergency levy on all gas consumers to spread the cost of higher prices more evenly. It is designed to prevent gas importers becoming insolvent, a scenario ministers fear could cause a Lehman Brothers-style meltdown of the whole sector. Uniper, the largest importer of Russian gas in Germany, is already in talks with officials on a state bailout that experts say could be as large as €9bn.
In the meantime, German consumers — both industrial and residential — are reverting back to East Gcutting their energy use. A study by the Hertie School in Berlin said industrial gas consumption fell 11 per cent in March and April this year, compared with the same period in 2021, and by 6 per cent in private households.
Much more needs to be done, said Lion Hirth, one of the study’s co-authors. “The decline in demand that we’ve seen up until now is unfortunately far from adequate to completely close the supply gap threatening us this winter,” he said. In his appeal to Germany’s municipalities this week, Dedy made a similar point. “The situation is very serious,” he said. “It’s already clear we’re going to have to leave our comfort zone.”
Let’s just hope that by exiting the “comfort zone” Germany does not enter the “war zone” – it’s traditionally not a happy ending for Europe when that happens…
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For weeks there have been protests by farmers in the Netherlands against their left-wing government’s Great Reset policies, the EU’s “Green Deal,” and the associated forced closure of farms. Their government’s radical ‘climate change’ measures aim to slash emissions in some provinces by 95%. That would mean the end for about 30 percent of the farmers.
What we are confronted with now is much worse. It’s Agenda ID2020 on steroids. It’s the worldwide invasion of the QR code – QR coding of everything, including Agenda ID2020 – and all of your most intimate data, health, personal behaviors, habits – track records of where we have been and even where we may be planning to go. Nothing will escape the QR code.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) visited Kyiv with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Thursday and said he hopes to see a “hand-to-hand insurgency” in territory Russia has captured since it invaded Ukraine.
The United States has been accused of burying its findings on the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh, and is facing criticism for issuing statements that appeared to absolve Israel of all responsibility over the killing.
“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.
Abe led the movement to reinterpret Article 9 of the Japanese constitution to allow more varied and vigorous kinds of military policy. Long interpreted as a ban on offensive military activity (and indeed possibly any kind of military institutionalization at all), Article 9 put what many believed were sensible limits on Japan’s ability to wage war.
t was, all and all, an odd spectacle. The Ladies’ Singles victor for Wimbledon 2022 had all the credentials that would have otherwise guaranteed her barring. Being Russian-born, news outlets in Britain walked gingerly around The All England Club’s decision to ban Russian players yet permit Elena Rybakina to play.
A law came into force in Belgium which obliges every shop to accept card payments. Paying only in cash is no longer possible. Those responsible assert that a no-cash ban is planned in the medium term. Critics worry about a possible attempt to create consumption and movement profiles.
Rather than working diplomatically to resolve the civil war in Ukraine that it played a principal role in precipitating (by backing the unconstitutional transfer of power in that country in 2014), the Biden administration spent the months leading up to the Russian invasion in February assiduously working to make sure “extreme” economic sanctions could be put in place.
In spite of all our enlightened thinking around racism, “Black Lives Matter,” and calls for “diversity, equity and inclusion” on our workplaces and our partnerships, Africa, a continent bearing nearly a fifth of the world’s population doesn’t register as more than a backdrop of “tragic suffering and endless despair” to quote a year old article on the media watchdog site FAIR.org.
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Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) visited Kyiv with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Thursday and said he hopes to see a “hand-to-hand insurgency” in territory Russia has captured since it invaded Ukraine.
“Long-range artillery is very, very important. But so is the hand-to-hand insurgency that we are hoping to see in eastern Ukraine, in the territory that’s already been occupied by the Russians,” Blumenthal said.
Both Blumenthal and Graham voiced support for an insurgency in eastern Ukraine in the latest sign that the US plans to support Ukraine in its war against Russia for years to come. But the main purpose of the visit was to discuss a plan to designate Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Graham said he believes the designation would have near-unanimous support in the Senate. In May, the two senators introduced a resolution that would call for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make the designation.
The senators also called for more weapons shipments to Ukraine. Blumenthal said the US should send HIMARS rocket systems with “longer ranges” than what has been provided, more Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and air defense systems.
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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.
Featured image is licensed under the public domain
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The United States has been accused of burying its findings on the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh, and is facing criticism for issuing statements that appeared to absolve Israel of all responsibility over the killing.
The State Department announced earlier this week that gunfire from Israeli positions “was likely responsible for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh” but dismissed the incident as the unintentional “result of tragic circumstances”.
Abu Akhleh, a veteran journalist with Al Jazeera Arabic, was killed by Israeli forces on 11 May during an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp, several eyewitnesses, including Middle East Eye contributor Shatha Hanaysha, have said.
The Israeli military denied responsibility for the killing but in the days and weeks after the incident, several publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, as well as international bodies including the United Nations, concluded that Israeli forces had in fact killed Abu Akleh.
Since the State Department’s announcement, Palestinian activists have taken issue with the vague and inconsequential statement and criticised the decision to make it public on 4 July – US Independence Day – a major national holiday when many people are spending time with their families and not focusing on the news.
“Of course it was done on July 4th, at a time when nobody’s really going to be paying attention to the outcome,” Diana Buttu, a Palestinian human rights lawyer and former legal advisor to the negotiating team of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, told Middle East Eye.
“It was on a long weekend where people are away and that’s the point. Since Shireen was murdered by Israel, the US administration has gone out of its way to try to crush this.”
Buttu said the statement was carefully crafted to avoid any tensions ahead of US President Joe Biden’s scheduled visit to Israel next week.
Last month, the administration reportedly asked Israel to halt home demolitions, evictions of Palestinians and any decisions on settlement building “until after Biden’s visit”, saying they want “quiet and calm” for Biden’s visit.
“It is not surprising in the least to see this buried announcement of a supposedly inconclusive verdict about just who murdered Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh issued by the State Department,” Omar Zahzah, an organiser with the Palestinian Youth Movement, told MEE.
“The imperialist capitalist US government has long made it clear that Palestinian life, dignity and freedom is worthless to its oppressive interests and investment in the subjugation of the Global South.”
In its statement, the State Department said its investigation found “no reason to believe that this was intentional but rather the result of tragic circumstances”. It said that the incident had taken place “during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad on May 11, 2022, in Jenin, which followed a series of terrorist attacks in Israel”.
In response, Abu Akleh’s family released a scathing rebuke. In a statement released on Monday evening, the family described Washington’s assessment as “frankly insulting to Shireen’s memory”.
The family, as well as activists who spoke to MEE, noted that the focus on the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was an attempt to spin the narrative around what happened, rather than seek actual accountability.
“The focus became on the bullet and which gun fired the bullet and all of these sorts of stupid things, rather than on what we know to be true,” Buttu said.
“It’s because she was reporting on [Israel’s] military occupation that she was killed.”
Buttu said that given Israel’s advanced military capabilities and sophisticated technologies, she has doubts Israel does not know the identity of the killer.
In 2018, the Israeli forces posted a now-deleted tweet in which they said, “We know where every bullet has landed” after 773 Palestinians in Gaza were shot with live ammunition from Israeli forces during mass demonstrations.
“They have the system of being able to know where their soldiers are and who’s doing the firing. They know the person who shot Shireen. For sure they do. This isn’t a question in the dark,” Buttu said.
Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian-American journalist and author, told MEE that he believes it was a mistake to even allow the US to take part in the investigation, to begin with.
“Giving the State Department the opportunity to opine on the subject has both validated the US view on the matter and greatly confused the existing body of evidence, which seemed conclusive in asserting that Shireen was murdered by Israel,” Baroud said.
In a news conference on Tuesday following the release of its assessment, State Department spokesperson Ned Price doubled down and said that “they found no reason to believe that it was an intentional killing, but rather the result of tragic circumstances in the course of a raid”.
Price added that Washington would continue to call for accountability, saying “this clearly was the case of a wrongful death”.
“Our goal – and what we believe is the collective goal of the parties – is to see to it that something akin to this, the killing of a journalist in a conflict zone, can’t happen again, must not happen again,” Price said.
Yet just several weeks after Abu Akleh’s death, another Palestinian journalist, 31-year-old Ghufran Harun Warasneh, was shot and killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. It was her third day of work at her new job at a local media network.
What should accountability look like?
Palestinian advocates say Washington’s assessment of the killing is another attempt to sweep the killing of a Palestinian and US national at the hands of Israel under the rug.
In January, Omar Asaad, an 80-year-old Palestinian American, died of a heart attack after he was violently detained by Israeli soldiers during a raid on Jaljulia village, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
An Israeli army probe led to the dismissal of two officers, something the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem described as a “slight rebuke”.
Still, Noura Erakat, a Palestinian-American human rights lawyer and professor at Rutgers University, told MEE that now is the time for the international community, and especially journalists, to increase their scrutiny over the probe into the killing.
“If we now know that Israel lies blatantly and can kill and get away with it, it should be imperative for journalists to now shift the way that they actually cover this issue with greater scrutiny,” Erakat said.
“That’s what accountability would look like, in my opinion. We’re not going to get accountability for shootings and murder, but there should be a shift of how we interpret and understand information as a result of these findings.”
On Tuesday evening, following the State Department’s statement, a group of 11 Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation that would force the US government to investigate the killing and also investigate whether American weapons were used.
The legislation, spearheaded by Congressman Andre Carson, was submitted as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorises the Pentagon’s annual budget.
Ayah Ziyadeh, advocacy director at American Muslims for Palestine, said that accountability would begin with a suspension of “all military funding for Israel” and would end with those responsible for Abu Akleh’s killing being brought to justice.
“In the meantime, it is simply unacceptable for the President of the United States to conduct an ordinary diplomatic visit to a state that practices apartheid, and this is especially the case on the heels of the killing of an American journalist by this apartheid government,” Ziyadeh said.
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Featured image: Shireen Abu Akleh was an icon in Palestine and throughout much of the Arabic speaking world for her reporting from the occupied territories (Illustration/MEE)
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The single most irrigated crop in the United States is (drum roll please) lawn.
Yep, 40 million acres of lawn exist across the Land of Denial — and Americans collectively spend about $40 billion on seed, sod, and chemicals each year.
And then there’s all that water. Lawns in America require nearly 9 billion gallons of (usually drinking-quality) water per day. Nearly a third of all residential water use in the U.S. goes toward what is euphemistically known as “landscaping.”
We have become a robotic nation of pawns with lawns.
As described by Ted Steinberg, author of American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, when it comes to lawns, social and ecological factors often work in coordination.
“Perfection became a commodity of post-World War II prefabricated housing such as Levittown, NY, in the late 1940s,” writes Steinberg. “Mowing became a priority of the bylaws of such communities.”
Lawn mowers produce several types of pollutants, including ozone precursors, carbon dioxide, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (classified as probable carcinogens) — adding up to five percent of all air pollution. In fact, operating a typical gasoline mower produces as many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as driving a car 95 miles. However, some folks are legally required to maintain a lawn (more about that shortly).
Besides the air and noise pollution of mechanized mowers, there’s another form of toxicity directly related to America’s lawn addiction.
“Lawns use ten times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland,” writes Heather Coburn Flores, author of Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community. “These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects.”
“If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials,” wrote Rachel Carson six decades ago, “it is surely because our forefathers could conceive of no such problem.”
We now produce pesticides at a rate more than 13,000 times faster than we did when Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962. The EPA considers 30 percent of all insecticides, 60 percent of all herbicides, and 90 percent of all fungicides to be carcinogenic, yet Americans spend about $9 billion on over 20,000 different pesticide products each and every year.
As mentioned above, maintaining a noxious and unproductive lawn isn’t just a simple case of one-size-fits-all conformity in the face of all logic and evidence; it’s often the law. Here are but two of countless examples of life in the Land of the Free™:
Jim Ficken from Dunedin, Florida was out of town tending his late mother’s estate. Here’s what happened from there: “The handyman he hired to mow his lawn during his absence also died, and the grass exceeded the city’s 8-inch height restriction. Unknown to Finken, he was racking up fines of $500 per day.”
The fines reached $29,000 and the city has attempted to foreclose on his house. At the end of April 2021, a federal judge ruled that Finken must pay the fines, but he isn’t giving up and plans to appeal.
How about Joseph Prudente of Beacon Woods, Florida? He was sentenced to jail for failing to sod his lawn as required by the local homeowner covenants. Before you label Mr. Prudente a modern-day insurrectionist, take note that the reason he failed to live up to his suburban obligation was predictable: he couldn’t afford to replace his sprinklers when they broke.
“It’s a sad situation,” said Bob Ryan, Beacon Woods Homeowners Association board president. “But in the end, I have to say he brought it upon himself.”
I’m guessing Mr. Ryan has never heard of Food Not Lawns.
Imagine each house not with a lawn but instead with a small organic “Victory” garden from which the entire family is fed. Imagine those without a lawn joining their local community garden to re-connect and grow their own.
Be warned: Gardening is now being touted as the cause of all the “sudden deaths” since 2021. After all, what else could possibly be responsible for seemingly healthy people “suddenly” dropping dead?
The sterile lawn — complete with its requisite sprinkler, a cocktail of chemicals needed to “maintain” it, bug zapper, and “keep off the grass” sign — is an ideal symbol for America’s pathetic cookie-cutter culture.
Lawns, writes Ted Steinberg, are “an instrument of planned homogeneity.” He asks: “What better way to conform than to make your front yard look precisely like Mr. Smith’s next door?”
Homogeneity and conformity.
The powers that (shouldn’t) be are dedicated to controlling your mind, destroying your health, and enslaving/dehumanizing you. When will you have the courage to think your own thoughts and stand up to their illegitimate power?
This process goes further than just self-identifying as oppositional to the architects of a global nightmare. Instead, the truest form of rebellion is creation. In this particular example, it’s rejecting the lawn paradigm not because it makes you feel like a badass. But rather, do it because it is the future path you want to carve.
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***
The World Health Organization began working on an anti-fertility vaccine in the 1970s, in response to perceived overpopulation. For 20 years, the WHO’s Task Force on Vaccines for Fertility Regulation worked with population control in mind
In 1993, the WHO finally announced a birth-control vaccine had successfully been created to help with “family planning.” The anti-fertility vaccine uses hCG conjugated (chemically bonded) to tetanus toxoid, used in the tetanus vaccine. As a result, a woman will develop antibodies against both tetanus and hCG
HCG is the first signal that tells the woman’s body she’s pregnant. In response to this signal, her ovaries then produce progesterone, which maintains the pregnancy to term. By combining hCG with tetanus toxoid, it causes this crucial pregnancy hormone to be attacked and destroyed by the woman’s own immune system
In 1995, the Catholic Women’s League of the Philippines won a court order halting a UNICEF tetanus program that was using tetanus vaccine laced with hCG. Three million women between the ages of 12 and 45 had by that time already been vaccinated. Anti-hCG-laced vaccines had also been found in at least four other countries
Also in 1995, the Kenyan government launched a WHO tetanus campaign under the guise of eradicating neonatal tetanus. An investigation found the vaccine given to girls and women, aged 15 to 49, contained hCG, and evidence suggests this was an intentional population control agenda
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“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.
While it’s been brushed off as a loony conspiracy theory for years, there’s compelling evidence showing it did, in fact, happen, and there’s nothing to prevent it from happening again.
The Backstory
As explained in the film, the World Health Organization began working on an anti-fertility vaccine, led by Dr. G.P. Talwar in New Delhi, India, in the 1970s, “in response to perceived overpopulation.” For 20 years, the WHO’s Task Force on Vaccines for Fertility Regulation worked with population control in mind.
In 1993, the WHO finally announced a birth-control vaccine had successfully been created to help with “family planning.”1 The paper trail reveals that by 1976, WHO researchers had successfully conjugated, meaning combined or attached, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) onto tetanus toxoid, used in the tetanus vaccine. As a result, when given to a woman, she develops antibodies against both tetanus and hCG.
HCG is a hormone produced by cells surrounding the growing embryo. These hormone-producing cells protect and support embryonic growth and eventually form the placenta.
As explained in the film, hCG is the first signal that tells the woman’s body she’s pregnant. In response to this signal, her ovaries then produce a second hormone, progesterone, which maintains the pregnancy to term.
By combining hCG with tetanus toxoid, it causes this crucial pregnancy hormone to be attacked and destroyed by your immune system, as it’s now misperceived as an invading pathogen. Since hCG is destroyed, progesterone is never produced and, hence, the pregnancy cannot be maintained.
So, if you’re already pregnant when taking this witches’ brew, it will likely result in a spontaneous abortion, and if you’re not already pregnant, you won’t be able to get pregnant, as this crucial pregnancy hormone is under constant attack by your immune system. Repeated doses prolong these effects, effectively rendering you sterile.
The WHO Has Been in the Depopulation Business for Decades
As detailed in a Scientific Research paper published in 2017,2 “WHO publications show a long-range purpose to reduce population growth in unstable ‘less developed countries.’”
In other words, the WHO’s longstanding policy has been to support depopulation in third world countries, and they’ve studied depopulation strategies in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, The Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia for decades.3
While creating an anti-fertility vaccine for those who really don’t want children is one thing, using deception to lure girls and young women into taking it is another entirely. As it turns out, the WHO is not above using deception and trickery to shut down fertility in populations they deem unworthy of reproduction.
The Great Deception
The central figures of the film are two Kenyan gynecologists, Drs. Wahome Ngare, and the late Stephen K. Karanja. Both state in the film that infertility is now the biggest gynecological problem in Africa. In recent years, there’s been a significant increase in women losing their pregnancies and couples who cannot conceive.
“I have seen the tears. They lose their identity. You die inside,” Antoninah Mutinda says. She knows, because she’s one of the African women whose fertility has been mysteriously impacted. After her third miscarriage, she was tested and found to have extremely high anti-hCG antibodies. She now suspects the tetanus vaccine she was given may be the culprit.
The anti-fertility vaccine was rolled out in the mid-‘90s, but despite support from the Kenyan leadership and “elite groups,” it was not popular among Kenyan women, who were concerned about the potential for abuse. They worried it might be disguised as a regular tetanus vaccine program.
Their concerns were valid because, as it turns out, this had already happened. In 1995, the Catholic Women’s League of the Philippines won a court order halting a UNICEF tetanus program that was using tetanus vaccine laced with hCG. Three million women between the ages of 12 and 45 had by that time already been vaccinated. Anti-hCG-laced vaccines had also been found in at least four other countries.
Undeterred by bad press, that same year, 1995, the Kenyan government launched a WHO tetanus campaign under the guise of eradicating neonatal tetanus. There were telltale signs that something was wrong, however, because it was already standard practice to vaccinate pregnant women against tetanus. Now, the WHO insisted women who weren’t pregnant needed the shot as well, in case they were to become pregnant.
Karanja learned of the deceptive anti-fertility campaigns in other countries during a medical conference in 1995, and became immediately suspicious of the tetanus campaign in his own country. Karanja convinced leaders of the Catholic church — one of the largest health care providers in Kenya — to test the tetanus vaccine being given, to make sure there was no foul play.
Without explanation, the WHO suddenly abandoned the campaign. Alas, 19 years later, in 2013, they were back. All girls and women, 15 to 49 years of age, were instructed to get vaccinated with a series of five injections, six months apart. This, it turns out, is the exact schedule required for the anti-fertility vaccine to produce sterility. Regular tetanus prevention requires only one injection every five to 10 years, and under no circumstance would you need five of them.
Vaccines Test Positive for Anti-hCG
The Catholic Church decided to test the vaccines, and collected three sample vials directly from clinics during the 2014 campaign. The samples were then sent to three independent laboratories for testing. As feared, they found hCG in them. Another six vials were then collected, and tested by six independent labs. This time, half were found to contain hCG.
At this point, the Catholic Church went public, urging girls and women to not comply with the vaccination campaign. In an effort to settle the dispute, an investigative committee was formed, consisting of three representatives selected by the Catholic bishops, and three government officials.
It was agreed that the nine vials already collected would be retested, along with 52 samples from a distributor who sells tetanus vaccine to the Kenyan government. This time, a more precise type of test, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), was chosen.
Dr. Nicholas Muraguri, director of medical services for the Kenyan government, contracted agriQ Quest to perform this testing. However, he urged them to test samples provided directly by him rather than the vials previously agreed upon. AgriQ Quest decided to analyze both batches.
The vials that tested positive for hCG using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), still tested positive using HPLC, but none of the samples provided by Muraguri tested positive.
A Decades’ Long Cover-Up
Shockingly, the government then demanded agriQ Quest “alter their report to indicate that they were safe to be administered.” When agriQ Quest refused, the government, the WHO and UNICEF responded by launching a public attack, accusing the Catholic Church of “peddling misinformation.”
And, since the only samples found to contain hCG were those provided by the Church, the government accused them of tampering with the vials in an effort to undermine confidence in the vaccine.
An added twist here is that the vials that tested positive had the same batch numbers as vials that tested negative. Only later did agriQ Quest discover that these negative vials had fake labels on them. They were not, in fact, from the same lots as those that tested positive. They weren’t even made by the same manufacturer.
AgriQ Quest also claims they can prove the positive samples were not tampered with, because they did not test positive for hCG in general. The test clearly shows the hCG was conjugated with tetanus toxoid, and this cannot occur by simply adding hCG to a vial of tetanus vaccine.
The conjugation — the chemical linking or bonding — of hCG to the tetanus toxoid can only occur during the manufacturing process. This is the smoking gun that proves the neonatal tetanus vaccine campaign was a cover for a population control campaign.
Muraguri also lied when he claimed the Kenyan government had only one supplier of tetanus vaccine. As it turns out, there were two. Biological E. Limited provided a regular tetanus vaccine, while the hCG-positive batches came from Serum Institute of India — the same country where most of the WHO’s anti-fertility research had been conducted.
Both Ngare and Karanja paid a steep price for their vigilance. The medical board called them for disciplinary action. Karanja was issued a gag order, and since 2014 was not allowed to speak publicly about vaccines in Kenya. He broke that gag order for this film. April 29, 2021, Karanja died, allegedly from COVID infection.
A Truly Diabolical Agenda
Speaking for millions of women just like her, Mutinda, who has now struggled with infertility for years, says:
“To imagine there’s a system somewhere, that some people somewhere are behind my inability to carry pregnancy to term, that is a diabolical agenda!”
Before his untimely death, Karanja shared a message with the world, through the makers of this film:
“When they are through with Africa, they’re coming for you.”
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***
On July 8 former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot twice by an assailant with a homemade gun. Having suffered critical wounds, Abe collapsed and was transported to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead. The assassination of Abe immediately sent shockwaves through Japanese domestic politics and global diplomacy. The long-time prime minister was almost certainly the most consequential figure in post-Cold War Japanese politics, and arguably in Japanese foreign policy since 1945. How should we remember him and how will history judge him?
Military Reconstruction
Abe led the movement to reinterpret Article 9 of the Japanese constitution to allow more varied and vigorous kinds of military policy.
Long interpreted as a ban on offensive military activity (and indeed possibly any kind of military institutionalization at all), Article 9 put what many believed were sensible limits on Japan’s ability to wage war. Given the enormous size and sophistication of Japan’s economy, this has the potential to harness Japan’s nearly limitless latent military power.
Given the growth of Chinese military power, many in both Japan and the United States saw this reinterpretation as a positive good, while many in East Asia worried about Japanese revanchism.
On the hardware side, Abe helped spearhead the acquisition of important new capabilities, including the V-22 Osprey, the F-35B, and the Izumo class light carriers. Japan also stepped up the development of its own stealth fighter, in cooperation with the United Kingdom.
Abe’s advocacy helped produce a cultural shift in military thinking in Japan, with more Japanese than ever expressing willingness to contemplate overseas deployments and strikes on overseas targets.
China
In no small part because of his assertive stance on Japanese security policy, Abe Shinzo won few friends in China.
As with South Korea, China did not have a sense of humor about Abe’s disinterest in accepting responsibility for Japanese atrocities during World War II. His decision to visit the Yasukuni Shrine helped spark violent demonstrations in China, even though the Sino-Japanese economic relationship remained healthy. Even on this latter point, Abe’s record was viewed askance by the Chinese, as he opened to door to disengagement from joint technological projects and supply chains.
Abe’s death was celebrated on social media in China, even as the government and mainstream media outlets remained more reserved.
At a moment when trends in East Asian security politics (growing Chinese power, North Korean nuclear adventurism) should have pushed South Korea and Japan together, Abe badly botched the question of Japanese responsibility for depredations against Korea and Korean citizens before and during World War II.
In particular, Abe unnecessarily angered South Koreans by soft-pedaling the “comfort woman” question, which involved the use of Koreans as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during the Pacific War. The Japanese Army also frequently conscripted Korean men for nearly suicidal duty on islands across the Pacific.
Abe’s treatment of South Korean concerns was appalling in its own right but also represented a political blunder, as it did little to help him at home and gave voice to critics in China, the United States, and elsewhere who worried about Japan’s willingness to grapple with its wartime legacy.
It remains unclear the extent to which Abe’s successor can heal that damage, although Prime Minister Kishita Fumio seems to have made improving relations with Seoul a priority.
Abe and History
Shinzo Abe left a complicated global legacy. To his critics in Japan, Korea, and China, he threatened to overturn seventy successful years of Japanese pacifism, potentially reigniting the fires that lit East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. To his admirers in Japan, the United States, and elsewhere, he helped bring Japan fully into global diplomacy, giving Tokyo an active role in shaping global society and reinvigorating Japanese security policy in an increasingly dangerous world.
It is hard to imagine Tokyo taking as active and critical a stance on Russia as it has without Abe. And there is no doubt that Abe deserved better than an assassin’s bullet, and it remains to be seen how the means of his passing will affect how future generations evaluate his accomplishments.
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A 1945 Contributing Editor Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), and Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.
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It was, all and all, an odd spectacle. The Ladies’ Singles victor for Wimbledon 2022 had all the credentials that would have otherwise guaranteed her barring. Being Russian-born, news outlets in Britain walked gingerly around The All England Club’s decision to ban Russian players yet permit Elena Rybakina to play. Sky News noted that, “Moscow-born Elena Rybakina, who represents Kazakhstan, has won the Wimbledon women’s singles title in a year that Russians are banned from the tournament.”
The April decision by The All England Club to ban both Russian and Belarussian players in response to the Ukraine war did not go down well with the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) and WTA (Women’s Tennis Association). Their gruff response was to strip Wimbledon of ranking points. “It is with great regret and reluctance that we see no option but to remove ATP Ranking points from Wimbledon for 2022,” stated the ATP in May. “Our rules and agreements exist in order to protect the rights of players as a whole. Unilateral decisions of this nature, if unaddressed, set a damaging precedent for the rest of the Tour.”
For the ATP, discrimination regarding individual tournaments was “simply not viable.” The WTA followed in step. “Nearly 50 years again,” declared the body’s chairman Steve Simon, “the WTA was founded on the fundamental principle that all players have an equal opportunity to compete based on merit and without discrimination.” Individual athletes engaged in an individual sport “should not be penalised or prevented from competing solely because of their nationalities or the decisions made by the governments of their countries.”
