Global Research

InfoBRICS interviewed many reputable military experts regarding the direction in which the special military operation (SMO) is headed and how it’s been going so far. These pundits have not only shown profound understanding of military processes in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict, but have also predicted important events with shocking precision. Continuing this tradition, we have had the honor of interviewing Stevica S. Karapandžin, a Colonel (ret.) of the Serbian Armed Forces.

While in active service, Colonel Karapandžin served as an artillery division commander and Head of the Department of Operational and Educational Affairs in the command of the Artillery Brigade. At the General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense (MoD), he performed operational tasks, as well as those in the field of media and public relations, serving as the Director of the “Defense” media center (“Одбрана” in Serbian). Colonel Karapandžin is a member of the Journalists’ Association of Serbia, as well as a regular author in many reputable media. He has published a large number of scientific and professional works, texts and books, including one about the Russian SMO in Ukraine, named “The Geopolitical Gambit – Special Military Operation” (currently available in Serbian only).

Despite his busy schedule, Colonel Karapandžin graciously accepted to conduct a written interview about the SMO for InfoBRICS. According to his assessment, after several turning points, the course of the SMO is heading toward its culmination, so the achievement of proclaimed Russian goals – the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine – is becoming more certain.

The Introduction to the General Dynamics of the SMO

Colonel Karapandžin argues that the determination of the Ukrainian side is the decisive defense of the Donbass, organized in three operational zones.

The first zone was running along the Severodonetsk – Lisichansk – Popasnaya line, the second and longest was Seversk – Soledar – Bakhmut – Konstantinovka – Avdeyevka – Maryinka – Ugledar (or what the Colonel calls the Donbass Arc), while the third and shortest line is Slavyansk – Kramatorsk – Druzhkovka. The first was taken in June 2022, while the second was breached in January 2023 and is currently the main focus of combat operations. Russian forces are most likely gravitating toward the city of Slavyansk and the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine can be accomplished by surrounding and destroying the Ukrainian combat potential in the third zone.

In line with the assessed operational planning, the achieved results and the duration, Colonel Karapandžin divided the current course of the SMO into stages and each stage into phases. Every stage was marked by one or two Russian offensives on smaller cities and a large number of open-field offensive battles and combat operations. The ratio of attacker-defender forces was generally out of the ordinary, usually 1:1 [offensive operations are normally conducted with an advantage of at least 3:1]. During the second stage, the Ukrainian side carried out offensive operations in the Kharkov area, while in the fourth it focused on the Zaporozhye direction. There were no offensive operations on a strategic level.

Drago Bosnic (DB): What was the true goal of Russian forces moving on Kiev in the initial stages of the SMO?

Image: Car belonging to Donbass Insider after it was destroyed by Ukrainian artillery shelling in the district of Petrovski, in the west of Donetsk city on 4 June 2022. Picture source: Donbass Insider  

Ret. Col. Stevica S. Karapandžin (RCSSK): By analyzing intelligence data on Ukrainian plans for an offensive operation in the Donbass in early 2022, the Russian General Staff determined that the opposing side underestimated the strength of the forces in Crimea and this observation was implemented through the strategic employment [of these forces]. In order to divert the enemy’s attention, Russian forces were significantly increased along the border with Belarus, and in the period from February 10 to 20, these forces were pre-deployed there, carrying out massive training activities under the name “Allied Resolve” (“Объединенная Решимость” in Russian). To the Ukrainian side, this created a false impression of a plan for an offensive operation toward Kiev.

In reality, the plan existed only as a distraction and Ukrainian forces were urgently transferred from the Donbass in order to tie up Russian troops and prevent the fall of the capital city. The Russian side had the opposite intention – tying up the strongest Ukrainian forces in the defense of the cities of Kiev and Kharkov – in order to expose the areas in the south, which was successful. The first, shortest stage of the SMO – which was preparatory – was marked by a two-pronged Russian strategic surprise offensive, with exploitation at the operational and tactical level through continuous initiative. With the stretching and tying down of Ukrainian forces on a 3,000 km wide frontline, also involving a large number of tactical airborne assaults, high-precision missile strikes, a distraction operation around Kiev and the urgent capture of Mariupol, the Russian military’s focus was gradually shifted to the Donbass – from the military point of view, the key area of this war.

DB: Why was Mariupol so significant for Russia?

RCSSK: The original idea for the Russian offensive operation in Mariupol was to circumvent the Kalmius industrial district and direct its main forces toward the western and central parts of the city, isolating Ukrainian defenses in the industrial area. As the frontline moved to the north, Ukrainian forces were cut off from coastal areas and forced to abandon the defense of Kalmius, resulting in the gradual decline of their room for maneuver. Thus, Ukrainian troops were forced to defend their positions in the “Azovstal” steel plant, which ended with their encirclement and surrender.

In order to neutralize the Ukrainian group of about 8,000 fighters and enable the land connection between Crimea and the Donbass, the Russian side took its time to finish mop-up operations in Mariupol, and after more than a month of blockade, smaller Russian forces were still tied down by around 2,000 Ukrainian defenders. On April 21, assault operations were paused and “Azovstal” was blocked in order to allow the majority of Russian forces to advance further in the Donbass. The epilogue was the surrender of the remaining parts of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade and the “Azov” Regiment on May 20, 2022. The second stage of the SMO and Russian offensive operations in the Donbass began on April 19, 2022.

DB: How would you describe the strategic impact of the capture of Severodonetsk?

RCSSK: In the spring of 2022, in the first phase of the second stage of the SMO, Russian forces achieved a large number of successes in the Krasny Liman and Lugansk operational directions. Breakthroughs were carried on tactical routes Izyum – Barvenkovo, Izyum – Dolina, Krasny Liman – Yampol, Stara Krasnyanka – Privolye, Aleksandrovka – Severodonetsk and Popasnaya – Verkhnokayanka. Near the town of Privolye, they managed to cross the Seversky Donets River, formed a bridgehead on the southern bank, brought in fresh forces and, having taken control of Belogorovka, extended their operations toward Lisichansk. In May, they captured Rubezhnoye, and in June, Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, which was a success of operational significance.

After the capture of the first operational zone of the Ukrainian defense, which brought the Lugansk region under Russian control, a further advance was expected in order to break through the northern part of the second operational zone (Seversk – Soledar – Bakhmut) and the Slavyansk – Kramatorsk line. However, for the first, and for now, the only time, the Ukrainian side decided to defend Lisichansk and resorted to desperate defense, further strengthening the Seversk – Soledar – Bakhmut line. Because of this, as well as the Ukrainian operational success in the Kharkov direction in September 2022, the expected Russian offensive didn’t occur, just as Seversk wasn’t taken (apart from the battles fought in the nearby settlements of Serebryanka and Verkhnekamensko).

DB: What can You tell us about the capture of Soledar?

RCSSK: In the first half of 2023, the third stage of SMO commenced. With the “Wagner” PMC’s capture of Soledar in January 2023, the second operational zone of the Ukrainian defense was breached, which was a Russian tactical success with certain aspects of operational importance. This compromised the previously compact Ukrainian defenses in the Donbass, with the possibility of Russian forces circumventing Seversk from the south and Bakhmut from the north and placing these two areas in operational encirclement. The road-railway communication of the Ukrainian second operational zone was cut, placing it under Russian artillery fire control. With the success of its assault squads, the “Wagner” PMC tied up considerable enemy forces in Soledar, which forced the Ukrainian General Staff to strengthen the defenses by engaging units planned for operations in other directions. Then, for the first time, the Russian side applied the strategy of “sucking” Ukrainian reserves into the meatgrinder.

DB: Can You tell us more about the Battle of Bakhmut (now known as Artyomovsk)?

RCSSK: Bakhmut, which was in the operational encirclement for a long time, was also captured by units of the “Wagner” PMC in May 2023. Then, for the first time, the Russian side used the tactic of intentionally leaving one area as a “supply artery” of the enemy’s defenses, while continuously observing and keeping it under artillery fire control. In addition to having a negative impact on morale, particularly in terms of encouraging uncontrollable withdrawal, Ukrainian forces also suffered significantly greater losses in large open areas. The offensive operation to capture Bakhmut began on October 8, 2022. In line with the basic principles of defense, the width of a battalion’s coverage area should be 3-5 km, but the Ukrainian side’s in Bakhmut was no more than 1.5 km. The political leadership of Ukraine refused to give up, so the Russian side continued with the strategy of “sucking” Ukrainian reserves into the meatgrinder.

Russian offensive tactics included the most massive type of artillery strikes, the so-called “wave of fire”, with constant pressure from assault groups on selected tactical directions. By skillful choice of the center of operational gravity, but also by constant changes in the direction of attack, the Russian side kept creating a favorable balance of forces. This also implied great losses for the attackers and huge consumption of artillery munitions, which was measured in train cars. In street battles, rocket launchers with thermobaric munitions (man-portable MRO “Borodach”, a more advanced version of the RPO “Shmel”, and TOS-1A “Solntsepyok”), UMPK-equipped precision-guided FAB glide bombs and 240 mm 2S4 “Tyulpan” mortars were used en masse.

DB: What was the strategic impact of the Battle of Avdeyevka?

Image: Residential building in Avdiivka (Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine) after Russian rocket strike on 23 May 2023

RCSSK: In the second half of 2023, in the fourth stage of the SMO, the Ukrainian side suffered a failure of its offensive in the Zaporozhye operational direction. Naturally, the second phase of this stage soon followed, which was marked by a crawling Ukrainian attack and active Russian defense. Until it was lost, Avdeyevka was one of the few remaining sectors of the southern part of the Donbass Arc, the most important and most fortified Ukrainian defense position in the Donbass agglomeration. For a decade, Ukrainian forces used this area as a stronghold for artillery strikes on Donetsk, Gorlovka and Yasinovataya. Along with Peski, Russian forces previously took a number of settlements in the area (Stepovoye, Bogdanovka, Pervomayskoye, Veseloye, Opitnoye, Lastochkina, Severne, etc.) and the city was already in an operational encirclement for quite some time. Avdeyevka’s elongated shape, with a position perpendicular to the frontline, meant that the best way to capture it was a wide two-pronged assault, which is exactly what the Russian side did.

Once again, due to a political decision to defend the Donbass, Ukrainian reserves intended for other directions were “sucked” into the meatgrinder. An important moment for the Russian side was the capture of the Terrikon Hill. The advancing forces even dug tunnels under the positions of the defenders so that the attack was carried out from below, along with the demolition of Ukrainian fortifications. The offensive tactics that gave results in Bakhmut was reused – the city was in an operational encirclement, while a narrow “supply artery” to the west was left. Although General Syrsky started his appointment as the Chief of the General Staff with the strengthening of the forces in Avdeyevka, by sending, among others, the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade (including parts of the “Azov”), he soon decided to abandon the city. The withdrawal of Ukrainian units at the end of February 2024 indicated a difficult situation on the entire front. It remained unclear whether the decision to leave Avdeyevka was taken by the military leadership or if it was a consequence of an uncontrollable abandonment of defense positions.

DB: What is the current distribution of forces on both sides?

RCSSK: Russian forces in the third and fourth stages of the SMO were grouped into five strategic-operational groupings, and a sixth was recently formed. The focus of operations is Donetsk, where the “Center” group is advancing, and partly in the South Donetsk operational direction, where the “East” group is conducting offensive operations. The “South” group is advancing in the direction of Bakhmut, while the “West” group is focused on the Krasny Liman and Kupyansk operational directions. Defensive operations in Kherson and limited offensive operations in the Zaporozhye operational directions are carried out by the “Dnieper” group, while in order to stretch Ukrainian forces, the “North” group is advancing in the Kharkov operational direction. The Ukrainian forces, divided into five strategic-operational groups, are on the defense in all parts of the frontline. “Tavria” is tasked with Zaporozhye, South Donetsk and Donetsk, “Khortytsia” in Bakhmut, Krasny Liman and Kupyansk, “Odessa” in Kherson, “North” in the Kharkov operational direction, while the “Marun” group is in the reserve. The ratio of opposing forces is 1:1, albeit slightly higher in favor of the Ukrainian side.

DB: Where exactly is the center of combat operations shifting?

RCSSK: After the capture of Avdeyevka, Pervomayskoye and Maryinka, the Russian side gained room for initiative and advance to the west, which will put the Ukrainian defense in an increasingly difficult operational position, especially if communication on the Konstantinovka – Pokrovsk – Kurakhovo line is cut. In this way, along with the capture of Seversk and Ugledar as the two endpoints of the Donbass Arc, Ukrainian defenses would be broken. Thus, with the fall of Avdeyevka, the fifth stage of the SMO began, the essence of which is to crush the second Ukrainian defense zone, or more precisely, to capture its southern part. Thus, the focus of Russian offensive operations is on the Donetsk direction, which is implied by three indicators: the current great importance of Konstantinovka, the concentration of three Russian strategic-operational groups in a relatively small area and the character of Russian combat operations allegorically named the “Ocheretino Flower”. In this direction, the Russian group “Center” neutralized and captured more Ukrainian resistance points than all the other groups combined (Ocheretino, Berdychi, Novokalinovo, Novobakhmutovka, Netaylovo, Arkhangelsko, Orlovka, Solovyevo, Sokol, Keramik…), which can also be seen in the importance of capturing Avdeyevka.

The impression of “blooming” occurs due to alternating deep advances to the west and the securing of the captured wider lines. Due to the regular rotation of forces, other echelons are introduced and continue with the advance, with coordinated actions in the capture of important communications and the threat of trapping Ukrainian troops in cauldrons, which forces them to give up their defensive positions and withdraw in disarray. Attention should also be given to the importance of cooperation between the Russian “Center” group and neighboring groups. If the “South” group occupies Chasov Yar, its southern branch will play an important role in encircling the Ukrainian group in Toretsk, as well as in circumventing Konstantinovka. In addition to all that, the capture of Chasov Yar can have an extremely important psychological impact, because Kramatorsk, where the command post of the Ukrainian group defending the Donbass is located, is only about 40 km away from it. Cooperation with the “East” group in combat operations toward Ugledar and Kurakhovo is also important, which explains the purpose of Russian offensive operations toward Krasnogorovka.

DB: What additional operational directions could be activated?

RCSSK: The “East” group is also intensifying operations toward Velika Novoselka and Staromayorskoye in order to threaten the Dnepropetrovsk – Pavlograd – Pokrovsk route, a kind of “supply artery” of the Donbass Arc’s defenses. The Russian “Dnieper” group will most likely undertake limited offensive operations in the Zaporozhye direction in order to push parts of the Ukrainian “Tavria” group away from the so-called Surovikin line. Until October 2022, in the northern part of the frontline, the Russian side defended the zone on the line Kazachya Lopan – Lyptsi – Veseloye – Ternovaya – Staritsa, but after the Ukrainian offensive, those forces were withdrawn. Currently, smaller parts of the Russian “North” group are carrying out offensive operations in the general Belgorod – Kharkov direction, with the goal of soon reaching the aforementioned line, which is why the Ukrainian “North” group has been significantly strengthened by the urgent transfer of forces from other directions. There are ongoing battles for the town of Volchansk, while the goal of the Russian offensive is to stretch out Ukrainian forces. The Russian “West” group is intensifying operations toward Kupyansk and Seversk, where parts of the Ukrainian “Khortytsia” group are still defending successfully. The role of the Russian “West” group could be to capture Kupyansk, Yampol, Izyum and Seversk at the best moment (which is increasingly likely due to the accelerated wearing down of Ukrainian combat potential in the Donbass) and thus create the conditions for the introduction of the main forces of the Russian “North” group, most likely in the direction Belgorod – Kupyansk – Slavyansk.

DB: What do You think could happen in the following weeks and months?

RCSSK: The task of the main forces of the Russian “North” group could be to wedge into the rear of the Ukrainian forces defending the third defense zone, while the previous elimination of the Donbass Arc is one of the most important steps in the preparation of the Russian strategic offensive to destroy the Ukrainian operational potential in the Donbass – from the military aspect, the key to ending this war. On an operational level, as I said already, the next place the Russians will press is Velika Novoselka, in the south. The forces in the southern direction around Chasov Yar, Ocheretino and Novobahmutovka will encircle Toretsk. But that’s not the main line of attack and serves more as a form of psychological pressure. It’s very difficult to break through in this area.

That’s why the Russian forces will circumvent it and when they cut the Konstantinovka – Pokrovsk direction, the Ukrainian front will begin to disintegrate. They will encircle Slavyansk and Kramatorsk so that the main forces from the north will wedge through Kupyansk toward Slavyansk. When Russian forces close the cauldron, the war is effectively over. But first they must capture Kupyansk, Izyum, Seversk, Ugledar and Kurakhovo. Combat operations near Kharkov are aimed at stretching Ukrainian defenses when the time comes for a strategic wedge and the blockade of Kharkov from the east. This is precisely why only auxiliary forces operate in the north. There are around 150,000 troops in the reserve near Belgorod and Kursk, still waiting to commit to any direction.

DB: Thank You for this truly fascinating analysis!

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

This article was originally published on InfoBrics. This is an updated analysis that Colonel Karapandžin first published in the reputable “Pečat” magazine (“Печат”, meaning “Seal” in Serbian) on June 28.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]  

Featured image: The research centre of Thales in the business cluster of Paris-Saclay, France. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

At a time when trillions of dollars are being wasted annually on weapons, high luxury and wasteful consumption as well gigantic projects of highly suspect usefulness, the most urgently needed funds to save human lives, including those of children, in humanitarian crisis situations are just not available.

It is difficult to believe, but the hard fact is that the much needed funds for humanitarian assistance of critical importance are falling short to the extent of about 90 per cent or so.

In its update published on May 31, 2024 (Global Humanitarian Overview or GHO) the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has stated that population in need of humanitarian assistance at world level in year 2024 is 308 million. However keeping in view the fund constraints OCHA is targeting only 187 million people needing humanitarian assistance in 71 countries. For this OCHA needs funds amounting to 48.6 billion dollars in 2024. However up to May 2024 it had received only 7.8 billion dollars. Hence the gap was about 40.6 billion dollars (48.6 minus 7.8).

By the end of June the amount raised had risen to about 9 billion dollars. In other words only about 18 per cent of funds needed were available, leaving a gap of about 82 per cent.

However while examining this number please keep in mind that OCHA is targeting only 187 million people out of the 308 people in need. If all the people in need are considered, then the available funds would equal only 10 per cent of what is needed, or perhaps even less.

This is an amazing reflection of the kind of world we are living in, where over a thousand billion dollars are being thoughtlessly, in fact cruelly, spent on prolonging horrible wars and weapon-piles but a hundred billion dollars cannot be spared for saving highly endangered human lives, including children and expectant or breastfeeding mothers, in the worst affected humanitarian crisis areas.

Of course there is spending other than the one mobilized by OCHA or outside its network on humanitarian assistance, but then there are also many other people needing help due to extreme hunger, deprivation and insecurity who are left out in the OCHA estimate. Even if all data are included, the conclusion is inescapable that the overwhelming majority of the people who need urgent humanitarian help are not getting this, or else what they are getting falls fall short of their needs.

In addition whatever little help is available is not being distributed equally. Urgent needs of millions of people are being neglected to a horrible extent. This includes people of several countries like Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Myanmar and Afghanistan which are not on the priority lists of main donor countries.

The conditions are so alarming in several places that several refugees and displaced people, who have been denied help needed to survive, are returning to home places amidst continuing conditions of high insecurity and may be killed.

Clearly there is very urgent need for raising humanitarian aid funds at least to the levels targeted by OCHA, while remembering that these are only modest targets and are not adequate for meeting humanitarian needs. Next year higher targets should be set and these should be met. In addition there is great urgency of ending various conflicts as early as possible. The number of conflicts has increased in recent times and higher numbers of people are caught in them. Conflicts are also getting more prolonged than before and possibilities of peace agreements for ending wars and conflicts have been significantly reduced. This is a very important cause of the increasing number of people needing humanitarian assistance. In addition, apart from the shortage of funding, conflicts also create conditions in which it becomes more difficult to take relief to people caught in conflicts.

Even after several conflicts end, in view of the devastation caused by them, need for humanitarian assistance in these regions will continue. Hence clearly two of the world’s biggest priorities should be to bring very early peace in various conflict zones and to raise the funds needed to provide humanitarian assistance in adequate ways.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

UK in Grip of Top Down Starvation Policy

By Julian Rose, July 29, 2024

A food security issue is looming. ‘Food security’ means following an agricultural policy which ensures that a nation state is broadly capable of feeding its own people. The UK was running at 60% self-sufficiency home production figure for most of the past two to three decades. It dropped to around 45% five years ago and this year (2024) that figure has fallen to just 32%.

France – The Satanic Olympics. The Macron Government Belongs to a Diabolical Cult

By Peter Koenig, July 30, 2024

The dark diabolical cult which pretends to run our world and which has long prepared the final stage of their full supremacy, UN-Agenda 2030, and The Great Reset, must follow strict Cult rules. Among them is a simple one: they must tell their “victims” – in this case all of humanity — what they are planning to do. 

Modi Expected to Continue Peace Mission with Visit to Kiev on Its National Day

By Ahmed Adel, July 30, 2024

Only weeks after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blasted the meeting between the leaders of India and Russia as a “huge disappointment,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preparing for an official trip to Kiev in the third week of August.

Navigating Ethical Quagmires Surrounding Artificial Intelligence: Complexities of Utilizing AI in Education. How to Make the Educational Usage of Artificial Intelligence Ethically Compliant

By Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu, July 29, 2024

As of the present, the utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been the steady trend among universities worldwide as well as among educational institutions in our contemporary educational milieu. Artificial Intelligence is here with us to stay and it is counterproductive and counter-intuitive for both educators and learners to adapt the “Fight-Flight-Freeze” reaction in the shadow of the pervasive and prevalent utilization of AI in our contemporary education.

The 2023/2024 United Nations Human Development Report. Analysis and Discussion. Strengthen Partnerships and Cooperation

By Tina Renier, July 29, 2024

Key decision-makers and policymakers from the Global North and Global South should foment stronger partnerships through memoranda of understanding and agreements to foster access to opportunities in the areas of health, education, gender parity, labour market reforms, affirmative action and social protection to alleviate inequalities.

The US Pressures Armenia to Buy Gas From Azerbaijan Instead of Russia

By Steven Sahiounie, July 29, 2024

Ambassador Samantha Power, former US Ambassador to the UN, and now director of USAID, an office of the US State Department, traveled to Armenia on July 10 to strong-arm Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan into buying gas from Azerbaijan, instead of Russia.

The Impact of the Houthis on American Maritime Geopolitics

By Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, July 29, 2024

The U.S., which has been losing ground in every field and recently lost all moral and ethical values by applauding Netanyahu, the architect of the Gaza genocide, in the American Congress, cannot control the global maritime traffic flow at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

There’s no restoring the trust that was just lost at that level, but the Polish-Hungarian Brotherhood still endures in the hearts of their patriots since they’ll never let politicians break the bonds between them.

Polish-Hungarian tensions have been boiling for the past two and a half years due to their polar opposite approaches towards the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict and finally spilled over this weekend. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban lambasted Poland in a speech where he accused it of seeking to replace the EU’s traditional Franco-German axis with a new one comprised of itself, the UK, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Scandinavia, with the innuendo being that this is contributing to continental instability.

He elaborated that this is actually an old Polish plan and is being advanced by exploiting the Ukrainian Conflict’s latest phase in order to become the number one US base in Europe. Orban added that this amounts to Warsaw giving up on the Visegrad Group, which was envisaged as a third center of power in Europe between the Franco-German axis and Russia when it was first formed. He also called Poland two-faced for criticizing Hungary for purchasing of Russian resources while doing the exact same thing.

His observations predictably provoked a sharp response from Poland, whose Deputy Foreign Minister Teofil Bartoszewski denied Orban’s accusations of doing business with Russia and then suggested that Hungary should withdraw from Euro-Atlantic organizations to form “a union with Putin”. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto reacted to these provocative words with the following post on Facebook in which he made it clear that bilateral relations won’t be the same after what just happened:

Source

“The Polish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs reacted sharply to yesterday’s speech in Tusnádfürd les… The reaction proves the truth of the Hungarian saying that goes: the truth hurts.

With the intention of preserving the Polish-Hungarian brotherhood, we endured the provocations and hypocrisy of the current Polish government for a long time, but for now the glass is full.

While the current Polish government judges and accuses us because we import petroleum from Russia – which is absolutely necessary for the operation of the country, if we take a good look at the list of buyers of one of the largest Russian oil companies, we will certainly find the Poles there as well.

There would be no problem with this, because energy supply ultimately has physical bases, but if it has been turned out like this, then you shouldn’t be hypocritical and shouldn’t accuse others.”

As can be seen, the Polish-Hungarian Brotherhood of the past seven centuries is officially dead at the state-to-state level, though it still lives on in the hearts of patriots from both countries who know that Poland’s last two governments are to blame for this. The incumbent liberal-globalist one went overboard with its anti-Hungarian rhetoric, but their conservative-nationalist predecessors were already giving Hungary the cold shoulder and throwing shade in its direction.

Each administration hates Russia more than they love their own country, which led to them ruining their historic brotherhood with Hungary over its right to retain relations with Moscow. It also accounts for why the prior one agreed to a trilateral alliance with the UK and Ukraine two weeks before the special operation began and then helped sabotage spring 2022’s peace talks as explained here. These developments can be seen in hindsight as the first steps toward Poland abandoning the Visegrad Group.

The ruling liberal-globalists took everything to its logical conclusion since their radical ideology pushed them to deal a deathblow to this brotherhood at the state-to-state level instead of continuing to behave passively-aggressively towards it like their predecessors were in order to prevent a full-blown rupture. There’s no restoring the trust that was just lost at that level, but the Polish-Hungarian Brotherhood still endures in the hearts of their patriots since they’ll never let politicians break the bonds between them.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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

Featured image is from the author

Merck last week announced “positive” results from a Phase 2/3 clinical trial for a monoclonal antibody drug the pharmaceutical giant is developing to protect infants against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease.

The drug, clesrovimab, met its safety and efficacy endpoints, the company said in a press release, reducing the need for medical attention for infants who took the drug through 150 days. Clesrovimab targets infants in their first RSV season.

The press release offered no other details of the study. The company said it will present the clinical trial results at an unnamed “upcoming scientific congress” and file them with global regulators for approval.

If approved, clesrovimab will be the third monoclonal antibody to treat RSV-related illness that is available for babies. Palivizumab, sold under the brand name Synagis, a short-acting monoclonal that must be administered monthly, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1998 and is typically used only for high-risk infants.

The FDA in July 2023 approved AstraZeneca and Sanofi’s nirsevimab, under the brand name Beyfortus, for all infants under 8 months or high-risk infants up to 24 months of age. The drug went on the market in the fall of 2023 in the U.S. and Europe.

Merck said it assessed clesrovimab for any injection-related adverse events, adverse events of special interest, solicited systemic adverse events, or serious adverse events. The drugmaker said clesrovimab met its safety endpoints, although it didn’t say what those endpoints were.

Nirsevimab/Beyfortus also reportedly met its safety endpoints, although 12 infants died during the trials. An FDA spokesperson told CNBC when the drug was approved that “none of the deaths appeared to be related to nirsevimab.”

An investigation by The Defender found that at least two infant deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, were linked to Beyfortus.

And French scientist Hélène Banoun, Ph.D., identified a significant increase in mortality among newborns between 2 and 6 days old in France following the start of the nirsevimab vaccination campaign there. The babies were injected before leaving the hospital.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added the monoclonal antibodies to its 2024 childhood immunization schedule, even though they are not vaccines.

Vaccines stimulate the immune system to trigger an immune response. Monoclonal antibodies are lab-cloned proteins injected into the body that act like antibodies, seeking out antigens in the body to destroy.

The CDC had to change the name of its vaccine schedule to “vaccines and other immunizing agents” before adding the RSV monoclonal antibodies to the list.

RSV is a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild cold-like symptoms but can lead to hospitalization and, in rare cases, death in infants and the elderly. By age 2, 97% of all babies have been infected with the RSV virus, which confers partial immunity, making any subsequent episodes less severe.

The protection conferred by the monoclonal antibodies lasts weeks after injection and then wanes over time, according to the CDC. And the antibodies carry risks, including the risk of making RSV illness worse in some children, according to Banoun’s research.

“It is crazy to give newborns monoclonal antibodies — a potentially dangerous product for symptoms they probably won’t get,” Dr. Meryl Nass told The Defender. “Give them vitamin D and breastfeed them and the problem will disappear for almost all babies.”

Dr. Paul Thomas, pediatrician and author of the forthcoming book, “Vax Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life,” told The Defender:

“Monoclonal antibodies are a very new technology, and this is an area of medicine where I would urge caution and avoid becoming an early adopter of this technology. There will likely be serious side effects and unexpected negative outcomes.”

Growing Market for ‘Blockbuster’ Drug 

Merck’s clesrovimab is gearing up to compete with Beyfortus, the only comparable product, in a market that is growing rapidly, helped along by the national vaccination campaigns launched in the U.S. and several European countries.

“We are encouraged by these findings and look forward to working with regulators to provide a new option to help address the impact of RSV on infants and their families,” Dr. Paula Annunziato, senior vice president of infectious diseases and vaccines in Global Clinical Development at Merck Research Laboratories, said in the press release.

Beyfortus shots cost $495 in 2023 and increased to $519.75 in 2024.

