Renowned Canadian Constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati characterizes the COVID Operation as “the biggest example of misinformation and lies on a global scale that we’ve seen.”
“The Constitutional challenge that he has filed with the Ontario Superior Court seeks to pull back the shroud of secrecy imposed by the Trudeau and Ford governments which, he says, are currently and have been “ruling by decree” beneath the pretexts of “COVID Measures” and “Emergency Measures”.
***
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny and guest Constitutional Lawyer Rocco Galati discussion and commentary on current world events.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
“Scientists are doing an awful lot of damage to the world in the name of helping it. I don’t mind attacking my own fraternity because I am ashamed of it.” –Kary Mullis, Inventor of Polymerase Chain Reaction
In the US, we have all but abandoned classical diagnostic medicine in favor of biotech, or lab result medicine. This has been going on for a long time and is a dangerous turning. The “Corona test” is named with characteristic tech-tedium: “CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel.” That means it is a needle in a DNA haystack test. A PCR test.
It finds fragments, nucleic acids. According to Nobel Laureate Dr. Kary Mullis inventor: “PCR detects a very small segment of the nucleic acid which is part of a virus itself. The specific fragment detected is determined by the somewhat arbitrary choice of DNA primers used which become the ends of the amplified fragment. “
Celia Farber ( quoted from complete article)
***
What do we mean when we say somebody has ‘tested positive’ for the Corona Virus? The answer would astound you. But getting this “answer” is like getting to a very rare mushroom that only grows above 200 feet on a Sequoia tree in the forbidden forest.
I say that for dramatic effect, but also because I wound up, against all odds, finding it.
Every day I wake up and work at shedding one more layer of ignorance —by listening carefully. I got lucky with scientists many years ago; Epic, incredible scientists, happening to cross my path when nobody else wanted to talk to them. Now their names are emerging, their warnings and corrections crystallizing. True “science” (the nature of the natural world) is never bad news. Globalist science is nothing but bad news.
How many of us are “infected” with this novel Corona virus, and how scared should we be?
People die—yes. But people don’t die at the mercy of malicious, predatory pathogens, “lurking” on every surface, and especially other humans. That’s not “science.” That’s social engineering. Terrorism.
Let’s proceed.
What do we mean when we say a person “tests positive” for Covid-19?
We don’t actually mean they have been found to “have” it.
We’ve been hijacked by our technologies, but left illiterate about what they actually mean. In this regard, I spent time with, and interviewed the inventor of the method used in the presently available Covid-19 tests, which is called RT-PCR, (Polymerase Chain Reaction.). His name is Kary B. Mullis, (image left) he passed away in August of last year. He was one of the warmest, funniest, most eclectic-minded people I ever met, in addition to being a staunch critic of HIV “science,” and an unlikely Nobel Laureate, i.e. a “genius.”
One time, in 1994, when I called to talk to him about how PCR was being weaponized to “prove,” almost a decade after it was asserted, that HIV caused AIDS, he actually came to tears.
The people who have taken all your freedoms away in recent weeks, they’re social engineers, politicians, globalist thought leaders, bankers, foundations, HO fanatics, and the like. Their army is composed of “mainstream media,” which is now literally a round-the-clock perfect propaganda machine in support of the so-called “Pandemic”.
Kary Mullis was a scientist. He never spoke like a globalist, and said once, memorably, when accused of making statements about HIV that could endanger lives: “I’m a scientist. I’m not a lifeguard.”
That’s a very important line in the sand. Somebody who goes around claiming they are “saving lives,” is a very dangerous animal, and you should run in the opposite direction when you encounter them.
Their weapon is fear, and their favorite word is “could.”
They entrap you with a form of bio-debt, creating simulations of every imaginable thing that “could” happen, yet hasn’t.
Bill Gates has been waiting a long time for a virus with this much, as he put it, “pandemic potential.” But Gates has a problem, and it’s called PCR.
Of Mullis’ invention, Polymerase Chain Reaction, the London Observer wrote:
“Not since James Watt walked across Glasgow Green in 1765 and realized that the secondary steam condenser would transform steam power, an inspiration that set loose the industrial revolution, has a single, momentous idea been so well recorded in time and place.”
What does HIV have to do with Covid-19?
PCR played a central role in the HIV war (a war you don’t know about, that lasted 22 years, between Globalist post-modern HIV scientists and classical scientists.) The latter lost the war. Unless you count being correct as winning. The relentless violence finally silenced the opposition, and it seemed nobody would ever learn who these scientists were, or why they fought this thing so adamantly and passionately.
And PCR, though its inventor died last year, and isn’t here to address it, plays a central role in Corona terrorism.
Celia Farber is half Swedish, raised there, so she knows “socialism” from the inside. She has focused her writings on freedom and tyranny, with an early focus on the pharmaceutical industry and media abuses on human liberties. She has been under ferocious attack for her writings on HIV/AIDS, where she has worked to document the topic as a psychological operation, and rooted in fake science. She is a contributor to UncoverDC and The Epoch Times, and has in the past written for Harper’s, Esquire, Rolling Stone and more. Having been gravely injured in legacy media, she never wants to go back. She is the recipient of the Semmelweis International Society Clean Hands Award For Investigative Journalism, and was under such attack for her work, she briefly sought protection from the FBI and NYPD. She is the author of “Serious Adverse Events: An Uncensored History of AIDS,” and the editor of The Truth Barrier, an investigative and literary website. She co-hosts “The Whistleblower Newsroom” with Kristina Borjesson on PRN, Fridays at 10am.
This article was originally published on Asia Times.
It took one minute for President Trump to introduce a virus at the virtual 75th UN General Assembly, blasting “the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world”.
And then it all went downhill.
Even as Trump was essentially delivering a campaign speech and could not care less about the multilateral UN, at least the picture was clear enough for all the socially distant “international community” to see.
Here is President Xi’s full statement. And here is President Putin’s full statement. And here’s the geopolitical chessboard, once again; it’s the “indispensable nation” versus the Russia-China strategic partnership.
As he stressed the importance of the UN, Xi could not be more explicit that no nation has the right to control the destiny of others: “Even less should one be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon, bully, or boss of the world .”
The US ruling class obviously won’t take this act of defiance lying down. The full spectrum of Hybrid War techniques will continue to be relentlessly turbo-charged against China, coupled with rampant Sinophobia, even as it dawns on many Dr. Strangelove quarters that the only way to really “deter” China would be Hot War.
Alas, the Pentagon is overstretched – Syria, Iran, Venezuela, South China Sea. And every analyst knows about China’s cyber warfare capabilities, integrated aerial defense systems, and carrier-killer Dongfeng missiles.
For perspective, it’s always very instructive to compare military expenditure. Last year, China spent $261 billion while the US spent $732 billion (38% of the global total).
Rhetoric, at least for the moment, prevails. The key talking point, incessantly hammered, is always about China as an existential threat to the “free world”, even as the myriad declinations of what was once Obama’s “pivot to Asia” not so subtly accrue the manufacture of consent for a future war.
This report by the Qiao Collective neatly identifies the process: “We call it Sinophobia, Inc. – an information industrial complex where Western state funding, billion dollar weapons manufacturers, and right-wing think tanks coalesce and operate in sync to flood the media with messages that China is public enemy number one. Armed with state funding and weapons industry sponsors, this handful of influential think tanks are setting the terms of the New Cold War on China. The same media ecosystem that greased the wheels of perpetual war towards disastrous intervention in the Middle East is now busy manufacturing consent for conflict with China.”
That “US military edge”
The demonization of China, infused with blatant racism and rabid anti-communism, is displayed across a full, multicolored palette: Hong Kong, Xinjiang (“concentration camps), Tibet (“forced labor”), Taiwan, “China virus”; the Belt and Road’s “debt trap”.
The trade war runs in parallel – glaring evidence of how “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is beating Western capitalism at its own high-tech game. Thus the sanctioning of over 150 companies that manufacture chips for Huawei and ZTE, or the attempt to ruin TikTok’s business in the US (“But you can’t rob it and turn it into a US baby”, as Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin tweeted).
Still, SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), China’s top chip company, which recently profited from a $7.5 billion IPO in Shanghai, sooner or later may jump ahead of US chip manufacturers.
On the military front, “maximum pressure” on China’s eastern rim proceeds unabated – from the revival of the Quad to a scramble to boost the Indo-Pacific strategy.
Think Tankland is essential in coordinating the whole process, via for instance the Center for Strategic & International Studies, with “corporation and trade association donors” featuring usual suspects such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.
So here we have what Ray McGovern brilliantly describes as MICIMATT – the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex – as the comptrollers of Sinophobia Inc.
Assuming there would be a Dem victory in November, nothing will change. The next Pentagon head will probably be Michele Flournoy, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (2009-2012) and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, which is big on both the “China challenge” and the “North Korean threat”. Flournoy is all about boosting the “U.S. military’s edge” in Asia.
So what is China doing?
China’s top foreign policy principle is to advance a “community of shared future for mankind”. That is written in the constitution, and implies that Cold War 2.0 is an imposition from foreign actors.
China’s top three priorities post-Covid-19 are to finally eradicate poverty; solidify the vast domestic market; and be back in full force to trade/investment across the Global South.
China’s “existential threat” is also symbolized by the drive to implement a non-Western trade and investment system, including everything from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund to trade bypassing the US dollar.
A Harvard Kennedy School report at least tried to understand how Chinese “authoritarian resilience” appeals domestically. The report found out that the CCP actually benefitted from increased popular support from 2003 to 2016, reaching an astonishing 93%, essentially due to social welfare programs and the battle against corruption.
By contrast, when we have a MICCIMAT investing in Perpetual War – or “Long War” (Pentagon terminology since 2001) – instead of health, education and infrastructure upgrading, what’s left is a classic wag the dog. Sinophobia is perfect to blame the abysmal response to Covid-19, the extinction of small businesses and the looming New Great Depression on the Chinese “existential threat”.
The whole process has nothing to do with “moral defeat” and complaining that “we risk losing the competition and endangering the world”.
The world is not “endangered” because at least vast swathes of the Global South are fully aware that the much-ballyhooed “rules-based international order” is nothing but a quite appealing euphemism for Pax Americana – or Exceptionalism. What was designed by Washington for post-WWII, the Cold War and the “unilateral moment” does not apply anymore.
Bye, bye Mackinder
As President Putin has made it very clear over and over again, the US is no longer “agreement capable” . As for the “rules-based international order”, at best is a euphemism for privately controlled financial capitalism on a global scale.
The Russia-China strategic partnership has made it very clear, over and over again, that against NATO and Quad expansion their project hinges on Eurasia-wide trade, development and diplomatic integration.
Unlike the case from the 16th century to the last decades of the 20th century, now the initiative is not coming from the West, but from East Asia (that’s the beauty of “initiative” incorporated to the BRI acronym).
Enter continental corridors and axes of development traversing Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Indian Ocean, Southwest Asia and Russia all the way to Europe, coupled with a Maritime Silk Road across the South Asian rimland.
For the very first time in its millenary history, China is able to match ultra-dynamic political and economic expansion both overland and across the seas. This reaches way beyond the short era of the Zheng He maritime expeditions during the Ming dynasty in the early 15th century.
No wonder the West, and especially the Hegemon, simply cannot comprehend the geopolitical enormity of it all. And that’s why we have so much Sinophobia, so many Hybrid War techniques deployed to snuff out the “threat”.
Eurasia, in the recent past, was either a Western colony, or a Soviet domain. Now, it stands on the verge of finally getting rid of Mackinder, Mahan and Spykman scenarios, as the heartland and the rimland progressively and inexorably integrate, on their own terms, all the way to the middle of the 21st century.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is “2030.” He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The lion’s share of today’s Old Bailey proceedings in Julian Assange’s extradition trial was spent on battles over mental health and dire risk. The prosecution continued its attempt to minimise the dangers facing Assange were he to be extradited to the United States for 17 charges under the US Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. While the defence has its case on Assange’s fragile mental health well plotted, the prosecution is hoping that witnesses such as Dr Nigel Blackwood, consultant psychiatrist with the National Health Service, will punch holes in the argument. They will certainly hope for better efforts than those made by their own witnesses, Seena Fazel, a psychiatry professor who seemed too professionally tentative to land firm blows against Assange’s diagnosis for Asperger’s syndrome, or dismiss the health risks facing him in the US prisons system.
Blackwood and managed risk
Blackwood had conducted his own psychiatric evaluation of Assange’s condition via phone in July 2020. What he gave the court was a show of qualified hypotheticals. He found the publisher to be “moderately depressed”; there was undoubtedly “some risk of suicide attempt in the event of extradition”. He did not feel this risk to be a “high” one. It had been “carefully managed in Belmarsh and the risk factors are modifiable.” Assange “engages with treatments to manage that risk.”
Reliance was placed upon the capacity for self-control in the face of such risk. If the person facing extradition could self-manage or be “capable of controlling” their own risk of suicide, the extradition should be made. Blackwood was excruciatingly selective, finding Assange “resourceful” and “very resilient”. He believed Assange “retains the capacity to resist suicide.”
An unstinting faith in the prison authorities was shown by the witness. They would have sent Assange for outside treatment had he suffered from severe depression. The release of a video of Assange in prison, made public in June 2019, prompted the authorities to send him to the medical ward. Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence was unimpressed by Blackwood’s reading of this incident: confining Assange to the medical ward had been for reasons of “reputational damage” to prison officials. A prison document of that day’s incident noted that Assange had been sent to the ward for being at risk of self-harm. Why had Blackwood failed to mention it in his report? The prosecution witness was moved to admit that, while multiple factors were present in the decision to send Assange to the medical ward, Assange’s considerations of self-harm was one of them. This was a fact Blackwood omitted.
The defence turned on the issue of whether prison conditions Assange would face in the US would be broadly on par with those in the United Kingdom. The point is significant as previous legal authority – notably the UK High Court decision in the Lauri Love case – found much to be worried about in the assurances made by the US Bureau of Prisons, notably on their poor provision of mental health facilities and safeguards against suicide. Blackwood conceded that his assessment drew heavily upon US Assistant Attorney Gordon Kromberg’s affidavit, which claimed that there was no “solitary confinement” in the Alexandria Detention Center (ADC), where Assange will be initially held. “I relied on Kromberg and the academic literature on what happens in US prisons. There may be stuff that isn’t covered, but there is broad equivalence.”
An all too confident assessment, given the revelations of Eric Lewis, board president of Reprieve, who had previously testified to the court about his own clients’ experiences of solitary confinement and Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) deployed at ADC. They were not findings Blackwood had cared to consult. When Fitzgerald asked Lewis, in re-direct examination, whether Kromberg was “more qualified than you are on prison conditions”, the defence witness suggested that the assistant attorney would rarely have stepped into a prison. Lewis, in contrast, was well acquainted with a range of prison conditions ranging from Guantánamo to the United Kingdom.
Blackwood was also taken to task by the defence for being green about the US prison system: he had never visited the ADC or any US federal facility. His modest haul included visits to a state prison in Connecticut, and a Newport, Rhode Island jail.
The prosecution witness was duly attacked for his presumptuousness in a report marked by vital subtractions and unnecessary additions. Having failed to note the presence of solitary confinement in the ADC, he had also concluded that it would not be unjust to extradite Assange, given his mental health condition. The defence proved stormy on this point. “It’s not your business to decide that, whether extradition is just or unjust, that is up to the judge.” This was a point Blackwood was left to accept.
Crosby and very high risks
Testimony for the defence was then provided by Dr Sondra Crosby of Boston University, an authority on the physical and psychological effects of torture. Crosby’s expertise in the area is extensive: as of March 2019, she had evaluated a touch under 1,000 survivors of torture. She runs a clinic specialising in the care of refugees and asylum seekers, “most of whom have experienced torture.”
She had visited Assange in the London Ecuadorean embassy in October 2017 after an American doctor (left unnamed) organised an “academic evaluation of the effects of living in the embassy”. Assange then described “symptoms of depression, symptoms of post-traumatic disorder.” While capable of conversation and not seemingly in a “horrible state”, his physical symptoms were “worrisome”. But mental decline was evident, marked by an inability to concentrate, depression, nightmares, disturbances to sleep.
Thoughts of suicide were first described to Crosby in 2018. The dramatic suicide of the convicted Bosnian Croatian general Slobodan Praljak by potassium cyanide, drunk before the judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, left a deep impression.
In her February 23, 2019 session with Assange, her notes evaluating his state were taken from her by embassy staff, thereby violating doctor-patient confidentiality. She noted the presence of cameras. A copy of her medical license was demanded. Her credentials had to be verified by an embassy security guard. The incident might have formed part of the defence testimony on showing the operation of a US-backed surveillance operation, but did not.
She was also alarmed during that visit by Assange’s marked deterioration, physically and psychologically. “I was very concerned about a very advanced tooth infection that was causing him excruciating pain, requiring him to take narcotics.”
Visits to Assange at Belmarsh in October 2019 and January 2020 were also made. Crosby’s December 2019 report was even more unequivocal. Assange had “met all the criteria for major depression”; he was “essentially dead”, “tearful”, pleading. He had called the anonymous suicide hotline Samaritans. She also found physical symptoms indicative of anxiety or cardiac arrest, and the possibility of chronic respiratory infection. Assange, she concluded, was “at high risk of completing suicide if he were to be extradited.”
The risk was compounded by an incomplete picture on Assange’s intentions. He had concealed the “full extent of his depression and suicide plans” in meetings with mental health specialists and prison doctors. He feared being subjected to “more surveillance” or further isolation if he confessed to the full scope of his “suicidal ideations”.
In cross-examination, Lewis dished up some common, misguided fare. Any assessment of Assange’s health would surely have to be qualified by the fact that he could leave the embassy at any time. Such a question, replied Crosby, was “complex”; Assange found himself in a position similar to one “who is being chased with an axe or a gun and locks himself in a room for safety.” What faced Assange, were he to leave the embassy environs, were the arms of the police and the prospects of extradition, made concrete by the current proceedings.
Lewis also returned to what is becoming a favourite animus of his: the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, whose widely publicised views of Assange’s treatment are known. “You rely on your report [to the court] on Nils Melzer,” he coldly observed. “I think you got him involved.” He also posed a rhetorical question verging on the inane: “Are you aware that no one ever extradited to the US from the UK has committed suicide?” A man of true venal faith.
Cryptome: published and unpunished
The last instalment of the day came with the reading out by the defence of a witness statement by John Young, host of cryptome.org. The role of this testimony goes to corroborating other accounts on the chronology of publication. Cryptome, which Young founded in 1996, published the entire set of unredacted US State Department cables on September 1, 2011. WikiLeaks followed suit the next day.
The publication, Young’s statement reads, “remains available at present.” Since “publication on Cryptome.org of the unredacted diplomatic cables, no US law enforcement authority has notified me that this publication of the cables is illegal, consists or contributes to a crime in any way, nor have they asked for them to be removed.”
Other sites, and their operators, have also been spared the stern and intrusive gaze of the US Justice Department. Assange’s defence had at hand a statement from Christopher Butler of the Internet Archive. Butler confirmed that, to this day, the Internet Archive still hosts records of WikiLeaks’ publications. Both he and his data have been left undisturbed. Yet another instance showing this prosecution effort to be political, singular and selective.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
With strict pressure from the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the August coup leaders have installed an interim government that will run state affairs until next elections. Plucked from obscurity, the former Defense Minister Bah Ndaw became the transitional President, while Colonel Assimi Goita serves as Vice President. The transitional committee made up of representatives of political parties, civil and religious groups agreed on both positions.
According to their biographical reports, both had part of their professional military training in the Soviet Union and Russia respectively. The transitional civilian government, swearing-in ceremony and inauguration into office took place on Sept 25, completely closed the political chapter on the political administration of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
The military takeover, Mali’s fourth since gaining independence from France in 1960, came after months of protests, stoked by Keita’s failure to roll back a bloody jihadist insurgency and fix the country’s many economic woes.
Over the years, reform policies have had little impact on the living standards, majority highly impoverished in the country. As a developing country, it ranks at the bottom of the United Nations Development Index (2018 report). The country, however, is a home to approximately 20 million population. The primary task, right now, is to draw up “a comprehensive road map” for economic recovery.
Earlier before the Sept 25 ceremony, Assimi Goita had issued a public statement at a media-covered conference to the Malian population,
“We make a commitment before you to spare no effort in the implementation of all these resolutions in the exclusive interest of the Malian people. We request and hope for the understanding, support and accompaniment of the international community in this diligent and correct implementation of the Charter and the transition roadmap. The results you have achieved allow me to hope for the advent of a new, democratic, secular and prosperous Mali.”
While West African leaders would likely remove the economic sanctions imposed in the wake of last month’s coup, following the installation of a civilian interim president, a number of foreign countries including Russia have already recognized these new developments taken toward stability.
Russia, apparently, is exploring all possibilities to regain part of its Soviet-era influence as Mali begins to restructure and systematize its state administration. In an official statement to mark Mali’s 60th anniversary of its independence from France, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) hoped that Mali would fix in place civilian form of government and, focus on holding free and democratic elections following a short transitional period with the assistance of the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union.
It is noteworthy to recall here that Russia and Mali are linked by friendship and cooperation. In 1960, Mali attained independence following a prolonged struggle and opted for a socialist orientation. There were major projects implemented with Soviet assistance. These includes a cement factory, the Kalana gold-mining company, a stadium in Bamako, the Gabriel Toure Hospital, an airfield in Gao and a number of national education facilities. Large-scale prospecting operations were conducted, and 9,000 hectares converted into rice paddies.
Thousands of Soviet educators, doctors and other specialists worked in Mali. Over 10,000 Mali citizens received higher education in Russia.
“We hope that the time-tested Russia-Mali ties will continue to develop steadily in the interests of both states. We would like to congratulate the friendly people of Mali on their national holiday and to wish them every success in achieving nationwide reconciliation, reviving their country as soon as possible, and we wish them peace, prosperity and well-being,” the statement particularly stressed.
As Russia pushes to strengthen its overall profile in the G5 Sahel region, Mali could become a gateway into the region. Russia has made military-technical cooperation as part of its diplomacy and keen on fighting growing terrorism in Africa.
Experts suspected that the regime change in Mali could see Russia-friendly new leaders taking over the country from the French-friendly Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and his government, thereby dealing a severe blow to French influence and interests not just in Mali but throughout the Sahel zone.
Research Professor Irina Filatova at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow explained recently in an emailed “Russia’s influence in the Sahel has been growing just as French influence and assistance has been dwindling, particularly in the military sphere. It is for the African countries to choose their friends and people who are now in power will be friendlier with Russia.”
That said, the transitional government could continue to leverage with Russia. Reports indicate that Russia has established cordial relations with transitional government. On August 21, Russian Ambassador to Mali and Niger Igor Gromyko met with representatives from the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP). The CNSP is an umbrella organization of military personnel involved in the coup, which wishes to oversee an 18-month transition before returning power to civilian authorities. Russia signed a military cooperation agreement with Mali in June 2019.
In November 2019, demonstrators in Bamako urged Moscow to repel Islamist attacks in Mali as it did in Syria. At the Independence Square demonstrations in Bamako that followed the coup, protesters were spotted waving Russian flags and holding posters praising Russia for its solidarity with Mali.
Samuel Ramani, DPhil candidate at the Department of Politics and International Relations at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, wrote in the Journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute that “Since Russia possesses a diverse array of partnerships in Mali and Sahel countries are frustrated with the counterterrorism policies of Western powers. Moscow could leverage the Mali coup to secure economic deals and bolster its geopolitical standing in West Africa.”
According to the expert, Kremlin-aligned research institutes and media outlets have consistently framed France’s counterterrorism operations in Niger and Mali as a façade for the extraction of the Sahel’s uranium resources. Russian nuclear energy giant Rosatom, which directly competes with its French counterpart Avenda for contracts in the Sahel, could benefit from favorable relations with Mali’s new political authorities. Nordgold, a Russian gold company that has investments in Guinea and Burkina Faso, could also expand its extraction initiatives in Mali’s gold reserves.
As one of the largest on the continent, Mali is a landlocked country located in West Africa. For centuries, its northern city of Timbuktu was a key regional trading post and center of Islamic culture. Mali is renowned worldwide for having produced some of the stars of African music, most notably Salif Keita. But, this cultural prominence has long since faded.
After independence from France in 1960, Mali suffered droughts, rebellions, and 23 years of military dictatorship until democratic elections in 1992. Mali has struggled with mass protests over corruption, electoral probity, and a jihadist insurgency that has made much of the north and east ungovernable. President Ibrahim Keita, who took office in September 2013, proved unable to unify the country. With time and commitment to sustainable development and good governance, there is still hope for Mali.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Kester Kenn Klomegah is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
If you look to Global Research as a resource for information and understanding, to stay current on world events, or to experience honesty and transparency in your news coverage, please consider making a donation or becoming a member .
Your donations are essential in enabling us to meet our costs and keep the website up and running. Click below to become a member or to make a donation to Global Research now!
Closing down the Global Economy as a means to combating the Virus. That’s what they want us to believe. If the public had been informed that Covid-19 is “similar to Influenza”, the fear campaign would have fallen flat…
For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who traveled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice.
Evidence presented in this paper indicates that the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic as an event in the UK is essentially complete, with ongoing and anticipated challenges well within the capacity of a normalised NHS to cope.
Up to August 10th, the number of Europeans who died from a Covid-19 illness (182,639) was slightly above the number who died three years ago as a result of “flu” (152,000). The number of patients who died in Europe from the 1917/18 Spanish flu was approximately 2.64 million – this would be equivalent to approximately 7.4 million deaths of today’s European population.
China has been buying a lot of U.S. crude oil lately, perhaps in a belated attempt to fulfill some of the energy import quotas agreed with Washington last year or perhaps in a bid to take advantage of supercheap U.S. crude. But the buying spree is about to end.
On 8th September the hacker group Anonymous published shocking revelations of how a concerted and organised campaign has been waged to support the anti-government rebels in Syria. One set of documents relates to the NGO ARK, which although brands itself as a humanitarian organisation, effectively functions as a vehicle for western-led regime change.
I work in the healthcare field. Here’s the problem, we are testing people for any strain of a Coronavirus. Not specifically for COVID-19. There are no reliable tests for a specific COVID-19 virus. There are no reliable agencies or media outlets for reporting numbers of actual COVID-19 virus cases.
If you dare enter many stores with a friendly and smiling face you could easily be subject to public shaming because of a fashionable public health dictate that lacks any scientific evidence.
“If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?” – Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down, 1998
For decades, Andre Vltchek, an old-school journalist and artist (but a young man) who traveled the world in search of truth and who always stood up straight, tried to revolve the world and encourage people to revolt against injustice. In this age of arm-chair reporters, he stood out for his boldness and indefatigable courage. He told it straight. This irritated certain people and some pseudo-left publications, who sensed in him a no bullshit fierceness and nose for hypocrisy that frightened them, so they stopped publishing his writing. He went where so many others feared to tread, and he talked to people in places that were often the victims of Western imperialistic violence. He defended the defenseless and encouraged their defense.
Now he is dead. He died in the back seat of a chauffeur driven rental car on an overnight drive to Istanbul, Turkey. He was sleeping, and when his wife attempted to wake him upon arrival at their hotel, she couldn’t. He was 57-years-old.
Let him sleep in peace, but let his words ring out, his passionate cries for justice and peace in a world of violent predators.
Those who knew him and his work feel a great, great loss. His friend and colleague Peter Koenig wrote this touching goodbye.
As Koenig says, Vltchek was always defending those around the world who are considered disposable non-people, the Others, the non- whites, victims of Western wars, both military and economic, in places such as West Papua, Iraq, Syria, Africa, etc. He had a chip on his shoulder, a well justified chip, against the one-sided Western media and its elites that were always lecturing the rest of the world about their realities.
He was recently in the United States, and here is what he wrote:
But notice one thing: it is them, telling us, again, telling the world what it is and what it is not! You would never hear such statements in Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. There, people know perfectly well what it really is all about, whether it is about race or not!
I have just spent two weeks in the United States, analyzing the profound crises of U.S. society. I visited Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, New York, and Boston. I spoke to many people in all those places. What I witnessed was confusion and total ignorance about the rest of the world. The United States, a country which has been brutalizing our Planet for decades, is absolutely unable to see itself in the context of the entire world. People, including those from the media, are outrageously ignorant and provincial.
And they are selfish.
I asked many times: “Do black lives matter all over the world? Do they matter in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and do they matter in West Papua?” I swear, I received no coherent answer.
Somebody has to tell them… Somebody has to force them to open their eyes.
A few years ago, I was invited to Southern California to show my documentary work from Africa (my feature documentary film Rwanda Gambit, about West-triggered genocides in both Rwanda and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo), where millions of black people are dying, in order for the vast majority of the U.S. whites to live in piggish opulence.
But before I was allowed to present, I was warned: ‘Remember, people here are sensitive. Do not show too much of brutal reality, as it could disturb them.’
Hearing that, I almost left the event. Only my respect for the organizer made me stay.
Now I am convinced: it is time to force them to watch; to see rivers of blood, which their laziness, selfishness, and greed have triggered. It is time to force them to hear shouts of the agony of the others.
But as everyone knows, it is nearly impossible to force people to open their eyes and ears when they are dead set against doing so. Andre tried so hard to do that, and his frustration grew apace with those efforts that seemed to fall on deaf ears.
He was a relentless fighter, but he was a lover, too. His love for the people and cultures of the world was profound. Like Albert Camus, he tried to serve both beauty and suffering, the noblest of vocations. A lover of literature and culture, the best art and beauty ever produced, he was appalled at the way so many in the West had fallen into the pit of ignorance, illiteracy, and the grip of propaganda so tight that “what is missing is life. Euphoria, warmth, poetry and yes – love – are all in extremely short supply there.”
He sensed, and said it, that nihilism rules in the United States beneath the compulsive consumerism and the denial of the violence that the U.S. inflicts on people across the world. It was selfishness run amok. Me me me. It was, he felt, soul death, the opposite of all the ostensible religiousness that is a cover story for despair. He wrote:
It has to be stopped. I say it because I do love this life, the life, which still exists outside the Western realm; I’m intoxicated with it, obsessed with it. I live it to the fullest, with great delight, enjoying every moment of it.
Poetry, music, great literature, these he loved as he fought on the barricades for peace.
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on the author’s blog site.
Nothing remotely like what’s gone on since January ever happened before in the US.
For the 27th straight week, over one million working-age Americans filed claims for unemployment insurance (UI).
Numbers for the past week include 870,000 who applied for regular state UI, along with another 630,000 applying for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) — the federal program for workers not eligible for UI.
Providing up to 39 weeks of benefits, PUA expires at yearend.
Because most states provide 26 weeks of UI, many unemployed US workers exhausted their benefits.
They’re still eligible for 13 additional weeks of Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) — available only for individuals who got state UI.
Beginning next week, as UI claims fall, PEUC claims will rise proportionately — total claims remaining at Great Depression levels with no congressional or White House programs proposed to turn things around ahead of November 3 elections.
Because reports on PEUC claims are delayed, they won’t show up until October 8.
Economist John Williams calculates economic data based on how done pre-1990 — before formulas were changed to distort reality.
His data show annualized inflation in August at 9%, not the phony 1.3% Bureau of Labor Statistics year-over-year figure.
Americans who buy food, pay rent, service mortgages, cover medical expenses, heat and/or air condition homes, and manage other daily expenses know more about inflation than TV talking head economists and government ones involved in distorting official data.
US unemployment is 28% — greater than the peak Great Depression figure — not the phony 8.4% BLS figure.
Williams forecasts continued hard times, saying “economic and systemic…collapse…should intensify” ahead, adding:
“Systemic turmoil is just beginning, with the Fed and US government driving uncontrolled US dollar creation, with annual money supply growth soaring to successive record highs.”
He sees a “continuing, rapidly deepening…US economic collapse…a hardening, protracted L-shaped recovery.”
Mass layoffs continue, affecting public and private workers.
In early September, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said layoffs of city workers are needed because of a projected FY 2020 $1.25 billion budget shortfall.
Without further elaboration, she said action must be taken because vitally needed federal aid isn’t forthcoming.
Large tax increases are also coming to deal with the largest budget shortfall in city history, Lightfoot saying:
“We can’t ask individual taxpayers to give us more if we don’t prove to them that we are being good fiduciaries of their tax dollars and that includes making painful sacrifices.”
In mid-September, Illinois Governor Jay Pritzker said “(w)e’re literally talking about thousands of people who will get laid off” statewide.
Illinois is projected to have a $3.4 billion FY 2020 budget shortfall.
According to the Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research coordinator Amy Baker on September 10, budget shortfalls of $3.4, $2.0, and $1.0 billion are expected in 2020 through 2022 respectively, layoffs required to deal with them.
Chicago, Illinois, and Florida aren’t alone.
US states, cities and local communities nationwide are hard-pressed financially because of dire economic conditions with little or no federal aid in prospect.
According to the National Association of State Budget Officers:
“(S)tate revenue forecasts for fiscal 2021 (and fiscal 2022 for those states that have released estimates) are projecting more significant losses, especially without additional federal aid.”
Moody’s Analytics estimates that US state budgets could experience a fiscal shock (worsened by increased Medicaid expenses) of nearly $500 billion through 2022.
If significant layoffs of public and private workers increase ahead, US unemployment could spike much higher.
A vicious circle exists. As layoffs rise, federal, state, and local tax revenues fall that could result in further job losses and greater economic decline without significant federal aid and job-creation programs like during the Great Depression to put people back to work.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Up to August 10th, the number of Europeans who died from a Covid-19 illness (182,639) was slightly above the number who died three years ago as a result of “flu” (152,000). The number of patients who died in Europe from the 1917/18 Spanish flu was approximately 2.64 million – this would be equivalent to approximately 7.4 million deaths of today’s European population.
It is not for want of good reason that deaths are now referred to as Covid-19-associated deaths. Of 5,700 patients admitted to New York hospitals, 88 per cent had more than one underlying condition (co-morbidity) and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that from January to May, 19.5 per cent of Covid-19 patients with co-morbidity died compared to 1.6 per cent with no other illness.
The Irish experience is very similar – up to mid-August 94 per cent of deaths were in patients with underlying medical conditions. A Stanford-led group analysed over 100,000 Covid-19-related deaths in Europe, including Ireland, and the US and concluded that “deaths for people under 65 without predisposing conditions were remarkably uncommon” .
Another important feature is the number of people who contract the virus and remain completely asymptomatic. In extremely well-defined scenarios such as the Diamond Princess cruise liner and the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier almost 66 per cent of the positive tests were completely asymptomatic, while a report from China suggests 78 per cent of cases were asymptomatic.
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Unlawful US sanctions on nations, entities and individuals are weapons of war by other means.
Since taking office in January 2017, Trump imposed sanctions on numerous countries extrajudicially, including Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Despite having no legal validity, they’re piled on to immiserate their populations, aiming to suffocate nations into submission — a failed objective whenever tried.
On Wednesday, the State Department announced new sanctions on Cuba, including entities on a so-called Cuba Prohibited Accommodations (CPA) List.
It prohibits or limits “transactions related to lodging at…433 properties that are owned or controlled by the Cuban (government) or certain well-connected insiders.”
The State Department defied reality, falsely claiming profits from state-owned or connected properties come “at the expense of the Cuban people” — a bald-faced Big Lie like countless others by the US against nations it doesn’t control.
A follow-up Big Lie falsely claimed “the Cuban people…face repression at the hands of their government (sic)” — what’s true about the US, other Western regimes and apartheid Israel.
Newly imposed US sanctions also ban or restrict imports of Cuban alcohol and tobacco products.
They prohibit “attending or organizing certain professional meetings or conferences in Cuba…”
They ban “participating in and organizing certain public performances, clinics, workshops, competitions, and exhibitions in” the country.
Trump’s “support” for the Cuban people is all about wanting them immiserated.
Earlier imposed Trump regime toughness on Cuba and its people remain in place for another year.
Longstanding US policy calls for transforming all sovereign independent countries into pro-Western vassal states.
In January 1959, Fidel Castro transformed Cuba from a US-controlled brothel into a nation serving the health and welfare of all its people.
Obama’s “new course on Cuba” was imperialism by another name, same dirty business as usual, new tactics.
Embargo, limited travel by Americans and other restrictions remained in place.
So did longstanding hostility toward Cuban sovereign independence.
Normalized relations aren’t possible without ending a lawless embargo. Not as long as Trump and hardliners surrounding him run things.
His anti-Cuba agenda since taking office rolled back modest Obama regime loosing of US toughness on the island state.
He banned “people-to-people” travel to Cuba. Treasury authorized US tour company group visits alone are permitted.
Americans traveling to the country face a likely punishing Treasury Department audit on return, an attempt to discourage visits to the state.
Transactions with entities linked to Cuba’s military are banned, some affiliated with the country’s tourism industry.
Trump’s hostility toward the state flies in the face of what most Americans and Cubans favor — normalized relations with a good neighbor, waging peace, stability, and cooperative relations with other nations in the region and worldwide.
New Trump regime sanctions on Cuba come ahead of US November 3 presidential and congressional elections — aiming to win support from most Cuban nationals in Florida and their descendants.
The sunshine state and Ohio are key for US presidential aspirants.
No GOP presidential aspirant ever won without taking Ohio.
In 27 of 39 US presidential elections since 1860 (the year Lincoln won), winners carried Florida, including Trump in 2016.
Races for senator and governor in the state are important.
Winners indicate which wing of the US one-party state has more support, a potential sign of how things will go in the same-year or next presidential election.
The latest Real Clear Politics polls through September 23 show Biden ahead by an average of 7 points.
They show Biden narrowly ahead in Ohio by around 2 points, in Florida by one point.
Given the margin of error, races in both states are a virtual dead heat. They could go either way as things now stand.
A Final Comment
In response to new Trump regime sanctions, President of Cuba Educational Travel Collin Laverty said the following:
New Trump regime travel restrictions to the island state “remove general licenses…for the purpose of professional events and conferences as well as public performances, sporting competitions, workshops and the like,” adding:
“(T)here are still ways US citizens can legally travel to Cuba. However, these prohibitions will create more confusion and complications.”
They mean “less travel (and) more hardships for Cuban families.”
Americans visiting Cuba will have alcohol and/or cigars on their possession confiscated on returning home.
Laverty asked: “How long will US politicians kick around the Cuban people for political victories in Florida.”
“Six decades of talking tough and tightening the embargo to please Cuban Americans has achieved nothing” except hardships for its people US politicians pretend to support.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
The sixth and newest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces now has an overseas base. A squadron of 20 soldiers has been sent to an air base in Al Udeid, which is in a desert in Qatar, where the first unit abroad of the American Space Force will be deployed. The Space Force is the first new military service since the creation of the Air Force in 1947 and the speed with which it managed to install its first base abroad is surprising. On Sunday (September 20), the U.S. Space Force posted a video on its Twitter account showing the military’s oath ceremony, which took place earlier this month. The number of troops in the region is provisional and is expected to increase soon.
The missions to be carried out in the military base are not yet fully elucidated, but we already know that the activities will revolve around a monitoring service of the Persian Gulf and the local nations, which, in other words, can be identified as an explicit spy service with use of space technology. Soldiers will have to operate satellites, track enemy maneuvers in space and capture data applying space technology.
“We’re starting to see other nations that are extremely aggressive in preparing to extend conflict into space (…) We have to be able to compete and defend and protect all of our national interests”, said Colonel Todd Benson, commander of U.S. Space Force troops in Qatar during an interview.