In solidarity, a number of tennis players also opposed the measure. Serbia’s Novak Djokovic thought the decision “crazy”. Spain’s Rafael Nadal noted how it was not the fault of players as to “what happening in this moment with the war.” The decision made by the Wimbledon organisers had been taken unilaterally. “The government didn’t force them to do it.”
Rather than taking a position of stout, unflagging independence, The All England Tennis Club revealed a craven streak in response to the UK government, which had sought to “limit Russia’s global influence”. The decision regarding banning Russian and Belarussian players from Wimbledon was “the only viable decision” given its standing as “a globally renowned event and British institution”. In taking such a position, the Club members had shown they could be as political, aligned and patriotically discriminatory as any other institution claiming fairness.
The Club also claimed to be doing this for the players. “We were not prepared to take any actions which could risk the personal safety of players, or their families. We believe that requiring written declarations from individual players – and that would apply to all relevant players – as a condition of entry in the high-profile circumstances of Wimbledon would carry significant scrutiny and risk.” Would it not have been better to simply avoid such a scandalous loyalty (or, in this case, disloyalty) test from the start?
Equally implausible was the argument that the Russian regime was somehow unique in extolling the virtues of its athletes as part of its “propaganda machine”, a point that served to diminish the humanity and individual worth of the sporting figures in question.
While we can accept the notion that high profile sportspeople are often puppets of the State in question, show ponies watered, fed and even, on occasion, drugged, the decision to specifically target Russia and Belarus could just as well have extended to many other players in many other sports. A rotten government, in other words, would immediately disqualify the athlete from entering the tournament. It should have cast grave doubt on Kazakhstan, a country stacked with its own oligarchs and corruption woes. Little wonder that the entities responsible for the tennis tour were furious.
At the tournament’s end, the merits of the ban were there for all to see. The Duchess of Cambridge presented the winning trophy to a Russian-born player, the very thing the Club had sought to avoid. Tennis fans responded by lighting up the social media scene with acid scorn. In the biting assessment of tennis writer Mark Zemek, the move by the Club had been exposed “for the morally unimaginative and stupidly cruel decision it was, is, and always will be.”
Instead of heaping ridicule on the organisers, some press outlets preferred to focus on Rybakina’s switch to Kazakhstan four years ago, something done in the spirit of receiving greater monetary reward. (So much for the patriotic element.) “Her win is historic because she is the first player to represent Kazakhstan to win a Grand Slam title.”
When the press sought to sniff out any lingering Russian loyalties, Rybakina responded to the nonsense with gusto. “What does it mean for you to feel? I mean, I’m playing tennis, so for me, I’m enjoying my time here.” As for how much time she continued to spend in Moscow, Rybakina suggested with mystic obliqueness that she did not “live anywhere, to be honest.” If only that treatment had been afforded to Daniil Medvedev and his compatriots.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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***
For weeks there have been protests by farmers in the Netherlands against their left-wing government’s Great Reset policies, the EU’s “Green Deal,” and the associated forced closure of farms. Their government’s radical ‘climate change’ measures aim to slash emissions in some provinces by 95%. That would mean the end for about 30 percent of the farmers.
The Dutch government has recently announced new policies which limit the number of cattle that farmers can legally own. The radical measures are aimed at helping the European Union E.U. reach its emissions goals set under the Paris Climate Accords. The bloc aims to reduce carbon emissions by 55% by 2030, which will require a radical overhaul of member states’ economies and end modern farming, reports National File.
Other policies being forced upon the Dutch include the banning of fertilizers that use nitrogen and the forced dismantling of many cattle ranches. As reported previously at RAIR Foundation USA, the plans stipulate farmers will give up their farms voluntarily and receive compensation for doing so – on the condition that they guarantee never to go back to farming. If they disagree, the state will take over their farm. So the great expropriation has begun.
The Netherlands is one of Europe’s largest agricultural exporters, which has made it a target of E.U. climate change policies. As reported at RAIR, “the socialists pushing these outrageous proposals care much less about the environment than about controlling you.”
Farmers in other nations, Spain, Italy, Poland, Germany, and France, have begun their own protests as the E.U. intensifies its efforts to slash emissions in all member states causing harm to citizens livelihoods and the global food supply.
Spain
The Netherlands protests and blockades are already affecting some supermarkets that are running out of food. Moreover, Spain’s farmers have again taken to the streets because of inflation.
Especially in the southern part of Spain, in Andalusia, farmers are protesting because of the enormous increase in prices for energy and food. In Spain, inflation was already above the 10% mark in June.
Farmers block A4 Highway in Jaén, Andalusia:
Mass protests back in March
And this year is not the first demonstration in Spain because of the massive price increases and the government’s inaction. Back in March, 150,000 farmers protested in Madrid. Spain’s socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, pledged to take action then and stated that he would campaign at the EU level. But months later, it is becoming apparent that the EU is unable and probably unwilling to tackle the problems. Instead, the problems worsened due to the sanctions policies against Russia.
Poland
Polish farmers also staged protests in Warsaw, marching in the streets against their government’s destabilizing policies:
Polish farmers also rise up in Warsaw: "That's enough! We won't let ourselves be robbed!" They accuse the political class of destabilizing production by raising interest rates, which does not stop inflation: "We workers cannot pay for the crisis created by the politicians!" pic.twitter.com/waEUoO5zrs
Italian farmers have since joined the mass protests, having had enough of their left-wing government’s climate policies and rising food costs.
In the following video, a farmer can be heard encouraging others to mobilize and stage their protests in Rome. “We are not slaves; we are farmers!” shouted a farmer from his tractor.
You should all come along with us! Because under these conditions, we cannot put food on the table anymore! We can’t take it anymore! You should side with us! To Rome! We must go to Rome! Because we can’t take this anymore!
Germany
German and Dutch farmers joined at the Heerenberg border crossing on Wednesday and blocked a roundabout. Others lined the A7 highway alongside the road on Thursday, where flags of both nations were visible.
German and Dutch farmers block the 's-Heerenberg roundabout on the border between Holland and Germany. pic.twitter.com/3lAwYE2Bpk
Happening now. Farmers who learned from the Canadian Freedom truckers are currently blockading the Netherlands- German border with tractors to protest the World Economic Forum’s climate change policies of their government. pic.twitter.com/ZoTekwx1IP
In France, meanwhile, airport ground staff went on warning strikes at the beginning of the vacation period, causing dozens of flights to be canceled. The strikes were about poor working conditions, staff shortages, and low wages. The issue is that while the airports have 95 percent occupancy rates like before the Covid crisis, according to the CGT union, thousands of employees are missing at the airports.
FPÖ (The Freedom Party of Austria ) warns of the EU’s “Green Deal”
The [Austrian] liberal spokesman for agriculture, Peter Schmiedlechner, once again voiced severe criticism of the EU’s agricultural policy. “Because of the so-called ‘Green Deal,’ the government in the Netherlands has done something outrageous, and it is to be feared that the same thing will happen in Austria,” he said, drawing attention to the existential problems of Dutch farmers. Because of the nitrogen reduction decision, the Netherlands government wrote to the farmers that a third of their farms were to be closed down. If they did not agree to this, they would simply be expropriated.
That’s why Schmiedlechner isn’t surprised by the farmers’ protests because, ultimately, it’s about their survival. Especially since, at a time when a veritable food supply crisis is looming, and prices for staple foods are constantly reaching new record highs, it seems downright absurd to sabotage agricultural production in Europe in this way. “At the same time, the EU is signing a trade agreement with New Zealand, creating new dependencies. In what world does that make sense?” explains Schmiedlechner as he shakes his head.
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Amy Mek is an investigative journalist: Banned in parts of Europe, Wanted by Islamic countries, Threatened by terror groups, Hunted by left-wing media, Smeared by Hollywood elites & Fake religious leaders.
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***
A law came into force in Belgium which obliges every shop to accept card payments. Paying only in cash is no longer possible. Those responsible assert that a no-cash ban is planned in the medium term. Critics worry about a possible attempt to create consumption and movement profiles. It is probably also the next step for the nationwide introduction of the digital euro – and thus total control over citizens
Corona as a springboard for a digitized world: Hardly in any other area was this as obvious at the beginning of the “pandemic” as with cash.
In the fear of a supposed “killer virus” people were told that banknotes were contaminated. In some cases, shops instructed their customers to pay by card in anticipatory obedience.
The amount payable without entering a code into the machine was even doubled in Austria to 50 euros to avoid touching a pin keypad. The warnings turned out to be false, but in many countries the creeping move away from cash is now de rigueur.
Belgian shops must offer cash alternatives
Actually, most Belgians are of the opinion that cash is king. Three quarters of them strictly reject a cash ban. But the government has not backed down. Supposedly to prevent fraud, every corner shop and chip shop must now provide a cashless payment alternative. In the capital Brussels in particular, there are numerous shops that only accept card payments anyway. But another draft law, which also wants to make it mandatory to accept cash, is on hold – probably because the notion is so unpopular.
The official argument goes that the fight against fraud and money laundering is always the same thing. In this way, Italy, for example, already limited the upper limit for cash payments to 1 000 euros. A few years ago in Greece there was even talk of a threshold of 70 euros – but in times of skyrocketing inflation, the continuation of such plans would not make sense. Officially, no one wants a ban on cash – but in reality that may be the plan.
It is a psychological trick that one communication expert, Dr. Braun explained in an interview with AUF1: “I’ll bring in the scenario that I want to implement later, but for the moment I’m still distancing myself from it.” In this way, a concept enters people’s world of thoughts and feelings that is no longer unknown territory when it comes to their implementation . For example, if people are not to imagine a pink elephant walking across a green desert right now, that is exactly what they would imagine.
The assurances that a cash ban is not planned are probably a case of “pre-teaching”, Braun argued.
Social Credit System via Central Bank Digital Account
The situation is similar with the digital euro, which the European Central Bank (ECB) has been promoting. Its boss Christine Lagarde, is also a board member of the World Economic Forum (WEF). At its summit in May, the planned central bank digital money was a big topic. The mantra is always the same: the digital euro is supposed to only supplement cash. But the example of Sweden is enough to understand that the ban could also be used to raise customer awareness. Cash is a rare sight in the Nordic country and it will be abolished entirely next year.
If such plans were implemented, the people would suddenly be under the total control of powerful interests. Without having a digital money account, it could become impossible to even buy a simple loaf of bread. It is quite possible that the threat of an account ban could be used as a targeted means against political dissidents. A combination with a social credit system with a reward for “good behavior” and punishment for obstinacy is also conceivable. And that would be by no means the only control mechanism that the elites have to offer.
Social credit system in Europe as a pilot project in Bologna, Bavaria and Vienna in autumn
Even the state radio has already mentioned that data protectionists warn of the possibility that movement and consumption profiles can be created in this way. Already during the first lockdown, governments used this tool via mobile phone operators to understand whether citizens were adhering to the totalitarian regulations of the Corona dictatorship.
In a hyper-connected smart city favored by the rulers, however, controlling the likes of subjects could take on far more terrifying traits.
For example, a former Danish Minister for the Environment had dreamed of a life in which one had no car, no house, no appliances and no clothes. A world where you “can’t go anywhere without being registered”. And the lecture by a Finnish activist made it into the “Smart City Charter” of the German Ministry of the Environment in 2017. He spoke of a future where data could “complement or replace money as a currency”. In the final stage, even free elections would disappear, because “behavioral data can replace democracy as the social feedback system.”
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Featured image: A Belgian chip shop. Most of them take only cash. Facebook
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Rather than working diplomatically to resolve the civil war in Ukraine that it played a principal role in precipitating (by backing the unconstitutional transfer of power in that country in 2014), the Biden administration spent the months leading up to the Russian invasion in February assiduously working to make sure “extreme” economic sanctions could be put in place.
The threat of such additional sanctions, for Washington already had imposed a series of sanctions in 2014, was purportedly meant to deter the invasion. That having failed, it was then claimed the sanctions would force Russia to the negotiating table.
That, too, has clearly failed.
Given the centrality of economic warfare to Washington’s foreign policy, it is worth exploring how the Kremlin has managed to keep the Russian economy afloat since invading Ukraine and the likely wider implications and possible future application vis-à-vis China.
First, the immediate collapse of the ruble was reversed by the actions of the Russian central bank and the treasury. While the former nearly doubled interest rates overnight, the latter began spending its accumulated reserves to offset the price inflation that began eating into Russian consumers’ purchasing power. Though locked out of nearly half of its foreign reserves by Washington and its vassal allies, the government in Moscow has used its record balance of payments surplus to make up for the temporary loss.
While that balance of payments surplus, the result oil and gas sales continuing at lower volumes but higher prices while imports dropped precipitously, has mitigated the effects of domestic inflation, currently running at around 17 percent, it has not been able to prevent a sharp contraction in Russia’s economic growth (a contraction of approximately 10 percent is now expected over the coming year).
Given that governments from Washington to London, Warsaw, and Vilnius have made it clear that they do not even favor lifting these sanctions in the event of a cessation of hostilities, Russia’s future growth is likely to be far short of what it otherwise would have been. Lacking access to Western capital and technology, Russia will be increasingly dependent on China, India, or other developing economies for imports, as well as for a home for its energy exports as much of Europe moves to drastically reduce and eliminate its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons—though this too will depend on US sanctions, secondary sanctions, and on US-allied governments and their domestic industries’ willingness to risk running afoul of the US.
Long term, therefore, there is little doubt that the sanctions now in place will make Russia weaker and poorer. Of course, just as at present, it is the Russian people who will bear the costs of the West’s financial warfare—not their leadership.
As usual, we are expected to believe that the people of the countries targeted by US economic warfare will blame their own government rather than Washington—that they may even throw off Vladimir Putin and welcome the West! Apart from the fact that from Cuba to Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, et cetera, this has never worked, Anne Williamson explained twenty years ago that given that the last time Russia invited the West in, people like Jeffrey Sachs, Larry Summers, and Paul Rubin destroyed the economy, handing it to oligarchs they ultimately hoped would then hand it to Western multinationals, it’s highly unlikely Russians will blame their government for their woes.
Of course, the Russian people won’t be alone in their present impoverishment. Normal people the world over are also being made poorer and weaker by Washington’s policies. Indeed, while Europeans empty their savings in the face of record-high gas, oil, and food prices, many in the developing world are literally going to starve long before the war in Ukraine ends—which North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) secretary general Jens Stoltenberg now says may take years.
That these policies have been cheered by Democrats and Republicans alike is not surprising: America’s Democrats are delusional with hatred for Russia because they can’t accept that Hillary Clinton failed to beat Donald Trump, while Republicans like Ted Cruz are beholden to mercantilist interests—i.e., US oil and natural gas producers who want to sell to Europe. In the case of the former, even if Russia did concertedly try to interfere, it made no demonstrable impact on the elections, which even the thoroughly establishment Economist admits; and in the case of the latter, US gas and oil exports are already climbing toward all-time highs.
As a demonstration of its capacity to force others in line with its policies, and to get its own population to bear the consequences, Washington has doubtlessly succeeded in sending its intended message to Beijing over Taiwan. While Washington’s weaponization of the global financial system has no doubt alarmed Chinese Communist Party planners, the fact that their own population would be quite willing to suffer for the reunification of their country, as well as the fact that many countries in the developing world have eschewed following the West’s example, provide ample reason to doubt the efficacy of looming sanctions as a deterrent in the event of another, bigger Taiwan Strait crisis.
Not that it prevents the staff at the Atlantic Council from daydreaming about it in the runup to a NATO summit focused on saber-rattling in Beijing’s direction.
Because what does a history of failure and mass impoverishment prove if not that next time will be different?
If only Karl Marx had been right when he said that history repeats, first as tragedy, then as farce, paraphrasing Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The truth instead seems to be that we are doomed to suffer an unending parade of farces under Washington’s continued pursuit of a demonstrably failed and immoral policy.
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A graduate of Spring Arbor University and the University of Illinois, Joseph Solis-Mullen is a political scientist and graduate student in the economics department at the University of Missouri. An independent researcher and journalist, his work can be found at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, Eurasian Review, Libertarian Institute, Journal of the American Revolution, Antiwar.com, and the Journal of Libertarian Studies. You can contact him through his website http://www.jsmwritings.com or find him on Twitter @solis_mullen.
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VAERS data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 1,329,135 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID-19 vaccines, including 29,273 deaths and 241,910 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020, and July 1, 2022.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released new data showing a total of 1,329,135 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and July 1, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). That’s an increase of 14,541 adverse events over the previous week.
VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.
The data included a total of 29,273 reports of deaths — an increase of 111 over the previous week — and 241,910 serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 684 compared with the previous week.
Of the 29,273 reported deaths, 18,937 cases are attributed to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, 7,724 cases to Moderna and 2,545 cases to Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
Foreign reports are reports foreign subsidiaries send to U.S. vaccine manufacturers. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and does not appear on the product’s labeling, the manufacturer is required to submit the report to VAERS.
Of the 13,547 U.S. deaths reported as of July 1, 15% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 19% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 58% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
In the U.S., 596 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered as of June 29, including 352 million doses of Pfizer, 225 million doses of Moderna and 19 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.
4 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation).
The CDC uses a narrowed case definition of “myocarditis,” which excludes cases of cardiac arrest, ischemic strokes and deaths due to heart problems that occur before one has the chance to go to the emergency department.
62 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds where the reaction was life-threatening, required treatment or resulted in death — with 97% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
655 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis with 643 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
There was one less case reported attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine since the previous week.
166 reports of blood clotting disorders with all cases attributed to Pfizer. VAERS reported 167 cases of blood clotting disorders in the 12- to 17-year-old age group last week.
20 cases of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) with all cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to July 1, 2022, for all age groups combined, show:
20% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.
54% of those who died were male, 41% were female and the remaining death reports did not include the gender of the deceased.
Uruguay halts COVID vaccine for kids under 13, judge demands government officials turn over Pfizer contracts
Uruguay suspended COVID-19 vaccines for children under 13 after a judge on Thursday issued an injunction halting vaccinations in that age group until government officials turn over contracts with vaccine manufacturers.
Uruguayan government officials and Pfizer were ordered on Wednesday to appear in court after a judge gave them 48 hours to present detailed information on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine while the court considered an injunction request to halt COVID-19.
The government said a confidentiality clause in the contract prevents it from producing the documents, The Washington Post reported.
Judge Alejandro Recarey of the Administrative Litigation Tribunal used his inquisitorial powers to demand the Uruguayan Ministry of Public Health, State Health Services Administration and the President’s Office submit all information regarding the contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, including contractual information related to any clauses of civil indemnity or criminal impunity of the suppliers in the event of adverse effects.
The judge also posed a series of questions to government officials and Pfizer regarding the chemical composition, efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines, and required Pfizer to state whether it has “admitted, in any area, internal or external to it and its partners, the verification of adverse effects” of its COVID-19 vaccines in children.
Paul Offit says ‘fix was in’ before FDA panel voted to reformulate boosters
In a June 6 interview with ZDoggMD, vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit said the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel’s recent meeting on whether to modify COVID-19 boosters was unusual and he felt the panel was led to “vote yes” to reformulate boosters without critical data.
Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said:
“I’ve seen nothing like this. I guess the thing that’s most upsetting to me is normally when you get something from the FDA when we have these meetings, you usually get it a few days before you meet. You usually get a couple of hundred pages.
“Here on the other hand, normally you get the EUA [Emergency Use Authorization] submission from the company, which is 85 to 100 pages long, and then you get the FDA’s review of all those data. It’s a very thorough review. Not here though. Here, it was 22 pages from the FDA, which included a half-page on Pfizer’s data and a half-page on Moderna’s data.”
“You could get that from the press release,” Offit said, adding he didn’t see the benefits of reformulated boosters and was surprised that out of 21 voting members, 19 voted “yes.”
Offit also said it was “unusual” that someone from the World Health Organization presented their opinion during the meeting that a modified booster shot was a good idea and the FDA presented their opinion before the advisory committee rendered its advice.
Offit said he believed reformulating COVID-19 boosters was “something that was desired by the Biden administration,” who announced the day after the meeting they had purchased at least 105 million doses from Pfizer with up to 300 million doses.”
76 doctors urge UK government officials not to authorize COVID vaccines for small children
In a letter to the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and other U.K. government officials, 76 doctors explain why the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision authorizing COVID vaccinations for infants and young children must not happen in the U.K.
The doctors urged the MHRA to consider “very carefully” the move to vaccinate ever younger children against SARS-CoV-2, despite the gradual but significant reducing virulence of successive variants, the increasing evidence of rapidly waning vaccine efficacy, increasing concerns over long-term vaccine harms and the knowledge that the vast majority of the younger age group have already been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 repeatedly and have demonstrably effective immunity.
The doctors said using the risk-benefit analysis that supported the rollout of mRNA vaccines to the elderly and vulnerable in 2021 is totally inappropriate for small children in 2022, and strongly challenged the addition of COVID-19 vaccination into the routine child immunization program despite no demonstrated clinical need, known and unknown risks and the fact that these vaccines still have only conditional marketing authorization.
60,000 unvaccinated guard and reserve soldiers cut from training and pay
About 60,000 Army National Guard members and Army Reserve soldiers who refused to comply with a Department of Defense COVID-19 vaccine mandate are no longer allowed to participate in their military duties and were cut off from some of their pay and benefits, Army officials announced July 1.
Of the more than 40,000 members of the Guard who remain unvaccinated, 14,000 have said they do not intend to ever receive a COVID-19 vaccine, Guard officials told CBS News. Approximately 22,000 Reserve soldiers have refused to get vaccinated.
Soldiers will be allowed to come on duty and earn their pay if it’s for the purpose of getting vaccinated or to take part in separation procedures. If the soldiers continue to refuse to get vaccinated, the consequences could be even more severe.
To date, only six Guard soldiers across all states and territories have received medical exemptions out of 53 who submitted requests, according to Army data. No Reserve soldiers have received a medical exemption.
No Guard or Reserve soldiers have been approved for a religious exemption despite nearly 3,000 requests.
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Megan Redshaw is a staff attorney for Children’s Health Defense and a reporter for The Defender.
Visita di Stato del presidente Mattarella in Mozambico, da cui l’Italia comincerà a importare dall’autunno gas naturale liquefatto per sostituire, insieme al GNL proveniente dagli Stati Uniti e da altri paesi, quello che attualmente importa dalla Russia attraverso gasdotti.
Da quando nel 2010 sono stati scoperti grandi giacimenti di gas al largo di Cabo Delgado, sono affluite in Mozambico le grandi multinazionali energetiche: le statunitensi ExxonMobil e Shell, la francese Total, la britannica BP, l’italiana Eni e altre. Esse si sono accaparrate lucrosi contratti per lo sfruttamento pluridecennale dei giacimenti. I miliardi di dollari provenienti da tali contratti stanno arricchendo l’élite al potere, mentre la maggioranza della popolazione vede peggiorare la propria situazione.
Particolarmente drammatica è la condizione degli abitanti della provincia di Capo Delgado. La popolazione costiera, che finora viveva di pesca, viene costretta a trasferirsi a 10-15 km dalla costa per far posto agli impianti industriali per la liquefazione del gas destinato all’esportazione. Aumenta di conseguenza la povertà. L’ambiente costiero viene sempre più inquinato, con danni ambientali gravissimi. Gli abitanti rimasti nella zona costiera vengono attaccati e massacrati da gruppi armati. Tutto questo viene nascosto dal mainstream politico-mediatico italiano.
Lo stesso che sta nascondendo le vere ragioni della chiusura dei pozzi petroliferi libici. Esse vengono spiegate da Michelangelo Severgnini con una intervista a Abdullah Al-Zaidi, sindacalista e giornalista economico libico. I pozzi sono stati bloccati da movimenti popolari per impedire la continua rapina del petrolio libico nella guerra che la NATO ha continuato a condurre dopo la demolizione dello Stato libico nel 2011. La NATO cerca con tutti i mezzi di impedire le elezioni politiche, da cui nascerebbe il nuovo Stato libico.
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The European Medicines Agency (EMA) database of adverse drug reactions is now reporting 46,160 deaths and 4,623,724 injuries following COVID-19 vaccines, while the United States’ Vaccine Adverse Events Recording System (VAERS) is now reporting 29,162 deaths and 1,314,594 injuries following COVID-19 vaccines. (Source.)
We know that as huge as these numbers are which are official government statistics, that they only represent a very small fraction of the total number of deaths and injuries suffered by those who chose to receive COVID-19 vaccines during the past 18 months.
Last year, Dr. Jessica Rose did a comprehensive analysis to determine the “under-reported factor” in VAERS, and came up with 41X, meaning that the recorded data for adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines in VAERS had to be multiplied by 41 to get more accurate numbers. See:
However, now that more time has elapsed since this study was performed, many feel that 41X is significantly too low, and should be closer to 100X, which is the number that was previously used based on a 2011 report by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc. for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs and vaccines that endanger public health. New surveillance methods for drug and vaccine adverse effects are needed. (Source.)
So if we take the publicly available data from VAERS and the European EMA and multiply by 100, these would be the true numbers of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines: 7,532,200 deaths and 593,831,800 injuries in Europe and the U.S.
46,160 deaths and 4,623,724 injuries in EudraVigilance
The European (EEA and non-EEA countries) database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, verified by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they are now reporting 46,160 fatalities, and 4,623,724 injuries following injections of five experimental COVID-19 shots:
From the total of injuries recorded, almost half of them (2,106,816) are serious injuries.
“Seriousness provides information on the suspected undesirable effect; it can be classified as ‘serious’ if it corresponds to a medical occurrence that results in death, is life-threatening, requires inpatient hospitalisation, results in another medically important condition, or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or is a congenital anomaly/birth defect.”
A Health Impact News subscriber in Europe ran the reports for each of the four COVID-19 shots we are including here. It is a lot of work to tabulate each reaction with injuries and fatalities, since there is no place on the EudraVigilance system we have found that tabulates all the results.
Since we have started publishing this, others from Europe have also calculated the numbers and confirmed the totals.*
Here is the summary data through July 2, 2022.
Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine Tozinameran (code BNT162b2,Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer: 21,746 deaths and 2,387,920 injuries to 02/07/2022
71,125 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 310 deaths
82,967 Cardiac disorders incl. 3,147 deaths
738 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 65 deaths
30,743 Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 17 deaths
45,681 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 847 deaths
204 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 19 deaths
770 Immune system disorders incl. 12 deaths
14,626 Infections and infestations incl. 254 deaths
1,543 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 36 deaths
7,553 Investigations incl. 161 deaths
1,038 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 82 deaths
20,774 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 68 deaths
141 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 12 deaths
28,521 Nervous system disorders incl. 292 deaths
124 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 1 death
35 Product issues
2,428 Psychiatric disorders incl. 35 deaths
711 Renal and urinary disorders incl. 48 deaths
4,028 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 6 deaths
5,862 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 382 deaths
5,072 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 16 deaths
673 Social circumstances incl. 7 deaths
1,174 Surgical and medical procedures incl. 100 deaths
4,498 Vascular disorders incl. 193 deaths
Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine NUVAXOVID (NVX-COV2373) from Novavax: 0 deaths and 3,007 injuries to 02/07/2022
68 Blood and lymphatic system disorders
166 Cardiac disorders
38 Ear and labyrinth disorders
1 Endocrine disorders
57 Eye disorders
216 Gastrointestinal disorders
677 General disorders and administration site conditions
3 Hepatobiliary disorders
20 Immune system disorders
160 Infections and infestations
25 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications
76 Investigations
16 Metabolism and nutrition disorders
388 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders
1 Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps)
540 Nervous system disorders
2 Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions
1 Product issues
46 Psychiatric disorders
18 Renal and urinary disorders
51 Reproductive system and breast disorders
151 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders
198 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders
3 Social circumstances
20 Surgical and medical procedures
65 Vascular disorders
*These totals are estimates based on reports submitted to EudraVigilance. Totals may be much higher based on percentage of adverse reactions that are reported. Some of these reports may also be reported to the individual country’s adverse reaction databases, such as the U.S. VAERS database and the UK Yellow Card system. The fatalities are grouped by symptoms, and some fatalities may have resulted from multiple symptoms.
Parents Offer Up Their Babies and Toddlers to the Demonic Vaccine Cult – Hallucinations Among Reported Side Effects
Last month (June, 2022) the FDA gave parents authorization to start offering their babies and toddlers to the COVID-19 Vaccine Cult, and injections began in children under the age of 5.
There are currently 476 cases of COVID-19 injuries in this age group in VAERS (source), although many of these cases were before the authorization was given.
I have listed all current 476 cases on one page that can be viewed here. The most current cases, after the authorization, can be seen at the bottom.
Remarkably, many of the cases listed prior to the authorization, were entries made by health officials because after injecting the child, they found out that the child was under the age of 5, and not yet authorized to receive the shots.
In other words, the parents were so desperate to inject their toddlers, that they lied about their child’s age to get the shot, which would have been a dose made for older children, and the health official felt compelled to enter it into VAERS to cover themselves legally after they found out.
Staff was misled by mother, regarding the patient”s age. This resulted in the child being vaccinated despite bing ineligible (due to being 4). The vaccination process otherwise went without incident. Patient was observation for approx. 15 minutes after, in accordance with current guidelines. Afterwards, the patient left with her mother again without incident. (VAERS ID 2264666)
The patient received a pediatric Pfizer Covid vaccine, but she is only 4 years old, which is under the approved age. The parents falsified the child”s date of birth during check in and on the paperwork. They called the pharmacy the next day (4/21/22) to apologize and let us know that she was actually under age. There were no adverse effects reported during the time of the vaccine, at the time of the phone call on 4/21/22 or at the time of the follow up call on 4/25/22. (VAERS ID 2250179)
Patient falsified DOB when registering for vaccination, stating the minor was born 10 days earlier than actual DOB. Guardian consented to the vaccination. Department of Health verified with statistical records the patients actual DOB, which made the vaccine a contraindication. No known adverse reactions noted. (VAERS ID 2283077)
In at least one case, a doctor approved the shot even though it was not yet authorized by the FDA:
No symptoms or adverse events noted. Patient is traveling in June of 2022 with her family. Her parents requested to get her first dose of the vaccine early since she is traveling. Ok”d per Dr. to give a couple of months early. (VAERS ID 2281214)
Cases where the new vaccines were given to the babies and toddlers under the age of 5 after the FDA authorization and there was an adverse reaction are just now starting to trickle in.
In one case, a 2-year-old baby girl started hallucinating within 6 hours of being injected:
Patient developed sudden onset hallucinations (visual, possibly auditory) and psychosis beginning 6 hours after vaccination and lasting for 7 hours, then fell asleep. Reawakened with more hallucinations/psychosis 16 hours after vaccination (6 am today) lasting for another 1.5 hours. Transported to Pediatric ED where psychosis/hallucinations resolved. Examination normal. Remained at baseline (normal) upon discharge from ED. (VAERS ID 2329230)
One mother reported on Twitter that her 8-year-old daughter started hallucinating and having feelings of suicide after the shots.
I never heard my 8 year old talk about suicide or have hallucinations or feeling of bugs crawling on her until we have the #safeandEffective vaccine. (Source.)
Early reports in VAERS show that the poor toddlers are putting up a good fight in trying to reject the shots, but sadly, they are over-matched and sometimes just end up getting jabbed twice for resisting.
Patient moved during vaccination attempt and over half of COVID 19 vaccine was not injected intramuscularly. Patient returned on 6/23/22 to another mobile vaccine clinic to receive full dose appropriate for her age. (3 years old – VAERS ID 2329682)
Vaccinator inserted needle into pt”s arm. Mother did not have a good hold and pt moved. Needle came out before vaccinator was able to inject. Pt was then vaccinated with full dose. (3 years old – VAERS ID 2327250)
Nurse stuck needle in child”s arm to vaccinate, but child pulled arm away before vaccine was administered. Nurse wasted that dose and administered the vaccine in the opposite arm. (2 years old – VAERS ID 2326989)
EUA – young moderna dose 1. Patient moved away during administration and only received a partial dose (majority of solution was not injected). Parent informed and clinical team. Patient was re-vaccinated per guidelines. (2 years old – VAERS ID 2328918)
Needle inserted into patients L thigh, but vaccine was not administered. Patient slapped the syringeand the needle bent. RN was able to remove entire needle. Small scratch noted on L thigh. (2 years old – VAERS ID 2325671)
Steve Kirsch reported that nurses told him that many of these children 2 and 3 years old are having seizures.
I’m getting multiple reports from my nurse friends about kids 2 and 3 years old having seizures. It is ONLY happening on vaccinated kids, and symptoms start 2 to 5 days after the COVID vaccine.
Doctors are mystified by a rash of seizures, rashes, etc. happening to 2 and 3-year-old kids.
The only thing these kids have in common is that they were given the COVID vaccine just days earlier (two to five days earlier).
The doctors cannot figure out what is causing the seizures (since it couldn’t be the vaccine since those are safe and effective). The medical staff is not permitted to talk about the cases to the press or on social media or they will be fired.
One nurse posted something to the effect of “how is this legal????” I had to paraphrase to protect the poster.
This is why you are hearing these reports from me. They can’t fire me.
There is nothing on the mainstream media about this since the nurses and doctors aren’t allowed to talk about it.
This will all come out some day, but for now, everyone is keeping quiet about it and the doctors are instructed to convince the parents that it isn’t vaccine related and that they are the only ones having the problem.
Meanwhile, state legislators and the U.S. Congress are overwhelmingly passing laws to criminalize anyone who denies that millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust during WW II, but if you deny the fact that millions of children and adults are being killed and harmed by COVID-19 shots, you can have your own corporate news show and earn tons of money from Big Pharma ads, or you can be given a job working at the FDA or CDC.
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Comments Off on 75,322 Dead 5,938,318 Injured Recorded in Europe and USA Following COVID Vaccines – Babies and Toddlers Hallucinating and Having Seizures After Shots
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In spite of all our enlightened thinking around racism, “Black Lives Matter,” and calls for “diversity, equity and inclusion” on our workplaces and our partnerships, Africa, a continent bearing nearly a fifth of the world’s population doesn’t register as more than a backdrop of “tragic suffering and endless despair” to quote a year old article on the media watchdog site FAIR.org. [1]
The Mining Association of Canada trumpets their commitment to sustainable mining, and ensuring management and employees in the mining sector receive “skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights and anti-racism.” [2]
However, in Africa , since the mid-1980s, major pressure was placed by capitalist nations, including Canada, to follow neoliberal economic policies, including privatization. And Canadian Mining Corporations became the main beneficiaries of these “free market” reforms. All while they were bitterly resisted from African communities! [3]
The Canadian Foreign Policy Institute (CFPI) provides the Canadian people with more transparency on foreign policy in all its principle forms. It states on their website that it corrects the popular myth that Canada is a benevolent force on the world stage. In this regard, Canada’s mining record was a clear example of a sector that has come under their watch.
Hence, the Global Research News Hour presents the discussion called Canadian Mining in Africa: Looting the Continent, a talk on the media instrument Zoom produced by the CFPI. The guests on hand were Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch Canada (which was also a co-producer of the conversation), Phyllia Ngoatje of Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), and Yves Engler, the prominent author and Canadian foreign policy critic. The moderator for the discussion was Bianca Mugyenyi, director of the CFPI.
See the unabridged discussion here:
Jamie Kneen is a co-lead and outreach coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. He leads MiningWatch’s work on mining policy development and individual mining projects in western and northern Canada. He also leads the organization’s strategic research and communications, as well as research and advocacy in Africa.
Phyllia Ngoatje was the head of the paralegal unit for Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA) which is a community based united front of mining-affected communities seeking to protect their interests against mining.
CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.
WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.
Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.
CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am.
Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.
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First published on June 28, 2022
***
The events of the last two months and years – the doom of arbitrary state measures, mass terror, dictatorship and war – have once again given us a thorough visual lesson in the historical significance of violence. Although progress in the development of civilization is undeniable, we seem to be still entirely at the beginnings of humanization as far as the taming of violence is concerned. We wage war, but no one – no mother, no father, no professor – tells youth not to go to war: “Don’t go!”
What has been true for humanity since time immemorial remains valid in the present “times of upheaval”: the human sense of community and the spirit of responsibility will put an end to this indescribable violence. If our ancestors had not made the sense of community and the feeling of togetherness the guiding principle of their actions, humanity would no longer exist. This idea must also penetrate to the youth.
Will it be possible to master violence?
Immoderate and moderate brutality, historical factors of the first rank, also leave their mark on our present time. The desire for power in business and politics drives us again and again into catastrophes in which the wealth of our culture is squandered and the harvests of our civilization are destroyed.
The lust for power of those who function as authorities within the peoples and who, through their social position, are imbued with the spirit of violence, leads to terrible warlike conflicts in which peoples bleed to death for the benefit of their masters and exploiters. These disastrous effects touch our vital nerve, but we are lethargic enough not to be shaken up by them.
Therefore, the question suggests itself: Will it be possible to master violence, to eliminate it from the relationships of individuals and communities? Or are we condemned to watch powerlessly the periodic invasion of barbarism?
Philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and humanists, who have nothing to contribute here, judge themselves: the plight of people does not touch their hearts. And thus all their wisdom and science is degraded to a complacent game of the mind that knows no commitment.
If we live in a world in which war and crime are the order of the day, we are nevertheless also murderers and criminals, because the world is as we have set it up or – in relation to already existing conditions – tolerated it. No one can escape responsibility. We are always complicit, even when we are victims. Thousands of injustices also happen in our closest proximity, but we do not outrage, we do not defend the weak and we do not help the helpless. And by not fighting against them, we condone the violence. But the disease that we have not tried to heal in others, one day takes us away ourselves.
The principle of “mutual aid”
Research has meanwhile proven that in the animal kingdom not only the “struggle for life” but also the principle of “mutual aid” (Kropotkin) is effective. The higher organized creatures live in associations, groups and herds; in them a herd instinct has developed, which sometimes puts the preservation of the species above self-preservation.
In the human world, social feelings and communal bonds certainly play as great a role as the will to power and self-interest. The ideology of power is a terrible error of the human race that seems to be inexorably poisoning the atmosphere of our culture. But it is wrong to define man as a predator; for man is capable of devotion and self-sacrifice. The theory of “Homo homini lupus” is misleading and dangerous. It attracts above all the autocrats and the authoritarian mind, which sees in it the justification for its striving for power.
The sense of community – a gift of evolution
The evolution of culture consists essentially in the fact that the voice of the conscience of mankind makes itself heard more and more and that the spirit of responsibility takes the place of violence. What we call ethical achievements, the upsurge of morality and law, is the growth of the human sense of community, the knowledge of the togetherness of all those who bear human traits. The teachings of the moral leaders of mankind, the wisdom of Lao Tzu, the commandment of charity and the innumerable forms of social life and behavior in which public spirit is manifested, grew out of the insight into this connection.
Humanity is under the law that we must stick together and are compelled to reach out to one another. Everywhere the common sense, the feeling of belonging together, of being with each other is important. The reduction of the lust for power and the desire for violence is not a postulate of edifying moral sermons: it is the simple necessity of community life. It is possible to suppress the cries of the human sense of community; they can never be completely eradicated, because the gift of evolution consists in the moral consciousness of the individual, in the understanding of the responsibility of all towards all.
Our task for the near and distant future, especially under the impression of the present “upheavals”, is the cultivation and strengthening of the sense of community. “Community feeling”, “social feeling” and “feeling of connectedness” are the basis of Alfred Adler’s individual psychology. No means must be too small for us, no effort too arduous, in order to better integrate man into the social structure, to teach him that violence and greed for power can only lead him to his doom.
Enlightenment and education
Since politics is prepared in the minds and hearts of people, and people will act tomorrow as they think today, therefore enlightenment is another concern whose importance cannot be overestimated. The purpose of enlightenment efforts is to purify human consciousness from individual and collective prejudices, which are incessantly fomented by mass media. The mind can be misled by fear, hope and interests of all kinds, leading to alienation from life and self-deception.
The destruction of prejudice therefore means more than a mere intellectual endeavor: the enlightened mind is capable of envisaging healthy life goals. The future of our culture will essentially depend on whether there will be enough “enlighteners” who will be able to remove from the broad masses of people those prejudices which are the ideological background of the past and present catastrophes of mankind.
At a time when the threat of the atomic bomb makes the self-destruction of mankind seem possible, we need more than ever free spirits to teach us what is truth and what is falsehood. Thus, the intellectual has a much greater responsibility than one would generally like to admit, because his duty would be to think for the other people (Romain Rolland) and to proclaim freedom in general with the freedom of thinking.
Even more important than enlightenment is the problem of education. The insight of depth psychology has made education clear to us in its immense scope. The authoritarian principle, for centuries regarded as the unquestionably valid basis of educational behavior, throttled people’s sense of community already in their childhood years. Today we know that man is to such an extent the product of his upbringing that we have the hope that through psychological methods of education we will be able to train people who will be immune to the entanglements of the mania for power.
By renouncing exaggerated authority and the use of force in the home and school and devoting itself with true understanding to the life of the child’s soul, pedagogy will produce a type of person who does not have a “subject mentality” and will therefore no longer be a docile tool for those in power in our world.
Example of selfless help during oppressive sanctions
The government in Belgrade is the only European government to reject sanctions against friendly Russia, despite considerable pressure from Washington, Brussels and Berlin. The Serbian people fully support this decision. A major reason is their own painful experience with sanctions during the 1990s.
According to my wife, at that time all Serbs were dependent on the help of their fellow citizens and offered each other food, clothing and things that they themselves did not urgently need. Since housewives also exchanged recipes on the phone, the story of the “embargo cake” became a hit.
Another example is the story of the 83-year-old grandfather who was a family friend and kept two cows in his farmhouse in the country. For three years, he got up at four in the morning every season, milked the cows and sent two liters of fresh milk on the only 5 o’clock bus to his friend’s three little nasties in the nearby town so that they would survive the harassing sanctions in good health.
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a teacher (retired principal), a doctor of education (Dr. paed.) and a graduate psychologist (specializing in clinical, educational and media psychology). As a retiree, he worked for many years as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and educational-psychological articles he calls for a conscious ethical-moral value education and an education for public spirit and peace.
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***
This March, when the Biden administration presented a staggering $813 billion proposal for “national defense,” it was hard to imagine a budget that could go significantly higher or be more generous to the denizens of the military-industrial complex. After all, that request represented far more than peak spending in the Korean or Vietnam War years, and well over $100 billion more than at the height of the Cold War.
It was, in fact, an astonishing figure by any measure — more than two-and-a-half times what China spends; more, in fact, than (and hold your hats for this one!) the national security budgets of the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined. And yet the weapons industry and hawks in Congress are now demanding that even more be spent.
In recent National Defense Authorization Act proposals, which always set a marker for what Congress is willing to fork over to the Pentagon, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees both voted to increase the 2023 budget yet again — by $45 billion in the case of the Senate and $37 billion for the House. The final figure won’t be determined until later this year, but Congress is likely to add tens of billions of dollars more than even the Biden administration wanted to what will most likely be a record for the Pentagon’s already bloated budget.
This lust for yet more weapons spending is especially misguided at a time when a never-ending pandemic, growing heat waves and other depredations of climate change, and racial and economic injustice are devastating the lives of millions of Americans. Make no mistake about it: the greatest risks to our safety and our future are non-military in nature, with the exception, of course, of the threat of nuclear war, which could increase if the current budget goes through as planned.
But as TomDispatch readers know, the Pentagon is just one element in an ever more costly American national security state. Adding other military, intelligence, and internal-security expenditures to the Pentagon’s budget brings the total upcoming “national security” budget to a mind-boggling $1.4 trillion. And note that, in June 2021, the last time my colleague Mandy Smithberger and I added up such costs to the taxpayer, that figure was almost $1.3 trillion, so the trend is obvious.
To understand how these vast sums are spent year after year, let’s take a quick tour of America’s national security budget, top to bottom.
The Pentagon’s “Base” Budget
The Pentagon’s proposed “base” budget, which includes all of its routine expenses from personnel to weapons to the costs of operating and maintaining a 1.3 million member military force, came in at $773 billion for 2023, more than $30 billion above that of 2022. Such an increase alone is three times the discretionary budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and more than three times the total allocation for the Environmental Protection Agency.
In all, the Pentagon consumes nearly half of the discretionary budget of the whole federal government, a figure that’s come down slightly in recent years thanks to the Biden administration’s increased investment in civilian activities. That still means, however, that almost anything the government wants to do other than preparing for or waging war involves a scramble for funding, while the Department of Defense gets virtually unlimited financial support.
And keep in mind that the proposed Biden increase in Pentagon spending comes despite the ending of 20 years of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, a move that should have meant significant reductions in the department’s budget. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn, however, that, in the wake of the Afghan disaster, the military establishment and hawks in Congress quickly shifted gears to touting — and exaggerating — challenges posed by China, Russia, and inflation as reasons for absorbing the potential savings from the Afghan War and pressing the Pentagon budget ever higher.
It’s worth looking at what America stands to receive for its $773 billion — or about $2,000 per taxpayer, according to an analysis by the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. More than half of that amount goes to giant weapons contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, along with thousands of smaller arms-making firms.
The most concerning part of the new budget proposal, however, may be the administration’s support for a three-decades long, $1.7-trillion plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles (as well, of course, as new warheads to go with them), bombers, and submarines. As the organization Global Zero has pointed out, the United States could dissuade any country from launching an atomic attack against it with far fewer weapons than are contained in its current nuclear arsenal. There’s simply no need for a costly — and risky — nuclear weapons “modernization” plan. Sadly, it’s guaranteed to help fuel a continuing global nuclear arms race, while entrenching nuclear weapons as a mainstay of national security policy for decades to come. (Wouldn’t those decades be so much better spent working to eliminate nuclear weapons altogether?)
The riskiest weapon in that nuclear plan is a new land-based, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). As former Secretary of Defense William Perryonce explained, ICBMs are among “the most dangerous weapons in the world” because a president warned of a nuclear attack would have only a matter of minutes to decide whether to launch them, increasing the risk of an accidental nuclear war based on a false alarm. Not only is a new ICBM unnecessary, but the existing ones should be retired as well, as a way of reducing the potential for a world-ending nuclear conflagration.
To its credit, the Biden administration is trying to get rid of an ill-conceived nuclear weapons program initiated during the Trump years – a sea-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missile that, rather than adding a “deterrent” capability, would raise the risk of a nuclear confrontation. As expected, nuclear hawks in the military and Congress are trying to restore funding for that nuclear SLCM (pronounced “Slick ‘em”).
The Pentagon budget is replete with other unnecessary, overpriced, and often potentially dysfunctional systems that should either be canceled or replaced with more affordable and effective alternatives. The most obvious case in point is the F-35 combat aircraft, meant to carry out multiple missions for the Air Force, Navy, and Marines. So far, it does none of them well.
In a series of careful analyses of the aircraft, the Project on Government Oversight determined that it may never be fully ready for combat. As for cost, at an estimated $1.7 trillion over its projected period of service, it’s already the most expensive single weapons program ever undertaken by the Pentagon. And keep in mind that those costs will only increase as the military services are forced to pay to fix problems that were never addressed in the rush to deploy the plane before it was fully tested. Meanwhile, that aircraft is so complex that, at any given moment, a large percentage of the fleet is down for maintenance, meaning that, if ever called on for combat duty, many of those planes will simply not be available.
In a grudging acknowledgement of the multiple problems plaguing the F-35, the Biden administration proposed decreasing its buy of the plane by about a third in 2023, a figure that should have been much lower given its poor performance. But congressional advocates of the plane — including a large F-35 caucus made up of members in states or districts where parts of it are being produced — will undoubtedly continue to press for more planes than even the Pentagon’s asking for, as the Senate Armed Services Committee did in its markup of the Department of Defense spending bill.
In addition to all of this, the Pentagon’s base budget includes mandatory spending for items like military retirement, totaling an estimated $12.8 billion for 2023.
Running national (in)security tally: $785.8 billion
The Nuclear Budget
The average taxpayer no doubt assumes that a government agency called the Department of Energy (DOE) would be primarily concerned with developing new sources of energy, including ones that would reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels to help rein in the ravages of climate change. Unfortunately, that assumption couldn’t be less true.
Instead of spending the bulk of its time and money on energy research and development, more than 40% of the Department of Energy’s budget for 2023 is slated to support the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which manages the country’s nuclear weapons program, principally by maintaining and developing nuclear warheads. Work on other military activities like reactors for nuclear submarines pushes the defense share of the DOE budget even higher. The NNSA spreads its work across the country, with major locations in California, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Its proposed 2023 budget for nuclear-weapons activities is $16.5 billion, part of a budget for defense-related projects of $29.8 billion.
Amazingly the NNSA’s record of managing its programs may be even worse than the Pentagon’s, with cost overruns of more than $28 billion during the last two decades. Many of its current projects, like a plan to build a new facility to produce plutonium “pits” — the devices that trigger the explosion of a hydrogen bomb — are unnecessary even under the current, misguided nuclear weapons modernization plan.
Nuclear budget: $29.8 billion
Running (in)security tally: $815.6 billion
Defense-Related Activities
This catch-all category, pegged at $10.6 billion in 2023, includes the international activities of the FBI and payments to Central Intelligence Agency retirement funds, among other things.
Defense-Related Activities: $10.6 billion
Running (in)security tally: $826.2 billion
The Intelligence Budget
Information about this country’s 18 separate intelligence agencies is largely shielded from public view. Most members of Congress don’t even have staff that can access significant details on how intelligence funds are spent, making meaningful Congressional oversight almost impossible. The only real data supplied with regard to the intelligence agencies is a top-line number – $67.1 billion proposed for 2023, a $5 billion increase over 2022. Most of the intelligence community’s budget is believed to be hidden inside the Pentagon budget. So, in the interests of making a conservative estimate, intelligence spending is not included in our tally.
Intelligence Budget: $67.1 billion
Running (in)security tally still: $826.2 billion
Veterans Affairs Budget
America’s post-9/11 wars have generated millions of veterans, many of whom have returned from battle with severe physical or psychological injuries. As a result, spending on veterans’ affairs has soared, reaching a proposed $301 billion in the 2023 budget plan. Research conducted for the Costs of War Project at Brown University has determined that these costs will only grow, with more than $2 trillion needed just to take care of the veterans of the post-9/11 conflicts.
Veterans Affairs Budget: $301 billion
Running (in)security tally: $1.127 trillion
International Affairs Budget
The International Affairs budget includes non-military items like diplomacy at the State Department and economic aid through the Agency for International Development, critical (but significantly underfunded) parts of the U.S. national security strategy writ large. But even in this category there are significant military-related activities in the form of programs that provide arms and training to foreign militaries and police forces. It’s proposed that the largest of these, the Foreign Military Financing program, should receive $6 billion in 2023. Meanwhile, the total requested International Affairs budget is $67.8 billion in 2023.
International Affairs Budget: $67.8 billion
Running (in)security tally: $1.195 trillion
The Homeland Security Budget
After the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established by combining a wide range of agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Agency, the U.S. Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, and the Coast Guard. The proposed DHS budget for 2023 is $56.7 billion, more than one-quarter of which goes to Customs and Border Protection as part of a militarized approach to addressing immigration into the United States.
Homeland Security Budget: $56.7 billion
Running (in)security tally: $1.252 trillion
Interest on the Debt
The national security state, as outlined so far, is responsible for about 26% of the interest due on the U.S. debt, a total of $152 billion.
Interest on the Debt: $152 billion
Running (in)security tally: $1.404 trillion
Our Misguided Security Budget
Spending $1.4 trillion to address a narrowly defined concept of national security should be considered budgetary malpractice on a scale so grand as to be almost unimaginable — especially at a time when the greatest risks to the safety of Americans and the rest of the world are not military in nature. After all, the Covid pandemic has already taken the lives of more than one million Americans, while the fires, floods, and heat waves caused by climate change have impacted tens of millions more.
Yet the administration’s proposed allocation of $45 billion to address climate change in the 2023 budget would be less than 6% of the Pentagon’s proposed budget of $773 billion. And as noted, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are slated to get just one-third of the proposed increase in Pentagon spending between 2022 and 2023. Worse yet, attempts to raise spending significantly to address these urgent challenges, from President Biden’s Build Back Better plan to the Green New Deal, are stalled in Congress.
In a world where such dangers are only increasing, perhaps the best hope for launching a process that could, sooner or later, reverse such perverse priorities lies with grassroots organizing. Consider, for instance the “moral budget” crafted by the Poor People’s Campaign, which would cut Pentagon spending almost in half while refocusing on programs aimed at eliminating poverty, protecting the environment, and improving access to health care. If even part of such an agenda were achieved and the “defense” budget reined in, if not cut drastically, America and the world would be far safer places.
Given the scale of the actual security problems we face, it’s time to think big when it comes to potential solutions, while recognizing what Martin Luther King, Jr., once described as the “fierce urgency of now.” Time is running short, and concerted action is imperative.
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***
Mounting evidence continues to emerge proving the food shortages and supply chain disruptions are being manufactured by the United Nations, the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization in an effort to institute a New World Order, global government and destroy the United States.
A 2009 op-ed published by the United Nations, which is now removed from its website, heralds hunger as “the foundation of wealth” and a means to bolster the world economy.
Hunger must be sustained to exploit manual labor, contends George Kent, a professor at the University of Hawaii’s political science department. who authored the November 2021 UN the document.
“We sometimes talk about hunger in the world as if it were a scourge that all of us want to see abolished, viewing it as comparable with the plague or aids. But that naïve view prevents us from coming to grips with what causes and sustains hunger. Hunger has great positive value to many people,” Kent notes. “Indeed, it is fundamental to the working of the world’s economy. Hungry people are the most productive people, especially where there is need for manual labour.”
Without “the threat of hunger,” essential low-paying jobs would become vacant, a labor shortage would emerge and the global economy would cease to exist, Kent continues.