The drug netted about $592 million during its first year on the market. Sanofi said it expects that number to roughly double this year, breaching “blockbuster” status — $1 billion in sales — Fierce Pharma reported.

Beyfortus’ uptake in the U.S. has surpassed previous childhood immunization benchmarks, such as those for rotavirus and pneumococcal disease, Sanofi told Fierce Pharma. About 20% of eligible infants in the U.S. and over 80% in France, Spain and Luxembourg — the other countries with 2023-2024 nirsevimab vaccination campaigns — have received the drug.

Sales were constrained only by shortages of the drug last year. Top Biden administration health officials have been meeting with the companies to support them in ramping up production, hoping to double the number of doses available this year.

‘Perfectly Healthy Baby Now Enters the Unknown of Pharmaceutical Trials’ 

Merck in 2020 was also developing an mRNA RSV vaccine for older adults in conjunction with Moderna but gave those rights back to Moderna so it could pursue monoclonal antibody development for infants.

Moderna continued developing that RSV vaccine. The FDA approved Moderna’s adult mRNA RSV shot for adults over 60 in May — Moderna’s second-ever product to be approved for the market, NBC reported.

The company is now running a clinical trial for an RSV mRNA vaccine for children and teens ages 2-17. Children and teens in that age group are not typically considered to be at risk of severe or life-threatening RSV infections.

Moderna also is conducting an mRNA vaccine trial called the Rhyme Trial for an RSV and a human metapneumovirus (hMPV) vaccine for infants ages 5-24 months. According to Moderna, the mRNA drug offers better protection than the “passive protection” from monoclonal antibodies, because the mRNA shot will stimulate the child’s immune system to create its own protection.

One of the clinics hosting the Rhyme Trial in the United Kingdom posted a photograph on Instagram, celebrating the first baby — “six-month-old Robyn” — to get a shot and calling for other participants in the trial.

Thomas said it was “horrifying” that Moderna, which before its RSV vaccines had only brought one dangerous product, the COVID-19 vaccine, to market, was now conducting experiments on babies for another product.

Thomas said:

“The image that went viral shows a bunch of adult researchers smiling holding one of their victims who seems a bit perplexed. Perhaps this baby is wondering why they are so happy. This baby just got an experimental treatment. A perfectly healthy baby now enters the unknown of pharmaceutical trials!”

The Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford is running the Phase 1 study, which is meant to test the new mRNA vaccines on about 200 infants for their safety, tolerability and how well they prevent infections from the viruses.

The trial is testing two vaccines at once. Some babies will receive mRNA-1345, its RSV vaccine approved for adults, and others will receive mRNA-1365, designed to protect against RSV and hMPV. Others will receive a placebo, although the study notes that the placebo may be Nimenrix — a meningococcal vaccine — rather than a true placebo.

According to the CDC, hMPV is a virus that causes common cold symptoms and circulates every winter. Most people, including children, develop no serious complications from the cold, although it can cause bronchiolitis and pneumonia, particularly in older vulnerable people.

The virus caused about 11,300 deaths globally in 2018, according to the trial information sheet. It is less likely than RSV to cause severe disease in children.

Thomas said that in his clinical experience, hMPV was an illness “we simply do not need to worry about.” If there is any use for a shot, he said, it should be reserved for high-risk individuals. “It would not make any sense to have this product unleashed on all healthy children, as they simply are not at risk of anything serious happening.”

Children in the trial will receive three doses of the vaccine or placebo over four months and follow-up will happen through in-person visits and phone calls. Parents will also keep an electronic diary to track side effects and illness.

The parent information sheet warns that side effects could include myocarditis or pericarditis, for which parents should seek immediate medical attention. “Most of the time, people recover with treatment and rest” from those conditions, it says.

During follow-up visits, clinicians will take blood samples and nasal swabs from children. The samples will be maintained for 25 years and used for future research as well.

Previous attempts to develop an RSV vaccine failed after vaccine-induced antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) resulted in infant deaths.

ADE occurs when antibodies bind to a pathogen but can’t prevent infection. Instead, the antibodies do the opposite of what was intended — they act as a “trojan horse,” facilitating the pathogen’s entry into cells and exacerbating the immune response.

Recent research has shown this may be a problem with the current monoclonal antibody treatments as well.

The Rhyme Trial parent information sheet acknowledges that this happened with the previous attempt to develop an RSV vaccine for children but states, “That vaccine was made by a very different method than the RSV vaccines in this Study,” and “Experts believe that there is very little risk of this happening with the mRNA-1345 or mRNA-1365 vaccines in this Study.”

They will be monitoring children closely to see if such a reaction occurs, they note.

Parents won’t be compensated for participation, although they can be reimbursed up to 43 pounds for travel and meal costs.

Moderna’s trial also will be carried out in the U.S., although most locations listed for the study on the clinical trials government website are listed as “not yet recruiting” subjects.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., is a senior reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

Featured image is from CHD

Only weeks after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blasted the meeting between the leaders of India and Russia as a “huge disappointment,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preparing for an official trip to Kiev in the third week of August. India is embarking on a peace mission akin to Chinese and Hungarian efforts, despite Zelensky condescendingly and incorrectly claiming that Modi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “devastating blow to peace efforts.”

The visit follows on from Modi’s recent trip to Russia and highlights New Delhi’s balanced foreign policy approach. Moscow respects this approach and does not condemn the Indian leader’s expected meeting with Zelensky, unlike Kiev and Washington, which expressed frustration and disappointment because Modi met with Putin.

Even weeks after Modi met with Putin, Washington was evidently still angered by the meeting.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Donald Lu, on July 24 told the US House Foreign Affairs Committee that the US government had shared its “disappointment” about the “symbolism and timing” of Modi’s trip to Moscow and had “tough conversations” with “our Indian friends,” whilst House Representative Joe Wilson, who serves as a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, remarked:

“It is shameful for India to continue supporting war criminal Putin in his mass slaughter of Ukrainians.”

However, India is an independent country that continues its long-held policy of non-alignment and will not be intimidated by Washington into not deepening its bilateral ties with Russia. At the same time, as part of balancing diplomacy, New Delhi pursuing closer relations with Kiev will not hinder its ties with Moscow.

It is recalled that only on July 12, days after Modi met with Putin, US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti said,

“I respect that India likes its strategic autonomy, but in times of conflict, there is no such thing as strategic autonomy. No war is distant anymore. And we must not just stand for peace, we must take concrete actions to make sure those who don’t play by peaceful rules, that their war machines cannot continue unabated. That’s something that the United States needs to know, and that India needs to know, together.”

At the time, India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal reemphasised his country’s strategic autonomy:

“The US ambassador is entitled, obviously, to his opinion. We also have our own — and different — views. Our comprehensive global strategic partnership with the United States gives us the space to agree to disagree on certain issues while respecting each other’s viewpoints.”

This correspondence alone demonstrates that India unapologetically pursues its interests and is not beholden to foreign powers.

According to Indian media, the Kiev regime “has proposed Ukraine’s national day — August 24 — as a possible date although there is a possibility that the visit might be unannounced in view of the security situation.”

If Modi visits on August 24, the Kiev regime will propagandise it as a symbolic gesture that India is drifting from Russia. For New Delhi, the visit will be a balancing signal to the West, helping foster its image as a peace seeker and strengthening its diplomatic role.

In a demonstration that Modi’s expected visit to Ukraine will not strain India-Russia ties, the Indian Navy’s INS Tabar stealth frigate participated in the Russian Navy Day celebrations in St. Petersburg on July 28. The impressive parade showcased more than 200 ships and over 100 pieces of combat equipment, and INS Tabar’s participation epitomised the growing ties between the two countries.

Despite Western sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine war, India and Russia are strengthening economic ties and have set an ambitious bilateral trade target of $100 billion by 2030, a 50% increase from the current $66 billion. India’s exports to Russia amounted to just $4.26 billion in the financial year that ended in March, and Russia’s exports, mainly crude oil and petroleum products, stood at $61.43 billion, creating a massive trade imbalance. However, compensating for this vast trade imbalance is the fact that India is getting Russian oil at below-market rates, thus cutting India’s overall oil import bill.

India is examining ways to exploit export opportunities, such as supplying goods that Russia cannot directly attain from other countries due to the sanctions and expanding trade transactions in national currencies – the Indian rupee and the Russian ruble.

“We are also looking at the rupee-ruble trade. … It’s a twin strategy [that] we are working on,” Indian Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal told reporters on July 15. “We are looking at various sets of commodities, for example, electronics, engineering products and other items” regarding exports to Russia.

Washington will not dissuade Indian decision-makers from abandoning long-held policies, and Kiev will not shame New Delhi for its longstanding ties with Moscow, given that they are founded on cooperation and trust. Nonetheless, even the gaslighting by Washington and Kiev will not dissuade India from pursuing a peace agenda, and Modi will continue presenting himself as a potential mediator between Zelensky and Putin.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

There is only one country in the world right now, in the midst of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is guaranteed dozens of standing ovations from the vast majority of its elected representatives. 

That country is not Israel, where he has been a hugely divisive figure for many years. It is the United States. 

On Wednesday, Netanyahu was back-slapped, glad-handed, whooped and cheered as he slowly made his way – hailed at every step as a conquering hero – to the podium of the US Congress. 

This was the same Netanyahu who has overseen during the past 10 months the slaughter – so far – of some 40,000 Palestinians, around half of them women and children. More than 21,000 other children are reported missing, most of them likely dead under rubble. 

It was the same Netanyahu who levelled a strip of territory – originally home to 2.3 million Palestinians – that is expected to take 80 years to rebuild, at a cost of at least $50bn.

It was the same Netanyahu who has destroyed every hospital and university in Gaza, and bombed almost all of its schools that were serving as shelters for families made homeless by other Israeli bombs.

It was the same Netanyahu whose arrest is being sought by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, accused of using starvation as a weapon of war by imposing an aid blockade that has engineered a famine across Gaza. 

It was the same Netanyahu whose government was found last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to have been intensifying Israel’s apartheid rule over the Palestinian people in an act of long-term aggression.

It was the same Netanyahu whose government is standing trial for committing what the ICJ, the world’s highest judicial body, has termed a “plausible genocide”. 

And yet, there was just one visible protester in the congressional chamber. Rashida Tlaib, the only US legislator of Palestinian heritage, sat silently grasping a small black sign. On one side it said: “War criminal”. On the other: “Guilty of genocide.”

One person among hundreds mutely trying to point out that the emperor was naked.

Cocooned From Horror

Indeed, the optics were stark. 

This looked less like a visit by a foreign leader than a decorated elder general being welcomed back to the Senate in ancient Rome, or a grey-haired British viceroy from India embraced in the motherland’s parliament, after brutally subduing the “barbarians” on the fringes of empire.  

This was a scene familiar from history books: of imperial brutality and colonial savagery, recast by the seat of the imperium as valour, honour, civilisation. And it looked every bit as absurd, and abhorrent, as it does when we look back on what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago. 

It was a reminder that, despite our self-serving claims of progress and humanitarianism, our world is not very different from the way it has been for thousands of years. 

It was a reminder that power elites like to celebrate the demonstration of their power, cocooned both from the horrors faced by those crushed by their might, and from the clamour of protest of those horrified by the infliction of so much suffering. 

It was a reminder that this is not a “war” between Israel and Hamas – let alone, as Netanyahu would have us believe, a battle for civilisation between the Judeo-Christian world and the Islamic world.

This is a US imperial war – part of its military campaign for “global, full-spectrum dominance” – carried out by Washington’s most favoured client state. 

The genocide is fully a US genocide, armed by Washington, paid for by Washington, given diplomatic cover by Washington, and – as the scenes in Congress underlined – cheered on by Washington. 

Palestinians line up to fetch some water in a refugee camp in Gaza. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

Or as Netanyahu stated in a moment of unintentional candour to Congress:

“Our enemies are your enemy, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory.”

Israel is Washington’s largest military outpost in the oil-rich Middle East. The Israeli army is the Pentagon’s main battalion in that strategically important region. And Netanyahu is the outpost’s commander in chief. 

What is vital to Washington elites is that the outpost is supported at all costs; that it doesn’t fall to the “barbarians”.

Outpouring of Lies

There was another small moment of inadvertent truth amid Netanyahu’s outpouring of lies. The Israeli prime minister stated that what was happening in Gaza was “a clash between barbarism and civilisation”. He was not wrong. 

On the one side, there is the barbarism of the current joint Israeli-US genocide against the people of Gaza, a dramatic escalation of the 17-year Israeli siege of the enclave that preceded it, and the decades of belligerent rule under an Israeli system of apartheid before that.

And on the other side, there are the embattled few desperately trying to safeguard the West’s professed values of “civilisation”, of international humanitarian law, of the protection of the weak and vulnerable, of the rights of children.

The US Congress decisively showed where it stood: with barbarism. 

Netanyahu has become the most feted foreign leader in US history, invited to speak to Congress four times, surpassing even Britain’s wartime leader, Winston Churchill.

He is fully Washington’s creature. His savagery, his monstrousness is entirely made in America. As he implored his US handlers: “Give us the tools faster and we’ll finish the job faster.” 

Finish the job of genocide.

Performative Dissent

Some Democrats preferred to stay away, including party power broker Nancy Pelosi. Instead, she met families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza – not, of course, Palestinian families whose loved ones in Gaza had been slaughtered by Israel. 

Vice President Kamala Harris explained her own absence as a scheduling conflict. She met the Israeli prime minister, as did President Joe Biden, on Thursday. 

Afterwards, she claimed to have pressed Netanyahu on the “dire” humanitarian situation in Gaza but stressed too that Israel “had a right to defend itself” – a right that Israel specifically does not have, as the ICJ pointed out last week, because Israel is the one permanently violating the rights of the Palestinians through its prolonged occupation, apartheid rule and ethnic cleansing.

But the dissent of Pelosi – and of Harris, if that is what it was – was purely performative. True, they have no personal love for Netanyahu, who has so closely allied himself and his government with the US Republican right and former president Donald Trump.

But Netanyahu simply serves as an alibi. Both Pelosi and Harris are stalwart supporters of Israel – a state that, according to the ICJ’s judgment last week, decades ago instituted apartheid rule in the Palestinian territories, using an illegal occupation as cover to ethnically cleanse the population there. 

Their political agenda is not about ending the annihilation of the people of Gaza. It is acting as a safety valve for popular dissatisfaction among traditional Democratic voters shocked by the scenes from Gaza.

It is to deceive them into imagining that behind closed doors, there is some sort of policy fight over Israel’s handling of the Palestinian issue. That voting Democrat will one day – one very distant day – lead to an undefined “peace”, a fabled “two-state solution” where Palestinian children won’t keep dying in the interests of preserving the security of Israel’s illegal settler-militias.

US policy towards Israel has not changed in any meaningful sense for decades, whether the president has been red or blue, whether Trump has been in the White House or Barack Obama. 

And if Harris becomes president – admittedly, a big if – US arms and money will continue flowing to Israel, while Israel will get to decide if US aid to Gaza is ever allowed in. 

Why? Because Israel is the lynchpin in a US imperial project for global full-spectrum dominance. Because for Washington to change course on Israel, it would also have to do other unthinkable things. 

It would have to begin dismantling its 800 military bases around the planet, just as Israel was told by the ICJ last week to dismantle its dozens of illegal settlements on Palestinian territory.

The US would need to agree a shared global security architecture with China and Russia, rather than seek to bully and batter these great powers into submission with bloody proxy wars, such as the one in Ukraine. 

The Coming Fall

Pelosi, remember, smeared students on US campuses protesting Israel’s plausible genocide in Gaza as being linked to Russia. She urged the FBI to investigate them for pressuring the Biden administration to support a ceasefire. 

Netanyahu, in his address to Congress, similarly demonised the demonstrators – in his case, by accusing them of being “useful idiots” of Israel’s main foe, Iran. 

Neither can afford to recognise that millions of ordinary people across the US think it is wrong to bomb and starve children – and to use a war with an unachievable aim as the cover story.

Hamas cannot be “eliminated” through Israel’s current bout of horrifying violence for a very obvious reason: the group is a product, a symptom, of earlier bouts of horrifying Israeli violence. 

As even western counter-terrorism experts have had to concede, Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza are strengthening Hamas, not weakening it. Men and boys who lose their family to Israeli bombs are Hamas’s most fervent new recruits.

That’s why Netanyahu insisted Israel’s military offensive – the genocide – in Gaza could not end soon. He demanded weapons and money to keep his soldiers in the enclave indefinitely, in an operation he termed as “demilitarisation and deradicalisation”. 

Decoded, that means a continuing horror show for the Palestinians there, as they are forced to continue living and dying with an Israeli aid blockade, starvation, bombs and unmarked “kill zones”. 

It means, too, an indefinite risk of Israel’s war on Gaza spilling over into a regional war, and potentially a global one, as tripwires towards escalation continue to grow in number.

The US Congress, however, is too blinded by championing its small fortressed state in the Middle East to think about such complexities. Its members roared “USA!” to their satrap from Israel, just as Roman senators once roared “Glory!” to generals whose victories they assumed would continue forever. 

The rulers of the Roman empire no more saw the coming fall than their modern counterparts in Washington can. But every empire falls. And its collapse becomes inevitable once its rulers lose all sense of how absurd and abhorrent they have become.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net

Featured image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., July 24, 2024. (Reuters Photo)

There is increasing need for more comprehensive estimation of costs of conflicts and wars. It is expected that wider realization of very high costs of war can contribute much to more emphasis being placed on reducing the possibilities of wars and conflicts and for overall enhancement of peace prospects all over the world.

Generally the most widespread single indicator of costs of war that has been commonly used refers to the number of people who die in a war or conflict directly due to the violence of the conflict including shooting, bomb-blasts etc.  However it is increasingly realized that wars also increase the possibilities of hunger, displacement, homelessness, collapse of water and sanitation facilities as well as other essential infrastructure, denial of medical care, spread of disease, mental stress and suicides. All this also results in a large number of deaths. 

While deaths caused by violence like shooting and bombs is referred to as deaths caused directly by war, the other deaths are referred to as deaths caused indirectly by wars and conflicts. The indirectly caused deaths can be very high in the context of civil wars. However even in other wars these have been found to be generally much higher than directly caused deaths.

This concept of indirectly caused deaths received a lot of attention in Iraq where a very large number of deaths of children were reported due to indirect causes. Another factor that was highlighted here was that use of depleted uranium weapons leaves behind high risks of very serious diseases like cancer and this continues to cause high levels of distress many years or even decades after the actual fighting has stopped. In other conflicts the use of landmines (example Angola), cluster bombs (as in Laos) and chemical warfare and herbicides (as in Vietnam) have left behind very long-term destructive impacts (not to mention the widely known and most horrible long-term impacts of atom bombs suffered in the two Japanese locations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). 

More recently it is the comprehensive estimates prepared by Brown University regarding the costs of the USA’s War on Terror which have drawn a lot of attention to the concept of indirect costs. In these estimates during the roughly two decades of the War of Terror 2001-21 it was estimated that 0.9 million or nine lakh people were directly killed. However the estimates of indirect deaths were nearly four times of this. If you add directly and indirectly caused deaths then as many as 4.5 million deaths were caused, mostly in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan etc. but each and every affected country was not covered.

A view of Palestinians as they try to continue their daily life amid Israeli attacks at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Jabalia, Gaz on February 17, 2024 [Dawoud Abo Alkas – Anadolu Agency]

In the case of the ongoing Gaza conflict somewhat similar assumptions have been used to find out the number of indirectly caused deaths. In Gaza the latest estimate is that nearly 38,000 people have died directly in the violence. However this does not include those people who were buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings and hence could not be identified or counted. Roughly their number has been estimated to be about 10,000. 

If these numbers are counted then the number increases to about 48,000 directly caused deaths by violence. However if it is assumed that four indirect deaths are caused per directly caused death, as in the case of Brown University’s estimates for the War on Terror, then the number of indirectly caused deaths is about 192,000 and the number of total deaths in the Gaza conflict up to July 14, 2024 is about 240,000. This amounts to about 10 per cent of the entire population which is a very high estimate for a very small region like Gaza within a period of about just nine months of conflict. The reason for this is that living conditions of Gaza have been ruined on such a colossal scale by relentless bombing that survival is indeed becoming very difficult.

In fact indirectly caused deaths can easily be an even higher multiple of directly caused deaths in several conflicts. Various estimates indicate that these can range from three times to even higher than ten times. Chances of these higher estimates are higher in conflict zones like Gaza where living conditions have been so badly destroyed that most essential infrastructure has collapsed. 

The indirect and even direct deaths have been even more difficult to estimate for the Ukraine conflict as very different statistics have been emerging from various sources.  Still as the number of directly caused deaths is at least 200,000 (likely to be more) and as there has been massive destruction of basic living conditions over vast areas what we can conservatively estimate is that indirectly caused deaths here too are a multiple of four or about 800,000 and hence the overall mortality of this conflict has crossed about one million.

In addition we must not forget the large number of people, soldiers as well as civilians, who are very seriously injured or disabled in wars and have to live with these injuries and disabilities for a long time.

These are only some important aspects of a more comprehensive evaluation of wars and conflicts. This must be seen together with the increased possibilities of conflicts and wars in recent times. We can obtain an idea of this increasing threat of conflicts from the latest (2024) report of the Global Peace Index.

The Global Peace Index (GPI) ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness, covering 99.7 per cent of the world’s population. Produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), the GPI has been frequently mentioned as the world’s leading measure of global war and peace.

One of the most significant findings of this report is that many of the conditions that precede major conflicts are higher now than they have been since the end of the Second World War. In addition the number of conflicts are also increasing in various parts of the world. As the GPI tells us, there are currently 56 active conflicts, the most since the end of Second World War, and with fewer conflicts being resolved, either militarily or through peace agreements.  

The GPI tells us further that the number of conflicts that ended in a decisive victory fell from 49 per cent in the 1970s to nine per cent in the 2010s, while conflicts that ended through peace agreements fell from 23 per cent to four per cent over the same period.

The latest GPI also tells us that conflicts are also becoming more internationalised, with as many as 92 countries now engaged in a conflict beyond their borders, the most since the inception of the GPI in 2008, complicating negotiation processes for a lasting peace and prolonging conflicts. Trying to explain this worrying phenomenon, the GPI argues that

the “internationalisation of conflict is driven by increased great power competition and the rise of middle level powers, who are becoming more active in their regions.”

Further GPI 2024 tells us that although the measures of militarisation had been improving for the first 16 years of the GPI, the trend has now reversed and in 2024 militarisation deteriorated in 108 countries. 

The combination of these factors, GPI argues, means that the likelihood of another major conflict is higher than at any time since the inception of the GPI. According to the GPI, this year’s results found that the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.56 per cent. This is the 12th deterioration in peacefulness in the last 16 years, with 65 countries improving and 97 deteriorating in peacefulness. This is the highest number of countries to deteriorate in peacefulness in a single year since the inception of the index. 

Thus not only are comprehensively estimated costs of wars and conflicts much higher than is commonly realized, in addition the possibilities of wars and conflicts, including much bigger wars and more prolonged conflicts, have been increasing in recent times. Hence clearly we are living in very high risk times and there is a very strong case for strengthening of the forces of peace at all levels. The ability of the UNO as a force of peace must increase with overdue reforms. The forces of peace should work with much greater continuity instead of becoming active only as fire-fighting forces. There must be much greater unity among them, and closer links with forces of environment protection and justice.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, A Day in 2071 and Planet in Peril. More information and photo if required can be seen at his web-site bharatdogra.in. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image source

Western politicians, the same ones who support and applaud apartheid Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, would have us believe that they support democracy and freedom and humanitarianism as foreign policy goals.

These same AIPAC-funded politicians would also have us believe that they support religious and ethnic pluralism as foreign policy goals.

Now more than ever their duplicity is being revealed as the war propaganda that it is.

As the West revels in its mockery of Christ’s Last Supper, Western-supported Israel has been slaughtering Christians in Palestine who seek shelter from the genocide in the supposed safety of churches.

Slaughters such as these are consistent with Western foreign policy. The West, (including Israel), with its overt and covert support for internationally-proscribed extremist terrorist groups, including ISIS and al Qaeda,  is responsible for sectarian extremism in Syria and beyond, and the concurrent purge of christians from the “New Middle East”(1). Empire deploys these proxies to destroy prey countries and their peoples, and to advance imperial “hegemony”.

Interestingly, as noted by professor, author and human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik,(2) it is Hezbollah which helped the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) liberate Maaloula, where the language of Christ is still spoken, from the Western-supported sectarian terrorist groups.

Importantly, Eastern Orthodox Christianity is also being persecuted and expunged from modern-day Ukraine since Washington installed a nazi-dominated coup government in 2014.(3)

The established, and very catastrophic pattern, is that beneath the war propaganda and vacuous political statements, the West and its agencies support and control all manner of extremism, including so-called “Islamist”, and Zionist, and nazi/genocidal ethnic nationalist. All of them anti-democratic, anti-human rights, anti-pluralism… and anti-Christian.

The Olympic opening ceremonies that mocked The Last Supper are consistent with these genocidal values.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.

Notes

1. Prof. Tim Anderson, “How Washington led the purge of Christians from its ‘New Middle East’- Part 1” Al Mayadeen Net., 14 December, 2021. (How Washington led the purge of Christians from its ‘New Middle East’- Part 1 | Al Mayadeen English) Accessed 29 July, 2024.

2.  INTERVIEW: Dan Kovalik – ‘U.S. Plays Dangerous Game In Ukraine’ . 21st Century Wire, INTERVIEW: Dan Kovalik – ‘U.S. Plays Dangerous Game In Ukraine’ (youtube.com) Accessed 29 July, 2024.

3. Petition to End the Silence on Christian Persecution in Ukraine, Helleniscope, 15 February, 2023. (Petition to End the Silence on Christian Persecution in Ukraine – Helleniscope) Accessed 29 July, 2024.

Featured image is from the Public Domain

---

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

**Voices from Syria**

Author: Mark Taliano

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-9-1

Year: 2017

Product Type: PDF File

List Price: $6.50

Special Offer: $5.00 

Click to order.

Before 1959, Cuba had a modest record of five Olympic medals, four of them gold, won in Paris in 1900, Saint-Louis in 1904 and London in 1948. At the time, sport was far from being a government priority, and the island’s few sports facilities were mainly concentrated in the capital and reserved for the bourgeoisie. The vast majority of the population was thus excluded from any access to sporting activities.

With the arrival of Fidel Castro to power, the revolutionary government introduced a national policy of social inclusion, universalizing access to education, health, culture, leisure and sport. In 1961, the National Institute of Sports, Physical and Sports Education and Leisure (INDER) was created, launching a nationwide sports development program, with a policy of identifying the best talent. Free public infrastructures, accessible to the greatest number, were built throughout the country, and physical and sports education was taught in every school on the same footing as any other subject. Sport thus became a people’s right, and ceased to be a privilege reserved for a minority. 

Cuba made the political choice of the Olympic spirit by banning money-grubbing professional sport in 1962, and achieved spectacular results. After discreet results at the Tokyo Games in 1964 (1 silver medal) and Mexico City in 1968 (4 silver medals), the Caribbean island reaped the rewards of its commitment with 8 medals at Munich in 1972 (3 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronze), 13 medals at Montreal in 1976 (6 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze) and 20 medals at Moscow in 1980 (8 gold, 7 silver and 5 bronze).

For political reasons, Cuba did not take part in the 1984 Los Angeles or 1988 Seoul Olympics. After a long absence of 12 years, the island triumphed at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. Despite the serious difficulties caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the island won a total of 31 medals, including 14 gold, 6 silver and 11 bronze, ranking fifth in the world, just behind the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the United States, Germany and China.

In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, Cuba, hard hit by the disappearance of its historic Soviet partner and the resurgence of Washington’s economic sanctions, continued its momentum and achieved remarkable results, despite the “Special Period of Peace”. With a total of 25 medals, including 9 gold, 8 silver and 8 bronze, the small Caribbean island climbed to 8^th place in the world rankings, behind the USA, Russia, Germany, China, France, Italy and Australia.

The Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympic Games were also great successes for Cuba, with 29 medals (11 gold, 11 silver and 7 bronze) and 27 medals (9 gold, 7 silver and 11 bronze) respectively. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Cuba won 30 medals (3 gold, 10 silver and 17 bronze) and 15 medals (5 gold, 3 silver and 7 bronze) at the 2012 London Olympics. Finally, at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the island won 11 medals (5 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze), while its record at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is 15 medals (7 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze) and a remarkable 14^th place. 

Source

Cuba Leads Latin America in Olympic Medals

For the period from 1896 to 2021, Cuba ranks first in Latin America with a total of 235 medals, including 84 gold, 69 silver and 82 bronze. The island has no rivals on the continent. Brazil, a demographic behemoth with a population of over 200 million, ranks second with 150 medals. Argentina ranks third with 77 medals. Mexico is fourth with 73 medals, and Colombia is fifth with 34. If the number of Olympic gold medals is divided by population, Cuba, with its 11 million inhabitants, ranks first in the world. 

Boxing is Cuba’s king sport, with no fewer than 78 Olympic medals, including 41 gold, 19 silver and 18 bronze. Boxing legends Teofilo Stevenson and Félix Savón wrote the history of the noble art as three-time Olympic champions. Above all, they made their mark by refusing astronomical sums of several million dollars to turn professional. Stevenson was offered the sum of five million dollars in exchange for a fight against Mohamed Ali, but he preferred to remain faithful “to the affection of his people”. During his historic visit to Cuba in 1991, just after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela, a great boxing fan, asked Fidel Castro to meet Stevenson, one of his favorite boxers. Felix Savón, for his part, was approached by the famous promoter Don King for a fight against Mike Tyson, then at the height of his powers, in exchange for a $10 million purse. His response was identical: “I would never trade the love and affection of my people for all the millions in the world”. 