The most worrying about the internationalization of the American Space Force is the choice of the Persian Gulf for the installation of the base. Washington chose to install a base in the Gulf region amid a moment of particular tensions between the United States and Iran, which have been progressively rising. The Trump administration recently imposed sanctions on the Iranian space agency, accusing it of developing ballistic missiles under the cover of a civilian program to place satellites in orbit. Now, by chance or not, the United States is setting up a base for military space operations in a country neighboring Iran with an admitted intention of monitoring “aggressive nations”.
Allocating weapons of mass destruction in orbit is prohibited by the 1967 Space Treaty, but no limits are established for other space war activities, either in that treaty or in other legal documents relating to outer space. If Iran is actually using a civilian satellite system to hide a nuclear missile launch project, it is committing an illegal act under international space law. But there is nothing established about the rules of espionage and remote monitoring, which are the most widely used forms of space technology for military purposes.
As long as this legal gap remains, it will be allowed to spy and collect data from other countries using space technology. However, the most dangerous thing is that not only military programs are monitored by spy satellites, but also industrial, corporate, scientific and economic data. In other words, military space technology can be used to steal all types of information and dismantle any national project of such “aggressive nations”.
It is true that all the great global military powers have complex space systems and use such technology for security and defense purposes, but the precedent set by the creation of a military base in the vicinity of a country considered an enemy – and with an almost explicit justification for monitoring it – is really dangerous. If practices like this become widespread, we will have a chaotic scenario of proliferation of explicit spy bases around the world.
Another terrible scenario would be an Iranian reaction, with the shooting of American spy satellites, causing widespread retaliation from both sides and prompting a complete militarization of outer space. In this sense, new arms race will be generated, seeking the constant modernization of space weapons, with increasingly complex and dangerous systems dispersed in military space bases installed on all continents.
However, the activities of the US Space Force are strongly condemned in the American political scenario itself. Many politicians, experts and the military consider the creation of a space force as a “Trump vanity” and tend to believe that the budget for the new armed force will decrease with a possible defeat of Trump in the elections. In any case, the result of the elections is uncertain, and the Space Force has already been created and is working, so, regardless of future financial plans, the problems will not disappear.
There is only one way to avoid this scenario: through international law. Space law prevented a drastic militarization of outer space during the Cold War in the context of a nuclear race, but these legal documents are no longer efficient for contemporary circumstances. We need a new international treaty that effectively prohibits space espionage with a legal international court that punishes nations that disrespect such norms and prevents the generalization of violence between military powers.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Nearly three-quarters of hotels will have to lay off more employees than they already have during the coronavirus pandemic if they don’t receive additional government funding, according to a new survey.
Seventy-four percent of respondents to an American Hotel & Lodging Association survey of its members said they would have to lay off additional employees as it awaits the passage of further COVID-19 recovery legislation from Congress.
Currently, 68% of hotels in the U.S. have half their pre-pandemic staff working full-time. Half of hotel owners said that due to the pandemic, they are in danger of foreclosure. What’s more: More than two-thirds of hotels said that at current projected revenue and occupancy levels, without more relief, they could only last six more months.
AHLA is urging lawmakers to pass relief measures in the final few weeks before they go on recess ahead of the November election.
Without a new stimulus deal, economists warn that the economy could slip into a double-digit recession and Goldman Sachs recently reckoned there’s just a slightly better than 50% chance lawmakers will approve new relief by the end of September.
It’s not just hotels. The days are quickly counting down for thousands of pilots, flight attendants, gate agents and other airline workers who face the prospect of being laid off at the end of the month if Congress doesn’t come through with a new stimulus agreement.
Last week, both White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke with airline industry leaders. Meadows said they asked for another $25 billion. Pelosi told Bloomberg News that a Democrat-led House bill may include additional aid for the travel industry, though she did not specifically mention hotels.
“It’s clear that travel jobs, which were hit by far the hardest of any sector, won’t recover on their own,” said Tori Barnes, an executive vice president for the U.S. Travel Association, in a statement at the time.
“It’s time for Congress to put politics aside and prioritize the many businesses and employees in the hardest-hit industries. Hotels are cornerstones of the communities they serve, building strong local economies and supporting millions of jobs,” Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the AHLA, said in a statement.
Rogers spoke to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Friday as well as to business and travel leaders on a conference call.
“These are real numbers, millions of jobs, and the livelihoods of people who have built their small business for decades, just withering away because Congress has done nothing,” Rogers said on the call. “We can’t afford to let thousands of small businesses die and all of the jobs associated with them be lost for many years.”
AHLA’s survey of hotel industry owners, operators, and employees had more than 1,000 respondents; the organization conducted it Sept. 14 to 16.
Four out of 10 hotel workers are still unemployed, according to a six-month look back report of the travel industry during the pandemic released earlier this summer. Hotel occupancy for the month of August stood at 48.6%, down 31.7 percentage points, according to STR data. For the week ending Sept. 12, it was 48.5%.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
China has been buying a lot of U.S. crude oil lately, perhaps in a belated attempt to fulfill some of the energy import quotas agreed with Washington last year or perhaps in a bid to take advantage of supercheap U.S. crude. But the buying spree is about to end.
This month alone, China could import between 867,000 bpd, according to Reuters’ Refinitiv data, and 900,000 bpd, according to oilfield services company Canary. And then the flow of U.S. oil into China will decline, and it will decline sharply, Reuters’ Clyde Russell wrote this week. The reason as simple as it is worrying. The U.S. crude that has been going into China since July—and reaching major records in terms of volume, with the July daily average alone up 139 percent on the year—was bought much earlier, in April, May, and June. This was oil bought when West Texas Intermediate was trading at multi-year lows. By June it had recovered to about $40, Russell notes, so purchases since then have been more modest.
But here is the worrying part: much of the oil price recovery we’ve seen since this spring was caused by rising Chinese imports, including from the United States. Rising imports are traditionally taken to mean improving demand, but this time this has not been the case entirely. Chinese refiners have been stocking up on crude more because of the historically low prices than to satisfy growing demand.
In all fairness, oil demand has been seen as recovering pretty faster after the end of the lockdowns there but since China is not an isolated economy, its refining industry needs a recovery elsewhere in Asia and globally, and this has been slow in coming. Now, none other than OPEC is warning that a second wave of Covid-19 infections—already visible in parts of Europe, for example—will further slow down demand recovery, which will unavoidably affect Chinese oil imports.
According to Canary CEO Dan Eberhart, however, China will continue buying a lot of U.S. oil ahead of the U.S. elections. Beijing, Eberhart wrote for Forbes, would want to stay on Trump’s good side as much as possible in case he wins a second term. Reuters’ Russell is of a different opinion: he cites preliminary import estimates that point to a sharp decline in October to 500,000 bpd of U.S. oil flowing into China and a further decline in November. For Russell, it’s all about the price. For Eberhart, it’s also about politics and the trade war.
“While importing U.S. crude often doesn’t make commercial sense for China’s refiners, Beijing has directed them to continue buying as the election approaches—a sign that China knows that the trade issue with Trump will only intensify if the president wins a second term,” Eberhart wrote.
Yet not everyone agrees that politics will trump the economy. In fact, data from Chinese market research firms suggests private refiners, if not the state giants, may sharply cut their intake of foreign oil this month and next. After all, storage space is finite and Chinese energy companies have been filling it up for months now while demand has been improving but is yet to return to growth mode, even in China with its rebounding economy.
It looks like the dominant opinion is for a decline in Chinese oil imports, from the U.S. and elsewhere, in the coming months, not least because of lower refinery run rates. Reuters reported earlier this week refinery runs are set to be cut by 5-10 percent beginning this month because of a crude oil glut and weak fuel export margins. This would mean more pressure on prices. And this is not all. Some analysts expect that China may start selling the oil it bought on the cheap in the spring. Now that would be really bad news for oil prices.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Irina Slav is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.
On Wednesday the trap sprang shut, as Judge Baraitser insisted the witnesses must finish next week, and that no time would be permitted for preparation of closing arguments, which must be heard the immediate following Monday. This brought the closest the defence have come to a protest, with the defence pointing out they have still not addressed the new superseding indictment, and that the judge refused their request for an adjournment before witness hearings started, to give them time to do so.
Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence also pointed out that there had been numerous witnesses whose evidence had to be taken into account, and the written closing submissions had to be physically prepared with reference to the transcripts and other supporting evidence from the trial. Baraitser countered that the defence had given her 200 pages of opening argument and she did not see that much more could be needed. Fitzgerald, who is an old fashioned gentleman in the very nicest sense of those words, struggled to express his puzzlement that all of the evidence since opening arguments could be dismissed as unnecessary and of no effect.
I fear that all over London a very hard rain is now falling on those who for a lifetime have worked within institutions of liberal democracy that at least broadly and usually used to operate within the governance of their own professed principles. It has been clear to me from Day 1 that I am watching a charade unfold. It is not in the least a shock to me that Baraitser does not think anything beyond the written opening arguments has any effect. I have again and again reported to you that, where rulings have to be made, she has brought them into court pre-written, before hearing the arguments before her.
I strongly expect the final decision was made in this case even before opening arguments were received.
The plan of the US Government throughout has been to limit the information available to the public and limit the effective access to a wider public of what information is available. Thus we have seen the extreme restrictions on both physical and video access. A complicit mainstream media has ensured those of us who know what is happening are very few in the wider population.
Even my blog has never been so systematically subject to shadowbanning from Twitter and Facebook as now. Normally about 50% of my blog readers arrive from Twitter and 40% from Facebook. During the trial it has been 3% from Twitter and 9% from Facebook. That is a fall from 90% to 12%. In the February hearings Facebook and Twitter were between them sending me over 200,000 readers a day. Now they are between them sending me 3,000 readers a day. To be plain that is very much less than my normal daily traffic from them just in ordinary times. It is the insidious nature of this censorship that is especially sinister – people believe they have successfully shared my articles on Twitter and Facebook, while those corporations hide from them that in fact it went into nobody’s timeline. My own family have not been getting their notifications of my posts on either platform.
The US Government responded to Baraitser’s pronouncement enthusiastically with the suggestion that closing arguments did not ought to be heard AT ALL. They ought merely to be submitted in writing, perhaps a week after final witnesses. Baraitser appeared eager to agree with this. A ruling is expected today. Let me add that two days ago I noticed the defence really had missed an important moment to stand up to her, when the direction of her railroading became evident. It appears that because of the ground the defence already conceded at that stage, Noam Chomsky is one of the witnesses from whom we now will not hear.
I am afraid I am not going to give you a substantive account of Wednesday’s witnesses. I have decided that the intimate details of Julian’s medical history and condition ought not to be subject to further public curiosity. I know I cannot call back what others have published – and the court is going to consider press requests for the entire medical records before it. But I have to do what I believe is right.
I will say that for the defence, Dr Quinton Deeley appeared. Dr Deeley is Senior Lecturer in Social Behaviour and Neurodevelopment at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience (IOPPN), King’s College London and Consultant Neuropsychiatrist in the National Autism Unit. He is co-author of the Royal College Report on the Management of Autism.
Dr Deeley after overseeing the standard test and extensive consultation with Julian Assange and tracing of history, had made a clear diagnosis which encompassed Asperger’s. He described Julian as high-functioning autistic. There followed the usual disgraceful display by James Lewis QC, attempting to pick apart the diagnosis trait by trait, and employing such tactics as “well, you are not looking me in the eye, so does that make you autistic?”. He really did. I am not making this up.
I should say more about Lewis, who is a strange character. Privately very affable, he adopts a tasteless and impolite aggression in cross-examination that looks very unusual indeed. He adopts peculiar postures. After asking aggressive questions, he strikes poses of theatrical pugilism. For example he puts arms akimbo, thrusts out his chin, and bounces himself up on his feet to the extent that his heels actually leave the floor, while looking round at the courtroom in apparent triumph, his gaze pausing to fix that of the judge occasionally. These gestures almost always involve throwing back one or both front panels of his jacket.
I think this is some kind of unconscious alpha male signalling in progress, and all these psychiatrists around might link it to his lack of height. It is display behaviour but not really very successful. Lewis has grown a full set during lockdown and he appears strikingly like a chorus matelot in a small town production of HMS Pinafore.
There is a large part of me that wants to give details of the cross-examination because Deeley handled Lewis superbly, giving calm and reasoned replies and not conceding anything to Lewis’s clumsy attempts to dismantle his diagnosis. Lewis effectively argued Julian’s achievements would be impossible with autism while Deeley differed. But there is no way to retell it without going into the discussion of medical detail I do not wish to give. I will however tell you that Julian’s father John told me that Julian has long known he has Asperger’s and will cheerfully say so.
The second psychiatrist on Wednesday, Dr Seena Fazel, Professor of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, was the first prosecution witness we have heard from. He struck me as an honest and conscientious man and made reasonable points, well. There was a great deal of common ground between Prof Fazel and the defence psychiatrists, and I think it is fair to say that his major point was that Julian’s future medical state would depend greatly on the conditions he was held in with regard to isolation, and on hope or despair dependent on his future prospects.
Here Lewis was keen to paint an Elysian picture. As ever, he fell back on the affidavit of US Assistant attorney Gordon Kromberg, who described the holiday camp that is the ADX maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where the prosecution say Julian will probably be incarcerated on conviction.
You will recall this is the jail that was described as a “living hell” and a “fate worse than death” by its own warden. Lewis invited Prof Fazel to agree this regime would not cause medical problems for Julian, and to his credit Prof Fazel, despite being a prosecution witness, declined to be used in this way, saying that it would be necessary to find out how many of Kromberg’s claims were true in practice, and what was the quality of this provision. Fazel was unwilling to buy in to lies about this notorious facility.
Lewis was disingenuous because he knows, and the prosecution have conceded, that if convicted Julian would most likely be kept in H block at the ADX under “Special Administrative Measures.” If he had read on a few paragraphs in Kromberg’s affidavit he would have come to the regime Julian would actually be held under:
So let us be clear about this. William Barr decides who is subjected to this regime and when it may be ameliorated. For at least the first twelve months you are in solitary confinement locked in your cell, and allowed out only three times a week just to shower. You are permitted no visits and two phone calls a month. After twelve months this can be ameliorated – and we will hear evidence this is rare – to allow three phone calls a month, and brief release from the cell five times a week to exercise, still in absolute isolation. We have heard evidence this exercise period is usually around 3am. After an indeterminate number of years you may, or may not, be allowed to meet another human being.
Behind Baraitser’s chilly disdain, behind Lewis’s theatrical postures, this hell on Earth is what these people are planning to do to Julian. They are calmly discussing how definitely it will kill him, in full knowledge that it is death in life in any event. I sit in the public gallery, perched eight feet above them all, watching the interaction of the characters in this masque, as the lawyers pile up their bundles of papers or stare into their laptops, as Lewis and Fitzgerald exchange pleasantries, as the friendly clerks try to make the IT systems work, and my mind swims in horrified disbelief. They are discussing a fate for my friend as horrible as that of the thousands who over 500 years were dragged from this very spot and strung up outside. They are all chatting and working away as though we were a normal part of civilised society.
Then I go back to my hotel room, type it all up and post it. The governments who are destroying Julian have through their agencies pushed the huge corporations who now control the major internet traffic gateways, to ensure my pained and grieving account is seen by very few. My screams of pain and horror are deadened by thick padded walls. We are all locked in.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
The World Wildlife Foundation, in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London, recently issued an eye-popping description of the forces of humanity versus life in nature, the Living Planet Report 2020, but the report should really be entitled the Dying Planet Report 2020 because that’s what’s happening in the real world. Not much remains alive.
The report, released September 10th, describes how the over-exploitation of ecological resources by humanity from 1970 to 2016 has contributed to a 68% plunge in wild vertebrate populations, inclusive of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish.
The report offers a fix-it: “Bending the Curve Initiative,” described in more detail to follow. The causes of collapse are found in human recklessness and/or neglect of ecosystems. It’s partially fixable (maybe) but don’t hold your breath.
What if stocks plunged 68%? What then? Why, of course, that is an all-hands-on-deck panic scenario with the Federal Reserve Bank repeatedly pressing “a white hot printing press button,” hopefully, avoiding destructive deflationary forces looming in the background. But, an astounding jaw-dropping 68% loss of vertebrates doesn’t seem to budge the panic needle nearly enough to count.
Of special note, according to the Report, tropical sub-regions were clobbered, hit hard with 94% loss of vertebrate life, which is essentially total extinction. For comparison purposes, the worst extinction event in history, the Permian-Triassic, aka: the Great Dying, of 252 million years ago took down 96% of marine life and has been classified as “global annihilation.”
According to the Report, on a worldwide basis, two-thirds (2/3rds) of wild vertebrate life has vanished in only 46 years or within one-half a human lifetime. That is mind-boggling, and it is indicative of misguided mindlessness, prompting a query of what the next 46 years will bring. What remains is an operative question?
According to the report:
“Until 1970, humanity’s Ecological Footprint was smaller than the Earth’s rate of regeneration. To feed and fuel our 21st century, we are overusing the Earth’s biocapacity by at least 56%.” (Report, page 6) Meaning, we’ve gone from equilibrium to a huge deficit of 50% in less than 50 years. Putting it mildly, that’s terrifying!
As stated in the Report, we’re effectively using and abusing and trampling the equivalence of one and one-half planets. How long does that last? The experience of the past 46 years provides an answer, which is: Not much longer.
The denuding, destructing of natural biodiversity is almost beyond description, certainly beyond human comprehension, which may be a big part of the problem of recognition. Still, by and large, people read the World Wildlife Foundation report and continue on with business as usual. This lackadaisical behavior by the public has been ongoing for decades and not likely to end anytime soon. Therefore, an eureka moment of radical change in farming practices and ecosystem husbandry is almost too much to wish for after years, and years, of preaching by environmentalists about the ills associated with the anthropogenic growth machine.
In all, with ever-faster approaching finality, and worldwide failure to act to save the planet, the answer may be that people must learn to adapt to a deteriorating world.
More to the point, the Report is “an extermination report.” Consider the opening sentence:
“At a time when the world is reeling from the deepest global disruption and health crisis of a lifetime, this year’s Living Planet Report provides unequivocal and alarming evidence that nature is unraveling and that our planet is flashing red warning signs of vital natural systems failure.” (Report, page 4)
Accordingly, unequivocally “nature is unraveling.” And, the planet is “flashing red warning signs of vital natural systems failure.”
Why repeat that disheartening info? Simply put, it demands repeating over and over again. Yes, “nature is unraveling.” And, by all indications, time is short as “flashing red warning signs” are crying for help. But, will it happen? Or, does biz as usual rattle onwards towards total extinction of life way ahead of anybody’s best guess, which, based upon how rapidly the forces of the anthropocene are gobbling up the countryside, could be within current lifetimes. But, honestly, who knows when?
Still, with great hope but not enough fanfare, the Report proposes a new research initiative called “Bending the Curve Initiative” to reverse biodiversity loss via (1) unprecedented conservation measures and (2) a total remake of food production techniques.
One of the upshots of the breakdown in nature is the issue of “adequate food for humanity.” Accordingly:
“Where and how we produce food is one of the biggest human-caused threats to nature and to our ecosystems, making the transformation of our global food system more important than ever,” Ibid
Which implies the end of rainforests obliteration, the end of industrial farming, full stop, eliminating mono-crop farming, and “stopping dead in its tracks” the use of toxic, deadly insecticides, which kill crucial life-originating ecosystems by bucketloads, as for example, 75% loss of flying insects over 27 years in nature reserves in portions of Europe (Source: Krefeld Entomological Society, est. 1905).
What kills 75% of flying insects?
Additionally, the Report recognizes the necessity of “transformation of the prevailing economic system.” Meaning, a transformation away from the radical infinite growth hormones that are attached to the world’s lowest offshore wages and lowest offshore regulations as an outgrowth of neoliberalism, which is rapidly destroying the world. It’s a terminal illness that’s fully recognized around the world as “progress.” But, its unrelenting disregard for the health of ecosystems and for workers’ rights makes it a serial killer.
The wonderful world of nature is not part of the neoliberal capitalistic formula for success. In fact, nature with its life-sourcing ecosystems is treated like an adversary or like one more prop to use and abuse on the way to infinite progress. Really?
The Report alerts to the dangers of a “business as usual world,” an epithet that is also found throughout climate change literature. These warnings of impending loss of ecosystems, and by extension survival of Homo sapiens, depict a biosphere on a hot seat never before seen throughout human history. In fact, there is no time in recorded history that compares to the dangers immediately ahead. The most common watchword used by scientists is “unprecedented.” The change happens so rapidly, so powerfully. It’s unprecedented.
Meanwhile, people are shielded from the complexities, and heartaches, of collapsing ecosystems in today’s world by the artificiality of living a life of steel, glass, wood, cement, as the surrounding world collapses in a virtual sea of untested chemicals.
In the end, humans are the last vertebrates on the planet to directly feel and experience the impact of climate change and ecosystems collapsing. All of the other vertebrates are first in line. Maybe that’s for the best.
Still, how many more 68% plunges in wild vertebrate populations can civilized society handle and remain sane and well fed?
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Robert Hunziker, MA, economic history DePaul University, awarded membership in Pi Gamma Mu International Academic Honor Society in Social Sciences is a freelance writer and environmental journalist who has over 200 articles published, including several translated into foreign languages, appearing in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He has been interviewed on numerous FM radio programs, as well as television.
Studies show that where fire is on the increase in Amazonia, biodiversity is altered, with unique rainforest flora and fauna — and vital ecological services — diminished.
***
The number of fires burning in standing Amazon rainforest spiked dramatically in recent weeks, threatening the forest’s biodiversity — a richness of flora and fauna not adapted to withstand the flames.
Of all major fires detected in the Amazon this year, 43% were in standing forests, as of Sept 21, (up from only 13% in August) according to the non-profit MAAP. The forest burned is estimated at roughly 4.6 million acres (1.8 million hectares) — an area about three-fifths the size of Belgium.
Fires do not occur naturally in the Amazon rainforest. So, for fires to burn in a standing forest there, a few things must happen, namely a dry year along with lots of ignition sources on neighboring lands. These sources — almost exclusively human caused — can arise from runaway agricultural fires (routinely used to burn off croplands and pastures to remove pests, for example), or from blazes set intentionally to clear land following deforestation, much of it illegal.
“It’s difficult to know what ‘typical’ is when it comes to fire in the Amazon,” Jos Barlow, a professor of conservation science at Lancaster University, UK, told Mongabay. Barlow, who has been studying Amazon fires for over two decades, added: “Last year… we had lots of deforestation fires…. whereas, this year, it does seem to be that the fires are burning more areas of standing forest, which is a huge concern.”
The Amazon fires that drew international attention in 2019 largely followed a pattern of recent deforestation, driven by landgrabbers, emboldened by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s pro-agribusiness rhetoric. In February, more than 1,200 scientists signed a letter, stating that, “the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro is dismantling the country’s social–environmental policies.”
In comments to the United Nations this week, Bolsonaro said that the country has, “the best environmental legislation on the planet,” and that, “the fires practically occur in the same places… where peasants and Indians burn their fields in already deforested areas.” He provided no evidence for this claim.
Analysis by MAAP, NASA, INPE and others show a widespread pattern of fires throughout the Brazilian Amazon that includes significant illegal burning within conserved areas and Indigenous reserves — doing serious harm in the most biodiverse country in the world.
High-resolution satellite images show the before (left panel) on September 8, 2020, and after (right panel) on September 13, 2020, of a recent major fire in the Brazilian Amazon (Mato Grosso state). Image shows the surrounding matrix of forest fires, recently deforested area fires, and cropland fires. Photo courtesy of Planet/MAAP.
When it burns, what happens to life in the forest?
The rainforest burns slowly. A fire line could advance just 300 meters (984 feet) in 24 hours, Barlow says. Such slowly moving burns give large mobile animals plenty of time to flee. But where to? The choices are to burrow, head to water, or move into other areas. Most animals cannot simply shift into the territory of another without consequence: be that violence from a competitor, or simply a lack of resources like food and shelter. Unfortunately, the research on the impacts of such flight is limited.
“We don’t really know what happens to the larger animals that are forced to move into other territories,” Barlow said. “So, presumably, at some point, there’s a reduction in population size, because you can’t just have more animals in an area.”
Primates, for example, may get trapped in islands of unburned vegetation in the burnt forest, persisting on remaining food until they are forced to risk travel into foreign habitat. Fires in 2019 burned through the habitat of a recently discovered species, the Mura’s saddleback tamarin. But the effects on its population are unknown.
Image on the right: A brown howler monkey (Alouatta guariba) in Brazil. Larger animals can escape slow-moving fires but may be pushed into territories where they face competition for limited resources. Image by Peter Schoen via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY SA 2.0)
“Who can survive the flames? We know arthropods nesting in the soil usually do very well,” Lucas N. Paolucci, a professor of biology at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Brazil, told Mongabay in an email. “But several others, like litter-dwelling invertebrates, some birds, small mammals and snakes frequently die directly due to flames.”
“You do see the small invertebrates trying to flee the flames and obviously they don’t survive,” Barlow said. “We’ve come across forest floor tortoises and [turtles] with burns scars on their shells. So, some animals do get affected and do burn.” But how many animals may die in this year’s extensive blazes, no one can say.
It is known that rainforest trees are especially vulnerable to fire. Because fire is a relatively new, and foreign element in the Amazon, the forest and the life within it have not evolved to withstand the flames. Tropical trees, for instance, lack the thick bark of a temperate fire adapted species such as sequoias or pines. A rainforest fire, burning the forest for the first time, kills most small trees and seedlings and can kill 50% of large trees. Seeds in the soil heated to high temperatures can lose their ability to germinate.
An Amazon rainforest tree in Peru. A healthy forest has a largely closed canopy. Photo by Rhett A. Butler
While bigger trees may not be immediately killed, fire damage to a trunk can cause a mortal wound, allowing pathogens to enter the trunk. These trees then take years to die. But as they succumb, they open the canopy, making surviving trees more susceptible to being knocked over in wind storms. When those large trees fall, the dark rainforest understory is compromised, with devastating consequences for the biota which has evolved in deep shade.
Barlow and his colleagues found that after Amazon forest fires, flora changes radically. Understory specialist birds, which feed in the leaf litter, “basically disappeared” with populations still not recovering ten years later. This finding is not surprising, he says, because a decade after fire, tropical forests look very different, with less biomass and an open canopy.
Image below: A royal flycatcher (Onychorhynchus coronatus) is an understory specialist in the Amazon understory. Photo by Philip Stouffer.
One study indicated that the abundance and types of dung beetle species were altered in burned Amazon forests. Dung beetles play a vital role in nutrient cycling and seed dispersal and a decline in their diversity has cascading effects on the ecosystem.
In a large experimental study, forest plots that were burned several times saw a decline in the abundance of specialist forest ant species. These species disperse seeds, play specific roles in the forest food chain, and work the soil via their burrowing. After fires, these specialist ant species were replaced by an influx of ant communities from more open-habitat areas such as savannas. The loss of these specialized forest species means the loss of the specialized work they do.
In the same experimental burn area, a different study found similar patterns of species loss for butterflies, with forest specialists decreasing in burnt areas. There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating that fire is a threat with long-term consequences to animals and plants that require the cool, moist, understory microclimate of the Amazon forest.
How do forests recover?
Because forest fires are a newer phenomenon in the Amazon, scientists are still not sure how long it takes forests there to fully recover, or even if they do. It is not surprising for researchers to examine a forest in the years after a fire and find a loss in biodiversity, but the fate of the animals on land and in the water, as well as the role of that biodiversity in supporting forest recovery, remain a mystery.
As researchers examine these landscapes, surprises emerge. For example, lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris), a large fruit-eating mammal that looks somewhat like a pig crossed with an elephant, may assist with the natural recovery of burned forests, Paolucci’s team found in a recent study. Tapirs travel and defecate more frequently in degraded forests, dispersing up to three times as many seeds in degraded forests.
However, these tapir experiments involve small experimental fires and occur close to unburned forests. “What happens in a fragmented landscape when a burnt area is not adjacent to an unburned patch?” Barlow asks. “Where are the seed sources going to come from then? And how does the forest recover when you don’t have forest connectivity or the ability for the large game and the birds to help disperse the seeds?”
In areas that have burned multiple times, or in areas with large amounts of deforestation and little connectivity, with little chance to recover, the forest changes from a closed canopy primary forest to, what Barlow describes as, “essentially open scrubby bamboo and vine dominated vegetation, which is very, very flammable.” This landscape, now devoid of game, food and medicines, is “of very low value to local people as well as most forest species.”
Aerial view of the Amazon rainforest canopy. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.
“The Amazon is like a bubble… if the trees are intact, it keeps moisture under the canopy in the forest,” Ernesto Alvarado, a professor of wildland fire sciences at the University of Washington said. Logging, roads, deforestation, and fires can pop this moisture bubble. “You open the canopy, right? It’s like a bunch of holes in the bubble, and now the moisture is better escaping and the forest becomes drier.”
Also, the Amazon dry season is getting longer and mega-droughts more common, primarily due to climate change and deforestation. Towards the end of the dry season, plants in more seasonal parts of Amazonia must rely not on rain but on water held in the soil to keep on transpiring and releasing moisture into the atmosphere. But when the dry season extends beyond that seen in past years, plants lack soil water, and some shut down their demand for moisture by dropping leaves. This dry leaf litter is ripe for burning when a fire set in a neighboring field blazes out of control.
“All these years when fires took over, plants were water-stressed,” Paulo Brando, a tropical ecologist at the University of California, Irvine, said, “and then, for animals… all sorts of problems, right? Because the resource availability in terms of fruits and energy decrease a lot if you have a combination of droughts and fire.”
The Amazon fires tomorrow
The future of the Amazon rainforest will depend on complex interactions between fire, deforestation, and deepening drought due to climate change, as well as other human causes.
Some scientists warn that the Amazon is nearing a tipping point, when precipitation diminishes until the rainforest transitions into a “derived-savannah.” However, unlike a natural savannah, which is a highly diverse and functioning system, a severely degraded Amazon may look more like, “a very impoverished [ecological] system, less diverse, providing less function,” Brando said.
Fire in the Jaci-Paraná Extractive Reserve, in Porto Velho, Rondônia state, Brazil. Taken 16 Aug, 2020. Photo by Christian Braga / Greenpeace.
The Brazilian Amazon’s southern portion is currently most vulnerable to this forest-to-savannah transformation, especially along the Arc of Deforestation where rainforest meets pasture and cropland, and where several elements, including worsening drought, a prolonged dry season, and someone ready to set the land ablaze, all come together.
One ray of hope: Because Amazon forest fires burn slowly, they are fairly easy to fight with the right resources in place, Barlow says. Brazil has the technology to both predict and monitor fires with accuracy. However, without the political will and investment to do so, the Amazon rainforest, which holds 10% of the planet’s biodiversity, will continue to burn.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Liz Kimbroughis a staff writer for Mongabay. Find her on Twitter @lizkimbrough_
Featured image: Hotspot directly in the forest, next to a freshly deforested area in Alta Floresta, Mato Grosso state, Brazil. Photo by Christian Braga / Greenpeace.
When I reported on the leak of Integrity Initiative documents back in 2018/19 which exposed the extent of the UK’s propaganda war against Russia, I didn’t think it could get much more organised and coordinated than it was. Involving hundreds of journalists and academics across the globe to spin disinformation about Russia and paint the country in as negative a light as possible in the mainstream media, the UK government-funded campaign was as sophisticated as the information war gets. But here we are in 2020, still uncovering the true scope of western government influence on the narrative plugged by the mainstream media. And it doesn’t speak well for our ‘democracy’.
On 8th September the hacker group Anonymous published shocking revelations of how a concerted and organised campaign has been waged to support the anti-government rebels in Syria. One set of documents relates to the NGO ARK, which although brands itself as a humanitarian organisation, effectively functions as a vehicle for western-led regime change. In one of the papers it states:
‘ARK’s focus since 2012 has been delivering highly effective, politically- and conflict-sensitive Syria programming for the governments of the United Kingdom, United States, Denmark, Canada, Japan and the European Union.’
This is a somewhat different picture from the mission statement on their website:
‘ARK was created in order to assist the most vulnerable, particularly refugees, the displaced and those impacted by conflict and instability.’
Sounds lovely doesn’t it? But this organisation is far from charitable. In the last few years it has received $66 million from western governments to drive regime change in Syria. It boasts of relationships with Syrian opposition members that have been built up ‘over the years’, and we know that they date as far back as 2011, if not before, as its documents read ‘ARK staff are in regular contact with activists and civil society actors whom they initially met during the outbreak of protests in spring 2011’.
ARK also had a targeted propaganda campaign package for Syrian media. In the documents it is discussed how best to reach Syrian audiences to promote the regime change narrative, with success being achieved it is said, on digital media such as Facebook, but also through broadcast media. If there was ever any evidence that the mainstream media was bought, this is it:
‘To achieve a strong digital presence, ARK/Accadian will draw on its existing relationships with media organisations…Using its existing networks and connections, ARK/Accadian would target key Syrian satellite TV networks (Orient TV, Souria al-Shaab, Souria al-Ghad, Barada) and regional Arabic networks and primary international channels.’
What is extraordinary is the repeated use of the word ‘independent’ to describe the media outlets being promoted by ARK. The authors are clearly blissfully unaware that by interfering in the media of this sovereign state to promote the overthrow of the government, the media can hardly be termed ‘independent’ but instead an arm of the British state and its own particular political aims and objectives. The document reads:
‘Since ARK first began training citizen journalists in 2012, as part of HMG’s efforts to develop professional, 2 independent and self-sufficient local Syrian media organisations, it has trained more than 200 journalists and has been a key implementer of a multi-donor effort to develop media platforms inside Syria, maintaining close links with these organisations’.
It boasts having produced over 2000 news reports for various mainstream Arabic channels, including Orient, Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera and Sky Arabic which it says are ‘broadcast almost every day’. Some of the statements are pure, straightforward admissions of propaganda:
‘ARK has also facilitated contact between the Syrian opposition and international media, seeking to address the perception of an uncoordinated opposition by fostering the image of a united front.’
It is extraordinary the sheer brassneck with which this author writes about manipulating the Syrian public through propaganda. It has the stated goal of creating the impression of a united Syrian opposition, which of course there never was.
These documents contrast with the UK government’s website on ‘what it is doing in Syria’. There we are told that British involvement is limited to humanitarian aid as it ‘suspended all services of the British Embassy in Damascus and withdrew all diplomatic personnel from Syria in 2012’. The Anonymous hack shows that this is far from the truth. There has clearly been considerable British involvement in fostering regime change in Syria. If it weren’t for these leaked documents, the UK taxpayer would remain completely ignorant as to what foreign meddling is being carried out in his or her name.
For more detailed analysis and context of the hacked documents, please see Ben Norton’s report on The GrayZone.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
An Anonymous Nurse SPEAKS OUT! Just a shame they can’t put their name to it out of fear of losing their job.
This is from a nurse.
***
I work in the healthcare field. Here’s the problem, we are testing people for any strain of a Coronavirus. Not specifically for COVID-19. There are no reliable tests for a specific COVID-19 virus. There are no reliable agencies or media outlets for reporting numbers of actual COVID-19 virus cases. This needs to be addressed first and foremost. Every action and reaction to COVID-19 is based on totally flawed data and we simply cannot make accurate assessments.
This is why you’re hearing that most people with COVID-19 are showing nothing more than cold/flu like symptoms. That’s because most Coronavirus strains are nothing more than cold/flu like symptoms.
The few actual novel Coronavirus cases do have some worse respiratory responses, but still have a very promising recovery rate, especially for those without prior issues.
The ‘gold standard’ in testing for COVID-19 is laboratory isolated/purified coronavirus particles free from any contaminants and particles that look like viruses but are not, that have been proven to be the cause of the syndrome known as COVID-19 and obtained by using proper viral isolation methods and controls (not PCR that is currently being used or Serology /antibody tests which do not detect virus as such).
PCR basically takes a sample of your cells and amplifies any DNA to look for ‘viral sequences’, i.e. bits of non-human DNA that seem to match parts of a known viral genome.
The problem is the test is known not to work.
It uses ‘amplification’ which means taking a very very tiny amount of DNA and growing it exponentially until it can be analyzed. Obviously any minute contaminations in the sample will also be amplified leading to potentially gross errors of discovery.
Additionally, it’s only looking for partial viral sequences, not whole genomes, so identifying a single pathogen is next to impossible even if you ignore the other issues.
The Mickey Mouse test kits being sent out to hospitals, at best, tell analysts you have some viral DNA in your cells. Which most of us do, most of the time. It may tell you the viral sequence is related to a specific type of virus – say the huge family of coronavirus. But that’s all.
The idea these kits can isolate a specific virus like COVID-19 is nonsense.And that’s not even getting into the other issue – viral load.
If you remember the PCR works by amplifying minute amounts of DNA. It therefore is useless at telling you how much virus you may have.
And that’s the only question that really matters when it comes to diagnosing illness. Everyone will have a few virus kicking round in their system at any time, and most will not cause illness because their quantities are too small. For a virus to sicken you you need a lot of it, a massive amount of it. But PCR does not test viral load and therefore can’t determine if a osteogenesis is present in sufficient quantities to sicken you.
If you feel sick and get a PCR test any random virus DNA might be identified even if they aren’t at all involved in your sickness which leads to false diagnosis.
And coronavirus are incredibly common. A large percentage of the world human population will have covi DNA in them in small quantities even if they are perfectly well or sick with some other pathogen.
Do you see where this is going yet?
If you want to create a totally false panic about a totally false pandemic – pick a coronavirus.
They are incredibly common and there’s tons of them. A very high percentage of people who have become sick by other means (flu, bacterial pneumonia, anything) will have a positive PCR test for covi even if you’re doing them properly and ruling out contamination, simply because covis are so common.
There are hundreds of thousands of flu and pneumonia victims in hospitals throughout the world at any one time.
All you need to do is select the sickest of these in a single location – say Wuhan – administer PCR tests to them and claim anyone showing viral sequences similar to a coronavirus (which will inevitably be quite a few) is suffering from a ‘new’ disease.
Since you already selected the sickest flu cases a fairly high proportion of your sample will go on to die.
You can then say this ‘new’ virus has a CFR higher than the flu and use this to infuse more concern and do more tests which will of course produce more ‘cases’, which expands the testing, which produces yet more ‘cases’ and so on and so on.
Before long you have your ‘pandemic’, and all you have done is use a simple test kit trick to convert the worst flu and pneumonia cases into something new that doesn’t actually exist.
Now just run the same scam in other countries. Making sure to keep the fear message running high so that people will feel panicky and less able to think critically.
Your only problem is going to be that – due to the fact there is no actual new deadly pathogen but just regular sick people you are mislabelling – your case numbers, and especially your deaths, are going to be way too low for a real new deadly virus pandemic.
But you can stop people pointing this out in several ways.
1. You can claim this is just the beginning and more deaths are imminent. Use this as an excuse to quarantine everyone and then claim the quarantine prevented the expected millions of dead.
2. You can tell people that ‘minimizing’ the dangers is irresponsible and bully them into not talking about numbers.
3. You can talk crap about made up numbers hoping to blind people with pseudoscience.
4. You can start testing well people (who, of course, will also likely have shreds of coronavirus DNA in them) and thus inflate your ‘case figures’ with ‘asymptomatic carriers’ (you will of course have to spin that to sound deadly even though any virologist knows the more symptom-less cases you have the less deadly is your pathogen.
Take these simple steps and you can have your own entirely manufactured pandemic up and running in weeks.
They can not “confirm” something for which there is no accurate test.”