“We in developed countries sometimes see poor people by the roadside holding up signs saying ‘Will Work For Food.” Actually, most people work for food. It is mainly because people need food to survive that they work so hard either in producing food for themselves in subsistence-level production, or by selling their services to others in exchange for money. How many of us would sell our services if it were not for the threat of hunger?
“More importantly, how many of us would sell our services so cheaply if it were not for the threat of hunger? When we sell ourselves cheaply, we enrich others, those who own factories, the machines and the lands, and ultimately own the people who work for them. For those who depend on the availability of cheap labour, hunger is the foundation of wealth.”
The United Nations DELETED its 13-year-old article called "The Benefits of World Hunger" moments after I published an article about it.
According to the U.N., assumptions attributing poverty and low-paying jobs to hunger are “nonsense” because people deprived of nourishment have stronger incentive to work.
“Who would have established massive biofuel production operations in Brazil if they did not know there were thousands of hungry people desperate enough to take the awful jobs they would offer?” Kent asserts. “Who would build any sort of factory if they did not know that many people would be available to take the jobs at low-pay rates?
“Much of the hunger literature talks about how it is important to assure that people are well fed so that they can be more productive. That is nonsense. No one works harder than hungry people. Yes, people who are well nourished have greater capacity for productive physical activity, but well-nourished people are far less willing to do that work.”
“Slaves to hunger” are “assets” to “people at the high end,” Kent concludes:
The non-governmental organization Free the Slaves defines slaves as people who are not allowed to walk away from their jobs. It estimates that there are about 27 million slaves in the world, including those who are literally locked into workrooms and held as bonded labourers in South Asia. However, they do not include people who might be described as slaves to hunger, that is, those who are free to walk away from their jobs but have nothing better to go to. Maybe most people who work are slaves to hunger?
For those of us at the high end of the social ladder, ending hunger globally would be a disaster. If there were no hunger in the in the world, who would plow the fields? Who would harvest our vegetables? Who would work in the rendering plants? Who would clean our toilets? We would have to produce our own food and clean our toilets. No wonder people at the high end are not rushing to solve the hunger problem. For many of us, hunger is not a problem, but an asset.
The decades-oldop-ed was removed from the United Nation’s website on Wednesday hours it went viral.
The United Nation’s Chronicle subsequently issued a statement claiming the article is “satire.”
This article appeared in the UN Chronicle 14 years ago as an attempt at satire and was never meant to be taken literally. We have been made aware of its failures, even as satire, and have removed it from our site.
A 2020 report published by The Rockefeller Foundation that outlines a globalist plan to transform the food system is underway began circulating across the internet on Monday.
The report also calls for “numerous changes to policies, practices and norms” to modify the U.S. food supply, including data collection and online surveillance to track people’s the dietary habits.
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Alicia is an investigative journalist and multimedia reporter. Alicia’s work is featured on numerous outlets including the Gateway Pundit, Project Veritas, World Net Daily, Townhall and Media Research Center, where she exposes fraud and abuse in government, media, Big Tech, and Big Pharma and public corruption. She has a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She served in the Correspondence Department of the George W. Bush administration and as a War Room analyst for the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee. Alicia is originally from New York City and currently resides in Washington D.C.
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***
The simmering tensions between Moscow and Japan during the past 4-month period of the war in Ukraine surged when the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev sounded the warning at a meeting on national security in Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East on Tuesday that Japan is ramping up its revanchist plans for the Kuril Islands.
To quote Patrushev,
“The border situation on the territory of the Far Eastern District is being shaped under the conditions of the US and its allies increasing their military presence in the Arctic and Asia-Pacific regions and activating Japan’s revanchist aspirations with regards to the Kuril Islands by means of creating new military blocs.”
Russia has been a victim of Japanese revanchism historically. While the world is familiar with Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, most wouldn’t probably know about a similar Japanese attack 36 years earlier on February 8th, 1904 on the Russian Pacific Fleet based in Port Arthur that triggered the Russo-Japanese War. By the way, it was also an attack without a formal declaration of war.
Tokyo felt emboldened by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902, which obligatedeither power to provide military aid if one found itself at war. The Alliance was directed against France and Russia.
Patrushev has highlighted that the geopolitics of the Far East has phenomenally changed. Indeed, the deterioration of the Russo-Japanese relationship causes surprise, since the two countries have been coping with a cordial, “quasi-friendly” relationship through the past decade, their dispute over Kuril notwithstanding.
Japan is not even remotely connected with Ukraine’s NATO membership, but Tokyo is acting in sync with the US-Japan Treaty, emulating Washington’s sanctions against Russia. Notably, Tokyo has abandoned its reticent diplomatic idiom regarding Kuril and now calls it a Russian “occupation”.
Japan’s motivations may seem inscrutable but aren’t hard to fathom. Japan concluded that the war in Ukraine would spill over to the Far East and a conflict over Taiwan might ensue. Secondly, Japan bought into Washington’s narrative that the US had got Russia’s neck in the noose and Moscow would emerge out of the conflict in Ukraine as a weakened power, which in turn would shift the regional balance in favour of the Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at containing China.
Thirdly, Tokyo is one hundred percent committed to the idea of the NATO entering the Indo-Pacific theatre. With NATO support, Tokyo may be calculating that a weakening of Russia would enable Japan to handle the Kuril dispute from a position of strength.
Fourthly, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s trips to the US and major European capitals and his performance at the recent summit meetings of the G7 and NATO aimed to position Japan as a key player in the Indo-Pacific. The Russia-Ukraine war and Chinese “assertiveness” topped his agenda also during his 5-nation Southeast Asian tour in April-May and his appearance at the Shangri-La conference in Singapore in June.
While in Jakarta, Kishida drew a direct line between the Russian aggression and China’s decade of “assertiveness” in the East and South China seas.
“We are facing many challenges, including the situations in Ukraine, the East and South China seas, and North Korea, and maintaining and strengthening the rules-based, free, and open international order has become more important,” Kishida said.
Japan’s appeal in Southeast Asia lies in mutually beneficial economic engagement, fair and transparent infrastructure financing, and its potential as a security counterweight to China’s growing influence. In Washington’s reckoning, Japan stands perhaps the best chance of nudging the reluctant Southeast Asian nations to identify with the US-led international sanctions campaign against Russia and to shift to a more active position on the Ukraine war.
On its part, Russia has belatedly begun reacting to Japan’s unfriendly stance. Moscow has bolstered its military forces in the Kuril Islands with new air and coastal defence missile batteries. With the Northern Sea Route opening up, Kuril’s strategic importance has vastly increased. The Kuril archipelago, located on the southern side of the Kamchatka peninsula, is in close proximity to Russia’s strategic bases hosting its nuclear submarine flotilla and guided-missile and ballistic missile launchers.The placement of the Russian nuclear submarine arsenal in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy requires the Kremlin to implement a program of militarisation of the Kuril Archipelago and the island of Sakhalin.
Meanwhile, Japan sees that a defining feature of Russia’s national security posture today is its securing of the “no limits” partnership with China by a set of coherent, well-thought-out and complementary strategic rationales. No doubt, the war in Ukraine has cemented the Russian-Chinese partnership. Russia’s increasingly adversarial relationship with the West and its increasingly close partnership with China complement each other. Kishida realises all this and has decided that his predecessor Shnizo Abe’s strategy to entice Russia to be a “balancer” in the Japan-China-Russia triangle is no longer tenable.
Patrushev’s sharp remarks are meant to convey to Tokyo that Moscow is taking serious note of the unfriendly shift in Japan’s stance. Moscow notices that Japan has lately entrenched its ties with NATO at a juncture when the alliance wants to limit Russia’s reach across the globe, including in the Pacific region. Moscow understands that it is under US protection and backing that Japan has become more strident on Kuril issue.
Of course, Moscow will not lower its guard, as, technically, Japan and Russia are still at war. Although Japan surrendered to the Allies in September 1945, ending World War II, Moscow and Tokyo never signed an official peace treaty.
In March, Moscow suspended the peace-treaty negotiations with Tokyoafter Japan slapped economic sanctions on Russia. Kishida called Moscow’s decision “extremely unreasonable and totally unacceptable.” Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Envoy to the Far East Federal District Yury Trutnev said last month that Moscow will strip Japan of the right to fish in waters near the Kuril Islands.
Last week, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree that appears to be a step towards nationalisation of the foreign shareholdings in the giant Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project where Mitsui and Mitsubishi hold 22.5% shares. The five-page decree says it is up to the Kremlin to decide whether foreign shareholders should remain in the consortium.
Meanwhile, Tokyo’s support for the US proposal at the recent G7 summit advocating a price cap on Russian oil has put Moscow’s back up. On Tuesday, the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev sternly warned that Japan would be kicked out of Sakhalin-2 project and its supplies of Russian oil and gas cut off if it supported the US move. Medvedev forecast that if any price cap is imposed on Russian oil, the market price will touch somewhere between $300-$400 per barrel!
Sakhalin-2 is critical to Japan for meeting its energy needs. Sakhalin-2 alone meets about 8% of Japan’s gas needs and to replace it, Tokyo has to buy from spot market where competition for LNG shipments globally is currently intense and the price is around 6 times that of Russian gas. Besides, Japan’s entry will tighten the LNG market materially this decade, as Japan will have to compete with Europe.
Japan depends on imports to meet 90% of its oil and gas needs. The Japanese currency has fallen to its lowest in 20 years, resulting in its import bill shooting up by 70% in yen terms. This is indeed shaping up as one of the most serious energy crises Japan ever had, and it can severely hurt the economy. In a recent study, the Economist Intelligence Unit estimated that yen will continue to depreciate against the US dollar through 2022, which will “constrain Japan’s economic growth this year through stronger inflation, softer consumer spending and delayed business investment.”
As Russia tightens its screws on Japan, it appears Kishida may have bitten more than what he could chew on the price cap idea. Top Japanese experts have doubted the rationale behind Japan’s policy trajectory. Of course, Moscow’s dexterity to use oil and gas as geopolitical tool is not to be doubted. The Kremlin decree on Sakhalin-2 could be intended, partly at least, as a wake-up call that alienating Russia could damage Japan’s vital long-term interests. Patrushev spoke up only four days after that.
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Featured image: Maiden cargo: LNG tanker arrives in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, in 2009 with first shipment from Sakhalin 2 project in Russia (Source: Indian Punchline)
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I can’t think of a single world leader who has done more damage to humanity, since 2019, than Boris Johnson. And yet, his reign of terror over a once great empire was not enough for the proponents of The Great Reset and Build Back Better agenda.
Johnson generated more COVID hysteria than any other world leader.
He pursued two full years of authoritarian rule, pursuing ruthless lockdowns, implementing vaccine passports, installing a surveillance state, and making a mockery of the unalienable rights of U.K. citizens.
He catered to every slogan and policy initiative of the World Economic Forum globalist mafia.
And still, the U.K. Prime Minister has been quickly relinquished of his marionette duties for not moving the levers of his country fast enough in the direction of global tyranny.
Having secured the prime minister role thanks to his Brexit leadership, Johnson quickly pivoted away from any semblance of a nationalist leader interested in protecting the rights of the British people. His tenure quickly became a relentless policy pursuit of selling out his own countrymen to a one-world, ESG-compliant, WEF-approved agenda.
After two years of depriving citizens of their basic liberties, Johnson summarized his agenda as “Building back greener, building back fairer, and building back more equal and, how shall I… in a more gender-neutral and perhaps more feminine way.”
Johnson confirmed his exit Thursday morning. “It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader … and therefore a new prime minister,” the British PM said.
What exactly is “Conservative” about the Tories in the U.K., you ask?
Well, like their counterparts in the U.S. Republican Party, they act to “conserve” the status quo. And if that means conserving communism, the tories are happy to align with the mission. The status quo in Britain is progressive, suicidal, authoritarian globalism. So the “Conservatives” there are fulfilling their role just swimmingly.
It was a pleasure to welcome you to Cornwall Mr President. Together we’re going to build back better from the pandemic, help to vaccinate the world and make 2021 the decisive moment in the fight against climate change. https://t.co/rDNuY2U1zE
In short, don’t expect a nationalist, populist, or more libertarian leader to run the show next. BoJo The Clown was tossed aside by his own government because he was not moving fast enough to implement a totalitarian agenda. Therefore, his successor should be expected to accelerate the move in the direction of despotism.
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Of relevance to the ongoing “Food Crisis”, this article was first published on March 23, 2016.
Read carefully. Deliberate commodity market manipulations by powerful financial actors trigger increases in the price of food, with devastating social consequences.
And we are currently in a manipulative environment.
Michel Chossudovsky. GR, July 8, 2022
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The leading expert on food at the United Nations says sharp price fluctuations in the price of food has little to do with actual supply. Nowadays, rapacious out-of-control investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital now dominate food speculation through the commodities markets. They dwarf the amount traded by actual food producers and buyers needlessly tipping millions into hunger and poverty.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation currently estimates that about 795 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world, or one in nine, are suffering from chronic undernourishment in the period 2014-2016. We are not talking of poverty here but life threatening food shortages driven by the pursuers of profit.
About one in eight people, or 13.5 percent of the overall population, remain chronically undernourished in developing regions. As the most populous region in the world, Asia is now home to two out of three of the world’s undernourished people.
By 2014, food speculation by banks and hedge funds had risen to $126bn, a figure that has doubled from 2008. From 2000 to 2015 global food prices rose a staggering 94 percent and although they have been falling consistently over the last year, prices are still only 14 percent lower than all-time highs.
To give some perspective, speculative investment in agricultural commodities five years ago was 20 times the amount spent by all countries on agricultural aid and Goldman Sachs, for instance, earned $600 million from it. It was George Bush who deregulated this market with the Commodities Futures Modernization Act in 2000. Hence the astronomic price rises that followed and it is now estimated that 115 million people has suffered as a direct result.
Various attempts have ben made to curb speculation of food prices but most countries have done nothing significant.
When it comes to financial market regulation, there is a lot at stake. And none more so than in the area of the commodities market where years of deregulation was a major factor in driving food price spikes back in 2008. Staple foods like wheat and corn soared to record levels driving hunger and poverty across the globe. But after four years of public campaigning, the EU agreed to introduce legislation to limit the amount that companies can bet on food prices and curb harmful speculation.
Public pressure played a key role in winning the legislation and it’s needed once again. The European commission has been considering proposals from the European regulator to implement the legislation. But these proposals are massively weak and would be ineffective at curbing speculation. So Global Justice Now supporters wrote to key MEPs to pressure the European parliament not to accept weakened proposals.
The parliamentary lead negotiator communicated this to the commission: ‘The latest drafts were far from being acceptable for the European Parliament. Especially the position limits regime urgently needs a comprehensive redrafting in order to effectively curb food speculation’
Global Justice also co-ordinated an open letter to the European commission endorsed by 5000 supporters and 26 European organisations to pressure the commission to reject the weak proposals. It delivered this letter last month and the commission has now sent the weak proposals back to the European regulator and asked for them to be reviewed. Weak rules have not been stopped from being proposed but this is a good development and shows that public pressure is making a difference.
Pressure groups such as Global Justice continue to campaign to make sure that the hard-fought for new rules are as strong as possible to stop corporations from betting on hunger.
“There has been the least progress in the sub- Saharan region, where more than one in four people remain undernourished – the highest prevalence of any region in the world. Nevertheless, the prevalence of undernourishment in sub-Saharan Africa has declined from 33.2 percent in 1990– 92 to 23.2 percent in 2014–16, although the number of undernourished people has actually increased.”
Percentages are one thing to crow about but the actual number of the worlds hungry is actually increasing.
The target set at the 1996 World Food Summit was to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015 from their number in 1990-92. However, in 25 years, although the actual number of hungry people in developing regions fell by over 200 million, from 991 million to 795 million – the goal was 495 million (1/2 of 991 million), and was not reached. This number is now on the rise again.
Hunger continues to take its largest toll in Southern Asia, which includes the countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The estimate of 276 million chronically undernourished people in 2014–16 is only marginally lower than the number in 25 years earlier. Eastern Asia (where China is by far the largest country) and South-eastern Asia (including Indonesia, Philippines, Mynamar, Vietnam and others) have reduced undernutriton substantially. Food speculation continues to drive global hunger and with the global movement of refugees now at its highest since the second world war, hunger is on the increase.
UNHCR reports that the number of global refugees has increased to 19.5 million worldwide with the number forcibly displaced from their homes now standing at 60 million today. 42,500 every single day are now leaving their homes in pursuit of safe refuge adding 15 million a year to the misery.
Globally 161 million under-five year olds were estimated to be stunted, 68 million were ‘wasted’ and every second pregnant woman in the developing world and about 40% of preschool children are estimated to be anemic.
UNHCR states that there is enough food for all people of the world but the principal problem is that many people in the world still do not have sufficient income to purchase enough food.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has adopted a “Future Framework” scheme that will allow Pfizer and Moderna to reformulate and release updated COVID shots without conducting any additional clinical trials
This Framework will allow completely untested, reformulated COVID injections to be churned out; the elimination of clinical trial requirements may also, over time, be expanded to other vaccines and drugs
The “Future Framework” will almost certainly guarantee that future COVID shots be less effective and/or more dangerous, because adding more mRNA (to cover more variants) will result in higher adverse event rates, and less mRNA per variant will lower the effectiveness
Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of examples of how vaccine trials are being rigged, and that the “Future Framework” is an extreme expansion and formalization of that rigging
Not recording injuries, or recording them improperly, are a common tactic used to fudge results and make a vaccine appear safer than it is. Another common strategy is to exclude any parameter that turns out to be problematic, and that includes participants who are injured. Because this is such a common trick, the fact that 3,000 of the 4,526 children (aged 6 months through 4 years) enrolled in Pfizer’s pediatric COVID trial were excluded is a huge red flag
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In a rather shocking turn of events, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sneaked in a “Future Framework”1 scheme that will allow Pfizer and Moderna to reformulate and release updated COVID shots without conducting any additional human clinical trials, other than what’s already been done.2,3,4
FDA Rewrites the Rules on the Fly
A vote on the Framework was scheduled to be taken June 28, 2022, by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), but while the VRBPAC approved (19-2) a bivalent COVID shot for fall 2022,5 the expected voting on the Framework, specifically, didn’t seem to take place — only it DID.
As it turns out, we’ve been bamboozled yet again by an agency that keeps rewriting the rules on the fly. Toby Rogers, Ph.D. — a political economist whose research focus is on regulatory capture and Big Pharma corruption6 — explains how they sneaked this one by us:7
“Yesterday [June 28], the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee approved a bivalent COVID-19 shot with the Wuhan strain and the Omicron variant …
At the meeting, the manufacturers (Moderna, Pfizer, and Novavax) were asked what their production timelines are… and they said out loud, ‘So long as we don’t have to provide any clinical data, we’ll have them ready by fall.’ No one had a problem with that …
Wait, hold up, I thought the FDA was voting on the Future Framework yesterday? The policy question was whether reformulated COVID-19 shots would be treated as new molecular entities (which they are) in which case they should be subject to formal review or whether reformulated shots would be treated as ‘biologically similar’ to existing Covid-19 shots and be allowed to skip clinical trials altogether.
Apparently the FDA did not have the votes to just pass this as a policy question. If you ask anyone whether reformulated mRNA represents a new molecular entity, well of course it is, so that would require formal regulatory review.
What the FDA did instead was to smuggle the policy question in disguised as a vote about reformulated ‘boosters’ for the fall.
In essence, the FDA just started doing the Future Framework (picking variants willy nilly, skipping clinical trials) and essentially dared the committee members to turn down a booster dose — knowing that all of the VRBPAC members are hand-picked because they’ve never met a vaccine they did not like.
So of course only two people on the committee had the courage to turn down a booster dose — even though it was based on this preposterous process (that was never formally adopted) where there was literally no data at all … By stealth, the FDA replaced a system based on evidence with a system based entirely on belief.”
Worst Idea in the History of Public Health
A decision to release reformulated mRNA shots without additional clinical trials is the worst development yet, by far, and has the power to radically change medical science moving forward.
Not only will completely untested COVID injections be churned out, but this “framework” may also, over time, be widened to include other vaccines and drugs that drug makers may want to tinker with. Heck, it could even lower standards for drug trials in general, which historically have required at least 10 years of multi-phase testing.8
In a May 31, 2022, Substack article, Rogers explained the origin and purpose of this incredibly dangerous proposal:9
“Pfizer and Moderna have a problem — their mRNA COVID-19 shots do not stop infection, transmission, hospitalization, nor death from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Everyone knows this … Pfizer and Moderna are making about $50 billion a year on these shots and they want that to continue.
So they need to reformulate the shots. Maybe target a new variant, maybe change some of the ingredients — who knows, these shots don’t work so it’s not clear what it will take to get them to work. This is a problem because reformulated shots mean new clinical trials and new regulatory review by the FDA.
There is a decent chance that any reformulated shot might fail a new clinical trial and the public is deeply skeptical of these shots so the scrutiny would be intense.
So Pfizer and Moderna have figured out a way to use regulatory capture to get their reformulated COVID-19 shots approved WITHOUT further clinical trials. Their scheme is called the ‘Future Framework’ … The purpose of the ‘Future Framework’ is to rig the COVID-19 vaccine regulatory process in perpetuity in favor of the pharmaceutical industry.
If this ‘Future Framework’ is approved all future COVID-19 shots, regardless of the formulation, will automatically be deemed ‘safe and effective’ without additional clinical trials because they are considered ‘biologically similar’ to existing shots.
This is literally the worst idea in the history of public health. If you change a single molecule of mRNA in these shots it will change health outcomes in ways that no one can anticipate. That necessarily requires new clinical trials — which is what the FDA is proposing to skip …
The FDA authorized COVID-19 shots for kids on June 14 and 15. So if the FDA approves the ‘Future Framework’ on June 28th, the shots that will be given to kids (and Americans of all ages) in the fall will be the reformulated shots that skipped clinical trials.”
SARS-CoV-2 Is a Horrible Vaccine Candidate, and They Know It
Before we continue, let’s review one important factor that tends to get lost. As explained by Rogers,10 “Viruses that evolve rapidly are bad candidates for a vaccine,” for the simple reason that they mutate faster than vaccine development can keep up with.
This is why we don’t have a vaccine against the common cold. It’s’ also why all previous attempts to develop a coronavirus vaccine failed. Those studies never made it past animal trials. The vaccines caused antibody-dependent enhancement, making the animals sicker than normal when exposed to the virus.
Most people are unaware that SARS-CoV-2 mutates at a rate that is two to 10 times faster than the influenza virus,11,12 and these mutations can considerably reduce vaccine effectiveness. Indeed, we’ve seen this both with the seasonal flu vaccine and the COVID shots. When you vaccinate against a rapidly mutating virus you also run the risk of pressuring it into a more virulent and/or vaccine-resistant form. As noted by Rogers:
“The FDA’s ‘expert advisory committee’ (VRBPAC) met on April 6, 2022 to discuss the ‘Future Framework’ for the first time. All of the committee members agreed that COVID-19 shots are not working, that boosting multiple times a year was not feasible, and that the shots need to be reformulated.
They also unanimously agreed that there are no ‘correlates of protection’ that one can use to predict what antibody levels would be sufficient to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
By now, the VRBPAC must know that the only way forward, really, is to withdraw the COVID shots and focus on therapeutics. But they’re not doing that. Instead, they’re doubling down on a failed strategy. On top of that, they’re making the situation even worse by foregoing clinical trials. There’s no doubt in my mind that this will pose grave risks to public health. I agree with Rogers, who said:13
“Think about it. The more mRNA you put into a shot, the higher the adverse event rate (as the genetically modified mRNA hijacks the cell and starts cranking out spike proteins). So if Pfizer and Moderna put more mRNA into these shots (in order to cover multiple variants) adverse event rates will skyrocket.
But if Pfizer and Moderna put less mRNA per variant into a shot (in order to keep the total amount of mRNA at 100 mcg for Moderna and 30 mcg for Pfizer) then the effectiveness against any one particular variant will be reduced. The Future Framework is 100% guaranteed to fail.”
They’re Fudging Effectiveness Too
The FDA also insists that, due to time constraints, evaluation of effectiveness must rely on “measures other than actual health outcomes.”14 In other words, whether the shots actually lower your risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death will have no bearing.
The only measure that will be taken into account is whether or not the jab triggers a rise in antibody levels, which has never been proven to offer significant protection. This also means that as long as antibody levels are through the roof, the death rate could be through the roof too, and the jabs will still be used, because that’s not part of the equation.
The focus on antibody levels to the exclusion of everything else may actually be backfiring. Data from Moderna’s trial suggest the shot actually makes you more prone to repeat infections due to the inhibition of antibodies against a particular portion of the virus.
A preprint study15,16 posted on medRxiv April 19, 2022, found adult participants in Moderna’s trial who got the real injection, and later got a breakthrough infection, did not generate antibodies against the nucleocapsid — a key component of the virus — as frequently as did those in the placebo arm.
Placebo recipients produced anti-nucleocapsid antibodies twice as often as those who got the Moderna shot, and their anti-nucleocapsid response was larger regardless of the viral load. As a result of their inhibited antibody response, those who got the jab may be more prone to repeated COVID infections.
These findings are further corroborated by data from the U.K. Health Security Agency. It publishes weekly COVID-19 vaccine surveillance data, including anti-nucleocapsid antibody levels. The report17,18 for Week 13, issued March 31, 2022, shows that COVID-jabbed individuals with breakthrough infections indeed have lower levels of these antibodies.
For clarity, antibodies thought to offer protection against COVID are the antibodies against the spike protein and the receptor binding domain (RBD).19 But this study suggests antibodies against other parts of the virus may play an equally important role, and at least one of them is being inhibited rather than boosted, resulting in a situation where you can get reinfected time and again.
The moral of the story here is that there is a whole lot we do not know about this virus, these shots, and the interaction between them. So, allowing the vaccine makers to reformulate the shots without clinical trials is a recipe for disaster.
Vaccine Trials Are Routinely Rigged
Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of examples of how vaccine trials are being rigged, and what the FDA is now proposing is really just an extreme expansion and formalization of that rigging. For example, in 2017, an eight-month investigation by Slate magazine20 revealed that HPV vaccine trials “weren’t designed to properly assess safety.”
In an internal report about Gardasil 9, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) had actually called attention to some of these problems, saying Merck’s approach was “unconventional and suboptimal” and that it left “uncertainty” about Gardasil’s safety. Yet nothing was done about it.
Then, in 2020, Dr. Peter Gøtzsche — a Danish physician-researcher, professor and cofounder of the Cochrane Collaboration and the Nordic Cochrane Centre — and two colleagues published a review and meta-analysis21 of the data from 24 HPV vaccine trials. Slate magazine reported those findings as well.22
Again, the conclusion was that HPV trials had put safety on the back burner by failing to conduct proper safety testing. Still, to quote Slate magazine, “The findings don’t affect official recommendations to get vaccinated.” According to Gøtzsche and his coauthors:23
“We judged all 24 studies to be at high risk of bias. Serious harms were incompletely reported for 72% of participants (68,610/95,670). Nearly all control participants received active comparators (48,289/48,595, 99%). No clinical study report included complete case report forms …
At 4 years follow-up, the HPV vaccines decreased HPV-related cancer precursors and treatment procedures but increased serious nervous system disorders (exploratory analysis) and general harms.