Cuba has won 45 Olympic medals in athletics, including 11 gold, 14 silver and 20 bronze. Wrestling and judo are the island’s third and fourth Olympic sports, with 27 medals (11 gold, 6 silver and 10 bronze) and 37 medals (6 gold, 15 silver and 16 bronze) respectively. Greco-Roman wrestling legend Mijaín López has won four Olympic gold medals and is in the hunt for a historic fifth title. 

For the Paris 2024 Olympics, Cuba is entering a modest delegation of 61 athletes (27 women and 34 men). It is true that the flight of athletes to other countries with greater resources has seriously damaged the island, which is currently facing one of the most serious economic crises in its history, mainly due to the state of siege imposed by the United States. In fact, no fewer than 21 Cubans born and raised on the island will be defending the colors of fourteen other flags (Spain, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria, USA, Canada, Turkey, Chile, Puerto Rico, Azerbaijan, Poland, Brazil, Belgium, IOC). But Cuba, the island of Olympic champions, accustomed to adversity and which has made resilience second nature, as usual, will proudly defend the colors of its flag and its people. 

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

Salim Lamrani holds a doctorate in Iberian and Latin American Studies from Sorbonne University, and is Professor of Latin American History at the University of La Réunion, specializing in relations between Cuba and the United States.  

Featured image source

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research

***

Purpose of the Briefing Note

This briefing note will inform the coordinators and scholars of the Sustainable Leadership and Positive Peace Research Fellowship Programme and global audiences about key findings from the 2023/2024 Human Development Report published by the United Nations Development Programme.

It will also present practical recommendations for the problems identified within the report concerning human development, threats to security and the role of sustainable leadership and positive peace in promoting global cooperation.

Background and Brief Discussion

Image is from UNDP

The Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1990 amidst the international context that standard measures of development such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita were insufficient to measure the complexity and multi-dimensional components of development including living standards, health and well-being, education, inequalities, multi-dimensional poverty, gender parity, agency and political participation. Inclusive, resilient and sustainable policies, practical interventions and institutions are necessary for ensuring that development is people-centred and future-oriented.

However, the 2023/2024 Human Development Report notes that wars, civil disturbances, mass inequities in income and wealth distribution and access to opportunities, growing poverty, rising populism, environmental degradation and climate change along with the long-lasting implications of the COVID-19 pandemic have reversed decades of gains in social and economic development, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and continue to be key threats to international peace and security and democratic norms, practices and public institutions and administration. This necessitates the research and evidenced-based policy mandate of the collaborative endeavour between the Global Sustainable Futures Network and UN-Aligned through its Sustainable Leadership and Positive Peace Research Fellowship Programme. The 2023/2024 Human Development Report outlines the following findings that should guide the individual and collective decision-making and implementation of research project activities within a short- to long-term period:

• Between 1999 and 2019, the global human development index (HDI) was on track for most countries that were categorized for scoring high or very high human development.
• Although the global human development index (HDI) has rebounded to project high records for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in 2022 and 2023, the global HDI is still below pre-pandemic levels. The COVID-19 pandemic has subverted global progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• The decline of the human development index (HDI) in 2020 and 2021 was unprecedented.
• The global COVID-19 recovery is highly unequal whereby 51% of Least Developed Countries (LDCS) human development indices have not surpassed the 2019 HDI values while all Organizational for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries have rebounded and surpassed the 2019 HDI values in 2023.
• Extreme weather events, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental vulnerabilities drive rapid, planetary changes.
• Innovation is central to attaining deep, transnational/societal transformations.
• Power and resource imbalances and diverse, development needs, interests and strategies often hinder coherent, integrated and collective decision-making.
• Agency refers to expanding people’s capabilities and scope for opportunities but agency gaps are widening for poor and marginalized communities in developed and developing countries.
• Learning from successful efforts to managing complex, global challenges can enhance global cooperation.
• Sustainable leadership can propel and sustain social norms in support of global cooperation.
• Interdependence between public institutions and development state and non-state actors needs to be harnessed through collaboration and coordination to advance human development.

Proposed Policy Recommendations to the Issues Raised in the 2023/2024 Human Development Report

• Key decision-makers and policymakers from the Global North and Global South should foment stronger partnerships through memoranda of understanding and agreements to foster access to opportunities in the areas of health, education, gender parity, labour market reforms, affirmative action and social protection to alleviate inequalities.
• International financial, justice/legal, trade and social institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), World Trade Organization (WTO), International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the United Nations (UN) should be reformed to enhance the decision-making representation, leverage and power of countries of the Global South. Enforcement mechanisms should be introduced, implemented and monitored in these institutions to ensure fairness in decisions, rulings and agreements in alignment with both contextually sensitive and common principles underpinning public international law.
• Countries of the Global South that continue to suffer from historical and contemporary, systemic disadvantages should further capitalize on South-South cooperation to exchange and apply best practices in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies to address environmental vulnerabilities and climate change. Additionally, they should seek to access concessionary development financing loans from Southern regional blocs with established development banks.
• Developed country governments, developing country governments and international institutions should build data and technical capacities to ensure greater integration and coherence of socially and culturally responsive policies and programmes of action in alignment with monitoring, evaluating and attaining the Sustainable Development Goals indicators and targets.
• Universities, research institutes and research non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should strengthen their engagement with community-based organizations and social movements that are connected to poor and vulnerable communities. A combination of knowledge-based innovation and direct participation can bolster advocacy efforts geared towards policy and legislative changes at the sub-national, national, regional and international levels.
• There should be an increase in cross-border public education, awareness and peace-building opportunities and campaigns, to mitigate against the consequences of polarization and populism which spread hate, discrimination and violence.
• Civil society and human rights organizations should be given greater civic space in collective decision-making in both countries of the North and South to bridge the gaps in trust and legitimacy between citizens and governments and public confidence in democratic reforms and institutions.

*

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

Tina Renier is an Afro-Jamaican scholar-activist. She is also a Research Fellow for the Sustainable Leadership and Positive Peace Research Fellowship Programme, a UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab expert and a regular contributor to Global Research. She received a Master of Arts in International Development Studies from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Featured image source

Os inimigos da Rússia continuam a tentar espalhar o terror no país, tentando criar polarização étnica e religiosa. Em 26 de julho, uma nova tentativa de ataque a uma igreja cristã numa região russa de maioria muçulmana foi frustrada pelas autoridades. O incidente ocorre no meio de uma série de casos recentes de terrorismo perpetrados por radicais islâmicos na Federação Russa, com fortes suspeitas de que estes crimes são realizados com apoio internacional.

A FSB e a polícia do Daguestão trabalharam em conjunto para impedir um ataque terrorista a uma igreja cristã na cidade de Kaspiysk. Os terroristas planejavam realizar uma operação de sabotagem contra policiais e fiéis ortodoxos, repetindo as mesmas táticas utilizadas no ataque ocorrido no mês passado.

Agentes de segurança encontraram com os criminosos diversos equipamentos como bombas caseiras, componentes químicos para fabricação de explosivos, armas brancas e bandeiras de organizações terroristas e seitas salafistas radicais. Os criminosos também possuíam manuais sobre guerrilha, combate, tiro e produção de bombas e artefatos incendiários. Após a prisão, os criminosos contaram aos oficiais do FSB tudo sobre seus planos e como o ataque deveria acontecer. Eles planejaram usar todo esse conhecimento e equipamento em sua ação, explodindo uma igreja enquanto atacavam policiais nas ruas com facas.

Se as autoridades russas não tivessem sido eficientes na identificação dos perpetradores e na neutralização da ameaça, este poderia ter sido um ataque extremamente violento, talvez até com mais vítimas do que o último incidente no Daguestão. Por esta razão, o caso recebeu muita cobertura mediática, mas importa sublinhar que nos últimos meses muitas ações como esta têm sido levadas a cabo pelo FSB e pela polícia, frustrando tentativas de ataques terroristas em diversas regiões, especialmente em regiões de maioria muçulmana.

Existem vários fatores que precisam ser analisados ​​para compreender o recente fenômeno terrorista na Rússia. Desde 2022, a principal prioridade das autoridades russas tem sido a Ucrânia, razão pela qual a maior parte dos esforços do serviço de segurança tem sido evitar a infiltração inimiga nas fronteiras russo-ucranianas. Isto criou um certo desequilíbrio de atenção em relação a outras regiões instáveis ​​do país – o que certamente foi identificado pelos inimigos externos como uma vantagem estratégica e uma possibilidade de atacar a Rússia.

As regiões islâmicas do Cáucaso eram conhecidas por atividades terroristas no passado. Grupos salafistas radicais como o ISIS levaram a cabo vários ataques terroristas e de sabotagem no Daguestão, por exemplo, e tiveram sucesso na difusão da sua ideologia violenta entre a juventude local no passado. No entanto, com a ação constante das autoridades russas, tanto em termos de punição de criminosos como de integração de cidadãos de diferentes etnias e religiões, a situação no sul da Rússia estabilizou, conduzindo a um período de paz e prosperidade.

Os adversários geopolíticos de Moscou compreenderam que reabilitar o terrorismo é a melhor forma de prejudicar o Estado russo. Por isso, houve recentemente um grande fluxo de dinheiro, incentivos através das redes sociais e até entrega de armas e contratação de mercenários para a realização de ataques. O objectivo é espalhar o medo dos “terroristas do Cáucaso” entre os russos étnicos e os cristãos ortodoxos, que são a maioria do país. Isto criaria divisão, polarização e ódio étnico e racial na sociedade russa.

No entanto, os russos parecem ter identificado o problema a tempo. Ações como esta indicam que a inteligência russa já está a prestar especial atenção a esta questão, tendo conseguido frustrar vários ataques. Além disso, à medida que as forças militares russas avançam no campo de batalha, as possibilidades de infiltração inimiga na fronteira diminuem gradualmente, razão pela qual os serviços de segurança podem preocupar-se menos com a zona especial de operação militar e concentrar-se na resolução de questões internas.

Além disso, os estrategistas ocidentais que fomentam o terror na Rússia parecem não ter conseguido compreender alguns aspectos básicos da psicologia social russa. Em vez de desespero e sentimentos antigovernamentais, estes ataques apenas geram sentimentos patrióticos ainda maiores e um apoio esmagador à ação militar contra os inimigos do país. Há também o factor de unidade nacional, que é extremamente importante na Rússia. O anti-racismo e a ausência de divisões étnicas e religiosas são um dos princípios fundamentais do país. É pouco provável que o Ocidente seja eficaz na promoção de sentimentos polarizadores entre os russos comuns, uma vez que a maioria deles compreende corretamente que este é um problema geopolítico e não étnico ou religioso.

No final, o terrorismo parece ser a última arma do inimigo contra a Rússia. O foco crescente no terror indica um elevado nível de desespero entre os estrategistas ocidentais.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

Artigo em inglês : Promoting terrorism in Russia seems to be Western priorityi, InfoBrics, 29 de julho de 2024.

Imagem InfoBrics

*

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

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

Since 1945, American geopolitics have relied heavily on sea power and the dollar’s dominance. This strategy enabled the U.S. to win the Cold War in 1989 and declare a unipolar world. By fortifying key maritime chokepoints and controlling global sea trade routes through allies, bilateral agreements, bases, and naval presence, the U.S. dominated global trade and finance. As George Friedman, the founder of the American think tank STRATFOR, wrote in his 2010 book, “The Next Decade”:

“American power is based on the oceans… Global trade depends on the oceans. Whoever controls the oceans controls global trade… The U.S. controls all oceans. No power in history has achieved this. This control forms the foundation of U.S. security and its ability to shape the international system. Without U.S. approval, no one can navigate the seas.”

American Naval Power Is Ineffective

Today, things are not going as Friedman predicted. Since December 2023, maritime trade, which depends on the oceans and six strategic chokepoints, canals, straits, and nodes, has been significantly disrupted.

The U.S., which has been losing ground in every field and recently lost all moral and ethical values by applauding Netanyahu, the architect of the Gaza genocide, in the American Congress, cannot control the global maritime traffic flow at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The strategic strait, located between Yemen and Djibouti and only 25 km wide at its narrowest point, is now at great risk. (see Map below)

This situation has triggered developments that will disrupt global maritime trade. About 50 ships, carrying 7 million barrels of oil and 1.2 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG), used to pass through this strait daily. These quantities have now decreased by about 60%. The reason is the inability to prevent attacks by Iran-backed Yemeni Shia Houthis against Israel and Western-linked trade ships and even warships, amidst the ongoing civil war since 2015.

Image source

As the Israel-Palestine conflict, which began on October 7, 2023, enters its ninth month, and in a context where the conflict has turned into a one-sided disproportionate use of force against mostly women and children under Israel’s firepower, the Yemeni Houthis are implementing a strategy of direct attacks on trade ships and the warships protecting them to create an asymmetric impact and deter Israel from the massacre, which they see as state terrorism. These attacks pose serious threats of death, injury, sinking, and damage to ships, their crews, and their cargo. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported that as of November 2024, the interests of at least 65 countries and 29 major energy and shipping companies have been affected by Houthi actions, leading them to change their routes to avoid Houthi attacks.

Houthis at Sea

The first Houthi attack on Israel occurred on November 9, 2023. Since then, the Houthis, affiliated with the Ansarullah organization, have carried out around 150 attacks or attempted attacks in the surrounding seas, mainly in the Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden. Initially, they launched drone attacks from 2,000 km away on the Israeli port city of Eilat in the Red Sea. They then began attacking Israeli-flagged/owned ships using the narrow military geography advantage of the strait with missiles, armed drones, and surface vehicles. On November 19, 2023, the Houthis hijacked the Israeli “Galaxy Leader” ship in the Red Sea and took it and its crew to Yemen. On November 25, 2023, they carried out a drone attack on the “Kalandra” ship of the Israeli ZIM company off the coast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. On November 27, 2023, they attacked the American destroyer USS Mason and the nearby Liberian-flagged ship Central Park. On December 9, 2023, the Houthis declared that all ships heading to Israeli ports would be targeted.

Countermeasures Begin

On December 18, 2023, the U.S. announced the launch of Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect trade ships in the region, receiving support from Bahrain, the UK, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain. On December 19, 2023, the U.S., EU, NATO, Australia, the Bahamas, Japan, Liberia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Singapore issued a joint declaration condemning the Houthi attacks. As the attacks did not cease, on January 3, 2024, the same countries threatened to use force against the Houthis. On January 10, 2024, the United Nations, through Security Council Resolution 2722, warned the Houthis to stop their attacks. Ultimately, on January 13, 2024, the U.S. and the UK launched Operation Poseidon Archer, targeting Houthi land targets with cruise missiles and air power. By the start of this operation, the Houthis had attacked 15 ships, causing missile damage to six and hijacking one. However, rather than decreasing, the attacks increased following Poseidon Archer. By the end of March 2024, 27 more Houthi attacks had occurred, damaging 12 ships. On February 20, 2024, the EU launched Operation Aspides for escort and protection at sea, involving France, Italy, Germany, Greece, and Belgium.

Attacks Continue, Damage Range Expands

Despite the naval escort and prevention operations initiated by the U.S. and EU since the end of 2023 and the punitive and neutralization operations targeting Houthi radar, workshops, manpower, ports, and bases, Houthi attacks are not decreasing. Between March and July 2024, nearly 100 attempts occurred. Despite the intensification of airstrikes on Yemen and the support of the Israeli Air Force, the Greek ship “Tutor” sank on June 12, 2024. Furthermore, the Houthis increased their attacks following every destructive move by Israel in Gaza. On July 19, 2024, the Houthis displayed an extraordinary capability by hitting Tel Aviv with a drone. This demonstrated their ability to acquire long-range firepower projection means, indicating that the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean could also become dangerous in the future. Israel’s retaliation by striking the Hodeida port with its aircraft signifies that Israel is officially at war with Yemen.

Weaknesses of the Navies

Western navies’ modern air defense destroyers/frigates, with their three-layer (long-range, medium-range, and point defense) systems, have intercepted many rocket/missile/UAV attacks. However, they have not achieved 100% success, as the munitions used are very expensive and take a long time to integrate logistically. There is a vast cost difference between the missiles launched from Yemen and the air defense missiles used on modern warships. While Yemen’s weapons cost thousands of dollars, the preventive missiles used by Western navies cost millions. The prolonged presence of the American aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower in the region did not yield tangible and lasting results. American sailors felt unsafe at sea for the first time. An Eisenhower group pilot told AP:

“Most sailors, given the country’s military engagements in recent years, were not accustomed to being fired upon… The Red Sea experience was incredibly different, traumatic for the group, and something we hadn’t thought much about… It might be a new experience, but the U.S. Navy will need to adapt quickly and permanently.”

Houthi attacks were sometimes detected at the last moment. Often, these attacks penetrated multiple layers of the ship’s defense in a way not seen in modern history. AP reported that many sailors saw “the missiles launched by the Houthis seconds before their ship’s defense systems destroyed them.” According to a U.S. official speaking to CNN, the destroyer USS Gravely, on patrol, managed to intercept an approaching Houthi cruise missile with the Phalanx (CIWS) close-in weapon system after it had bypassed multiple layers of air defense.

Normalizing Maritime Trade Is Very Difficult

Even though the U.S. and EU’s operations to protect commercial traffic continue in the region, it is challenging for traffic to return to its previous statistics. The Red Sea route to Israel’s Eilat port, especially in the Gulf of Aqaba, is no longer used. On July 18, 2024, it was reported in the media that Eilat port had gone bankrupt.

Additionally, the Red Sea-Suez route’s classification as dangerous for all ships has increased insurance premiums by 6-7 times, and many companies are unwilling to risk increased damage threats. Large container companies like Maersk, MSC, OOCL, and CMA CGM have preferred the Cape of Good Hope route over the Red Sea-Suez-Mediterranean connection for the past eight months. This shift has significantly increased freight rates for tankers from the Strait of Hormuz and container shipments from China/Hong Kong. The decline in container traffic through Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea and the shift to the Cape of Good Hope route have disrupted container movements worldwide. In major hubs like Singapore, waiting times now exceed a week.

Eilat’s Harbor (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Houthis’ Past Maritime Experience

The Houthis’ attacks on maritime targets are not new. During the intense period of the Yemeni civil war that began in 2015, amidst heavy embargoes and blockades imposed by the Saudis and their allies, the Houthis carried out successful attacks on a Saudi corvette with a missile off Hodeida on January 31, 2017, on another Saudi frigate with a suicide boat on February 5, 2017, and on a Saudi tanker with guided munitions on April 2, 2018, in the same area. On June 12, 2018, a Houthi missile attack on a high-speed support vessel of the UAE, bringing soldiers and ammunition to the strategic Hodeida port controlled by the Houthis, nearly sank the vessel. Besides, from June 2017 to the end of 2018, the Houthis conducted four separate attacks on Saudi coalition warships using remote-controlled boats. On July 27, 2018, Saudi Arabia announced the suspension of Saudi tankers’ passage through the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, citing personnel safety and environmental risks. Despite allocating 10% of its national income to defense spending, making it the third largest in the world with a $56 billion defense budget in 2018, Saudi Arabia could not subdue the Houthis or their maritime capabilities. Despite having the support of eight Sunni Arab states and the Saudi Air Force in the naval blockade against Yemen initiated in March 2015, the Saudi Navy could not succeed against the Iranian-backed Houthis. Despite being significantly weaker and more limited in manpower and resources compared to the Saudis, the Houthis managed to humiliate the Saudi Navy in front of the world.

High Morale of the Houthis

The moral superiority underlying the ship attacks launched against Israel on November 19, 2023, stems from this success against the Saudis in 2018. Before 2018, 3 million barrels of oil passed through Bab el-Mandeb daily, with the largest share belonging to the Saudis. Most of the processed products from the Yanbu Refinery on the Red Sea coast reached global markets through this strait. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia had reduced its dependence on this strait and the Strait of Hormuz with a pre-constructed pipeline that could transfer 5 million barrels of oil daily to the Red Sea. Considering scenarios where Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 15 million barrels of oil pass daily, turning the Red Sea into a dangerous area by the Houthis is indeed a significant blow to American naval geopolitics. The Houthis have further increased their leverage on the ground with the moral impact of these successes and the new tactics and techniques they have developed. As I have repeatedly emphasized, without a land invasion, it is not possible to eliminate the asymmetric naval warfare capability the Houthis have developed over the past 20 years. The question is: “Can the U.S. and its inseparable allies, Israel and the UK, launch a military invasion in Yemen? Can Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries be convinced to engage in another proxy war?”

Houthis Might Continue Even If There Is a Ceasefire

On the other hand, the Houthis’ ability to disrupt global trade continues despite intense airstrikes, suggesting that they might continue their anti-U.S./EU actions in the future, even if a ceasefire is achieved in Gaza. Aside from the increasing support the Houthis receive from Iran, the growing strategic cooperation between Iran, Russia, and China makes the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, under Iran’s direct and indirect influence, the Achilles’ heel in the global power struggle for the U.S. and the EU. Today, if the Lebanon (Hezbollah)-Israel conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean escalates into an Iran-Israel and Iran-U.S. conflict, the world would lose the commercial traffic in two straits crucial for energy supply. The U.S., EU, and their partners in the Far East could not withstand the consequences of this loss. This ongoing threat would also be devastating for states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, aiming to become global logistics hubs.

Strait of Hormuz (Source)

Houthis Are Undermining the Reputation of American Naval Power

The Yemeni resistance affects global maritime trade with its results. For instance, globally, 1,600 containers are either loaded or unloaded every minute. Or every day, 5.5 million tons of oil are transported by sea. Disruptions in the Bab el-Mandeb and Red Sea routes cause chain reactions in other areas. As a result, Israel, a state with no geostrategic depth and 90% of its foreign trade dependent on sea transportation, is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain its war economy. This situation is also crucial for U.S. support because Israel, impoverished and with fleeing investors, cannot extend the war without U.S. financial and munitions aid.

On the other hand, it can be said that the U.S. will not leave Israel in the lurch like it did with Ukraine. The U.S.-based Israel is much stronger and more populous than the Israel in the Levant. This was clearly seen in the Netanyahu show applauded in Congress last week. Thus, the U.S. will continue to protect Israel, and in this case, anti-U.S. states like Russia, China, and Iran will try every means to disrupt global maritime trade through the Houthis.

Satellite photo of Bab-el-Mandeb (From the Public Domain)

Disrupted global maritime trade will lead to a loss of power and prestige for the U.S., which has claimed to dominate the oceans since 1945. The Houthis will continue to undermine the reputation of American naval power. Preventing this is both laborious and difficult for the U.S. Without a land invasion or complete severance of maritime contact with Iran, it is not easy to stop the Houthis. If an invasion operation starts in the Red Sea, a Hezbollah-Israel and Iran-U.S.-Israel conflict would be inevitable, leading to the complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, which would mean the collapse of the global economy. If the U.S. continues to applaud Israel in Congress, the geopolitical turmoil it faces will grow. The issue is who will decide on America’s geopolitical priorities. As long as American democracy and the election process are driven by Jewish finance, it is clear who will decide these priorities.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

Ret Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, Writer, Geopolitical Expert, Theorist and creator of the Turkish Bluehomeland (Mavi Vatan) doctrine. He served as the Chief of Strategy Department and then the head of Plans and Policy Division in Turkish Naval Forces Headquarters. As his combat duties, he has served as the commander of Amphibious Ships Group and Mine Fleet between 2007 and 2009. He retired in 2012. He established Hamit Naci Blue Homeland Foundation in 2021. He has published numerous books on geopolitics, maritime strategy, maritime history and maritime culture. He is also a honorary member of ATASAM.  

The argument can be made that this is a mutually beneficial way to advance their respective ulterior interests and isn’t as substantive as some might have initially thought due to the serious political and technical challenges that this project faces.

A top Russian expert candidly analyzed their country’s newly signed gas pipeline Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iran from late June in two interviews with Sputnik and Azerbaijan’s News.Az. Igor Yushkov, who’s described by the prestigious Russian International Affairs Council as a Professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation and leading expert at the National Energy Security Fund, strongly suggested that this might be more about optics than substance.

This agreement appears to be a game-changer at first glance since some of the 300 million cubic meters of gas per day that Russia plans to export to Iran, which Sputnik calculated roughly equals the maximum output of the now-defunct Nord Stream pipelines, could also meet some of India’s growing energy needs. The primary obstacle though will be in getting the approval of all Caspian states for an undersea pipeline, which Yushkov hinted to his country’s media might be much more difficult than it seems.

He elaborated more on this to Azerbaijani media, explaining that the estimated $10 billion worth of investments required wouldn’t make the venture profitable if Kommersant’s report about the gas being sold at around $100 per thousand meters is true. That’s close to the price paid by the CIS countries and is 62% lower than what China pays for importing gas from the Power of Siberia pipeline. He concluded that the plans “seem unrealistic and are most likely pursuing political rather than economic goals.”

Yushkov might be onto something too since it’s important for readers to remember that Russia is reportedly embroiled in a pricing dispute with China over the Power of Siberia II pipeline that was analyzed in this piece here from early June shortly after Putin’s latest trip there the month prior. In brief, Russia wants to get the highest price possible while China wants the lowest, with each believing that the other will bend to their demands the longer that the talks drag on.

From Russia’s perspective, the US’ impending “Pivot (back) to Asia” will inevitably lead to more credible threats against the maritime energy supply chains that China is dependent upon for powering its economy, thus compelling the People’s Republic to agree to higher prices for more reliable Russian gas. Meanwhile, China’s view is that growing financial pressures on Russia will compel it to agree to lower prices for reasons of convenience, helped along as they are by the difficulty of selling its gas elsewhere.

With these competing calculations in mind, the newly signed Russian-Iranian gas MoU might actually be a ploy for improving Moscow’s negotiating leverage with Beijing by showing the latter that it does indeed have supposedly viable alternatives for selling its gas to Asia. As for what Kommersant reported regarding the low rate that Russia allegedly agreed to sell its gas to Iran for, it’s either inaccurate or a preliminary understanding that could very well change as the talks towards a final deal evolve.

After all, if Russia is supposedly desperate enough for revenue that it’ll begin the long process of trying to seek all Caspian states’ approval for an undersea pipeline which can’t be assured and which’ll require a huge investment that’ll barely pay off in the event that they agree, then it doesn’t make sense to hold off on a deal with China. The Power of Siberia II could begin construction immediately after the contract is signed, would predictably cost less, and wouldn’t face anywhere near the same technical challenges.

For these reasons, it’s apparent that everything isn’t as clear-cut as it seems when it comes to the Russian-Iranian gas MoU, with this agreement being less of a game-changer than it appeared at first glance upon further scrutiny and much more like a ploy of sorts to bolster Russia’s hand in talks with China. Iran is probably playing along since the optimistic reports that followed from friendly media drew awareness to its crucial geostrategic position and accordingly improved its soft power at no cost to itself.

Altogether, it can therefore be concluded that their newly signed understanding is a mutually beneficial way to advance their respective ulterior interests and isn’t as substantive as some might have initially thought. To be sure, it would indeed be a game-changer if their envisaged undersea pipeline is built and Russian gas either directly travels to India or is provided to it by Iran via a swap arrangement, but that’s unlikely to happen. Absent any serious progress, most people might even forget about this by next year.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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

Featured image is from the author

Ambassador Samantha Power, former US Ambassador to the UN, and now director of USAID, an office of the US State Department, traveled to Armenia on July 10 to strong-arm Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan into buying gas from Azerbaijan, instead of Russia.

Armenia currently imports almost all of its hydrocarbons from Russia and Iran via gas pipeline.

The President Joe Biden administration supports the war in Ukraine by providing billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia.

Prior to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline being destroyed, Biden had made a speech promising that the US would prevent Russia from selling gas to Germany and Europe. It is an economic war waged on Russia, as well as militarily on the battlefields.

On February 28, 2023, the American Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Seymour Hersh, published an article exposing how the Biden administration had blown up the Nord Stream 2 underwater pipeline designed to deliver gas to Germany and Europe.

The Nord Stream 2 had been sanctioned by Germany, and Biden was afraid that Germany would lift the sanctions because of a bad winter.

According to Hersh, Biden was obsessed with reelection in 2024, and wanted to win the war in Ukraine. Biden’s advisors in the Oval Office feared that Germany and Western Europe might stop weapons support to Ukraine, and the German chancellor could turn the pipeline on.

Biden placed winning the war in Ukraine above the warmth and health of the German people, even though winning a war in Ukraine is improbable, according to military experts.

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has criticized Power’s trip to Armenia because USAID hasn’t provided financial support to Armenians who left Karabakh and returned to their homeland Armenia as displaced persons, and victims of ethnic cleansing.

Despite previous visits and flowery speeches, Power has not initiated any funding programs for the Karabakh Armenians who lost their homes, possessions, lands and livelihoods.

In September 2023, almost 200,000 ethnic Armenians fled the battles, and eventual defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s victory ending three decades of ethnic Armenian separatist rule there.

Impact crater in a residential neighborhood in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh on Sasountsi David Street from an attack by Azerbaijan aircraft on October 4, 2020. © 2020 Human Rights Watch

Protesters on the streets of Yerevan blamed the policies of Pashinyan for the defeat.