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Na madrugada desta última segunda-feira, dia 21 de setembro, um grande número de jovens do movimento da Greve pelo Clima na Suíça, ocupou a Praça Federal em Berna, situada em frente ao Palácio Federal – daí seu nome – sede do Governo e do Parlamento da Suíça. Os jovens montaram diversas barracas e estruturas onde podiam se realizar encontros e pequenos eventos. Esta ocupação foi extremamente bem organizada e respeitosa das condições atuais em que nos encontramos – praticamente TODOS os jovens e envolvidos na ocupação usavam máscaras devido à pandemia do COVID-19. O principal objetivo desta ação era atrair a atenção para a urgência da crise climática e exigir do Governo Suíço medidas concretas contra o aquecimento global. Como escrito no documento que apresenta as exigênciasdo movimento ( ver em inglês em: Rise Up for Change)
“ Já fazem muitos anos que milhões de pessoas têm se mobilizado contra a ameaça de catástrofe climática. No entanto, a urgência do problema não se reflete nos procedimentos políticos da Suíça. Consideramos que nós, que estamos preocupados com um futuro para todos em que valha a pena viver, estamos sendo deixados para trás. Áreas como a agricultura e o setor financeiro são completamente ignorados na política climática da Suíça, apesar de serem largamente responsáveis pela degradação ambiental e pela crise climática. Ao mesmo tempo, os líderes da economia ainda estão apegados ao conto de fadas do crescimento eterno. Eles não estão interessados no nosso futuro e só querem aumentar a sua riqueza e influência.
O atual sistema político e econômico falhou completamente em dar uma resposta à crise climática. Temos de nos libertar dos sistemas sociais, econômicos e políticos que exploram o homem e a natureza com o único propósito de enriquecer alguns. É tempo de redefinir a nossa sociedade para que seja possível um futuro ecológico e social.” (Tradução do Autor)
Este pequeno texto coloca o problema com a clareza e a transparência necessárias. Em relação à Suíça, uma única frase deste documento, no capítulo sobre ‘Justiça Climática’, coloca a exigência central com a mesma clareza:
“A Suíça deve reconhecer a sua responsabilidade histórica e global pela crise climática e agir de acordo.”
Nada mais justo. Como era de se esperar, a ação dos jovens ativistas pelo clima, em frente à sede do Governo da Suíça, atraiu a atenção da imprensa, dos políticos e da sociedade em geral. Várias TVs da Suíça, nas principais línguas do país – alemão, francês e italiano – enviaram equipes ao local.
No acampamento havia um clima de alegria e de paz, muitas cores por todos os lados. Em nenhuma momento a ocupação colocou qualquer impedimento ao funcioanamento do Governo Suíço, não havia bloqueio à entrada do Palácio Federal. Tampouco houve qualquer atividade violenta ou mesmo barulho que pudesse atrapalhar o funcioamento do Parlamento que estava – e ainda está – em sessão.
Porém uma antiga lei da cidade de Berna proíbe manifestações na Praça Federal quando o Parlamento se encontra em sessão. Uma outra lei também proíbe que se acampe na praça.
Os partidos políticos de direita e muitos cidadãos suíços, incomodados pela manifestação dos jovens, passaram a exercer uma agressividade comparável – se não em números, pois a Suíça tem uma população muito menor que a do Brasil, pelo menos em virulência– ao que assitimos com o Bolsonarismo no Brasil. A maioria da imprensa foihostilem relação ao movimento – como no Brasil em relação ao PT… – e vários parlamentares, sob o pretexto das leis que mencionei acima, exigiram que a admistração da cidade de Berna, responsável pela segurança do Palácio Federal e do Parlamento, expulsasse imediatamente os manifestantes. O governo da cidade procurou em primeiro lugar um diálogo com os ativistas, propondo que eles se retirassem. Mas os ativistas anunciaram sua intenção de manter a ocupação até a próxima sexta-feria, com o objetivo de lembrar ao Parlamento em sessão a necessidade de confrontar-se com a realidade das mudanças climáticas.
Na madrugada desta quarta-feira a força policial invadiu o acampamento e expulsou os manifestantes que resistiram apenas pela não-violência, mantendo-se sentados, cantando, até serem retirados.
A questão da ilegalidade da ocupação foi o tema principal das dicussões, não a questão climática! Alguns bravos parlamentares suíços, em defesa dos ativistas, apontaram para esta contradição, como a Parlamentar do Partido Social -Democrata Jacqueline Badran de Zurique que deu um depoimento ao vivo na TV da Suíça, face a jornalistas que insistiam em perguntar sobre a questão da legalidade da ocupação, ignorando propositadamente a causa do movimento.
É preciso dizer que há muitas coisas que são absolutamente legais mas não são éticas. O acaparamento de fontes de água pela empresa Suíça Nestlé em todo o mundo para o engarrafamento, prudizindo uma enorme quantida de lixo plástico pelo qual a empresa não tem nenhuma responsabilidade,é absolutamente legal, mas não é ético. A produção e venda de venenos pela empresa Syngenta – que contamina os solos e a água em vários países, que provoca o envenenamento e a morte de inúmeros agricultores e camponeses – é absolutamente legal. E no caso da Syngenta é até mesmo legal que a empresa continue a produzir e exportar para os países do sul tipos de pesticidas declarados ilegais pela Suíça e pela União Européia!
O confronto em Berna entre os ativistas e a lei foi um conflito entre a ética e a legalidade. Há certamente uma ética acima mesmo das leis e os direitos danatureza e a sobrevivência do planetadevem ter precedência sobre qualquer outra questão, mesmo de ordem legal.
Por enquanto, nesta batalha na capital da Suíça, a pequenez e a mediocridade venceram a esperança , a alegria e a racionalidade. Não haveria nenhum problema em deixar os manifestantes permancerem pacificamente na Praça Federal e usar a manifestação como uma oportunidade – como vários parlamentares suíços tentaram – de diálogo mais amplo com a juventude e sobre a urgência do problema da mudança climática. Seria uma demonstração de responsabilidade, de preocupação real com o destino do planeta e de cuidado com as futuras gerações.
Mas a histeria capitalista alimentada por parte da imprensa e pela direita suíça, vocejando em todos os meiose exigindo respeito à LEI e à ORDEMfoi mais forte. Muitos dos parlamentares suíços que defenderam o movimento dos jovens sofreram críticas e agressões inacreditáveis nas redes socias, exatamente como o Bolsonarismo mais exaltado se comporta no Brasil. Pois na base do Bolsonarismo há a mesma histeria capitalista presente em todos os movimentos da extrema direita no mundo, o pânico e a indignação diante de qualquer questionamento sobre a prioridade do capital, a raiva incontida e visceral por quem querque ouse defender outras prioridades – seja o meio ambiente, a dignidade do trabalho, os direitos humanos ou o próprio planeta. Pois o capital quer e precisa estar acima de tudo, acima da própria vida. Cabe à natureza se submeter aos ditames do capital, e, junto com a maioria dos seres humanos, curvar-se à exploração capitalista e ao domíno do lucro acima de tudo. Os jovens em Berna defendiam outras prioridades e com sua alegria, inteligência e determinação, apontavam outros caminhos, por isso tinham que ser expulsos. Mas esta foi apenas uma batalha, a luta continua. De um modo ou de outro uma brecha se abriu também na sociedade suíça, o debate vai continuar.
E do Brasil veio uma mensagem de solidariedade inesperada e fundamental para o movimento suíço: uma carta de apoio endereçada ao próprio Governo Suíço, enviada ao Embaixador da Suíça em Berna, assinada por lideranças de alguns dos principais movimentos sociais do Brasil como o MST e por 54 Parlamentares brasileiros. Esta carta já está em poder dos ativistas e de muitos parlamentares e personalidades suíças. (Sobre a carta ver artigo: brasildefato.com.br)
E deste modo nos unimos na luta contra o Bolsonarismo, contra o capitalismo desvairado e histérico, tanto no Brasil como na Suíça. Pelo futuro do Planeta, com generosidade, ternura , coragem e determinação.
For China, a strategic alliance with the EU will further develop the Belt and Road Initiative across the vast expanse of Eurasia. For the EU, China can help “the Old Continent” once again become a major global political and economic center as it once was before the rise of the US in the “New World.” At the virtual summit held on September 14 between Chinese President Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Council President Charles Michel and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the necessity to “accelerate negotiations on an investment agreement between China and the EU and close the deal this year” was emphasized. However, there are many problems they face – the trade war with the US, EU tensions with Turkey, and more importantly, the differences on economic, political and diplomatic issues.
The Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin think tank described the EU as “a ship adrift without navigation tools” because of its “total inability to forecast” events and the lack of “operational instruments” to solve its problems, internally and internationally. Indeed, the European Commission has enormous difficulties in defining a common policy for current challenges, as can be seen with the huge split between Mediterranean and Northern Europe in how to deal with Turkish aggression against EU members Greece and Cyprus.
Chinese state-owned Global Times, considered the international mouthpiece of Beijing, wrote after the summit that despite
“ideological differences between China and Europe […] the two sides continue to expand their cooperation and interactions. This is the general trend of China-Europe ties. The desire of both sides to keep strengthening the trend is real. It is a wish not only at the national levels, but also from their companies.”
Xi called on the EU to adhere to peaceful coexistence, multilateralism, dialogue and openness. However, the EU insists on demanding that barriers to European investments in China be eliminated and on having greater access to the Chinese market, especially in areas reserved only for Chinese companies. The European Commissioner stressed that “it is not a question of meeting halfway, it is a question of rebalancing the asymmetry and a question of openness of our respective markets. China has to convince us that it is worth having an investment agreement.”
Andrew Small, an EU-China expert with the US-based German Marshall Fund, said
“The language and tone from the European side is continuing its shift into the new era, in which competition and rivalry are coming to the fore, and the areas of partnership look limited and difficult.”
Although China is a vital commercial partner for Germany, they are also undoubtedly competitors, which could explain why the EU, led by Berlin, vocally condemns Beijing’s alleged human rights abuses against the Uighur minority in China’s western Xinjiang province and the crackdown on Hong Kong rioters. According to renowned Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, the EU’s focus on events in Xinjiang and Hong Kong is to pressure China to open its markets.
“if China demands Europe to solve its issues of migration, offer solutions to countries like France, Spain and the UK in dealing with separatist movements, and demands that Europe cope with the COVID-19 epidemic in certain specific ways, because reducing infections and deaths is a crucial human rights issue for China, would Europe accept it? Would Europeans feel offended?”
Signing the investment agreement before the end of the year will not be easy since the differences between the EU and China is massive. Strong US pressure against Europe in its dispute with Huawei, as well as with Germany over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia, have managed to weaken European interests. For Europe, its priorities in its relations with Beijing is market access to help alleviate the acute crisis experienced by entire industries because of the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to being able to project itself as an independent power on the global stage and in its relations with China.
For China, the European market is vital due to the volume and quality of its consumption. Expanding the Belt and Road Initiative into Europe is one of the main pillars of China’s 21st century foreign policy.
Moscow will also benefit from strong relations between the EU and China since much of the Belt and Road Initiative will pass through Russian territory, serving as a connection between East Asia and Western Europe. An uninterrupted trade corridor across Eurasia will lessen European dependence on the US. This too would be in the minds of European leaders as they try and reassert their own independence in the Age of Multipolarity – but this cannot be achieved without China, meaning the major differences between Beijing and Brussels must be resolved in the swiftest manner.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
The confrontation with Russia and the decision to boost America’s military presence in Syria is but a microcosm of America’s wider struggle to maintain its invasive primacy over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Founded to ensure peace and security for all peoples, the UN enabled the Israeli conquest of Palestine, beginning with the adoption in November 1947 of resolution 181 to partition this Arab country, allocating 55 per cent to European Jewish colonists and 45 per cent to indigenous Palestinians.
Some of those plotting to advance the vaccine agenda sought to sideline the adoption of hydroxychloroquine as the main remedy for COVID-19. They resorted to a well-organized crime that seemed to fly the banner of science while actually defying its evidence-based requirements.
Iran has supplied Ansar Allah (also known as the Houthis) with technical expertise and know-how, a spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said on September 22.
In a stunning development, a former Chief Science Officer for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says “there is no science to suggest a second wave should happen.” The “Big Pharma” insider asserts that false positive results from inherently unreliable COVID tests are being used to manufacture a “second wave” based on “new cases.”
The dramatic reversal in official U.S. policy regarding facial masking is epitomized by, first, the May, 2020 report of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in which facial masks are acknowledged to be ineffective in blocking viral transmission, this followed two months later by CDC’s inexplicable July, 2020 recommendation that the public be masked.
In testimony before US Congress on March 11, 2020, members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee were informed that estimated mortality for the novel coronavirus was 10-times higher than for seasonal influenza. Additional evidence, however, suggests the validity of this estimation could benefit from vetting for biases and miscalculations.
Can you help us keep up the work we do? Namely, bring you the important news overlooked or censored by the mainstream media and fight the corporate and government propaganda, the purpose of which is, more than ever, to “fabricate consent” and advocate war for profit.
We thank all the readers who have contributed to our work by making donations or becoming members.
If you have the means to make a small or substantial donation to contribute to our fight for truth, peace and justice around the world, your gesture would be much appreciated.
About a month ago, I sent a copy of the the “No mask? We won’t ask” poster to Wolfgang and Almut Wurzbacher, owners of Pfenning’s Organic & More. Their family-run, organic grocer offers home delivery to customers in the Kitchener-Waterloo region of Southwestern Ontario. The poster was designed for small businesses to post (where legal) in their front window beside the “wear a face diaper” propaganda the government forces them to show us.
In their district (like most of Canada) one can claim an exemption from mask wearing for physical or mental health reasons — or even religious reasons. Thus, the staff at Pfenning’s Organic is able to avoid being forced to collect and diffuse bacteria in front of their nose; likewise they don’t make such unhygienic requests of their customers.
Notwithstanding, they still had to put a government issued sign telling their customers to wear a mask. “Yes, we do need the official signs or we would be in big trouble,” says Almut. “We tape them to the bottom of the entrance door. They never said where on the door to post them.” At eye-level, instead, they have placed the “No mask? We won’t ask” sign.
Soon after posting it, Almut wrote me: “You and us created a commotion on Twitter… many people called us regarding seeing [the “No mask? We won’t ask” sign] in our window [in a Tweeted photo]. Must have been a customer posting it.”
Indeed, the following Tweet was made:
Almut added: “[We have] had calls from all over Ontario and new customers are coming in because of the sign.”
Can you imagine? Canadians seeking a place to buy food without being ridiculed. Canada is probably one of the most “inclusive” countries in the world. A non-binary transvestite, with blue skin and five fishing hooks piercing each lip, can walk into a store without being ridiculed in anyway. Yet if you dare enter many stores (not Pfennings!) with a friendly and smiling face you could easily be subject to public shaming because of a fashionable public health dictate that lacks any scientific evidence.
In addition to new customers, the sign also attracted the attention of the local by-law officer. “We had three complaints to the law by customers,” Almut told me. “Had the by-law officer here, standing and studying [the “No Mask? We won’t ask”] sign for a while. She did come in but could not fault us for anything.”
Whatever freedoms the laws of your land let you exercise, exercise them to the max. Let’s look to the courageous example of Pfenning’s Organic & More. They didn’t let snitching customers intimidate them into bowing down to tyrannical dictates (masquerading as protection) from their local government. Almut and Wolfgang stood their ground, have retained their liberty to operate their store with humanity and kindness; while attracting new, like-minded customers who can come (without a mask) to their store, or order online and have Wolfgang (without a mask) deliver to their door.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, as well as naturopaths, chiropractors and Ayurvedic physicians. He publishes the COVID-19(84) Red Pill Daily Briefs – an email-based newsletter dedicated to preventing the governments of the world from using an exaggerated pandemic as an excuse to violate our freedom, health, privacy, livelihood and humanity. He is also writing a novel, Brave New Normal: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: (From left to right) Owners Wolfgang and Almut Wurzbacher with staff Andrea and Kate of Pfenning’s Organic & More holding the “No mask? We won’t ask” sign they display in their shop window.
A recent altercation between Russian forces and US occupiers in northeastern Syria helped highlight the increasingly tenuous position Washington holds not only in Syria but across the entire Middle East.
After attempting to block Russian military vehicles, US forces found themselves being literally plowed out of the way with overwhelming Russian airpower hovering overhead.
After complaining that American troops were “injured” in the incident and condemning Russia for “unsafe and unprofessional actions,” the United States announced that it was deploying more troops and military equipment to bolster its illegal occupation of Syrian territory.
The US also claimed its continued presence in Syria officially seeks to confront and eliminate the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS), but official accounts maintained by the US government and the US Department of Defense on an almost daily basis provide a wide and every-shifting number of excuses.
On September 20th “Inherent Resolve’s” Twitter account would announce:
Bradley Fighting Vehicles provide the rapid flexibility needed to protect critical petroleum resources.
The region the US occupies is also where the majority of Syria’s petroleum is extracted and America’s “protection” of these resources is part of a wider strategy – not to fight ISIS – but to deny the Syrian state which has eliminated ISIS from all territory it controls – both energy and revenue from its own natural resources.
In essence, the US is in Syria weakening the Syrian government who has led the fight against ISIS and provoking confrontations with Russia who has been key in aiding Damascus against ISIS, Al Nusra, and other affiliates of Al Qaeda.
The US had been in Syria a full year before Russia’s invitation by Damascus to aid in security operations against ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliates in 2015. The Russian military promptly began bombing supply lines feeding ISIS and other terrorist groups from across the Syrian border in Turkey. ISIS’ fighting capacity rapidly collapsed and remains isolated in pockets made inaccessible by America’s continued occupation of Syrian territory.
A Microcosm of America’s Wider MENA Failure
The confrontation with Russia and the decision to boost America’s military presence in Syria is but a microcosm of America’s wider struggle to maintain its invasive primacy over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Despite beginning the 21st century with an overwhelming military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and expanding its involvement in the region in 2011 through the US-engineered “Arab Spring” – US power and influence has visibly waned. Its attempts to control virtually every aspect of Iraq’s internal politics has faltered in the face of Iraqis seeking alternative ties with neighboring Iran.
While Washington successfully toppled the government of Libya in 2011, it has failed to do likewise in Syria. Not only has it failed to oust the Syrian government, it has transformed the nation into a vector for alternative emerging global powers to contest and roll back US influence in the region. This most notably includes Russia but also Iran and China.
If at the turn of the century hundreds of thousands of US troops could not transform the region favorably for Washington, its provocative but small actions in eastern Syrian will unlikely make any difference now.
Against this backdrop is also Washington’s ongoing confrontation with Iran. It’s creation then predictable withdrawal from its “Iran Nuclear Deal” has exposed the US as a malign global player acting in bad faith. Its attempts to pressure and isolate Iran have increasingly transformed into a wider campaign to pressure and coerce a growing number of nations around the globle interested in trade and normal relations with Tehran.
The US has fewer and fewer cards to play in the region and more specifically in Syria. If Syria and its allies can find ways around crippling economic sanctions the US is using to ravage the Syrian public and undermine Damascus’ ability to ensure ISIS’ defeat endures – the US will be left with empty hands, overextended, and exposed in Syria’s eastern deserts.
The more confrontational Washington gets with Syria, Russia, and China the easier it will be for each of these nations to justify actions taken to preserve and protect their collective interests – as well as win over a larger percent of the global community to support them in these efforts. Stability is a central key to prosperity. America’s foreign policy has fully revealed itself to be a global engine of instability that is costing even its own supposed allies socioeconomic opportunities and stability.
US foreign policy is unsustainable. Those still aiding it including Turkey are preparing for direct confrontations Syria and its allies will actively avoid – and if successful – will simply surround, cut off, and let whither the presence of these uninvited foreign forces occupying Syrian territory. While it is too late for America’s “Syria project” to ever succeed in its original goal of regime change, it is not still too late for it to divest from its spiteful campaign to sink the region, its people, and their allies into a quagmire that will only further leave Washington and its allies isolated and impotent upon the global stage.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from NEO
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narratives on Syria.
The UN is marking its 75th birthday with a virtual opening of the 75th session of the General Assembly. While UN agencies have carried out successful humanitarian assistance and research programmes, peacekeeping missions and efforts to protect the rights of peoples subjected to repression and abuse, the UN’s political organs, the General Assembly and Security Council, have failed to keep the peace and deal with flagrant injustice. Palestine continues to be its most infamous catastrophe as the UN has colluded in the dispossession of that country’s indigenous population.
Among the 49 original signatories of the UN Charter, which came into effect in October 1945, were Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Today the UN has 193 full members. Palestine, a non-member observer state, languishes while waiting to be admitted as the 194th full member.
Palestine is not recognised as a state by the US, Israel, Britain, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Spain, Greece, Canada and the usual supporters of Western positions. Both Russia and China recognised the state of Palestine in 1988 following the declaration of Palestinian independence during a meeting of the Palestinian-parliament-in-exile in Algiers. Of the 193 UN members, 138 have recognised Palestine as compared with 162 which have recognised Israel, although it occupies the whole of Palestine illegally.
Founded to ensure peace and security for all peoples, the UN enabled the Israeli conquest of Palestine, beginning with the adoption in November 1947 of resolution 181 to partition this Arab country, allocating 55 per cent to European Jewish colonists and 45 per cent to indigenous Palestinians. The partition resolution was adopted by the General Assembly only after the US exerted pressure on countries which had intended to vote against or abstain. It is interesting to note that the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries voted in favour while Britain, which promoted Zionist colonisation of Palestine, abstained. Naturally, Arab UN members and the US voted against along with India, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece and Cuba.
A “recommendation” rather than a mandatory measure, the partition resolution provided dubious legitimacy for the Zionist take-over of 55 per cent of Palestine but not the seizure of 78 per cent of the country and the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in the months that followed 181’s adoption. This can only be seen as a monumental failure of the international body founded to maintain global peace and security and preserve human rights. There was a feeble effort to make partial amends to the Palestinians in December 1948 with the adoption of resolution 194 which, in paragraph 11, called for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees and compensation for their losses.
This resolution has fallen by the wayside. Although Israeli UN membership was conditioned on its implementation of resolutions 181 and 194, this requirement was ignored by Israel and its mainly Western supporters.
In late 1949 the General Assembly created an independent humanitarian organisation, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to provide shelter, food, medical care, education and welfare for homeless Palestinians. The intention was that they would ultimately be absorbed by countries where they had taken refuge or elsewhere outside Palestine. This did not happen because Palestinians remained, and insist on remaining, Palestinians and demand the right of self determination in Palestine and the “right of return” laid down in resolution 194 and under international law.
In June 1967, when Israel conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the remaining 22 per cent of Palestine, another 250,000 Palestinians fled their homeland. Today five million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, 1.6 million Palestinians are second or third class citizens of Israel, 5.6 million Palestinian refugees in this region depend on UNRWA, and millions more are scattered across the world.
In November 1967, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 242 affirming the principle of the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and calling on Israel to withdraw from territory it occupied during the June war. This resolution became the basis for Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestinian peace deals with Israel under the land-for-peace formula and, the expectation that Palestinians would establish their state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in accordance with the “two state solution”.
However, no pressure was ever exerted on Israel, as occupying power, to withdraw its forces and end its colonisation of Palestinian territory. The UN, which has the authority to impose sanctions on countries which reject its directives, has done nothing but generate piles of paper by passing resolutions which Israel and its supporters have ignored.
Over seven decades, the international community abided by a consensus that UNRWA should be preserved as a means of ensuring a modicum of stability in countries hosting Palestinian refugees. Israel’s main financier and most powerful backer, the US, paid about one third of the UNRWA budget of $1.2 billion. Donald Trump not only violated the consensus by cutting funding for the agency but also halting aid to all Palestinian institutions.
He recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, severed contacts with the Palestinian Authority, and put forward a so-called “peace plan” which would give Israel another 30 per cent of the West Bank and provide for limited Palestinian governance in disconnected enclaves in the West Bank which would remain under Israeli control. The UN has done nothing to reaffirm the consensus, leaving the Palestinians poor and adrift.
The UN’s failure to deal decisively with Israel’s conquest of Palestine has emboldened other aggressors. It served as a model for Turkey’s invasion, occupation and colonisation of northern Cyprus between 1974 and today.
All too clearly, the UN, the servant of powerful Western countries led by the US, operates on the basis of horrendous double standards. For example, the UN has imposed punitive sanctions on Iran for embarking on nuclear research without producing weaponry while Israel, which has scores of nuclear weapons, is not sanctioned for its flagrant expropriation and dispossession of the Palestinian people. This is a far greater offense against humanity than enriching uranium for power plants and medical isotopes under the watchful eyes of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
The quest to claim the prestige of science is one of the major themes accompanying the rush of the rich and powerful to seize more wealth and political clout during the so-called “great reset” presently underway. Much controversy has surrounded the use of hydroxychloroquine as a cheap and readily available remedy for COVID-19.
Hydroxychloroquine is a well-known medicine used to treat many ailments. When properly administered along with zinc, hydroxychloroquine represents a threat to the agendas being pushed forward by Bill Gates and Big Pharma. Many powerful interests have a significant stake in imposing a compulsory vaccine on humanity as the universalized remedy for the much-exaggerated incursions of COVID-19.
Some of those plotting to advance the vaccine agenda sought to sideline the adoption of hydroxychloroquine as the main remedy for COVID-19. They resorted to a well-organized crime that seemed to fly the banner of science while actually defying its evidence-based requirements.
This fraud involved the presentation of concocted evidence calculated to support a false conclusion about the alleged health dangers attending the use of hydroxychloroquine. The various elements of the fraud were put together by an organization known as Surgisphere. The operatives of this criminal outfit managed to get their dishonest study published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journals, Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.
The discovery of the fraud put into disrepute the peer-review process of two pillars of published scholarship. Attentive expert readers managed to see through the fabrication of data that was presented as if it was based on findings derived from scientific assessment of about 100,000 patients and over 600 hospitals. Before the fraudulent nature of Surgisphere’s study was exposed, however, its publication resulted in the sidelining of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 remedy in many jurisdictions including Alberta.
The Surgisphere/hydroxycloroquine fraud was quickly recognized as one of the most monumental deceptions of scientific research ever conducted. This episode serves as one of the best examples that those pushing an agenda of compulsory vaccines as the best means of combating COVID-19 are the foes rather than the friends of the scientific method.
Many aspects of this crisis are more manufactured than real. The Bill Gates funded and dominated World Health Organization engaged in politics rather than in the scientific conduct of public health when it declared in March that COVID-19 formed the basis of a global pandemic.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Iran has supplied Ansar Allah (also known as the Houthis) with technical expertise and know-how, a spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said on September 22. However, the general claimed that Yemeni forces “have learned how to produce missiles, drones and weapons in Yemen on their own” and Iran has no military presence in the region. Shekarchi described what Iran is doing across the region as “spiritual and advisory presence”.
“Countries of the resistance front have armies and forces themselves. We provide them with advisory help. In order to share our experience with the people of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, our skilled forces go there and assist them, but this is the people and armies of these countries who stand against the enemies in practice,” the general stated.
Apparently, it was Iranian “spiritual” power which helped the Houthis to regularly pound targets inside Saudi Arabia, including the Kingdom’s capital and key oil infrastructure objects, with missiles and drones, despite the years of Saudi-led air bombing campaigns against Houthi forces and the land and maritime blockade of the areas controlled by them.
Iran also denies reports of weapon and equipment supplies to the Houthis. This means missile components must have appeared in the Houthis’ hands and their missile and combat drone arsenal been expanded thanks to some unrevealed technological breakthrough behind the scenes.
Thus, the military cooperation deal officially signed between the Houthi government and Iran in 2019 was just a formality to highlight the sides’ unity on the frontline in the battle against ‘Zionist plots’ in the region, which became especially obvious in 2020 when the Houthi leadership, alongside with Iran, appeared to be among the most vocal critics of the UAE-Israel and Bahrain-Israel normalization deals. According to them, these developments are a part of the wider Zionist campaign against Middle Eastern nations.
Meanwhile in Syria, sources loyal to the Turkish-backed terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) claim that its members had killed a Russian special forces operator on the contact line near Kafra Nabl in southern Idlib.
According to militants and their supporters, they repelled an attack of pro-government forces there inflicting multiple casualties on the Syrian Army and its allies. Photos showing the equipment of the alleged Russian special forces operator were also released by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham media wing.
Pro-government sources did not report any notable clashes in the area last night or active operations involving Russian units there. According to them, the incident involving the Russian special forces operator may have happened several weeks (or even months) ago. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and their Turkish sponsors probably opted to use the obtained photos as propaganda to create a media victory in September to compensate for the losses and destruction caused by the Russian bombing campaign against the terrorist infrastructure in Idlib.
Details of the incident and the fate of the alleged Russian special forces operator involved in it remain unclear. In general, the Russian Defense Ministry reports all casualties among Russian service members deployed. Further, the militants did not show the body of the supposedly killed fighter. Therefore, if the incident really did take place, the Russian soldier most likely received injures and was then evacuated.
Meanwhile, the Russian Aerospace Forces continued bombing terrorist infrastructure in the Idlib region. Therefore, al-Qaeda and its Turkish sponsors are forced to console themselves with media victories.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
September 24th, 2020 by President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez
September 22, 2020
Mr. Secretary General,
Mr. President,
A global pandemic has changed everyday life drastically. From one day to the next, millions of people get infected and thousands die even when their life expectancy was longer thanks to development. Hospital systems with high-level services have collapsed and the health structures of poor countries are affected by their chronic lack of capacity. Drastic quarantines are turning the most populated cities into deserted areas. Social life is non-existent except in the digital networks. Theaters, discos, galleries and even schools are closed or being readjusted.
Our borders have been closed, our economies are shrinking and our reserves are dwindling. Life is experiencing a radical redesigning of age-old ways and uncertainty is replacing certainty. Even close friends cannot recognize each other due to the masks that protect us from the contagion. Everything is changing.
Like finding a solution to the pandemic, it is already urgent to democratize this indispensable Organization so that it effectively meets the needs and aspirations of all peoples.
The sought-after right of humanity to live in peace and security, with justice and freedom, the basis for unity among nations, is constantly under threat.
Over 1.9 trillion dollars are being squandered today in a senseless arms race promoted by the aggressive and war-mongering policies of imperialism, whose leader is the present government of the US, which accounts for 38 percent of the global military expenditure.
We are referring to a markedly aggressive and morally corrupt regime that despises and attacks multilateralism, uses financial blackmailing in its relations with UN system agencies and that, in a show of unprecedented overbearance, has withdrawn from the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council.
Paradoxically, the country where the UN headquarters is located is also staying away from fundamental international treaties such as the Paris Agreement on climate change; it rejects the nuclear agreement with Iran reached by consensus; it promotes trade wars; it ends its commitment with international disarmament control instruments; it militarizes cyberspace; it expands coercion and unilateral sanctions against those who do not bend to its designs and sponsors the forcible overthrow of sovereign governments through non-conventional war methods.
Along such line of action, which ignores the old principles of peaceful co-existence and respect of the right of others´ to self-determination as the guarantee for peace, the Donald Trump administration it also manipulating, with subversive aims, cooperation in the sphere of democracy and human rights, while in its own territory there is an abundance of practically uncontrolled expressions of hatred, racism, police brutality and irregularities in the election system and as to the voting rights of citizens
It is urgent to reform the UN. This powerful organization, which emerged after the loss of millions of lives in two world wars and as a result of a world understanding of the importance of dialogue, negotiation, cooperation and international law, must not postpone any further its updating and democratization. Today´s world needs the UN just as the one where it came into being did.
Something that is very special and profound has failed, as evidenced by the daily and permanent violation of the UN Charter principles, and by the ever-increasing use or threat of use of force in international relations.
There is no way to sustain any longer, as if it were natural and unshakable, an unequal, unjust and anti-democratic International order where selfishness prevails over solidarity and the mean interests of a powerful minority over the legitimate aspirations of millions of people.
Notwithstanding the dissatisfactions and the demands for change that, together with other states and millions of citizens in the world, we are presenting to the UN, the Cuban Revolution shall always uphold the existence of the Organization, to which we owe the little but indispensable multilateralism that is surviving imperial overbearance.
More than once, at this very forum, Cuba has reiterated its willingness to cooperate with the democratization of the UN and the upholding of international cooperation, that can be saved only by it. As stated by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, and I quote: “The international community shall always count on Cuba´s honest voice in the face of injustice, inequality, underdevelopment, discrimination and manipulation, and for the establishment of a more just and equitable international order which really centers on human beings, their dignity and wellbeing.” End of quote.
Mr. President,
Coming back to the seriousness of the present situation, which many blame only on the COVID-19 pandemic, I think it is essential to say that its impact is by far overflowing the health sphere.
Due to its nefarious sequels, impressive death toll and damages to the world economy and the deterioration of social development levels, the spreading of the pandemic in the last few months brings anguish and despair to leaders and citizens in practically all nations.
But the multidimensional crisis it has unleashed clearly shows the great mistake of the dehumanized policies fully imposed by the market dictatorship.
Today, we are witnessing with sadness the disaster the world has been led to by the irrational and unsustainable production and consumption system of capitalism, decades of an unjust international order and the implementation of ruthless and rampant neoliberalism, which has widened inequalities and sacrificed the right of peoples to development.
Unlike excluding neoliberalism, which puts aside and discards millions of human beings and condemns them to survive on the leftovers from the banquet of the richest one percent, the COVID-19 virus does not discriminate between them, but its devastating economic and social effects shall be lethal among the most vulnerable and those with lower incomes, whether they live in the underdeveloped world or in the pockets of poverty of big industrial cities.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projections, the 690 million people who were going hungry in 2019 might be joined by a further 130 million as a result of the economic recession caused by the pandemic. Studies by the International Labor Organization (ILO) say that over 305 million jobs have been lost and that more than 1.6 billion workers are having their livelihoods at stake.
We cannot face COVID-19, hunger, unemployment and the growing economic and social inequalities between individuals and countries as unrelated phenomena. There is an urgency to implement integrated policies that prioritize human beings and not economic profits or political advantages.
It would a crime to postpone decisions that are for yesterday and for today. It is imperative to promote solidarity and international cooperation to lessen the impact.
Only the UN, with its world membership, has the required authority and reach to resume the just struggle to write off the uncollectable foreign debt which, aggravated by the social and economic effects of the pandemic, is threatening the survival of the peoples of the South.
Mr. President,
The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and the early signs that it would bring a pandemic did not catch Cuba off guard.
With the decade-long experience of facing terrible epidemics, some of which were provoked deliberately as part of the permanent war against our political project, we immediately implemented a series of measures based on our main capabilities and strengths, namely, a well-structured socialist state that cares for the health of its citizens, a highly-skilled human capital and a society with much people´s involvement in its decision-making and problem solving processes.
The implementation of those measures, combined with the knowledge accrued for over 60 years of great efforts to create and expand a high-quality and universal health system, plus scientific research and development, has made it possible not only to preserve the right to health of all citizens, without exception, but also to be in a better position to face the pandemic.
We have been able to do it in spite of the harsh restrictions of the long economic, commercial and financial blockade being imposed by the US government, which has been brutally tightened in the last two years, even at these pandemic times, something that shows it is the essential component of the hostile US Cuba policy.
The aggressiveness of the blockade has reached a qualitatively higher level that further asserts its role as the real and determining impediment to the managing of the economy and the development of our country. The US government has intensified in particular its harassment of Cuban financial transactions and, beginning in 2019, it has been adopting measures that violate international law to deprive the Cuban people of the possibility to buy fuels they need for their everyday activities and for their development.
So as to damage and demonize the Cuban Revolution and others it defines as adversaries, the US has been publishing spurious lists having no legitimacy by which it abrogates itself the right to impose unilateral coercive measures and unfounded qualifications on the world.
Every week, that government issues statements against Cuba or imposes new restrictions. Paradoxically, however, it has refused to term as terrorist the attack that was carried out against the Cuban embassy in Washington on April 30, 2020, when an individual armed with an assault rifle fired over 30 rounds against the diplomatic mission and later admitted to his intent to kill.
We denounce the double standards of the US government in the fight against terror and demand a public condemnation of that brutal attack.
We demand a cease of the hostility and slanderous campaign against the altruistic work by Cuba´s international medical cooperation that, with much prestige and verifiable results, has contributed to saving hundreds of lives and lowering the impact of the disease in many countries. Prominent international figures and highly prestigious social organizations have acknowledged the humanistic work done by the “Henry Reeve” International Medical Brigade for Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics and called for the Nobel Peace Prize to be given to them.
While the US government is ignoring the call to combine efforts to fight the pandemic and it withdraws from the WHO, Cuba, in response to requests made to it, and guided by the profound solidarity and humanistic vocation of its people, is expanding its cooperation by sending over 3 700 cooperation workers distributed in 46 medical brigades to 39 countries and territories hit by COVID-19.
In this sense, we condemn the gangster blackmailing by the US to pressure the Pan-American Health Organization so as to make that regional agency a tool for its morbid aggression against our country. As usual, the force of truth shall do away with lies, and facts and protagonists shall go down in history as they should. Cuba´s example shall prevail.
Our dedicated health workers, the pride of a nation brought up in José Marti’s idea that My Country Is Humanity, shall be awarded the prize their noble hearts deserve, or not; but it has been years since they won the recognition of the peoples blessed by their health work.
The US government is not hiding its intention to enforce new and harsher aggressive measures against Cuba in the next few months. We state once again before the international community that our people, who take pride in their history and are committed to the ideals and achievements of the Revolution, shall resist and overcome.
Mr. President,
The attempts at imposing neocolonial domination on Our America by publicly declaring the present value of the Monroe Doctrine contravene the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.
We wish to restate publicly in this virtual forum that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela shall always have the solidarity of Cuba in the face of attempts at destabilizing and subverting constitutional order and the civic-military unity and at destroying the work started by Commander Hugo Chávez Frías and continued by President Nicolás Maduro Moros to benefit the Venezuelan people.
We also reject US actions aimed at destabilizing the Republic of Nicaragua and ratify our invariable solidarity with its people and government led by Commander Daniel Ortega.
We state our solidarity with the Caribbean nations, which are demanding just reparations for the horrors of slavery and the slave trade, in a world where racial discrimination and the repression against Afro-descendant communities have been on the rise.
We reaffirm our historical commitment with the self-determination and independence of the sisterly people of Puerto Rico.
We support the legitimate claim by Argentina to its sovereignty over the Malvinas, the South Sandwich and South Georgia islands.
We reiterate our commitment with peace in Colombia and the conviction that dialogue between the parties is the road to achieving stable and lasting peace in that country.
We support the search for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the situation imposed on Syria, with no foreign interference and in full respect of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
We demand a just solution to the conflict in the Middle East, which must include the real exercise by the Palestinian people of the inalienable right to build their own State within the borders prior to 1967 and with East Jerusalem as its capital. We reject Israel´s attempts to annex more territories in the West Bank.
We state our solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran in the face of US aggressive escalation.
We reaffirm our invariable solidarity with the Sahrawi people.
We strongly condemn the unilateral and unjust sanctions against the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea.
We restate our rejection of the intention to expand NATO´s presence to the Russian borders and the imposition of unilateral and unjust sanctions against Russia.
We reject foreign interference into the internal affairs of the Republic of Belarus and reiterate our solidarity with the legitimate president of that country, Aleksandr Lukashenko, and the sisterly people of Belarus.
We condemn the interference into the internal affairs of the People´s Republic of China and oppose any attempt to harm its territorial integrity and its sovereignty.
Mr. President,
Today´s disturbing circumstances have led to the fact that, for the first time in the 75-year-long history of the United Nations, we have had to meet in a non- presential format.
Cuba´s scientific community, another source of pride for the nation that, since the triumph of the Revolution of the just, announced to the world its intention to be a country of men and women of science, is working non-stop on one of the first vaccines that are going through clinical trials in the world.