As the included trials were primarily designed to assess benefits and were not adequately designed to assess harms, the extent to which the HPV vaccines’ benefits outweigh their harms is unclear.”
Not recording injuries, or recording them improperly (such as listing an injury as a preexisting condition, for example), is a common tactic used to fudge results and make a vaccine appear safer than it is. Another common strategy is to exclude any parameter that turns out to be problematic, and that includes participants who are injured.
Because this is such a common trick, the fact that 3,000 of the 4,526 children (aged 6 months through 4 years) enrolled in Pfizer’s pediatric COVID trial were excluded is a huge red flag.24 Even more suspicious is the fact that Pfizer doesn’t explain why two-thirds of the children were dropped.
World Health Organization Is Behind Idea to Toss Safety
The FDA did not invent the “Future Framework” idea all by itself, however. According to Rogers, the World Health Organization and other predictable names are the real masterminds:25
“I did not understand until … I started to write this article, that this entire ‘Future Framework’ is actually coming from the WHO. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the biggest voluntary contributor to the WHO. So Gates is likely directing the play.
Gates requires that WHO use the McKinsey consulting firm so this is probably a McKinsey operation (and McKinsey also works for Pharma so this is a huge conflict of interest). As Naomi Wolf points out, the involvement of the WHO also raises troubling questions about the influence of the Chinese Communist Party over this process.
As far back as January, the WHO/Gates/McKinsey junta realized that these shots were terrible and so they decided to use that as an opportunity to seize even more power and control.
The WHO set up a Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-CO-VAC) to implement these Orwellian ‘Future Frameworks’ across the developed world to lower manufacturing costs for Pharma and avoid bothersome health data that might hurt profits. All the messaging we have seen from the FDA and leaked to the press was initially developed and released by TAG-CO-VAC.”
We Must Reject All Future mRNA Shots
This COVID debacle — from its fraudulent PCR test beginnings, to these devastatingly dangerous COVID shots and the intentional negligence by vaccine makers and health authorities — is the most shocking example of a criminal enterprise I’ve ever seen. Nothing else even comes close.
And the proverbial cherry on top that proves none of it is accidental or caused by ignorance is this sneaky and underhanded erasure of the requirement of clinical trials for all future COVID shots in the name of expedience. COVID-19 is not a death sentence — far from it. So, there’s no need for expedience. And since there’s no need for expedience, there’s also no need to accept collateral damage in the form of COVID jab-related injuries and deaths.
So, why are they doing this? That’s the million-dollar question, and the most obvious answers are all disturbing in the extreme. At best, they don’t care how many people, including children, suffer and die. At worst, the intention is to dramatically reduce the population through adverse effects on fertility, reduction of life span and near-term death.
To save ourselves, indeed, to save mankind, we must reject all mRNA shots, present and future. And not just the COVID shots but also any others that are in the pipeline, because if they’re willing to skip the most basic of safety protocols once, you can be sure they’ll do it again.
Skimping on safety assessment has been the secret norm for decades, and now they’re attempting to formalize that process using stealth and subversion. The initial COVID shots haven’t even completed their trials yet, and they want you to believe those incomplete trials are sufficient to “prove” all future reformulations are “safe and effective” too!
We’ve also seen how the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came out saying they’ve seen no safety signals in the data, only to later discover that the reason they didn’t find any was because they never actually looked.26
It’s nothing short of insanity, and over the past two years, government agencies have proven they are not going to put a stop to the madness. No, they’re going to take this experiment as far as it’ll go, and that means, until people everywhere say “No more,” and leave all their stockpiles to rot.
There’s Help if You’ve Taken the Jab
In closing, if you’ve already taken one or more COVID jabs and now regret it, first, the most important step you can take is to not take any more shots, and that includes conventional vaccines and any other mRNA or gene-based injections as well.
Next, if you suspect your health may have been impacted, check out the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance’s (FLCCC) post-vaccine treatment protocol, I-RECOVER,27 which you can download from covid19criticalcare.com in several different languages.
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Following Wednesday’s news that millions of barrels of oil released from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves were shipped overseas to China, India, and Europe, it has been revealed that nearly one million barrels of oil were sent to a Chinese energy company in which President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had a stake as recently as 2015.
On Wednesday, Reuters revealed that more than five million barrels of crude oil that were expected to be put into use in the US to bring down skyrocketing prices at the pump were instead sent to European nations, India, as well as China.
In April, the Biden administration announced that 950,000 Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels would be sold to Unipec, the trading arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation. Commonly known as Sinopec, this company is wholly owned by the Chinese government, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The sales of these barrels, as well as others as part of the sales of 30 million barrels in total, “will support American consumers and the global economy in response to Vladimir Putin’s war of choice against Ukraine,” the Department of Energy said in a statement, as well as “address the pain Americans are feeling at the pump as a result of Putin’s Price Hike and to help lower energy costs.”
Speaking with the Washington Free Beacon, Power the Future founder Daniel Turner blasted the Biden administration for selling “raw materials to the Communist Chinese for them to use as they want.”
“We were assured Biden was releasing this oil to America so it could be refined for gasoline to drive down prices at the pump. So right off the bat, they’re just lying to the American people,” Turner told the Washington Free Beacon. “What they’re saying they did and what they did are not remotely related.”
Turner noted that the decision to sell to Unipec highlights the Biden family’s “relationship with China.”
In 2015, a private equity firm cofounded by Hunter Biden, Bohai Harvest RST, previously owned a stake in the Sinopec Marketing valued at $1.7 million.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, “Sinopec went on to enter negotiations to purchase Gazprom in March, one month after the Biden administration sanctioned the Russian gas giant.”
In addition, Unipec has stated it would purchase “no more Russian oil going forward” once “shipments that have arrived in March and due to arrive in April” were fulfilled, but it was revealed that in May, the company “significantly increased the number of hired tankers to ship a key crude from eastern Russia,” according to Bloomberg.
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The lack of oversight for billions of dollars in US weapons pumped into Ukraine has concerned the Pentagon. They’re worried about anti-tank missiles and explosive drones ending up in the “wrong hands.”
A new investigation allegedly found some of these weapons are being sold on the dark web.
RT journalists pretended to be weapons buyers and claimed to have come in contact with Ukrainian arms smugglers offering machine guns, body armor, and some of the US/West’s most advanced weapons, such as Javelin and NLAW anti-tank systems or Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade explosive drones.
Another Ukrainian arms smuggler offered US-made body armor sets for $1,500 and M4 carbines with suppressors and hundreds of 5.56×45mm NATO rounds for $2,400 per set.
Besides US weapons, Ukrainian arms smugglers were selling British-made NLAW anti-tank systems for $15,000. Acquiring the anti-tank weapon legally would cost between $30,000 to $40,000.
Since the journalist never completed transactions with the sellers, RT said, “it’s not possible to completely rule out that the sellers actually did not have the said weapons in stock, as the RT investigators did not complete the purchase. Scamming schemes are common for dark web marketplaces.”
“We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero. It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it after a short time.”
The European police agency Europol has also warned about the massive amount of weapons being pumped from the West into Ukraine. Once the weapons hit the ground, there’s no tracking the weapons from there, and some end up in criminal gangs’ hands.
“The weapons from this war are still being used by criminal groups today,” Europol Director Catherine De Bolle told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag in June.
Last Thursday, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) issued a statement urging US military leaders to send weapons inspectors into the war-torn country to monitor where the billions of dollars in arms are being handed out.
RT’s investigation sheds important light on the Pentagon’s worst fears of high-tech weapons ending up in the wrong hands and some of the weapons for sale on the darknet. There may never be oversight and accountability of the weapons on the ground because, as the NYTimes recently said, the CIA has had a presence on the battlefield since the start of the invasion. When it comes to the CIA’s covert arms programs, they usually like to keep where the weapons are being sent a secret.
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Ahead of US President Joe Biden security talks in a trilateral summit with South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, North Korean authorities in Pyongyang have accused Washington of trying to build an “Asian NATO” to contain the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Biden met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on the sidelines of the latest NATO summit in Madrid to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program. On June 29, North Korea’s state news agency, KCNA, said: “The US is hellbent on military cooperation with its stooges in disregard of the primary security demand and concern by Asia-Pacific countries.”
Seoul, Tokyo and Washington plan to conduct missile exercises near Hawaii next month. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told the press the three leaders discussed “the continuing threat” from North Korea, and also ways to “depriving the North of hard currency that they use to fund their nuclear and missile program.” Furthermore, this week US F-35 stealth fighters arrived in South Korea amid escalating tensions in the region.
In the broader context, tensions are also on the rise between China and Taiwan, between Japan and Russia, and China and Japan. Such disputes could spiral into a dangerous polarizing tendency. In the end of June, according to Axios, a South Korean official stated that his country would expect the United States to respond militarily to a Chinese “invasion” of Taiwan.
The Washington-Pyongyang talks which began under the previous (Donald Trump’s) presidency have stalled, and one could in fact say the Biden presidency’s approach towards the Korean peninsula has been mostly a setback. In any case, since the 1990s, no amount of sanctions have been effective in persuading the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons, which are perceived by it as a vital strategic matter – which is understandable, considering the American troops stationed near its borders. Even though reconciliation talks between the two Koreas had advanced during former South Korean President Moon Jae’s government, his conservative successor, Yoon Suk-yeol, stated last year, in September 22, that he will ask Washington to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in his country, if he feels threatened by his northern neighbor. Such weapons have not been deployed by the United States there since the early 1990s, thanks to an agreement with Russia to ease tensions in the region.
The DPRK has always condemned the American-South Korean joint military exercises near its borders and perceives them as a threat. In its turn, North Korea has already run over 30 ballistic missiles tests this year, which is a record number, and some speculate the country might be ready to launch its first new nuclear weapon test since 2017 in order to demonstrate its supposed capacity to strike both its southern neighbor, the Republic of Korea, and Japan.
The North Korean aforementioned statement also condemned the planned joint exercises as a sign that Washington has not changed its ambition to “overthrow” the Pyongyang’s government “by force”. Plus, it condemned the alliance as a “dangerous prelude to the creation of an Asian version of NATO.” It would be tempting to dismiss this as North Korean rhetoric, however many experts have also described the Japanese-American-Indian-Australian Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) as a new NATO. French economist Martine Bulard has recently written for Le Monde Diplomatique that an “Asian NATO” could be imminent, thus echoing such concerns.
Actually, some analysts see a possible connection between the rising tensions in Europe (over the Russian-Ukrainian war) and the ones in the Pacific. The West is largely responsible for the escalation of the conflict in the Russian-Ukrainian border into the current confrontation, after a series of provocations, and now a similar scenario is emerging in Asia over Taiwan. According to North Korea’s International Society for Political Research scholar Kim Hyo-myung, there are “ominous signs that sooner or later the black waves in the North Atlantic will break the calm in the Pacific.”
Tensions between Tokyo and Pyongyang have been escalating since at least October 2020, when both South Korea and Japan started to strengthen their ties, in spite of their historic differences, to counter the DPRK. Moreover, since Biden and former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga met at the White House in April last year, Japan-China relations have also been at their lowest in decades.
In fact, while Donald Trump tried to contain Beijing in a commercial and economic way (by pursuing a “trade war”), Biden’s approach has added a more overtly military element to this competition, thus bringing it to a more dangerous realm. One can see signs of this in the American disproportionate response to the recent China-Solomon Islands security deal, and also in the broader US engagement in South Asia, and in the Pacific in general. So, the American-South Korean-Japanese summit must be seen in this context also.
Meanwhile, the US is now establishing a permanent military base in Poland for the first time and is pushing the rising militarization of Europe, to counter Moscow. NATO’s new Strategic Concept also addresses Beijing as a “challenge” to the Alliance for the first time. Moreover, this week, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director, while speaking in London next to his counterpart, the MI5 Director General Ken McCallum (in an unprecedented joint appearance), described China as the “biggest long-term threat” to both his country and the UK.
Thus, Washington’s current strategy apparently involves encircling both China and Russia, simultaneously, which has the disastrous collateral effect, from an American perspective, of bringing these two great powers closer. This is of course an extremely risky approach.
To sum it up, the US plans to expand both the QUAD+ and NATO itself to contain China in an already ultra tense world.
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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
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In an interview with ZDoggMD, vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s advisory panel’s recent meeting on whether to modify COVID-19 boosters was unusual and he felt the panel was led to “vote yes” to reformulate boosters without critical data.
One of the members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vaccine advisory panel explained why he voted against adding an Omicron component to fall COVID-19 booster shots raising serious questions over a lack of critical data and the Biden administration’s role in politicizing the process.
In a July 6 interview with ZDoggMD, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, described the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee’s (VRBPAC) recent meeting as “unusual.”
Offit continued:
“I’ve seen nothing like this. I guess the thing that’s most upsetting to me is normally when you get something from the FDA when we have these meetings, you usually get it a few days before you meet. You usually get a couple of hundred pages.
“Here on the other hand, normally you get the EUA [Emergency Use Authorization] submission from the company, which is 85 to 100 pages long, and then you get the FDA’s review of all those data. It’s a very thorough review. Not here though. Here, it was 22 pages from the FDA, which included a half-page on Pfizer’s data and a half-page on Moderna’s data.”
“You could get that from the press release,” Offit said. “In fact, it was no more detail than the press release provided.”
The question vaccine advisors are always asked to consider in the end is whether the benefits outweigh the risks — even if the risks are generally small and sometimes unknown, Offit said. “I didn’t see the benefits.”
Offit said he was surprised that out of 21 voting members, 19 voted “yes” because he “just didn’t see the evidence for that.”
“I think this was something that was desired by the Biden administration,” he added.
“I could be wrong but the other thing that was odd about this meeting was that we’re an advisory committee, we’re being asked for our advice,” Offit said. “So normally what happens is that they just present the data. Here’s the data. What’s your advice? And people can ignore our advice.”
However, during the June 28 meeting, someone from the World Health Organization presented their opinion and their opinion was that this was a good idea, Offit said. “Then you had someone from the FDA presenting where they also had an opinion.”
“That’s unusual,” Offit said. “Then the next day you read a press release from HHS [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] that says the government has decided to purchase at least 105 million doses from Pfizer with up to 300 million doses.”
The press release mentioned VRBPAC had just made its decision the day before, “so you just kind of felt like the fix was in a little bit,” Offit said. “Maybe that’s not the right phrase but it was something they wanted and I felt like we were being led here and with a critical lack of information.”
Offit said all COVID-19 vaccines are based on the original Wuhan strain before it “mutated and left China,” and now that BA.4 and BA.5 represent a little more than half of the circulating strands in this country.
It’s reasonable the FDA would consider trying to broaden immunity by including omicron or omicron subvariants in a bivalent vaccine, he said. But “both Moderna and Pfizer presented data during the June 28 meeting and it was not compelling.”
Offit explained:
“They did the studies the right way. So, they took people who had already received three doses of the ancestral strain and then gotten a fourth dose with the ancestral strain and compared that to three doses of the ancestral strain, plus the fourth dose of the bivalent strain which contains the omicron mRNA vaccine [BA.1] as well as the ancestral vaccine. That’s the right way to do the study.
“Then … they looked at virus-specific neutralizing antibodies against omicron and … found … when you got the omicron boost you had a 1.75-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies against omicron.
“Well, the question is, what does that mean? What does that number mean, and the answer is I think while statistically significant, I don’t think that’s a clinically significant difference.
“The reason I say that is because if you look at the original vaccines when they were authorized back in mid-December 2020, there was a two-fold difference between Moderna and Pfizer regarding neutralizing antibodies. Moderna had a two-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies, but it did not translate into a clinically significant difference in terms of protection against severe disease, which is the goal of this vaccine.”
In other words, having a two-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies does not necessarily correlate to efficacy.
Offit said his second concern was whether COVID-19 vaccines protect again BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants once Omicron is gone.
“Now both companies interestingly presented data after a fourth dose that showed you what the neutralizing antibody titer was to BA.4/BA.5, but they didn’t show you what the neutralizing antibody titer to BA.4/BA.5 was if your fourth dose was the ancestral strain,” Offit said. “They never showed those data.”
“That’s the obvious thing to do because that’s why you have control groups for your experiment, and I just found it odd that neither presented,” he added. “That bothered me.”
Offit also pointed out there were no animal models or “neutralizing antibody data that supports this.”
FDA burden of proof for COVID-19 vaccines ‘is gong down’
“There are potentially billions of dollars at stake to transform a vaccine from the ancestral strain to a new bivalent strain including these Omicron-specific boosters, without clear and compelling evidence that it’s actually going to improve the outcome we care about most which is protection against severe disease,” ZDoggMD told Offit. “And yet it seems like the burden of proof for FDA seems to be going down and down and down instead of being at a level that you’re comfortable with.”
Offit pointed out that a reformulated booster is a new product and it surprised him so many were willing to go forward with such “uncomfortably scant evidence of benefit.”
Offit said:
“No one would have predicted myocarditis associated with mRNA vaccines. I don’t think anybody would have predicted this clotting problem so-called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome. So humble yourself. … If you clearly have evidence of benefit, great, but if you clearly don’t have evidence of benefit then say no.”
As The Defender reported, the HHS on June 29 announced it had made an advance purchase of 105 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine for $3.2 billion, with options to buy up to 300 million doses.
The Biden administration used repurposed money to buy the additional vaccines, “betting on a next generation of boosters without knowing who might need one or how they will perform.”
The contract includes a combination of adult and pediatric doses and supplies of re-formulated booster doses that will contain the original Wuhan variant and BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants.
The announcement was made one day after the FDA’s VRBPAC voted 19 to 2 to recommend future COVID-19 booster doses be modified to include an Omicron component, and before the FDA’s announced it had made recommendations to vaccine makers that their boosters should target Omicron subvariants.
Watch ZDoggMD interview with Dr. Paul Offit here:
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Megan Redshaw is a staff attorney for Children’s Health Defense and a reporter for The Defender.
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What changed in March 2020? How have things played out? What are the causes? What can we expect, looking ahead?
Naomi Wolf is perhaps best known as a chief spokeswoman for third-wave feminism, a bestselling author and advisor to the campaigns of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. In her new book, Wolf‘s subject is not so much the SARS-CoV-2 virus as the worldwide reactions to its spread, and the consequences of those reactions. Reactions unprecedented in their severity; never before have whole nations been locked up in their homes for weeks, even months on end, to battle a respiratory virus.
Wolf‘s book is a travel through time, starting in March 2020, ending this spring. She switches between discussion and analysis of the situation at each stage and different aspects of it, and a kind of personal diary of how she and those around her were affected.
The book starts with a description of normal pre-pandemic life. The author is at a conference in London surrounded by friends, when she first hears about the lockdown in Italy. This is March 8, 2020. Reflecting, Wolf now sees the news of this first lockdown in Europe as an indication of a strike against the foundation of free Western society: “The flower of Europe was being struck down.”
She moves on to give us a vivid picture of normal life in her New York neighbourhood in the Bronx, its bustling life in all its diversity, suddenly struck down by the lockdown. She and her husband leave the city: “We had both been in conflict areas and we had both lived in close societies – we recognized their movements. We both knew something very bad was on its way; whether natural or political, or both, we could not yet tell.”
To Wolf, lockdown is more than just a way to slow the spread of a virus; it is an abandonment of free society; it signifies a new kind of society; a totalitarian oligarchy, and the fact that we allowed it means we have lost our freedom for the unforeseeable future.
Wolf was not a skeptic from the outset. At first she believed the official narrative, feared for herself and her loved ones, but slowly she started to discover the strange discrepancy between the narrative and the facts. She started questioning the data presented, the usefulness of the countermeasures, the psychological harm of mask-wearing, especially to children, and she describes how perplexed she was witnessing the utter lack of critical thinking on behalf of the media. She discovers how the fear of the virus has turned into a cult, the virus taking on the form of “Milton’s Satan.”
Wolf discusses the interests at play and explains how lockdowns have benefited certain business sectors, especially Big Tech, large corporations at the expense of small businesses. She suggests the proliferation of restrictions may have been driven by the elites, with a goal of disempowering the masses in order to grab their assets. The fact that someone benefits from a situation is of course not proof they caused it. But the financial interests are certainly there and there is little doubt that once the lockdowns and restrictions were in place, many of those who gained the most by them have certainly done much to support the narrative.
To Wolf, this is not about a conspiracy, but a mindset of arrogance and indifference among the elites of society: “But the point was that these people did not need to gather in the shadows or be part of a cabal. Why would this group need a secret sign or a secret meeting? They simply owned the global stratum in which they operated, and they were accountable only to one another.”
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben analyzed the situation based on three key concepts in his philosophy, Homo Sacer, the State of Exception and Bare Life. Homo sacer is someone who is at the same time sacred and excluded. Homo sacer has in some way broken the taboos of society and is therefore already consecrated to the gods, he can be killed with impunity, but he cannot be sacrificed; he is subject to the power of government, but not protected by the law.
Homo Sacer is condemned to bare life, zoe in the original Greek sense; existing not as a citizen, but as a human stripped of all rights to take an active part in society. The state of exception is realized when law and constitution are abandoned and the executive arm of the state takes the reins, usually based on a declaration of a state of emergency.
As Agamben explains his seminal work, State of Exception, the Third Reich was based on a state of emergency throughout, as the Weimar constitution was in fact “unplugged” right at the beginning, while formally being unchanged the whole time.
Who are the homines sacri? In Biblical times the lepers, in modern times the prisoners of Auschwitz, refugees; homeless, stateless, at the mercy of the charity of foreign rulers.
Agamben’s suggestion, in his first blog posts on the coronavirus in 2020, is that with the lockdowns and other restrictions we have all become homines sacri; we are outside civil society, yet subject to the power of the rulers, unlimited now, based on the emergency declarations.
We are all homines sacri now, Agamben says; a long-term development has culminated in biopolitical totalitarianism. But as Wolf shows us, we may need a bit deeper analysis: She describes the joy of meeting up with her health-freedom friends in the woods late last year, away from the prying eyes of the police and the panicked, vaccine touting self-righteous majority.
And those people, the health-freedom group in the woods, they may be the homines sacri of our time, outside of society, they have broken the taboos, they are a threat to the obeying mass, to the friends who refuse to meet up with an unvaccinated person.
But still, those people, hiding away in the woods, talking, hugging, free from fear; those people are free. Free in the sense they can live and interact as normal human beings. It is here where the glimpse of hope lies according to Wolf; within the biopolitical regime, it is the outlaw, homo sacer, who still enjoys some level of freedom.
Then, let us look at the citizens of Wuhan in early 2020 or in Shanghai just now. Stripped of their citizen’s rights for sure, but more importantly now stripped of even life as an outcast, as homo sacer. Isolation, deprivation of human connection; this is the essence of the lockdowns; they signify the abolition, not only of rights and freedom, but of our existence as humans.
And what of those still in the grip of an absurd narrative, those who obey without questions, who ostracize their neighbours for not wearing a mask, for refusing the vaccine? They are surely still part of society, but are they free? “A fat servant is not a great man. A beaten slave is a great man, for it is in his heart that freedom resides,” to quote Icelandic author Halldor Laxness’s 18th century historical roman Iceland’s Bell.
Broadly speaking we can distinguish between three layers of freedom. The outermost layer is the freedom to work, to make money and keep the proceeds of your work. This is what political debate is mostly about in a free democratic society; how high should taxes be, to what extent should business be regulated and so forth.
The next layer is the freedom of expression and freedom to influence society through political participation. This layer of freedom is generally not debated in free democracies.
But within this layer there is yet another one; the freedom to live as a human being. The freedom to go to a restaurant or go shopping, to go for a walk, the freedom to meet your friends in the park, the freedom to recognize facial expressions, the freedom to smile and be smiled at. And of course the freedom to decide for yourself whether or not to be medicated. It is this layer of freedom that was being attacked during the coronavirus scare, by the authorities, by the media, and, first and foremost, by a hypnotized mass scared out of their wits over a virus.
This layer of freedom is so fundamental that it isn’t even a part of the definition of freedom. It is like the freedom of the horse to sprint, of the dog to bark. It is our freedom to live according to our nature.
The Bodies of Others is a valuable account of an unprecedented situation. Wolf paints a vivid picture of the contrast between normal human life and life under Covid restrictions. She describes the despair of the children deprived of the company of their peers, the emptiness in the eyes of the old and frail kept away from their loved ones by force, withering away in isolation, the crushed communities.
How basic moral principles, empathy and respect for other people’s privacy evaporate as the state assumes a “central role, and limitless authority, in managing our own bodies and the bodies of others.”
Wolf wonders about the possible causes. Unlike many authors, she does not offer a single, simple explanation, no single culprit; no conspiracy at play. “How could otherwise nice people have come to do such evil?” she asks. “How could they have allowed the suppression of young children’s respiration or consigned friends and colleagues to eat in the street like outcasts? How could it have happened in “enlightened” New York City that cops would have been sent to arrest a woman with a terrified nine-year-old child for trying to visit the Museum of Natural History without “papers?” To Wolf, this suggests “evil beyond human imagination,” a “spiritual dimension of evil.”
To her own surprise, and as it seems a bit of embarrassment as an enlightened modern intellectual, Wolf turns to her Jewish religious tradition “in which Hell (or “Gehenom”) is not the Miltonic hell of the later Western imagination, but rather a quieter interim spiritual place.”
And this is where the battle takes place, “between the forces of God and negative forces that debase, that profane, that seek to ensnare our souls. We have seen this drama before, and not that long ago.”The Bodies of Others is a personal, deeply empathic and excellently written tribute to the innermost layer of freedom, the very core that defines us as human beings. Or in Naomi Wolf’s own words: “The object of this spiritual battle? It seemed to be for nothing short of the human soul.”
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Thorsteinn Siglaugsson is an Icelandic consultant, entrepreneur and writer and contributes regularly to The Daily Sceptic as well as various Icelandic publications. He holds a BA degree in philosophy and an MBA from INSEAD. Thorsteinn is a certified expert in the Theory of Constraints and author of From Symptoms to Causes – Applying the Logical Thinking Process to an Everyday Problem.
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Chinese Vice Premier Liu He held talks with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on July 5 to discuss Washington’s trade tariffs on Chinese products and issues of global supply chain stability. According to Beijing’s press release, Liu stressed that the lifting of tariffs and sanctions, as well as the fair treatment of Chinese companies in the US, is a major concern for China. The US press release made no mention of changes to tariffs and instead mentioned the negative impact of the war in Ukraine for the global economy.
Both press releases did mention though that Liu and Yellen held discussions on the macroeconomic policies of the two countries, as well as global supply chain stability and global economic issues.
Given the fact that China’s chief trade negotiator spoke with Yellen, who has previously advocated for the removal of at least a significant portion of tariffs on Chinese products, it appears that tariffs are an important part of current discussions. This can only bring speculation that perhaps a thawing in the economic relations between the US and China is emerging, which is especially needed considering the economic troubles that the North American country is experiencing.