Power arrived in Yerevan on September 25 and said,

“The United States is deeply concerned about reports on the humanitarian conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh and calls for unimpeded access for international humanitarian organizations and commercial traffic.”

The ANCA say the needy are still waiting for help from Power and the Biden administration.

During Azerbaijan’s attacks on the Armenia people living in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the US supported the Azerbaijan government. There is no reason for the government of Armenia to view the US as a friend or supporter.

By contrast, the Russian peace-keeping troops tried to perform their job in the Nagorno-Karabakh armed conflict, but in the end, Armenia was defeated.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have made peace; the armed conflict is over, but the pain of hundreds of Armenian deaths at the hands of the Azerbaijanis remains fresh in the minds and hearts of Armenians.

Now, Ambassador Power is asking Yerevan to buy their gas from a former enemy, instead of a loyal friend.

On July 15, just days after Power visited, joint military drills with the US began, and reflects the pressure Power and the Biden administration are putting on Armenia to forge closer ties with the US.

Image: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

Russia had been Armenia’s main economic partner and hosts a Russian military base. Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers who were deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh of failing to stop Azerbaijan’s onslaught. Moscow rejected the accusations, arguing that its troops didn’t have a mandate to intervene.

American military help was completely absent in the struggle for Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Has she no shame?” asked Sossy Saroyan in Latakia, Syria while referring to Power.

After the attack and massacre in Kessab, carried out by the US supported Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their allied Al Qaeda terrorists, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, was asked to comment on what happened in Kessab.

Power said,

“The US is very concerned about what happened in Kessab, but unfortunately the armed groups there are not ones we have leverage on.”

Power had lied.  The FSA was the armed wing of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) based in Istanbul, Turkey and headed by its President, Ahmed Jarba. Both the FSA and SNC received their support, funds, training and weapons from the US government through Congressional funding and through the CIA program, “Sycamore Timber”.

To prove the US connection to the attack, destruction, occupation, massacre and kidnapping in Kessab in March 2014, Jarba visited the FSA stationed in occupied Kessab on April 11, 2014.

On May 23, 2014, Jarba was sitting in the Oval Office with US President Barak Obama and Susan Rice. On Jarba’s visit he met with Secretary of State John Kerry and received the use of two offices in Washington to be used as a US base of operation for the SNC and FSA.

On the same day that Jarba was in Kessab, US Ambassador to Turkey, Francis J. Riccardone, Jr. visited the 26 very elderly kidnap victims from Kessab who had been taken at gunpoint to Vikifly, Turkey as captives of the FSA.

Ambassador Riccardone had brought his wife with him, as she was a language specialist, and they also had a translator with them.

Ambassador Riccardone had just one question to ask of the captives who all but one was over the age of 80.  His question posed to the group of captives was, “Are any of you American citizens?”

Kessab, Syria does have a number of dual citizens, Syrians by birth, who have obtained US citizenship after living, working and paying incomes taxes in the US in the past.  In fact, at least four American citizens had lost their homes, farms and businesses when the US-sponsored terrorists attacked Kessab.

However, the group collectively answered, “No, we are just Syrians.”

At that point, Ambassador Riccardone and his entourage got up to leave. He was there for one purpose only, to free any US captive, but none were US citizens so he left them.

The very elderly Syrian Christian Armenian kidnap victims were captives of an armed group which stated goal was to establish an Islamic government in Damascus, and to remove the existing secular government which had protected the rights of all Christians in Syria.  The victims begged Ambassador Riccardone to please not leave them in captivity in Turkey, which had massacred 1.6 million Armenians in the 1916 Armenian Genocide, but to transport them to Latakia, Syria where all the residents of Kessab were sheltering at the Armenian Church.

The dozens of elderly, infirm, and immobile Armenians of Kessab were forced by Ambassador Riccardone to remain captives in a foreign country historical known for its genocidal hatred of Armenian, for three months, until they were transported by the Turkish government, allied with Obama, to Beirut, Lebanon and from there they were bused to Latakia, Syria.

Kessab has never recovered, and is a partial ghost-town because of the Obama-Biden administration.

The Armenians of Syria could teach the Armenian government a hard lesson learned from bitter experience: don’t expect help from the US, because they do not have friends, they only have interests.

Biden wanted to win the Ukraine war, and secure a ceasefire in Gaza to ensure reelection.  Instead he has failed at both, and has lost the election.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

The major media outlets earlier this month ran breathless headlines about a former C.I.A. officer “caught spying for South Korea.” 

The BBC, for example, wrote “Ex-CIA Analyst Charged with Spying for South Korea.”  The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Sloppy Spycraft?  Indictment of a Former CIA Analyst Embarrasses South Korea.”  Even the venerable Time Magazine disingenuously wrote, “Former CIA Office Charged with Being Secret Agent.”  

The problem is that literally none of those headlines were true. 

Sue Mi Terry, a former Korea analyst for the C.I.A., a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Koreas, and a former national security council director for Korean Affairs, was most certainly not charged with spying for South Korea.  She was not guilty, or even accused, of “sloppy spycraft.” And she was not charged with being a secret agent. 

Every one of those headlines was factually false.

Take a look at the actual Department of Justice charging document.  Terry was charged with “acting as an unregistered agent of the South Korean government.” The charge has literally nothing to do with spying. It’s not even in the same part of the U.S. code as espionage. 

So what does this actually mean? Quite literally, it means that Terry neglected to fill out a form. More specifically, because she was also charged with conspiracy, she allegedly decided in advance to not fill out the form.

Filling Out a FARA Form 

Here in the United States, we have something called FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Whenever a person does something on behalf of a foreign government, he or she has to go here and fill out a form saying, “I’m taking abc action on behalf of xyz government.” It’s as easy as that. 

For example, in 2008 I won a small $4,000 contract with the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce to write four op-eds to be placed in business journals around the country saying that Abu Dhabi was a great place to do business.  I went to the FARA website, put in my name and contact info, noted that I was being paid $4,000 by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce, and attached links to the op-eds.  No problem.

So let’s look at what it is that Sue Mi Terry is actually accused of doing. The Justice Department alleges in its indictment that she:

1. Advocated for South Korean policy positions, including in published articles and media interviews;

2. Disclosed “non public” information to Korean intelligence officers and facilitated access between Korean and American officials.  (She apparently attended a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and think tank Korean experts and then told the South Koreans what was said.  No classified information was involved);

3. Accepted a coat, two purses, “high-priced seafood dinners,” and $37,000 in funding for a think tank that she founded in Washington;

4. Testified on Capitol Hill without saying that she was advocating positions supported by the South Korean government.

The thing is, none of this is illegal, other than the act of not filling out the form.  And notice two other things:  Terry was never accused of espionage.  She was never accused of providing classified or “national defense” information to the South Koreans. 

And she wasn’t charged with income tax evasion, indicating that the transfer of $37,000 to her think tank was done in the open and that she paid taxes on it.  To call her a spy for the South Koreans is not only factually wrong, it’s defamatory.

Targeting Nazi Propaganda

The Foreign Agents Registration Act has been on the books for a long time. Passed in 1938 and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, FARA was meant specifically to target propaganda paid for by the Nazi government in Germany, and, indeed, between 1938 and 1945, FARA violations were prosecuted 23 times.  

Between 1945 and 1955, the number of prosecutions fell to two. And then between 1956 and 1962, the number was nine, according to a report published by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.  

Those numbers remained stagnant until 2016, when Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, already at war with national security whistleblowers, decided to use FARA as a political weapon and to go after people who had previously been ignored. 

Not only did the Justice Department initiate dozens of cases a year, Foreign Affairs Magazine wrote that,

“FARA is no longer a forgotten and oft ignored piece of New Deal-era reforms.  Eight decades after being enacted, FARA is finally worth the paper it was written on.”  

I actually think that FARA is a good idea, at least on paper, and provided that it is universally enforced.  The problem is that it has never been universally enforced.  And punishments for violating it are all over the map.  

First, it took me literally 10 minutes to fill out the form online when I was writing for the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce.  Sue Mi Terry should have taken the same 10 minutes.  

Image: Maria Butina presents her Prison Diary at the Moscow International Book Fair, March 2021. (Rodrigo Fernández, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Second, the federal sentencing guidelines for violating FARA call for a jail sentence of zero-to-six months and/or a small fine.  Why, then, was Maria Butina, a Russian grad student at American University, held in solitary confinement at the Washington, D.C., jail for 18 months for violating FARA?  Coming at the height of the Russiagate mania in 2018 it was clearly political. 

And perhaps more importantly, why does the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, not have to register when it is clearly, obviously, promoting Israeli interests?

The answer, of course, is politics.  And nobody on Capitol Hill has either interest or the wherewithal to do anything about it.  My advice is simple.  Fill out the form.  It’s fast, easy, and you won’t regret it.  And don’t be afraid to point out the hypocrisy that the Justice Department has foisted upon us. 

And at the same time, the media have to get their act together and learn the difference between a spy, an “agent,” and a person who is either too lazy or lacking in knowledge to fill out a form.

I hate to be a complainer. But a felony conviction and 18 months in solitary confinement for not filling out a form is draconian.  It’s wrong.  But it’s also very American.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

John Kiriakou is a former C.I.A. counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act — a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.

Featured image: Sue Mi Terry speaking at New America’s Future of War Conference in 2018. (Eric Gibson/ New America, Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)

After three months of relentless rain from March to the end of May 2024 covering much of the productive land in the UK, farmers found themselves months behind getting their Spring crops in the soil.

Many of these farms are already suffering a dangerous nutrient deficit; soils depleted after four to five decades of agrichemically dependent monocultural mining operations that have reduced the top six inches of soils – normally alive with microscopic insects and worms – to little more than dead matter entirely dependent on synthetic nitrate fertilisers and toxic pesticides to grow anything other than weeds.

But these chemical inputs are becoming increasingly expensive and coupled with yields that are no longer sufficient to bring in profits, a large proportion of commercial UK arable farmers are on the edge of bankruptcy. 

Government subsidies have kept them afloat up till now, but that is changing. Now the payment emphasis is on ‘increasing biodiversity’ by introducing nature friendly schemes on farms largely devoid of such features. 

 A good thing, you might say, but land taken out of food production means more food has to be imported from somewhere else in the world.

A food security issue is looming. ‘Food security’ means following an agricultural policy which ensures that a nation state is broadly capable of feeding its own people. 

The UK was running at 60% self-sufficiency home production figure for most of the past two to three decades. It dropped to around 45% five years ago and this year (2024) that figure has fallen to just 32%.

The implications of this are serious indeed. A leading world nation-state relying on close to a 70% import position in order to feed a population of some 60 million is a massive no, no.

Add to this some six decades of government-backed agribusiness land management policies based on pharmaceutical inputs replacing soil nourishing crop rotations, farm yard manures and diverse mixed cropping regimes – and a huge crisis looms just around the corner.

The foods that appear in the nation’s supermarkets and hypermarkets all come from soil-deficient practices, whether home produced or imported. Many also come from hydroponic systems that drip soluble nutrients into vast water containers in which the plants are grown. No soil involved at all.

The modern consumer is therefore ingesting – and attempting to digest – a toxic, vitamin-depleted and largely lifeless diet, thus storing up a dangerous cocktail of health problems both now and for the future.

The red lights should be flashing for all those dependent upon such a disastrous food and farming policy to continue to feed themselves and their families.

Denatured, depleted and highly processed foods have become the daily norm for the great majority of convenience-corrupted consumers of the British Isles and for much of the post-industrial modern world. A regime which has also deeply infiltrated Southern hemisphere countries, undermining their traditional diets and ways of life.

But it’s not just poor quality vitamin-deficient foods that are degrading the health and welfare of consumers. Due to various purposefully inflated international conflicts and politically motivated power play using the fake green ‘zero carbon’ agenda to divert resources away from agricultural production, major supermarket chains such as Tesco now hold 60% less reserve food in their systems than they did five years ago.

This translates into no more than a week or two of available food, should a crisis cause supplies to dry up.

You can plainly see the tightening squeeze that both farmers and consumers are facing. Any existing ‘comfort zone’ is rapidly eroding, like the soil on the increasingly barren arable fields.

There is very little time left to act in order to avert a full-scale food/farming crisis. As a British farmer put it recently

“Is the government going to change the agenda or let us starve?”

Well, that should be the question on the minds of all those still able to think; because the latter choice is not mere fantasy, but an integral part of the global shadow government’s agenda.

The director the Sainsbury supermarket chain seems to have the answer. He is quoted as stating

“We will not need any farmers by 2030.”

Sainsbury is simply echoing the Agenda 2030 doctrine of the World Economic Forum (WEF). This central platform of The Great Reset, Green New Deal and the Fourth Industrial Revolution is using the excuse of achieving Net Zero by 2045, to pull the plug on food and farming as we know it, globally.

The WEF, The United Nations and The World Health Organisation plus the great majority of global banking magnates/institutions and global investment companies like BlackRock and Vanguard, are, with the tacit support of billionaires like Bill Gates, Elon Musk and the King of England, in lockstep with the great global warming scam. 

They conform with the plan that agricultural production and particularly traditional farm animals must go. Because they give off methane and CO2 which paid-off government ‘computer modelling scientists’ claim to be causatory agents of global warming/climate change. 

In the meantime Bill Gates is buying up precious heritage seed reserves, the only source of non DNA-altered/non GMO-modified indigenous seeds, only to immediately close them down after purchase. A blatant and repugnant act of ecocide.

Gates is right at the heart of the elite global cult’s drive to starve the majority of humanity out of the picture. He, along with Klaus Schwab, Yuval Noah Harari and their indoctrinated-‘young global leaders’ are working to ensure that an entirely synthetic, GM laboratory-based fake food will replace soil grown plants and grass fed animals within the next ten years.

Gates has already purchased vast acreages of US farmland in which to grow experimental DNA-altered GM crops and ‘vaccine ready’ ingredients for combatting future plandemics – which he is also involved in planning and instigating.

Source

While around the corner in cyber valley (ex silicon valley) under the title ‘Project 20451’, fifty scientists are working out a strategy for the dystopian ‘development’ of mankind: to transfer human consciousness into an artificial carrier in order to create a man made form of immortality. An AI cybernetic creation called ‘The Transhuman’.

As King Charles announced on launching the most recent phase of the Great Reset in Davos

“We have to put ourselves on a war footing.”

Yes, by declaring a Davos inspired ‘global emergency plan’ any and all distortions of life can be prescribed as our genocidal medicine to speed-up the coming of the cyborg’s promised land.

This brings me back to the most immediate issue: our one or two year window of opportunity to either get this ship turned around – nation state by nation state most probably – or find a way to join together in building arks of pro-ecological agriculture robust enough to support land based and village/small town communities. An action in which all become involved in mutually supportive efforts to ensure a practical way forward. 

All the evidence points to a planned democide – in which we the people are the target zone – already under 24/7 CCTV, digital and satellite surveillance and subject to mind controlling EMF radiation increasingly coupled to the all pervasive electromagnetic computing matrix known as The Cloud. 

Additionally we are asphyxiated, almost daily, by the atmospheric geoengineering (chemtrails) program indiscriminately dumping aluminium, barium and strontium nanoparticles on all and sundry. The list goes on, and many of you already know it by now.

As the dark agents of central control assure us ‘this is to prevent global warming/climate change.’ Ha, ha. No. This is to block a rising global awareness and higher spiritual consciousness which will completely undo them and change the course of history.

Subject to this permanent and largely invisible attack on its very foundations, mankind must develop a practical response now, because tomorrow is too late.

As with all things that reach their zenith of opposition to what is real and true, the excessively heavy anti-life paraphernalia which blocks the essential simplicity of common sense-based honest action, has to be done away with – in order to get back to something solid, real and supportive of human, animal and environmental life.

It is a stripping away of all excesses to the bare bones of necessity from which to make a fresh start.

So we return to soil, food, water and shelter. This is our bottom line from which to begin again. Soil, food and water all need to regain the characteristic of being ‘living’. And so do we.

To achieve this, the large monocultural, agrichemically dependent commercial farms I cite at the beginning of this article, will need to be broken down into many smaller units, each treated as a pro-ecological project in the making. 

One by one the soil diversity of these units will be replenished, using the techniques common to practitioners of organic and pro-ecological farming. Yields will return to their optimal levels and a symbiosis will be achieved between the revival of natural diversity and the cultivation of food crops. To the ecologically attuned, this is common sense.

By necessity, the new energy of a new generation is needed to take up this challenge and recognise that the fresh quality foods they grow on replenished land must find their destiny in the most immediate geographic locations – and no longer be dumped on dying global markets for the mass produced sterile and synthetic foods that line the plastic shelves of soul numbing ‘stupor-markets’.

I describe the re-localisation of food, fibre and fuel requirements in my first book ‘Creative Solutions to a World in Crisis’ under the heading ‘The Proximity Principle’.

Suffice it to say that a whole new dynamic, based around a rejuvenated rural economy and self-sufficiency instinct, will ultimately replace the agricultural deserts that have denatured and destroyed our food chain.

A strongly united and consumer-supported effort will be essential, as this is completely outside the shadow government agenda, as articulated by the director of Sainsbury’s.

The trend towards taking back control of our destinies is already observable in the steadily growing rejection of the EU Supranational behemoth and in defence of the basic values of nation-states. Also increasingly visible is the growing movement for independent sates in North America to free themselves from the central control of Washington DC.

Our future is in our hands, or we the people have no future. It’s time to stop imagining that one will somehow muddle through and come out on dry land. Such an attitude represents a suicidal retreat into a well-prepared prison of slavery – and yes, of allowing oneself to be the victim of a protracted process of starvation.

Life moves forwards, not backwards. At this dramatic confluence of deeply conflicting energies, some remarkable challenges lie immediately ahead, offering us the unique opportunity to express that innate creativity and courage with which we humans have been blessed, yet which many have failed to put into practice.

You don’t have to be a farmer to plant the seeds of that which becomes the source of essential nourishment for body, mind and spirit. But you do need to realise that it is from this level of practical simplicity that the future we want will need to be built.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

Julian Rose is an organic farmer, writer, broadcaster and international activist. He is author of four books of which the latest ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’ is a clarion call to resist the despotic New World Order takeover of our lives. Do visit his website for further information www.julianrose.info

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: A wheat field in Essex (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

The director of the US Secret Service, Kimberly A. Cheatle, has resigned from her position due to her demonstrated inability to protect Donald Trump from the attack. In the congressional hearing, she refused to say how many agents were assigned to protect Trump and why the Secret Service did not guard a nearby warehouse complex, from whose roof the attacker fired despite the complex being guarded by local police. Cheatle did not even explain how it was possible that, when several rally participants warned the Secret Service and police agents of the presence of an armed man on the roof, no one moved. All of this casts a dark shadow over the entire affair, making the official version that the attack was the work of a single person less credible: a twenty-year-old, who had also shown poor skills in his high school shooting class, was killed immediately by police snipers who could have instead stopped him with a non-fatal shot so that he could be questioned in the investigation.

Having emerged alive from the attack, Donald Trump seemed to be the winning candidate in the next presidential elections. However, President Biden’s withdrawal and the entry into the field of vice-president Kamala Harris have given the Democrats new breathing space. In a single day, they collected over 50 million dollars in online donations, the largest in recent years. Making the situation even more uncertain is the US electoral system itself. Over 20% of voters live in jurisdictions that use electronic voting machines without paper trails. These electronic voting machines, operated by private companies, store the votes in their memory.

“The lack of a physical document to support electronic voting means that election officials have to trust that the machines won’t malfunction and change or lose a vote, or that poll workers won’t inadvertently alter votes, or that the machines haven’t been hacked,” warns Douglas Jones, a computer science professor at the University of Iowa who has spent decades studying how computers are used in elections.

What’s more, a record number of voters, more than 65 million, are sending their ballots by mail. Post offices are being clogged with some 130 million mailings of voters’ ballots. Because there are not enough staff, the majority of ballot counting is done by private companies outside the office. That leaves much room for data manipulation, allowing votes to be fraudulently moved from one candidate to another.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image source

Joe Biden’s ignominious fall from grace was unanticipated and abrupt. It all happened in early June after Russian President Putin made a surprise announcement that a Russian naval fleet would make a port call to Cuba amidst Ukraine’s proxy war as a show of force.

On June 12, a Russian naval fleet comprising a frigate, a nuclear-powered submarine Kazan, an oil tanker and a rescue tug crossed into Havana Bay after drills in the Atlantic Ocean. The next day, on June 13, a U.S. Navy submarine arrived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a fleet of Russian warships gathered for planned military exercises in the Caribbean.

U.S. Southern Command announced the USS Helena, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, pulled into the waters near the U.S. base in Cuba. A Canadian Navy patrol ship also docked in Havana. Ottawa said the ship arrived on June 14 to signal the “capable and deployable” nature of the Canadian military.

The Russian naval fleet left Cuba on June 17 after a five-day stay but Putin’s hawkish maneuver precipitated a rift between the Biden admin and the deep state. The Pentagon’s military brass favored a much forceful response to Russia’s provocation amidst Ukraine’s proxy war but Biden got cold feet because brinkmanship could have led to nuclear standoff with Russia in the election year.

It seems quite “a coincidence” that six weeks before Biden decided to drop out of the presidential race on July 21, his cocaine addicted son Hunter was found guilty by a Delaware jury on June 11 for owning a gun as a user of illegal drugs and lying on paperwork about his drug use when he bought the gun.

Hunter Biden faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years but is likely to receive a lesser sentence. In addition, Hunter also faces federal criminal charges for failing to pay more than $1.4 million in taxes on time. A trial in that case is scheduled to begin in September in Los Angeles.

What’s even more surprising is the fact that Hunter Biden nearly avoided facing trials on both the gun charges and the tax charges. Last year, prosecutor’s office and Hunter Biden’s legal team struck a tentative plea deal in which Hunter would have pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and submitted to drug testing and other monitoring. Under the deal, prosecutors would have deferred the gun charges and eventually dropped them if Hunter had remained out of trouble.

But the deal “miraculously” fell apart in June after the deep state decided that Joe Biden had become a liability as president and needed to be replaced by a security establishment’s stooge, Kamala Harris. Thus, Joe Biden was literally blackmailed by the deep state to quit the presidential race in exchange for saving the life of his problem child.

Had Joe Biden decided not to quit the race, the security establishment threatened to open host of other criminal cases against Hunter Biden, including the notorious Burisma Holdings case in which Hunter Biden had received millions of dollars in illicit kickbacks from a Ukrainian energy firm from 2013 to 2018 while his father Joe Biden was Obama admin’s vice president.

On the other hand, security establishment via Democratic emissaries assured Biden to use its influence with judiciary to drop all criminal cases against Hunter if Joe Biden agreed to quit the race and kept quiet afterwards.

Reportedly, on the night of presidential debate with Republican contender Donald Trump on June 27, Biden’s cook, an agent of the deep state, had mixed a psychotropic drug in his food, thus he was stoned and couldn’t defend himself against Trump’s onslaught, which became an excuse for dropping out of presidential race.

Kamala Harris, being an Indian immigrant and lacking a significant political constituency in the United States, is an ideal presidential candidate from the perspective of security establishment. During her four-year unremarkable career as vice president and the way she cheered waving Ukrainian flag during President Zelensky’s address to the US Congress, she has proved that she would play into the hands of deep state like a servile puppet.

Although Biden himself is an establishment Democrat and was fully onboard with the Pentagon’s policy of arming Ukraine and waging a protracted proxy war against arch-rival Russia, being a veteran American politician, he had developed an imperious and patronizing attitude during the four-year presidency that was looked down upon by swashbuckling American generals who are accustomed to treating civilian politicians as batmen.

If Kamala Harris wins the presidency, which I’m sure she would with deep state’s unequivocal support, the security establishment’s grip on American politics would be further consolidated and conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are likely to escalate.

Trump’s brush with death on July 13 was only a sequel to the macabre spectacle being orchestrated by the deep state to consolidate its power. On July 31, 2022, while al-Qaeda’s fearsome leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was standing in the balcony of a suburban Kabul house inhaling fresh morning breeze, an American drone fired a R9X Hellfire missile, also referred to as the Ninja Missile, that’s equipped with six large blades flying at high speed to crush and cut the targeted person into smithereens.

At the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13, Thomas Matthew Crooks was simply “a patsy” like Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy. Although he borrowed an AR-15 rifle from his father, he only had blank bullets that make an explosive sound without firing a shot.

There was a professional sniper perched on the rooftop of a nearby building who had a rifle equipped with telescope and silencer. But his job wasn’t to shoot at Trump, as expected, but rather to shoot at participants of the rally. In fact, he did kill one person named Corey Comperatore and critically wounded two others.

The victims were intentionally shot because Trump’s powerful adversaries wanted to send a loud and clear message that they mean business and next time it would be Trump lying dead in the pool of blood, though the assassination attempt itself was merely a shot across the bow, meant to petrify rather than kill Trump.

The object that injured Trump’s right ear was actually a miniature drone, the size of a dragonfly and equipped with tiny but sharp blades, that’s developed by DARPA, though still in developmental stages and isn’t available in the market. In fact, Trump did confide to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that it sounded like “the world’s largest mosquito.”

Subsequently, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee on July 25 that former President Donald Trump may not have been hit with a bullet but with shrapnel or some other object.

The assassination attempt, meant as a psy-ops tactic, served a two-fold objective. Firstly, it created an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, restricted Trump’s movement during the election campaign, as he has since been advised by the Secret Service not to attend outdoor rallies and conveyed a message that red lines shouldn’t be crossed in political speeches.

Secondly, the drastic measure also managed to send a spine-chilling warning to Trump’s political opponent Joe Biden that the deep state was willing to go to any extent to achieve its objectives, even if it had to assassinate sitting US presidents, such as the brutal murders of the Kennedy brothers following the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Unsurprisingly, panic-stricken Joe Biden decided a week after Trump’s brush with death to leave the White House for his Delaware mansion instead of morgue.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Middle East and Eurasia regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

Featured image source

“Thank you for allowing us to have a voice,” Kimberly tells CHD.TV viewers.

She and Andy are Trent’s parents — a young man who passed away from a heart condition after receiving two Pfizer COVID shots.

The days and months of pain and suffering that Trent experienced are something they wish for no one to have to undergo.

Many families, however, have already been traumatized by sudden, unnecessary death after the rollout of the COVID countermeasures — deceptively claimed to be “safe and effective.”

Their stories will be told.

Click here to watch the video

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

---

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

You may also access the online version of the e-Book by clicking here.

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

Singapore has approved 16 insects as food for humans — becoming the latest country to authorize insect products for human consumption, in what The Guardian described as a move that “paves the way for plates to become wrigglier, leggier and more sustainable” and as “a sign of things to come.”

In a July 8 announcement, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) approved the 16 insects, which include silkworm pupa and mealworm, “With immediate effect.”

“These insects and insect products can be used for human consumption or as animal feed for food producing animals,” the SFA stated.

Countries and entities such as the United Kingdom (U.K.), Australia and the European Union (EU) have already approved some insects for human consumption. However, in the U.S. existing regulations contain few references specifically addressing insects.

This regulatory gap has enabled an ecosystem of “alternative protein” startups to enter the insect food market — with the backing of figures such as Bill Gates and government agencies including the United Nations (U.N.) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Science Foundation.

“The United Nations Food And Agricultural Organisation (FAO) continues to promote insect consumption as an environmentally friendly way to get protein in your diet — for both humans and their livestock,” The Guardian reported.

Proponents of insects as food for humans, including the FAO, argue this will help combat climate change, as insects produce a smaller carbon footprint than traditional livestock. But critics challenge this view.

“The justification for insects is to produce protein using fewer inputs: to save the planet by reducing climate change, methane from cows, less pollution,” internist Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, told The Defender. “But just because it is protein doesn’t mean it’s good for us.”

Nass cited parasites that could be spread by insects, difficulties in digesting insects, and common allergies to chitin — commonly found on the exoskeleton of insects.

According to Nass, lax U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, under which many insects can be classified as “Generally Regarded as Safe” (GRAS), “means they don’t require testing” and enables the FDA to “look the other way.” This has opened the door for insect foods to reach consumers.

“How long will it take before we learn whether these foods are safe? It could take generations,” Nass said.

“Advocates for mass consumption of insect-based foods would like you to believe that bugs have been a reliable source of protein for thousands of years,” said Seamus Bruner, author of “Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life.”

Bruner, who also is director of research at the Government Accountability Institute, told The Defender:

“While that is true, malnutrition and disease were also endemic and life expectancies were dramatically lower than they are today. The truth is that beef, pork, poultry and other animal-based foods are the most efficient and healthy sources of protein. These climate fanatics pushing insect-based foods are scaring people into adopting less healthy diets.”

Dutch journalist Elze van Hamelen told The Defender that using insect ingredients for pet food also poses a risk to public health, citing a 2019 study that found parasites in 244 of 300 insect farms and pet stores that were investigated.

“Feeding pets with parasite-infested insects, especially pets that do not have the physiology to digest bugs, may not be such a good idea,” van Hamelen said.

Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda,” told The Defender, “The insect craze is intimately connected to the U.N.’s Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

Rectenwald cited two SDGs: SDG 2, “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” and SDG 12, “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.”

“’Sustainability’ is code language for coerced reductions in consumption and forced behavioral modifications,” Rectenwald said.