Its creators and other researchers and experts, in coordination with the health system, are writing protocols on healthcare for infected persons, recovered patients and the risk population that have allowed us to keep epidemic statistics of around 80% of infected persons saved and a mortality rate below the average in the Americas and the world.
“Doctors and not bombs.” That was announced one day by the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution and chief sponsor of scientific development in Cuba: Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz. That´s our motto. Saving lives and sharing what we are and have, no matter any sacrifice it takes; that is what we are offering to the world from the United Nations, to which we only request to be attuned with the gravity of the present time.
We are Cuba.
Let us strive together to promote peace, solidarity and development.
Thank you very much.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Featured image: Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (Photo: Estudios Revolución)
“A lot of what is published is incorrect.” I’m not allowed to say who made this remark because we were asked to observe Chatham House rules. We were also asked not to take photographs of slides. Those who worked for government agencies pleaded that their comments especially remain unquoted, since the forthcoming UK election meant they were living in “purdah”—a chilling state where severe restrictions on freedom of speech are placed on anyone on the government’s payroll. Why the paranoid concern for secrecy and non-attribution? Because this symposium—on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research, held at the Wellcome Trust in London last week—touched on one of the most sensitive issues in science today: the idea that something has gone fundamentally wrong with one of our greatest human creations.
The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. As one participant put it, “poor methods get results”.
.
The Academy of Medical Sciences, Medical Research Council, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have now put their reputational weight behind an investigation into these questionable research practices. The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours. Our acquiescence to the impact factor fuels an unhealthy competition to win a place in a select few journals. Our love of “significance” pollutes the literature with many a statistical fairy-tale. We reject important confirmations. Journals are not the only miscreants. Universities are in a perpetual struggle for money and talent, endpoints that foster reductive metrics, such as high-impact publication. National assessment procedures, such as the Research Excellence Framework, incentivise bad practices. And individual scientists, including their most senior leaders, do little to alter a research culture that occasionally veers close to misconduct.
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo are issuing calls for damages rendered during European imperialist occupation joining efforts already underway across the continent and the Diaspora
***
During late August, the Central African state of Burundi appealed to the Belgian and German governments to pay reparations for the crimes committed during their colonial occupation of this country during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Burundi joins the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which had already spoken to the issue making similar claims on Belgium, the imperialist power which laid waste to the country from 1876 through the 1960s.
Prior to the recent efforts by Burundi and the DRC, people in the Republic of Namibia and the United Republic of Tanzania filed claims against the German government for their role in the genocide carried out during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Namibia, formerly known as Southwest Africa, the Nama and Herero nations suffered immensely as a result of the mass extermination of their people.
In Tanzania, there were atrocities committed by the German colonial authorities which prompted the rebellion against injustice known as the Maji Maji Revolt of 1905-1907. A similar war of liberation was waged also in Namibia, although in both cases the imperialists were able, through the ruthless use of weaponry, overcome at that time, the resistance of African people.
These demands for reparations are not isolated. There are other countries within the African Diaspora which have also made the same demands.
The International Struggle for Reparations
Of course in the United States, various organizations going back decades have made the call for the payment of reparations for nearly 250 years of African enslavement. Some of these organizations include the Nation of Islam, Republic of New Africa, National Black Economic Development Conference, National Coalition for Black Reparations in America (NCOBRA), among others. Additional demands for reparations are being made for mass killings and displacement as occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, when an estimated 300 African Americans were killed by white mobs including law-enforcement agents.
Even in the Caribbean island-nation of Haiti, after the 12 year rebellion and revolutionary war for independence (1791-1803), the former colonial and slave-owning power of France in 1825 demanded the payment of indemnity for their supposed economic losses during the liberation of the country. Concurrently, successive U.S. administrations in the wake of the Haitian Revolution refused to recognize the African-Caribbean nation diplomatically until 1862, more than a year after the beginning of the Civil War.
Deposed Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide raised the demand for reparations from France based upon the post-colonial history of the country. Aristide was overthrown by a coalition of imperialist states including the U.S., France and Canada in 2004.
On a broader level, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), composed of various governments within the region, has established a Commission to pursue reparations from the imperialist states. The Caribbean Reparations Commission explains its mission on their website saying:
“The CARICOM Reparations Commission is a regional body created to Establish the moral, ethical and legal case for the payment of Reparations by the Governments of all the former colonial powers and the relevant institutions of those countries, to the nations and people of the Caribbean Community for the Crimes against Humanity of Native Genocide, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and a racialized system of chattel Slavery.”
The U.S. had a vested interest in not recognizing Haiti because of its own role in the Atlantic Slave Trade. It was the profits accrued from the involuntary servitude of African people which fueled the rise of industrial capitalism. The fact that the U.S. fought a protracted Civil War which killed nearly a million people in order to end legal enslavement is a clear illustration of the significance of the system to the growth and development of the country. (See this)
With specific reference to Burundi, a report on the actual political situation involving the government says:
“The country’s senate has put together a panel of experts to assess the damage done during colonialism and advise on the cost of damages, according to Radio France International. Burundi plans to send these recommendations to the German and Belgium governments. The country also intends to demand the European countries return stolen historical artifacts and archive material. From 1890, Germany colonized Burundi, which became part of German East Africa.” (See this)
Image on the right: Belgian King Leopold II slaughtered millions of Africans in Congo
As this issue relates to the neighboring DRC, the Belgian colonialists engaged in genocidal policies inside the country for decades. Millions of Congolese were forced to work for the Belgian monarchy and later the colonial government in Brussels. It has been estimated that 8-10 million Congolese people died during the initial colonial engagement from 1876-1908, when after this period, King Leopold II relinquished direct control of the vast and mineral wealthy country to the regime in Brussels.
The African Exponent news service wrote of the continuing colonial and neo-colonial control by imperialism in the DRC that:
“King Leopold later handed Congo to Belgium, and the country perpetuated the evil rule initiated by Leopold, till Congo obtained its independence in 1960. And even after independence, the West connived together to assassinate Patrice Lumumba who had been democratically elected as the first prime minister of the country. In his place the West ensured its proxy, Mobutu Sese Seko got in, and his rule was extremely disastrous to the country as it was characterized by ruthlessness and looting that sounded like fiction.”
A report issued by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent surmised that Belgium should pay reparations to the DRC for the human rights violations committed by the colonial authorities. The Working Group goes as far as to suggest that the problems which have arisen since the independence of the country in June 1960 are a direct result of the legacy of colonialism.
Image below: Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba
Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961), who was the first leader of the independent former Belgian Congo, was overthrown by an alliance of U.S., Belgian and other imperialist powers. These interests deliberately targeted Lumumba and his Congolese National Movement (MNC) for destabilization and liquidation. Although much information has been uncovered about the coup and brutal assassination of Lumumba (1960-1961) and his comrades, no person or entity has ever been held accountable in a court of law.
This report from the Working Group on the historical role of colonialism as well as the racist policies of contemporary Belgian society, emphatically notes:
“[W]ith a view to closing the dark chapter in history and as a means of reconciliation and healing….to issue an apology for the atrocities committed during colonization. The root causes of present-day human rights violations lie in the lack of recognition of the true scope of the violence and injustice of colonization. We are concerned about the human rights situation of people of African descent in Belgium who experience racism and racial discrimination. There is clear evidence that racial discrimination is endemic in institutions in Belgium.” (See this)
Responses by Imperialism to Demands for Reparations and the Way Forward
All of the colonial, neo-colonial and imperialist states charged with human rights violations, genocide and other crimes against the people have either rejected the claims made against them or have provided inadequate responses. The U.S. has never even apologized for the centuries of enslavement and national oppression of African people.
Germany was reported to have made a miniscule offer to Namibia for its colonial atrocities. The Namibian government of President Hage Geingob, the leader of the South-West African People’s Organization (SWAPO), the liberation movement which led the struggle for independence against the settler-colonial apartheid regime, has dismissed the German gestures as insulting.
A report published in an independent newspaper said of the talks between Germany and Namibia did not result in any real offer by Berlin to provide reparations for colonial crimes against humanity. The article emphasizes that:
“A German special envoy in the ongoing genocide negotiations has rejected claims that his country had offered to pay Namibia about €10 million, or N$180 million, as reparations. In June this year, President Hage Geingob said in his state of the nation address that Namibia rejected a €10 million offer by Germany as reparations for the genocide perpetrated by German settlers between 1904 and 1908. This offer was ‘an insult’, according to Geingob. Geingob in June also announced that the genocide talks were at an advance stage and that Germany was ready to apologize to the affected communities. However, Germany is now rejecting Geingob’s claims saying no offer was made for reparations.” (See this)
These developments in Africa, the Caribbean and among African Americans in the U.S. illustrate the convergence of these struggles to hold the racist systems of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism responsible for their crimes historically and in recent decades. African Americans are still consistently targeted by law-enforcement and vigilantes for brutality and assassination.
The existence of these complimentary demands provides even broader openings for international solidarity and organization. Only when there is a worldwide movement aimed at reversing the legacy of imperialism, will there be the possibility of creating a new international system based on genuine equality, self-determination and social justice.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Tanzania Maji Maji warriors as political prisoners of German colonialism; all images in this article are from the author
On issues related to the JCPOA nuclear deal and expiring UN arms embargo on Iran next month, the Trump regime is isolated on the world stage.
Commenting on its unlawful imposition of what it called “snapback” sanctions on Iran, its Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh explained the following:
Nothing in the JCPOA or Security Council Res. 2231 affirming the landmark agreement refers to snapback or a trigger mechanism.
This terminology is a made-in-the USA “forgery…What is stated in the resolution and in the JCPOA is the ‘dispute resolution mechanism.’ ”
Trump regime “maximum pressure” and related actions have no legal standing.
Khatibzadeh stressed that Trump’s America first motto became “America only,” a self-defeatist policy over time.
Last weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif said once the UN arms embargo is lifted in October, “we will be able to satisfy our needs with the help of countries with which we have strategic relations, for example, Russia and China,” adding:
“We can provide for ourselves. We can even export weapons.”
“(W)hen necessary, we can buy from these countries. I doubt that secondary US sanctions will be an obstacle for them.”
On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the following:
“New opportunities will emerge in our cooperation with Iran after the special regime imposed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231 expires on October 18,” adding:
Russian relations with Iran will have “nothing to do with the unlawful and illegal actions of the US (regime), which is trying to intimidate the entire world.”
The previous day, Ryabkov said “(w)e are not afraid of US sanctions. We are used to them. It will not affect our policy in any way,” adding:
“Our cooperation with Iran is multifaceted. Defense cooperation will progress depending on the two countries’ needs and mutual willingness.”
“That said, another (US) executive order will not change our approach.”
Separately, Russian upper house Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee First Deputy head Vladimir Dzhabarov said Moscow will continue cooperation with Iran.
“So let the (Trump regime) impose sanctions, one less, one more…(O)ur military-technical cooperation with Iran will be continued…”
Dzhabarov stressed that Security Council imposed sanctions are legally binding on all nations, not “sanctions of one state” on others.
“(T)he US thinks (it’s a) higher (power) than the UN Security Council,” a policy with no legal validity under the UN Charter and other international law.
Days earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the following:
“There is no such thing as an arms embargo against Iran.”
“The Security Council, when it was adopting the comprehensive Resolution 2231, which endorsed (the JCPOA) settled the nuclear issue for Iran, and this was adopted by consensus under the Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter,” adding:
“The Security Council in that resolution said that the supply of arms to Iran and from Iran would be subject to consideration by the Security Council and that on the 18th of October, 2020 this regime of sales to Iran would stop.”
“There is no embargo, and there would be no limitations whatsoever after the expiration of this timeframe established by the Security Council.”
In July, Lavrov called for “universal condemnation” of the US for its unlawful actions against Iran, including its attempt to undermine the landmark JCPOA nuclear deal.
Last month, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Beijing firmly opposes unlawful “long arm jurisdiction” imposed by the US on other countries.
Analyst Yang Xiyu said China won’t be intimidated by threatened US sanctions.
In January, the South China Morning Post said a Sino/Iran “relationship (is) built on trade, weapons and oil.”
China’s envoy to Iran Chang Hua said Beijing is committed to the bilateral partnership.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China exported $269 million of weapons to Iran from 2008 to 2018 — some indirectly through third parties to help the country’s defense capabilities while the UN arms embargo was in place under SC Res. 2231 (2015).
In 2016, both countries agreed on cooperating militarily to combat terrorism, including by joint Persian Gulf naval exercises.
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif arrived in Moscow for talks with Sergey Lavrov and other Russian officials.
According to Press TV, he’ll “discuss regional issues and matters of mutual interest, including Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal.”
On arrival, Zarif said issues relating to the JCPOA top the agenda for talks — most likely including sales of Russian weapons to Iran once the UN arms embargo expires next month.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
When Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, the US Government burgled the office of his psychiatrist to look for medical evidence to discredit him. Julian Assange has been obliged to submit himself, while in a mentally and physically weakened state and in conditions of the harshest incarceration, to examination by psychiatrists appointed by the US government. He has found the experience intrusive and traumatising. It is a burglary of the mind.
Julian is profoundly worried that his medical history will be used to discredit him and all that he has worked for, to paint the achievements of Wikileaks in promoting open government and citizen knowledge as the fantasy of a deranged mind. I have no doubt this will be tried, but fortunately there has been a real change in public understanding and acknowledgement of mental illness. I do not think Julian’s periodic and infrequent episodes of very serious depression will be successfully portrayed in a bad light, despite the incredibly crass and insensitive attitude displayed today in court by the US Government, who have apparently been bypassed by the change in attitudes of the last few decades.
I discuss this before coming to Tuesday’s evidence because for once my account will be less detailed than others, because I have decided to censor much of what was said. I do this on the grounds that, when it comes to his medical history, Julian’s right to privacy ought not to be abolished by these proceedings. I have discussed this in some detail with Stella Morris. I have of course weighed this against my duty as a journalist to you the reader, and have decided the right to medical privacy is greater, irrespective of what others are publishing. I have therefore given as full an account as I can while omitting all mention of behaviours, of symptoms, and of more personal detail.
I also believe I would take that view irrespective of the identity of the defendant. I am not just being partial to a friend. In all my reporting of these proceedings, of course my friendship with Julian has been something of which I am mindful. But I have invented nothing, nor have I omitted anything maliciously.
I will state firmly and resolutely that my account has been truthful. I do not claim it has been impartial. Because in a case of extreme injustice, truth is not impartial.
The following account tries to give you a fair impression of today’s courtroom events, while omitting the substance and detail of much of the discussion. The single witness all day was the eminent psychiatrist Prof Michael Kopelman (image on the right), who will be familiar to readers of Murder in Samarkand. Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Kings College London and formerly head of psychiatry at Guy’s and St Thomas’s, Prof Kopelman was appointed by the defence (he is not one of the psychiatrists of whom Julian complains, who will give evidence later) and had visited Julian Assange 19 times in Belmarsh Prison. His detailed report concluded that
“I reiterate again that I am as certain as a psychiatrist ever can be that, in the event of imminent extradition, Mr. Assange would indeed find a way to commit suicide,”
Kopelman’s evidence was that his report was based not just on his many consultations with Assange, but on detailed research of his medical records back to childhood, including direct contact with other doctors who had treated Assange including in Australia, and multiple interviews with family and long-term friends. His diagnosis of severe depression was backed by a medical history of such episodes and a startling family history of suicide, possibly indicating genetic disposition.
Prof Kopelman was firm in stating that he did not find Assange to be delusional. Assange’s concerns with being spied upon and plotted against were perfectly rational in the circumstances.
Kopelman had no doubt that Julian was liable to commit suicide if extradited.
“It is the disorder which brings the suicide risk. Extradition is the trigger.”
James Lewis QC cross-examined Professor Kopelman for four hours. As ever, he started by disparaging the witness’s qualifications; Prof Kopelman was a cognitive psychiatrist not a forensic psychiatrist and had not worked in prisons. Prof Kopelman pointed out that he had been practising forensic psychiatry and testifying in numerous courts for over thirty years. When Lewis persisted again and again in querying his credentials, Kopelman had enough and decided to burst out of the bubble of court etiquette:
“I have been doing this for over thirty years and on five or six occasions London solicitors have phoned me up and said that James Lewis QC is acting in an extradition case and is extremely keen to get your services for a report. So I think it is a bit rich for you to stand there now questioning my qualifications.”
This caused really loud laughter in court, which remarkably the judge made no attempt to silence.
The other trick which the prosecution played yet again was to give Prof Kopelman two huge bundles which had, they said, been sent to him that morning and which he said he had never seen – unsurprisingly as he started testifying at 10am. These included substantial items which Prof Kopelman had never seen before but on which he was to be questioned. The first of these was an academic article on malingering which Kopelman was in effect scorned by Lewis for not having read. He said he had read a great many articles on the subject but not this particular one.
Lewis then read several sentences from the article and invited Kopelman to agree with them. These included “clinical skills alone are not sufficient to diagnose malingering” and one to the effect that the clinical team are best placed to detect malingering. Prof Kopelman refused to sign up to either of these propositions without qualification, and several times over the four hours was obliged to refute claims by Lewis that he had done so.
This is another technique continually deployed by the prosecution, seizing upon a single article and trying to give it the status of holy writ, when JStor would doubtless bring out hundreds of contending articles. On the basis of this one article, Lewis was continually to assert and/or insinuate that it was only the prison medical staff who were in a position to judge Assange’s condition. Edward Fitzgerald QC for the defence was later to assert that the article, when it referred to “the clinical team”, was talking of psychiatric hospitals and not prisons. Kopelman declined to comment on the grounds he had not read the article.
Lewis now did another of his standard tricks; attempting to impugn Kopelman’s expertise by insisting he state, without looking it up, what the eight possible diagnostic symptoms of a certain WHO classification of severe depression were. Kopelman simply refused to do this. He said he made a clinical diagnosis of the patient’s condition and only then did he calibrate it against the WHO guidelines for court purposes; and pointed out that he was on some of the WHO committees that wrote these definitions. They were, he said, very political and some of their decisions were strange.
We then entered a very lengthy and detailed process of Lewis going through hundreds of pages of Assange’s prison medical notes and pointing out phrases omitted from Kopelman’s sixteen page synopsis which tended to the view Assange’s mental health was good, while the Professor countered repeatedly that he had included that opinion in shortened form, or that he had also omitted other material that said the opposite. Lewis claimed the synopsis was partial and biased and Kopelman said it was not.
Lewis also pointed out that some of Assange’s medical history from Australia lacked the original medical notes. Kopelman said that this was from the destruction policy of the state of Victoria. Lewis was only prepared to accept history backed by the original medical notes; Kopelman explained these notes themselves referred to earlier episodes, he had consulted Professor Mullen who had treated Julian, and while Lewis may wish to discount accounts of family and friends, to a medical professional that was standard Maudsley method for approaching mental illness history; there was furthermore an account in a book published in 1997.
After lunch Lewis asked Prof Kopelman why his first report had quoted Stella Morris but not mentioned that she was Julian’s partner. Why was he concealing this knowledge from the court? Kopelman replied that Stella and Julian had been very anxious for privacy in the circumstances because of stress on her and the children. Lewis said that Kopelman’s first duty was to the court and this overrode their right to privacy. Kopelman said he had made his decision. His second report mentioned it once it had become public. Lewis asked why he had not explicitly stated they had two children. Kopelman said he thought it best to leave the children out of it.
Lewis asked whether he was hiding this information because having a partner was a safeguard against suicide. Kopelman said that some studies showed suicide was more common in married people. Besides, what we were considering here was stress of separation from partner and children.
Lewis then addressed the reference in Prof Kopelman’s report to the work of Prof Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. Without specifying Professor Melzer’s background or position or even making any mention of the United Nations at all, Lewis read out seven paragraphs of Prof Melzer’s letter to Jeremy Hunt, then UK foreign secretary. These paragraphs addressed the circumstances of Assange’s incarceration in the Embassy and of his continual persecution, including the decision of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Lewis even managed to leave the words “United Nations” out of the name of the working group.
As he read each paragraph, Lewis characterised it as “nonsense”, “rubbish” or “absurd”, and invited Prof Kopelman to comment. Each time Prof Kopelman gave the same reply, that he had only used the work of the psychologist who had accompanied Prof Melzer and had no comment to make on the political parts, which had not appeared in his report. Baraitser – who is always so keen to rule out defence evidence as irrelevant and to save time – allowed this reading of irrelevant paragraphs to go on and on and on. The only purpose was to enter Prof Melzer’s work into the record with an unchallenged dismissive characterisation, and it was simply irrelevant to the witness in the stand. This was Baraitser’s double standard at play yet again.
Lewis then put to Prof Kopelman brief extracts of court transcript showing Julian interacting with the court, as evidence that he had no severe cognitive difficulty. Kopelman replied that a few brief exchanges really told nothing of significance, while his calling out from the dock when not allowed to might be seen as symptomatic of Asperger’s, on which other psychiatrists would testify.
Lewis again berated Kopelman for not having paid sufficient attention to malingering. Kopelman replied that not only had he used his experience and clinical judgement, but two normative tests had been applied, one of them the TOMM test. Lewis suggested those tests were not for malingering and only the Minnesota test was the standard. At this point Kopelman appeared properly annoyed. He said the Minnesota test was very little used outside the USA. The TOMM test was indeed for malingering. That was why it was called the Test of Memory Malingering. Again there was some laughter in court.
Lewis then suggested that Assange may only get a light sentence in the USA of as little as six years, and might not be held in solitary confinement. Would that change Kopelman’s prognosis? Kopelman said it would if realistic, but he had done too many extradition cases, and seen too many undertakings broken, to put much store by this. Besides, he understood no undertakings had been given.
Lewis queried Kopelman’s expertise on prison conditions in the USA and said Kopelman was biased because he had not taken into account the evidence of Kromberg and of another US witness on the subject who is to come. Kopelman replied that he had not been sent their evidence until substantially after he completed his reports. But he had read it now, and he had seen a great deal of other evidence that contradicted it, both in this case and others. Lewis suggested it was not for him to usurp the judgement of the court on this issue, and he should amend his opinion to reflect the effect of the US prison system on Assange if it were as Kromberg described it. Kopelman declined to do so, saying he doubted Kromberg’s expertise and preferred to rely on among others the Department of Justice’s own report of 2017, the Centre for Constitutional Rights report of 2017 and the Marshall report of 2018.
Lewis pressed Kopelman again, and asked that if prison conditions and healthcare in the USA were good, and if the sentence were short, would that cause an alteration to his clinical opinion. Kopelman replied that if those factors were true, then his opinion would change, but he doubted they were true.
Suddenly, Baraitser repeated out loud the part quote that if prison conditions in the US were good and the sentence were short, then Kopelman’s clinical opinion would change, and ostentatiously typed it onto her laptop, as though it were very significant indeed.
This was very ominous. As she inhabits a peculiar world where it is not proven that anybody was ever tortured in Guantanamo Bay, I understand that in Baraitser’s internal universe prison conditions in the Colorado ADX are perfectly humane and medical care is jolly good. I could note Baraitser seeing her way suddenly clear to how to cope with Professor Kopelman in her judgement. I could not help but consider Julian was the last person in this court who needed a psychiatrist.
Lewis now asked, in his best rhetorical and sarcastic style, whether mental illness had prevented Julian Assange from obtaining and publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents that were the property of the United States? He asked how, if he suffered from severe depression, Julian Assange had been able to lead Wikileaks, to write books, make speeches and host a TV programme?
I confess that at this stage I became very angry indeed. Lewis’s failure to acknowledge the episodic nature of severe depressive illness, even after the Professor had explained it numerous times, was intellectually pathetic. It is also crass, insensitive and an old-fashioned view to suggest that having a severe depressive illness could stop you from writing a book or leading an organisation. It was plain stigmatising of those with mental health conditions. I confess I took this personally. As long-term readers know, I have struggled with depressive illness my entire life and have never hidden the fact that I have in the past been hospitalised for it, and on suicide watch. Yet I topped the civil service exams, became Britain’s youngest Ambassador, chaired a number of companies, have been Rector of a university, have written several books, and give speeches at the drop of a hat. Lewis’s characterisation of depressives as permanently incapable is not just crassly insensitive, it is a form of hate speech and should not be acceptable in court.
(I am a supporter of free speech, and if Lewis wants to make a fool of himself by exhibiting ignorance of mental illness in public I have no problem. But in court, no.)
Furthermore, Lewis was not representing his own views but speaking on the direct instructions of the government of the United States of America. Throughout a full four hours, Lewis on behalf of the government of the USA not only evinced no understanding whatsoever of mental illness, he never once, not for one second, showed one single sign that mental illness is a subject taken seriously or for which there is the tiniest element of human sympathy and concern. Not just for Julian, but for any sufferer. Mental illness is malingering or if real disqualifies you from any role in society; no other view was expressed. He made plain on behalf of the US Government, for example, that Julian’s past history of mental illness in Australia will not be taken into account because the medical records have been destroyed.
The only possible conclusion from yesterday’s testimony is that the performance of the representative of the United States Government was, in and of itself, full and sufficient evidence that there is no possibility that Julian Assange will receive fair consideration and treatment of his mental health issues within the United States system. The US government has just demonstrated that to us, in open court, to perfection.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
The Nicolas Maduro-backed Venezuelan central bank launched a landmark appeal in London on Tuesday over $1 billion (£785.21 billion) of gold reserves held in the Bank of England’s underground vaults.
The Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) board controlled by the Maduro government is challenging a High Court ruling in July that the UK government “unequivocally” recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president, therefore giving him control over the gold.
Lawyers representing the BCV say selling the gold, which amounts to around 15% of Venezuela’s foreign currency reserves, would fund the response to the coronavirus and bolster a health system gutted by six years of economic crisis.
Guaido’s lawyers say the bullion is his to control as the British government, along with around 60 others around the world, recognise him as leader after claims Maduro rigged Venezuela’s last presidential election two years ago.
The hearing is expected to last three days and will be the first time such a tug-of-war has been conducted in the London Court of Appeal.
BCV board solicitor Sarosh Zaiwalla said in a statement the case raises a number of issues of international law, which forbids the interference by any country in the internal affairs of another.
The outcome could also present “a further threat to the international perception of English institutions as being free from political interference, as well as the Bank of England’s reputation abroad as a safe repository for sovereign assets”.
Over the past two years, Maduro’s government has removed some 30 tonnes of gold from its local reserves in Venezuela to sell abroad for much-needed hard currency.
Britain in early 2019 joined dozens of nations in backing Guaido, head of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled congress, after he declared an interim presidency and denounced Maduro as an usurper.
Guaido, at the time, asked the Bank of England to prevent Maduro’s government from accessing the gold, which the opposition claims Maduro wants to use to pay off his foreign allies.
In May, BCV sued the Bank of England to recover control, saying it was depriving the BCV of funds needed to finance Venezuela’s coronavirus response.
The Bank of England then asked the court to determine who Britain recognized as Venezuela’s president.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Never before has the need for independent, honest voices and sources of information been so dire. We are – as a society – inundated with a flood of unrelenting unreliable information. The mainstream media, concentrated in the hands of a few and owned by large multinational corporations, is filled with inherent bias and constant manipulation. That is why independent media is of critical importance now more than ever.
To say that the public has become disillusioned and wary of constant doomsday media reports and news coverage that adheres to corporate and political agendas is a gross understatement — people see their world changing and they want to understand what is happening, and why. They want to be informed and therefore be prepared. They want the freedom to make educated choices instead of being told what to do by the very individuals and institutions that have led them into chaos.
On GlobalResearch.ca, the view points we put forth are not selected in the interest of pushing a specific narrative, but rather in breaking down divisions and building a dialogue. We publish pieces by a wide variety of specialists dotted all over the globe including journalists and scholars, political analysts and historians, expert doctors and scientists, ex-military and intelligence personnel, to name but a few.
Our commitment is to make our articles and videos available to the broadest possible readership, on a non-commercial basis, without the need for a login for paid subscribers. You can help us in this project by making a financial contribution below, or by sharing our articles far and wide via social media, e-mail lists, blog sites, etc. To reverse the tide we need your help. We thank you for your essential support!
After the US State Department claimed that Tehran did not meet the terms of the “nuclear deal,” Washington renewed its anti-Iranian sanctions on Monday. The UN and the EU found the claims made by Washington to be unconvincing and refused to join the renewed sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal two years ago, claiming that Tehran was ostensibly and secretly developing a nuclear weapons program, but did not provide any evidence and demanded renewed sanctions. Russia, China and the EU condemned Washington’s actions, stressing that the nuclear deal will continue to be valid without the US. Germany, France and Britain even passed a special law allowing companies to cooperate with Iran and avoid US pressure through a special financial mechanism, INSTEX.
None-the-less, Washington announced that it is not taking a step back from its sanctions against Iran, whilst simultaneously refusing the provide evidence how Tehran breached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or more commonly known as the nuclear deal, created in 2015. The State Department declared:
“The UN arms embargo on Iran is now re-imposed indefinitely, and we will ensure that it remains in place until Iran changes its behaviour. The new executive order gives us the tools to hold accountable actors who seek to evade the embargo.”
Pompeo also said Trump issued an executive order
“that is a new and powerful tool to enforce the UN arms embargo, and to hold those who seek to evade those sanctions accountable,” while also adding that “Our actions today are a warning that should be heard worldwide. No matter who you are if you ignore UN sanctions, you risk sanctions.”
Since Trump withdrew the US from the nuclear deal on May 8, 2018 Tehran has taken a wait-and-see approach in the hope that the Europeans will succeed in convincing Washington to not drive away foreign investments from Iran.
Formally, the nuclear deal is still valid despite the US withdrawal, but confidence is beginning to diminish. The US fear that the UN-imposed arms embargo on Tehran will be lifted on October 18. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait believe Iran will acquire air defense systems and modern fighter jets from Russia and China. This will militarily strengthen Iran but aggravate its neighbors.
France, Germany and Britain share the American concern, but did not support Washington’s August proposal to extend the arms embargo on Iran. Russia and China have made it clear that they will block all US efforts. For its part, Iran has stated that lifting the arms embargo will finally complete the nuclear deal.
Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said to Foreign Policy magazine that the US does not need multilateral support to make a sanctions’ snapback work because of the global dominance of the US dollar and American power in international financial markets. However, Gérard Araud, former French Ambassador to Israel, the UN and the US, sarcastically but effectively highlighted on Twitter that Dubowitz’s claims “is a way of saying: ‘We are isolated, our allies are not supporting us, actually the whole UN Security Council opposes our move but we don’t care because might is right’. A coherent vision of international relations….”
Although the US is attempting to portray its sanctions against Iran as being from a position of power, Araud perfectly highlighted that this debacle has exposed how isolated Washington is from the UN Security Council and from some of its closest allies like the British and the Germans.
However, sanctions could still scare foreign business from going to Iran, especially if the arms embargo is lifted in October which will undoubtedly lead to an increase in US pressure against the Islamic Republic. European legislation determines that an arms embargo will continue against Iran until 2023, meaning that if the UN arms embargo is lifted next month, the EU will not be able to sell weapons to the Islamic Republic for another few years. This will be to the advantage of Russia and China as they will be able to monopolize weapon sales to Iran.
What may at first appear curious, the Iranian authorities do not want to exacerbate the situation before the presidential election in the US for two reasons:
Tehran does not want to give Trump any major talking points in the lead up to the November presidential elections.
There is every opportunity that the US could return to the nuclear deal if Democrat President Candidate Joe Biden is successful in replacing Trump.
In addition, the EU, Russia, China and the UN are now on Iran’s side, further rendering an Iranian verbal blasting against Washington unnecessary. More importantly, Iran has seen that the US is completely isolated in their systemic aggression against them.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
I encourage you to download the poster below and make some print outs. If you have a small business, and it’s legal to do so in your district, please put it up in your shop window. If you don’t run a business, you can bring it to shops that you patronize, and ask them to put it up. (And if you live in Melbourne then just forget about it.)
Recently, Susanna Russo printed out many copies, headed to downtown Ajax, Ontario, and asked businesses to post it in their front window. She said most took the sign. After all, most businesses want more customers. Especially after three months of lockdown.
Business owners know they have three types of customers:
Those who want everybody wearing face diapers.
Those who are against forced masking.
Those who go along with the masks; but would be happier if they didn’t have to bother carrying around a germ collector.
For regions offering exemptions, the above poster lets you please all three types of customers, plus the local bylaw officer.
It’s no secret that forced masking in retail stores is driving people online. After all, the government isn’t requiring Amazon to force its customers to wear a mask.
The above poster lets people who prefer to just wear their face know that they have a “safe space.” Pretty strange that in a matter of months, breathing without a droplet guard can make you feel like an outcast. Doesn’t matter that every single randomized control trial (that I know of at least) shows that muzzling people doesn’t stop the spread of influenza-like illnesses. In fact, studies show it doesn’t even help in surgery.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, as well as naturopaths, chiropractors and Ayurvedic physicians. He publishes the COVID-19(84) Red Pill Daily Briefs – an email-based newsletter dedicated to preventing the governments of the world from using an exaggerated pandemic as an excuse to violate our freedom, health, privacy, livelihood and humanity. He is also writing a novel, Brave New Normal: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca
The following is an important article by Dr. Ronald B Brown’s focussing on coronavirus mortality overestimation.
This scientific contribution provides and understanding of the Covid crisis and the often misleading estimates provided by our health authorities.
Our thanks to Dr. Brown, Guelph U and Cambridge University Press (emphasis added)
Selected quotes
Based on the data available at the time, Congress was informed that the estimated mortality rate for the coronavirus was 10-times higher than for seasonal influenza, which helped launch a campaign of social distancing, organizational and business lockdowns, and shelter-in-place orders.
Sampling bias in coronavirus mortality calculations led to a 10-fold increased mortality overestimation in March 11, 2020, US Congressional testimony. This bias most likely followed from information bias due to misclassifying a seasonal influenza IFR as a CFR, evident in a NEJM.org editorial.
Evidence from the WHO confirmed that the approximate CFR of the coronavirus is generally no higher than that of seasonal influenza. By early May 2020, mortality levels from COVID-19 were considerably below predicted overestimations, a result that the public attributed to successful mitigating measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
This article presented important public health lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Reliable safeguards are needed in epidemiological research to prevent seemingly minor miscalculations from developing into disasters.
Published online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM.org), the editorial stated:
“…the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).”4
****
Abstract
In testimony before US Congress on March 11, 2020, members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee were informed that estimated mortality for the novel coronavirus was 10-times higher than for seasonal influenza. Additional evidence, however, suggests the validity of this estimation could benefit from vetting for biases and miscalculations. The main objective of this article is to critically appraise the coronavirus mortality estimation presented to Congress. Informational texts from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are compared with coronavirus mortality calculations in Congressional testimony. Results of this critical appraisal reveal information bias and selection bias in coronavirus mortality overestimation, most likely caused by misclassifying an influenza infection fatality rate as a case fatality rate. Public health lessons learned for future infectious disease pandemics include: safeguarding against research biases that may underestimate or overestimate an associated risk of disease and mortality; reassessing the ethics of fear-based public health campaigns; and providing full public disclosure of adverse effects from severe mitigation measures to contain viral transmission.
***
On September 23, 1998, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) permanently lost contact with the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter.1 A simple miscalculation, failure to convert English measurements to metric measurements, doomed the Mars space mission.2 A later investigation found that backup quality assurance procedures were not in place at NASA to catch and correct this simple miscalculation. Fast forward 22 years to another crisis involving a US government agency: On March 11, 2020, the US Congress House Oversight and Reform Committee received information from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) concerning the novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and coronavirus-disease 2019 (COVID-19).3Based on the data available at the time, Congress was informed that the estimated mortality rate for the coronavirus was 10-times higher than for seasonal influenza, which helped launch a campaign of social distancing, organizational and business lockdowns, and shelter-in-place orders.
Previous to the Congressional hearing, a less severe estimation of coronavirus mortality appeared in a February 28, 2020 editorial released by NIAID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Published online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM.org), the editorial stated:
“…the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).”4
Almost as a parenthetical afterthought, the NEJM editorial inaccurately stated that 0.1% is the approximate case fatality rate of seasonal influenza. By contrast, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 0.1% or lower is the approximate influenza infection fatality rate,5 not the case fatality rate. To fully appreciate the significance of discrepancies in fatality rate usage by NIAID, the CDC, and the WHO, brief definitions of relevant epidemiological terms follow.
Case fatality rates (CFRs), infection fatality rates (IFRs), and mortality rates are used by epidemiologists to describe deaths during and after an infectious disease outbreak. The CDC defined a mortality rate as the frequency of deaths within a time period relative to the size of a well-defined population.6 Patients may be classified as having an influenza-like illness (ILI) such as COVID-19 according to standard criteria in a case definition.7 A CFR is defined as the proportion of deaths among confirmed cases of the disease. CFRs indicate the disease severity, while an IFR is defined as the proportion of deaths relative to the prevalence of infections within a population.8 IFRs are estimated following an outbreak, often based on representative samples of blood tests of the immune system in individuals exposed to a virus. Estimation of the IFR in COVID-19 is urgently needed to assess the scale of the coronavirus pandemic.9
Because different types of fatality rates can vary widely, it is imperative to not confuse fatality rates with one another; else misleading calculations with significant consequences could result. As of late spring 2020, a search of the keyword term “infection fatality rate” on the CDC website returned no matching results or similar terms, nor was the epidemiological term located in the 511-page CDC publication, Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice. (The CDC eventually introduced the Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR) on July 10, 2020 “as a new parameter value for disease severity.”10) This terminology omission, in conjunction with questionable use of fatality rate terminology in the NEJM editorial, raises red flags, warning of possible inaccuracies in the coronavirus mortality estimation presented to Congress. Similar to the need to vet for miscalculations that might have rescued NASA’s 1998 Mars mission, vetting the coronavirus mortality estimation for miscalculations and biases may benefit the validity of mortality conclusions. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to present an ad hoc critical appraisal of the coronavirus mortality estimation presented to US Congress on March 11, 2020.
Findings from a comparative analysis of selected video and texts are used in this article to critically appraise the validity of coronavirus mortality calculations presented in US Congressional testimony. Critical appraisal is a process that judges the validity of scientific research evidence.11 Comparative analysis is a tool used in a grounded theory methodology to investigate an unexplored area through logical induction of coherent themes and explanations that are grounded in empirical evidence.12 Text from the February 2020 NEJM.org editorial and video of Congressional testimony are compared with reliable informational texts from the WHO and CDC. Inconsistencies, inaccuracies, biases, utilization, and consequences of the coronavirus mortality estimation are discussed.
In NIAID testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee Hearing on Coronavirus response, Day 1,3 the Committee learned that mortality from seasonal influenza is 0.1%. Additionally, it was reported to Congress that the overall coronavirus mortality of approximately 2-3% had been reduced to 1% to take into account infected people who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. The adjusted mortality rate from coronavirus of 1% was then compared with the 0.1% mortality rate from seasonal influenza, and the conclusion was reported to the House Committee that the coronavirus was 10-times more lethal than seasonal influenza.
In a comparative analysis with WHO and CDC documents, the coronavirus mortality rate of 2-3% that was adjusted to 1% in Congressional testimony is consistent with the coronavirus CFR of 1.8-3.4% (median, 2.6%) reported by the CDC.13 Furthermore, the WHO reported that the CFR of the H1N1 influenza virus (1918) is also 2-3%,14 similar to the unadjusted 2-3% CFR of the coronavirus reported in Congressional testimony, with no meaningful difference in mortality. As previously mentioned, the WHO also reported that 0.1% is the IFR of seasonal influenza,5 not the CFR of seasonal influenza as reported in the NEJM editorial.