There is no consensus within the Biden administration on how to deal with China’s trade policy. Former President Donald Trump was belligerent and initiated a trade war. The trade war at its peak saw almost all Chinese exports to the US become subject to tariffs.
After that though, part of the tariffs were canceled and the so-called “Phase One” deal was signed, where it was expected China would increase the volume of goods purchased from the US by $200 billion over two years. However, tariffs on Chinese products totaling more than $300 billion remain in place.
At the beginning of his presidency, Biden did not make sudden moves in any direction and only talked about the comprehensive work of analyzing and revising his predecessor’s economic policies. In fact, none of the changes made by Trump have been amended by Biden.
The US is facing a new economic reality as the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic crisis has forced authorities to resort to aggressive monetary stimulus measures. Ultra-low interest rates and quantitative easing has helped contribute to massive inflation in the US. In fact, American citizens have not experienced such price hikes in 40 years.
To help alleviate economic pressures, some US officials believe they have found a solution – lifting tariffs on Chinese goods in its entirety.
None-the-less, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai opposed the tariff cuts. According to Tai, tariffs are a trump card in US hands, a lever to force Beijing to change its long-term trade policy. She said inflation is serious, but this is a short-term issue and the strategic task is to force China to comply with Washington’s demands. She believes that if tariffs were lifted, the US would weaken its negotiating position with China.
The reality is that China has not been greatly affected by the tariffs. Despite all the tariffs, China is not selling less goods to the US. In 2017, just before Trump kickstarted the trade war, the US trade deficit with China was $375 billion. In 2021, that figure was $396.5 billion.
Due to this reality, the main economic burden from the trade war actually falls on the shoulders of US consumers.
The Biden administration probably understands that the problem needs to be addressed as it no longer just a foreign policy issue, but a serious domestic one now. The Federal Reserve announced in June its largest interest rate hike in 28 years to try and control inflation, which hit a 40-year high in May. Some experts now believe that the US is in recession.
For this reason, it is clear that the US has decided to slowly move towards a gradual thaw in economic relations with China.
Although Washington seemingly wants a thaw in its relations with Beijing, differences, such as the causes of global instability in supply chains and economic processes, will make this a difficult task. However, investors still see this dialogue between the US and China as an undeniably positive signal, with stock exchanges reacting with enthusiasm, which could encourage Washington to end its trade war.
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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
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Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, one of Japan’s most influential postwar leaders, died Friday at the age of 67 after being shot while delivering a stump speech in the western city of Nara two days ahead of a national election.
Japan’s longest-serving leader was shot by a 41-year-old man who approached him from behind at around 11:30 a.m. as he was speaking in front of Kintetsu Railway’s Yamato-Saidaiji Station, police said, adding he collapsed on the ground after two shots were heard. He was rushed to a hospital with blood seen on his shirt.
A doctor with the Nara Medical University Hospital later said at a press conference that Abe was pronounced dead at 5:03 p.m. and the wound was deep enough to reach his heart, adding the cause of death is believed to be blood loss.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) lies on the ground on the side of a road after being shot by a gunman while delivering a stump speech in Nara, western Japan, on July 8, 2022, ahead of the July 10 House of Councillors election. (Kyodo)
Tetsuya Yamagami, a resident of Nara, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder, the police said. The suspect was formerly a member of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, apparently for about three years through 2005, according to government sources.
“It’s not a grudge against the political beliefs of former Prime Minister Abe,” the Nara prefectural police quoted Yamagami, whose recent occupation remains unknown, as saying. His home was later searched by the police, who found an item that could be an explosive, they said.
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Featured image: Image from video footage shows former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivering a stump speech in Nara on July 8, 2022, shortly before he was shot by a gunman. (Kyodo)
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The phoney “genocide” in Srebrenica marks its twenty-seventh anniversary on 11 July this year. As politically convenient fabrications go, it must be admitted that it has been extraordinarily effective in serving the purposes for which it was created, but this year’s rather low key observances suggest that it is at the end of its cycle.
There are two heavy hints to that effect. The genocide resolution illegally tabled in the UN General Assembly by Bosnia’s sectarian central government representative Sven Alkalaj, in disregard of the veto placed by the country’s Serb entity, Republika Srpska, has gone practically unnoticed and uncommented by major Western media and political figures. By contrast, in the past, it would have triggered unendurable evocations of the saga of “8,000 men and boys” and their unique suffering.
Concomitantly, as the narrative faces a deficit of global attention, this year simple mathematical realities are reducing the formerly massive funerals of exhumed “victims” to barely a trickle. The annual 11 July interments at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre in Potocari are the centrepiece of the Srebrenica cult. But the recklessness of past years, when every July hundreds of caskets would be buried in tear-jerking ceremonies, is finally taking its toll. As the total number of Srebrenica burials approaches the mandated total of about 8,000, reducing the annual count from hundreds to just a few dozen is the only way to ensure that the drama could be stretched out for a few more years.
Image on the right: Gravestones at the Potočari genocide memorial near Srebrenica (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Srebrenica is the oddest of genocides for several interesting reasons. For one, it went largely unnoticed for over two years until it was finally “discovered” and publicised at an international conference seemingly convened for that purpose in 1997 in Sarajevo. The supposed genocide went undetected also in the confidential intelligence reports of Sarajevo military and civilian authorities, the aggrieved side which should have been the first to become aware of it. The damning reportswere assembled, perhaps inadvertently, by the Hague Tribunal, the very body whose tendentious verdicts these reports discredit.
Equally curious is the forensic situation, which is completely at odds with what should be expected if a genocide had taken place. It does not support the standard narrative and Hague Tribunal claims which follow that narrative closely. It must be deemed extraordinary that in two and a half decades physical evidence in the form of 8,000 bodies has completely failed to materialise. Exhumation autopsy reports, the only relevant indicator, point to the presence of about 1,920 bodies in Srebrenica related mass graves, but of those only half, or roughly a thousand, exhibit a pattern of injury consistent with execution. The majority of the remainder have unmistakable combat injuries, pointing away from the execution of captured prisoners. That is consistent with known facts on the ground after 11 July 1995. Following the fall of Srebrenica, a large military force from within the supposedly “demilitarised” enclave conducted an armed break-out over a sixty-mile stretch of Serbian territory, along the way engaging Serbian forces in fierce combat and sustaining heavy losses.
From a juridical standpoint, even if the claimed victim figures were granted, a “genocide” whose organisers could not be identified (as freely admitted by ICTY judge Jean-Claude Antonetti in his separate opinion in the Tolimir case), which assuming anything like it had occurred was limited to the municipal level, and whose alleged death toll was only 8,000 in a population of over three million, literally beggars belief. And even more so, ICTY’s preposterous judgment that two weeks later the killing of three individuals in the neighbouring enclave of Zepa also constituted “genocide” because the victims were key community figures without whom the life of the surviving 5,000 inhabitants was rendered unsustainable.
The politically inspired “genocide” in Srebrenica stands out also because it is the only known occurrence of its type that, in the process of supposedly owning up to the failures that led to it, precipitated a world-wide slaughter of literally over a hundred times greater magnitude.
The stark fact is that the utter and most likely deliberate misrepresentation of what happened in Srebrenica, amplified by a powerful media and political machine, was behind the creation of the odious R2P “humanitarian intervention” doctrine. The scope and impact of that mendacious construct are well enough known to require elaboration. Suffice it to say that from Kosovo to Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the interventionist rationale ultimately rooted in fabrications generated around Srebrenica has destroyed an estimated two million lives, enabled imperialist plunder on an epic scale, and led to seemingly irreparable devastation of international law through the pernicious activity of the Hague Tribunal and subsequently its successor, the ICC.
Srebrenica has been an unmitigated human disaster because of the effects of its cynical misuse by the global powers that be, for the basest of purposes. Weaponised in Bosnia as a generator of vicious inter- communal enmity and enduring instability, globally it has wreaked death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, all the more appallingly because of the humanitarian veneer put on to conceal the utter cynicism and amorality of the perpetrators.
The gradual but inexorable disintegration of the phoney Srebrenica narrative should be welcomed by every person committed to honesty and truth.
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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995.
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***
The European Union is adamant that it is a “union of equals” and that the “interests and concerns of all of its current and/or prospective members will be taken into consideration”. Within the EU legal system, this is also made crystal clear by Article 4(2) TEU which states that “the Union shall respect the equality of Member States before the Treaties”. Still, the reality is starkly different. On paper, every member state is equally important. However, nobody truly believes that countries like Luxembourg or Malta could ever be as important and powerful as Germany or France. Worse yet, even France has trouble matching German dominance in the EU, to say nothing of other member states, particularly those in Southern and Eastern Europe.
As then there’s Southeast Europe. Current and prospective EU members there are as overlooked and dismissed as they could possibly be. Greece, by far the most important and powerful member in Southeast Europe is held in perpetual debt enslavement, while Bulgaria and Romania are virtually without sovereignty. And last, the so-called “Western Balkans” or former Yugoslavia (and Albania). This region’s EU perspective is questionable, at best. However, not so much thanks to the region itself. It is the bureaucratic empire that has treated the region as an outright colony, the one it created by destroying the relatively prosperous (and sovereign) Yugoslavia, instead creating half a dozen neo-colonies with little in terms of actual historical heritage and identity, a practice better known as the so-called “nation-building”, which is an expertise of the US and NATO.
The only exception to this is Serbia, the original founding state and by far the most important member of former Yugoslavia. Currently a semi-sovereign state, Serbia has been through a lot in recent decades, particularly since 1991, when the political West placed the country under a decade-long siege, destroying and dismantling Yugoslavia, while doing everything possible to expand the territorial scope of everyone else in the region, at the expense of ethnic Serbs, who have been expelled from nearly all regions of former Yugoslavia. The EU itself was (and still is) instrumental in this, together with the US. To achieve this, the political West has bombed Serbs 3 times in less than a decade, starting with the Republic of Serbian Krajina (1994-1995), Republika Srpska (1994-1995) and Serbia itself (1999).
It was catastrophic for Serbs, with tens of thousands killed, nearly a million refugees being forced out of their millennia-old ancestral lands and the ensuing economic and social devastation, the result of which was decades of stagnation. However, the EU and the US weren’t done with destroying the country. Even this much smaller Serbia was “too big” and “too sovereign” for the political West, so they decided to dismantle it further, causing Montenegro to secede in 2006, as well as supporting the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo (2008), a historically Serbian province with an engineered Albanian majority. Since then, 22 out of 27 EU member states have recognized the narco-terrorist entity. Brussels has tried to convince others to do so as well.
Formally, the EU never set Kosovo recognition as a condition for EU membership, although it did imply it many times since. However, on July 6, the EU crossed that line as well, when the European Parliament adopted the Resolution on Serbia, which “expresses support” for Serbia’s membership in the EU, but conditions the ascension with “urgent compliance” with the EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus, as well as the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state. These two requirements are now set as mandatory for further ascension talks. Top EU bureaucrat for Serbia Vladimir Bilcik emphasized Brussels expects Serbia to fully comply.
“That is why it is important that Serbia moves towards the EU, and not to any other side,” said Bilcik.
The European Parliament also “expressed regret” that five EU member states have not yet recognized the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo and are again invited to do so. While Serbia was criticized for not sanctioning Russia and Belarus, the narco-terrorist neocolonial entity in occupied Kosovo was praised by the European Parliament for aligning with the European Union’s position on sanctions against Russia and Belarus.
Naturally, these terms are absolutely unacceptable to Serbia and can be considered indecent, to say the least. Neither Russia nor Belarus have ever done anything wrong to Serbia. On the contrary, both countries have been adamantly supporting Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and continue to do so. Historically, Serbia has been supported by Russia for centuries. Without the involvement of the Eurasian giant, it’s highly unlikely Serbia would’ve ever gotten its independence, let alone survived numerous brutal invasions and genocides coming from the political West in the last 100 years.
Turning against Russia for the sake of becoming a full colony of a centuries-old enemy could only be described as a mindless stab in the back which no government in Serbia would be able to survive, as it would be tantamount to political suicide. Thus, this resolution by the European Parliament means that Serbia’s EU ascension is effectively dead. Considering that the majority of Serbs don’t want to become part of the EU anyway, all they themselves could say is good riddance.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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***
Once upon a time, in a galaxy not far away, the Empire of Chaos launched the so-called “War on Terror” against an impoverished cemetery of empires at the crossroads of Central and South Asia.
In the name of national security, the land of the Afghans was bombed until the Pentagon ran out of targets, as their chief Donald Rumsfeld, addicted to “known unknowns,” complained at the time.
Operation ‘Enduring Captivity’
Civilian targets, also known as “collateral damage,” was the norm for years. Multitudes had to flee to neighboring nations to find shelter, while tens of thousands were incarcerated for unknown reasons, some even dispatched to an illegal imperial gulag on a tropical island in the Caribbean.
War crimes were duly perpetrated – some of them denounced by an organization led by a sterling journalist who was subsequently subjected to years of psychological torture by the same Empire, obsessed with extraditing him into its own prison dystopia.
All the time, the smug, civilized ‘international community’ – shorthand for the collective west – was virtually deaf, dumb and blind. Afghanistan was occupied by over 40 nations – while repeatedly bombed and droned by the Empire, which suffered no condemnation for its aggression; no package after package of sanctions; no confiscation of hundreds of billions of dollars; no punishment at all.
The first casualty of war
At the peak of its unipolar moment, the Empire could experiment with anything in Afghanistan because impunity was the norm. Two examples spring to mind: Kandahar, Panjwayi district, March 2012: an imperial soldier kills 16 civilians and then burns their bodies. While in Kunduz, April 2018: a graduation ceremony receives a Hellfire missile greeting, with over 30 civilians killed.
The final act of the imperial “non-aggression” against Afghanistan was a drone strike in Kabul that did not hit “multiple suicide bombers” but instead eviscerated a family of 10, including several children. The “imminent threat” in question, identified as an “ISIS facilitator” by US intelligence, was actually an aid worker returning to meet his family. The ‘international community’ duly spewed imperial propaganda for days until serious questions started to be asked.
Questions also keep emerging on the conditions surrounding the Pentagon training of Afghan pilots to fly the Brazilian-built A-29 Super Tucano between 2016 and 2020, which completed over 2,000 missions providing support for imperial strikes. During training at Moody Air Force base in the US, more than half of the Afghan pilots actually went AWOL, and afterward, most were quite uneasy with the pile up of civilian ‘collateral damage.’ Of course the Pentagon has kept no record of Afghan victims.
What was extolled instead by the US Air Force is how the Super Tucanos dropped laser bombs on ‘enemy targets:’ Taliban fighters who “like to hide in towns and places” where civilians live. Miraculously, it was claimed that the “precision” strikes never “hurt the local people.”
That’s not exactly what an Afghan refugee in Britain, sent away by his family when he was only 13, revealed over a month ago, talking about his village in Tagab: “All the time there was fighting over there. The village belongs to the Taliban (…) My family is still there, I do not know if they are alive or died. I don’t have any contact with them.”
Drone diplomacy
One of the first foreign policy decisions of the Obama administration in early 2009 was to turbo-charge a drone war over Afghanistan and the tribal areas in Pakistan. Years later, a few intelligence analysts from other NATO nations started to vent off the record, about CIA impunity: drone strikes would get a green light even if killing scores of civilians was a near certainty – as it happened not only in ‘AfPak’ but also across other war theaters in West Asia and North Africa.
Nevertheless, imperial logic is ironclad. The Taliban were by definition “terra-rists” – in trademark Bush drawl. By extension, villages in Afghan deserts and mountains were aiding and abetting “terra-rists,” so eventual drone victims would never raise a ‘human rights’ issue.
When Afghans – or Palestinians – become collateral damage, that’s irrelevant. When they become war refugees, they are a threat. Yet Ukrainian civilian deaths are meticulously recorded and when they become refugees, they are treated as heroes.
A massive ‘data-driven defeat’
As former British diplomat Alastair Crooke has remarked, Afghanistan was the definitive showcase for technical managerialism, the test bed for “every single innovation in technocratic project management” encompassing Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and military sociology embedded in ‘Human Terrain Teams’ – this experiment helped spawn Empire’s ‘rules-based international order.’
But then, the US-backed puppet regime in Kabul collapsed not with a bang, but a whimper: a spectacular “data-driven defeat.”
Hell hath no fury like Empire scorned. As if all the bombing, droning, years of occupation and serial collateral damage was not misery enough, a resentful Washington topped its performance by effectively stealing $7 billion from the Afghan central bank: that is, funds that belong to roughly 40 million battered Afghan citizens.
Now, exiled Afghans are getting together trying to prevent relatives from 9/11 victims in the US to seize $3.5 billion of these funds to pay off debts allegedly owed by the Taliban – who have absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.
Unlawful does not even begin to qualify the confiscation of assets from an impoverished nation afflicted by a currency in free fall, high inflation and a terrifying humanitarian crisis, whose only ‘crime’ was to defeat the imperial occupation on the battleground fair and square. By any standards, would that persist, the qualification of international war crime applies. And collateral damage, in this case, will mean the termination of any “credibility” still enjoyed by the “indispensable nation.”
The full amount of foreign reserves should be unequivocally returned to the Afghan Central Bank. Yet everyone knows that’s not going to happen. At best, a limited monthly installment will be released, barely enough to stabilize prices and allow average Afghans to buy essentials such as bread, cooking oil, sugar and fuel.
The west’s own ‘Silk Road’ was dead on arrival
No one remembers today that the US State Department came up with its own New Silk Road idea in July 2011, formally announced by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a speech in India. Washington’s aim, at least in theory, was to re-link Afghanistan with Central/South Asia, yet privileging security over the economy.
The spin was to “turn enemies into friends and aid into trade.” The reality, however, was to prevent Kabul from falling into the Russia/China sphere of influence – represented by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – after the tentative withdrawal of US troops in 2014 (the Empire ended up formally being expelled only in 2021).
The American Silk Road would eventually allow the go-ahead for projects such as the TAPI natural gas pipeline, the CASA-1000 electricity line, the Sheberghan thermal power facility and a national fiber optic ring in the telecom sector.
There was much talk about “development of human resources;” building infrastructure – railways, roads, dams, economic zones, resource corridors; promotion of good governance; building the capacity of “local stakeholders.”
A zombie of an empire
In the end, the Americans did less than nothing. The Chinese, playing the long game, will be leading Afghanistan’s resurgence, after patiently waiting for the Empire to be expelled.
Afghanistan for its part will be welcomed into the real New Silk Roads: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), complete with financing by the Silk Road Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and interconnecting with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the Central Asian BRI corridor, and eventually the Russian-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the Iran-India-Russia-led International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
Now compare and contrast with imperial minions NATO, whose “new”strategic concept boils down to expanded warmongering against the Global South, and beyond – including the outer galaxies. At least we know that should NATO ever be tempted back into Afghanistan, then another ritual, excruciating humiliation awaits.
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This article was originally published on The Cradle.
Pepe Escobar,born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.
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While front lines in Eastern Ukraine are burning, another battle is gaining momentum in the capital. The Kiev regime seems to face another crisis between the military and political leadership in the country.
Joint forces of the Donetsk, Luhansk People’s Republics and Russia claim new victories in the Donbass. After the Severodonetsk-Lisichansk metropolitan area came under control of the LPR, Russian-led forces achieved significant successes in their advance to the west. In the direction of Seversk, the town of Verhnekamenka became the stronghold of Russian units which will attack Seversk from the east.
In the morning on July 6, the advancing forces aligned the front and claimed control of the village of Spornoe located to the south of Verhnekamenka. At the moment, the mop up operation continues. Retreating Ukrainian units are shelling the village with artillery. The Russian advance was acknowledged in the evening summary by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which claimed Russian forces “had partial success in the area of the village”. This gain allows the Russians to attack Zvanovka and blockade Seversk from the southern direction.
Russian units are also approaching Seversk from the north-eastern direction. The offensive is developing on the right bank of the Seversky Donets River in the direction of Grigorovka and Serebryanka.
In the other regions, heavy positional fighting continues.
Suffering heavy losses on the front lines, the Kiev regime attempts to stop the outflow of civilians who can be conscripted into the military. However, it cannot decide on the necessary measures.
Earlier, the Ukrainian General Staff declared a legislative ban on leaving their place of residence for men of military age without the permission of the military enlistment office during the period of martial law.
On July 5, a bill has been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada clarifying the procedure for the departure of conscripts and reservists from their place of residence within Ukraine.
In turn, President Zelensky attempted to support his ruined reputation amid the unpopular regulation. On July 6, the President publicly demanded the General Staff not to take such decisions without him.
“I instructed the Minister of Defense, the Chief of the General Staff and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to report to me tomorrow all the details regarding the decision on the procedure. I ask the General Staff not to take such decisions without me in the future,” Zelensky said.
Such claims are humiliating for the Ukrainian general commanders.
Disagreements between the office of Vladimir Zelensky and the command of the Ukrainian army over the conduct of military operations have already been reported in the last months. In particular, the military reportedly believed that it was necessary to retreat on several fronts, while the president’s office insisted that no retreats were possible. As a result, the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered heavy losses in manpower on the front lines.
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George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984 introduced the concepts of “Newspeak” and “Thoughtcrime” or the curtailing of freedom of expression, narrowly defined.
Orwell’s depiction of an authoritarian society continues to reverberate four decades on.
We live in an age of fear brought about by disinformation, amplified by absolute tyranny. This is demonstrated by the COVID-19 crisis where free press and free speech are being outlawed.
Is this the kind of “democracy” we are passing on to future generations?
Global Research acts as a global platform for much needed debate and dialogue within the context of a very complex crisis. We have in the course of the last two years provided daily coverage and analysis of the COVID crisis, which is affecting people’s lives worldwide.
Our intention is to continue to relentlessly promote independent and authoritative voices that speak out on issues which are deliberately neglected or distorted by the corporate media.
It’s true. The “full faith and credit” of the US Treasury is largely a myth held together by an institutional framework that rests on a foundation of pure sand. In fact, the USD is not worth the paper it is printed on; it is an IOU flailing in an ocean of red ink.
The IMF and World Bank have for decades pushed a policy agenda based on cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest and moves to undermine labour rights and protections.
At 9 a.m. this morning, Recarey began the hearing for the appeal led by lawyer Maximiliano Dentone to stop vaccination against covid to children under 13 years of age. Maximiliano Dentone said at the hearing that he wants to suspend the vaccination of children under 13 years of age until it is proven that it does not harm health.
On June 25, the U.S. Navy sent a warship, the USS Benfold, to the South China Sea, only one day after a U.S. spy plane provocatively flew over the Taiwan Strait under the close monitoring of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
While traveling to London to meet with his British counterpart, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Western business leaders that their companies could be impacted by crime from Beijing.
Last year, Dr. Jessica Rose did a comprehensive analysis to determine the “under-reported factor” in VAERS, and came up with 41X, meaning that the recorded data for adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines in VAERS had to be multiplied by 41 to get more accurate numbers.
Obvious examples of Central Intelligence Agency covert action abroad are difficult to identify today, save for occasional acknowledged calamities, such as the long-running $1 billion effort to overthrow the government of Syria, via funding, training and arming barbarous jihadist groups.
The present war, in which NATO countries are involved, providing Ukraine with modern weapons, including offensive weapons, is the most dangerous military conflict since the Second World War. It is a huge threat to the economic situation of the world and to world peace.
Are there now farmers’ protests across Europe against insane, home-made inflation, the energy crisis and the EU? After the farmers in the Netherlands had been fighting against the EU’s “Green Deal” and thus against Schwab’s Great Reset dream for weeks by taking the protest to the streets, it’s now happening again in Spain – like last time in March – to protests by farmers. Ever larger parts of the population are behind the farmers and show solidarity with them.
Most Australians welcomed the defeat by Labor of the mendacious, corrupt, incompetent, climate criminal, and racist Australian Coalition Government in the 21 May 2022 elections. However the Australian Albanese Labor Government, while vastly better than its predecessor, is egregiously neoliberal, cowardly, pro-Zionist, US-beholden and pro-fossil fuels, and has so far failed on nuclear weapons, poverty and climate change that are the 3 key existential threats to Humanity.
Comments Off on Selected Articles: The War in Ukraine Marks the End of the American Century. “What’s Left Is a Steaming Pile of Dollar Denominated Debt”
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***
Like the political equivalent of a cockroach, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived and endured one strike after another. His credibility was shot, his mendacity second to none. He lost the confidence of a party that delighted in his buffoonish performances and appeal. Fearing electoral punishment, senior ministers and aides have left his side. Labour opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer, found himself making a witticism, calling this the first instance in history of the ship leaving the sinking rat.
No chronology on this would be sufficient. But the recent turn of events has been something verging on spectacular. There was partygate, which demonstrated the fullness of contempt shown by the Prime Minister and his staff to their constituents. In April, he was fined for breaking his government’s own lockdown rules, having attended a gathering for his birthday in June 2020. He also apologised for attending a “bring your own booze” party held in the Downing Street garden held during the first lockdown. Despite showing some contrition, he believed, for the most part, that he had been following the rules and operating within them.
The occasion led to fines aplenty, though even the Police, at some point, drew a line underneath the sad and sorry saga. Sue Gray, the senior civil servant tasked with investigating a series of social events held by political staff, came up with a grave conclusion. “The senior leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility for this culture.”
On June 16, the Tory leader survived a no-confidence vote from his own party, in which four out of ten parliamentarians voted against him. Most PMs would have made a hasty exit. Not Johnson, who seemed quixotically willing to make his last stand.
Then came the by-election losses in Tiverton and Honiton and Wakefield of June 23rd. Instead of treating them as symptoms of a malady requiring treatment, Johnson simply put them down to the UK “facing pressures on the cost of living” and the fact that “in mid-term, governments post-war lose by-elections.”
The latest, and typically seedy entry in the scandals inventory, was the sexual harassment imbroglio involving Chris Pincher (“Pincher by name, Pincher by nature,” Johnson is said to have quipped). As Conservative deputy-chief whip, he went to a private members’ club in London on June 29, got sozzled and was accused of groping two men.
A number of sexual assault allegations followed, some duly dusted for the occasion. Despite a formal complaint being made against Pincher, Johnson denied knowledge of the “specific allegations”. Not so, suggested former civil servant, Lord McDonald, seeing that he briefed the PM about it. True to form, Johnson subsequently admitted he had been told in 2019, and regretted appointing Pincher to the party position in the first place.
Over the course of 48 hours, the Tory front bench was dramatically thinned of members. Law makers and government officials left in an exodus of calculated and self-interested disaffection. Stripped of support from across the most powerful figures in the party, the decision was made.
The resignation speech exuded reluctance, sounding more like a resume pitch for a return to the job. It reflected the spectacular tone-deafness of his rule, with Johnson going so far as to lament those “Darwinian” rules that govern Westminster politics, driven by the hungry, remorseless “herd”. The herd had moved and found their quarry.
Johnson extolled his government’s pandemic response on the vaccine front despite incompetence and bungling that led to the deaths of tens of thousands during the pre-vaccine phase. Confused health directions on everything from mask wearing to whether Christmas might go ahead as usual, did not help. When those responses firmed up in the form of strict lockdown rules, Johnson, his colleagues, and advisors flouted them with condescension and arrogance.