Nass said the U.N., along with the World Economic Forum (WEF), “promote the so-called SDGs, which can supposedly be met if we change our diet.” Yet, “We don’t see the WEF or U.N. attendees eating insects at their meetings.”

Nass suggested that one reason behind the shift to insects as food is “to cause emotional harm: to degrade, debase, downgrade human beings” and that beef is “being demonized,” potentially to “weaken the species.”

“The idea seems to be to get rid of small producers and create a fully industrialized system of food production that Cargill, ConAgra, PepsiCo will profit from,” she added.

“Bill Gates claims his investments in alternative proteins are to save the planet,” Bruner said. “What he does not say is that they are part of a strategy to monopolize the protein industry — for profit — as he lobbies to ban animal-based competition.”

Insect Firms in Singapore ‘Educating’ Children About Insects as a Food Source

The 16 insects Singapore’s SFA has approved include “various species of crickets, grasshoppers, locusts, mealworms and silkworms,” The Straits Times reported. According to The Guardian, foods containing insects must clearly label this on the packaging, “to indicate the true nature of the product.”

The Straits Times reported that local restaurant chain House of Seafood is already “cooking up a menu of 30 insect-infused dishes to give customers more choice,” while other firms have begun “educating consumers” — including children — about insects as a food source for humans.

The report cited the example of Altimate Nutrition which, “While waiting for SFA’s regulatory approval … conducted workshops and educational sessions at almost a hundred schools, from pre-schools to institutes of higher learning.”

Surveys conducted after the program found that about 80% of students would be willing to try the insects after they are approved, The Straits Times reported.

But Bruner said other factors are likely at play in Singapore.

“The WEF — perhaps the largest driving force behind so-called ‘alternative proteins’ — frequently touts Singapore’s compliance with Agenda 2030, so the decision to prioritize insect-based foods is not surprising,” he said.

EU, U.K., Australia and Other Countries Approve Insects for Consumption

Authorities in the EU, U.K. and Australia, among other countries, have also approved certain insects for human consumption.

Brussels Signal cited Ermolaos Ververis, scientific officer for the European Food Safety Authority Novel Foods Team, who said the EU has authorized six insects: “Alphitobius diaperinus larvae products, dried mealworms, whole and ground yellow mealworms, whole and ground Grasshoppers, whole and ground crickets, and partially defatted Whole Cricket Powder.”

Eight applications are still pending in the EU, where according to EU regulations, foods containing insects must be clearly labeled.

Brussels Signal reported that under Horizon Europe, a European Commission — the executive branch of the EU funding program for research and innovation — “insect-based proteins are considered one of the key areas of research.”

U.K. authorities have approved four insects for human consumption — yellow mealworm, house cricket, banded cricket and black soldier fly, as “novel foods,” while Australia has approved three species: two varieties of mealworm and a cricket.

According to the FAO, there are more than 1,900 “edible insect species.” However, insects don’t appear to be included in the FAO’s Codex Alimentarius — its international food safety guidelines.

‘Nudging’ the Public Toward Acceptance

Several studies, including a 2020 report by the European Consumer Organisation, a 2021 YouGov poll and a 2022 report by UBA, Germany’s environmental agency, suggest low demand among the public for consuming foods containing insects.

Other studies in 2020 and 2022 suggested people would be more willing to shift their attitudes after being told about the “environmental benefits” of eating insects.

The 2020 study suggested that “nudging” — a behavioral science concept supported by the National Science Foundation — could be used to this end. “As humans are a particularly social species, leveraging the social nature may prove particularly useful,” the study said.

In a 2021 European Food Safety Authority report, Giovanni Sogari, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Food and Drug at the University of Parma in Italy, suggested, “There are cognitive reasons derived from our social and cultural experiences, the so-called ‘yuck factor’, that make the thought of eating insects repellent to many Europeans. With time and exposure such attitudes can change.”

And Lies Hackelbracht, the owner of TOR Royal, an insect production company in Belgium, told Euronews in 2021, “When we are 9 billion people, it won’t be possible to let everybody eat meat, so we have to search for other possibilities with a lot of protein and it can be in plants, but it can also be in insects.”

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image is from CHD

Mortality Resulting from Beverages with High Sugar Content. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) “Sweetener”: Profits Over Health. The Ubiquitous Cost Saving Toxin

By Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null, July 27, 2024

Back in 2015 Tufts University’s department of nutritional sciences conducted a study published by the American Heart Association that documented the annual rates of global deaths directly due to over-consumption of beverages with high sugar content. The results estimated that 184,000 adults die annually from sugary drinks.

Video: Hacked Dutch Government Data Shows Suppressed COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries and Excess Deaths. “They Knew About Vaccine Injuries”

By Clayton Morris, Wybren van Haga, Wouter Aukema, and Anne Merel Kloosterman, July 29, 2024

In story first reported by the U.K.’s Jim Ferguson, hacked data from the Dutch government shows that the E.U. Globalists went after the children and afterwards hundreds of vaccine injuries were reported all across the Netherlands and the EU. Why didn’t we hear about it?

Vaccine Advocate Peter Hotez Calls for Use of Police, Military Against ‘Anti-vaccine Aggression’

By Michael Nevradakis, July 29, 2024

In an interview removed from YouTube but obtained by The Defender, Dr. Peter Hotez blamed “anti-vaxers” for causing “hundreds of thousands” of deaths during the pandemic. Hotez suggested the WHO, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and NATO should target “anti-vaccine aggression.”

The Arctic: Theater of War or Global Cooperation? Film

By Matthew Ehret-Kump, July 29, 2024

This film showcases how the Arctic represents either a domain of total warfare which is currently the ambition of militarists managing NATO on the one hand, or the basis of a new era technological progress and friendship among world civilizations. This is not a new choice, but one which characterized world history as the US was sliding into its first Civil War prior to 1861.

Leaving Las Vegas. Inside the Last Tortured Days of the Biden Campaign. Seymour Hersh

By Seymour M. Hersh, July 29, 2024

By Saturday, July 20, former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden. It was not clear whether Biden had been examined or just what happened to him in Las Vegas.

China Succeeds in the Middle East While the US Fails

By Steven Sahiounie, July 28, 2024

Once again, China steps on to the global diplomatic stage, in the absence of US involvement, and brokered a ground-breaking agreement between rival factions in Palestine. Following the March 2023 reconciliation between Middle East powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Iran signed in China, now we have the “Beijing Declaration” between Hamas and Fatah signed on July 23.

Video: The Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump – Consequences and Perspectives

By Peter Koenig, July 28, 2024

Now that Biden has quit the race for his second-term Presidency – and nominated Kamala Harris  whose nomination still needs to be confirmed by the National Democratic Convention (DNC, Chicago, 19 August 2024) – it seems obvious that the Democrats once more plan to rig the elections and put their candidate into the Presidency, like they did in 2020, with Joe Biden.

COVID Propaganda Roundup: The latest updates on the “new normal” – chronicling the lies, distortions, and abuses by the ruling class. [Excess mortality resulting from the Covid Vaccine starting in early 2021 is not mentioned] 

This week in gaslighting that will blow your socks off, The Science™ has a conjured a fascinating new scapegoat upon which to heap blame for the growing mountains of dead babies over the past few years.

Via CNN (emphasis added)

“The infant mortality rate in the United States rose in 2022, the first jump in 20 years, according to data released Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 20,500 babies died in 2022 before the age of 1, final records show. Overall, there were 5.6 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births, a 3% increase from the year before.

Infant mortality in the US has been generally trending down since at least 1995, when consistent tracking started, but rates are still much higher in the US than they are in many peer nations. There have been some small upticks over that time, but 2022 was the first time there was a statistically significant increase since 2002, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.”

Here is CNN, relying for some reason to make this expert assessment on an assistant sociology professor, grasping at straws to blame… drumroll… abortion restrictions for the infant mortality jump, despite the fact that any abortion restrictions due to the overturning of Roe v Wade were instituted in the extreme latter half of 2022 and were only in certain states, whereas this study points to a spike in dead babies across the nation.

Continuing:

“Covid-19 also probably played a significant role in the rise in infant mortality in 2022, [demographer and assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder] Stevenson said. Infections in pregnant women who were exposed to the coronavirus during the major surges in 2021 could have affected infants who would be born in 2022…

Recent research has drawn some connections between infant mortality and abortion restrictions, finding that infant deaths spiked in Texas after the state passed a law in September 2021 that banned nearly all abortions beyond about six weeks of pregnancy.”

In unrelated news, none other than Robert F. Kennedy Jr. himself recently retweeted one of my articles, which I appreciate greatly and which I view as an inauguration into the big leagues.

They talk about these things (robot soldiers WILL replace humans) as if they were inevitable. We need global treaties on AI weaponry, just as with nuclear weapons, to avoid a Terminator-style dystopian future.https://t.co/2PgDUsJ8T9

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 26, 2024

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Armageddon Prose.

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Follow his stuff via Substack. Also, keep tabs via Twitter.

Featured image source

---

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

You may also access the online version of the e-Book by clicking here.

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

In an interview removed from YouTube but obtained by The Defender, Dr. Peter Hotez blamed “anti-vaxers” for causing “hundreds of thousands” of deaths during the pandemic. Hotez suggested the WHO, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and NATO should target “anti-vaccine aggression.”

Vaccine advocate and pharmaceutical industry insider Dr. Peter Hotez, long a proponent of the COVID-19 vaccine, said he favors deploying police and military powers against “anti-vaxers,” whom he blamed for causing hundreds of thousands of deaths during the pandemic.

During an interview July 5 at the Simposio Internacional de Actualización en Pediatría (International Symposium of Pediatric Updates) in Cartagena, Colombia, Hotez suggested organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and NATO should target “anti-vaccine aggression.”

Hotez said:

“What I’ve said to the Biden administration is, the health sector can’t solve this on its own. We’re going to have to bring in Homeland Security, the Commerce Department, Justice Department to help us understand how to do this.

I’ve said the same with — I met with Dr. Tedros [director general of the WHO] last month … to say, I don’t know that the World Health Organization can solve this on our own. We need the other United Nations agencies. NATO. This is a security problem because it’s no longer a theoretical construct or some arcane academic exercise. Two hundred thousand Americans died because of anti-vaccine aggression, anti-science aggression.

“And so, this is now a lethal force … and now I feel as a pediatric vaccine scientist … it’s important, just as important for me to make new vaccines, to save lives. The other side of saving lives is countering this anti-vaccine aggression.”

Send in all the militaries to ensure uptake of the sacred vaccines. https://t.co/eRneDbw3eQ

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) July 24, 2024

The full interview was available on YouTube until Wednesday evening, when it was removed. The Defender obtained a video recording of the full interview.

Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University College of Medicine and director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the sponsors of the symposium, which was organized by the Colombian Pediatric Society.

Aside from being a vaccine proponent and developer — he helped develop the Corbevax COVID-19 vaccine which was administered in India and has received at least $30 million in vaccine development grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — Hotez has crusaded against so-called “misinformation” about vaccines.

In March, The Hill reported that Hotez has found a “‘parallel career’ fighting misinformation.”

Hotez “finds his efforts to combat misinformation to be ‘meaningful,’” and says “pushing back on the anti-vaccine movement is just as important as developing vaccines,” The Hill wrote.

Hotez also holds six patents on the hookworm (helminth) vaccine, and has several listed patent applications as well, including those for SARS-CoV2 vaccines.

“Peter has cashed in significantly on the COVID-19 pandemic and gets a lot of money when shots go into arms,” said Brian Hooker, Chief Scientific Officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

In his July 5 interview, Hotez called for more stringent action against “anti-vaxers,” whom he connected to entities such as the Russian government, and called for medical schools to educate new doctors about anti-vaccine sentiment.

“‘Anti-science’ and ‘anti-vaxxer’ are propaganda terms Hotez uses to establish a power dynamic over anyone who disagrees with him,” said cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.

“Now Hotez is calling for a security state to enforce his propaganda instead of engaging in much needed dialogue over vaccine safety with a critical appraisal of short- and long-term side effects from the routine childhood vaccine schedule, including the COVID-19 shots,” McCullough added.

According to Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus and senior research scientist in epidemiology (chronic diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health:

“Hotez has spent his entire career developing vaccines which have not achieved success in commercial use. His demands to impose public health martial law are reminiscent of the ‘Comité de salut public’ — ‘Committee of Public Safety’ — that Robespierre used to murder his political opponents [during the French Revolution].”

For Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Hotez’s suggestions are a call to violate established international human rights law.

“Coercing vaccines upon human beings without their informed and voluntary consent violates the Nuremberg Code on Medical Experimentation, which is a crime against humanity,” Boyle said. “What we see at work here with Hotez is the Nazi mentality that pervades so many vaccinologists like him. Hotez is revealing his true colors.”

Independent journalist Paul D. Thacker has investigated Hotez for his site, The Disinformation Chronicle. He said,

“This crackpot idea that we should deploy military forces to deal with moms worried about vaccine side effects and children … doesn’t that speak for itself?”

Dr. Sukharit Bhakdi, a microbiologist, questioned Hotez’s scientific credentials:

“Simple fact: Hotez is not a real scientist. He has never published any research article based on true scientific research. His publications transmit his personal opinions and beliefs. He has not conducted a single valid vaccine trial and has zero data to back his claims.

“He has been on the globalist team together with [Dr. Anthony] Fauci et al. and is now turning to violence to silence all dissenters. This very fact disqualifies him as a physician.”

“His evolution over the course of the pandemic is curious as he has become more and more shrill as time goes on,” Hooker said. “It seems he is trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame by ‘jumping the shark’ and inciting gestapo-like measures against ‘anti-vaxers’ and ‘science deniers.’ His definition of science is very ‘Fauci-esque’ indeed.”

Claim That Unvaccinated Caused ‘Hundreds of Thousands’ of Deaths ‘an Obvious Untruth’

During his July 5 interview, Hotez asserted that the unvaccinated were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said:

“There’s anti-vaccine activity in every country, and each has its own unique national flavor. But the part that I’m worried about now is something very dark and accelerating in the United States.

“And the most dramatic evidence for that is what happened during the COVID pandemic … My estimate is 200,000 Americans died needlessly because they refused COVID vaccines in 2021, 2022.”

Hotez did not provide evidence supporting this figure, but it was similar to claims made by Dr. Anthony Fauci during Congressional testimony last month. Without citing evidence, Fauci said the unvaccinated are “probably responsible for an additional 200,000-300,000 deaths” in the U.S.”

Risch called this claim “an obvious untruth.”

“In the face of repeated major empirical CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] evidence and CDC’s public acknowledgement that the mRNA vaccines largely failed to reduce COVID transmission, Hotez absurdly claims that people choosing not to vaccinate themselves have contributed more to deaths from COVID than all of the large-scale breakthrough infections among vaccinated people,” Risch said.

McCullough said,

“Hotez presumes COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective as any vaccinologist would dream. Sadly, his fantasy was over before it started. The COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe and failed to reduce hospitalization and death in prospective randomized trials or in valid observational studies. They never stopped transmission.”

“All experts, including Hotez, agreed theoretical protection from COVID-19 vaccines was just a few months, requiring frequent boosters,” McCullough added.

Hotez Calls Parents Who Choose Not to Vaccinate Their Children ‘Victims’

In his interview, Hotez called for action — including more censorship — to counter what he called a “dark and accelerating” and “dangerous” anti-vaccine movement in the U.S. and globally that is “expanding and extending to childhood immunizations in the United States.”

“My worry is that this anti-vaccine movement, and it’s not misinformation or [an] infodemic, as many call it, it’s organized, it’s deliberate, it’s well-financed and it’s politically motivated … I worry that’s now globalizing to other countries on the African continent, in Asia and even Latin America,” he added.

On the topic of childhood vaccinations, Hotez said, “Parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids are victims” of this campaign, and called for medical schools to train doctors on how to respond to parents who oppose vaccinations.

“Pediatricians need to understand what the anti-vaccine ecosystem is, how it’s organized, how it operates, and to get educated about it,” he said. “I think that’s a first step … in our medical schools, in our pediatric residency training, in our conferences like this, being able to describe what this anti-vaccine monster looks like.”

But for journalist Rodney Palmer, formerly of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the increasing reluctance of parents to vaccinate their children is due to mounting concerns about vaccine safety. He said:

“The rising movement questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines appears to be based on mounting evidence from government health data collection agencies and the life insurance industry.

“The fraud and cover-up of ivermectin as an effective prevention and treatment of COVID-19 caused a segment of the population to question the official guidance around vaccines — more so once they were mandated.”

Hotez blamed legacy and traditional media, as well as foreign governments, for fueling anti-vaccine sentiments.

“Fox News is now a source of anti-vaccine disinformation,” Hotez said. “If the parents are watching Fox News every night … They are going to be coming into your practice believing disinformation.”

Turning to social media, Hotez said,

“Twitter, since Elon Musk has taken it over, has become an anti-vaccine site dominated by anti-vaccine groups and individuals who are monetizing the internet. They’re selling fake autism cures because they say vaccines cause autism, which they don’t.”

Hotez continues to be active on Twitter — now known as X.

Tweets by PeterHotez

Adversarial foreign governments are also to blame for propagating anti-vaccine rhetoric, according to Hotez.

“For instance, the Russian government, the Putin government, is spreading anti-vaccine propaganda. The goal of this is to destabilize society and to have caused people to question authority,” he said.

Hotez did not provide any information to support this claim. Russia produces the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, under the auspices of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and The Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology — an arm of the Russian federal government.

Hotez Calls ‘Anti-vaccine Movement’ a Tool of the ‘Far-right’

Hotez also used the interview as an opportunity to plug his upcoming book, “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning.” He said the book “describes [the anti-vaccine] ecosystem and its political leanings in detail.”

According to the book’s publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, Hotez “explains how anti-science became a major societal and lethal force” and how “the anti-vaccine movement became a tool of far-right political figures around the world.”

In 2022, Hotez fiercely criticized looming Congressional hearings into a possible lab-leak origin of COVID-19 and whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) prematurely discredited the hypothesis, dismissing this as an “outlandish conspiracy.”

However, Hotez’s own 2012 to 2017 NIH grant — totaling $6.1 million — for the development of a SARS vaccine had the aim of responding to any “accidental release from a laboratory,” in addition to a possible zoonotic (or natural) spillover of the virus.

In a June 2023 interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD’s chairman on leave, podcaster Joe Rogan offered to donate $100,000 to a charity of Hotez’s choice if he agreed to debate Kennedy.

Hotez — with the support of several legacy news media outlets and the American Medical Association — refused Rogan’s offer. He later claimed on social media that a “couple of anti-vaxers” “stalked” and “taunted” him outside his home after he declined the offer to debate Kennedy.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image: United States Mission Geneva via flickr

In story first reported by the U.K.’s Jim Ferguson, hacked data from the Dutch government shows that the E.U. Globalists went after the children and afterwards hundreds of vaccine injuries were reported all across the Netherlands and the EU.

Why didn’t we hear about it?

Turns out they hid the information and then covered-up the data from the public and then more people were injured.

Dutch Freedom Fighters and Truth Seekers, former Dutch Parliamentarian and business entrepreneur Wybren van Haga, Businessman and Data expert Wouter Aukema and Anne Merel Kloosterman who is representing many vaccine injured join Redacted to share this story.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

Our thanks to Dr. William Makis for bringing this to our attention.

50-year-old CMS teacher shares story after stroke at the Charlotte Marathon

By Claire Kopsky, Feb. 27, 2024 at 3:39 PM MST

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – After experiencing a stroke moments after finishing his leg of a relay at the Charlotte Marathon, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg English teacher shared his story to educate the community about strokes and remind all every day is a gift.

“The central question for me has been you know, ‘Why?’ Why is a person who is like, eating really healthy, you know, I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I’m exercising more than I ever have been, you know, since I was in high school. It’s just it was pretty confusing for me. Like, why is this happening to me?” 50-year-old stroke survivor Justin Parmenter said.

As an English teacher at the South Academy of International Languages, Parmenter stepped back into running in his late 40s thinking he was healthy.

“I ran in high school many, many years ago. And a couple years ago, my son got interested in running, joined the cross country team. I didn’t want him out running on the Greenway alone,” Parmenter said. “So I started running with him just to support him. It’s about, you know, having this new bond with my son.”

His colleagues caught wind of his re-found hobby and he trained to run the Charlotte Marathon as a relay with them in November 2023.

“The legs for the relay was five people running 26 miles so it was around five miles per leg,” Parmenter explained. “I thought, ‘Well, if I start now and build up my mileage, I could probably do that.’”

He was the first runner in his team’s relay on Nov. 4.

“After I was done, I found my teammates you know, the next runner got on the course and started and the rest of us got in the car, drove to the next relay point,” he said. “We were headed towards the third point and I was driving the car when I had a stroke.”

He said he blacked out and had to be told what happened later by his teammates.

Click here to read the full article.

***

My Take…

Justin is a teacher so he was mandated COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines to keep his job.

He had a stroke while running his 5 mile relay portion of a marathon and collapsed while driving to the next portion of the marathon. He then had another stroke 6 weeks later.

If he hadn’t been driving slowly, when he had a stroke, someone may have died.

There are some key takeaways in this story:

1. COVID-19 Vaccinated are still getting very serious blood clots
2. COVID-19 Vaccinated are still collapsing while exercising.
3. COVID-19 Vaccinated are still collapsing while driving – that means the roads are still significantly more dangerous & unpredictable for everyone
4. Some doctors will try to cover-up COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries in creative ways.

Two strokes in a young healthy man is a serious legal liability for his doctor.

What about the mysterious “hole” in his heart that was there and then it was nowhere to be found? As a Radiologist, I find that more than a little suspicious. Incompetence? Coincidence? Or cover-up?

Don’t put it past doctors making up all kinds of bogus “diagnoses” to deflect blame and legal liability for pushing COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines.

Canadian Doctors:

In late 2021, two young COVID-19 Vaccinated Canadian doctors had fatal car crashes early in the day.

In both cases, they lost control of the vehicle, they were the only fatality, while the other driver walked away with no injuries (highly likely that they had a medical event that led to the crash).

I was viciously attacked online for suggesting the possibility of COVID-19 Vaccine Injury, such as cardiac arrest or blood clots behind the wheel, that led to the crash.

Even Reuters used this to attack me in their hit piece. All the naysayers thought it was a “gotcha” that discredited me somehow.

To me, it always seemed a very reasonable to question such crashes, the ”vaccidents” as they were called.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

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

Featured image source

---

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

You may also access the online version of the e-Book by clicking here.

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

Identification of most significant indicators of progress is essential for any country or society, and this should be seen as only a first step towards having the willingness and the ability to examine the state of the society in an unbiased way from the perspective of these indicators.

The first indicator is in terms of meeting basic needs of any people including access to adequate, satisfactory and safe food to meet nutrition and health needs, access to safe water, access to housing that meets all essential requirements of daily life including protection from weather extremes, rest, cooking, sanitation etc. and access to clothes that protect in a dignified way.

All people should have access to basic medicines and health care, as well to at least high school education with opportunities open for various kinds of education in later life too, with education seen more as a continuum in life and as a means also of achieving ethical and socially responsible life.

Secondly, in order to access basic needs for themselves and their families, people should have access to livelihoods that are more or less satisfactory, creative, non-exploitative and do not involve serious health hazards, risks, stress or any element of bonded labor or slavery-like feeling.

There should be a daily time limit of about 8 hours, access to around 100 paid holidays in a year, provision of adequate compensation for occupational injury/disease and for at least some limited pensions for all people after age 60 and opportunities and freedom to take a break without sacrificing pension or related interests. Earnings should be adequate to meet basic needs.

Thirdly, there should be adequate democratic space for everyone, including adequate freedom of expression (as long as this does not insult others). At the level of family, school, college, workplace, village, city and nation, people including children should be able to experience democratic freedom and space.

Fourth. The dignity of all people should be respected, and there should be no discrimination at all on the basis of gender, race, class, caste, color, ethnicity, religion, sect, nationality and other identities, with equal respect for all human beings. However the space for affirmative, supporting actions for those who have suffered historical injustice should remain till such time that this injustice has not been corrected.

Fifth, there should be overall feeling of well-being in society, supported by goodness and stability of close social relationships. There should be high levels of cooperation and helping each other in difficult times, and social stability based on this.  

Sixth, there should be a strong commitment to protection of environment and sustainability. The next generation should inherit a safe world in terms of protection of environment, protection from disasters and also social stability.

Seventh, society and economy should be basically non-exploitative and people should not experience any burden of exploitation at social and economic levels. Excessive, non-sustainable, harmful exploitation of natural resources and nature should be avoided.

Eighth, there should be compassion and protective attitudes towards all other forms of life while any cruel practices should be avoided as much as possible.

Ninth, these should be a commitment to peace ad non-violence at all levels, whether family, community, workplace, village or city or in international relations.

Last but not the least, a country should have relations of cooperation and not exploitation, peace and not aggression or war, towards all other countries. In several contexts, this may turn out to be of the most crucial importance. 

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Safe Food. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Aïda Amer/Axios

On a warm sunny day last week in Pavlovsk, the former Russian imperial residence, an orchestra was playing Strauss waltzes in front of the former imperial palace. The event commemorated the inauguration of a concert hall, the vokzal, in 1838. This new Russian word is a phonetic derivative of Vauxhall, a London public garden where people could enjoy themselves and listen to music. The concert hall was attached to the Pavlovsk station of the first Russian railway linking the capital St Petersburg to the imperial summer residence.

The concert hall was conceived as an integral part of the station, and the new word came to designate any railway station. Few Russians remember the musical association of this common word. The idea was to attract customers to the new means of transportation. The Prague engineer Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner (1796-1840) proposed “building a new Tivoli at the terminus. A beautiful vokzal would serve as a gathering place for the capital’s inhabitants, in summer and winter alike; games and dances, fresh air and a sumptuous dining room would attract everyone”. Indeed, the establishment included a gourmet restaurant, spacious guest rooms and, of course, a vast concert hall with panoramic windows.

A few decades later, a theatre was added, which hosted up to 30 opera and ballet performances during the summer season. In 1880, the vokzal acquired an orchestra of eighty musicians. During its first 75 years of existence, the vokzal hosted over a thousand performances, including 600 symphonic concerts. The repertoire was extremely varied, ranging from classical music to popular dances, from gypsy songs to folk music. In 1841, for example, the vokzal welcomed a troupe of forty dancers from the Basque country dressed in traditional costumes.

This summer’s commemorative concert, directed by an Italian, maestro Fabio Mastrangelo, embodied the organic links between Russian culture and Europe. I recently wrote about the reorientation of the country’s economic and political ties towards Asia. But this change, forced by the application of Western sanctions since 2014, has not yet affected culture. It is true that the West has attempted to ‘cancel’ Russian music and literature. Russian music has been withdrawn from the programme, and famous Russian orchestra directors and opera singers have had their contracts terminated by their Western impresarios. The epochal struggle of “good” versus “Evil” has been extended to culture. But no mirrored measures have been taken in Russia to end its membership of European culture.

In the more than a century of its existence, the Pavlovsk vokzal has attracted famous artists from Russia and the rest of Europe, including Johann Strauss junior (1825-1899), who was the vokzal’s musical director for more than ten years. The famous Russian dancer Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) performed at Pavlovsk on the eve of her emigration in 1914. The first concert after the socialist revolution took place in 1918. The tradition continued, but with one change: from then on, Russians of all classes were welcome to attend.

The Pavlovsk vokzal was destroyed during the Nazi occupation in 1941-1944. Volunteers from the Spanish División Azul made up the bulk of the European troops stationed in Pavlovsk. German units went in only for special tasks, such as the massacre of the local Jewish population (a stele has been erected in the park at the site of this execution).

This summer’s concert was to mark the beginning of a renaissance. The Russian Railways (RZhD) sponsored the concert to announce the reconstruction of the Pavlovk vokzal, due to open in 2027 to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of Pavlovsk. The village was a gift from Catherine II to her son, who was to become Emperor Paul (Pavel in Russian). Hence the name Pavlovsk.

Not far from the park where the concert took place stands a bronze statue of Johann Strauss playing the violin. At the entrance to the St. Petersburg terminal, one notices the elegant figure of von Gerstner holding a model of the first locomotive to take passengers to the Pavlovsk vokzal. Hence the seemingly incongruous association of music and locomotives.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

This article was originally published on Pressenza.

Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the Université of Montréal. His publications include over 300 articles and a few books: Science between Superpowers, A Threat from Within: a Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism, What is Modern Israel?, Demodernization: A Future in the Past and Judaïsme, islam et modernité. He did consulting work for, inter alia, OECD, NATO, UNESCO and the World Bank. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.yakovrabkin.ca 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Railway station of Pavlovsk (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

I am extremely proud to announce the release of our newest Canadian Patriot Feature Film ‘The Arctic: Theater of War or Global Cooperation’ which is now freely available across all Canadian Patriot platforms.

Jason Dahl, Cynthia and I have presented the Arctic frontier as you’ve never imagined it: Both as a strategic battleground over the future of the human species today, and as pivot of world history shaping the Russia-USA partnership that saved the Union during the Civil War.

This film showcases how the Arctic represents either a domain of total warfare which is currently the ambition of militarists managing NATO on the one hand, or the basis of a new era technological progress and friendship among world civilizations. This is not a new choice, but one which characterized world history as the US was sliding into its first Civil War prior to 1861.

If you didn’t know why Russia sold Alaska to the USA, or why Russia saved the Union (twice) or why patriots in Russia and the USA had fought to connect their continents by rail via the Bering Strait (as was planned by Lincoln and Czar Alexander II) then this film is for you.