Discussion
Confusion between CFRs and IFRs may seem trivial, and it is easy to overlook at first, but this confusion may have ultimately led to an unintentional miscalculation in coronavirus mortality estimation. IFRs from samples across the population include undiagnosed, asymptomatic, and mild infections, and are often lower compared with CFRs, which are based exclusively on relatively smaller groups of moderately to severely ill diagnosed cases at the beginning of an outbreak. Due to host defense mechanisms and autoimmunity provided by innate and adaptive immune responses,15 asymptomatic infections are often prevalent in influenza.16 With many asymptomatic infections already identified in COVID-19,17 it appears unlikely that the IFR in an ILI like COVID-19 would approximate the disease’s CFR. Presymptomatic infections can also lower the proportion of asymptomatic infections. For example, a CDC report found that asymptomatic individuals identified through reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing developed symptoms a week later, and those individuals were re-classified as having been presymptomatic at the time of testing.18
In Figure 1, 4 cases grouped in the dotted-line box are also included among 7 infections, illustrating that all cases are infections but not all infections are cases, a potential point of confusion in media reports of COVID-19. For example, a high number of coronavirus infections were discovered in US meat-packing plants in Iowa,19 but these infections were reported as cases in the media,20potentially causing a type of information bias known as misclassification.21 Misclassification refers to “the erroneous classification of an individual, a value, or an attribute into a category other than that to which it should be assigned.”22 This type of information bias in epidemiological research can lead to underestimates or overestimates of associated disease and mortality risks.21
CFRs and IFRs represent different segments of a targeted population and contain widely different proportions of nonfatal infections; therefore, misapplying findings or generalizing inferences between these 2 groups can cause a type of selection bias known as sampling bias23 or ascertainment bias.24 In this type of bias, people do not represent segments of the population to whom findings apply. Furthermore, “…comparisons of the CFR of 1 disease with the IFR of another are mostly useless,”25 and sampling bias can lead to serious inaccuracies, as when Congress was informed that the coronavirus is 10-times more lethal than seasonal influenza.
A comparison of coronavirus and seasonal influenza CFRs may have been intended during Congressional testimony, but due to misclassifying an IFR as a CFR, the comparison turned out to be between an adjusted coronavirus CFR of 1% and an influenza IFR of 0.1%. Had the adjusted coronavirus mortality rate not been lowered from 3% to 1%, fatality comparisons of the coronavirus to the IFR of seasonal influenza would have increased from 10-times higher to 20- to 30-times higher. By then, epidemiologists might have been alerted to the possibility of a miscalculation in such an alarming estimation.
Quality Assurance
Most people rely on trusted public health experts from organizations like the CDC to disseminate vital information on infectious diseases.26 Unfortunately, even experts can make simple miscalculations that can lead to catastrophic results. In the example of NASA’s lost Mars Climate Orbiter, the NASA board investigating the failed mission recognized that mistakes happen on projects, “However, sufficient processes are usually in place on projects to catch these mistakes before they become critical to mission success.”2 The NASA board also recognized the importance of quality assurance procedures to prevent future failures. Of relevance, in 2018, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) provided an exemplary definition of quality assurance (QA) in clinical and health sciences:
“The objectives of QA procedures are to assure the accuracy and consistency of study data, from the original observations through the reporting of results and to ensure that study results are considered valid and credible within the scientific and clinical communities.”27
Similar to NASA’s quality assurance problems in 1998, quality assurance procedures at US national public health organizations in 2020 may benefit from review and revision to prevent crucial mortality miscalculations of infectious diseases in the future. As a safeguard against misuse of fatality rates, and protection in the event of nonstandardized or inter-organizational discrepancies in terminology, every fatality rate should clearly define the denominator of the rate as the specific group to whom fatalities apply, either to the total population in mortality rates, confirmed cases of a disease in CFRs, or individuals exposed to a viral infection in IFRs.
Mitigation Measures
As the campaign to mitigate coronavirus transmission was implemented from March into May, 2020, expected coronavirus mortality totals in the United States appeared much lower than the overestimation reported in Congressional testimony on March 11. Compared with the most recent season of severe influenza A (H3N2) in 2017-2018,28 with 80,000 US deaths reported by CDC officials,29 US coronavirus mortality totals had just reached 80,000 on May 9, 2020.30 By then, relative to the 2017-2018 influenza, it was clear that the coronavirus mortality total for the season would be nowhere near 800,000 deaths inferred from the 10-fold mortality overestimation reported to Congress. Even after adjusting for the effect of successful mitigation measures that may have slowed down the rate of coronavirus transmission, it seems unlikely that so many deaths were completely eliminated by a nonpharmaceutical intervention such as social distancing, which was only intended to contain infection transmission, not suppress infections and related fatalities.31Also in early May, 2020, a New York State survey of 1269 COVID-19 patients recently admitted to 113 hospitals found that most of the patients had been following shelter-in-place orders for 6 wk, which raised state officials’ suspicions about social distancing effectiveness.32 Still, polls showed the public credited social distancing and other mitigation measures for reducing predicted COVID-19 deaths, and for keeping people safe from the coronavirus.33,34
Surprisingly, disproportionate mortality increases in Italian and American health-care facilities during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak were not unique; similar health-care facility crises occurred during the 2016-2017 influenza season in Italy,35 and during the 2017-2018 influenza season in the United States.36 Yet, these earlier outbreaks did not appear to receive the same intensive media coverage as COVID-19. Although media reports of new coronavirus infections reinforced the public’s belief that the virus was continuing to spread, greater levels of testing may have increased detection of infections that were already prevalent throughout the population. In addition, the accuracy of coronavirus tests rushed into production during the pandemic were unknown.37 RT-PCR testing has been in use since the detection of the A (H5N1) influenza virus in 2005,38 but a serious limitation of RT-PCR testing is that nucleic acid detection is not capable of determining the difference between infective and noninfective viruses.39 Moreover, the CDC modified criteria to record coronavirus mortality by including “probable” and “likely” deaths in the International Classification of Diseases code (ICD) for COVID-19.40
By June 21, new daily deaths from the coronavirus dropped to 267 in the United States, a 90% decrease from 2693 daily deaths reported on April 21.30 However, confirmed cases in some areas increased as lockdowns lifted,41 and total US infections had reached 1,254,055 by June 21.30 Several reasons in addition to increased viral transmission could account for case increases. For example, ill people may no longer fear going to hospitals as society reopens,42 and coronavirus testing may also result in greater differential diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infections from other common respiratory viral infections.43 With more reported cases of COVID-19 in younger people following reopening,44 CFRs could actually decline due to lower associated mortality risk in this age group. Furthermore, country comparisons of coronavirus CFRs are often confounded by numerous factors,45 including health-care differences in case definitions, access to quality treatment and reliable testing, compliance with mitigation measures, and underlying health conditions; demographic differences in age, race, socioeconomic status, and population density; and geo-political differences including climate, seasonality, environmental pollution, social inequities and unrest, personal liberties, public health policies, reliability in reporting valid government statistics of disease, and lifestyle customs that affect physical and mental health, public sanitation, and personal hygiene. Ultimately, with a myriad of uncontrolled confounding factors, a serosurvey of representative samples of a population is a more reliable method to determine the true prevalence of coronavirus infections.
Emerging confounding factors in the United States have also contributed to a rising mortality trend in ILIs such as COVID-19. For example, each year surviving members of the ageing Baby-Boomer cohort of 76 million people born between 1946 and 1964 enter the high-risk category for ILIs, increasing the burden placed on health-care systems.46 Also, research shows that a warming trend in the Artic can lead to more extreme winter weather conditions, especially in the Eastern United States,47 which may play a role in rising mortality rates from ILIs during the influenza season.
As health authorities responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing lockdowns and other mitigation measures with minimal supporting evidence, scientists warned of “a fiasco in the making,”48 Caution was also raised against violations of fundamental principles of science and logic, such as the mistaken assumption that correlation implies causation.45 For example, the public’s belief that mitigation measures were responsible for reducing coronavirus mortality may be a post hoc fallacy if lower mortality was actually due to the overestimation of coronavirus deaths. Furthermore, implementing the unconfirmed hypothesis that mitigation measures save lives in vulnerable populations, and rejecting the null hypothesis that assumes no life-saving effect exists, is a type I error in hypothesis testing.49 The null hypothesis does not assume a priori knowledge. Therefore, before implementing mitigation measures that incur severe costs, the onus is on mitigation proponents to formally reject the null hypothesis by justifying claims of life-saving benefits. Additionally, education in principles of basic research methods is essential for consumers of public health research, and there is a need to increase instruction in the science and logic of research methods in general education curricula.50More research of nondrug mitigation interventions is also urgently needed to prevent COVID-19, especially in vulnerable populations.51
Scientists also warned of public health decisions made without reliable data of infection prevalence within the population.45,48Lacking valid input data due to insufficient testing for disease prevalence, statistical modeling methods often relied on speculative assumptions, producing fearful predictions of increased mortality, which have often proved unreliable.52 A systematic review found that most diagnostic and predictive models for COVID-19 lack rigor, have a high risk of selection bias, and are likely to have lower predictive performance in actual practice compared with optimistic reports published in the research literature.53
A revised version of a non–peer-reviewed study on COVID-19 antibody seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California, found that infections were many times more prevalent than confirmed cases.54 As more serosurveys are conducted throughout the country, a nationally coordinated COVID-19 serosurvey of a representative sample of the population is urgently needed,55 which can determine if the national IFR is low enough to expedite an across-the-board end to restrictive mitigating measures. Plans for a national US serosurvey were announced in April 2020 by the National Institutes of Health, to be conducted by NIAID and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), with the assistance of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).56 Of relevance, nationwide mitigation measures, such as lockdowns, social distancing, and shelter-in-place orders, were not implemented during the 2017-2018 influenza with 45 million US illnesses reported by the CDC.57 Neither were mitigation measures implemented during the 2009 influenza, with reported estimates adjusted for underreported hospitalizations of approximately 60.8 million US cases, ranging between 43.3 million to 89.3 million cases.58
Fear and Collateral Damage
Psychological adverse effects, such as anxiety, anger, and posttraumatic stress, have been linked to restrictive public health mitigation measures due to isolation, frustration, financial loss, and fear of infection.59,60 A June 8, 2020, survey from the Association for Canadian Studies found that fear of contracting the coronavirus affected 51% of the Canadian population, compared with 56% of the US population.61 Venturing out into public during the reopening phase of the lockdown was stressful to 50% of Canadians compared with 56% of Americans. A second wave of the virus was also expected by 76% of Canadians and 64% of Americans. Furthermore, the possibility exists that yet another novel virus could emerge, potentially reigniting a perpetual process of unfounded fear and unnecessary lockdowns if mortality estimations are not properly vetted.
Fear, in contrast to moral civic duty and political orientation, was shown to be a more powerful predictor of compliance with mitigating behavior in response to a viral pandemic, but with decreasing well-being and poorer decision-making.62 Studies have shown that fear impairs performance of cognitive tasks through debilitating anxiety and worry.63 Even if a threat ceases to exist, prolonged fearful avoidance of threats is maladaptive and restricts a return to normal social interaction and productivity.64 For example, after the outbreak of SARS had ended in 2004, avoidance behavior continued to restrict people’s social interactions and prevented people from returning to work.65
Exaggerated levels of fear were driven by sensationalist media coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic.45,66,67 And yet, while the public was ordered to lockdown, overall costs and benefits to society from severe mitigation measures had not been assessed.45Fear of infection also prevented people from seeking needed health-care services in hospitals during the pandemic.68 The ethics of implementing fear-based public health campaigns needs to be reevaluated for the potential harm these strategies can cause.69 Dissemination of vital health information to the public should use emotionally persuasive messaging without exploiting and encouraging overreactions based on fear.
In addition, legal and ethical violations associated with mitigation of pandemic diseases were previously investigated by the Institute of Medicine in 2007.70 People should have the right to full disclosure of all information pertinent to adverse impacts of mitigation measures during a pandemic, including information on legal and constitutional human rights issues,45 and the public should be guaranteed a voice in a transparent process as authorities establish public health policy.
Last, severe mitigating measures during the COVID-19 pandemic caused considerable global social and economic disruption.71Enforced lockdowns increased domestic violence, closed businesses and schools, laid off workers, restricted travel, affected capital markets, threatened the security of low-income families, and saddled governments with massive debt. Between February and April 2020, US unemployment rose from 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years, to 14.7%.72 A recession in the United States was also officially declared in June 2020 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, ending 128 months of historic economic expansion. Of relevance, economic downturns are associated with higher suicide rates compared with times of prosperity, and increased suicide risk may be associated with economic stress as a consequence of severe mitigation measures during a pandemic.73 Relapses and newly diagnosed cases of alcohol use disorder were also predicted to increase due to social isolation, and harmful drinking in China increased 2-fold following the COVID-19 outbreak.74 As a global natural experiment, psychological outcomes from restrictive interventions in the COVID-19 pandemic require further investigations.75
Public health lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic contribute knowledge and insights that can be applied to prevent future public health crises.76 Figure 2 shows a flow chart that summarizes biases and potential effects of viral mortality overestimation observed in a pandemic. Failure to intervene at the source of the problem, at the upstream levels of information bias and sampling bias, can allow fear to rapidly escalate and may cause an overactive response that produces severely harmful collateral damage to society.
FIGURE 2 Biases and Potential Related Effects of Virus Mortality Overestimation.
Conclusions
Sampling bias in coronavirus mortality calculations led to a 10-fold increased mortality overestimation in March 11, 2020, US Congressional testimony. This bias most likely followed from information bias due to misclassifying a seasonal influenza IFR as a CFR, evident in a NEJM.org editorial. Evidence from the WHO confirmed that the approximate CFR of the coronavirus is generally no higher than that of seasonal influenza. By early May 2020, mortality levels from COVID-19 were considerably below predicted overestimations, a result that the public attributed to successful mitigating measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
This article presented important public health lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Reliable safeguards are needed in epidemiological research to prevent seemingly minor miscalculations from developing into disasters. Sufficient organizational quality assurance procedures should be implemented in public health institutions to check, catch, and correct research biases and mistakes that underestimate or overestimate associated risks of disease and mortality. Particularly, the denominator of fatality rates should clearly define the group to whom fatalities apply. Public health campaigns based on fear can have harmful effects, and the ethics of such campaigns should be reevaluated. People need to have a greater voice in a transparent process that influences public health policy during an outbreak, and educational curricula should include basic research methods to teach people how to be better consumers of public health information. The public should also be fully informed of the adverse impacts on psychological well-being, human rights issues, social disruption, and economic costs associated with restrictive public health interventions during a pandemic.
In closing, nations across the globe may fearfully anticipate future waves of the coronavirus pandemic, and look bleakly toward outbreaks of other novel viral infections with a return to severe mitigation measures. However, well-worn advice from a famous aphorism by the poet philosopher George Santayana should be borne in mind, which is relevant to public health lessons learned in this article: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”77
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
2.Isbell, D, Savage, D. Mars climate orbiter failure board releases report, numerous NASA actions underway in response. NASA Web site. https://mars.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco991110.html. Published November 10, 1999. Accessed May 8, 2020.Google Scholar
6.Dicker, R, Coronado, F, Koo, D, et al.Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice. Atlanta GA: US Department of Health and Human Services. 2006.Google Scholar
11.Mhaskar, R, Emmanuel, P, Mishra, S, et al.Critical appraisal skills are essential to informed decision-making. Indian J Sex Transm Dis AIDS.2009;30(2):112–119.Google Scholar | PubMed
12.Chun Tie, Y, Birks, M, Francis, K.Grounded theory research: a design framework for novice researchers. SAGE Open Med.2019;7:2050312118822927.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
13.CDC.gov. Severe outcomes among patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)—United States, February 12–March 16, 2020. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm. Published March 27, 2020. Accessed April 30, 2020.Google Scholar
14.apps.WHO.int. Pandemic influenza risk management: a WHO guide to inform and harmonize national and international pandemic preparedness and response. World Health Organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/259893. Published 2017. Accessed April 30, 2020.Google Scholar
15.Aoshi, T, Koyama, S, Kobiyama, K, et al.Innate and adaptive immune responses to viral infection and vaccination. Curr Opin Virol.2011;1(4):226–232.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
16.Furuya-Kanamori, L, Cox, M, Milinovich, GJ, et al.Heterogeneous and dynamic prevalence of asymptomatic influenza virus infections. Emerg Infect Dis.2016;22(6):1052–1056.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
17.Gao, Z, Xu, Y, Sun, C, et al.A systematic review of asymptomatic infections with COVID-19. J Microbiol Immunol Infect.2020. doi: 10.1016/j.jmii.2020.05.001CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
18.Kimball, A, Hatfield, KM, Arons, M, et al.Asymptomatic and presymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections in residents of a long-term care skilled nursing facility – King County, Washington, March 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2020;69(13):377–381.CrossRef | Google Scholar
21.Althubaiti, A.Information bias in health research: definition, pitfalls, and adjustment methods. J Multidisc Healthc.2016;9:211–217.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
22.Misclassification. In: Porta, M, ed. A Dictionary of Epidemiology. 5th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2008.Google Scholar
23.Johnson, LC, Beaton, R, Murphy, S, et al.Sampling bias and other methodological threats to the validity of health survey research. Int J Stress Manag.2000;7(4):247–267.CrossRef | Google Scholar
24.Delgado-Rodriguez, M, Llorca, J.Bias. J Epidemiol Community Health.2004;58(8):635–641.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
31.Ferguson, N, Laydon, D, Nedjati Gilani, G, et al.Report 9: Impact of Non-pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) to Reduce COVID19 Mortality and Healthcare Demand. London: Imperial College of London; 2020.Google Scholar
35.Rosano, A, Bella, A, Gesualdo, F, et al.Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons). Int J Infect Dis.2019;88:127–134.CrossRef | Google Scholar
38.WHO. The use of PCR in the surveillance and diagnosis of influenza. Paper presented at: report of the 4th meeting of the WHO working group on polymerase chain reaction protocols for detecting subtype influenza A viruses. Geneva: WHO; 2011.Google Scholar
39.Joynt, GM, Wu, WK.Understanding COVID-19: what does viral RNA load really mean?Lancet Infect Dis.2020;20(6):635–636.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
45.James, JJ.Lockdown or lockup. Disaster Med Public Health Prep.2020:1–4.Google Scholar | PubMed
46.Henderson, L, Maniam, B, Leavell, H.The silver tsunami: evaluating the impact of population aging in the US. J Bus Behav Sci.2017;29(2):153–169.Google Scholar
47.Cohen, J, Pfeiffer, K, Francis, JA.Warm Arctic episodes linked with increased frequency of extreme winter weather in the United States. Nat Commun.2018;9(1):869.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
53.Wynants, L, Van Calster, B, Bonten, MM, et al.Prediction models for diagnosis and prognosis of covid-19 infection: systematic review and critical appraisal. BMJ.2020;369:m1328.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
57.CDC.gov. Estimated influenza illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States—2017–2018 influenza season. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA. Web site. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm. Published 2018. Accessed May 21, 2020.Google Scholar
58.Shrestha, SS, Swerdlow, DL, Borse, RH, et al.Estimating the burden of 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) in the United States (April 2009–April 2010). Clin Infect Dis. 2011;52(Suppl 1):S75–S82.CrossRef | Google Scholar
59.Brooks, SK, Webster, RK, Smith, LE, et al.The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence. Lancet.2020;395(10227):912–920.CrossRef | Google Scholar
62.Harper, CA, Satchell, LP, Fido, D, et al. Functional fear predicts public health compliance in the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction Web site. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7185265/. Published April 27, 2020. Accessed May 8, 2020.CrossRef | Google Scholar
63.Zhuang, Q, Wang, L, Tang, Y, et al.Translation of fear reflex into impaired cognitive function mediated by worry. Sci Bull.2016;61(24):1841–1843.CrossRef | Google Scholar
64.Sangha, S, Diehl, MM, Bergstrom, HC, et al.Know safety, no fear. Neurosci Biobehav Rev.2020;108:218–230.CrossRef | Google Scholar
65.Usher, K, Bhullar, N, Jackson, D.Life in the pandemic: social isolation and mental health. J Clin Nurs.2020;29(15-16):2756–2757.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
69.Bayer, R, Fairchild, AL. Means, ends and the ethics of fear-based public health campaigns. J Med Ethics. 2016;42(6):391–396.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
70.Gostin, L, Berkman, B. Preparing for the pandemic influenza: legal and ethical challenges. In: Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Diseases: Workshop Summary. Vol 80. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine; 2007.Google Scholar
71.Nicola, M, Alsafi, Z, Sohrabi, C, et al.The socio-economic implications of the coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic: a review. Int J Surg.2020;78:185–193.CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
74.Da, BL, Im, GY, Schiano, TD.COVID-19 hangover: a rising tide of alcohol use disorder and alcohol-associated liver disease. Hepatology.2020. doi: 10.1002/hep.31307CrossRef | Google Scholar | PubMed
75.Patrick, SL, Cormier, HC.Are our lives the experiment? COVID-19 lessons during a chaotic natural experiment–a commentary. Health Behav Policy Rev.2020;7(2):165–169.Google Scholar
76.Secchi, P, Ciaschi, R, Spence, D. A concept for an ESA lessons learned system. Paper presented at: Proceedings of Alerts and Lessons Learned: An Effective way to prevent failures and problems 1999.Google Scholar
77.Santayana, G.The Life of Reason: Vol 1: Reason in Common Sense.Mineola NY: Dover Publications Incorporated; 1905.Google Scholar
The Republican Party of Texas executive committee has taken a heroic action that could serve as an example for Republican and Democratic parties across America. It has adopted, by a 54 to 4 vote, a resolution clearly and emphatically demanding that Texas Governor Greg Abbott immediately end all the liberty-repressing measures that, over the last six months while the state legislature has been in recess, Abbott has imposed unilaterally in the name of countering coronavirus.
The rebuke and demand of the resolution are particularly strong given that they come from Abbott’s own party.
The resolution repeatedly and strongly condemns state and local government measures taken in Texas purportedly to counter coronavirus. It states, for example, that “egregious government overreach has resulted in unthinkable depredations upon the people of Texas, including millions left unemployed, countless businesses bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy, nursing home residents dying alone and isolated, lives ruined and dreams destroyed.”
The resolution concludes with this strong and clear demand:
Therefore be it resolved, the Republican Party of Texas calls on Gov. Greg Abbott to immediately rescind all COVID-related mandates, closures, and restrictions and to open Texas NOW. A copy of this resolution shall be sent by the Republican Party of Texas to the Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Republican State Senators, and Republican State Representatives.
Read the complete resolution, along with some background information, in Brandon Waltens’ Monday Texas Scorecard article here.
Listen to prominent Texas libertarian Ron Paul and his co-host Daniel McAdams discuss this important resolution in the Tuesday episode of the Ron Paul Liberty Report here.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Comments Off on The No-Compromise Texas Republican Party Resolution Telling the Republican Governor to Immediately End His Entire Coronavirus Crackdown
When completed and operational, Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany will double the amount of natural gas Gazprom will be able to supply the country and other European ones — at around a 30% lower cost than US LNG.
That’s why the project is invaluable to beneficiary Western European countries.
Washington wants the project blocked to benefit US LNG producers, harming Russia economically at the same time.
Section 7503(d) of the US FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is titled “Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act (PEESA) of 2019 (sic).”
It calls for vessels involved in Nord Stream 2 to “immediately cease construction-related activity…wind(ing) down” their operations.
The US diktat applies to “involved parties that have knowingly sold, leased, or provided vessels that are engaged in pipe laying at depths of 100 feet or more below sea level for the construction of Nord Stream 2.”
Parties not complying with the US diktat face sanctions as explained in PEESA.
At the time, the US State Department defied reality, calling Nord Stream 2 “a tool Russia is using to support its continued aggression against Ukraine (sic).”
“Russia seeks to prevent it from integrating more closely with Europe and the United States (sic).”
“Nord Stream 2 would enable Russia to bypass Ukraine for gas transit to Europe, which would deprive Ukraine of substantial transit revenues and increase its vulnerability to Russian aggression (sic).”
“Nord Stream 2 would also help maintain Europe’s significant reliance on imports of Russian natural gas, which creates economic and political vulnerabilities for our European partners and allies (sic).”
“For these reasons, the United States Government and a plurality of European countries oppose Nord Stream 2 (sic).”
On December 31, 2019, Russia’s Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz signed a five-year deal for Russian gas to transit through Ukrainian territory.
At the time, international oil economist Mamdouh Salamezh said the deal “protects the mutual interests of both countries economically and geopolitically,” adding:
It could improve bilateral relations overall and shows Gazprom to be a “reliable (EU) partner.”
The deal assured no disruption of gas through Ukraine after Nord Stream 2 becomes operational.
At the time, Germany’s Angela Merkel said the following:
“I am glad that one and a half years of talks on Russian gas transit through Ukraine could be successfully concluded.”
“Continued gas transit…is a good and important signal that our European gas supply (from Russia) will be guaranteed.”
Analyst Thierry Bros noted that that Gazprom/Naftogaz deal secured the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine, along with showing that Moscow is a reliable supplier to other European countries.
Time and again, actions by Russia show that it’s a dependable good neighbor, a valued political, economic and trade partner that prioritizes cooperative relations with other nations — polar opposite how the US operates.
Its actions and above State Department remarks reflect its hegemonic agenda at the expense of other nations and their populations.
On Monday, Pompeo said the Trump regime is “working (on) build(ing) a coalition (of European countries) that prevents” Nord Stream 2’s completion.
Was the Navalny novichok poisoning hoax a made-in-the-USA plot to try undermining the project?
Clearly, Russia had nothing to do with his illness aboard a flight to Moscow.
Russian doctors in Omsk performed heroically to save his life, stabilizing him, and finding no toxins of any kind in his blood, urine, liver, or elsewhere in his system.
He’s alive, recuperating, and ambulatory in Berlin because of treatment they provided.
Merkel said Nord Stream 2 and the Navalny incident are separate issues. She favors completion of the project.
Separately, Russia’s envoy to Germany Sergey Nechaev said “(w)e absolutely cannot agree with the ultimatum statement that the Russian government has anything to do with” the Navalny incident, adding:
“We cannot accept ultimatums and threats with sanctions. I regret the anti-Russian hysteria artificially incited in this context.”
Nord Stream 2’s completion is vital for Germany and other European countries that will benefit greatly from low-cost, readily available, Russian natural gas.
If it becomes operational in the coming months, it’ll also be another blow to Washington’s hegemonic project.
Note: On Thursday and Friday at a summit of EU leaders, Nord Stream 2 is on their agenda to discuss.
The fate of the project may be decided at that time.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
The long-standing plan to turn Russia against Kazakhstan, or vice versa, does not go out of the heads of security opponents in the Eurasian space. Current events in Belarus are also heating up this topic. After all, Kazakhstan, geographically, like Belarus, is not just any other country, but a huge geopolitical node that connects huge regions. Therefore, we should pay more attention right now to maintaining stability around Kazakhstan.
Since the 1990s, attempts have been made to provoke a quarrel between Kazakhstan and Russia, with the help of Moscow’s alleged territorial claims to this southern neighbor, and above all, the issue of the territories of Northern Kazakhstan. This topic was actively developed by a number of marginal Russian radicals who directly made claims to Kazakhstan, but, unfortunately, the authorities then did not reach them. In the following years, these radicals were fairly reliably deactivated, and some were directly sent to prison.
However, the topic of Russia’s “claims” to Kazakhstan over its Northern territories, which are “native Russian”, has not gone away. Moreover, it was adopted by American specialists who pursue the same goal: the collapse of Russian-Kazakh relations and the Republic of Kazakhstan itself. After that, as the opponents of Russian-Kazakh integration assume, it will be quite easy to make a reliable barrier between the Russian Federation and the whole of Central Asia out of the ruined Kazakhstan.
The US is pursuing a destructive policy not only in relation to the prospects of the Russia-Kazakhstan pair, but also seeks to make cracks in Moscow’s relations with all post-Soviet capitals. And not only with them, but also on a wider global spectrum. Everyone remembers that when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, she clearly stated that the United States will not allow the creation of the Eurasian economic Union (EEU), as well as the development of any form of integration between the former Soviet republics at a new historical stage.
In this sense, normal relations between Russia and Kazakhstan are an insurmountable obstacle to this plan, and, accordingly, unacceptable for Washington. Thus, the artificial maintenance of a territorial conflict that is “smoldering”, in the opinion of our opponents, becomes one of the main tools.
However, such a plan has almost no chance of practical implementation, since the thesis promoted by American experts about Russia’s territorial claims to Northern Kazakhstan has nothing in common with reality. Russia unequivocally supports the existing borders and territorial integrity of the countries of the region. If we talk about relations between the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan, it is a strategic partnership, in which the above-mentioned issues are completely absent.
Kazakhstan is the main initiator of the creation of the EEU, which in itself indicates the state’s views on Eurasian integration, where there is no place for discussions about border issues. The EEU is by definition an economic, not a political structure, so it is impossible to throw into it destructive topics that are not related to the daily progressive work. This initial formulation of the issue allows Russia and Kazakhstan to actively develop within the framework of the EEU, where, while preserving state borders and sovereignty, the possibility of economic growth is guaranteed for all participating countries.
If you look at Russian-Kazakh relations in the historical aspect, you can see how highly Moscow has valued for centuries such an enduring value as the commonality of the Russian and Kazakh peoples, both as part of the Russian Empire and the USSR. For this fundamental, unchangeable reason, Moscow still pays special attention to the prospects of relations with Nur-Sultan in the new geopolitical conditions. Conditions are changing, but the foundation for the Russian-Kazakh alliance remains. This formula will remain unchanged in the future.
However, it should be borne in mind that American strategists will not leave Russian-Kazakh relations alone and will make further attempts to hinder their development, including on the Eurasian scale as a whole. The destabilization of the socio-economic and political situation in the entire post-Soviet field, in order to strengthen the presence of the United States itself, remains one of the main challenges for the space of our integration, as well as for other key geopolitical regions of the world.
The main guarantee against such threats is the steady strengthening of the economies of all the EAEU countries, with the further expansion of the influence of this non-political organization. We can only live better together. And our mutual economic success will leave no room for any political insinuations, no matter who tries to export them here and from where.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
An organization calling itself Internet Law Reform Dialogue or “iLaw” has for over a month now been organizing a petition nationwide at literally every anti-government rally – big or small, at every opposition venue or office headquarters, and at every major university campus calling for the rewriting of Thailand’s constitution.
This campaign included a well-funded online marketing campaign along with physical tents and booths with professionally printed banners, brochures, flags, and equipment set up across the entire nation.
Despite this massive month-plus long effort which also included a “mail-in” signature drive, iLaw failed to collect even 100,000 from Thailand’s nearly 70 million population by the time the opposition organized its anemic September 19th rally last weekend despite rewriting the constitution being one of the three core demands of so-called “pro-democracy” protesters.
The US Government Funds iLaw and its Efforts to Rewrite Thailand’s Constitution
Recent news articles like Bangkok Post’s, “Law reform group pitches charter rewrite to public,” would claim:
The Internet Dialogue on Law Reform (iLaw) says it will formally present a people’s version of a bill to draft a new constitution to Parliament on Tuesday.
The article claims that the petition was signed by up to 90,000 people by the time of the September 19th rally.
The article also claims:
iLaw is considering holding a series of forums to show the public why the 2017 charter — drafted at the behest of the military junta and approved in a referendum where dissent was suppressed — must be rewritten, [iLaw representative] Mr Yingcheep said.
What Bangkok Post and others reporting on iLaw and its petition do not report is the fact that iLaw is funded by US-based corporate foundations and the US government via its notorious regime change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
The US NED’s own official website lists iLaw as “Internet Law Reform Dialogue” and notes that it receives over 1.5 million Thai Baht a year, claiming:
To foster public understanding and dialogue on the impact of existing and new laws on civil and political rights and to promote freedom of expression. The organization will monitor and assess political and governance processes, as well as the various laws inherited from the military government, and provide the public with accessible analysis of their impact on citizens’ rights. It will also operate a documentation center to monitor and report on freedom of expression violations, and will collaborate with other civil society groups in advocating for democracy and human rights.
This US government-funded activity constitutes political interference and is an open violation of Thailand’s political independence as described and protected by the United Nations Charter. It is also political interference the United States itself would never tolerate from another nation.
iLaw itself admits on its own website that it is funded by the US government via the NED as well as by convicted financial criminal George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, stating (emphasis added):
Between 2009 and 2014 iLaw has received funding support from the Open Society Foundation, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and a one-time support grant from Google.
Between 2015 to present iLaw receives funding from funders as listed below
1. Open Society Foundation (OSF)
2. Heinrich Böll Stiftung (HBF) 3. National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
4. Fund for Global Human Rights (FGHR)
5. American Jewish World Servic (AJWS)
6. One-time support donation from Google and other independent donors
The fact that it is a US government-funded organization helping advance one of the core demands of so-called “pro-democracy” protesters in Thailand – demands echoed by Thailand’s corrupt billionaire-led opposition consisting of fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party and Thanathorn Juangroongruengkit’s Move Forward Party – illustrates the foreign-funded nature of the opposition and current unrest it is organizing.
The fact that so few out of Thailand’s 70 million population supported the petition despite its central role in ongoing protests also illustrates how unpopular Thailand’s current opposition is.
Organizations like iLaw are able to operate specifically because of a Western media along with its local partners never mentioning the foreign-funded nature of their activities. When questions are raised, these same media organizations help iLaw and the US Embassy itself deny political interference.
For the US, its involvement in Thailand’s internal affairs stems from Thailand’s growing relationship with China and Washington’s desire to reverse this by placing into power political groups of its choosing.
China is now Thailand’s largest trading partner, investor, source of tourism, arms supplier, and a key partner for major infrastructure projects including a regional high-speed rail network.
What Should Thailand’s Response Be?
Were another nation to target America’s internal political affairs in a similar manor – funding a group to organize a petition to rewrite the US Constitution and to do so specifically to make it easier for foreign-backed opposition figures to take power – the petition and the organizations promoting it would be fully removed politically and legally – with those involved likely facing jail.
It is difficult to predict how the Thai government will react to a US government-funded petition to rewrite Thailand’s own constitution.
Confronting iLaw’s US government funding would indirectly mean confronting the United States itself – a course of action Thailand would prefer to avoid in favor of practicing patience as American might wanes globally and Thailand’s legal structure carefully chips away at US-backed opposition groups locally.
Peacefully confronting iLaw organizers with a giant printed out image of its US NED funding alongside relevant Thai and international laws regarding political interference, treason, and sedition could work to place iLaw and the rest of the “pro-democracy” opposition’s foreign funding and meddling front and center in public debate if not in the middle of government decision-making owed to diplomatic concerns.
Such a move would also expose media organizations who have omitted or outright lied about iLaw’s funding consistently for months, rightfully undermining the public’s trust in these organizations forward into the future.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Abdel Aziz Ibn Saud’s actions during WWI eventually led to the founding of Saudi Arabia. To document a historically accurate account of his role, we examined inPart I three official documents from WWI. In Part II, we will examine one more war time declaration and narrate what really took place during that period.
4. The Balfour Declaration
One of the most important statements of British foreign policy of the twentieth century, the ‘Balfour Declaration’ was no more than a short, vague letter that had no legal status. The Parliamen didn’t debate it. Yet, it was one of the most significant events leading ultimately to the creation of the state of Israel. Not to mention the conflict between Jews and Arabs ever since.
In this letter of November 2nd 1917, British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, wrote to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, as a figurehead of the Jewish community in Britain:
“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Britain later incorporated this letter within the terms of it’s Mandate for Palestine. And so it became a legal requirement upon Britain.
To better understand the origins of the declaration, we examine a thoroughly documented paper by The Balfour Project. It documents critical details on why Britain’s War Cabinet at the time were so fervently predisposed to support the establishment of a ‘Jewish National Home’ in Arab inhabited Palestine.
With exhaustive references to literally dozens of books, news reports and Cabinet memorandums from The National Archives of the UK, the report paints a vivid picture of an ingenious manipulation behind the scenes – shaping the drafting, deliberations and the eventual adoption of this declaration. The unusual convergence of so many powerful and influential figures in British politics – including a current and a former Prime Ministers – in support of the Zionist cause isn’t lost on the authors. Detailed evidence suggest the entire British Empire, in its actions regarding the future of Palestine, behaved as a Zionist entity. In its analysis of the events, the paper states,
“It was widely believed that some mysterious but well-organised Jewish conspiracy was bent on determining the outcome of the war; their influence and, above all, their money, could sway Russia, the United States or Germany, to Britain’s good or ill. To gain the international favour of the Jews was therefore in Britain’s vital interest; to offend could be fatal. Since Weizmann implied that Zionism spoke for the Jews of the world, it followed that the Zionists should be helped. It was, [Prime Minister] Lloyd George wrote later, a question of making ‘a contract with Jewry’.”
It’s important to note that the British Cabinet, while adopting the Balfour Declaration, acted under the impression that majority of Jewish people worldwide were Zionists who would applaud Britain’s actions. However, in reality, Zionists remained a very small minority among Jews for many years to come.
For instance, in his book A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914-1922 (Penguin, London, 1991), David Fromkin calculates that in 1913, the last date for which there were figures, only about one percent of the world’s Jews had signified their adherence to Zionism (p. 294). In other words, even though the official narrative claims that the Balfour Declaration was adopted to favour Jewish people worldwide, the underlying truth suggests it was rather the Zionists within the British Empire (which was pretty much everybody who was anybody in British government at the time) who orchestrated this declaration; using the Jewish people’s plight as an excuse to justify this unjust enterprise.
It’s also remarkable that the debates and deliberations which preceded adoption of this declaration, did not include any Arab representation; nor did they think it necessary to do so. While Britain accepted that Palestine should be reconstituted as the national home of the Jewish people, implying no place for the existing majority Arab population, very few Arabs were even aware that such a proposal was in the offing. And the Arabs in Palestine itself could not be consulted (then PM Lloyd George later argued) as they were in enemy territory, and were therefore deemed to be fighting against Britain.
Now, as we can see from reviewing the above four historical documents, British Empire, throughout their WWI campaign in the Middle East, played a cunning game of deception with the Arab people; making false promises with no intention of keeping them. A game all too common in empire-building, and certainly more so within the history of British imperialism. Nevertheless, as it always is the case, an empire cannot succeed in its treachery without a complicit, local cohort; a traitor from among the victims. And in this particular case, this cohort presented itself in the form of Abdel Aziz Ibn Saud.
To investigate Ibn Saud’s role, we examine a 2016 essay by independent researcher Nu’man Abd al-Wahid. Al-Wahid corroborates primary sourced evidence from a revealing study by Dr. Askar H. al-Enazy, titled The Creation of Saudi Arabia: Ibn Saud and British Imperial Policy, 1914-1927 (London: Routledge, 2010) with other prominent works in history such as The Birth of Saudi Arabia (London: Frank Cass, 1976) by Gary Troeller and The Desert King: The Life of Ibn Saud (London: Quartet Books, 1980) by David Howarth etc., and presents a comprehensive account of the part Abdel Aziz Ibn Saud played between 1915 to 1926 as a battering ram for the British Empire. In essence, Ibn Saud’s muscleman role was what enabled the British to establish their imperial and Zionist goals. Goals borne out of the Sykes-Picot Treaty and the Balfour Declaration.
As Dr. al-Enazy documents in his 2010 study, the Sharif of Hijaz, as soon as the war ended, wanted to hold the British to their wartime promises as expressed in the McMahon-Hussain correspondence. The British, on the other hand, wanted the Sharif to accept the Empire’s actual vision for Arabia. A vision that divides the Arab world between them and the French, and implements the Balfour Declaration.