While being self-congratulatory on his own Brexit record, the report card is far from glowing. Despite advertising the deal to electors as “oven ready”, the withdrawal agreement with the EU proved half-baked and raw at the core.
Even after reaching an accord with the EU, his government, last month, introduced plans to override parts of it, thereby threatening relations with the Union, the unity of the United Kingdom and the Irish peace process. Only Johnson could term scrapping sections of the Protocol, which covers the way goods enter Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, “a relatively trivial set of adjustments.”
There was little chance Johnson would leave Ukraine out of his resignation speech. Detractors, and even some of those sympathetic to him, had noticed how willingly he seemed to extol the virtues of Ukraine as each crisis engulfed him. He was the first leader of any major Western nation state to visit Kyiv, and also pledged a number of weapons, including the Javelin and NLAW missiles, and M270 precision-guided rocket launchers.
Another largely neglected legacy of the Johnson years should be noted. Domestically, his conduct in centralising power during the course of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic at the expense of Parliament has emboldened the executive arm of government and damaged accountability. In August 2019, he suspended, or prorogued Parliament for 5 weeks, just prior to the return of MPs from the summer recess. The following month, the UK Supreme Court declared the prorogation unlawful. “It is impossible for us to conclude, on the evidence which has been put before us, that there was any reason – let alone good reason – to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament for five weeks”.
Through the course of his political career, Johnson never changed. He had his supporters, his conspirators, his plotters. He stayed true to his lies, abject opportunism and tabloid-styled villainy. His administration proved rotten, but so were the various figures that gave him succour, including the indignant former advisor Dominic Cummings who now plays the role of stone-thrower in chief against his former boss.
Even now, some journalists and commentators detected throbbing notes of magnanimity and grace in his resignation speech, showing again how a profession that Johnson himself corrupted with such glee cannot be trusted to assess this legacy.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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***
The United States Supreme Court on June 24, 2022 handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that reversed the landmark US Supreme Court Roe v. Wade (1973) decision that granted the right to abortion for women in all states and US territories.
Roe was the most important US Supreme Court case since Brown v. Board of Education (1954) if measured by the numbers of Americans it impacted. The Court held in Roe that protected “privacy” included the basic right of a woman to procure an abortion from a doctor in the first trimester of pregnancy. “Privacy” replaced “freedom of contract.” This demonstrated that the Court was willing to interpret the Constitution as containing rights not obvious from reading the text. [Emphasis added] (McCloskey 2000, 172; Carter 2022).
Dobbs also reversed Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) where the Rehnquist Court ruled that laws requiring awareness of a spousal abortion were invalid because they placed an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion of a “nonviable fetus.” In short, Planned Parenthood v. Casey upheld Roe, but abandoned privacy as the foundation for the ruling. On May 2, Justice Samuel Alito’s draft ruling for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked and published in Politico. US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the draft’s authenticity and called for an investigation to reveal the leaker. The Dobbs ruling abolished the right to abortion for 175 million women (Carter 2022).
Dobbs declares that it is the states’ prerogative to prohibit or regulate abortion and therefore this right is “returned” to the state governments. This decision paves the way for state and local jurisdictions to institute restrictive laws that prohibit abortions outright and to bar women from traveling to obtain an abortion. Additionally, draconian laws would allow jail sentences and fines for doctors, nurses, friends, and family members who “aid and abet” an abortion. At least thirteen states have already passed so-called trigger laws that went into effect when the US Supreme Court handed down its decision. Twenty-six states as of April 2022 are certain or likely to ban abortion subsequent the Court’s decision (Carter 2022; Nash and Cross 2022).
The Dobbs ruling ignored the primary task of juris prudence to respect the right of “Precedent.” Since 1973, High Court Justices examined Roe v. Wade and upheld the decision. The Roberts Court fails to address the concerns that led those Justices to their decisions. Indeed, it ignores their predecessors’ conclusions and reasoning. The Roberts Court in Dobbs(and the majority’s opinion) flies in the face of centuries of judicial tradition. The Court’s omission must be stressed in light of the testimonies of Justices in the majority opinion who during their Senate confirmation hearings emphasized the importance of “settled law” (Tigar 2022).
Immediately following the leaked Dobbs decision, legal scholars warned ominously that the majority opinion challenges the fundamental rights that stem from the Fourteenth Amendment that lays the foundation for citizens’ rights, “due process of law,” and “equal protection of the laws.” The Dobbs ruling also opens the door for further restrictions on the elementary principle of personal privacy—same sex or interracial marriage, LGBT rights, and legal contraception (Against the Current 2022; Ziegler 2022).
The High Court rationalized its ruling in Dobbs to end the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision by asserting that it was egregiously wrong from the beginning. The majority stated that Roe was a badly reasoned decision by even the most ardent supporters of abortion rights including the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. The majority suggested that Plessy v. Ferguson(1896) that instituted the “separate but equal” doctrine that legitimized racial segregation as constitutional is the best comparison to Roe (and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the ruling that saved abortion rights in 1992) (Ziegler 2022).
Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis warned: “If this decision signals anything bigger than its direct consequences, it is this: “No one should get used to their rights…. With Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Organization is a stark reminder that this can happen. Rights can vanish…. They [the majority] tell us that the right to abortion is unlike other privacy rights, such as the right to marry whom you wish or to use whatever contraception you choose. Abortion in their view is distinct from these because it puts someone else’s life on the line. And, so, if we believe the Court’s conservative justices, this is a reckoning about abortion and nothing more” (Ziegler 2022).
Notwithstanding the Court’s assurances that no other rights will be forfeited—convincingly or not— the majority normalizes striking down with questionable logic a 50-year-old US Supreme Court decision that allowed for women to control their own bodies.
The Roe v. Wade decision spawned “a consensus around a woman’s right to choose has broadened and strengthened in the years since Roe was decided,” Tigar said. In contrast, Justice Alito’s argument is that the Constitution is silent on abortion; he then cobbles together a string of laws dating from the sixteenth century that limited women’s rights (Tigar 2022; Ziegler 2022).
The Dobbs decision establishes a new legal test that any constitutional rights previously upheld by precedent can be erased without warning. Dobbs mandates that rights not listed verbatim in the Constitution are unenforceable. Any rights not widely recognized after December 1791 when the Bill of Rights was ratified are not guaranteed. The High Court’s new legal test could be applied to all “fundamental Rights” that are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. It also calls all “unenumerated rights” into question by referring to them as “putative rights,” i.e., rights that are assumed to exist but that might not exist in reality (London 2022; Carter 2022).
While the majority argued that they could find no tangible support in the Roe v. Wade decision to affirm its constitutionality, the Ninth Amendment states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The founders were cognizant that lists can deceive people into believing that any right not specifically mentioned implies that the right is unimportant or does not exist at all. Alito’s logic could be turned to render the conclusion that abortion is a right because the Constitution does not specifically grant the government any right to prohibit it. The Ninth Amendment serves as a safety valve to account for future generations’ new understandings (Tigar 2022; Carter 2022).
Michael E. Tigar, Professor Emeritus of Law at Duke University scorned Alito’s “originalist” analysis as “one of the stupidest and most ahistorical bits of writing in Supreme Court history that includes, one must recall, the Dred Scott [1857] case dictum that African Americans have ‘no rights that a white man is bound to respect.’”
Thomas Jefferson observed in 1816: “Some men look at the Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and then deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.” Finally, there was little discussion in the Alito narrative that considered the damage that reversing Roe v. Wadewill inflict upon the most vulnerable women and children in US society (Tigar 2022; Ziegler 2022; Carter 2022).
Dobbs denounces the landmark decision Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) that legalized gay marriage throughout the United States. Dobbs also criticized Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) that struck down legislation that prohibited the use of contraceptives based upon in part on the “right of privacy”—even though it is not mentioned specifically in the Constitution.
Writing for the majority, Justice William O. Douglas wrote the text in the Bill of Rights contained “penumbras and emanations” that protected marital privacy. The notion that the Constitution is a document that is subject to interpretation in accordance with changes in social, economic, political, and technology must be acknowledged as having a firm basis in law. The Roberts Court ignores this foundation and attempts to define modern law based on assumed doctrines of more than two centuries ago. The repudiations of settled law delivered in the Roberts Court are frightening and dangerous in their scope of laying the foundations for potential attacks on the private lives of individuals (London 2022; McCloskey 2000).
There are six ultraconservative Justices who came down as a bloc against Roe: John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Republicans nominated them all. President Donald Trump named three of the six during his single term in the Oval Office: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.
Democrats nominated the remaining three “liberal” Justices who opposed Dobbs. Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer, who retired on June 30. On February 25, 2022, President Joseph Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to take the bench upon Justice Breyer’s retirement. The Senate confirmed Jackson on April 7, and Chief Justice John Roberts swore her into office on June 30.
Both major political parties with the Republicans acting aggressively and the Democrats passively acquiescing to their every whim brought the US Supreme Court to the point where settled law is no longer the foundation of the law. Instead, six of the nine Justices on the Court hold a super majority whereby they act in concert to further a reactionary ideology based on religious beliefs and the erosion of democratic rights.
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Edward B. Winslow is a historian and writer. Readers can reach Edward at [email protected]
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At 9 a.m. this morning, Recarey began the hearing for the appeal led by lawyer Maximiliano Dentone to stop vaccination against covid to children under 13 years of age. Maximiliano Dentone said at the hearing that he wants to suspend the vaccination of children under 13 years of age until it is proven that it does not harm health.
The Uruguay judge has submitted 18 questions to Pfizer that need to be answered by Thursday 7th July, morning, before 9am.
Since 9 a.m., the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer have been in a hearing in the Judiciary for the appeal led by the lawyer Maximiliano Dentone, who has petitoned to suspend vaccination against covid in children, and requests information on vaccines and contracts for the purchase and sale of these.
The substitute judge for Administrative Litigation, Alejandro Recaray, approved the appeal, and made a list of 15 requests to the government and the US company, which the government prepared to present this day, Wednesday the 6th of July, 2022.
Both Recaray and Dentone are supported by a group of protesters outside the Courts, who ask that vaccination be suspended in children like the lawyer. Among them is PERI deputy César Vega, whom Dentone defended in a defamation case.
At the beginning of the hearing, the judge asked the lawyer three questions: whether “he understands acting in a personal capacity and to what extent. Dentone responded that he is acting in “his own best interest”, but also “defending minors” of young age. The second question from Recarey was “What is the age range for which the suspension of the vaccination campaign is requested?”, to which the lawyer replied that he seeks to suspend vaccination for those under 13 years of age.
The third question was based on knowing if Dentone seeks to “limit or condition the suspension to some specific factor. For the complainant, the suspension would be limited “until it is proven that there is no harm to health” from being vaccinated against the coronavirus, he replied at the hearing. To get to that point, he understands, the delivery of information from the government and Pfizer is necessary. The reason being is that “The population was instructed to give consent to the vaccine without being fully informed”, he highlighted at the end of this response.
Judge ordered Salinas to answer 18 questions about vaccination he judge ordered that an clerk take a statement in his office
The Minister of Health, Daniel Salinas, had been summoned by Judge Alejandro Recarey but did not appear, so he was represented by lawyers from the MSP. At the hearing, the judge ruled that the minister must testify and answer 18 questions about vaccination. For this, he arranged for a bailiff or an clerk to take a statement from his office.
In the decree issued by Recarey, he indicated “personally request the response of Daniel Salinas by the bailiff and/or clerk at his work address,” and ordered that the response must be added to the case file this Thursday at 9 a.m. The hearing for the amparo appeal will continue this Thursday.
The 18 questions Salinas will have to answer:
1. Beyond any contractual reserve, have independent studies been carried out by the Uruguayan State on the information provided by their manufacturers, to verify the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine substances in use in Uruguay? Were international independent studies also used?
2. Starting from the reservation regarding the composition of the vaccine substances, how were they made, if they did, the identity and quality controls of each consignment of imported vaccines, one by one, as what were coming to our country? If so, detail -synthetically- amount of analysis and methodology.
3. Were and are all the batches of vaccines that are injected the same? Demonstrate if your answer is born from an effective knowledge of its components, or not.
4. For what reason were different types and brands of vaccines administered to different groups or population groups (for example, age groups, for police officers, health personnel, minors, etc?
5. Are there differential assessment criteria regarding effectiveness and safety for the different brands (Pfizer, Sinovac or Coronavac)?
6. What vaccine is injected to minors, and what are the proven scientific criteria that lead to preferring this one to others?
7. Did the MSP monitor the vaccinated and a control group of non-vaccinated individuals to determine rates of infection, re-infection, and death in both groups, obtaining statistically valid and generalizable data? If so, what was it, where can it be examined, who did it and how?
8. It is already known that vaccines, or some of them, contain the so-called “spike protein”. Are you aware if your inoculation has adverse effects -in the short, medium and long term- on the structure of the natural immune system? of people (in general and especially in children)? If you know there are no negative effects, based on what studies? If studies in this regard had been analyzed by the MSP (or any other national health authority), what were these specifically, what were their origins and who were their authors?
9. Do you know if the “spike protein” has any level of toxicity in itself? If you know that it is not, based on what information?
10. Is Covid-19, Sars Cov-2, a disease deemable as high or significantly aggressive for children? Does it cause, on average, serious effects? Or is there a predominance of mild effects in the child population? If statistical gravity is established in the aforementioned effects, based on what studies is it done?
11. Has the correlation between the occurrence of the disease and vaccination been studied, at the national state level, in the cases of those already vaccinated? That is, contagion, and development of the disease in these hypotheses.
12. Did the cases of Covid-19 in minors grow -of whatever level of severity- after vaccination, in relation to those that had been verified before (for the same age group, of course), in the period that ran from the initial validity of the health emergency of the year 2020, and the beginning of the inoculations to minors? In the event that after vaccinating minors an increase in cases had been reported in them, have the causes been studied? How?
13.Does the vaccination process during an epidemic increase the variability of mutations in virus proteins? Does it harm in any way the natural reaction of the immune system of those inoculated, especially minors?
14. Has it been studied whether, in the case of the vaccines supplied in Uruguay, the usual three-year trial protocols with control groups have been followed? Are you aware that the Pfizer company, in relation to the vaccine that is supplied to minors in Uruguay, has eliminated its control groups? Or avoided in any way its implementation and development?
15. If the answer to the previous question shows that the effects of vaccines have not been analysed, with due safety protocols, could it be technically argued that vaccination implies a risk factor, even a relative risk? Or not (and in your case why)?
16. Are you aware of the existence of international reports, such as those of the VAERS (or others), who report deaths or serious secondary effects -at any age- linked to the vaccines that are supplied in Uruguay? If so, have they been studied by the Uruguayan State? At what level, by whom and with what results?
17. Has the evidence been studied in Uruguay to conclude that vaccination against Covid 19 in minors produces more benefits than risks? If so, at what level, by whom, and with what results?
18. Did the Uruguayan State study the report of the “Pharmacology and Therapeutics Committee of the Uruguayan Society of Pediatrics”, dated 9.XI.2021 (and written by seven university professors), which pointed to the risks of vaccination in minors 12 years old? In your case, what scientific-technical reasons would have led to the MSP being discarded (in practice)?
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***
On June 25, the U.S. Navy sent a warship, the USS Benfold, to the South China Sea, only one day after a U.S. spy plane provocatively flew over the Taiwan Strait under the close monitoring of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Satellite image of USS Benfold entering South China Sea on June 25 through Verde Island passage. [Source: twitter.com]
From China’s point of view, the U.S. spy plane mission on June 24 was especially provocative because it was the first U.S. military activity in the region after China made it clear that there are no “international waters” in the Taiwan Strait.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, China claims jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait.
The PLA Eastern Theater Command organized aerial and ground forces and tracked the spy plane’s movements on high alert throughout its entire course on June 24 according to Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesperson of the PLA Eastern Theater Command.
Ever since the Obama administration launched a “pivot to Asia,” the U.S. has expanded its military forces and provocative military maneuvers in an effort to encircle and intimidate China. The Biden administration, following Trump, has extended this policy, with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stockpiling the National Security Council (NSC) with China hawks.[1]
When Biden made a commitment to backing Taiwan militarily, he effectively overturned the “One China Policy”—established when the U.S. resumed diplomatic relations with China in 1979—recognizing Beijing to be the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.[3]
Rejecting China’s Claim of Sovereignty over the Taiwan Strait
In line with this latter strategy, the Biden administration rejects China’s claims to sovereignty over the Taiwan Strait. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said that the spy plane’s transit demonstrates the United States’s “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
According to the Global Times, the USS Benfold—a guided missile destroyer built by Ingalls Shipbuilding—is a habitual aggressor in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
In January 2022, the destroyer illegally entered the Chinese territorial waters off the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea without authorization from the Chinese government, leading the PLA Southern Theater Command to organize naval and air forces to warn it away.
We should remember that the name of the Sea where the U.S. is sending its naval vessels and spy planes is the South China Sea—and not the Gulf of Mexico.
If China were sending its warships on provocative missions off the coast of Mexico or Canada, U.S. leaders would respond with hysterics and probably immediately begin bombing.
Rising Specter of Nuclear War
Mark Selden, the editor of The Asia-Pacific Journal and academic expert on China, raised concern in an interview about “the rising specter of nuclear war,” particularly “in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine” and “at a time when [the] U.S. calculus has shifted from welcoming growing Chinese economic and geopolitical strength, notably in the Nixon era, to across-the-board pressures on China.”
According to Selden, the shifting U.S. calculus “includes mounting U.S. military support for Taiwan and stepping back from its position of calculated ambiguity on the future of the island in favor of direct and indirect challenges of China’s claims. The result is the largest increase in U.S. military spending since World War II in the form of $70 billion in aid…at a time when U.S.-China conflict again centers on Taiwan.”
Tally of Provocative Military Maneuvers
The Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy, an activist group that aims to prevent war, has compiled a tally of provocative military maneuvers and close encounters between the U.S. and China since January 2021 in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
Joseph Gerson and Michael T. Klare, the founders of the committee, write that
“almost every day, China and/or the United States deploy their ships and warplanes in a menacing (“muscle-flexing”) fashion to demonstrate resolve and to throw the other side off balance….While officials on both sides claim that their forces are merely conducting military drills that pose no threat to their rival, these mock combat operations in the vicinity of opposing forces send an unmistakable signal of hostile intent. It is not unusual, moreover, for ships and planes of one side to monitor the operations of the other, and even, on occasion, to interfere with them. When this occurs, there is always the risk of a collision or unintended shooting incident, leading to further military action and full-scale conflict.”
In short, the specter of war between the U.S. and China has never been greater. It is up to us, consequently, to try to avert conflict and restore legality and sanity to U.S. foreign policy through concerted political activism.
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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].
Notes
One of the hawks was Kurt Campbell, an architect of Obama’s pivot who declared that “the period that was broadly described as engagement [with China] has come to an end.”
Peter Symonds, “U.S.-China tensions flare over Taiwan Strait,” World Socialist Website, June 24, 2022, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/25/pbhh-j25.pdf. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company produces more than 90% of the world’s most advanced computing chips.
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***
American media dedicated at least some coverage to Ukraine’s recent ban on the pro-Russian “Opposition Platform—For Life Party,” which effectively eliminated electoral competition in the country. But Ukraine’s sedition law of March 9 this year is less known.
The Rada Bill 7116, known as the Not a Step Back law, stipulated punishment for collaboration and sedition under martial law. It established life imprisonment with property confiscation as the maximum penalty for individuals found guilty of treason.
Among the accused under the law are mayors and other elected officials of the towns that surrendered to the Russian army when the Ukrainian armed forces withdrew, who allegedly provided the Russian Federation with logistical support. The law also applies to individuals who transmit information about troop movements. More controversially, it has prescribed penalties to Ukrainians who speak favorably of Russia.
Since the the law passed, I have been clipping news items about random citizens who fall under the latter category.
For instance, one entry on the KharkivLife Telegram Channel discusses police “exposing” a “malefactor.” The malefactor is a forty-year-old woman who, in a private conversation, recorded by a person she apparently trusted, said “I’m waiting for Russia, yes. You know why? [unclear] because I am for Russia and because I am a person of Russian soul.” She is now under investigation for acts of collaboration.
A similar incident is recorded approvingly by KievLive Telegram. Ukrainian border police arrested a man for supporting Russia, exchanging photos and videos of artillery fire, and being in the possession of Russian food rations.
According to the Ukrainian channels, Ukrainian border cops arrested a man for supporting Russia, exchanging photos and videos of artillery fire and being in the possession of Russian food rations. pic.twitter.com/LefJHK2MrQ
A drunk man brandishing a machete was arrested in Odessa for screaming pro-Russian “propaganda.” I admire the Odessa cops for arresting the lout—as a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I don’t take law and order for granted—but I find it difficult to see his actions as treason.
In another video posted on KharkivLife, a frightened thirty-four-year-old resident of the area issued a public apology for “actively expressing her hate of Ukraine’s defenders.” Her crime was “discovered” during routine “monitoring of social media,” presumably by security services. After “a conversation” with cops she decided to ask for forgiveness.
A news clip released by the Associated Press shows an arrest and a visit to the house of alleged traitors in the city of Kharkiv. One man, we are told, was found filming the aftermath of an artillery strike and this act drew suspicion. The man was later found to have exchanged electronic messages with enemy forces and his father confirmed that he is a Russian sympathizer. Creepily, a babushka from the neighborhood remarks that the security forces will “cure him.”
Another man in the video appears to be guilty of nothing more than displaying pro-Russian messages on social media. Visibly frightened, he apologized to Ukrainian Security Service during his arrest, saying that he already changed his mind. An arresting officer reassured an older member of the household that everything will proceed as prescribed by the law.
The rule of law in Ukraine is notoriously shaky. It was bad in peacetime, and I doubt the war is helping. In April Vitaly Kim, the genial-looking governor of Nikolaev Oblast, said in an interview with the Ukrainian Channel 24:
Today, a Russian blogger was shot dead in his car [in Nikolaev]. This means that there are still Russian traitors in Ukraine and all traitors will be executed. I am not afraid of this world: it will be so. And we will not be able to stop people from shooting traitors either.
He added that Ukraine has the best cybersecurity in the world, and that they will be able to track everyone and “nobody will be able to escape justice.”
The ill-fated blogger was accused of informing the Russian forces of Ukrainian troop movements. If that was indeed his crime, of course no country would let him continue operations. But in Ukraine, where a man can be tried for sedition in court under the law, security services assassinated him and a government official called for lynching.
Lynchings are apparently taking place with the approval of verified and official Telegram channels. I have seen no dead bodies, but plenty of humiliation of alleged collaborators and Russian sympathizers—people kneeling and tied to the polls with plastic wrap, signs of recent beatings and partially naked bodies in full display.
I have found no estimate of prevalence of mob attacks on the alleged traitors. Thousands of alleged collaborators are now under investigation by the Ukrainian government. The actual number of Russian sympathizers is unknown.
Given that Ukraine is in the midst of a major war, a tightening of rules regarding dissent should be expected. Our country has done the same: Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and the German-American ethnic identity was stamped out after U.S. entry into the First World War.
The recently banned “Opposition Platform—For Life Party” was the second largest faction in the country. It joins ten other parties already banned by the state. It is worth noting that Zelensky himself was elected on the platform of rapprochement with Russia and that prior to the 2014 Maidan overthrow of Victor Yanukovich, his “Party of Regions” commanded about half the country.
The key question about Ukraine is whether it can ever exist as a Western democracy. The country is contiguous to Russia, about one third of Ukrainians have relatives in the Russian Federation, and a large section of the population prefers the Russian language. If in a very tightly controlled media environment Ukraine can’t convince its people that Russia is their enemy, what will happen if the regime ever relaxes the rules?
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Katya Sedgwick is a writer in the San Francisco Bay area. You can follow her on Twitter @KatyaSedgwick.
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***
Uruguayan government officials and Pfizer were ordered to appear in court Wednesday to provide documents for review regarding vaccine ingredients, adverse effects and contracts shielding the pharma giant from liability.
Uruguayan government officials and Pfizer on Wednesday appeared in court after a judge gave them 48 hours to present detailed information on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine while the court considers an injunction request to halt COVID-19 vaccinations for children 5 and older.
Judge Alejandro Recarey of the Administrative Litigation Tribunal used his inquisitorial powers to demand the Uruguayan Ministry of Public Health, State Health Services Administration and the President’s Office submit all information regarding the contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines, including contractual information related to any clauses of civil indemnity or criminal impunity of the suppliers in the event of adverse effects.
According to a court order released on Saturday, Judge Recarey ordered Pfizer and government officials to:
Provide full and unredacted, certified copies of “each and every one of the purchase contracts (as well as any other related negotiation agreement), of the so-called anti-COVID vaccines that you have signed, own or are simply within your reach.”
Explain whether “these instruments” contain clauses of “civil indemnity and/or criminal impunity of the suppliers regarding the occurrence of possible adverse effects.”
Provide extensive detail about the biochemical composition of “so-called vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 in supply to the national population, especially the one aimed at children.”
Explain if the “different doses are distributed in batches or differential (different) items,” and if so, “clarify for what reason, and based on what criteria, each would be provided to different population levels, whether the drugs in each batch are diverse by their content and how and for whom they would be distinguishable. If it “turns out to be the real existence of different lots,” doses of each are “requested for judicial expert examination.”
Specify if the “so-called vaccines” contain messenger RNA by explaining, if necessary, what that means. Explain what “therapeutic or extra therapeutic consequences — adverse or not — [mRNA] can have for the person inoculated with it. It must be specified with regard to the latter, and in a negative hypothesis in terms of alleged damages, if there is indeed — with scientific rigor — the possible safety of the messenger RNA, or if there is simply a lack of information on the point.”
State “very specifically and beyond what has been inquired, it is requested that it be said if it is known to you that those labeled as vaccines contain or may contain nanotechnological elements. Clarifying, if not, whether such a temperament would arise from an effective verification of its absence, or from mere ignorance of the components of the referred ‘vaccinal’ substances.”
Certify whether the substances contained in the “so-called vaccines” supplied in Uruguay are experimental or not. That is, “explain in full and detail whether they are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or equivalent body, according to the usual protocols, or if they have some other type of emergency permission.” If this is the case, explain “granted by whom and with what guarantees and based on what regulations.”
In short, you “must also respond if you are aware that either the manufacturer and/or supplier, or any academic or governmental body (domestic or foreign), have admitted — in any way that may be — the experimental nature of the aforementioned vaccines.”
Present complete and up-to-date information in your possession about “what is scientifically known — and what is not known — about the effectiveness of those labeled as vaccines” and their possible short, medium and long-term adverse effects.
“Provide official figures that demonstrate the negative or positive incidence of so-called vaccination in the number of infections and deaths diagnosed with COVID from the beginning of the campaign to date.”
State whether “studies have been carried out to explain the noticeable increase in deaths for COVID-19 since March 2021 or if information is in your possession — with sufficient scientific support and evidence — about it.”