‘The Arctic: Theater of War or Global Cooperation’ introduces this sweeping history and thereby helps the viewer understand the real reasons Canada remained loyal to the British Empire in 1867. It will help you understand the real reasons Lincoln was murdered (from Montreal Canada), and how the age of assassinations and war overturned that paradigm of cooperation ushering in a war-ravaged 20th century.

This film also introduces the attempted revival of this positive vision in the form of the FDR-Wallace plans to build rail and roads across the Bering Strait during WW2, and Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s plans to adopt a northern vision during his short-lived administration. Despite this vision coming undone on multiple occasions, you will discover why this strategic flank has sparked such fear into the hearts of oligarchs for generations, leading all the way up to Donald Trump’s plans to build the Alaska-Canada railway in 2020 and the Russia-China Polar Silk Road today.

Or watch on Rumble here, Bitchute here or Odyssee here.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

This article was originally published on Matthew Ehret’s Insights.

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review, Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow, and Director of The Rising Tide Foundation. He has authored three volumes of the Untold History of Canada book series and four volumes of the Clash of the Two Americas. He hosts Connecting the Dots on TNT Radio, Breaking History on Badlands Media, and The Great Game on Rogue News.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MEI

In late 1967, as the Vietnam War was raging and President Lyndon B. Johnson was becoming increasingly unpopular, I was recruited to handle the press and write speeches for Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, the only Democrat gutsy enough to run against the Democratic president. 

Months later, working round the clock in a cluttered suite in a New Hampshire motel, I was curious about a courier from New York City who flew up most nights on the last Eastern Airlines flight. The courier would dash to the suite with a canvas bag attached to his wrist and turn it over to one of the campaign’s richest and most enthusiastic benefactors. The guy was a multi-millionaire who ran a major stock market fund but was happy to sit in the suite I was then sharing with Richard Goodwin, a real political pro—unlike me and the college brats on the campaign—and just watch and do the various errands that needed doing.

One night I asked the millionaire what was in the bag. He threw it to me, with a key. I unlocked it and found myself staring at dozens of shiny packages of 100 dollar bills. I had no idea then or now whether the funds were properly reported and did not ask. So that’s how it works, I thought, and I tossed the bag back. I knew then I was not long for the world of presidential politics.

It’s not surprising that the long overdue unraveling of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign happened when it became impossible to keep his increasing impairment covered up. It was the big-time money backers of the Democratic Party who called off the game of see no evil, hear no evil, after Biden’s shocking performance in his June debate with Donald Trump. They balked at continuing to give millions of dollars to the party now that there was evidence that the president is not always there.

You’d think it would be a vigilant press corps, led by the New York Times and the Washington Post, who first broached the issue of Biden’s impairment, but those papers missed the story. The first significant report came in early June from the Wall Street Journal, whose consistently brilliant news section—considered suspect by the Times and Post and many readers because of the paper’s conservative editorial page and the fact that it is part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp—broke the story on the front page under the headline, “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.”

The White House press office quickly responded that both of those quoted in the story were Republicans who are supporters of Trump. The strategy somehow worked. Fear of Trump took priority over doing the right thing. Ditto for CNN and MSNBC, whose panels of former White House officials often can be fun to watch, especially while chewing lots of cotton candy. Viewers of the equally biased Fox News undoubtedly had similar candy to crunch. 

Who in Washington didn’t know that Biden was failing? We all did, up to a point. I had learned months earlier from a federal official that those in the front rows of university events where Biden was speaking were warned not to move if the president tripped while walking to the podium. Secret Service agents were on hand to pick him up immediately. There would be no front-page photos of a college valedictorian helping the president climb to his feet. 

The American public could see Biden’s slow decline. The Journal reported that nearly three-fourths of those polled thought Biden was “too old to seek another term.” Cabinet meetings in the past few years largely disappeared or turned into rote sessions, as recorded by the C-SPAN, which faithfully televises all White House events. Biden would join the seated Cabinet heads and read from a prepared text, with each page covered with a plastic sheet. It was far from vibrant television. 

After the debate, there was mounting pressure on Biden to drop out. The White House and the president himself denied that he was suffering from anything more than a bad day, a cold, and jet lag. There were newspaper stories about Hunter Biden, the president’s convicted son, keeping by his side and warning all White House staffers that anyone who even hinted at the truth would be fired. That message quickly was leaked to the press. Soon the White House press corps suddenly discovered that they were being misled by the president’s press secretary. There were lots of tortured questions and broken hearts, but the message was the same: the president is in good health and is going to run for re-election this fall and carry on serving for four more years after he defeats Trump.

On Monday, July 15, Biden took off on Air Force One on a campaign trip to Nevada, a tossup state that Biden won in 2020 by a little more than 30,000 votes. On Tuesday he gave the keynote address to 5,000 members of the NAACP at its annual convention. The next day, the president, apparently stricken while campaigning with a yet-to-be-revealed illness, broke from his schedule and made a police escort race to Air Force One after initially telling police they were heading to the nearest emergency room.

A series of blog posts, local police reports, internet messages, and report in the Daily Mail disclosed further details of Biden’s trip to Las Vegas and his abrupt return home to Delaware. I went over these reports this week with a senior official in Washington who helped me fashion an account of a White House in complete disarray, culminating in the president’s withdrawal from the race. It’s a story not unlike Seven Days in May, the Cold War thriller in which a colonel played by Kirk Douglas foils a coup staged by a general played by Burt Lancaster. None of what you read below comes from an official account by the White House. 

At that point, according to Emily Goodin, a Daily Mail reporter who was in the traveling press pool, the president was “deathly pale” and Air Force One flew at maximum speed to Delaware, where the president has a weekend retreat at Rehoboth Beach. The press pool was told that Biden had COVID. Nothing more was said on Air Force One. After Biden’s return to Delaware, the White House told the public that Biden had contracted a COVID infection and would be in isolation. He was said to have upper respiratory symptoms, a runny nose, a cough, and was fatigued. 

That was the last straw for a core group of Congressional leaders, government officials and some senior Biden funders who were withholding huge amounts of committed contributions. “There was pressure on donors to come across on their pending commitments,” the official told me. “It was understood that Biden had a physical problem in Las Vegas and the family was saying no” to continued pressure from donors and senior Democrats in Congress to withdraw from the presidential campaign. Initially, the president could not be reached.

By Saturday, July 20, former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden. It was not clear whether Biden had been examined or just what happened to him in Las Vegas. “The Big Three,” the official said, referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, continued to be directly involved.

“On Sunday morning,” the official told me, with the approval of Pelosi and Schumer, “Obama called Biden after breakfast and said, ‘Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

The amendment provides that when the president is determined by the vice president and others to be unfit to carry out the powers and duties of his office, the vice president shall assume those duties.

“It was clear at this point,” the official said, “that she would get the nod”—that is, the support to run for the presidency in the November election. “But Obama also made it clear,” the official said, “that he was not going to immediately endorse her. But the group had decided that her work as a prosecutor would help her deal with Trump in a debate.”

One possible drawback, I was told, was Harris’s sometime disdain for the work of the US Intelligence Community. She is known not to be especially interested in the President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified summary of current intelligence that is prepared overnight by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and delivered by hand to the most vital offices in Washington, including the vice president’s. The document, which includes signals intelligence, is to be read by the addressee in the presence of the delivering intelligence officer. I was told that Harris often showed little interest in reading the document and at some point asked the agency to stop delivering it to her. Now, as a presidential candidate, she is being kept up to date on all significant intelligence matters.

A key factor in the decision to force Biden out of office by invoking the 25th Amendment was a series of increasingly negative polls on the president’s standing against Trump that had been commissioned by the funders, the official said. “The downward slope was increasing.” Polling would also be important for the vice president, I was told, and it was agreed that if the polls did not continue to show her gaining traction, other options would be considered, including an open convention. I was unable to learn if Harris was aware of such considerations or whether she intends to abide by them.

The official, who has decades of experience in fundraising, told me that Obama emerged as the strongman throughout the negotiations. “He had an agenda and he wanted to seek it through to the end, and he wanted to have control over who would be elected.”

A few days after we talked, with Harris getting off to a solid start, Obama and his wife announced their endorsement of Harris and told her, over the phone in a staged TV event, that they would do all they could to campaign for her and to support her.

But she had better perform.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

We want to update you, the supporters of U.S. Boats to Gaza and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, on the status of the 2024 Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

The ship Handala of the 2024 Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s mission to challenge the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza has entered a crucial phase of the three-and-a-half-month voyage.

After departing from Norway in May 2024, Handala has traveled across Europe, and making significant stops in 20 ports in Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, France, Spain, and Portugal, with several more countries to come. This journey not only symbolizes solidarity with those in Palestine but also raises awareness about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza due to Israeli genocide in Gaza and 17 years of land, air and sea blockade.

The Gaza Flotilla initiative, led by participants and crew members representing 19 countries, underscores global outrage over the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. We call for a permanent ceasefire to end the genocide in Gaza, and for an end to the blockade that has severely restricted essential supplies, including food, medicine, and fuel, from reaching Gaza’s two million residents.

Handala has been received in each port by enthusiastic crowds of Palestinian solidarity supporters with cultural and educational community events. Handala is a great vehicle for Palestinian community efforts. See the Gaza Freedom Flotilla website and X account for many photos of the wonderful welcome Handala has received. We will have had a dozen US citizens on Handala by the time the voyage ends. 

As Handala continues toward Gaza in August, it embodies a beacon of hope and determination for advocates of human rights and justice worldwide. The mission seeks not only to deliver tangible aid but also to draw global attention to the urgent need for a sustainable solution to the protracted conflict. Here are some comments from people who have sailed with Handala this summer:

“I wanted to be on Handala because I have always acted to solve problems, help people be healthier and fitter mentally, physically and spiritually. It was a fantastic experience being on the sea from Spain to France with a group of people who are not afraid to call it like it is. People who are willing to go to Gaza and bring much needed awareness despite the serious dangers. We need more people like the people on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza!”—Catherine Waters

“By sailing on Handala I become part of a powerful movement—an international delegation of solidarity activists sailing to bring food, medicine and above all solidarity and support to the people of Gaza. … I am proud to be a passenger aboard Handala, and I want the people of Gaza to know how many of us care about you and stand up for your right to live in freedom and dignity.”—Elizabeth Murray

The Break The Siege (BTS) flotilla continues to have flagging challenges for the three ships. We were hoping that the problems caused by Israeli and US meddling could have been resolved by now. As we work through the obstacles, however, others arise, but we hope that the Break The Siege flotilla may be able to sail in August also.

Join the Flotilla with a Flotilla in Your Community

Please join the Gaza flotilla with Palestinian supporters around the world on Saturday, August 10, and plan a flotilla on a lake or river near you to remind your communities about the ongoing genocide in Gaza and persecution of Palestinians in the West Bank. And please send us photos of your flotillas.

Please continue to support organizations working for Palestinian rights and if you have further funds, we can always use donations to the Gaza flotilla.

Free, Free Palestine!

US Boats to Gaza—Huwaida, Ann, Kit, Alex, Ellen, Sherri, Lori, and Tova

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Featured image source

For most normal people, seeing war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu — the man commanding the ONGOING genocide campaign in Gaza — would send them into a fit of rage. U.S. lawmakers, however, rose to their feet with roaring applause to celebrate the slaughter of innocent civilians, mostly women and children, when Netanyahu addressed Congress on July 24. On top of the countless crimes Netanyahu committed in recent months, just last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal under international law. How can U.S. lawmakers celebrate a man committing the most reprehensible crimes in recent human history?

U.S. support for the current genocide has been crystal clear for nearly ten months; that’s why CODEPINK was already outside Congress with thousands of others protesting Netanyahu’s visit before it even started. The police reacted as they typically do, with pepper spray, beatings, and arrests. For two days before his address to Congress, we marched through the Capitol building with a depiction of Netanyahu in handcuffs. We protested outside the hotel he was hiding at to show that the war criminal’s presence repulses the American people. Our lawmakers have gone beyond failing us, and we know the only chance of holding this genocidal maniac accountable is by taking action ourselves. 

Imperialist nations are not omnipotent, even when they band together. In 1974, the UN General Assembly suspended South Africa from participating in its work after unrelenting international pressure, even though the U.S. and other Western nations objected. That international isolation forcibly dismantled apartheid in South Africa, and we will do the same in Palestine. We will keep the pressure on until Palestine is free from the river to the sea!

The groundwork has already been laid out for us since the ICJ established a ruling on Israel’s illegal settlements in Palestine. That means, even if the ICJ’s ruling on Israel is “nonbinding,” the UN General Assembly can vote to suspend Israel and send the genocidal state into international isolation. The U.S. and other imperialist nations have no veto power over this vote. We can achieve this win and add to the metaphorical toolbox of “tarakum”[1] that equips our liberation movement for its impending victory!

Sign the Petition to the UN General Assembly Now!

Once the petition has enough support, our team in New York will deliver it to the UN Missions there! Netanyahu and Congress can sit in a literal echo chamber to affirm their support for genocide all they want. Still, I promise you, the power of the thousands of people outside and the millions of people across the globe standing with the people of Palestine will prevail. That is an inevitable outcome. 

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Note

[1] Tarakum is Arabic for “accumulation.” Tarakum in the movement for Palestinian Liberation refers to the accumulation of knowledge, strategies, and tools, often acquired by resisting oppression, which will be used to liberate Palestine from the Zionist colonial regime.

Another entertainingly corrupt sporting event has just started in Paris, opening with a barge packed ceremony on the Seine.  Thousands of simpering commentators, paid-up media gawkers and bored influencers have been ready with their computers, phones and confected dreams.  As always, the Olympics throws up the question about how far the host city has managed to come through on the issue of facilities, infrastructure and organisation.  Few would have doubted that Paris has the facilities, but there was always going to be grumbling about the choice of opening, mode of execution and, most importantly, the cost both financial and social.

For the budget-minded types, the Olympics, and analogous monumental sporting events, continue to lose their appeal – along with the finances.  The extortionate strain on the public wallet, the bleeding of funds from budgets, has made them most unattractive propositions for the hosts.  To this can be added the disruptions to commerce, the occupation of valuable real estate along with environmental harm, the forceful displacement of residents, instances of gentrification and the redirecting of labour from vital infrastructure projects.

Even for the sports-crazed Australians, such events as the 2026 Commonwealth Games proved unappetising, with the state Victorian government cancelling the event in July 2023.  The whole matter had been grossly irresponsible on the part of the Andrews government, given its initial praise of the games leading up to their re-election.  The Victorian Auditor General was deeply unimpressed by the episode, subsequently finding that the cancellation had cost A$589 million, comprising A$150 million in terms of employee and operating costs and the A$380 million settlement.

In March this year, there were media rumblings that Brisbane, the planned host city for the 2032 Olympics, was considering a similar response.  The Queensland state government had sought advice about how much it would cost cancelling the entire effort and received an estimate lying anywhere between A$500 million and A$1 billion.  A further $3 billion in federal funding would have also been compromised.  The fractious venture was set to continue.

With six months to go, Paris was awash with the logistical disruptions that come with such an event.  Transit fares had increased.  The bouquinistes with their book stalls along the Seine, a feature made permanent by Napoleon III in 1859, were threatened by the city’s police with closure for the duration of the Games, a threat that President Emmanuel Macron eventually scotched.  Public sector employees demanded pay increases and unions got busy planning strikes.

Image: Bleachers in front of the Musée d’Orsay (Licensed under CC0)

The night before the opening of the Games saw thousands of activists gather at the Place de la République, coordinated by the activist collective La Revers de la Médaille (the Other Side of the Medal). The event, featuring some 80 grassroot organisations, had been billed the “Counter-Opening Ceremony of the Olympics” and inspired by the statement “des Jeux, mai pour qui?” (“Games, but for whom?”)

Representing a broader coalition of groups, La Revers de la Médaille had released a statement in Libération prior to the gathering mocking official claims that Paris 2024 would leave a society more inclusive in its wake.  This could hardly be reconciled with the eviction of some 12,500 vulnerable individuals as part of an effort described as “social cleansing”.

In their “Oxford Olympics Study 2024”, co-authors Alexander Budzier and Bent Flyvbjerg conclude that the Olympics “remain costly and continue to have large cost overruns, to a degree that threatens their viability.”  All Games, “without exception”, run over budget.  “For no other type of megaproject is this the case, not even the construction of nuclear power plants or the storage of nuclear waste.”  For organisers of the event, the budget is an airy notion, “a fictitious minimum that was never sufficient” typical of the “Blank Check Syndrome”.

The authors acknowledge the efforts made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reform the games through such efforts as Agenda 2020 and Agenda 2020+5 but find their overall efforts patchy and unsuccessful.  Despite these programs, the cost of the Games were “statistically significantly increasing.”  Admittedly, the instances of cost overruns had significantly decreased until 2008, after which the trend was reversed.  The costs for Paris 2024, based on estimates available at the study’s publication, came to $US8.7 billion, a cost overrun of 115% in real terms.  “Cost overruns are the norm for the Games, past, present and future.  The Iron Law applies: ‘Over budget, over and over again.’”

Such events are, however, always attractive to the political classes willing to find some placing in posterity’s shiny ranks.  As the money they play with is almost never their own, expense is less significant than the pyrotechnics, the noisy show, the effort, the collective will that figures such as Albert Speer understood so well when planning the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  Give the public, and the sporting fraternity, flags, standards, pageantry.  Let them perform in large stadia, on pitches, and in water.  The world will soon forget the killjoys worried about money or weepy about the displaced.

It pays remembering those words of lamentation from US foreign correspondent William Shirer in his diary, penned on August 16, 1936:

“I’m afraid the Nazis have succeeded with their propaganda.  First, the Nazis have run the Games on a lavish scale never before experienced, and this has appealed to the athletes.  Second, the Nazis have put up a very good front for the general visitors, especially the big businessmen.”

Such a formula has, for the most part, worked for decades, despite the odd hiccup of dissent and forensic critiques of the Blank Check Syndrome.  Be they despotic, authoritarian or democratically elected, if corrupt representatives, this is a show that is bound to go on with profligate persistence.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: The Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

The Health Ministry in Gaza reports that as of the end of July, 2024, more than 39,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been slaughtered in Gaza by the Israeli military using hegemon U.S.A.’s mighty weapons of mass destruction.[1]

A good deal of people in the awakening Global South have learned that those tens of thousands precious Palestinian lives of mostly women and children were ordered taken by the criminally insane Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This week billions of majority Humanity watched on TV or heard of the obnoxious killer Netanyahu being welcomed by the assembled entire U.S. government that provides Israel with the bombs, missiles, guns, planes, tanks, ships, munitions, and diplomatic and military protection that has made the murder of those 39,000 fellow Global South men, women and children possible.[2]

Yes, those 39,000 dead Palestinians are now seen in the ever more sensitive awakening Global South as their fellows, fellows within the nations of the grand Global South of Africa, Asia and the Americas that were once conquered, colonised, enslaved and exploited by racist Europeans, and their overseas offspring. 

Global South Lives Matter 

Today, Global South lives are still considered less important than the lives of white descendants of the conquering colonialists, who have retained a substantial amount of hegemony over most of the planet largely through powerful international reach media.

This difference in the value and importance of lives is apparent in the Middle East now. For example, the lives of a hundred Israeli hostages certainly are being given much more importance than the lives of 39,000 Arabs and the 90,000 injured, including thousands of amputees, and another thousand buried under the ruble of what was the cities of Gaza.

The CIA overseen Western entertainment/news&information conglomerates [3] emphasise this difference with their coverage of the suffering of the families of the hostages, interviewing the family members at length, while rarely interviewing Arabs, many of whom have lost their entire family, and rarely if ever, mention the thousands of Palestinians, including women and children in Israeli prisons the hostages were taken to exchange with.

Whether watching British BBC, German DW, Tokyo’s NHK, French TV, or NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, or PBS, the loss of thousands of Palestinian children’s lives is only occasionally  mentioned within a numerical report of the ever rising statistic of dead Palestinians. 

Those of us who get our news from the Internet have been reading for nine months Aljazeera’s morning report of another 40 or 60 or 80 Palestinians killed overnight during an Israeli bombing of a school or other structure where hundreds of families made homeless had taken shelter with their children. One receives such horrible news with pathos, but as the killing keeps going on and on and on regardless of all outcries (in this writer’s case publishing many articles about it), one fights a  feeling of hopelessness frustrated without any way to stave off the horror and pain of the pitiless attacks of tomorrows stretching out into the future seemingly forever.

Netanyahu Before the U.S. Congress Emphasises the Hostages Without Mentioning the 39,000 Massacred Palestinians [2]

The genocidal level of cruelty of the American government is made clear by its having invited this bloody madman, for whom the UN International Criminal Court has asked for his arrest for crimes against humanity.[4]

The Gaza genocide, so proudly ignored in Washington, will cause the citizenry of the nations of the Global South to remember the U.S./NATO deadly destruction of oil rich Iraq and Libya, the latter having had a higher quality of living standard than nine European countries; the grim perishing of a million Syrians at the merciless hands of Islamic terrorist organisations secretly provisioned by CIA arrangements;[5] in Somaliathe never ending regime change war for a warlord regime replacing a popular Islamic courts government; the decades of U.S. led occupation war in Afghanistan; the millions murdered in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia; the massive bloodshed brought about in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, the bombing obliteration of all North Korean cities, and U.S. invasion of the South when the civil war was already over with the North easily prevailing for meeting little opposition; the bombing and invasions of Panama, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Grenada; the ruthless murder of the first President of a free Congo initiating 70 years of hellish civil wars. Not to mention CIA homicidal machinations 

overthrowing governments in Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973.

As people in the Global South learn of monster killer Netanyahu receiving great applause during a special session of the U.S. Congress while the horrific genocide continues in Gaza, one or more other American crimes against the humanity that is the Global South will come to mind. 

Global South Lives Will Soon Matter

In our now multi-polar world led by a remarkably productive China, the lives of the majority of humanity in the Global South, (until recently disrespectfully called The ‘Third’ World or The ‘Developing’ World, earlier, The ‘Underdeveloped’ World and still earlier The ‘Undeveloped’ World), are restored to the level of the ingenious human species they never were otherwise.

It would appear that the so called Caucasian race might be thought to be on the back foot for much considering  itself of superior worth. 

The lands of the non-White Global South contain the ancient empires of high civilisations of Egypt, China and India, conquered by the more primitive arising empires of the marauding Europeans, whose inhumane racism as practiced for more than five centuries, will become as non-existent as it was before the farm boy soldiers of Portugal, Spain, Holland, France and England, got to bewonder the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Temples of Egypt, Aztec Tenochtitlan and other sights of higher civilisations than their own.

But with the ancient non recriminatory attitude inherent in Chinese culture soon to be influencing life throughout the world, peace and reciprocal admiration should replace today’s and yesterday’s era of confrontation. 

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist,  musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India, in Germany & Sweden Einartysken,and in the US by Greanville Post, Dissident Voice; Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents; Minority Perspective, UK,and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, https://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/which contains a history of US crimes in 19 nations from 1945 thru 2012.

Notes

1. Israel-Hamas war latest: Israeli military orders evacuation of part of humanitarian zone in Gaza – Associated Press, July, 22, 2024. https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-war-latest-july-22-bc3d06280090adf1ed52c533f5d05483

2. We’re protecting you: Full text of Netanyahu’s address to Congress, Times of Israel, July 25, 2024 https://www.timesofisrael.com/were-protecting-you-full-text-of-netanyahus-address-to-congress/

3. “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A,” December 26, 1977, New York Times

4. UK won’t challenge ICC arrest warrant request for Netanyahu, Gallant, Aljazeera, July 26, 2024. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/26/uk-wont-challenge-icc-arrest-warrant-request-for-netanyahu-gallant

5. Wayne Madsen, John-Paul Leonard, Washington’s Blog, Syrian Girl Partisan. ISIS IS US: The Shocking Truth: Behind the Army of Terror, Progressive Press, October, 2016, a panel of cutting-edge researchers tell what ISIS really is, Paperback – https://www.amazon.com/ISIS-US-Shocking-Behind-Terror/dp/1615771522

Featured image is a screenshot from AP News

Honorable Marie-Josée Hogue and counsel of the commission of the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions

Thank you for soliciting public consultation so that I can have the opportunity to explain my observation.

My feeling is that the witch hunt of “China interference” is doing more harm than protecting our democracy. I am very scared that the public inquiry concluded that China interfered in our election without providing any substantial evidence. Can our government prosecute dissidents without providing any evidence or saying all evidence is classified? This violates the principle of due process. I believe a good relationship with China is in our national interest. As a patriotic Canadian citizen, can I trust our rule of law and express my political point of view for the benefit of Canada and Canadians? My opinions may be wrong but I should be able to express my conscience without feeling the threat of being framed and prosecuted. The rule of law protects the constitutional rights of Canadian citizens. It is the foundation for our democracy.

I am a physicist. I came to Canada in 1987 and got my Ph.D degree in physics from McGill University. I researched for two years at Queen’s University as a post-doctor. Because of not able to find a job in physics, I went back to school again and got an MBA degree at Queen’s. I had a professional IT career in New York City for a few years. As a contract instructor, I taught a few Computer Science and Business courses at Wilfried Laurier University. I lived more of my life in Canada than in China. I understand both English and Chinese. I know both Canada and China more than many Canadians do. I am trained for scientific research and know how to think objectively to find out the truth. I have been in the democratic process by joining Liberal, Conservative, People’s Party of Canada, and Liberal again since 2007. Most of the time I was a conservative and was fairly active in the local community. In 2018, I was the first to express my intention to Ontario Progressive Conservatives to compete for the candidacy in the Waterloo Riding for the provincial election. I got grassroots support and collected more than enough signatures endorsing my candidacy. Yet, the party never gave me the kit on how to enter the competition. I never got into the process. Was there foreign interference targeting me? I don’t know and it never comes to my mind. Yet I may have a more solid case than Kenny Chiu or Han Dong if you wish. What I want to illustrate here, from my experience, is that the testimonies of Chong and Chiu, and all the allegations of China’s interference are pure immaterial hearsay, circumstantial at most, and can never support the conclusion that China interfered beyond a reasonable doubt.

We have to be on guard against possible foreign interference that changes our national policy for their benefit at the expense of our national interest. What’s our national security? Any policy that can keep Canada in peace is our national security. Has foreign interference changed our national policy and pushed Canada into confrontations and toward wars? What is our national interest? Economic prosperity is our national interest. Those pushing Canada into a trade war against China are detrimental to our national interest. Without demonstrating what foreign interference is aiming at our national policy and how this national policy is for our national interest, we don’t know what should we guard against foreign interference. Separating foreign interference investigations from the national interest context will mislead the investigation to the wrong targets.

According to media reports, the only reason China interfered with our democracy is because Conservatives sponsored the committee accusing China of genocide in Xinjiang.

Based on this accusation, we sanctioned five Chinese officials. In response, China sanctioned Canadian politicians in the committee, including Michael Chong and Kenny Chiu.

Chong’s testimony focuses on China targeting him, though what constitutes the targeting is classified.

The public doesn’t know what Chong’s family goes through in Hong Kong. The accusation of Xinjiang genocide is based on not a report from our Embassy to Beijing, nor our intelligence, but on stories from the members of the World Uyghus Congress, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, the white clove of CIA that carried out many regime change and color revolution operations. As far as my observation, this is Washington’s interference with Canadian politics to make Canada confront China.

This is detrimental to the Canadian national interest because the confrontation disrupts our trade with China the engine of the global economy and two-thirds of our GDP is from trade. The accusation of the Xinjiang Genocide and the sanction on Chinese officials is our interference with China’s domestic affairs. If we want a peaceful and prosperous world, we need global governance according to the rule of law. If we allow our allies to interfere with our policymaking and we interfere with China’s domestic affairs, then we don’t have a rule of law about foreign interference. Rule of law should be equal, all entities should be equal before the law. We cannot say some countries are allowed to interfere with other countries and some countries cannot. So the public inquiry sabotaged the spirit of the rule of law and may have a grave negative impact on our democracy and the morals of our society. As some media reported, our intelligence asked Trudeau not to allow Han Dong to be a candidate. That will violate Dong’s basic constitutional rights. My understanding of Kenny Chiu’s rationale is this: Chiu is anti-China so Chiu’s loss in the election must be China’s interference.

But is anti-China good for our national interest?

Or good for the US strategy of containing China?

Should we sacrifice our national interest to contain China? And what’s the result?

We are a country rich in resources, and our education system provides many talents and innovations. With the rapid advancement of technology, we should have a living standard higher and higher. Yet, since the arrest of Meng, we distant our economy from the largest growing market of the world. As a result, our government debt skyrockets, homelessness increases, and inflation increases, GDP per capita decreases, productivity decreases. Anyway, the allegation of China’s interference has no substantial evidence, so the accusation of China’s interference violates due process.

A foreign country changed our policy of win-win cooperation with China and turned Canada into hostilely confronting China. Because of this foreign interference, many democratically elected MPs, MPPs, and councilors who immigrated from China were put under stress and were kicked out by their party caucus. Among them are the honorable Han Dong, Vincent Ke, and Xixi Li. This foreign interference sabotaged our democracy because our democratically elected officials could not continue their government duties normally, and affected their families. Chinese Canadians are virtually deprived of their constitutional rights because they immigrated from mainland China.