However, the Sharif declared he will never sell out Palestine to the Empire’s Balfour Declaration. Nor will he accept new random borders drawn across Arabia by British and French imperialists.
After the Cairo Conference in March 1921, the Empire dispatched T.E. Lawrence (i.e. of Arabia) to meet the Sharif. Lawrence offered him an annual payment of £100,000 (al-Enazy 2010, p.111) but the Sharif refused to compromise. When financial bribery failed to persuade the Sharif, Lawrence threatened him with an Ibn Saud takeover.
While negotiating with Hussain, Lawrence also visited other leaders in the Arabian peninsula. He warned them against entering into an alliance with the Sharif. He informed, if they did, the Empire will unleash Ibn Saud and his Wahhabis on them. After all, Saud and his Wahhabis were at Britain’s “beck and call” (al-Enazy, p.111).
Simultaneously, after the Conference, the then Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill travelled to Jerusalem. There he met with the Sharif’s son, Abdullah, who the British appointed the Emir of a new territory called Transjordan. Churchill asked him to persuade “his father to accept the Palestine mandate and sign a treaty to such effect,”; if not “the British would unleash Ibn Saud against Hijaz” (al-Enazy p.107).
Meanwhile, the British devised plans to take down ibn Rashid of Ha’il in the North. Ibn Rashid had rejected all propositions from the British Empire. Propositios made to him via Ibn Saud to become another one of Empire’s puppets (al-Enazy p.45-46, p.101-102). Instead, Rashid expanded his territories north to the newly mandated Palestinian border. He also widened his territories to the borders of Iraq in the summer of 1920. Acting under a concern that Ibn Rashid may seek an alliance with Sharif Hussain, Churchill agreed with imperial officer Sir Percy Cox at the Cairo Conference that “Ibn Saud should be given the opportunity to occupy Hail” (al-Enazy p.104).
By the end of 1920, the British were showering Ibn Saud with “a monthly ‘grant’ of £10,000 in gold; on top of his monthly subsidy. He also received abundant arms and supplies, totalling more than 10,000 rifles, in addition to the critical siege and four field guns” with British-Indian instructors (al-Enazy p.104). Finally, in September 1921, the British unleashed Ibn Saud on Ha’il which officially surrendered in November 1921. It was after this victory the British bestowed a new title on Ibn Saud. He was no longer the “Emir of Najd and Chief of its Tribes” but “Sultan of Najd and its Dependencies”. Ha’il had dissolved into a dependency of the Empire’s Sultan of Najd.
With Ibn Saud now on Sharif Hussain’s border, and armed to the teeth by the British, the Empire arranged a new round of talks with Sharif’s son Abdullah; and drafted a treaty accepting Zionism. When it was delivered to the Sharif with an accompanying letter from his son requesting that he “accept reality”, Sharif didn’t even bother to read the treaty and instead composed a draft treaty himself rejecting the new divisions of Arabia, as well as the Balfour Declaration, and sent it to London to be ratified (al-Enazy p.113).
After another three rounds of negotiations in Amman and London, the Empire realized Hussain will never relinquish Palestine to Great Britain’s Zionist project or accept the new divisions in Arab lands (al-Enazy p.112-125).
In March 1924, the British announced that they had terminated all discussions with Sharif Hussain (al-Enazy p.129). Within weeks, the forces of Ibn Saud and his Wahhabi followers began to administer what the British foreign secretary Lord Curzon called “the final kick” to Sharif Hussain and attacked Hijazi territory (al-Enazy p.106). By September 1924, Ibn Saud had overrun the summer capital of Sharif Hussain, Ta’if.
Ibn Saud captured the holiest place in Islam, Mecca, in mid-October 1924. Sharif Hussain abdicated and went on exile to the Hijazi port of Akaba. His son Ali replaced him as the monarch and made Jeddah his governmental base. Fearing that Sharif Hussain may use Akaba as a base to rally Arabs against the Empire’s own Ibn Saud, the British declared that Hussain must leave Akaba or Ibn Saud will attack the port. In response, Hussain countered that he had,
“never acknowledged the mandates on Arab countries and still protest against the British Government which has made Palestine a national home for the Jews.” (al-Enazy p.119)
He was subsequently forced out of Akaba, a port Hussain himself liberated from the Ottoman Empire during the ‘Arab Revolt’. On 18th June 1925, Hussain left Akaba on HMS Cornflower.
Ibn Saud began his siege of Jeddah in January 1925. The city finally surrendered in December 1925. This brought an end to over 1000 years of rule by the Prophet Muhammad’s descendants. The British officially recognized Ibn Saud as the new King of Hijaz in February 1926. Other European powers followed suit within weeks. The British Empire rebranded the new unified Wahhabi state in 1932 as the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” (KSA). A certain George Rendel, an officer working at the Middle East desk at the Foreign Office in London, claimed credit for the new name.
In conclusion, any prudent observer of British Imperialism hardly finds it surprising that the British Empire betrayed their promises made to the Arabs for an independent Arab state after WWI. However, when an Arab leader does the betraying and becomes an agent for the British Empire; when this agent massacres Arabs who dare oppose the Zionist deceit; and finally, when he gets appointed ‘King of Arabia’ as a reward for his treachery – by the same treacherous Empire who deceived the Arab people; when an Arab Emir does this, he becomes a traitor. And he remains a traitor for eternity; because no amount of wealth or propaganda can change the plain truth: that Abdel Aziz Ibn Saud became the King of Arabia – and his Al Saud family ‘Royals’ – because he betrayed Arabs and became an agent of the British Empire; and henceforth executed the Empire’s Zionist plans for the Arabian peninsula.
Indeed, the bitter irony isn’t lost on Muslims in the know. That the two holiest sites in Islam are today governed by the Saudi clan and Wahhabi teachings because they helped the British Empire lay foundations for Zionism in Arabia during and after World War One.
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Author Rez Karim is an Electrical Engineer and Chief Editor at VitalColumns.com.
Since the beginning of the Regime Change war against Syria, Western -supported sectarian terrorists — al Qaeda, ISIS and affiliates — have actively sought to destroy and extinguish Christians and Christianity from Syria. President Assad and the Syrian people have been fighting against and destroying these terrorists.
President Assad and Syrians are fighting for humanity and civilization as the West, including Canada, seeks to destroy humanity and civilization in Syria.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.
Photos and video from Maaloula Syria, September, 2019.
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narratives on Syria.
This is a biased politically motivated report of a dubiously independent mission that contributes to an already dangerously escalating situation where the victim is Venezuela and the perpetrator is the U.S. foreign policy.
Venezuela approaches another stage of its democratic process with the constitutionally mandated election for a new National Assembly (NA) on December 6. This will be the 26th election of any type in the country – presidential, municipal, state governorship, referendums – in the last 20 years. The National Assembly that was elected in 2015 had a majority of members from the opposition parties, however it was declared in contempt by the Supreme Court of Justice for serious irregularities including swearing in of members who had committed fraud. In January 2019 Juan Guaidó, as president of the NA in contempt, appointed himself president of Venezuela, rejecting the legitimacy of President Nicolas Maduro who was elected with over 65% of the votes in 2018. The U.S. government, the government of Canada, and a number of European and Latin American governments recognised Juan Guaidó as “interim president”.
This brief recap of events underscores the importance of the December 6 election with the participation of several opposition parties. Should the new NA have a majority of parliamentarians who recognise the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro, and elect a new NA president, then Juan Guaidó could not use his U.S.-granted “right” to claim the country’s presidency. A right that is not constitutional. This will definitely be the likely scenario since the pro-Guaidó parties are boycotting the election. Regardless, the U.S. and its allies have no interest in allowing a legitimate election to take place in Venezuela, which explains the increasing aggressive activity against the Bolivarian Revolution. The aggression has included the recent plot of an attack on a Venezuelan oil refineryby a U.S. citizen and former CIA operative who has been arrested by the Venezuelan authorities together with other individuals.
Coincidentally or not, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has recently traveled to four South American countries: Suriname, Guyana, Brazil, and Colombia. The visits to the first two smaller countries may have had secondary interests in securing business deals and to prevent investments from China. But it has been suggested that the visit to Guyana may also be part of the U.S.’ “maximum pressure” strategy to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. On the other hand, Pompeo’s visit to Brazil and Colombia is clearly an indication that the U.S. obsession to remove Maduro is reaching a fever pitch intensity.
The U.S.’ threatening actions against a sovereign country are certainly to be criticised but they are regrettably consistent with the profile of the hegemonic empire prone to wage hybrid wars on different countries. Venezuela is a prime country for U.S. interests.
Nevertheless, what analysts should be especially concerned about is that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) may be contributing to U.S. aggression towards Venezuela.
The UN has not recognised Juan Guaidó on the basis that states, not governments, are UN members. But a recent report by a so-called UN International Independent Mission on Human Rights was issued September 15, which accuses the government of Nicolas Maduro of committing crimes against humanity supposedly committed since 2014. This plays fully into the hands of Juan Guaidó with the additional aggravating point of potentially giving the wrong idea to the U.S. for a military intervention.
In reality, this is a mission that was never recognised by the Venezuelan government, and as stated in their report, never received approval for such a human rights investigation. The reason for this is that Venezuela is already working in coordination with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which has an office recently opened in Venezuela. In fact, The UN office in Venezuela has made 15 visits to 14 detention centers in the last year, recognised by the High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet herself, in which they have been able to conduct confidential interviews, in the context of the collaboration offered by the Venezuelan state. But none of these findings were part of the report by the “independent mission”.
On the contrary, the mission reports “that it was not able to visit Venezuela and undertake in-country fact-finding” with the implication that no cross-examination was ever conducted. Nevertheless, it reports very serious accusations of extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, “and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment committed since 2014.” Some of the sources used include highly questionable organizations such as Human Rights Watch, and a Venezuelan group called Venezuelan Observatory of Social Unrest (OVCS) that seems to keep its own register of unproven “crimes” and “protests” in Venezuela with its own statements of “repression from the Nicolas Maduro regime.” These are hardly unbiased sources of information.
The 411-page-long report has been rejected by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, who stated on his Twitter account that it is, “A report plagued with falsehoods, prepared remotely, without any methodological rigor, by a phantom mission directed against Venezuela and controlled by governments subordinate to Washington; it illustrates the perverse practice of engaging in politicising human rights and not in doing human rights politics.”
A detailed deconstruction of the report has been made and this author agrees with its conclusions. The report speaks of “arbitrary detentions” of individuals for their political affiliation. How can even this be credible when the most visible opposition group, led by self-appointed Juan Guaidó, is free on the streets of Caracas, on social media, and print press?
The report also uses arguments – unrelated to human rights – that can be construed as interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela when it states that the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela is illegitimate. This is precisely the same argument used by the U.S. government and its political allies like Canada.
Similarly suspicious is the report’s questioning of “concessions expropriated from international companies” in the Mining Arc Region of Venezuela. What is the relationship between internationally granted rights to expropriations, and violation of human rights that have not even been fully investigated by its own admission, “The Mission was unable to investigate [the numerous violations] due to time and resource constraints.”
Finally, the unexpected publication of this report at a time when the Venezuelan government is gearing up for a democratic election for the National Assembly on December 6 is hardly coincidental. The report has the distinctive features of a political attempt to invalidate an electoral process that the pro-regime change proponents are already interfering with in order to undermine the legitimate government of Nicolas Maduro.
This is a biased politically motivated report of a dubiously independent mission that contributes to an already dangerously escalating situation where the victim is Venezuela and the perpetrator is the U.S. foreign policy. The UNHRC should not be party to it.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Nino Pagliccia is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The original article in Chinese will be available on our Chine language page
Throughout human history, no matter in the east or in the west, there would be a chaotic situation taking place every few decades in human society. In ancient times when the material production was at low level with tools not yet developed, the cause of chaos could be easily understood by the Chinese sayings: “People die for wealth, while birds die for food.” and “Food is the heaven for people”.
In face of starvation and losing of homes, or extreme unfair treatment by governments in distribution of wealth and benefits, there were always people who would rebel or take a military or political coup, or started a war by neglecting the peace agreement.
But in today’s world, where technology is highly developed and material productivity greatly exceeds the demand, why is there still constant social turbulence?
Whether in China or many western countries, we can see the stores displayed with all types of merchandises, stocked with goods unable to sell, and warehouses of factories overstocked with products unable to go to market.
It’s not because the overall purchasing power of the society is insufficient, but because of production and consumption level of the society has reached its excessive high point. Nowadays, merit boxes, which are publicboxes for donations, are popular things everywhere. Still good and usable items can often be found discarded at the garbage room of the community. What does that mean? It demonstrates that the demand for living goods is not the primary concern of human society any longer. Thus many skilled people have been liberated from the production sector to engage in various social management work in our society, and division of work is becoming more and more precise. In this way, it seems that people on earth should have nothing to worry about? On the contrary, there are much more problems nowadays, and the society is in a chaotic situation that is almost unprecedented.
Why is that?
Some people may attribute it to the social complexity brought about by the highly developed civilization, but I don’t think so. As we all know that no matter how advanced science and technology are, it is based on the laws of science discovered by our predecessors.
Because the scientific workers strictly follow some basic laws of science and the commonly accepted rules of logic, they have made the rapid development of science and technology in modern times, and created miracles one after another in human society, while produced some reliable scientific and technological products to serve mankind which have greatly helped improve their living standards. I haven’t heard that a certain type of sophisticated technology products had acted recklessly due to their high complexity level, or functions differently. Although I personally think that modernscience and technology did have their share of burden of blame in jeopardizing the life of modern people, during the short period of their glorious history, the professionalism and the qualification of those scientific and technological workers are indeed worthy of admiration for people from other industries. At least they clearly know the concepts in their own domains. Otherwise, they won’t be able to produce anything good.
One of the most important issues, as what the ancient people called “name”, might have been ignored by people of many industries. The ancients said, “if an appropriate name is not applied for the thing, then it is not a reasonable name and it would cause confusion about any work related to that thing, and lead to the failure of work.” That is to say, if the name is not properly placed, or the meaning is not correctly explained, it would be difficult to explain the principles and mechanism of such thing and thus unable to execute its purpose. Perhaps some people may feel that this is insignificant, why bother making a big fuss about it? I am afraid it is not quite so. Actually in the first chapter of Tao Te Ching (One of the bibles of Chinese people), it is clearly written: “The beginning of the universe is in the status of being nameless, while the creation of all things in universe is accomplished during the process of giving names.”
These words don’t conflict with the scientific postulate of thestart of the universe at all, but are intended to interpret the different side ofthe nature of universe. Thus, we can see how important it is to name things. People create and give names to things according to their respective attributes and our understanding about them, and those names composed the structure of our civilization. They are like the codes of our civilization, and provide answers to our questions. Chinese people are the ones addressed the importance of names just like the westerns addressed the importance of atoms in natural science. So no matter if you believe it or not, it is there doing its work. At the same time, names give things eternal life. Without a name, when things are used up or destroyed, they are gone for ever. With names, things can regenerate and appear again.
In field of culture or philosophy, this phenomenon of “name” problems may be most prominent, especially in today’s world, where the division of labor is fine, and the economic interdependence of each country upon others is so strong. The world can’t do without petroleum from the Middle East, just as it can’t without high-tech software from the United States, as well as all kinds of life necessities made in China, and so on. Economic interdependence will inevitably lead to the exchange of cultures and the confrontation of different ideologies. Whether the result of communication and confrontation is acceptance, expulsion or integration may largely depend on the common understanding of the concepts in those domains.
While the civilization is evolving, along with it, there were many new fancy words coming out in all fields. There are good ones, also bad ones. Just as our forefathers have foreseen: strange words with ambiguous meanings, and improper names appeared to make people unable to distinguish right from wrong, even the government officials or the law enforcement officers are confused themselves. How would we expect them to make the right decision and enforce the law properly? Each country has their own languages and cultural origins, in addition to which, the inappropriate translation of words may also lead to misunderstanding of the same philosophical, political or legal terms from other cultures, or even the same culture by different people. Has anyone run into such embarrassing situation as if a scholar gentleman argued with a single-minded soldier off the battle, the result of which is hardly optimistic, because the two can never stand on the same ground. The logic onwhich the mode of Human’s thinking is based is very similar, just as mathematics has been accepted among all nationalities in basically the same way. So the fundamental problem that leads to difficult communication of different nations is caused by the different understanding of the same concepts, or the “names”. In other words, the varied depth of knowledge about things and the interpretation of the meaning of things from different aspects leads to many incomprehensible and unnecessary conflicts in the world.
Probably some people will say that it would be naive to think it the way mentioned above, and that many conflicts in the world were actually caused by some governments fighting for the best interests of their own countries. If that is true, it would only explain another case of misunderstanding concept in politics, which is about the confusion on the concept of “national interest”. On the appearance, some countries may be able to gain certain material benefits because of their powerful military forces, but they will certainly lose the faith upon them, not only of the people of other countries, but also of their own people. What they lose is the capital of relationship, which is the true long-term benefit for all entities. Some people might say that some governments are fighting with other countries in order to promote their culture and advocate their belief and make other countries accept their cultural advantages so that they would gain the greatest recognition in theworld. Then, they must make it clear first what is their cultural advantage and how it should be expressed through the right concepts. Humans mostly admire people with the attributes of bravery, industriousness, nobility, generosity, benevolence and humanity, wisdom, faith, and sense of responsibility, etc., but not stealing, slandering and framing, getting weaker into worse situation, and raping human nature to humiliate themselves. Different nationalities may be inclined to different human values. They may also have different understanding of those values.
However, those values are the bases of any belief they have clung onto. In the antique time, theEuropeans advocated chivalry; the British advocated the culture of gentlemen; the Americans respected the cowboy spirit; while the ancient Chinese liked to use their favorable term “Junzi”, somewhat similar to gentleman, but not the same, to express their national spirit; and so on.
Unfortunately, I can’t cite all the examples here one by one, only I don’t know what kind of national spirit the modern countries are advocating. If they haven’t come out with a clear idea, maybe they should first consult with their ancestors, then surf the Internet, and then discuss with their neighbors in this global village, before they are going to do such great deeds for their nations. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t even know what they are fighting for before they’ve blooded their face or gotten their skull broken into pieces. Perhaps after they have really come to understand what that idea is, they would suddenly realize that there is nothing to fight for at all. All humans are nurtured by the sameroot – that is mother earth. Why must they act so earnestly to eliminate one another? It’s OK to have some fun by playing games like in sports matches, but it should be a match of gentlemen. Like some ancient people said, if you have to compete with others, courtesy always goes first. After the contest, the opponents could still befriend each other by toasting together with greetings and cheers wholeheartedly.
What is the point to fight each other to death!
The adventure of humans has reached the top of all mountains and the bottom of all oceans, while seldom giving an second thought by taking away all that they can. There is not much left on earth but a few glasses of liquor and severalpieces of peanuts made of metal?
It is definitely not worthy of powerful human force to fight for the pitiful leftover on earth. It would be so much better to use the human wisdom and power to engage in some meaningful work to make a positive transformation of human society and find new resources and new way out. In modern world, raw materials are playing much less important roles in people’s life and countries’ economy than before. Whether or not a country can succeed in the new era, largely depends on how they can effectively organize and deploy their social and economic forces, how they can efficiently utilize and recycle their resources, how they establish their rapport among their partners, and how they built their relationship with othercountries. Fighting for the territories and raw materials are the games of wild animals and primitive people, which should be voided among highly civilized beings.
There is still an important concept here I would like to mention. That is, the fights between the governments are not the same thing as the fight between the civilians. The government, acting on behalf of the state, seems to devote themselves to the people of the country. However, it is not exactly the same thing. Although the government is elected by the people, once it is formed, it becomes an instrument of the state as a separated entity with its own will. It is obviously indebted to the people, but its ultimate goal is to demonstrate the reasonableness and purpose of its existence, which is the nature of allindividual entity and should not be blamed for. The people have given the government all kinds of supplies and privileges to do its job, and they are no longer obliged to bear other pressure and burdens for the government, unless they are employed by the government temporarily or part-time (full-time personnel, of course, have been included in the government), or in the extraordinary events of natural disasters or when the country is facing immediate takeover or extermination under the attack of their enemies.
Why? because each ordinary citizen has his/her own share of burden and responsibility in this human’s survival game. Therefore, it is not wise or practical for the government to frequently get civilians involved in their fights against their opponents, in order not to disturb or even ruin their normal life. Once the damage is done, it would come back on the government andjeopardize the base of their power.
The common people are the foundation of a country. Losing the common people means shaking the foundation of the country and the government.
If people from all trades of the world can share a set of common terms and follow a set of well-accepted laws and rules from the beginning to the end of anything they are doing, then the unresolvable problems would be greatly reduced, because they can communicate freely with common understanding of things they are talking at any time with a designed work language constituting of clearly defined concepts.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
1,000 fighters of the so-called Syrian National Army, a coalition of Turkish-funded militant groups, will be moved to Azerbaijan in September as a part of a 6-month long deployment, Syrian pro-militant media reported. According to reports, Turkish proxies will pass additional training and may even be deployed along the contact line with Armenian forces near the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region.
During the Azerbaijani-Armenian escalation in July, reports already surfaced that Turkey was deploying its Syrian proxies to support Azerbaijani forces in their standoff against Armenia. Then, Syrian sources also reported about a potential 6-month long contract for Turkish-funded militants. The monthly salary of one Turkish mercenary in the combat zone was reported to be 2,500 USD.
Local activists even claimed that Turkish intelligence was in talks with al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham to recruit a 300-man strong special forces unit that would be deployed in Azerbaijan carry out special operations on the border with Armenia.
Turkey is a long-term strategic ally of Azerbaijan and its leadership has repeatedly declared its readiness to support Baku by all kinds of measures, including military ones, in the event of a full-scale escalation in the region. Nonetheless, the July clashes ended without turning into a new regional war and Turkish and Azerbaijani authorities rushed to denounce reports about the potential usage of Syrian militants against Armenia as fake news.
Turkey has already been actively using its Syrian proxies, often linked with al-Qaeda, in Middle East conflicts. In particular, thousands Syrian militants were sent to Libya to support the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord. Therefore, the deployment of pro-Turkish militant groups in Azerbaijan is not so unlikely a scenario as Ankara and Baku prefer to claim.
In Greater Idlib, the Russian Aerospace Forces continue their airstrike diplomacy pounding Turkish-funded terrorists across the region. On September 20 and September 21, this diplomatic campaign was also supported by the Syrian Army that struck terrorist positions in northern Lattakia and south of the M4 highway in southern Idlib.
The US-led coalition and affiliated organizations have been increasing their business activities connected with the seized Syrian oil infrastructure. According to Syrian state media, just on September 20, at least 30 tanker trucks filled with oil from the US-controlled fields left Syria through the al-Walid area on the border with Iraq. The development of the seized oil reserves and export of the extracted oil is being conducted by the US company Delta Crescent Energy. The company operates in coordination with US-backed Kurdish armed groups, which are currently known under the brand of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
In public statements, the SDF leadership often uses loud words about patriotism and the need to serve to interests of the Syrian people. However, in practice, the patriotic intentions of the Kurdish leaders are limited to more practical things like the looting of Syrian oil resources in coordination with the Washington establishment.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
“A $1 billion fund Congress gave the Pentagon in March to build up the country’s supplies of medical equipment has instead been mostly funneled to defense contractors and used to make things such as jet engine parts, body armor and dress uniforms.
The change illustrates how one taxpayer-backed effort to battle the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans, was instead diverted toward patching up long-standing perceived gaps in military supplies.
The Cares Act, which Congress passed earlier this year, gave the Pentagon money to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.” But a few weeks later, the Defense Department began reshaping how it would award the money in a way that represented a major departure from Congress’s intent.
The payments were made even though U.S. health officials think major funding gaps in pandemic response still remain. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Senate testimony last week that states desperately need $6 billion to distribute vaccines to Americans early next year. Many U.S. hospitals still face a severe shortage of N95 masks. These are the types of problems that the money was originally intended to address.
…
“We are thankful the Congress provided authorities and resources that enabled the [executive branch] to invest in domestic production of critical medical resources and protect key defense capabilities from the consequences of COVID,” Ellen Lord, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said in a statement. “We need to always remember that economic security and national security are very tightly interrelated and our industrial base is really the nexus of the two.””
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Julian Assange is not on trial simply for his liberty and his life. He is fighting for the right of every journalist to do hard-hitting investigative journalism without fear of arrest and extradition to the United States. Assange faces 175 years in a US super-max prison on the basis of claims by Donald Trump’s administration that his exposure of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan amounts to “espionage”.
The charges against Assange rewrite the meaning of “espionage” in unmistakably dangerous ways. Publishing evidence of state crimes, as Assange’s Wikileaks organisation has done, is covered by both free speech and public interest defences. Publishing evidence furnished by whistleblowers is at the heart of any journalism that aspires to hold power to account and in check. Whistleblowers typically emerge in reaction to parts of the executive turning rogue, when the state itself starts breaking its own laws. That is why journalism is protected in the US by the First Amendment. Jettison that and one can no longer claim to live in a free society.
Aware that journalists might understand this threat and rally in solidarity with Assange, US officials initially pretended that they were not seeking to prosecute the Wikileaks founder for journalism – in fact, they denied he was a journalist. That was why they preferred to charge him under the arcane, highly repressive Espionage Act of 1917. The goal was to isolate Assange and persuade other journalists that they would not share his fate.
Assange explained this US strategy way back in 2011, in a fascinating interview he gave to Australian journalist Mark Davis. (The relevant section occurs from minute 24 to 43.) This was when the Obama administration first began seeking a way to distinguish Assange from liberal media organisations, such as the New York Times and Guardian that had been working with him, so that only he would be charged with espionage.
Assange warned then that the New York Times and its editor Bill Keller had already set a terrible precedent on legitimising the administration’s redefinition of espionage by assuring the Justice Department – falsely, as it happens – that they had been simply passive recipients of Wikileaks’ documents. Assange noted (40.00 mins):
“If I am a conspirator to commit espionage, then all these other media organisations and the principal journalists in them are also conspirators to commit espionage. What needs to be done is to have a united face in this.”
During the course of the current extradition hearings, US officials have found it much harder to make plausible this distinction principle than they may have assumed.
Journalism is an activity, and anyone who regularly engages in that activity qualifies as a journalist. It is not the same as being a doctor or a lawyer, where you need a specific professional qualification to practice. You are a journalist if you do journalism – and you are an investigative journalist if, like Assange, you publish information the powerful want concealed. Which is why in the current extradition hearings at the Old Bailey in London, the arguments made by lawyers for the US that Assange is not a journalist but rather someone engaged in espionage are coming unstuck.
Corporate journalists have barely bothered to cover Assange's trial. But while they doze, the US has changed its argument, as ex-ambassador Craig Murray reports. Now the US is threatening to lock up other journalists for espionage if they expose its crimes https://t.co/4dpYUQ0EAZ
My dictionary defines “espionage” as “the practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to obtain political and military information”. A spy is defined as someone who “secretly obtains information on an enemy or competitor”.
Very obviously the work of Wikileaks, a transparency organisation, is not secret. By publishing the Afghan and Iraq war diaries, Wikileaks exposed crimes the United States wished to keep secret.
Assange did not help a rival state to gain an advantage, he helped all of us become better informed about the crimes our own states commit in our names. He is on trial not because he traded in secrets, but because he blew up the business of secrets – the very kind of secrets that have enabled the west to pursue permanent, resource-grabbing wars and are pushing our species to the verge of extinction.
In other words, Assange was doing exactly what journalists claim to do every day in a democracy: monitor power for the public good. Which is why ultimately the Obama administration abandoned the idea of issuing an indictment against Assange. There was simply no way to charge him without also putting journalists at the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian on trial too. And doing that would have made explicit that the press is not free but works on licence from those in power.
Media indifference
For that reason alone, one might have imagined that the entire media – from rightwing to liberal-left outlets – would be up in arms about Assange’s current predicament. After all, the practice of journalism as we have known it for at least 100 years is at stake.
But in fact, as Assange feared nine years ago, the media have chosen not to adopt a “united face” – or at least, not a united face with Wikileaks. They have remained all but silent. They have ignored – apart from occasionally to ridicule – Assange’s terrifying ordeal, even though he has been locked up for many months in Belmarsh high-security prison awaiting efforts to extradite him as a spy. Assange’s very visible and prolonged physical and mental abuse – both in Belmarsh and, before that, in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he was given political asylum – have already served part of their purpose: to deter young journalists from contemplating following in his footsteps.
Even more astounding is the fact that the media have taken no more than a cursory interest in the events of the extradition hearing itself. What reporting there has been has given no sense of the gravity of the proceedings or the threat they pose to the public’s right to know what crimes are being committed in their name. Instead, serious, detailed coverage has been restricted to a handful of independent outlets and bloggers.
Most troubling of all, the media have not reported the fact that during the hearing lawyers for the US have abandoned the implausible premise of their main argument that Assange’s work did not constitute journalism. Now they appear to accept that Assange did indeed do journalism, and that other journalists could suffer his fate. What was once implicit has become explicit, as Assange warned: any journalist who exposes serious state crimes now risks the threat of being locked away for the rest of their lives under the draconian Espionage Act.
The BBC's Kuenssberg and ITV's Peston haven't mentioned Assange for years, even as his extradition hearing – our generation's Dreyfus Trial – is under way.
It should be proof, if more were needed, that these people aren't journalists, they are courtiers of the British state https://t.co/2ybAEkoAhz
This glaring indifference to the case and its outcome is extremely revealing about what we usually refer to as the “mainstream” media. In truth, there is nothing mainstream or popular about this kind of media. It is in reality a media elite, a corporate media, owned by and answerable to billionaire owners – or in the case of the BBC, ultimately to the state – whose interests it really serves.
The corporate media’s indifference to Assange’s trial hints at the fact that it is actually doing very little of the sort of journalism that threatens corporate and state interests and that challenges real power. It won’t suffer Assange’s fate because, as we shall see, it doesn’t attempt to do the kind of journalism Assange and his Wikileaks organisation specialise in.
The indifference suggests rather starkly that the primary role of the corporate media – aside from its roles in selling us advertising and keeping us pacified through entertainment and consumerism – is to serve as an arena in which rival centres of power within the establishment fight for their narrow interests, settling scores with each other, reinforcing narratives that benefit them, and spreading disinformation against their competitors. On this battlefield, the public are mostly spectators, with our interests only marginally affected by the outcome.
A journalist due to testify at Julian Assange's extradition hearing makes a very pertinent point. This is the biggest attack on press freedom in our lifetimes. Why are UK editors not demanding to be heard at the Old Bailey? Where are they? Where is the Guardian? https://t.co/fFRFvGpYdi
The corporate media in the US and UK is no more diverse and pluralistic than the major corporate-funded political parties they identify with. This kind of media mirrors the same flaws as the Republican and Democratic parties in the US: they cheerlead consumption-based, globalised capitalism; they favour a policy of unsustainable, infinite growth on a finite planet; and they invariably support colonial, profit-driven, resource-grabbing wars, nowadays often dressed up as humanitarian intervention. The corporate media and the corporate political parties serve the interests of the same power establishment because they are equally embedded in that establishment.
(In this context, it was revealing that when Assange’s lawyers argued earlier this year that he could not be extradited to the US because extradition for political work is barred under its treaty with the UK, the US insisted that Assange be denied this defence. They argued that “political” referred narrowly to “party political” – that is, politics that served the interests of a recognised party.)
From the outset, the work of Assange and Wikileaks threatened to disrupt the cosy relationship between the media elite and the political elite. Assange threw down a gauntlet to journalists, especially those in the liberal parts of the media, who present themselves as fearless muckrakers and watchdogs on power.
Unlike the corporate media, Wikileaks doesn’t depend on access to those in power for its revelations, or on the subsidies of billionaires, or on income from corporate advertisers. Wikileaks receives secret documents direct from whistleblowers, giving the public an unvarnished, unmediated perspective on what the powerful are doing – and what they want us to think they are doing.
Wikileaks has allowed us to see raw, naked power before it puts on a suit and tie, slicks back its hair and conceals the knife.
But as much as this has been an empowering development for the general public, it is at best a very mixed blessing for the corporate media.
Today’s column is a salute to Julian Assange, selflessly raising the bar on nightmare houseguest stories https://t.co/bgqeEakGBj
In early 2010, the fledgling Wikileaks organisation received its first tranche of documents from US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning: hundreds of thousands of classified files exposing US crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange and “liberal” elements of the corporate media were briefly and uncomfortably thrown into each others’ arms.
On the one hand, Assange needed the manpower and expertise provided by big-hitting newspapers like the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel to help Wikileaks sift through vast trove to find important, hidden disclosures. He also needed the mass audiences those papers could secure for the revelations, as well as those outlets’ ability to set the news agenda in other media.
Liberal media, on the other hand, needed to court Assange and Wikileaks to avoid being left behind in the media war for big, Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, for audience share and for revenues. Each worried that, were it not to do a deal with Wikileaks, a rival would publish those world-shattering exclusives instead and erode its market share.
Gatekeeper role under threat
For a brief while, this mutual dependency just about worked. But only for a short time. In truth, the liberal corporate media is far from committed to a model of unmediated, whole-truth journalism. The Wikileaks model undermined the corporate media’s relationship to the power establishment and threatened its access. It introduced a tension and division between the functions of the political elite and the media elite.
Those intimate and self-serving ties are illustrated in the most famous example of corporate media working with a “whistleblower”: the use of a source, known as Deep Throat, who exposed the crimes of President Richard Nixon to Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein back in the early 1970s, in what became known as Watergate. That source, it emerged much later, was actually the associate director of the FBI, Mark Felt.
Far from being driven to bring down Nixon out of principle, Felt wished to settle a score with the administration after he was passed over for promotion. Later, and quite separately, Felt was convicted of authorising his own Watergate-style crimes on behalf of the FBI. In the period before it was known that Felt had been Deep Throat, President Ronald Reagan pardoned him for those crimes. It is perhaps not surprising that this less than glorious context is never mentioned in the self-congratulatory coverage of Watergate by the corporate media.
But worse than the potential rupture between the media elite and the political elite, the Wikileaks model implied an imminent redundancy for the corporate media. In publishing Wikileaks’ revelations, the corporate media feared it was being reduced to the role of a platform – one that could be discarded later – for the publication of truths sourced elsewhere.
The undeclared role of the corporate media, dependent on corporate owners and corporate advertising, is to serve as gatekeeper, deciding which truths should be revealed in the “public interest”, and which whistleblowers will be allowed to disseminate which secrets in their possession. The Wikileaks model threatened to expose that gatekeeping role, and make clearer that the criterion used by corporate media for publication was less “public interest” than “corporate interest”.
In other words, from the start the relationship between Assange and “liberal” elements of the corporate media was fraught with instability and antagonism.
The corporate media had two possible responses to the promised Wikileaks revolution.
One was to get behind it. But that was not straightforward. As we have noted, Wikileaks’ goal of transparency was fundamentally at odds both with the corporate media’s need for access to members of the power elite and with its embedded role, representing one side in the “competition” between rival power centres.
I bet Assange is stuffing himself full of flattened guinea pigs. He really is the most massive turd.
The corporate media’s other possible response was to get behind the political elite’s efforts to destroy Wikileaks. Once Wikileaks and Assange were disabled, there could be a return to media business as usual. Outlets would once again chase tidbits of information from the corridors of power, getting “exclusives” from the power centres they were allied with.
Put in simple terms, Fox News would continue to get self-serving exclusives against the Democratic party, and MSNBC would get self-serving exclusives against Trump and the Republican Party. That way, everyone would get a slice of editorial action and advertising revenue – and nothing significant would change. The power elite in its two flavours, Democrat and Republican, would continue to run the show unchallenged, switching chairs occasionally as elections required.
From dependency to hostility
Typifying the media’s fraught, early relationship with Assange and Wikileaks – sliding rapidly from initial dependency to outright hostility – was the Guardian. It was a major beneficiary of the Afghan and Iraq war diaries, but very quickly turned its guns on Assange. (Notably, the Guardian would also lead the attack in the UK on the former leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, who was seen as threatening a “populist” political insurgency in parallel to Assange’s “populist” media insurgency.)
Assange possibly even the biggest arsehole in Knightsbridge. And what a field that is
Despite being widely viewed as a bastion of liberal-left journalism, the Guardian has been actively complicit in rationalising Assange’s confinement and abuse over the past decade and in trivialising the threat posed to him and the future of real journalism by Washington’s long-term efforts to permanently lock him away.
There is not enough space on this page to highlight all the appalling examples of the Guardian’s ridiculing of Assange (a few illustrative tweets scattered through this post will have to suffice) and disparaging of renowned experts in international law who have tried to focus attention on his arbitrary detention and torture. But the compilation of headlines in the tweet below conveys an impression of the antipathy the Guardian has long harboured for Assange, most of it – such as James Ball’s article – now exposed as journalistic malpractice.
The Guardian’s failings have extended too to the current extradition hearings, which have stripped away years of media noise and character assassination to make plain why Assange has been deprived of his liberty for the past 10 years: because the US wants revenge on him for publishing evidence of its crimes and seeks to deter others from following in his footsteps.
In its pages, the Guardian has barely bothered to cover the case, running superficial, repackaged agency copy. This week it belatedly ran a solitary opinion piece from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former leftwing president, to mark the fact that many dozens of former world leaders have called on the UK to halt the extradition proceedings. They appear to appreciate the gravity of the case much more clearly than the Guardian and most other corporate media outlets.
167 politicians, including past & present heads of state, back our appeal to UK government to bring an end to Julian Assange's extradition proceedings & grant him his long overdue freedom:https://t.co/dUsokJWmbX
But among the Guardian’s own columnists, even its supposedly leftwing ones like Gorge Monbiot and Owen Jones, there has been blanket silence about the hearings. In familiar style, the only in-house commentary on the case so far is yet another snide hit-piece – this one in the fashion section written by Hadley Freeman. It simply ignores the terrifying developments for journalism taking place at the Old Bailey, close by the Guardian’s offices. Instead Freeman mocks the credible fears of Assange’s partner, Stella Moris, that, if Assange is extradited, his two young children may not be allowed contact with their father again.
Freeman’s goal, as has been typical of the Guardian’s modus operandi, is not to raise an issue of substance about what is happening to Assange but to score hollow points in a distracting culture war the paper has become so well-versed in monetising. In her piece, entitled “Ask Hadley: ‘Politicising’ and ‘weaponising’ are becoming rather convenient arguments”, Freeman exploits Assange and Moris’s suffering to advance her own convenient argument that the word “politicised” is much misused – especially, it seems, when criticising the Guardian for its treatment of Assange and Corbyn.
The paper could not make it any plainer. It dismisses the idea that it is a “political” act for the most militarised state on the planet to put on trial a journalist for publishing evidence of its systematic war crimes, with the aim of locking him up permanently.
The Guardian may be largely ignoring the hearings, but the Old Bailey is far from ignoring the Guardian. The paper’s name has been cited over and over again in court by lawyers for the US. They have regularly quoted from a 2011 book on Assange by two Guardian reporters, David Leigh and Luke Harding, to bolster the Trump administration’s increasingly frantic arguments for extraditing Assange.
When Leigh worked with Assange, back in 2010, he was the Guardian’s investigations editor and, it should be noted, the brother-in-law of the then-editor, Alan Rusbridger. Harding, meanwhile, is a long-time reporter whose main talent appears to be churning out Guardian books at high speed that closely track the main concerns of the UK and US security services. In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I had underwhelming experiences dealing with both of them during my years working at the Guardian.
Normally a newspaper would not hesitate to put on its front page reports of the most momentous trial of recent times, and especially one on which the future of journalism depends. That imperative would be all the stronger were its own reporters’ testimony likely to be critical in determining the outcome of the trial. For the Guardian, detailed and prominent reporting of, and commentary on, the Assange extradition hearings should be a double priority.