Provide information on the total number of deaths in Uruguay due to COVID-19 since the beginning of the “so-called pandemic,” the global average age and how many were for “COVID-19 in an exclusive causal relationship” and how many were “with COVID-19” — that is, with the presence of the virus, but was not the main cause of death.
“Demonstrate scientifically — with evidence of national or international studies that have been done — whether the status of non-vaccinated poses a health hazard to the entire population or third parties.“
If it is the case, two other things will be required: the determination and demonstration of the degree of danger, and the reason that explains why, if this were eventually the case,” vaccination would not have been mandated. Prove whether both the vaccinated and unvaccinated infect equally. If they do not, explain what this would be like and in what proportions — and prove what is stated.
Clarify the reasons for the “lack of preview informed consent, in relation to the act components of what the government itself presents as a vaccination campaign.”
“Detail, with first and last names, the identity of the professional technicians who have directed and direct the aforementioned campaign, or anyone who has provided advice at any level.”
Also provide relevant data for their location “for their judicial interrogation, adding to the required information, data about whether any of them are part of any foreign governmental or para governmental organization, or they have worked for one of them in any way, or, where appropriate, manage in a multinational company” focused on healthcare. “Detail, if necessary, the personal names and organizations or companies involved.”
Explain if alternative therapies for COVID-19 have been studied for any variants. If not, clarify why those were not explored. “If positive, give the research results — giving an account of whether those were used in Uruguay or not.”
For the latter option, provide the reasons that would have been taken to discard the use of alternative therapies, adding whether or not “you know that they have been used in other countries successfully, still relative, or not.”
The order also required Pfizer to state within 48 hours whether it has “admitted, in any area, internal or external to it and its partners, the verification of adverse effects” of its COVID-19 vaccines in children.
“I applaud Uruguayan judge Recarey for posing many tough questions to Pfizer over its COVID shots and the contracts it imposed on Uruguay,” Mary Holland, president of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), told The Defender in an email.
“From the beginning, Pfizer has hidden its data and liability-free contracts to avoid liability from the shots,” Holland said.
She explained:
“Many countries, including those in Latin America, have relied on U.S. regulatory agencies in the past to guide health policy. But the U.S. regulatory bodies have failed regarding COVID.
“There is no scientific or ethical justification to authorize COVID shots for children, as some countries, including Denmark, now acknowledge. We know that children are at almost zero risk of dying from COVID. The FDA has extended Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine while illegitimately ‘approving’ Comirnaty, thus engaging in a fraudulent ‘bait-and-switch’ scheme to avoid all liability while hawking ‘approved’ vaccines.”
Holland said CHD is currently pursuing two lawsuits against the FDA for its arbitrary and capricious decisions on COVID-19 shots, and she is “pleased to see that other countries are stepping into the scientific and legal breach.”
“I hope Pfizer complies with the judge’s order, but given its long criminal rap sheet, it remains to be seen,” Holland added.
Fallo historico en Uruguay, un verdadero "Maracanazo judicial";Juez ordena al Gobierno mostrar contrato de las vacunas y múltiples medidas investigativas, como por ejemplo, declaración de autoridades de Pfizer. Video explicativo del fallo del Juez Recarey https://t.co/35tSe599CP
Although Judge Racarey took it upon himself to review data presented by Pfizer and government officials on COVID-19 vaccines, Uruguay is one of 47 co-sponsoring countries that agreed to the Biden administration’s amendments to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2005 International Health Agreements that attempted to place member states’ health sovereignty in the hands of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and its regional directors.
U.S. judge requires FDA to turn over Pfizer COVID-19 documents
This is not the first time government officials or Pfizer have been required to turn over data regarding COVID-19 vaccines.
A federal judge on Feb. 2 rejected a bid by the FDA, with the support of Pfizer, to delay the court-ordered release of nearly 400,000 pages of documents pertaining to the approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Federal Judge Mark Pittman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued an order requiring the FDA to release redacted versions of the documents in question according to the following disclosure schedule:
10,000 pages apiece, due on or before March 1 and April 1, 2022.
80,000 pages apiece, to be produced on or before May 2, June 1 and July 1, 2022.
70,000 pages to be produced on or before Aug. 1, 2022.
55,000 pages per month, on or before the first business day of each month thereafter, until the release of the documents has been completed.
PHMPT, a group of more than 30 medical and public health professionals and scientists from institutions such as Harvard, Yale, and UCLA, in September 2021 filed a lawsuit against the FDA after the agency denied its original FOIA request.
In that request, PHMPT asked the FDA to release “all data and information for the Pfizer vaccine,” including safety and effectiveness data, adverse reaction reports, and a list of active and inactive ingredients.
The FDA argued it didn’t have enough staff to process the redaction, claiming it could process only 500 pages per month. This would have meant the cache of documents would not be fully released for approximately 75 years.
In his Jan. 6 order, Pittman rejected the FDA’s claim and instead required the agency to release 12,000 pages of documents by Jan. 31 and an additional 55,000 pages per month thereafter.
Pfizer responded to the Jan. 6 order with a request to intervene in the case for the “limited purpose of ensuring that information exempt from disclosure under FOIA is adequately protected as FDA complies with this court’s order.”
Pfizer claimed to support the disclosure of the documents, but asked to intervene in the case to ensure that information legally exempt from disclosure will not be “disclosed inappropriately.”
Lawyers for PHMPT, in a brief submitted Jan. 25, asked Pittman to reject Pfizer’s motion, prompting the Feb. 2 order.
The first batch of documents produced in Nov. 2021, which totaled a mere 500 pages, revealed more than 1,200 vaccine-related deaths within the first 90 days following the release of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
Since then, thousands of documents released as a result of Pittman’s court order raise serious questions about the data used by U.S. regulatory agencies to justify the authorization and approval of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccines.
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Megan Redshaw is a staff attorney for Children’s Health Defense and a reporter for The Defender.
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While traveling to London to meet with his British counterpart, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Western business leaders that their companies could be impacted by crime from Beijing.
During a joint press conference attended by executives in various financial sectors, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum cautioned that China presented the most significant threat. “By volume, most of what is at risk from Chinese Communist Party aggression is not, so to speak, my stuff. It’s yours. The world-leading expertise, technology, research, and commercial advantage developed and held by people in this room, and others like you,” he said.
FBI Director Christopher Wray also claimed that China seeks to steal “innovation” from Western firms. “We’ve seen the regional bureaus of China’s MSS – their Ministry of State Security – key in specifically on the innovation of certain Western companies it wants to ransack.” He added, “I’m talking about companies everywhere from big cities to small towns – from Fortune 100s to start-ups, folks that focus on everything from aviation, to AI, to pharma.”
Wray pushed corporate leaders to work with the FBI and MI5, insisting “We’re not just in the business of articulating problems, we’re doing something about them, together with MI5, with the private sector itself, with other government partners.” He also warned that China is insulating its economy from potential western sanctions that would come if Beijing ordered the military takeover of Taiwan.
The meeting between the two intelligence chiefs came days after President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed off on a new NATO security strategy which names China as a top threat. Following a major summit in Madrid last week, the alliance released its new Strategic Concept document, stating Beijing poses a “systemic challenge to Euro-Atlantic security.”
An additional source of friction between Beijing and Washington came after the US ambassador to China recently demanded that the Chinese Communist Party stop spreading Russian “lies.” On Wednesday, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center also issued a bulletin warning state and local governments that Beijing is stepping up its information warfare.
China “understands that US state and local leaders enjoy a degree of independence from Washington and may seek to use them as proxies to advocate for national US policies Beijing desires,” the agency said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is reportedly set to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali later this week, where he is expected to press the FM on Beijing’s ties with Moscow.
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Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, assistant editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter.
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***
One of the leading candidates to take over as the chief of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has called for Israel to step up assassinations of leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Israel frequently bombs Syria and frames the strikes as attacks on Iranian assets in the country, although the airstrikes often kill Syrian soldiers or target civilian infrastructure. Zamir said if Israel invades Lebanon to fight Hezbollah, Iran could launch attacks from Syria to hit Israeli forces.
Zamir described the IRGC as the “backbone” of Iran and “the main means by which it seeks to dominate the region.” He outlined several ways Israel could work with allies to target IRGC leaders, including what he called the “Soleimani model,” referring to the January 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the former head of the IRGC’s Quds force. Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad.
In recent months, Israel has stepped up its covert attacks inside Iran and is suspected of several killings, including against scientists working for Iran’s military. US officials have said Israel was behind the killing of IRGC Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, who was gunned down in Tehran at the end of May.
Zamir is a candidate to replace Avi Kohavi, the current IDF chief of staff. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has said he plans to appoint a new chief of staff before the upcoming Israeli election in November. Gantz has named other candidates, but whoever is appointed will likely agree to put more pressure on Tehran.
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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.
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***
Guest: Sören Pohlen, a gastronomer, former owner of the “Scotch&Sofa” a cocktail bar in Berlin.
This session is a discussion on the events and his experiences since the founding of the party “Team Freiheit” and the termination of the lease for his cocktail bar Scotch&Sofa.
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Obvious examples of Central Intelligence Agency covert action abroad are difficult to identify today, save for occasional acknowledged calamities, such as the long-running $1 billion effort to overthrow the government of Syria, via funding, training and arming barbarous jihadist groups.
In part, this stems from many of the CIA’s traditional responsibilities and activities being farmed out to “overt” organizations, most significantly the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Founded in November 1983, then-CIA director William Casey was at the heart of NED’s creation. He sought to construct a public mechanism to support opposition groups, activist movements and media outlets overseas that would engage in propaganda and political activism to disrupt, destabilize, and ultimately displace ‘enemy’ regimes. Subterfuge with a human face, to coin a phrase.
Underlining the Endowment’s insidious true nature, in a 1991 Washington Post article boasting of its prowess in overthrowing Communism in Eastern Europe, senior NED official Allen Weinstein acknowledged, “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
It Begins
Fast forward to September 2013, and Carl Gershman, NED chief from its launch until summer 2021, authored an op-ed for The Washington Post, outlining how his organization was hard at work wresting countries in Russia’s near abroad – the constellation of former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact states – away from Moscow’s orbit.
Along the way, he described Ukraine as “the biggest prize” in the region, suggesting Kiev joining Europe would “accelerate the demise” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Six months later, Ukraine’s elected president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in a violent coup.
Writing in Consortium News earlier that month, investigative legend Robert Parry recorded how, over the previous year, NED had funded 65 projects in Ukraine totaling over $20 million. This amounted to what the late journalist dubbed “a shadow political structure of media and activist groups that could be deployed to stir up unrest when the Ukrainian government didn’t act as desired.”
NED’s pivotal role in unseating Yanukovych can be considered beyond dispute, an unambiguous matter of record – yet not only is this never acknowledged in the mainstream press, but Western journalists aggressively rubbish the idea, viciously attacking those few who dare challenge the established orthodoxy of US innocence.
As if to assist in this deceit, NED has removed many entries from its website in the years since the coup, which amply underline its role in Yanukovych’s overthrow.
For example, on February 3rd 2014, less than three weeks before police withdrew from Kiev, effectively handing the city to armed protesters and prompting Yanukovych to flee the country, NED convened an event, Ukraine’s lessons learned: from the Orange Revolution to the Euromaidan.
Alongside him was Nadia Diuk, NED’s then-senior adviser for Europe and Eurasia, and graduate of St. Antony’s College Oxford, a renowned recruiting pool for British intelligence founded by former spies. Just before her death in January 2019, she was bestowed the Order of Princess Olga, one of Kiev’s highest honors, a particularly palpable example of the intimate, enduring ties between NED and the Ukrainian government.
While the event’s online listing remains extant today, linked supporting documents – including Powerpoint slides that accompanied Leshchenko’s talk, and a summary of “event highlights” – have been deleted.
What prompted the purge isn’t clear, although it could well be significant that Leshchenko’s talk offered a clear blueprint for guaranteeing the failure of 2004’s Orange Revolution – another NED-orchestrated putsch – wasn’t repeated, and the country remained captured by Western financial, political and ideological interests post-Maidan. It was a roadmap NED subsequently followed to the letter.
Along the way, Leshchenko specifically highlighted the importance of funding NGOs, exploiting the internet and social media as “alternative [sources] of information,” and the danger of “unreformed state television.”
So it was that on March 19th, representatives of the far-right Svoboda party – which has been linked to a false flag massacre of protesters on February 20th, an event that made the downfall of Yanukovych’s government a fait accompli – broke into the office of Oleksandr Panteleymonov, chief of Ukraine’s state broadcaster, and beat him over the head until he signed a resignation letter.
That shocking incident, motivated by the station broadcasting a Kremlin ceremony at which Vladimir Putin signed a bill formalizing Crimea as part of Russia, was one of many livestreamed by protesters that traveled far and wide online.
The brutal defenestration of Ukraine’s state TV chief notwithstanding, much of this livestreamed output served to present foreign audiences with a highly romantic narrative on the demonstrations, and their participants, which bore little or no relation to reality.
The Revolution Will Be Televised
Writing in NED’s quarterly academic publication Journal of Democracyin July that year, Leshchenko discussed in detail the media’s role in the Maidan coup’s success, drawing particular attention to the fundamental role of “online journalist” Mustafa Nayyem.
He kickstarted the protests the previous November, rallying hundreds of his Facebook followers to protest in Kiev’s Independence – now Maidan – Square, after Yanukovych scrapped the Ukrainian-European Association Agreement in favor of a more agreeable deal with Moscow.
Nayyem was no ordinary “online journalist”. In October 2012, he was one of six Ukrainians whisked to Washington DC by Meridian International, a State Department-connected organization that identifies and grooms future overseas leaders, to “observe and experience” that year’s Presidential election.
Funded by the US embassy in Kiev, over 10 days they “[gained] a deeper understanding of the American electoral process,” meeting candidates and election officials, and touring voting facilities. They were also invited to discuss “Ukraine’s progress towards a more fair and transparent election process” with “equally curious” representatives of US government agencies.
With whom the sextet met is unstated, although promotional pictures show Nayyem filming a personal summit with John McCain on his smartphone. The video was posted to his personal YouTube channel – in it, Nayyem asks the noted warhawk for his thoughts on Ukraine, to which he responds, “I’m concerned with the influence of Russia.”
This is striking, for McCain flew to Kiev in December 2013 to give an address to Maidan protesters, flanked by known Neo-Nazi Oleh Tyahnybok. Then-State Department official Victoria Nuland, now Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, was also present, notoriously handing out motivational cookies to attendees.
On February 4th 2014, one day after Leshchenko’s NED presentation, an intercepted recording of a telephone call between Nuland – now Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs – and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt was leaked, in which the pair discussed how Washington was “midwifing” Yanukovych’s ouster, and named several handpicked individuals to head the post-coup government.
Whether Nayyem’s influential US contacts in any way motivated his decision to ignite the Maidan demonstrations in November 2013 isn’t certain. The pivotal part he played in promoting the protests globally is far clearer, for he was a key founder of digital broadcaster Hromadske TV.
In his Journal of Democracy article, Leshchenko records how Hromadske hadn’t even officially launched when it began streaming Maidan demonstrations live, the literal second they erupted at Nayyem’s direction.
While Leshchenko coyly states that Hromadske “drew most of its modest funding from international organizations and the donations of Ukrainian citizens,” it actually received hundreds of thousands of dollars in financing from a variety of questionable sources, including the US Embassy in Ukraine, intelligence front USAID, George Soros’ International Renaissance Foundation, American oligarch Pierre Omidyar, and – of course – NED.
Hromadske’s audience expanded rapidly both within and without Ukraine thereafter, its embedded output eagerly recycled by countless mainstream news outlets, meaning Western viewers were presented with a single, partisan perspective on the unrest – and a highly misleading one at that.
Based on Hromadske’s coverage, overseas onlookers would’ve been entirely forgiven for concluding the protests were wholly energized by concerns over human rights and democracy, and overwhelmingly – if not universally – popular.
In a representative February 2014 essay dismissing as Russian propaganda the demonstrable fact that both the Maidan demonstrators and their leadership were riddled with neo-Nazis, academic and Journal of Democracy contributor Andreas Umland boldly declared that “the movement as a whole…reflects the entire Ukrainian population, young and old.”
Nothing could’ve been further from the truth. An extraordinarily revealing Washington Post op-ed by North American academics Keith Darden and Lucan Way published that same month detonated that narrative, which has endured – and intensified – ever since.
The pair forensically exposed how less than 20 percent of protesters professed to be driven by “violations of democracy or the threat of dictatorship,” only 40 – 45 percent of Ukrainains were in favor of European integration, Yanukovych remained “the most popular political figure in the country,” and no poll conducted to date had ever indicated majority support for the uprising.
In fact, “quite large majorities oppose the takeover of regional governments by the opposition,” and the population remained bitterly divided on the future of Ukraine, Darden and Way wrote. Such hostility stemmed from “anti-Russian rhetoric and the iconography of western Ukrainian nationalism,” rife among the demonstrators, “not [playing] well among the Ukrainian majority.”
Of the 50 percent of Ukraine’s population residing in regions that had “strongly identified with Russia” for over two centuries, “nearly all [were] alienated by anti-Russian rhetoric and symbols.”
“Anti-Russian forms of Ukrainian nationalism expressed on the Maidan are certainly not representative of the general view of Ukrainians. Electoral support for these views and for the political parties who espouse them has always been limited,” Darden and Way concluded. “Their presence and influence in the protest movement far outstrip their role in Ukrainian politics and their support barely extends geographically beyond a few Western provinces.”
‘Pro-Ukrainian Agenda’
Despite – or perhaps because of – such slanted coverage, Hromadske only grew from strength to strength subsequently. Such was its surging popularity, Leshchenko records, even Ukraine’s state broadcaster “struck a deal” to amplify its output, “thus handing this small ‘garage’ webcasting enterprise an audience of millions.” In the process, Ukrainians – and the world – were well-educated in the false narrative of Yanukovych being overthrown via popular will.
Hromadske’s potential to influence perceptions was evidently not lost on other Western governments either. In 2015, the British Foreign Office provided significant funds to develop “radio broadcasting” initiatives in the Russian-majority regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, for a project dubbed “Donbas calling”. The next year, London proferred more sums to the outlet, so it could serve as a local “information provider” to an “audience of up to one million people.”
In 2017, Hromadske again received hundreds of thousands of pounds to expand even further into the breakaway regions. Among other things, Britain supported the installation “of 16 FM transmitters in Ukraine-controlled areas along the contact line and ‘grey zone’ in the east,” meaning the station could reach up to two million citizens potentially possessed of separatist perspectives.
The public profiles of Leshchenko and Nayyem concurrently rose exponentially too. In Ukraine’s October 2014 elections, both were elected to parliament as part of Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, the former becoming a member of its anti-corruption committee, the latter its cross-party group on European integration, leading to glowing profiles in the Western media. All along, NED closely monitored their progress, hailing the pair as emblems of the new, liberated Ukraine that flowered in the wake of Maidan.
Nonetheless, Leshchenko’s personal commitment to democracy was rather undermined in August 2016, when he and Artem Sytnyk, head of Kiev’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, leaked documents – dubbed the “the black ledger” – identifying payments to Donald Trump’s then-campaign manager Paul Manafort from Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, to the US media.
Leshchenko expressed his “hope” that the disclosure would damage Trump’s electoral chances and would be “the last nail in Manafort’s coffin lid,” as “a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy.” He was one of several prominent politicians in Kiev “involved to an unprecedented degree in trying to weaken the Trump bandwagon,” as the Atlantic Council, NATO’s propaganda arm, conceded at the time.
Manafort duly resigned, and the RussiaGate racket erupted – a connivance that went some way to ensuring the “pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy” wasn’t compromised one iota.
Indeed, Trump’s term in office was typified by ever-escalating hostility between Washington and Moscow, the Oval Office resident going to dangerous lengths his predecessor had consistently refrained from to arm and galvanize the most reactionary and violent elements of the Ukrainian armed forces, including the notorious Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, and tear up Cold War arms control treaties, much to Moscow’s chagrin.
In December 2018, a Ukrainian court ruled that Leshchenko and Sytnyk’s release of the “black ledger” was illegal, amounting to “interference in the electoral processes of the US” that “harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state.”
In May the next year, a corruption probe was launched after Leshchenko purchased a $300,000 apartment in central Kiev, a sum far in excess of his apparent means. Two months later, he was voted out of parliament, a candidate of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party taking his seat in a landslide. His friend and collaborator Nayyem simply opted not to stand, in order to seek a government post “connected to the Donbas.”
Despite no longer being part of the legislature, Leshchenko has continued to wield significant sway over the Ukrainian government, directly advising Zelensky on “Russian disinformation” to this day.
What direct influence NED still exerts over him – and Ukraine’s President by extension – isn’t certain. Although, mere days before the Russian invasion began, in an interview with The Guardian, Leshchenko referred to the Minsk Accords – which Zelensky stood on a specific platform of implementing – as “toxic”, suggesting the leader would “betray” his country by adhering to their obligations, which included granting autonomy to Donetsk and Luhansk.
This reflects NED’s position – on February 14th this year, its Journal of Democracy published an article declaring the Accords to be “a bad idea for the West and a serious threat to Ukrainian democracy and stability,” not least because they would mean “tacitly accepting Russia’s false narratives about the Donbas conflict” – namely, that the conflict “was caused by the West-orchestrated ‘coup’ in 2014.”
In other words, an objective analysis of what actually happened and why, in which NED is completely central. Still, the organization didn’t need to rely purely on Leshchenko to keep the Minsk Accords moribund. Its extensive network of assets in the country, and Washington’s dark alliance with Ukraine’s far-right, was more than sufficient to ensure that Zelensky’s overwhelmingly popular mission of restoring relations with Russia would and could never be fulfilled.
‘In Solidarity’
In the hours following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, NED hurried to remove any and all trace of its funding for organizations in Ukraine from its website.
A search of the NED grants database today for Ukraine returns “no results,” but a snapshot of the page captured February 25th reveals that since 2014, a total of 334 projects in the country have been awarded a staggering $22.4 million. By NED President Duane Wilson’s reckoning, Kiev is the organization’s fourth-largest funding recipient worldwide.
An archive of NED funding in Ukraine over 2021 – which has now been replaced with a statement “in solidarity” with Kiev – offers extensive detail on the precise projects backed by the CIA front over that pivotal 12-month period.
It points to a preponderant focus on purported Russian misdeeds in eastern Ukraine. One grant, of $58,000, was provided to the NGO Truth Hounds to “monitor, document, and spotlight human rights violations” and “war crimes” in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Another, of $48,000, was provided to Ukraine’s War Childhood Museum to “educate the Ukrainian public about the consequences of the war through a series of public events.” Yet another received by charity East-SOS aimed to “raise public awareness” of “Russia’s policies of persecution and colonization in the region, and document illustrative cases,” its findings circulated to the UN Human Rights Council, European Courts of Human Rights, and International Court of Justice.
There was no suggestion this wellspring would be used to document any abuses by Ukrainian government forces. UN research indicates 2018 – 2021, over 80 percent of civilian casualties were recorded on the Donbas side. Meanwhile, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reports show that shelling of civilian areas in the breakaway regions intensified dramatically in the weeks leading up to February 24th, potentially the precursor of a full-blown military offensive.
As such, NED’s expurgation of records exposing its role in fomenting and precipitating the horror now unfolding in southeast Ukraine not only protects de facto CIA agents on the ground. It also reinforces and legitimizes the Biden administration’s sprawling, fraudulent narrative, endlessly and uncritically reiterated in Western media, that Russia’s invasion was entirely unprovoked and groundless.
Ukrainians now live with the mephitic legacy of that reckless, unadmitted meddling in the most brutal manner imaginable. They may well do so for many years to come. Meanwhile, the men and women who orchestrated it rest comfortably in Washington DC, insulated from any scrutiny or consequence whatsoever, every day cooking up fresh schemes to undermine and topple troublesome foreign leaders, hailed as champions of liberty by the mainstream press every step of the way.
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On 25 June 2022, in the Parliament of the Republic of Poland there was a press conference and a meeting of the Parliamentary Team for International Relations and the Interests of Poland and the Polish Diaspora, organized by Mr. Grzegorz Braun, MP, with the participation of prof. M. Piotrowski, prof. S. Bielen and prof. W. Korab-Karpowicz.
The Statement on Peace in Ukraine (Oświadczenie o pokoju na Ukrainie) was signed.
Its English translation is given below.
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The individuals and organizations gathered here call for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine and for a compromise between Russia and Ukraine that will lead to lasting peace. War is a huge human and cultural tragedy. People die on both sides every day: they take their dreams and the personal potential they represent with them irretrievably. War is associated with perversion. In the time of duration, there are acts of cruelty and war crimes. War teaches us to be hostile and to hate. It degenerates us as human beings. In the name of the defense of life and our humanity, the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine should be stopped immediately.
The present war, in which NATO countries are involved, providing Ukraine with modern weapons, including offensive weapons, is the most dangerous military conflict since the Second World War. It is a huge threat to the economic situation of the world and to world peace. The populations of many countries are now threatened with starvation due to the decline in grain exports from Ukraine and Russia. In addition, the world is experiencing a sharp increase in fuel prices, produced by Russia. As a consequence, we are threatened by a global economic crisis with unimaginable effects.
But even a more serious disaster would be the situation when the present war gets out of hand and turns from a local conflict into a continental war or another world war. This would involve hundreds of millions of casualties, the destruction of states, and the collapse of all our civilization achievements.
We believe that for peace and the resolution of the conflict, it is important to understand its causes well. The primary factor that often causes wars is fear. In this case, Russia is afraid of NATO enlargement and the neighboring countries fear that Russia is a power. Therefore, in order to resolve the conflict, mutual fear must be removed, and this can only be achieved by professional diplomacy and a willingness to compromise, and not by a military action.
Another reason for the current war, which is less discussed, is the introduction of changes to the language law in Ukraine that is discriminatory to the Russian linguistic minority. This has led to a referendum in Crimea and a war in Donbas. The current war is therefore also a consequence of a wrong Ukrainian domestic politicy. It leads us to huge human tragedy and enormous destruction. These problems should not be settled by war and by having the whole world is involved in it, but by negotiations and compromise. Therefore we are calling for negotiations, compromise and peace.
We live in a globalized world, where countries are interdependent. Due to the world position of Russia and Ukraine, the consequences of the current war are having a catastrophic effect on the whole planet. It is not too late to resolve this armed conflict, which is very harmful and dangerous for all of us. We call for reason, reflection and peace.
“Nothing is lost by peace. Everything can be lost by war.”
Grzegorz Braun, MP, Konfederacja Korony Polskiej (The Confederation of the Polish Crown)
Prof. Mirosław Piotrowski, Ruch Prawdziwa Europa (The True Europe Movement)
Prof. Włodzimierz Korab-Karpowicz, Wolne Wybory (Free Elections)
Dr Leszek Sykulski, Polskie Towarzystwo Geostrategiczne (The Polish Geopolitical Society)
Prof. Ryszard Zajączkowski
Prof. Jakub Z. Lichański
Prof. Stanisław Bieleń
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