They are the victim of the witch hunt of China Interference because the witch hunt violates the principles of the rule of law. Take Xixi Li for example, when a foreign NGO accuses democratically elected councilor Xixi Li of running a Beijing Police Station without substantial evidence, the rule of law is that the burden of proof is on the accuser. Why our judicial system did not investigate the foreign NGO to prove the case? The city council suspended Xixi Li’s job and banned her from sitting on council meetings. This is an obvious example of foreign interference damaging our democracy. Yet our Foreign Interference Commission doesn’t want to investigate this because the foreign country is our ally. This violates the principle of equality in the rule of law. Our judicial system does not protect Canadians but prosecutes Canadians by yielding to foreign interference.

Why the investigation is a witch hunt? If the investigation is to find out the truth, it should clarify all the allegations of China Interference. The initial allegation of China interference is that China provided $200,000 to 11 candidates in the 2019 election. If the investigation is fair, it should have a conclusion about the allegation, negative or positive. Yet the investigation just avoided this allegation and let the rumors float. The so-called investigation is not to find the truth, but to fetch any possible insinuations to build the predetermined case of China Interference. This is no rule of law. Law has the supremacy in rule of law. Yet the public inquiry manipulates our law as a geopolitical tool to contain China at the expense of the civil rights of Canadian citizens.

The witch hunt of China Interference damaged our democracy and many Chinese Canadians are afraid to participate in our democratic process now. Chinese Canadians are vulnerable because they cannot trust our judicial system as it violates many principles of the rule of law in this witch hunt. Those who make the fake stories are never held accountable, and the phony stories of China’s interference have already destroyed many Chinese Canadians’ careers. They don’t even need to initiate a legal process, just letting the rumors float is enough to prosecute Chinese Canadians who immigrated from China. Canada is entering a McCarthy era. Canada had the head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act in history, targeting the Chinese specifically. The racism is coming back as the media and politicians can demonize China without being held accountable, and the first causality of the witch hunt is Chinese Canadians. Now Chinese Canadians are second-class citizens. Their civil rights to participate in our democratic process are virtually deprived. Many more encounter discrimination in the job market just because of having a surname that easily be identified as from China.

Canada is wide open to foreign interference. The Foreign Interference Commission investigations violate many principles of the rule of law.

The witch hunt of China’s Interference is itself a result of foreign interference. This is detrimental to our national interest, and our democracy, and violates the civil rights of many Chinese Canadians.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on the author’s Medium.

Dr. Xiaoming Guo, Ph.D. from McGill University. MBA from Queen’s University. A patriot Canadian believes that a good relationship with China serves our best national interest.

Featured image is from the author

Once again, China steps on to the global diplomatic stage, in the absence of US involvement, and brokered a ground-breaking agreement between rival factions in Palestine. Following the March 2023 reconciliation between Middle East powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Iran signed in China, now we have the “Beijing Declaration” between Hamas and Fatah signed on July 23.

The agreement calls for a national unity government to govern Gaza jointly after the end of the current conflict which began on October 7, 2023 after Hamas attacked Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people. Hamas seized 251 hostages, 116 of who are still in Gaza, including 44 the Israeli military says are dead.

US President Joe Biden promised he could deliver a ceasefire agreement on July 11 at the NATO summit, but soon found Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reneged on his acceptance of the Biden proposal for peace.

Israel’s revenge attack on Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, the majority of who are women and children, and the relentless Israeli attacks has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis. The UN and other humanitarian groups have labeled the Israeli war on Gaza as genocide.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, hosted a three-day meeting attended by senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul, along with emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups and envoys from Egypt, Algeria and Russia.

“The core achievement is to make it clear that the Palestine Liberation Organization is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” said Wang Yi during the closing ceremony.

“China sincerely hopes that the Palestinian factions will achieve Palestinian independence at an early date on the basis of internal reconciliation, and is willing to strengthen communication and coordination with relevant parties to jointly work to implement the Beijing Declaration reached today,” said Wang Yi.

“Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang Yi said. China has proved to be the only world power that can engineer a rapprochement between the Palestinian rivals.

Wang Yi also called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.

China is playing the role of a neutral actor on the Israel-Palestinian conflict while maintaining good ties with Israel, and also advocating for a two-state solution.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war on Gaza until it destroys Hamas. The US and Israel view Hamas as a terrorist organization, and will not sanction any post-war plan for Gaza which includes Hamas.

Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.

Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Fatah was formed from the PLO which was founded by Yasser Arafat. In the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the PLO laid down their arms, while Hamas has remained an armed resistance group. The Geneva Convention guarantees the legal right of armed resistance to occupation.

Hamas has recently indicated a willingness to disarm if a Palestinian state were established.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not members of the PLO, the Palestinians’ highest decision-making body, but they demand that any unity deal includes holding an election for the PLO parliament to secure their inclusion.

Prior to October 7, the Israeli military had conducted almost daily attacks in the Occupied West Bank, and after the war on Gaza began the attacks, killings and arrests have mounted. This has led to armed resistance groups in Jenin and Tul Karim.

“Instead of rejecting terrorism, (Fatah leader) Mahmoud Abbas embraces the murderers and rapists of Hamas, revealing his true face. In reality, this won’t happen because Hamas’ rule will be crushed, and Abbas will be watching Gaza from afar. Israel’s security will remain solely in Israel’s hands,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X.

The unity government agreement in Beijing is one step closer to the final solution of the two-state solution. Sultan Barakat, noted authority on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, has said US action is needed immediately as “Gaza is decimated and millions of Palestinians there desperately try to hold on to life without shelter, food, water or adequate medical care, the Israeli cabinet continues to “legalise” settlement outposts in the West Bank – deepening challenges for a viable two-state solution.”

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on June 27 threatened European countries,

“For every country that unilaterally recognizes a Palestinian state, we will establish a settlement.”

Smotrich is a settler and promotes Israel’s long-term strategy of annexing the Palestinian territory under its occupation.

Palestine was recognized as a sovereign state by 143 of the 193 United Nations members and it is the recognition by European states that most threatens Israel’s colonial settlement project. Israel’s far right religious parties make it impossible for the Palestinians to pursue independence.

Ireland, Norway, Spain and Slovenia have recognized Palestinian statehood based on the 1967 borders following the horrific humanitarian situation in Gaza under siege and unrelenting attacks without a place of refuge. European states recognizing Palestine include Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Sweden, and the total number of UN member states to 147.

In typical blind subjugation to AIPAC, the US vetoed a widely backed UN Security Council resolution that would have paved the way for full UN membership for Palestine on April 17.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said “the only credible path for Israel, Palestine, and their peoples” while referring to the two-state solution.

Northern Ireland and South Africa were conflicts which were resolved by compromise and dialogue.

The British Labour Party has pledged to recognize a Palestinian State “as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution”.

The International Court of Justice ruled last week that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied West Bank is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

Settler violence against Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7 has surged, and serves to prove that continued colonization is incompatible with the creation of a Palestinian state and sustainable peace. France, the UK, the US and later Germany and Poland have applied sanctions against Israeli settlers responsible for such violence.

The China-brokered Saudi-Iran deal signed on March 10, 2023 started a wave of reconciliation across the Middle East.

Wang Yi pledged to “continue to support countries in the Middle East in exploring a development path that suits their own national conditions, strengthening communication and dialogue, adhering to unity and self-improvement, and realising good-neighbourliness and friendship”.

Officials in Tehran and Riyadh have said the two countries’ deteriorating relations with the United States was one of the main reasons for their shift in policy.

Saudi Arabia had lost confidence in any US commitment to shared regional security concerns and wanted to bolster ties with China, which has good relations with Iran.

Full-fledged diplomatic ties were restored, and without any US or European role in what experts call the new “post-American Gulf era.”

The Saudi-Iran relationship has been strengthened during the Israeli war on Gaza, as both sides reaffirm their shared support of the Palestinian people, and call for the end of the war and long-term peace.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

Let me begin with a quote from Charles Kovess, our moderator’s introduction:

“We come with an attitude and perspective of LOVE not FEAR. FEAR is the opposite of LOVE. Fear squashes you, suppresses you, depresses you, and steals your freedom. LOVE, on the other hand, expands you, energizes you, enhances you and inspires you to fight for freedom.”

This says it all.

It is a challenge, and I try to embrace that challenge whenever I feel threatened to deviate from the precept of LOVE over Fear.

.

.

Full transcript is below.

So, today the idea is to analyze dissect and reconstruct the multiple dimensions of the assassination attempt of the Republican nominated presidential candidate, Donald Trump. 

The topic I would like to address is Donald Trump, the assassination attempt, in as many dimensions and ramifications as possible. Because there is much more behind it than a 20-year-old kid who can hardly hold a rifle.

And who has been shot dead so he can no longer speak – probably speak the truth or speak to the truth.

Now that Biden has quit the race for his second-term Presidency – and nominated Kamala Harris  whose nomination still needs to be confirmed by the National Democratic Convention (DNC, Chicago, 19 August 2024) – it seems obvious that the Democrats once more plan to rig the elections and put their candidate into the Presidency, like they did in 2020, with Joe Biden.

Most true analysts are now unanimous – in that Trump won the 2020 elections by a landslide. Remember Trump was ahead on every front until about midnight of election day, November 3, 2020.

Then there was a sudden about 3-hour break in election reporting – never really explained – and in the early morning hours, suddenly Biden was leading. The official explanation was that the mail-in votes made the difference.

What a joke! Still, at first most people believed it.

Should an election fraud happen again this November, it would not be far-fetched to foresee a civil war breaking out.

In fact, what is called “predictive planning” has already been put in place: the non-Hollywood movie, “Civil War” that was released in April 2024 around the world.

It predicts a scenario where the United States is politically divided, by region, and people fight each other, mercilessly.

As you may know, the world is currently pretended to be run by a Cult for many decades. Cult tradition has it that for their often-evil plans to realize, they must warn people in whatever convoluted ways they may choose – movies is one way. 

Image: Leave the World Behind film poster (Licensed under Fair Use)

Remember the also recent film “Leave this World Behind” made by the Obamas, Barack and Michelle Obama — it predicts a monster cyberattack in an unidentified place. Was the recent Microsoft cyber “event” that screwed up flying, brought computers, internet to a halt worldwide just a trial for something much larger to come? 

But back to Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Speculations about who was behind the assassination attempt and why – and why they failed — abound. By the dozens. So, let us not dwell too much on these details, of which right or wrong we may never know – unless a full insider, brave whistleblower comes to the fore and tells the world the truth… possibly risking his or her life. We will see. 

That the Deep State, or whatever you want to call this diabolical globalist “class” intent in taking over the world, is behind this assassination attack is fairly certain.

Evidence emerges that on this crucial day, Saturday, July 13, at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there were at least three shooters. This according to acoustic analysis presented by Mike Adams and Chris Martenson – the link can be displayed on screen, see this.

And here is another – blurred – video, trying to prove another shooting theory.

… And so on – and so on.

Some say, Trump, an actor, instigated this event himself, to propel his popularity – and the blood was just Hollywood blood…

What about the killed Trump supporter and the badly injured two rally participants?

Would Trump allow somebody to be killed to help boost his popularity?

I believe, I can say with certainty – NEVER.

In addition of his high ethics and love for his country – have you heard his speech at the RNC in Milwaukee? He does not need a popularity boost.

Against what most mainstream has to say, Donald Trump’s popularity is higher than ever. He does not need to boost it with a “fake” event.

At least five shots, probably more, were fired in rapid succession. It is well possible that some of them were blanks, to make believe.

Did the alleged killer, Thomas Matthew Crooks, even fire a shot? There is no proof, and there may never be. The young man, almost a boy, is dead. Silenced, by the sharpshooters, who apparently have known about him, observed him for minutes before, but didn’t do a thing about him.

The usual question is cui bono?

The simple answer is: MANY, but mostly the so-called Deep State, or the diabolical Dark Cult. They are identical and are acting not just in the US, but all over the world, especially for now, the western world.

Trump, of course, does not need the additional publicity.

If elections were held today, mind you, honest elections, he would win by a landslide. 

First the Dems in the US, and so-called socialists throughout the Western world, have sold their soul to the Globalist Agenda.  We are talking about the fake “leaders”, not necessarily the people. There is probably lots of lots of money involved, and – yes, threats, including life threats – as we know from the covid years… when the norm was, “better behave, or else…. 

For the nefarious Globalist clan, there is much at stake with a Trump election, an anti-globalist, nationalist, fighting for a sovereign United States, fighting for MAGA – Make America Great Again. 

Did you know, or do you remember, in his last speech as President of the United States at the 2020 UN General Assembly – he said among many things, something very important that the mainstream tried to ignore:

He pointed to the national leaders in the UN GA Aula, calling upon all of them, to Make Their Country Great Again.  

That, of course did not please the globalists. And the perspective of this principle prevailing in in a new Trump Administration, is for sure not appreciated by those who are aspiring a One World Order, with a One World Government, and with a One World Digital Currency.

All of which the vast majority of people of this world do NOT want. And Trump presents much more the people’s will – worldwide, not just in the US of A – than any other candidate the US could muster.  

Furthermore:   

• Trump would be a Peace President. His record of the past indicates as much. He is the only US President who did not start a war during his presidency. To the contrary, he prevented wars, or escalation of wars, which would have been almost for sure blown-up conflicts under a Hillary Clinton presidency.
• Trump made Peace with North Korea. His surprise visit to the DPRK or North Korea, meeting the President Kim Jong UN, stepping with him, side by side, across the 38^th Parallel, separating South from North Korea, are historic events. 

Who knows, they may be the precursor to a re-unification between the two Koreas, under a Trump Presidency.

For certain an idea disliked by the Globalists.

• Trump also eased the tension in Syria, by withdrawing troops, rather than escalating the ever-ongoing war of attrition, which eventually was brought to a halt through President Putin’s intervention. It would not be far-fetched to speculate that Trump talked to Putin about such an arrangement.
• Trump avoided other conflicts. And guess who was very unhappy about this? Of course, the war industry. They thrive on wars and conflicts – it is their multi-trillion dollar business perspective for the future. Accumulating huge profits by killing.

That is the globalist agenda. Going to war until the entire world is submissive to the WEF / UN / BlackRock agenda. That will never happen. As we see – wars will be eternal and Peace is an interference in the Globalist Agenda.

But PEACE will prevail.

People do not seem to understand this.

• Trump is also against NATO – another money-making war machine. He has said on many occasions that NATO’s necessity ceased with the end of the Cold War. So, since 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West had no longer a reason to perpetuate NATO, other than to continue the west’s warrior agenda throughout the world.

There are close to 1,000 US military bases around the world. Most of them surrounding China and Russia. – Imagine Russia and / or China would only have a fraction of those in Mexico or Central America or otherwise close to the US.

• Presidential candidate Trump is also vehemently against illegal immigration – precisely the thing that President Biden promoted – illegal immigrants have entered the US by the tens of millions during the Biden Administration. Most of them are now given all the rights of American citizens, including the right to vote on 5 November — and guess, whom they are going to vote for?

That is part of the voting scam being prepared by the Democrats. 

• There are now more sophisticated means of rigging elections. Brain manipulations through 5G and other AI-type means – mostly unnoticed by the voters concerned.

---

See these two articles:

The Brain Is the Battlefield of the Future. The WEF’s Stated Objective Is “Altering the Human Being”

By Peter Koenig, July 20, 2024

The WEF’s Obsession with AI and Brain Chipping. “We” Can Create an AI System “Where we Don’t even Need Democratic Elections” Klaus Schwab

By Peter Koenig, July 22, 2024

---

• Trump has also strong words against the New Green Agenda scam – the mandated electric cars, the waste of energy by abandoning the use of almost endless, the solar-panel fields forever; while quantities of hydrocarbons – which we know will never be abandoned, at least not in the foreseeable future, are readily available. 

As we know, this global warming / climate change hoax started officially at the first international environmental conference, in June 1992, in Rio de Janeiro hosted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).

Since then, the talk about CO2 producing hydrocarbon use was perpetuated until this day: CO2, had to be reduced drastically. 

• At the time of UNCED, in 1992, 87% of all energy used in the world stemmed from gas and oil; today the percentage has hardly moved – it is officially about 85% – and the difference between then and now, is well within the margin of errors. 

And Donald Trump knows it. The world economy will continue to depend on hydrocarbon for many years to come, unless and until there is a major breakthrough in a so far unknown, or not publicized source of energy.

•  Presidential candidate Trump also wants to bring back outsourced jobs, car manufacturing was singled out in his Nomination Speech – and many other manufacturing industries, creating jobs at home – all part of the MAGA agenda.
• The public roared in applause, on many occasions, when Trump spoke for 132 minutes – the historic longest Presidential nomination acceptance speech, in Milwaukee on July 18. The speech was watched in a full RNC arena, close to 100,000 people – and worldwide by 25.4 million on TV and Youtube.

All these Trump ideas, and many more, are contrary to the Globalist agenda of further destroying the world, of forcefully putting the world’s 194 countries under one roof, under one Government, with one eventually digital currency.

This will not happen.

Our collective thinking has enormous power – more power than those “thinkings” bought by money, or coerced by threats. We must remain confident in ourselves, in our power of humanity, in Love that unites us.

All things being equal, not Kamala Harris, nor anybody else has the charisma and the conviction power and – indeed – the love for his country and for humanity, as Presidential nominee Trump does – which is a clear message coming through his acceptance speech. 

Mind you – not all he says is right, far from it – but overall, his body language does not betray, and what he says are, as he calls them rightly – “common sense ideas”.

And that is what the world needs these days. Back to law and order, to a world in equilibrium – away from the infamous “rules-based order”.

Let us hope Donald Trump will be protected from now forward and that the light is indeed overcoming darkness for a more just and balanced world.

*

Before closing, please allow me to remember Reiner Fuellmich, the German Lawyer, who has been fighting for human freedom, especially against the worldwide Covid tyranny, but also all that followed and is still oppressing humanity.

Reiner is a Humanist. He has been illegally kidnapped in Mexico by the German Government last October and flown to Frankfurt, where he was arrested for no crime at all – just for telling the truth. As of this day, he has not been convicted of anything, but is still in pretrial detention, and in jail in Germany.

Let me call on the world of ethics and justice to call on the German Government to FREE Reiner Fuellmich NOW.

I am ending with this note – and open the floor for questions and comments.

Thank you for listening.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

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

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

Featured image is by Evan Vucci / Fair Use

Rwanda has become a curiosity as an African state.  The mere mention of its name tugs the memory: colonial tragedy, ethnic violence, genocide.  Then comes stable rule, for the most part.  It is assured, iron fisted, and corporate.  Since being elected in April 2000, the country has known one leader.

Paul Kagame has kept matters running as smoothly much like a well-oiled corporate machine, aided by his Rwandan Patriotic Front.  At times, he treats his country as such.  His model of economic inspiration is no less the city state of authoritarian Singapore, while such think tanks as the Heritage Foundation have found much to praise in terms of “economic freedom”.

The government also impressed officials at the World Bank sufficiently for Rwanda to be ranked above Switzerland and Japan in an Ease of Doing Business Report. The themes are development, returns, benefits, but the questions about how durable the modernisation program is, let alone how tangibly it deals with rural poverty and underdevelopment, remain.

While the Kagame regime is not quite the same as those inspired by the Chicago boys in the Chile of Augusto Pinochet – a monetarist playground of economic development overseen by a brutal authoritarian government – there are some parallels.

Dissenting troublemakers are to be hounded and Kagame’s opponents rarely end up well.  As Michela Wrong has revealed with chilling precision, the president has shown lusty fondness in doing away with his rivals. Even former friends such as Rwanda’s former head of external intelligence, Patrick Karegeya, can be bumped off in retributive extrajudicial assassinations.  (Karegeya’s murder in a hotel room in Johannesburg on January 1, 2014 delighted the then defence minister James Kabarebe: “When you choose to be a dog, you die like a dog, and the cleaners will wipe away the trash so that it does not stink for them.”)

Any semblance of a viable opposition or boisterous civil society has ceased to exist and Kagame’s own wish to “join journalism in my old age”, expressed in April 2023, was barely credible. A far more accurate sentiment was expressed later regarding his intention to run in the July 15, 2024 election. 

“I would consider running for another 20 years.  I have no problem with that.  Elections are about people choosing.”

And some choice it turned out to be.  Kagame eventually received the headshaking share of 99% of the vote.  In the 53-seat Parliament, the Rwandan Patriotic Front secured 69% of the share.

Two candidates were permitted to challenge Kagame: Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Democratic Party and Philippe Mpayimana, who counted as the token independent.  Between them, they got 0.8% of the vote.  Six other contenders had failed to cut the mustard for the electoral commission, which cited procedural grounds for barring them.  Two opposition leaders suffered disqualification by virtue of having criminal convictions.

The Kagame government has spent much time exuding stability and reliability.  It has contributed more troops than any other African state to the peacekeeping operations of the United Nations.  It has held itself out, inaccurately and outrageously, as a safe third country to process unwanted asylum seekers and refugees, despite being itself the producer of asylum seekers.  European governments have been particularly keen to overlook a tatty human rights record in that regard.

The regime’s copy book has been even more blotted of late.  According to a UN report, some 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan troops have been stationed in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, aiding an insurgency led by the Tutsi-dominated M23 (Mouvement du 23 Mars) rebel group.  (The M23 fighters have been in open rebellion in the eastern part of the DRC since late 2021.)

The summary of the report conveys the violent messiness of the conflict:

“Heavy fighting continued between M23, alongside the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF), and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) together with the Wazalendo coalition of local armed groups, the sanctioned Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and Burundi National Defence troops.”

The Ugandan military, deployed as part of a regional force in November 2022 intended to monitor a ceasefire with the M23, has shown itself to be strikingly ineffectual.  In the solemn words of the UN experts,

“Since the resurgence of the M23 crisis, Uganda has not prevented the presence of M23 and Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) troops on its territory or passage through it.”

Having laid waste to any viable, let alone sprouting opposition, the president has created conditions where any transition of power – when it comes – will be monstrously difficult.  The shadow of the 1994 genocide is a long one indeed, and strong man politics is a perilous formula for a smooth succession. Whatever the broader stated goals of Kagame for his country, he remains motivated by a desire to preserve the position of the Tutsis, keeping the rival Hutus in check.  Ethnicity, far from vanishing as a consideration, retains an aggressively beating heart.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]

Featured image is licensed under CC BY 2.0

“This isn’t an honor given to Netanyahu by the US Congress, this is the US Congress obeying the commands of the man who leads the nation that owns the US Congress,” commented Scott Ritter, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, in an interview for Al Mayadeen on Netanyahu’s speech at Congress.

Ritter emphasized that

“This isn’t so much the #US Congress inviting the Israeli Prime Minister to speak, but the Israeli prime minister calling in the duties and responsibilities of the Congress that Israel has bought and paid for over the years.”

He explained that every US presidential candidate “that was backed by the pro-Israeli lobby, AIPAC, won because of the money that was put on the table.”

Consequently, Scott Ritter argued,

“This is the result, where a war criminal, a man who has been accused of genocide, who has arrest warrants being prepared for him by the International Court of Justice, a man who heads a state that has been defined legally as an apartheid state, carrying out an illegal and unjust occupation, and again, genocide of the Palestinian people, has demanded an audience to the Congress that he has bought and paid for.”

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Towards Peace?

On June 15-16, 2024, 2024 delegates from 90 countries met at the Bürgenstock resort near Lucerne, in the context of a Peace Conference organized by the Swiss government to which Russia was not invited.

The so-called Peace Conference was a failure.

 

The article below focusses on the sabotage of the Istanbul Peace negotiations in March 2022, which took place a couple of weeks after Russia’s February 24th “Special Operation”

Michel Chossudovsky‘s introductory text is followed by the carefully researched article by Nauman Sadiq first published by Global Research on March 31st, 2022 in the immediate wake of the failed peace negotiations in Istanbul. 

 

 

Sabotage of the Kiev-Moscow March 2022

Peace Agreement in Istanbul

The End Game is the Destruction and Privatization of Ukraine

 

by

Michel Chossudovsky

December 8, 2023 

 

 

Introduction 

My first reaction in early March 2022, following Russia’s “Special Operation” initiated on February 24, 2022, was that

The War in Ukraine had “Ended before it Began”. 

The Russians literally destroyed Ukraine’s Air Force and Navy at the very outset in February-March 2022.

Also Russia gained strategic control over a large part of the Black Sea and almost total control of the Sea of Azov. 

Anyone who has a minimal understanding of military strategies, knows that you cannot wage a conventional ground war without a Navy and an Air Force.  

U.S. military strategists were no doubt fully aware at the very outset that Ukraine could not under any circumstances “win the war”. 

Peace negotiations were carried out in early March in Istanbul between Kiev and Moscow.

The organization of these peace negotiations were undertaken prior to the conduct of  the “Special Operation” on February 24, 2022. Moscow’s intent was to coordinate the Special Operation with peace negotiations. 

A  draft agreement was signed by both parties. It was immediately the object of sabotage by Washington.

1. The NeoCons in Washington. Peace is Not An Option

The NeoCons are firmly behind the Ukraine agenda. They were actively involved in the US Sponsored 2014 EuroMaidan Coup d’état, which was conducive “in the name of Western democracy” to a “regime change”: namely the instatement of a Neo-Nazi puppet government in Kiev.

US-NATO is firmly embedded in the Kiev regime’s Neo-Nazi project the objective of which is to destroy Ukraine as well wage war on Russia. 

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) dominates US foreign policy on behalf of powerful financial interests. 

The PNAC dispels the planning of “consecutive” military operations: it describes:

America’s “Long War” as follows: 

“fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”

The conduct of  “Simultaneous Theater Wars” in different regions of the World is the backbone of America’s hegemonic Agenda.

It’s a project of global warfare. The PNAC controlled by the NeoCons also dispels the holding of real peace negotiations. 

 

 

There is a hidden agenda behind this war. 

Ukraine was slated to be destroyed as a sovereign country and eventually privatized. (see analysis in Section 6 below)

2. Boris Johnson’s Sabotage Mission 

In response to the Istanbul peace agreement,  (Former) U.K. PM Boris Johnson was dispatched in March 2022 on an unannounced special mission to Kiev.

The objective of his assignment was sabotage on behalf of Washington:

“The media had already started to announce the probable success of the peace talks… but…‼️ Boris Johnson suddenly appeared in Kiev with military gifts for Zelensky, after which the Ukrainian delegation did not appear again at the negotiations,” he further tweeted. 

He [Tweet] cited that Zelensky broke his promise when the Russians withdrew their troops from Kiev in view of the peace agreement between the two nations.

It is worth noting that Denis Kireev, who was part of the Kiev negotiating team, “was killed in broad daylight in Kiev after the first round of talks with Russia”. Kireev was subsequently accused in local Ukrainian media of “treason.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that “there would be consequences for collaborators” [with Russia] indicates that these atrocities have been sanctioned by the highest levels of government. (See this)

3. President Putin Revealed Details Concerning the Draft Peace Agreement 

At Saint Petersburg (June 19, 2023), President Putin revealed details concerning the draft peace agreement signed in Istanbul by Kiev and Moscow in March 2022.

“initialed by a leader from the negotiation group of Kyiv who even signed the document of ‘security guarantees of Ukraine”. 

 

 

#Putin publicly showed the previously unpublished document in front of South African President Ramaphosa.

(Nato reportedly sent disgraced US puppet Boris Johnson to force Kiev to back down.) pic.twitter.com/DQ4stmvAD3

— Djole 🇷🇸 (@onlydjole) June 17, 2023

 

Putin also questioned, “Where are the guarantees that they will not renounce any other agreements in the future?” (Live Mint, June 19, 2023)

Bear in mind that this was the THIRD failed initiative on the part of the Kremlin. Recall the earlier Minsk I and II initiatives.

4. Germany’s Former Chancellor G. Schroeder Confirms “Sabotage” of the Peace Agreement 

In October 2023, Germany’s Former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder confirmed in an October 2023 Interview with the Berliner Zeitung that the United States had deliberately sabotaged the Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks.

Below are excerpts of this interview: (Translation from German by Global Research)

Berliner Zeitung

According to Ukraine, the Bucha massacres [allegedly] committed by the Russians led to the end of the negotiations.

G. Schroeder

Nothing was known about Butscha during the [peace] talks on March 7th and 13th.  I think the Americans didn’t want an agreement [compromise] between Ukraine and Russia. The Americans believed that they could keep the Russians down.

Now it is the case that two actors, China and Russia, which are confronted by the USA, are joining forces. Americans believe they are strong enough to keep both sides in check. In my humble opinion, this is a mistake. Just look at how torn the American side is now. Look at the chaos in the U.S. Congress.

Berliner Zeitung 

Do you think the peace plan can be resumed? 

G.  Schroeder

Yes. And the only ones who can initiate this are France and Germany.

Berliner Zeitung

But how can you trust the Russians? In January 2022 it was said that the Russians did not want a war with Ukraine. Then, when the Russians invaded Donbass, it was said that the Russians didn’t want to go to Kiev. All of these promises have been broken. Shouldn’t we be afraid that the Russians might go further and further?

G. Schroeder

There is no threat. This fear of the Russians coming is absurd. How are they supposed to defeat NATO, let alone occupy Western Europe?

They had almost reached Kiev. What do the Russians want? Status quo in Donbass and Crimea. Not more. I think it was a fatal mistake that Putin started the war. It is clear to me that Russia feels threatened.