So how to explain the Guardian’s silence?
The book by Leigh and Harding, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, made a lot of money for the Guardian and its authors by hurriedly cashing in on the early notoriety around Assange and Wikileaks. But the problem today is that the Guardian has precisely no interest in drawing attention to the book outside the confines of a repressive courtroom. Indeed, were the book to be subjected to any serious scrutiny, it might now look like an embarrassing, journalistic fraud.
The two authors used the book not only to vent their personal animosity towards Assange – in part because he refused to let them write his official biography – but also to divulge a complex password entrusted to Leigh by Assange that provided access to an online cache of encrypted documents. That egregious mistake by the Guardian opened the door for every security service in the world to break into the file, as well as other files once they could crack Assange’s sophisticated formula for devising passwords.
Much of the furore about Assange’s supposed failure to protect names in the leaked documents published by Assange – now at the heart of the extradition case – stems from Leigh’s much-obscured role in sabotaging Wikileaks’ work. Assange was forced into a damage limitation operation because of Leigh’s incompetence, forcing him to hurriedly publish files so that anyone worried they had been named in the documents could know before hostile security services identified them.
The Guardian has sought for nearly a decade to obscure David Leigh's deeply irresponsible antics in publishing that critically important Wikileaks password.
It's another reason why the Guardian has barely covered the Assange hearings. It goes way beyond 'conflict of interest'
This week at the Assange hearings, Professor Christian Grothoff, a computer expert at Bern University, noted that Leigh had recounted in his 2011 book how he pressured a reluctant Assange into giving him the password. In his testimony, Grothoff referred to Leigh as a “bad faith actor”.
‘Not a reliable source’
Nearly a decade ago Leigh and Harding could not have imagined what would be at stake all these years later – for Assange and for other journalists – because of an accusation in their book that the Wikileaks founder recklessly failed to redact names before publishing the Afghan and Iraq war diaries.
The basis of the accusation rests on Leigh’s highly contentious recollection of a discussion with three other journalists and Assange at a restaurant near the Guardian’s former offices in July 2010, shortly before publication of the Afghan revelations.
According to Leigh, during a conversation about the risks of publication to those who had worked with the US, Assange said: “They’re informants, they deserve to die.” Lawyers for the US have repeatedly cited this line as proof that Assange was indifferent to the fate of those identified in the documents and so did not expend care in redacting names. (Let us note, as an aside, that the US has failed to show that anyone was actually put in harm’s way from publication, and in the Manning trial a US official admitted that no one had been harmed.)
The problem is that Leigh’s recollection of the dinner has not been confirmed by anyone else, and is hotly disputed by another participant, John Goetz of Der Spiegel. He has sworn an affidavit saying Leigh is wrong. He gave testimony at the Old Bailey for the defence last week. Extraordinarily the judge, Vanessa Baraitser, refused to allow him to contest Leigh’s claim, even though lawyers for the US have repeatedly cited that claim.
Statement from journalist John Goetz of Der Spiegel attesting that Assange never made the "they deserve it" comment he was accused of saying by The Guardian's David Leigh. Goetz was at the dinner Assange is alleged to have said it. https://t.co/wexkKhwKg7pic.twitter.com/FdFRAG4oNH
Further, Goetz, as well as Nicky Hager, an investigative journalist from New Zealand, and Professor John Sloboda, of Iraq Body Count, all of whom worked with Wikileaks to redact names at different times, have testified that Assange was meticulous about the redaction process. Goetz admitted that he had been personally exasperated by the delays imposed by Assange to carry out redactions:
“At that time, I remember being very, very irritated by the constant, unending reminders by Assange that we needed to be secure, that we needed to encrypt things, that we needed to use encrypted chats. … The amount of precautions around the safety of the material were enormous. I thought it was paranoid and crazy but it later became standard journalistic practice.”
Prof Sloboda noted that, as Goetz had implied in his testimony, the pressure to cut corners on redaction came not from Assange but from Wikileaks’ “media partners”, who were desperate to get on with publication. One of the most prominent of those partners, of course, was the Guardian. According to the account of proceedings at the Old Bailey by former UK ambassador Craig Murray:
“Goetz [of Der Spiegel] recalled an email from David Leigh of The Guardian stating that publication of some stories was delayed because of the amount of time WikiLeaks were devoting to the redaction process to get rid of the ‘bad stuff’.”
When confronted by US counsel with Leigh’s claim in the book about the restaurant conversation, Hager observed witheringly: “I would not regard that [Leigh and Harding’s book] as a reliable source.” Under oath, he ascribed Leigh’s account of the events of that time to “animosity”.
Scoop exposed as fabrication
Harding is hardly a dispassionate observer either. His most recent “scoop” on Assange, published in the Guardian two years ago, has been exposed as an entirely fabricated smear. It claimed that Assange secretly met a Trump aide, Paul Manafort, and unnamed “Russians” while he was confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in 2016.
Harding’s transparent aim in making this false claim was to revive a so-called “Russiagate” smear suggesting that, in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, Assange conspired with the Trump camp and Russian president Vladimir Putin to help get Trump elected. These allegations proved pivotal in alienating Democrats who might otherwise have rallied to Assange’s side, and have helped forge bipartisan support for Trump’s current efforts to extradite Assange and jail him.
The now forgotten context for these claims was Wikileaks’ publication shortly before the election of a stash of internal Democratic party emails. They exposed corruption, including efforts by Democratic officials to sabotage the party’s primaries to undermine Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s rival for the party’s presidential nomination.
Those closest to the release of the emails have maintained that they were leaked by a Democratic party insider. But the Democratic leadership had a pressing need to deflect attention from what the emails revealed. Instead they actively sought to warm up a Cold War-style narrative that the emails had been hacked by Russia to foil the US democratic process and get Trump into power.
No evidence was ever produced for this allegation. Harding, however, was one of the leading proponents of the Russiagate narrative, producing another of his famously fast turnaround books on the subject, Collusion. The complete absence of any supporting evidence for Harding’s claims was exposed in dramatic fashion when he was questioned by journalist Aaron Mate.
Harding’s 2018 story about Manafort was meant to add another layer of confusing mischief to an already tawdry smear campaign. But problematically for Harding, the Ecuadorian embassy at the time of Manafort’s supposed visit was probably the most heavily surveilled building in London. The CIA, as we would later learn, had even illegally installed cameras inside Assange’s quarters to spy on him. There was no way that Manafort and various “Russians” could have visited Assange without leaving a trail of video evidence. And yet none exists. Rather than retract the story, the Guardian has gone to ground, simply refusing to engage with critics.
Most likely, either Harding or a source were fed the story by a security service in a further bid to damage Assange. Harding made not even the most cursory checks to ensure that his “exclusive” was true.
Unwilling to speak in court
Despite both Leigh and Harding’s dismal track record in their dealings with Assange, one might imagine that at this critical point – as Assange faces extradition and jail for doing journalism – the pair would want to have their voices heard directly in court rather than allow lawyers to speak for them or allow other journalists to suggest unchallenged that they are “unreliable” or “bad faith” actors.
Leigh could testify at the Old Bailey that he stands by his claims that Assange was indifferent to the dangers posed to informants; or he could concede that his recollection of events may have been mistaken; or clarify that, whatever Assange said at the infamous dinner, he did in fact work scrupulously to redact names – as other witnesses have testified.
Given the grave stakes, for Assange and for journalism, that would be the only honourable thing for Leigh to do: to give his testimony and submit to cross-examination. Instead he shelters behind the US counsel’s interpretation of his words and Judge Baraitser’s refusal to allow anyone else to challenge it, as though Leigh brought his claim down from the mountain top.
The Guardian too, given it central role in the Assange saga, might have been expected to insist on appearing in court, or at the very least to be publishing editorials furiously defending Assange from the concerted legal assault on his rights and journalism’s future. The Guardian’s “star” leftwing columnists, figures like George Monbiot and Owen Jones, might similarly be expected to be rallying readers’ concerns, both in the paper’s pages and on their own social media accounts. Instead they have barely raised their voices above a whisper, as though fearful for their jobs.
These failings are not about the behaviour of any single journalist. They reflect a culture at the Guardian, and by extension in the wider corporate media, that abhors the kind of journalism Assange promoted: a journalism that is open, genuinely truth-seeking, non-aligned and collaborative rather than competitive. The Guardian wants journalism as a closed club, one where journalists are once again treated as high priests by their flock of readers, who know only what the corporate media is willing to disclose to them.
Assange understood the problem back in 2011, as he explained in his interview with Mark Davis (38.00mins):
“There is a point I want to make about perceived moral institutions, such as the Guardian and New York Times. The Guardian has good people in it. It also has a coterie of people at the top who have other interests. … What drives a paper like the Guardian or New York Times is not their inner moral values. It is simply that they have a market. In the UK, there is a market called “educated liberals”. Educated liberals want to buy a newspaper like the Guardian and therefore an institution arises to fulfil that market. … What is in the newspaper is not a reflection of the values of the people in that institution, it is a reflection of the market demand.”
That market demand, in turn, is shaped not by moral values but by economic forces – forces that need a media elite, just as they do a political elite, to shore up an ideological worldview that keeps those elites in power. Assange threatened to bring that whole edifice crashing down. That is why the institutions of the Guardian and the New York Times will shed no more tears than Donald Trump and Joe Biden if Assange ends up spending the rest of his life behind bars.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
When I was sworn in to practice before the Supreme Court in 2007, I sat near the front of the gallery. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the five-foot-tall justice, was barely visible over the bench behind which she sat. On two occasions, Ginsburg visited the law school where I taught for many years. She graciously created the Thomas Jefferson School of Law Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lecture Series at our annual Women and the Law Conference, which featured leading feminist scholars.
In all three instances, I was struck by the stark contrast between her diminutive stature and her commanding presence. Now, in death, Ginsburg commands the national discourse. How, when and who will fill her vacant seat promises to have a powerful, even determinative, effect on the election and the future of the Supreme Court itself.
After Justice John Paul Stevens retired 10 years ago, Ginsburg assumed the role of leader of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. During her tenure on the high court, Ginsburg wrote landmark decisions — many of them in dissent — upholding the rights of women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, people of color, criminal defendants, people with mental disabilities, workers, and the poor. Ginsburg “cast more liberal votes than any other justice in the court’s weightiest cases,” law professor and political scientist Lee Epstein from Washington University in St. Louis told The New York Times.
Before her confirmation to the Court in 1993, Ginsburg had already distinguished herself as a leader in the fight for gender equality. As a lawyer for the ACLU during the 1970s, Ginsburg handled six cases in the Supreme Court, winning five of them. In 1971, she scored her first victory in Reed v. Reed, a case in which the Court for the first time struck down a state law as violative of equal protection based on sex discrimination. Ginsburg filed an 88-page brief that detailed the ways in which the law perpetuated the oppression of women. Known as the “grandmother brief,” it provided a model for lawyers litigating gender rights cases. In the brief, Ginsburg argued laws that discriminate based on sex, like those that discriminate on account of race, should be judged with strict judicial scrutiny. Women, like people of color, she noted, have suffered a history of discrimination under the law.
In perhaps her most significant majority opinion as a Supreme Court justice, Ginsburg wrote in the 1996 case of U.S. v. Virginia that excluding women from admission to the Virginia Military Institute violated equal protection. She maintained that sex differences may not be used “for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual’s opportunity.” Differential treatment, Ginsburg wrote, cannot “create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of women.”
One of Ginsburg’s monumental dissents came in the 2007 case of Ledbetter v. Tire and Rubber Co., in which the majority upheld strict time limits for filing employment discrimination claims under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She pointed out that pay discrimination is not always easy to identify, writing, “Comparative pay information, moreover, is often hidden from the employee’s view. Employers may keep under wraps the pay differentials maintained among supervisors, no less the reasons for those differentials.” Ginsburg challenged Congress to overturn the ruling by changing the law, writing, “the ball is in Congress’ court.” Congress complied by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.
Another momentous Ginsburg dissent came in 2013 in the case of Shelby County v. Holder, in which the majority struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, that had established a formula for preclearance of jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination. Ginsburg wrote, “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” Ginsburg’s critique has particular resonance as the GOP increases its voter suppression efforts in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. When she read her dissent from the bench, Ginsburg departed slightly from its written version in quoting Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” and adding, “if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.”
One of Ginsburg’s most noteworthy dissents came in the 2000 case that anointed George W. Bush president of the United States. In Bush v. Gore, a 5-4 majority of the Court overruled the Florida Supreme Court’s order for a statewide manual recount in a very close election. Although conservatives usually champion states’ rights, they turned that proclivity on its head to hand the election to Bush. Ginsburg noted, “[T]he Court’s conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court’s own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.”
Bush v. Gore is especially ironic in light of Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s unconscionable and hypocritical rush to confirm Ginsburg’s successor before Inauguration Day. It remains to be seen whether, with the election less than six weeks away, four Republican senators will vote with the Democrats to refrain from filling Ginsburg’s seat and leave the decision for the next president.
The Court now has eight members, three liberals and five conservatives. Chief Justice John Roberts, mindful of the legacy of the Roberts Court, ruled with the liberals to strike down an abortion restriction and uphold the Affordable Care Act. Until Ginsburg’s death, Roberts had been the swing vote on the Court. A Trump appointment would substitute a right-wing justice for Ginsburg, making a 6-3 conservative majority. There would be solid votes to overrule Roe v. Wade and strike down the Affordable Care Act.
During her 27 years on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg was a consistent protector of the poor and the disenfranchised. One must hope that the next justice who fills her seat will rule in the tradition of this legendary liberal justice.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.
Dwight D. Eisenhower‘s presidency, which ran for eight years from January 1953, is notable in the reluctance of the “great general” to launch large-scale military offensives. This was at a time when American power was immeasurably clear of any other nation on earth.
As president, Eisenhower preferred the coup d’etat to the military invasion. After some cajoling from the British pertaining to Iran, the Americans led a putsch in August 1953 against a nationalist government in Tehran – mainly in order to ensure US-British control over Iran’s massive oil reserves, in “the most strategically important area of the world”, as Eisenhower previously described the Middle East. In June 1954 the Eisenhower administration once more resorted to the coup, this time in Guatemala, with Eisenhower’s fear on this instance being the expansion of independent nationalism in the United States’ “backyard” of Latin America. (1)
Eisenhower refused to send American forces en masse to invade Guatemala, as former president Woodrow Wilson would have done a generation before; but the repercussions for Guatemala and its people were still horrendous, the destruction of her democracy which lingers in the country to this day.
Along south-east Asia, specifically Vietnam, Eisenhower again did not descend to an outright military invasion, though he was clearly concerned about the situation. On 7 April 1954, Eisenhower warned that Japan would turn “toward the Communist areas in order to live” if a communist victory in Indochina “takes away, in its economic aspects, that region that Japan must have as a trading area”. Washington’s trepidation of the “super domino” Japan falling to communist influence spreading forth from Vietnam, would remain a serious concern of American planners over following years. (2)
Yet in reality there was no probability that conservative, US-friendly Japan would have become sympathetic to communism, in the scenario of Vietnam’s “loss”. Nor was there a likelihood, had Vietnam been left in peace, that communism would have spread to the Philippines, India, the Middle East, etc., where the masses in these countries had little idea of what communism entailed.
Though not extending to aggression, Eisenhower instituted and supported state terror methods in the Republic of Vietnam, more commonly known as South Vietnam, a state officially founded in October 1955; pending unification of the country on the basis of free elections, which were meant to be held in 1956. Washington regarded the 1954 Geneva agreements as a “disaster” which stipulated, in effect, to hand Vietnam over to the Vietnamese. Instead, Eisenhower’s government quickly established the Ngo Dinh Diem dictatorship in South Vietnam: So as to eradicate the perceived threat to US hegemony in south-east Asia and beyond.
The American author and historian, Noam Chomsky, wrote that this US-backed terrorist regime had, by 1961, “already taken perhaps 75,000 lives in the southern sector of Vietnam since Washington took over the war directly in 1954. But the 1954-1961 crimes were of a different order: they belong to the category of crimes that Washington conducts routinely, either directly or through its agents, in its various terror states. In the fall and winter of 1961-1962, Kennedy added the war crime of aggression to the already sordid record, also raising the attack to new heights”. (3)
Source: vietnamfulldisclosure.org
Less than nine months into his presidency, on 11 October 1961 John F. Kennedy ordered the dispatchment of a US Air Force squadron “Farmgate” to South Vietnam, consisting of 12 warplanes equipped specifically for counterinsurgency attacks – and which were soon authorised “to fly coordinated missions with Vietnamese personnel in support of Vietnamese ground forces” (4). Under Eisenhower, US soldiers in Vietnam remained in a “strictly advisory” role, not actually participating in raids. This status altered within the first year of Kennedy’s tenure, from terror to aggression.
In June 1956 JFK, then a senator, had outlined that,
“Vietnam represents the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the Keystone to the Arch, the finger in the dike. Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines, and obviously Laos and Cambodia, are among those whose security would be threatened if the red tide of communism overflowed into Vietnam”.
His views would change little in coming years.
On 22 November 1961, Kennedy sanctioned the use of US forces “in a sharply increased effort to avoid a further deterioration of the situation” in South Vietnam. It included “increased airlift to the GVN [South Vietnamese regime] in the form of helicopters, light aviation and transport aircraft”. This equipment, along with the arrival of US armed force members to South Vietnam, would partake in “aerial reconnaissance, instruction in and execution of air-ground support and special intelligence” (5). Among the military units were three US Army Helicopter Companies, a Troop Carrier Squadron with 32 planes, fighter aircraft, a Reconnaissance Unit, and six C-123 transport planes equipped for defoliation.
Less than two weeks before, on 11 November 1961 the US National Security Council (NSC) under president Kennedy had ordered the use of “Aircraft, personnel, and chemical defoliants to kill Viet Cong food crops and defoliate selected border and jungle areas”. On 27 November 1961, it was reported that “spraying equipment had been installed on Vietnamese H-34 helicopters, and is ready for use against food crops”. Three weeks later the US Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, authorised newly-based US warplanes in South Vietnam to begin attacking locals, who were resisting the assaults of the US-imposed dictatorship. By January 1962 further US military hardware had arrived in South Vietnam, such as advanced helicopters, along with providing tactical air support.
Chomsky observed that the above actions by the Kennedy administration “were the first steps in engaging US forces directly in bombing and other combat missions in South Vietnam from 1962, along with sabotage missions in the North. These 1961-1962 actions laid the groundwork for the huge expansion of the war in later years, with its awesome toll”. (6)
JFK put the hawkish McNamara in charge of running the war in Vietnam, despite him having scant experience of front line fighting. McNamara was more acquainted with office work, analysing spreadsheets or graphs. From 1946, he had worked in a civilian position for many years with the Ford Motor Company.
Kennedy was inaugurated as president on 20 January 1961. Over the next year and a half, US soldier numbers in South Vietnam increased sixfold, from about 900 on 31 December 1960, to 5,576 by 30 June 1962. The figures then doubled over the next six months, to 11,300 on 31 December 1962. In the early winter of 1963, at the time of Kennedy’s death, there were around 16,000 US military personnel in South Vietnam (7). During the Kennedy presidency, US troop levels on Vietnamese soil increased almost 20 times over from the end of Eisenhower’s tenure.
In July 1962, Defense Secretary McNamara stressed that US plans relating to Vietnam should stick to “a conservative view”, in that withdrawal of American forces “would take three years, instead of one, that is, by the latter part of 1965”, in the event that victory was obtained by then. This schedule would have taken Kennedy into his second term as president, providing of course that he won re-election. McNamara was Kennedy’s right-hand man, we can note – and the late 1965 timetable, regarding US involvement in Vietnam, dispels the assertions that JFK was planning to imminently withdraw US forces from Vietnam.
General Paul Harkins, himself stationed in South Vietnam, elaborated in his Comprehensive Plan of January 1963 that, “the phase-out of the US special military assistance is envisioned as generally occurring during the period July 1965-June 1966” (8). Moreover, by mid-1962 US “intelligence and sabotage forays” into Ho Chi Minh’s communist North Vietnam had also commenced, according to JFK’s National Security Adviser, McGeorge Bundy. Entering 1963 the US war strategy outlined in January of that year was, as Chomsky noted, “in an atmosphere of great optimism, the military initiatives for withdrawal went hand-in-hand with plans for escalation of the war within South Vietnam, and possibly intensified operations against North Vietnam”.
The reality on the ground bears proof of this. By the summer of 1962 and through 1963, CIA activities in Vietnam were increasing. The CIA partook “in joint clandestine operations” with the South Vietnamese armed forces against North Vietnam; CIA actions in Vietnam were recognised on 11 December 1963 by US National Security Staff member Michael Forrestal. In addition the American journalist William Pfaff had, in mid-1962, personally witnessed a CIA patrol “loading up” in an unmarked US C-46 aircraft northwards of Saigon, and heading to North Vietnam or “possibly into China itself”.
It can be important to examine the views of top level American military commanders, relating to the prospect of waging war in Vietnam. In April 1961, General Douglas MacArthur informed president Kennedy that it would be a “mistake” to fight at all in Asia, and that “our line should be Japan, Formosa and the Philippines”. In July 1961, MacArthur firmly repeated this stance during a three hour long discussion in the White House with JFK, but his advice was ignored (9). MacArthur felt that “the domino theory was ridiculous in a nuclear age”, which purports that one country after another would succumb to communism without US intervention. Kennedy is on record as promoting the domino theory.
MacArthur’s successor as the US Army Chief of Staff, General Matthew Ridgway, expressed similar sentiments to MacArthur. Ridgway had opposed the policies of Eisenhower in Vietnam from 1954, which were undertaken to subvert the Geneva Accords. In 1956, Ridgway wrote that limited US involvement in Vietnam had an “ominous ring”, which he suspected would result in escalation (10). He recalled the US Air Force destruction of North Korea in the early 1950s, and found it “incredible… that we were on the verge of making that same tragic error”, which is what president Kennedy would proceed to do. Ridgway later “passionately opposed intervention in Vietnam”, the military historian Robert Buzzanco acknowledged.
Air Force F-105s bomb a target in the southern panhandle of North Vietnam on June 14, 1966. (Photo credit: U.S. Air Force)
General J. Lawton Collins, another experienced US military man, likewise warned about armed intervention in Vietnam and surrounding regions. Collins said that he did not “know of a single senior commander that was in favour of fighting on the land mass of Asia” (11). General James M. Gavin who, like his above colleagues, had commanded US troops in the front line during World War II, was against invading Vietnam too. Even Kennedy’s closest military adviser, General Maxwell Taylor, expressed misgivings about escalating the conflict.
Meanwhile, in February 1962 JFK’s invasion of Vietnam was undeniable. By that month, US Air Force planes “had already flown hundreds of missions”, according to John Newman, the author and retired US major, who cited an army history. Many of these US airborne operations had a low-ranking Vietnamese enlisted soldier on board, just for show. Also in February 1962, on the 22nd, the top US commander in Vietnam, Lieutenant General Lionel McGarr, informed JFK that “in providing the GVN [South Vietnamese regime] the tools to do the job” Washington “must not offer so much that they [the Vietnamese] forget that the job of saving the country is theirs – only they can do it”. (12)
However, in just one week during May 1962, Vietnamese Air Force and US helicopter units flew about 350 sorties together, including offensives and airlifts. By contrast to the military commanders, the NSC civilian leadership, knowing less about war, favoured increasing the US armed presence in Vietnam. Throughout 1962, the second year of Kennedy’s term, the “main emphasis” for Washington was “on the military effort” in South Vietnam, as deliberated on by Arthur Schlesinger, JFK’s close consultant. US military advisers flocked to South Vietnam bringing with them the machines and instruments of modern war, “from typewriters to helicopters”. Furthermore, US Army personnel in early 1962 were indeed directly participating in military operations in Vietnam, a notable upsurge from the Eisenhower years.
Chomsky wrote that,
“By 1962, Kennedy’s war had far surpassed the French war at its peak in helicopters and aerial fire power… Kennedy’s aggression was no secret. In March 1962, US officials announced publicly that US pilots were engaged in combat missions (bombing and strafing). By October, after three US planes were shot down in two days, a front-page story in the New York Times reported that ‘in 30 percent of all the combat missions flown in Vietnamese Air Force planes, Americans are at the controls’, though ‘national insignia have been erased from many aircraft, both American and Vietnamese,… to avoid the thorny international problems involved’.” (13)
Through 1962, US troops were using HU-1A helicopters against South Vietnamese guerrillas. As an offensive weapon, these helicopters contained more firepower than any World War II fighter aircraft. Contrary to the long established myth that JFK, before his assassination (on 22 November 1963), was on the cusp of withdrawing US forces from Vietnam, the opposite is in fact the case. On 17 July 1963, Kennedy said that if US personnel were sent back home it “would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam, but Southeast Asia. So we are going to stay there”.
In Kennedy’s dialogue with the broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite on 2 September 1963, the US president said,
“I don’t agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake… this is a very important struggle even though it is far away”. (14)
A week afterwards on 9 September 1963, during an NBC interview Kennedy reiterated, “I think we should stay” in Vietnam because withdrawal “only makes it easy for the Communists” (15). Three days later on 12 September Kennedy expounded,
“What helps to win the war, we support; what interferes with the war effort, we oppose. I have already made it clear that any action by either government which may handicap the winning of the war is inconsistent with our policy or our objectives” (16).
These latter comments by Kennedy, of 12 September 1963, became “a policy guideline” as noted by Roger Hilsman, JFK’s aide and adviser.
On 26 September 1963, less than two months before Kennedy’s death, he said that America stations troops in Vietnam and other nations because “our freedom is tied up with theirs” and the “security of the United States is thereby endangered” if they pass “behind the Iron Curtain. So all those who suggest we withdraw, I could not disagree with them more. If the United States were to falter the whole world, in my opinion, would inevitably begin to move toward the Communist bloc”.
On 1 November 1963, Washington implemented a long-awaited coup to oust the unreliable South Vietnamese dictator Diem. He was killed the following day, along with Ngo Dinh Nhu, his influential younger brother. Nhu had over recent months complained there were “too many US troops in Vietnam”, and the Kennedy administration was worried the brothers were pursuing a secret deal with the North Vietnamese government. JFK was anxious for the coup to proceed and he placed the new US Ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., in operational command of it. Kennedy believed that if the coup failed the US “could lose our entire position in Southeast Asia overnight”. (17)
Kennedy lauded the removal of Diem as being “of the greatest importance”, and he thanked Ambassador Lodge for his “fine job” and “leadership”. With a hawkish new military dictatorship in place in South Vietnam, Kennedy was pleased that “the prospect of defeat” which was “decisive in shaping our relations to the Diem regime” are now in the past. It is again clear that the US president was intent on remaining in Vietnam and escalating the conflict there, only removing US forces after the war was won, or so it was hoped.
Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State under Kennedy and successor Lyndon B. Johnson, later dismissed allegations that the former intended to withdraw, “I had hundreds of talks with John F. Kennedy about Vietnam, and never once did he say anything of this sort”. (18)
Eight days before the assassination, on 14 November 1963 Kennedy told the media regarding Vietnam there was a “new situation there” following the coup, and “we hope, an increased effort in the war”. JFK continued that the US strategy should be “how we can intensify the struggle” so that “we can bring Americans out of there” (19). In Fort Worth, just a few hours prior to his death, Kennedy produced another statement saying, “Without the United States, South Vietnam would collapse overnight”.
Chomsky affirms that in the time leading up to Kennedy’s shooting,
“there is not a phrase in the voluminous internal record that even hints at withdrawal without victory. JFK urges that everyone ‘focus on winning the war’; withdrawal is conditioned on victory, and motivated by domestic discontent with Kennedy’s war. The stakes are considered enormous. Nothing substantial changes as the mantle passes to LBJ”. (20)
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Notes
1 Susanne Jonas, “50 years later, the lessons from Guatemala”, The Progessive, 21 June 2004
2 Noam Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot (London, Verso Books, 1 April 1993) p. 40
3 Ibid., p. 23
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 50
6 Ibid., p. 23
7 Jack Valenti, “LBJ’s Unwinnable War”, Washington Post, 28 November 2001
8 Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot, p. 68
9 Francis P. Sempa, “A New Take on General MacArthur’s Warning to JFK to Avoid a Land War in Asia”, The Diplomat, 5 October 2018
10 Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College, Volume 17, p. 64
11 Army University Press, “CSI Report No. 5, Conversations with General J. Lawton Collins”
12 Robert Buzzanco, “Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era”, (Cambridge University Press; New Ed Edition, 12 Jan. 2008) p. 125
13 Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot, p. 52
14 Mount Holyoke College, “President Kennedy’s Television Interviews on Vietnam, September 2 and 9, 1963”
15 Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot, p. 46
16 American Foreign Policy Current Documents, 1967, p. 873
17 Office of the Historian, “235. Memorandum of a Conference with President Kennedy”, 29 October 1963
18 James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (OUP USA; New Ed Edition, 12 Feb. 1998) p. 516
19 JFK Library, “News Conference 64, November 14, 1963”
The rumor today is that Romney will reportedly say he’ll support Trump’s 3rd SCOTUS vote. So there you have it! 2020 election Game Over!
Trump will now get his 3rd Supreme Court nominee accepted by McConnell’s Senate–either before Nov. 3 or after. It doesn’t matter when so long as before January.
A SCOTUS 6-3 Trump majority now positions Trump’s SCOTUS majority to stop the mail in ballot vote count in Trump targeted blue and swing states, which would heavily favor Biden.
CNN poll shows 66% of Trump supporters will vote in person on Nov. 3 but only 22% of Biden supporters vote in person. (53% Biden supports to vote by mail). Trump will appear to win on Nov. 3 based on direct in person voting. He’ll declare victory and then move quickly to have Barr and the Justice Dept. stop the counting of mail in ballots in key swing states.
His lawyers are already fanning out and filing motions for injunctions against mail in voting. They will flood swing-blue states mail in ballot vote counting to delay the counting still further. States where Republican governors (and State secretaries of state who manage those states’ vote counting) will meanwhile throw out millions of mail in ballots based on technicalities like signatures failing to dot i’s or cross t’s to ensure Trump ‘red’ states turn in pro-Trump decisions.
Examples of US post office chaos & claims of lost vote ballots, etc. will be used by Trump lawyers to make legal argument that mail in ballots cannot be used to determine the final vote count. Injunctions will be filed to require states to disregard mail ballots. Further delays in mail in ballot counting will occur.
Disputes and legal action by Dems in response will be quickly sent up by Trump federal district judges (appointed by hundreds under McConnell since 2013) to the Supreme Court, now 6-3 in Trump’s pocket. Trump’s Supreme Court will repeat its Florida 2000 decision stopping the vote count–this time counting original votes not a recount. Only swing and blue states will be targeted, not red states already pro-Trump.
Street protests will erupt after Nov. 3 protesting the legal coup d’etat in progress. Trump has already called protestors “insurrectionists” and identified all protests as ‘antifa’ or ‘communist’. His attorney general, Barr, has also already pre-labeled protestors as “treasonous” and traitors who should be forcibly repressed and jailed
The US executive branch since 2002 now has its own executive police force called the Dept. Homeland Security (DHS), with de facto military swat teams who’ve been doing ‘dry runs’ in Seattle, Chicago, Portland and elsewhere. They will be used to suppress protests, aided by pro-Trump local police departments (e.g. New York City, etc.) and perhaps even welcoming right wing radical supportors as provocateurs to attack protestors and thus allow DHS-Police to declare protests riots and directly quash protests.
Contrary to Joe Biden declaring the US military will remove Trump from office if necessary, the US military has said publicly it ‘won’t get involved’.
Democrats will file multiple legal responses to efforts to stop the mail in vote counting that will get delayed in the lower federal court system until Trump is sworn in again in January. Trump’s 6-3 SCOTUS majority will eventually declare them unconstitutional after the fact.
Democrats’ US House of Representatives will once again impeach Trump but it will be ignored once again. Dems will not win Senate as their challengers in Senate will also be stopped from taking office after winning Nov. 3 by mail ballot count cancellation. Mail in ballot vote counting will never be concluded–as in Florida 2000. Americans will never know who actually won the election, as was the case in Florida in 2000.
Trump will gloat and restate what he’s been saying in his recent election speeches: ‘We’ll win in November and after that maybe look at another four years, or even more”!
He’ll then govern mostly by executive order in his second term, ignoring the US House, and moving money around in the US budget to wherever he wants (already doing it) in direct violation of the US Constitution.
In US foreign policy, should Trump win, watch for a total naval blockades launched against Iran and Venezuela after January 2021, if not before as an ‘October Surprise’. In 2021 the US will also engage in massive military buildup in the western pacific to confront and intimidate China.
In 2021 the US economy will relapse and contract after election due to US growing ‘Triple Crisis’ of intensifying political instability and Constitutional crisis, lack of further fiscal stimulus 4th quarter 2020, and possible Covid 19 resurgence.
Trump’s second term 2021 solution will be even more tax cuts for investors, business, and corporations–paid for by cuts in education, social safety net, social security and medicare-medicaid, and tax hikes on middle class.
Failure of the Democrats to have stopped Trump the past four years will likely usher in a basic political party re-alignment in the US as a form of authoritarian government takes hold under Trump quite different from even the limited Democracy form that has itself been slowly atrophying since the early 1990s.
The social condition during the last six months, that some liken socially to a kind of ‘low grade’ war, may well worsen in multiple ways over the coming six months into spring 2021.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Jack Rasmus.
Jack Rasmus is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has slammed US sanctions against his country, saying they are a flagrant violation of the UN charter.
In an address to the UN General Assembly, Rouhani said the Iranian nation successfully withstood the US maximum pressure campaign. He added, Iran even flourished under the bans while pursuing its role as a pivot of peace and stability. He pointed to some of Iran’s peace efforts in the region and beyond, including combating the Daesh terrorist group, saying such a nation does not deserve sanctions. Rouhani said the US sanctions under the pretext of nuclear proliferation are based on false and baseless accusations. The Iranian president described the UN Security Council’s rejection of US unilateralism as a victory for Iran and the world community. He said the US can impose neither negotiations nor war on Iran.
***
PressTV: Could you please comment on Mr. Rouhani’s remarks?
Peter Koenig: First, Mr. Rouhani is absolutely right. Iran, together with Russia and Hezbollah played a crucial role in the Middle East Peace process, especially in Syria. And of course, Iran does not deserve any sanctions – not just because Iran is a peaceful nation and even helps brokering peace with and between other nations – but also because Iran did not violate any of the conditions under the Nuclear Accord – or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was signed under President Obama’s watch on 14 July 2015 in Vienna.
This has been confirmed again and again by the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), in Vienna.
PressTV: How come the U.S. insists on the sanctions though they’ve not caused Iran to abandon resistance against bullies?
PK: It’s largely propaganda. In less than 45 days Mr. Trump will face re-election – or not. Being tough on Iran will impress his conservative followers, regardless whether or not these sanctions have any impact on Iran.
Americans, are basically good people, but they don’t know the real background and impact of the sanctions. They know nothing – only the lies offered to them by the mainstream media.
Almost the same could be said for Europeans. Most of them know what the official mainstream media tells them.
President Trump, knows of course, that sanctioning Iran – and sanctioning everybody and every country that is still dealing and trading with Iran – like the European Union, for example – is illegal. We know, he doesn’t care.
But it must be said. The Iran Nuclear Deal had been approved by the UN Security Council – and is still valid. The UN Security Council does not approve of the sanctions, nor does it approve of unilaterally abrogating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – signed on 14 July 2015, still during Barak Obama’s Presidency, by Iran, the US, Russia, China, UK, Germany and the EU.
Unfortunately, although the EU does not agree with the sanctions – they will most likely go along with them. For fear of the US punishing European enterprises dealing with Iran. Very similar to what Washington does with European companies working on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, supposed to deliver gas from Russia to Germany and the EU.
But not to worry – Iran doesn’t need the west anymore.
Iran does well, focusing on the East – reorienting her trade and political focus, including monetary transactions with the east, according to eastern – i.e. China and Russian systems, approaching entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
PressTV: Mr. Trump said he will force renegotiation of the Nuclear Deal. What is your view on this?
PK: This will not fly, of course. And Mr. Trump knows it. But – again, its propaganda ahead of the November elections, and its part of his election campaign.
Renegotiation, once more, would require the approval of the UN Security Council – and that is highly unlikely with Russia and China – veto countries – in the UNSC.
It’s sheer blustering Trump talk.
PressTV: Why does the U.S. make claims such as being against terrorism while supporting them and putting the blame on other countries like Iran?
PK: Washington never follows logic. – Until not too long again this preposterous approach worked with many countries. The world listened. And many believed it.
But no more.
It is every day clearer that the only rogue Nation in the World – the only Nation that sponsors terrorism, is the United States.
And why are they still doing it – and blaming Iran?
Still propaganda – make believe – that The US is still the strongest country in the world the one that calls the shots on every event on the globe.
But no more and Mr. Trump and his government are aware that the US empire is on a declining branch.
But as with every dying empire, they will not give up until the end.
The EU better wake up before the end, before being pulled down into the abyss.
Iran has a bright future ahead with her orientation towards the East, China and Russia.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals such as Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO) and more. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Featured image is from Campaign for Peace and Democracy
The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
The US wants Kenya to support Israel’s political and commercial interests, or forget a free trade deal (FTA) with the world’s biggest economy.
This is one of a raft of conditions set in the ongoing FTA negotiations between Nairobi and Washington.
The US has indicated in its objectives seen by The EastAfrican that the deal with Kenya should, with respect to commercial partnerships, discourage actions that prejudice or discourage business between the US and Israel.
Washington argues that the FTA should “discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel.”
The US also wants the “elimination of politically motivated, non-tariff barriers on Israeli goods, services, or other commerce imposed on Israel; and the elimination of State-sponsored, unsanctioned foreign boycotts of Israel, or compliance with the Arab League Boycott of Israel.”
The inclusion of a third party, Israel, in the negotiation agenda, has seen lobby groups in Nairobi warn that the agreement could be too risky for Kenya.
The US has for decades been a staunch supporter and defender of Israel on the global stage and in volatile Middle East.
“The United States published its negotiating position before negotiations began for all to see. We are negotiating with transparency and openness,” said the US ambassador to Kenya, Kyle McCarter, when asked about the inclusion of Israel in the negotiations. “This is how we have treated the numerous other countries with which we have concluded successful free trade agreements benefiting both parties,” he added.
Political connotation
The East African Tax and Governance Network (EATGN) and East African Trade Network (EATN), the groups who have been following developments on the matter, said Nairobi was being ‘‘entrapped’’ in the Palestine-Israeli conflict.
“Due to Kenya’s own special relationship with Israel and its pragmatic approach in dealing with issues like tensions in the Middle East, US demands for such political connotations in the USFTA would undercut the country’s reputation,” argued Leonard Wanyama, the co-ordinator of the EATGN and vice-president of the International Relations Society of Kenya, a lobby for foreign policy experts in Nairobi told The EastAfrican.
The Network and other groups had raised a petition opposing the negotiations, unless there is clarity on tax exemptions to avoid any revenue losses for the government.
But the demand for protection of Israeli interests means Washington is pursuing the goal of ending any possible support for Palestine’s Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, a global initiative by various groups across the world friendly to Palestinian grievances. The groups often seek to have Israel meet obligations under international law.
These include withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories; removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank; full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel; and “respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties,” according to a bulletin by the BDS Committee.
Traditionally, Kenya has often recognised Israel, but rarely makes a public statement endorsing one side or the other and supports the ultimate two-State solution for Palestine and Israel. It allows Palestine to establish a representative office in Nairobi.
This week, the Tax Network said Washington’s demand could place Nairobi in a difficult situation and called for officials to reject the call.
On Thursday, Johnson Weru, the Trade and Industry Principal Secretary told The EastAfrican that political issues are not part of the agenda, but declined to discuss the issues they agreed to.
Controversial objectives
Nairobi’s own published objectives indicate the agreement must be discussed within the limits of the EAC and the World Trade Organisation regulations. Kenya also wants a deal that takes into consideration the “special and differential treatment applicable to Kenya as a developing country.”
Under the WTO guidelines, developed countries provide certain preferential treatment to developing partners such as duty-free market access without expecting reciprocal treatment.
Whether Kenya’s refusal to accept political discussions is because of the petition filed earlier last month is yet to be clear. But the US has also included other controversial objectives, which the lobbies are opposed to.
For example, the US insists Kenya must not tax digital products like e-books or music, and Nairobi must include no provisions that require US firms operating to store data locally.
Under the WTO moratorium on e-commerce, Customs duty should be charged on ‘‘transmission’’ of those services and products, not the products or their contents themselves.
The 1998 moratorium has been challenged in situations where physical products have been digitised.
Peter Lunenborg, a Senior Programmes Officer for Trade and development at trade policy research group, South Centre, told The EastAfrican it was not unusual for countries to include conditions like this in trade negotiations, as long as they enhance their market access.
“These are disciplines that are also in USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada Agreement), so there are no surprises there. Essentially these rules, inter alia, aim at maintaining the dominance of US-based e-commerce firms,” he said, referring to the US deal that came into force last July.
Mr Lunenborg said there have been concerns, however, raised at the WTO by some members who argue e-commerce needs to be structured to protect developing countries.
Since 2017, for instance, the Africa Group at the WTO has argued that developing countries need to look beyond the possible benefits of digital solutions, and to start assessing the impact that the lack of digital and technological capabilities would have in cementing and widening the technology divide.
A report on the ‘‘digital industrial policy and development’’ by the Africa Group concluded that “a thorough assessment is required, particularly for developing countries, to assess the opportunities and threats that digital transformation will bring.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Featured image: The US insists Kenya must not tax digital products like e-books or music, and Nairobi must include no provisions that require US firms operating to store data locally. PHOTO | FILE
We worked on several investigative projects together. André’s professional rigor, sharpness of understanding, vision and ability to connecting the dots is exemplary.
We shared some unforgettable moments, when we followed a refugee trail from Bodrum, Turkey, to the Greek Island of Kos in the Aegean Sea – onwards to Athens.
I’m deeply shocked and saddened beyond words by André’s sudden passing.
In the night from Monday to Tuesday 22 September, André traveled by chauffeur-driven car with his wife from Samsun on the Black Sea in Turkey to Istanbul. When they arrived in the early morning hours at the hotel and his wife wanted to wake him up, he didn’t react. He had passed away.
Turkish police said André’s death was “suspicious”. His body was immediately brought to a hospital for forensic analysis.
André traveled relentlessly from one battle field to another, from one conflict zone to a war zone. He exposed innumerable atrocities committed around the world, mostly by western powers. He never wavered from revealing the truth. From Afghanistan to Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan to Argentina, Chile, Peru to Hong Kong, to Xinjiang, the Uygur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China – André was there. He reported on environmental crimes in Borneo, or originally called Kalimantan, Indonesia, where corruption is destroying vital rainforests – the lungs of Mother Earth – for the benefit of western corporations, killing wildlife and annihilating the livelihoods of indigenous people.
André stood always up for justice, in defense of the poor, for the persecuted, the oppressed – for those that by and large are considered non-people by the elitist Global North; the destitute, the refugees, political prisoners, those that disappear and wither away in the shadows. As an investigative journalist and geopolitical analyst, he fought Supremacist Might for Human Rights.
André was a true Internationalist. He will be deeply missed.
May his soul rest in peace and his spirit live on.
There is an extensive archive of Andre’s article on Global Research
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Leon Panetta, who served as director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2009 to 2011, and then as the Obama administration’s secretary for defence, has let the cat out of the bag, telling interviewers that the US is seeking to prosecute WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to send a threatening message to whistleblowers and publishers alike.
The comments were aired this week in a documentary produced by German public broadcaster ARD, entitled “Wikileaks – USA against Julian Assange.” The program was a compelling and objective account of the ten year US persecution of Assange and featured strong interviews with his father John Shipton, his partner Stella Moris, WikiLeaks’ lawyers, United Nations Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer and famous National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Panetta’s remarks were arguably the most significant, because they were confirmation from the horse’s mouth of the mafia-character of the US pursuit of Assange, its politically-motivated nature and flagrant disregard for international laws and fundamental democratic rights. His comments have, not only political, but potentially legal significance, refuting the lies of the US Justice Department, aimed at presenting the attempted extradition as a bona fide process conforming with judicial norms.
Panetta’s comments have probative value, because he was intimately involved in the initial stages of the US campaign to silence Assange. A decades-long Democratic Party political operative, Panetta was head of the CIA in 2010, when the US government responded to WikiLeaks’ exposures of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and global diplomatic conspiracies, by launching an unprecedented operation against Assange and denouncing him as a “spy” or a “high-tech terrorist”
Panetta would undoubtedly have been involved in the Obama administration’s establishment of a “WikiLeaks war room,” staffed by hundreds of military and intelligence operatives, with the sole purpose of “neutralising” Assange.
It can only be assumed that he was privy to the plans surrounding various dirty tricks against the WikiLeaks founder; the 2010 global tour by Hillary Clinton to mitigate the impact of the publication of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables and to line up governments internationally against Assange, and the discussions that resulted in the establishment of a secret grand jury, convened for the purpose of concocting charges against Assange.
In other words, Panetta is not a disinterested observer, but a direct participant. Moreover, while he departed the CIA in mid-2011, and retired from federal office two years later, it is well known that no one ever quite leaves the agency. Its power is based not only on a vast bureaucracy and network of field agents, but also a web of influence encompassing “retired” officials and private security companies, who are “kept in the loop.” Panetta remains a prominent political figure, heading the “Panetta Institute for Public Policy.”
It was in this context that Panetta baldly declared: “All you can do is hope that you can ultimately take action against those that were involved in revealing that information so you can send a message to others not to do the same thing.”
In other words, the prosecution of Assange is a political act, intended to send a warning to journalists who would consider publishing the secrets of the American government. Earlier in the program, Panetta had presented the publication of “classified” and “national security” material as a sin worse than any other.
Those statements alone demonstrate that the US government is lying to the British courts. Under the existing British-US extradition treaty, an individual cannot be extradited to face charges of a political nature.
Since extradition proceedings resumed last week, British prosecutors, representing the US Justice Department, have alternated between claims that Assange is charged with common criminal offenses related to hacking and espionage, meaning that his prosecution would not pose a threat to press freedom, and ominous assertions that the US government is entitled to decide what journalists can and cannot publish.
Panetta echoed the former claim, describing Assange as a “spy.” But as Edward Snowden noted, Assange is explicitly charged with possessing and publishing documents. The prosecution is an attempt to criminalise common journalistic practices, including communicating with a source and seeking to protect their identity. Snowden pointedly asked, if it was not journalism that Assange was engaged in, then what is?
Image on the right: Edward Snowden (Screenshot “Wikileaks – USA against Julian Assange”)
Moreover Panetta’s concluding comments, on the intent of the prosecution, clearly demonstrated that the motivation for the laying of charges is to crackdown on journalism more broadly.
Panetta’s statements about Assange himself underscored the intensely vindictive character of the US prosecution. He declared, without attempting to provide any evidence, that “Assange is somebody who will sell somebody in his family if he thinks that, you know, that he is going to get some attention.” This is not the language of legal proceedings, but of a vendetta.
The ARD program also included an interview with David Morales, a former Spanish navy marine turned mercenary. As head of the Undercover Global security firm, he is accused of overseeing a vast spying operation against Assange while he was residing in Ecuador’s London embassy.
Undercover Global was contracted by the Ecuadorian authorities to manage security at the embassy. But former staff members have stated that in 2015, Morales entered into a secret agreement with US intelligence agencies to surveil every aspect of Assange’s life on their behalf.
The operation, which spanned until March, 2018, allegedly ended up including the installation of cameras and microphones throughout the building, in conference rooms, a women’s toilet and elsewhere. The material was then reportedly uploaded to a server, to which US intelligence had access.
Footage of Assange and Moris captured by Undercover Global cameras (Screenshot “Wikileaks – USA against Julian Assange”)
Some of the material has made its way into the hands of Assange’s defenders, and was featured in the ARD program. Assange and Moris were shown together on a high-definition video, which picked up the audio of their conversation. Most significantly, the interceptions allegedly included discussions between Assange and his lawyers, in a flagrant breach of attorney-client privilege.
Morales, who appeared uneasy, dismissed the accusations out of hand, without providing any explanation for the voluminous evidence substantiating them that is already on the public record. At one point, the ARD interviewers asked who he had been working for. Morales replied that his contract had been with the “intelligence secretariat.” After a pause, he added, without any great conviction, that he had been referring to his official contract with the Ecuadorian authorities to manage security at the building.
Image below: David Morales after being asked who he was working for (Screenshot “Wikileaks – USA against Julian Assange”)
Morales, who is credibly accused of spying on a political refugee for money in violation of international law, pathetically complained that internal Undercover Global documents which cast an unfavourable light on his activities were “confidential” and should not see the light of day.
The denials were undercut by Panetta. With the hubris of an official accustomed to doing as he pleases, Panetta declared the allegation that US intelligence spied on Assange through Undercover Global “doesn’t surprise me. That kind of thing goes on all the time. In intelligence business, the name of the game is to get information any way you can, and I’m sure that’s what was involved here.”
Panetta knows of what he speaks. The alleged espionage likely involved the agency that he previously directed.
Two further points should be made. Panetta’s unequivocal endorsement of the Trump administration’s attempt to prosecute Assange demonstrated, yet again, the bipartisan character of the US war against WikiLeaks and journalism. It is further proof that in the official contest between the Republicans and the Democrats in this November’s presidential election, there is no alternative for the working class.
Secondly, while Panetta’s remarks clearly indicated that, in the first instance, the prosecution is intended as a threat to dissident journalists, the warning is much wider. It is an attempt to establish the conditions for victimisations and frame-ups, amid an immense global crisis of capitalism, widespread anti-war sentiment and the reemergence of the class struggle. The primary target of the turn to authoritarianism is the working class.
The program concluded with a powerful remark from Snowden: “We are setting a precedent, right now, that we are going to live with for the next hundred years. No matter what you feel about Julian Assange, the methods that WikiLeaks and everyone connected to it pioneered have changed the way journalism is done. If we cannot recognise that, and we are not willing to protect it, I think the saddest part of this whole story is that we probably don’t deserve it, and as a result we will no longer have it when we need it the most.”
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Featured image: Panetta laughing as he discusses the prosecution of Assange (Screenshot “Wikileaks – USA against Julian Assange”)
The speeches given by Presidents Trump, Putin, and Xi via video during the 2020 UN General Assembly predictably revealed that the American leader’s assessment of the contemporary international situation and related vision of the future markedly differ from his Russian and Chinese counterparts’.
The functions of the 2020 UN General Assembly are being conducted almost entirely by video this year because of WorldWarC, the author’s term for describing the full-spectrum paradigm-changing processes unleashed by the world’s uncoordinated efforts to contain COVID-19. The highlight of Tuesday’s event was the speeches given by Presidents Trump, Putin, and Xi, which predictably revealed that the American leader’s assessment of the contemporary international situation and related vision of the future markedly differ from his Russian and Chinese counterparts’. For reference, readers can review the transcripts of their speeches in the previously hyperlinked sources embedded in each leaders’ name in the previous sentence. What follows is a summary of their views and visions, after which the most important contrasts between Trump’s and Putin & Xi’s will be briefly analyzed.
Trump
Beginning with Trump, he boasted about the US’ anti-COVID mobilization while blaming China for this global pandemic. He also condemned the People’s Republic for purportedly controlling the World Health Organization, its reported environmental devastation, and alleged trade abuses. Other highlights included mention of what he controversially described as the “peace deal” between Serbia and its NATO-occupied Province of Kosovo & Metohija, as well as the Abraham Accords, the latter of which he regarded as “the dawn of a new Middle East”. He also reminded the world of his commitment to withdraw from Afghanistan, as well as his assassination of Iranian Major General Soleimani who he called “the world’s top terrorist”. In addition, Trump claimed full credit for defeating ISIS. His vision of the future is one in which all countries put themselves first, and he predicted “that next year, when we gather in person, we will be in the midst of one of the greatest years in our history.”
Putin
Putin’s speech, by contrast, was much more constructive than Trump’s. He lauded the UN and its principle of multilateralism while reaffirming his belief that this global body’s Security Council must become more inclusive and international law more fully respected by all. The global economic crisis brought about by World War C necessitates urgent cooperation between the UN, G20, and other organizations. In this context, Putin promoted Russia’s vision of a Greater Eurasian Partnership and reiterated his country’s commitment to the creation of so-called “’green corridors’ free from trade wars and sanctions”. He also spoke in favor of “freeing the world trade from barriers, bans, restrictions and illegitimate sanctions”. The Russian leader then recommended renewing the New START with the US, offered the Sputnik V vaccine for free to all UN personnel, and called for a G5 meeting of the UNSC. At the end of his speech, Putin repeated his call for multilateralism.
Xi
Compared to Trump’s and Putin’s speeches, Xi’s was the simplest of the three, though that’s not a criticism. He succinctly summarized the socio-economic and technological advancements of mankind over the past 75 years since the UN’s founding, and like Putin, Xi urged the international community to return to the principle of multilateralism so that “after the storm comes the rainbow”. He advised the UN to “stand firm for justice”, “uphold the rule of law”, “promote cooperation”, and “focus on real action”. Some relevant points that the Chinese leader made were thinly veiled condemnations of American bullying and unilateralism, as well as recommendations “to replace conflict with dialogue, coercion with consultation and zero-sum with win-win” and for the UN’s Agenda 2030 to give priority “to non-traditional security challenges” like public health. In his optimistic vision of the future, everyone will “work to promote a community with a shared future for mankind”.
Clashing Visions
The contrast between the American leader’s vision of the future and that of his Russian and Chinese counterparts is clear. Claiming that “American prosperity is the bedrock of freedom and security all over the world”, Trump portrayed the past three and a half years in glowing terms, supposedly enriched by the success of his campaign to “Make America Great Again”. Putin and Xi obviously disagree since they each in their own way criticized what they both regard as Trump’s dangerous unilateralism, be it through waging the so-called “trade war”, imposing sanctions, or threatening not to renew the New START. Trump is confident that he’ll return to address the UN next year as the American President, while one can interpret Putin and Xi’s optimism of the future as premised on their presumed belief that Biden might ultimately replace him. All in all, these three speeches simply confirmed that the New Cold War is still mainly about the US vs. Russia and China.
Concluding Thoughts
There are other details in these three speeches such as Trump’s call for regime change in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela and Putin’s suggestion to regulate artificial intelligence and ban space weapons that weren’t touched upon for the sake of keeping this article simple and straight to the point. Readers should therefore take the time to review each of the earlier hyperlinked transcripts if they’re interested in learning about the entirety of each leader’s views. Nevertheless, the point of this piece was to summarize their assessments and outlooks in order to confirm that that the current New Cold War trajectory will likely remain on track if Trump wins re-election. In the event that Biden beats him, however, there’s a chance that the present dynamics of the US’ dual Great Power competitions with Russia and China might somewhat change, though it’s unclear whether it would be for the better like Putin and Xi might hope or for the worse like his opponents at home predict.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Earlier this month, the street outside the Old Bailey criminal court in London, where Julian Assange’s extradition hearing has been taking place, was transformed into a carnival.
Inside the Old Bailey, the courtroom has turned into a circus. There have been multiple technical difficulties, a COVID-19 scare which temporarily halted proceedings and numerous procedural irregularities including the decision by the presiding judge to withdraw permission for Amnesty International’s fair trial observer to have access to the courtroom.
If the outside was a carnival, the inside of the court soon became a circus. -Stefan Simanowitz, Amnesty International
Arriving at the court each morning was an assault to the senses with the noise of samba bands, sound systems and chanting crowds and the sight of banners, balloons and billboards at every turn.
The first day of the hearing, which started on Monday 7 September, drew more than two hundred people to gather outside the court. People in fancy dress mingled with camera crews, journalists and a pack of hungry photographers who would disappear regularly to give chase to any white security van heading towards the court, pressing their long lenses against the darkened windows.
One of the vans had come from Belmarsh high security prison, Julian Assange’s home for the last 16 months.
The Wikileaks founder was in court for the resumption of proceedings that will ultimately decide on the Trump administration’s request for his extradition to the US. The American prosecutors claim he conspired with whistleblowers (army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning) to obtain classified information. They want him to stand trial on espionage charges in the US where he would face a prison sentence of up to 175 years.
Assange’s lawyers began with a request that the alleged evidence in a new indictment handed down in June be excluded from consideration given that it came so late. The Judge denied this. In the afternoon session, the lawyers requested an adjournment until next year to give his lawyers time to respond to the US prosecutor’s new indictment. They said they had been given insufficient time to examine the new allegations, especially since they had only “limited access” to the imprisoned Assange. Indeed, this most recent hearing was the first time in more than six months that Julian Assange had been able to meet with his lawyers. The judge rejected this request.
We requested access to the court for a trial monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated seat in court. -Stefan Simanowitz, Amnesty International
Reacting to the decision, Kristinn Hrafnsson the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks told me that: “the decision is an insult to the UK courts and to Julian Assange and to justice. For the court to deny the request to adjourn is denying Assange his rights.”
Amnesty International had requested access to the court for a trial monitor to observe the hearings, but the court denied us a designated seat in court. Our monitor initially did get permission to access the technology to monitor remotely, but the morning the hearing started he received an email informing us that the Judge had revoked Amnesty International’s remote access.
We applied again for access to the proceedings on Tuesday 8 September, setting out the importance of monitoring and Amnesty International’s vast experience of observing trials in even some of the most repressive countries.
The judge wrote back expressing her “regret” at her decision and saying: “I fully recognise that justice should be administered in public”. Despite her regret and her recognition that scrutiny is a vital component of open justice, the judge did not change her mind.
If Amnesty International and other observers wanted to attend the hearing, they would have to queue for one of the four seats available in a public gallery. We submitted a third application to gain direct access to the overflow room at the court where some media view the livestream, but this has also been denied.
Amnesty International have monitored trials from Guantanamo Bay to Bahrain, Ecuador to Turkey. For our observer to be denied access profoundly undermines open justice. -Stefan Simanowitz, Amnesty International
The refusal of the judge to not to give any “special provision” to expert fair trial monitors is very disturbing. Through its refusal, the court has failed to recognize a key component of open justice: namely how international trial observers monitor a hearing for its compliance with domestic and international law. They are there to evaluate the fairness of a trial by providing an impartial record of what went on in the courtroom and to advance fair trial standards by putting all parties on notice that they are under scrutiny.
Amnesty International have monitored trials from Guantanamo Bay to Bahrain, Ecuador to Turkey. For our observer to be denied access profoundly undermines open justice.
In the court, the overflow room has experienced ongoing technical problems with sound and video quality. More than a week after the proceedings began, these basic technical difficulties have not been properly ironed out and large sections of witness evidence are inaudible. These technological difficulties were not restricted to the overflow room. In court, some witnesses trying to “call into” the court room last week, were not able to get in. These basic technical difficulties have hampered the ability of those in the courtroom to follow the proceedings.
If Julian Assange is silenced, others will also be gagged either directly or by the fear of persecution and prosecution. -Stefan Simanowitz, Amnesty International
We are still hopeful that a way can be found for our legal expert to monitor the hearing because the decision in this case is of huge importance. It goes to the heart of the fundamental tenets of media freedom that underpin the rights to freedom of expression and the public’s right to access information.
The US government’s unrelenting pursuit of Julian Assange for having published disclosed documents is nothing short of a full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression. The potential chilling effect on journalists and others who expose official wrongdoing by publishing information disclosed to them by credible sources could have a profound impact on the public’s right to know what their government is up to.
If Julian Assange is silenced, others will also be gagged either directly or by the fear of persecution and prosecution which will hang over a global media community already under assault in the US and in many other countries worldwide.
The US Justice Department is not only charging a publisher who has a non-disclosure obligation but a publisher who is not a US citizen and not in America. The US government is behaving as if they have jurisdiction all over the world to pursue any person who receives and publishes information of government wrongdoing.
If the UK extradites Assange, he would face prosecution in the USA on espionage charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life – possibly in a facility reserved for the highest security detainees and subjected to the strictest of daily regimes, including prolonged solitary confinement. All for doing something news editors do the world over – publishing information provided by sources, that is in the interest of the wider public.
It is ironic that no one responsible for potential war crimes in Iraq & Afghanistan has been punished. Yet the publisher who exposed these potential crimes is the one in the dock. -Stefan, Simanowitz, Amnesty International
Outside the court, I bumped into Eric Levy, aged 92. His interest in Assange’s case is personal. He was in Baghdad during the American “shock and awe” bombardment in 2003 having travelled to Iraq as part of the Human Shield Movement aiming to stop the war and – failing that – to protect the Iraqi population.
“I’m here today for the same reason I was in Iraq. Because I believe in justice and I believe in peace,” he tells me. “Julian Assange is not really wanted for espionage. He is wanted for making America look like war criminals.”
Indeed, it is ironic that no one responsible for possible war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan has been prosecuted, let alone punished. And yet the publisher who exposed their crimes is the one in the dock facing a lifetime in jail.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Monday was a frustrating day as the Assange Hearing drifted deep into a fantasy land where nobody knows or is allowed to say that people were tortured in Guantanamo Bay and under extraordinary rendition. The willingness of Judge Baraitser to accept American red lines on what witnesses can and cannot say has combined with a joint and openly stated desire by both judge and prosecution to close this case down quickly by limiting the number of witnesses, the length of their evidence, and the time allowed for closing arguments. For the first time, I am openly critical of the defence legal team who seem to be missing the moment to stop being railroaded and say no, this is wrong, forcing Baraitser to make rulings against them. Instead most of the day was lost to negotiations between prosecution and defence as to what defence evidence could be edited out or omitted.
More of which later.
Professor Christian Grothoff
The first witness was Professor Christian Grothoff, a computer scientist based at the University of Berne Institute of Applied Sciences. Prof Grothoff had prepared an analysis of how and when the unredacted cables first came to be released on the internet.
Prof Grothoff was taken through his evidence in chief by Marks Summers QC for the defence. Prof Grothoff testified that Wikileaks had shared the cable cache with David Leigh of the Guardian. This had been done in encrypted form. It had a very strong encryption key; without the long, strong password there would be no way to access it. It was useless without the key. In reply to questions from Summers, Prof Grothoff confirmed that it was standard practice for information to be shared by an online cache with strong encryption. It was standard practice, and not in any way irresponsible. Banking or medical records might be securely communicated in this way. Once the file is encrypted, it cannot be read without the key, and nor can the key be changed. New copies can of course be made from the unencrypted original with different keys.
Summers then led Prof Grothoff to November 2010 when cables started to be published, initially by partners from the media consortium after redaction. Grothoff said that the next event was a DDOS attack on the Wikileaks site. He explained how a distributed denial of service attack works, hijacking multiple computers to overload the target website with demand. Wikileaks reaction was to encourage people to put up mirrors to maintain the availability of content. He explained this was quite a normal response to a DDOS attack.
Prof Grothoff produced a large list of mirrors created all over the world as a result. Wikileaks had posted instructions on how to set up a mirror. Mirrors set up using these instructions did not contain a copy of the cache of unredacted cables. But at some point, some mirrors started to contain the file with the unredacted cables. These appeared to be few and special sites with mirrors created in other ways than by the Wikileaks instructions. There was some discussion between Grothoff and Summers as to how the cached file may have been hidden in an archive on the Wikileaks site, for example not listed in the directory, and how a created mirror could sweep it up.
Summers then asked Professor Grothoff whether David Leigh released the password. Grothoff replied that yes, Luke Harding and David Leigh had revealed the encryption key in their book on Wikileaks published February 2011. They had used it as a chapter heading, and the text explicitly set out what it was. The copies of the encrypted file on some mirrors were useless until David Leigh posted that key.
Summers So once David Leigh released the encryption key, was it in Wikileaks’ power to take down the mirrors? Grothoff No. Summers Could they change the encryption key on those copies? Grothoff No. Summers Was there anything they could do? Grothoff Nothing but distract and delay.
Grothoff continued to explain that on 25 August 2011 the magazine Der Freitag had published the story explaining what had happened. It did not itself give out the password or location of the cache, but it made plain to people that it could be done, particularly to those who had already identified either the key or a copy of the file. The next link in the chain of events was that nigelparry.com published a blog article which identified the location of a copy of the encrypted file. With the key being in David Leigh’s book, the material was now effectively out. This resulted within hours in the creation of torrents and then publication of the full archive, unencrypted and unredacted, on Cryptome.org.
Summers asked whether Cryptome was a minor website. Grothoff replied not at all, it was a long established platform for leaked or confidential material and was especially used by journalists.
At this stage Judge Baraitser gave Mark Summers a five minute warning on Prof Grothoff’s evidence. He therefore started to speed through events. The next thing that happened, still on 31 August 2011, is that a website MRKVA had made a searchable copy. Torrents also started appearing including on Pirate Bay, a very popular service. On 1 September, according to classified material from the prosecution supplied to Prof Grothoff, the US Government had first accessed the unredacted cache. The document showed this had been via a torrent from Pirate Bay. Wikileaks had made the unredacted cables available on 2 September, after they were already widely available. They had already passed the point where “they could not be stopped”.
Neither Pirate Bay nor Cryptome had been prosecuted for the publication. Cryptome is US based.
Joel Smith then rose to cross-examine for the prosecution. He started by addressing the Professor’s credentials. He suggested that the Professor was expert in computer analysis, but in putting together a chronology of events he was not expert. Prof Grothoff replied that it had required specialist forensic skills to track the precise chain of events.
Joel Smith then suggested that his chronology of events was dependent on material provided by the defence. Prof Grothoff said that indeed the defence had supplied key evidence, but he had searched extensively for other material and evidence online of the course of events and tested the defence evidence.
Smith then asked Grothoff whether he had withheld any information he should have given as a declaration of interest. Grothoff said he had not, and could not think what Smith was talking about. He had conducted his research fairly and taken great care to test the assertions of the defence against the evidence. Smith then read out an open letter from 2017 to President Trump calling for the prosecution of Assange to be dropped. Grothoff said it was possible, but he had no recollection of having signed it or seeing it. The defence had told him about it on Saturday, but he still did not remember it. The content of the letter seemed reasonable to him, and had a friend asked him to sign then he would probably have done so. But he had no memory of it.
Smith noted that Grothoff was listed as an initial signatory not an online added signatory. Grothoff replied that nevertheless he had no recollection of it. Smith then asked him incredulously “and you cannot remember signing a letter to the President of the United States?” Grothoff again confirmed he could not remember.
Quoting the letter, Smith then asked him “Do you think the prosecution is “a step into the darkness”?”. Grothoff replied that he thought it had strong negative ramifications for press freedom worldwide. Lewis then put to Grothoff that he had strong views, and thus was evidently “biased, partial”. Grothoff said he was a computer scientist and had been asked to research and give testimony on matters of fact as to what had occurred. He had tested the facts properly and his personal opinions were irrelevant. Smith continued to ask several more questions about the letter and Grothoff’s partiality. Altogether Smith asked 14 different questions related to the open letter Grothoff had allegedly signed. He then moved on:
Smith Did you download the cables file yourself during your research? Grothoff Yes, I did. Smith Did you download it from the Wikileaks site? Grothoff No, I believe from Cryptome. Smith So in summer 2010 David Leigh was given a password and the cache was put up on a public website? Grothoff No, it was put on a website but not public. It was in a hidden directory. Smith So how did it end up on mirror sites if not public? Grothoff It depends how the specific mirror is created. On the Wikileaks site the encrypted cache was not an available field. Different mirroring techniques might sweep up archive files. Smith Wikileaks had asked for the creation of mirrors? Grothoff Yes. Smith The strength of a password is irrelevant if you cannot control the people who have it. Grothoff That is true. The human is always the weakest link in the system. It is difficult to guard against a bad faith actor, like David Leigh. Smith How many people did Wikileaks give the key in the summer of 2010? Grothoff It appears from his book only to David Leigh. He then gave it to the hundreds of thousands who had access to his book. Smith Is it true that 50 media organisations and NGOs were eventually involved in the process of redaction? Grothoff Yes, but they were not each given access to the entire cache. Smith How do you know that? Grothoff It is in David Leigh’s book. Smith How many people in total had access to the cache from those 50 organisations? Grothoff Only Mr Leigh was given access to the full set. Only Mr Leigh had the encryption key. Julian Assange had been very reluctant to give him that access. Smith What is your evidence for that statement? Grothoff It is in David Leigh’s book. Smith That is not what it says.
Smith then read out two long separate passages from Luke Harding and David Leigh’s book, both of which indeed made very plain that Assange had given Leigh access to the full cache only with extreme reluctance, and had been cajoled into it, including by David Leigh asking Assange what would happen if he were bundled off to Guantanamo Bay and nobody else but Assange held the password.
Grothoff That is what I said. Harding and Leigh write that it had been a hard struggle to prise the password out of Assange’s hand. Lewis How do you know that the 250,000 cables were not all available to others? Grothoff In February 2011 David Leigh published his book. Before that I do not have proof Wikileaks gave the password to nobody else. But if so, they have kept entirely quiet about it. Smith You say that after the DDOS attack Wikileaks requested people to mirror the site globally. They published instructions on how to do it. Grothoff Yes, but mirrors created using the Wikileaks instructions did not include the encrypted file. In fact this was helpful. They were trying to build a haystack. The existence of so many mirrors without the unencrypted file made it harder to find. Smith But in 2010 the password had not been released. Why would Wikileaks want to build a haystack then? Grothoff The effect was to build a haystack. I agree that was probably not the initial motive. It may have been when this mirror creation continued later. Smith As of December 2010 what Wikileaks are saying is they wish to proliferate the site as they are under attack? Grothoff Yes Joel Smith On 23 August 2011 Wikileaks start a mass release of cables? Grothoff Yes. This is a release of unclassified cables and also ongoing release of redacted classified cables by media partners. Smith They were releasing cables by country, and putting out tweets saying which countries they were releasing cables for both then and next? (Smith reads from tweets.) Grothoff Yes. I have verified that these were unclassified cables by searching through these cables on the classification field. Smith Were some classified secret? Grothoff No, they were unclassified. I checked this. Smith Were some marked “strictly protect”? Grothoff That is not a classification in the classification field. I did not check for that. Smith Wikileaks boast that they make the files available in a searchable form. Grothoff Yes, but their search facility was not very good. Much easier to search them in other ways. Smith You said Der Freitag stated that the encrypted file was available on mirrors. The article does not say that. Grothoff No, but it says that it was widely circulating on the internet. That is done by mirroring. They did not use that word, I agree. Smith The 29 August Der Spiegel article does not publish the password. Then Wikileaks publishes an article claiming these stories are “substantially incorrect”. Grothoff It points to the password. Smith Some cables were published classified “Secret”. Grothoff These were cables that had been redacted fully by the consortium of media experts. Smith Why do you call them “experts”? Grothoff They knew the subject matter and the localities. Smith Why do you call them “experts”? Grothoff They were experienced journalists who knew what was and was not safe and right to publish. So experts in journalism. You need to distinguish between three types of cable published at this time: 1) classified and redacted; 2) unclassified; 3) the classified and unredacted cache. Smith Are you aware that some cables were marked “strictly protect”? Grothoff That is not a designation of a cable. It is applied to individuals. But it does not indicate that they are in danger, merely that for political reasons they do not want to be known as giving evidence to the US government? Smith How do you know that? Grothoff It is in the bundle I was sent, and the evidence of other defence witnesses. Smith You don’t know. Grothoff I do know the “strictly protect” names you are referring to were in safe countries. Smith Before 31 August you find no evidence of full publication of the entire cache? Grothoff Yes.
We then went through an excruciatingly long process of Smith querying the evidence for the timing of every publication prior to Wikileaks own publication, and trying to shift back the latest possible time of publication online of various copies, including Cryptome, MRKVA, Pirate Bay and various other torrents. He managed to establish that, depending which time zone you were in, some of this could be attributed to possibly very early on 1 September rather than 31 August, and that it was not possible to put an exact time within a window of a few hours on Cryptome’s unredacted publication early in the morning on 1 September.
[This exercise could cut both ways. The timing of a tweet saying a copy or torrent is up and giving a link, must be sent out after the material is put up, which could be some time before sending the tweet.]
Grothoff concluded that at the end of the day we do not know to the minute timings for every publication, but what we can say for certain is that all of the publications discussed, including Cryptome, were before Wikileaks.
Smith then noted that Parry wrote in his blog “This is a bad day for David Leigh and the Guardian. I ran the password from David Leigh’s book in an old W/L file…” but did not give the location of the file. This was at 10pm on 31 August. Within 20 minutes Wikileaks was issuing a press release “statement of the betrayal of Wikileaks passwords by the Guardian” and 80 minutes later an editorial. [I think that Smith here was trying to say Wikileaks had published Parry’s breakthrough.] Smith then invited Grothoff to agree that when Wikileaks themselves published the full documents later on 2 September, it was more comprehensible and visible than earlier publications. Grothoff replied it was not more comprehensive, it was the same. It was more visible but by that time the cat was well out of the bag and the unredacted cables were spreading rapidly all over the internet. There was no way to stop them.
Mark Summers then re-examined Grothoff and established that the evidence was that the encryption key for the full cache was given to David Leigh and to nobody else. The storage method was secure – Grothoff pointed out that precisely the same method was used to send around the court bundles in this case. Only David Leigh had revealed the password.
On mirror sites, Grothoff confirmed that the Wikileaks instructions created mirrors without the encrypted cache. All the copies of the encrypted cache he could find on other mirrors, were on sites which plainly were created using other methods, for example other software systems. Summers then got Professor Grothoff to explain the methodology he had used to verify the cables published by Wikileaks before the Leigh crash were all unclassified. Apart from dip sampling, this included a correlation of the number published for each country with the number listed as unclassified for each country in the US government directory. These matched in every case.
Summers then attempted to take Grothoff back over the timeline evidence which Joel Smith had put so much effort into muddying, but was prevented from doing so by Baraitser. She had interrupted Summers four times during his re-examination, on the extraordinary basis that this ground was gone over before; extraordinary because that is the point of a re-examination. Baraitser had permitted Smith to ask fourteen successive questions of Grothoff on the subject of why he had signed an open letter. The double standard was very obvious.
Which brings us to a very crucial point. The next witness, Andy Worthington, was at court and ready to give evidence, but was prevented from doing so. The United States government objected to his evidence, about his work on the Guantanamo Detainee files, being heard because it contained allegations of inmates being tortured at Guantanamo.
Baraitser said her ruling was not going to consider whether torture took place at Guantanamo, or if extraordinary rendition had happened. She did not need to hear evidence on these points. Mark Summers replied that the ECHR had ruled on these as facts, but that it was necessary they be stated by witnesses as appropriate as it went to the Article 10 ECHR defence. Lewis maintained the objection from the US government.
Baraitser said she wanted the prosecution and defence to produce a witness schedule that would get the case finished by the end of next week, including closing statements. She wanted them to agree what evidence could and could not be heard. Where possible she wanted evidence in uncontested statements with the defence just reading out the gist.
She also said that she did not want to hear closing arguments in court, but she would have them in writing and the defence and prosecution could just summarise them briefly orally.
What the defence should have said at this moment is “Madam, the dogs in the street know that people were tortured in Guantanamo Bay. In the real world, it is not a disputed fact. If Mr Lewis’s instructions were to deny that the earth is round, would our witnesses have to accommodate that? The truth of these matters plainly goes to the Article 10 Defence, and by pandering to the denial of a notorious and plain fact, this court will be held up to mockery. We will not discuss such ludicrous censorship with Mr Lewis. If you wish to rule that there must be no mention of torture in evidence, then so be it.”
The defence did not say any of that, but as instructed entered a process with the prosecution lawyers of agreeing the shortening and editing of evidence, a process which took all day and with which Julian showed plain signs of being uncomfortable. Andy Worthington did not get to give his evidence. The only further evidence heard was the reading of the gist of a statement from Cassandra Fairbanks. I did not hear most of this because, having adjourned to 4.30pm, the court re-adjourned earlier than advertised, while Julian’s dad John Shipton, the musician MIA and I were away having a coffee. I commend this account by Kevin Gosztola of Fairbanks’ startling evidence. It was read quickly by Edward Fitzgerald in “gist”, agreed as an uncontested account, and speaks strongly of the political motivation apparent in this prosecution.
I am very concerned about the obvious collusion of the prosecution and the judge to close this case down. The extraordinary conflation of “time management” and excluding evidence which the US Government does not want heard in public is plainly illegitimate. The continual chivvying and interruption of defence counsel in examination when prosecution counsel are allowed endless repetition amounting to harassment and bullying is illegitimate. Some extraordinarily long prosecution cross-examinations, such as that of Carey Shenkman the lawyer, have every appearance of deliberate time wasting and distraction.
Tuesday’s witness is Professor Michael Kopelman, the eminent psychiatrist, and the prosecution have indicated they wish to cross-examine him for an extraordinary four hours, which Baraitser agreed against defence objections. Her obsession with time management is distinctly subjective.
Obviously there is a moral question for me in how much of this medical evidence I publish. The decision will be taken in strict accordance with the views of Julian or, if we cannot ascertain that, his family.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has once again managed to do what federal bank regulators refuse to do in the United States – come clean with the American people about our dirty Wall Street banks.
ICIJ dropped a bombshell investigative report yesterday about money laundering for criminals at some of the biggest banks on Wall Street, but you won’t find a peep about it on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal or New York Times’ print editions. In fact, the New York Times, as of 6:44 a.m. this morning, hasn’t reported the story at all. The Wall Street Journal carries an innocuous headline, “HSBC Stock Hits 25-Year Low,” putting the focus on the British bank, HSBC, when its focus should be on the largest bank in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase, a serial felon.
JPMorgan Chase has already pleaded guilty to three criminal felony counts brought by the U.S. Department of Justice since 2014. Two of those counts related to money laundering and failure to file suspicious activity reports on the business bank account it held for Bernie Madoff for decades. JPMorgan Chase actually told U.K. regulators that it suspected Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme but it failed to share those concerns with U.S. regulators, even though it was required under law to do so.
The third felony count brought by the U.S. Department of Justice came one year later, in 2015. It related to JPMorgan’s involvement in a bank cartel that was engaged in rigging foreign exchange trading. The bank is currently under a criminal investigation for allowing its precious metals desk to be turned into a racketeering enterprise according to the Justice Department. Multiple JPMorgan precious metals traders have already been charged under the RICO statute, typically reserved for members of organized crime.
The ICIJ investigation is based on secret documents leaked from FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a unit of the U.S. Treasury. The documents “show that five global banks — JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon — kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players even after U.S. authorities fined these financial institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money.”
Every American should be horrified by this latest report from the ICIJ; every American should be outraged that the U.S. is now second only to the Cayman Islands for hiding dirty money for criminals; every American should demand that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal give this story the front page coverage it deserves; and every American should look at this upcoming presidential election as the defining moment in whether the United States can be saved or will join a sad, tragic list of failed democracies.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Our thanks to the authors at Wall Street on Parade
Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies
Can you 