Look: Turkey is a NATO member. There are missiles that can reach Moscow directly. The USA wanted to bring NATO to Russia’s western border, with Ukraine as a new member. All of this was felt like [interpreted] as a threat to the Russians.

There are also irrational points of view. I don’t want to deny that. The Russians responded with a mix of both: fear and forward defense.

That’s why no one in Poland, the Baltics, and certainly not in Germany – all NATO members, by the way – has to believe they are in danger.

The Russians would not start a war with any NATO member.”

(Berliner Zeitung, translation and minor edits by Global Research, emphasis added)

 

Of significance Schroeder acknowledges that “the peace plan can be resumed”. He calls upon France and Germany to play a lead role:

“And the only ones who can initiate this are France and Germany”.

5. Washington Pressures German Politicians: Defend Your Country against “a Russian Attack” 

Washington is not only behind the sabotage of  peace negotiations –including Minsk 1, 2 and Istanbul– it has also pressured German politicians to defend their country against the possibility of  a “Russian attack”:

“In a confidential strategy paper, General Chief of Staff Zorn swears that the Bundeswehr will face tough years ahead. A conflict with Russia is becoming more likely. The troops must concentrate fully on defence [Abwehr] against an attack”.

What this bold statement suggests is that Germany and its allies should “defend themselves” (plural) against a Russian attack.

Translation of the above (From German by Global Research)

Feared confrontation with Russia   

Preparation for “forced war” – The Bundeswehr must become significantly more powerful”

In a confidential strategy paper, General Chief of Staff Zorn swears that the Bundeswehr will face tough years ahead. A conflict with Russia is becoming more likely. The troops must concentrate fully on defence [Abwehr] against an attack.

What this bold statement suggests is that Germany and its allies should “defend themselves” (plural) against a Russian attack.

See also the contradictory statement of Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who studied foreign policy in Klaus Schwab’s WEF Forum of Young Global Leaders (YGL): 

“The most important is that we do it together, we are fighting against Russia

Germany’s FM, Annalena Baerbock: “We are fighting a war against Russia,”

They are openly saying it. They are literally saying US/NATO are at war with Russia. pic.twitter.com/80cERnKHHK

— Hassan Mafi ‏ (@thatdayin1992) January 25, 2023

 

6. The Destruction and Privatization of Ukraine

In retrospect, “this never ending war” (which has resulted in the loss of thousands of lives) has another unspoken objective: 

The destruction and privatization of  an entire country on behalf of powerful financial interests. 

BlackRock, which is the World’s largest portfolio investment company together with JPMorgan have  come to the rescue of Ukraine. They are slated to set up the Ukraine Reconstruction Bank.

The stated objective is “to attract billions of dollars in private investment to assist rebuilding projects in a war-torn country”. (FT, June 19, 2023)

“… BlackRock, JP Morgan and private investors, aim to profit from the country’s reconstruction along with 400 global companies, including Citi, Sanofi and Philips. … JP Morgan’s Stefan Weiler sees a “tremendous opportunity” for private investors. (Colin Todhunter, Global Research June 28, 2023)

The Kiev Neo-Nazi regime is a partner in this endeavour. War is Good for Business. The greater the destruction, the greater the stranglehold on Ukraine by “private investors”:

“BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are helping the Ukrainian government set up a reconstruction bank to steer public seed capital into rebuilding projects that can attract hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment.” (FT, op cit)

The Privatization of Ukraine was launched in November 2022 in liaison  with BlackRock’s  consulting company  McKinsey, a public relations firm which has largely been responsible for co-opting corrupt politicians and officials Worldwide not to mention scientists and intellectuals on behalf of powerful financial interests. 

“The Kyiv government engaged BlackRock’s consulting arm in November to determine how best to attract that kind of capital, and then added JPMorgan in February. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced last month that the country was working with the two financial groups and consultants at McKinsey.

BlackRock and Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy signed a Memorandum of Understanding in November 2023.

In late December 2022, president Zelensky and BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink agreed on an investment strategy.

 

 

Michel Chossudovsky. Global Research, December 8, 2023

 

Below is the detailed report by Nauman Sadiq published by Global Research in March 2022.

The article provides details on the peace negotiations as well as on the political response of the Pentagon, the US State Department and Western media.  

 

***

 

Is Peace on the Horizon?

Russia Wraps Up Military Operation in Ukraine?

by Nauman Sadiq

Global Research, March 31, 2022

 

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, leading the Russian peace delegation in Istanbul talks, told reporters Tuesday:

“In order to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations and achieving the ultimate goal of agreeing and signing an agreement, a decision was made to radically, by a large margin, reduce military activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions.”  (emphasis added)

Ukrainian negotiators said that under their proposals, Kyiv would agree not to join alliances or host bases of foreign troops, but would have security guarantees in terms similar to Article 5, the collective defense clause of the transatlantic NATO military alliance.

The proposals, which would require a referendum in Ukraine, mentioned a 15-year consultation period on the status of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014. The fate of the southeastern Donbas region, which Russia demands Ukraine cede to separatists, would be discussed by the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.

Kyiv’s proposals also included one that Moscow would not oppose Ukraine joining the European Union, Russia’s lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said. Russia has previously opposed Ukrainian membership of the EU and especially of the NATO military alliance. Medinsky said Russia’s delegation would study and present the proposals to President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian offer scaling back its blitz north of the capital and focusing instead on liberating Russian-majority Donbas region in east Ukraine, a task that has already been accomplished in large measure, was a major concession ending the month-long offensive in Ukraine.

Whereas Ukrainian demands were minor details that can be discussed later, either bilaterally between Russia and Ukraine, or on international forums, such as the UN Security Council or General Assembly.

In any case, Russia has already accomplished its strategic objectives in Ukraine, as the Crimean Peninsula and the Donbas region are now de facto independent territories where Russian peacekeeping forces have been deployed to maintain peace and stability.

“Ukrainian negotiators have essentially agreed to Russia’s principal security demands of rejecting NATO membership and regarding the presence of foreign military bases on its territory,” the Kremlin’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky told Sputnik News.

Zelensky  Contradicts Ukraine Peace Negotiators

Tacitly acknowledging Russian troop withdrawal north of the capital as pledged by the Russian peace delegation in Istanbul, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky referred to Russian troop movements away from Kyiv and Chernihiv in an early morning video address and said that was not a withdrawal but rather “the consequence of our defenders’ work.”

Zelensky added that Ukraine is seeing “a build-up of Russian forces for new strikes on the Donbas and we are preparing for that.”

“The combat potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been significantly reduced, which allows us to focus our main attention and efforts on achieving the main goal—the liberation of Donbas,” Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu proudly boasted Tuesday. (emphasis added)

He added that 123 of Ukraine’s 152 fighter jets had been destroyed, as well as 77 of its 149 helicopters and 152 of its 180 long- and medium-range air defense systems, while its naval forces had been totally eliminated.

It’s noteworthy that the Russian special military operation, dubbed “Operation Z” by Vladimir Putin, wasn’t a full-scale war. In fact, the Kremlin strictly forbade Russian media from calling the operation a war. It was a calculated military incursion having well-defined security objectives: the liberation of Donbas and denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.

Those military objectives have already been achieved in large measure, as not only the Russian-majority Donbas including Kherson and Mariupol in the southeast have been liberated but the battles are ongoing in the adjacent areas in the northeast, Kharkiv and Sumy, that will hopefully fall soon.

Sergey Shoigu has already proved through facts and figures how the country has been demilitarized with the combat potential of Ukraine’s armed forces significantly degraded.

Denazification

As for denazification, Donbas was the hub of neo-Nazi Azov, Right Sector, Dnipro 1 and 2, Aidar and myriad of other ultra-nationalist militias funded, armed and trained by the CIA since the 2014 Maidan coup toppling Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and consequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia.

With the liberation of Donbas and deployment of Russian peacekeeping forces, neo-Nazi militias wouldn’t find a foothold, at least, in east Ukraine bordering Russia’s vulnerable western flank.

As for the “40-mile-long” convoy of battle tanks, armored vehicles and heavy artillery that descended from Belarus in the north and reached the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war without encountering much resistance en route the capital, that was simply a power projection gambit astutely designed as a diversionary tactic by Russia’s cunning military strategists in order to deter Ukraine from sending reinforcements to Donbas in east Ukraine, where real battles for territory were actually fought, and scramble to defend the embattled country’s capital instead.

Except in the early days of the war when Russian airstrikes and long-range artillery shelling targeted military infrastructure in the outskirts of Kyiv to reduce the combat potential of Ukraine’s armed forces, the capital did not witness much action during the month-long offensive.

Otherwise, with the tremendous firepower at its disposal, the world’s second most powerful military had the demonstrable capability to reduce the whole city down to ashes.

What further lends credence to the indisputable fact that the Russian assault on Kyiv was meant simply as a show of force rather than actual military objective to occupy the capital is the fact that Belarusian troops didn’t take part in the battle despite staging military exercises alongside Russian forces before the invasion and despite the fact that Belarusian President Aleksander Lukashenko is a dependable ally of the Russian strongman, Vladimir Putin.

Although Russia incurred 1,351 fatalities during the war, as candidly admitted by the Russian defense ministry, the myth of countless charred Russian tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces littering the streets of Ukraine’s towns and cities is a downright fabrication peddled by the corporate media as a psychological warfare tactic to insidiously portray the losing side in the conflict as a winning side.

Besides the handful of neo-Nazi militias and foreign mercenaries fighting pitched battles against Russian forces in Donbas, the much-touted “resistance” was nowhere to be found in the rest of Ukraine.

The “40-mile-long” column of armored vehicles that created panic in the rank and file of Ukraine’s security forces and their international backers didn’t move an inch further after reaching the outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the war.

In fact, it wasn’t a fighting force at all. After conducting joint military exercises with Belarussian troops last month, young Russian soldiers, dubbed “conscripts” by the Western media, continued their training exercises on the Ukrainian territory and gained valuable battlefield experience. Now, they would return home and recount their adventures to their families.

Nonetheless, in the parallel reality of the Russo-Ukraine War conjured up by the spin-doctors of foreign policy think tanks and national security correspondents of the corporate media, Russia “failed to achieve” its presumed military objectives of “ransacking the capital Kyiv” and “overrunning the whole territory” of the embattled country, and that the “botched invasion” was thwarted by the “valiant Ukrainian resistance.”

In line with this illusory narrative of the war, the mainstream media is abuzz with fabricated reports, citing “credible Western intelligence,” that President Putin was supposedly “misled by Russia’s military leadership,” and tensions over the military’s alleged “setbacks have strained ties and created a rift” between the Russian strongman and his military.

White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield told reporters:

“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing, and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth,” Bedingfield said, without providing details on the evidence behind the assessment.

“It is increasingly clear that Putin’s war has been a strategic blunder that has left Russia weaker over the long-term, and increasingly isolated on the world stage.”

Speaking in Algiers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged Putin had been given “less than truthful information” from his advisers.

“With regard to President Putin, look, what I can tell you is this, and I said this before, one of the Achilles’ heels of autocracies is that you don’t have people in those systems who speak truth to power or who have the ability to speak truth to power,” Mr. Blinken said. “And I think that is something that we’re seeing in Russia.”

In a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that the Defense Department believed that Putin has not had access to an accurate account of his “army’s failures” in Ukraine. “We would concur with the conclusion that Mr. Putin has not been fully informed by his Ministry of Defense, at every turn over the last month,” Kirby said.

“If Mr. Putin is misinformed or uninformed about what’s going on inside Ukraine, it’s his military, it’s his war, he chose it,” Pentagon spokesman said. “And so the fact that he may not have all the context — that he may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing in Ukraine, that’s a little discomforting, to be honest with you.”

Other American officials, as reported in the mainstream media, have said that Putin’s rigid isolation during the pandemic and willingness to publicly rebuke advisers who do not share his views have created a degree of wariness, or even fear, in senior ranks of the Russian military. Officials believe that Putin has been getting incomplete or overly optimistic reports about the progress of Russian forces, creating mistrust with his military advisers.

The New York Times reported:

“The Russian military’s stumbles have eroded trust between Mr. Putin and his Ministry of Defense. While Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu had been considered one of the few advisers Mr. Putin confided in, the prosecution of the war in Ukraine has damaged the relationship. Mr. Putin has put two top intelligence officials under house arrest for providing poor intelligence ahead of the invasion, something that may have further contributed to the climate of fear.”

It’s worth pointing out that these misleading news reports are based on declassified Western intelligence. But a question would naturally arise in the minds of perceptive readers that why the intelligence reports are being leaked to news organizations now.

A Reuters report offers a glimpse into the malicious motive for declassifying the intelligence now after Russia has wrapped up its military campaign in Ukraine and claimed victory in achieving security objectives of the intervention: the liberation of Donbas and denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.

“Washington’s decision to share its intelligence more publicly reflects a strategy it has pursued since before the war began. In this case, it could also complicate Putin’s calculations, a U.S. official said, adding, ‘It’s potentially useful. Does it sow dissension in the ranks? It could make Putin reconsider whom he can trust.’

“There were no indications at the moment that the situation could foster a revolt among the Russian military, but the situation was unpredictable and Western powers would hope that unhappy people would speak up, a senior European diplomat said. Military analysts say Russia has reframed its war goals in Ukraine in a way that may make it easier for Putin to claim a face-saving victory despite a woeful campaign in which his army has suffered humiliating setbacks.”

All the media hype in order to misguide gullible audiences on the eve of impending Russian troop withdrawal from Ukraine aside, the fact remains it’s old wine in new bottles. The intelligence wasn’t declassified now, it was declassified three weeks ago, but nobody paid much attention to the asinine assertion of an alleged rift between Putin and the Russian military leadership.

 Politico reported as early as March 8, in an article titled “Putin is angry,” that the US intelligence heads warned before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during the panel’s annual hearing on worldwide threats that Russia could “double down” in Ukraine.

The remarks by Director National Intelligence Avril Haines and four fellow intelligence agency leaders — Defense Intelligence Agency Director Scott Berrier, CIA Director William Burns, National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone and FBI Director Christopher Wray — represented some of the most candid assessments of Moscow’s thinking by US officials since the start of the security crisis in late January.

“Although it still remains unclear whether Russia will pursue a maximalist plan to capture all or most of Ukraine, Haines said, such an effort would run up against what the U.S. intelligence community assesses is likely to be a persistent and significant insurgency by Ukrainian forces.”

Clearly, DNI Avril Haines spilled the secret before the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the US intelligence was in dark whether the Russian forces would overrun the whole of Ukraine, or the Russian blitz north of the capital was only a diversionary tactic meant for tying up Ukrainian forces in the north, while Russia concentrated its efforts in liberating Donbas in the east.

“Burns, the CIA director, portrayed for lawmakers an isolated and indignant Russian president who is determined to dominate and control Ukraine to shape its orientation. Putin has been ‘stewing in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years. That personal conviction matters more than ever,’ Burns said.

“Burns also described how Putin had created a system within the Kremlin in which his own circle of advisers is narrower and narrower — and sparser still because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In that hierarchy, Burns said, ‘it’s proven not career-enhancing for people to question or challenge his judgment.’”

Read the academic-cum-diplomat CIA Director William Burns’ “candid assessments” psychoanalyzing Putin’s mental state amidst the war and the pandemic from early March alongside the recently plagiarized New York Times and Reuters reports asserting that “Putin’s rigid isolation during the pandemic” made him surround himself with “yes-men too afraid to tell him the truth” and consequently he rushed to invade Ukraine to figure out the malicious motive of insidious smear campaign against the Russian peacemaker on the eve of the Russian troop withdrawal from Ukraine as pledged by the Kremlin delegation during the Istanbul peace initiative to Ukraine.

About the author:

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Global Research Wants to Hear From You!

***

[This video was produced in 2013.]

As the anti-War movement continues to lose ground in the West due to widespread public support for the illegal wars of the Obama administration, an innovative new approach emerges from SouthEast Asia: the creation of student-run organizations designed to energize youth around the concept of criminalizing war. Find out more about this idea in this week’s GRTV Backgrounder.

They say that big ideas start from humble beginnings. In the pantheon of ideas, perhaps there is none bigger than the quest to criminalize war. The concept itself is difficult for many to process at first. It does not mean to uphold some mere code of war conduct, making certain atrocities committed during times of war punishable as “war crimes,” as in the Geneva Convention. Instead, the concept of criminalizing war seeks to make warfare itself a crime, punishable as an offense no matter when or how it is waged or under what pretext.

For many in the anti-war movement in the Western world, completely demoralized by the utter abandonment of the movement by many on the pro-war left who are unwilling or unable to criticize Obama’s avid pro-war policies, the idea of criminalizing war will seem a pipe dream, no more realistic than the idea of stopping all violence in the world or making everyone a millionaire. This is precisely the problem. The long-time activists and campaigners have become so disillusioned that they no longer even try to implement the changes they would really like to see take place in the world. The weight of their experiences has taught them to be grateful for small advances here and there, and to expect that big changes can never happen.

In stark contrast to the jaded views of older generations stands the idealism of youth, an idealism that the older generation, predictably enough, tends to dissuade by urging those youth to “grow up” and “face reality.” However, late last year the first seeds of a new anti-war movement were planted in Malaysia, a movement that seeks to shape the world in the image of that ideal society not by dissuading youthful idealism, but by fostering it.

The concept was unveiled at the International Conference on War-Affected Children which took place at the Putra World Trade Centre on November 22nd last year. Attended by dignitaries including former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and current PM Najib Razak, the event sought to draw attention to the plight of children in war-torn countries around the world.

The event also saw the launch of a new initiative by the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalize War. Called “Criminalise War Clubs,” the aim is to encourage the development of independent, student-run organizations around the idea of criminalizing war. The organization’s charter was formally signed by the Prime Minister and other dignitaries, and the first two chapters of what is planned to be a global phenomenon were started with a reading of the charter.

The charter calls for wars of aggression to be criminalized, for states and governments to protect children in armed conflicts, and for banning the participation of children in wars.

In an exclusive interview with Global Research TV, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad talked about the clubs, and what they hope to achieve.

The clubs are just one program spearheaded by the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War, the non-governmental organization founded by Mahathir Mohamad in 2007. Its other initiatives include the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, comprised of scholars, lawyers and high-ranking officials from around the world, and the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, which successfully prosecuted George Bush, Dick Cheney, and others last year for their participation in war crimes in the war on terror.

Last November I talked to G.S. Kumar, the Editor of Criminalise War, about Mahathir Mohamad’s vision, and the promise that initiatives like the Criminalise War Clubs offer.

There is, of course, no guarantee that initiatives like these will pay off in the future. Whether or not human civilization will ever be able to envision a way to resolve their differences without recourse to war is a question that has yet to be definitively answered. But if we do not continue to pose that question, then surely no answer will be possible. And given the stakes of the conflicts raging across the globe today, and the possibility of nuclear war, or war waged with even more advanced technologies, the need to answer this question has never been greater.

To be sure, there is a vast chasm between the world we currently live in and one in which war itself is outlawed. No one is pretending otherwise. But it is clear at this point that if that ideal is ever to be realized, it will not be presided over by the current generation of disillusioned cynics in the burnt-out wreckage of today’s demoralized anti-war movement, but by a generation yet untouched by that disillusionment.

If it is indeed true that big ideas have humble beginnings, then it would be harder to think of a bigger idea, or a more humble origin.

*

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

This article was first published on March 19, 2022 prior to the release of Michel Chossudovsky’s book in August 2022.

The focus is to refute the Covid narrative by examining the timeline, the (official) data and definitions pertaining to the Covid-19 pandemic. The data presented in this article pertain to January 2020-March 2022.

 

Introduction 

March 11, 2024: Four Years Ago the Covid-19 Lockdown was imposed in one fell swoop by national governments Worldwide. 

The Lockdown implied: “Confining the Labour Force” and “Freezing the Work Place”. 

Not a single economist has acknowledged this relationship. From their standpoint, it was the virus which triggered economic and social collapse. What nonsense. 

What does this imply. The most serious economic and social crisis in World history which four years later is still ongoing, leading to economic chaos and mass poverty Worldwide. 

Destabilizing the social, political and economic structure of 190 sovereign countries cannot constitute  a “solution” to combating the virus. 

But that was the imposed “solution” which was implemented in several stages from the very outset of the corona crisis in January 2020.  

It’s the destruction of people’s  lives. It is the destabilization of civil society.

Fake science was supportive of this devastating agenda. The lies were sustained by a massive media disinformation campaign. 24/7, Incessant and Repetitive “Covid alerts” in the course of the last four years.

The  historic March 11, 2020 lockdown triggered economic and social chaos Worldwide. It was an act of “economic warfare”: a war against humanity. 

This diabolical agenda has undermined the sovereignty of nation states. 

It has contributed  to a wave of bankruptcies. It has impoverished people Worldwide.

It has led to a spiralling dollar denominated global debt. 

The powerful structures of global capitalism, Big Money coupled with its intelligence and military apparatus were the driving force.

Using advanced digital and communications technologies, the lockdown and “closure” of the global economy is unprecedented in World history.

The video below was produced by Global Research in December 2020 prior to the launching of the vaccine. It was released in early 2021. 

It was the object of immediate censorship. It was taken down.

Thanks to Vaccine Choice Canada, this version on Rumble was saved.  

Start the video production at 6′.30′

Click Here to access the Video on Rumble and/or Leave Comment

Our thanks to Vaccine Choice Canada

---

For a more detailed and comprehensive analysis (Book released in August 2022)

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

Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression

By Michel Chossudovsky

Translations in several languages are envisaged. The book is available in print form in Japanese. 仕組まれたコロナ危機:「世界の初期化」を目論む者たち

As a means to reaching out to millions of people worldwide whose lives have been affected by the corona crisis, we have decided to distribute the eBook for FREE.

***

Price: $11.50. FREE COPY Click here to download.

---

The Central Role of the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction Test (RT-PCR)

From the very outset, both the media and the governments have overlooked and ignored the flaws and falsehoods pertaining to the RT-PCR test as a means to detecting the spread of the virus and identifying SARS-CoV-2.

“The PCR is a Process. It does not tell you that you are sick”.

Dr. Kary Mullis, Nobel Laureate and Inventor of the RT-PCR, passed away in August 2019.

This misuse of the RT-PCR technique is applied as a relentless and intentional strategy by some governments to justify excessive measures such as the violation of a large number of constitutional rights, … under the pretext of a pandemic based on a number of positive RT-PCR tests, and not on a real number of patients. .

Dr. Pascal Sacré, Belgian physician specialized in critical care and renowned public health analyst.

The Entire Data Base of “Covid-19 Confirmed Cases” is Invalid.

Media disinformation has prevailed  for more than two years despite the fact that both the WHO and the CDC (with the usual innuendos) have confirmed what was known from the very outset in January 2020, namely that the RT-PCR test used to justify every single policy mandate including lockdowns, social distancing, the mask, confinement of the labor force, closure of economic activity, etc. was flawed and invalid. 

The WHO issued its Mea Culpa more than a year ago on January 20, 2021. A few months later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  (July 21, 2021) called for the withdrawal of the PCR test as a valid method for detecting and identifying SARS-CoV-2.  Moreover, the WHO in January 2020, did not possess an isolate and purified sample of the novel 2019-nCov virus. The Berlin Virology team (headed by Drosten):

“recommended to the WHO, that in the absence of an isolate of the 2019-nCoV virus, a similar 2003-SARS-CoV should be used as a “proxy” (point of reference) of the novel virus” (See Michel Chossudovsky, E-Book, Chapter III)

As of December, 31 2021, the PCR test is no longer considered valid by the CDC in the U.S.  For more details see: CDC No Longer Recognizes the PCR Test As a Valid Method for Detecting “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases”?

The CDC has now firmly acknowledged that the PCR test does not effectively differentiate between Covid-19 and Seasonal Influenza. A PCR positive does not imply a “Covid-19 Confirmed Case”. It could be influenza or a corona common cold. The CDC called for its withdrawal effective December 31, 2021.

Fake Data: 465 Million So-Called “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases” [March 2022]

If the PCR test is invalid (confirmed by numerous studies as well as WHO, CDC), the 465 Million so-called “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases” (see diagram below, MARCH 18, 2022) collected and tabulated Worldwide since the outset of the Covid-19 crisis are meaningless. Click here to get the latest figures.

The Pandemic Treaty and the QR Verification  Code 

In early March 2022 an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) was established with a mandate to  create “A Pandemic Treaty”, i.e. a global health governance entity under WHO auspices, which would override the authority of the WHO member states:

, “The INB held its first meeting to draft and negotiate an international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the authority of the WHO” (Mercola)

The Pandemic Treaty  is tied into the WHO’s QR Verification Code project, which is intent upon creating a global digital data bank of 7.9 billion people. Both initiatives are to be carried out concurrently by  the WHO in liaison with ID2020 and the Gavi Alliance, both of which are funded by the Gates Foundation.

Peter Koenig describes the QR Code as

“an all-electronic ID – linking everything to everything of each individual (records of health, banking, personal and private, etc.).”

According to David Scripac  “A worldwide digital ID system is in the making. [The aim] of the WEF—and of all the central banks [is] to implement a global system in which everyone’s personal data will be incorporated into the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) network.”

The QR Verification Code potentially sets the stage for the instatement of “a global police state” controlled by the financial establishment. It’s part of what the late David Rockefeller entitled “the march towards World Government”.

The  legitimacy of both the Pandemic Treaty and the QR Verification Code under WHO auspices rests on the presumption that the alleged “Covid-19 Pandemic is Real” and that the “mRNA vaccine constitutes a SOLUTION to the alleged Covid-19 pandemic.”

Both initiatives are based on outright fraud and corruption. What is the evidence:

1. The Number of  “Covid-19 Cumulative Confirmed Cases” resulting from the RT-PCR test did not  justify the WHO’s decision to officially launch a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The numbers were ridiculously low. There was no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was spreading nationally or internationally.

2. The Lockdown instructions transmitted in March 2020 to more than 190 member states of the UN are totally invalid.

3. The methodology using the PCR test to detect and identify the SARS-CoV-2 and its alleged variants has been acknowledged by the WHO and the CDC as being totally dysfunctional as outlined above.

4. All the data pertaining to Covid-19 Cumulative Confirmed Cases compiled by national governments and tabulated by the WHO since January 2020 are invalid and meaningless.

5. The Covid-19 Vaccine launched in November 2020 has resulted in an upward Worldwide tide of mortality and morbidity

In this article I will distinguish between several phases in the evolution of this crisis.

Phase I: Ridiculously Low Numbers of  “Covid-19 Confirmed Cases” Used to Justify the Launching of the Covid-19 Pandemic

From the very outset, the estimates of “confirmed positive cases” have been part of a “Numbers Game”.

The first stage of this crisis was the launching of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the WHO on January 30th. While officially it was not designated as a “Pandemic”, it nonetheless contributed to spearheading the fear campaign. The number of [cumulative] “confirmed cases” based on faulty estimates (PCR) used to justify this far reaching decision was ridiculously low.

The Worldwide population outside China is of the order of 6.4 billion. On January 30, 2020 outside China there were:

83 cases in 18 countries, and only 7 of them had no history of travel in China. (see WHO, January 30, 2020).

83 Cases outside China: There was no “scientific basis” to justify the launching of a Worldwide Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Screenshot of WHO table, January 29, 2020,

On the following day January 31, 2020:  President Trump Suspends Air Travel with China, which contributed to the broader crisis in air travel and commodity trade. The five so-called “confirmed cases” in the US were sufficient to “justify” President Trump’s January 31st 2020 decision.

February 20th, 2020: At a press conference on Thursday the 20th of February afternoon (CET Time) in a briefing in Geneva, the WHO Director General. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that he was

Assuming that the PCR test is valid (which it is not), the number of cumulative confirmed cases on March 11 was ridiculously low. 44,279 PCR positive cases Worldwide out of China.

IT’S A FRAUD. THERE WAS NO PANDEMIC ON MARCH 11, 2020

Immediately Following the March 11, 2020 WHO Announcement: A Worldwide Fear Campaign

Yet it was on the basis of these 44,729 cases that sweeping lockdown policies were imposed on 190 sovereign countries through a complex decision-making procedure which inevitably required corruption and bribing of senior government officials.

The March 11 Lockdown was followed by “Black Thursday“, a second major Financial Crash, which immediately followed the pandemic announcement.

Phase II. March-December 2020: Fear Campaign. PCR Test Goes Into High Gear

From March 2020 up until the launching of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in November 2020, the PCR test goes into high gear.

As of March 11, 2020, following the lockdown,  national governments were urged to implement the PCR-RT test on a massive scale, with a view to pushing up the numbers of covid positive cases Worldwide.

Test, Test, Test: The numbers started to climb with a view to generating more and more fake statistics.

Look at the table below. A very small number of positive cases in early March. And then, Covid positive cases going fly high as of April, May and June 2020.

Phase III. Early November 2020. Commencement of the Worldwide Covid Vaccination Program

Sustained by media disinformation, the mRNA vaccine was put forth as a solution to curbing the pandemic. Amply documented, the Vaccine has triggered from the outset in December 2020 an upward trend in mortality and morbidity

In many countries, there was a significant shift in mortality following the introduction of the mRNA vaccine

69,053 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 10,997,126 reported as at 3 April 2022 for the EU, US and UK combined.

Official sources, namely EudraVigilance (EU, EEA, Switzerland), MHRA (UK) and VAERS (USA), have now recorded many more deaths and injuries from the COVID-!9 “vaccine” roll-out than from all previous vaccines combined since records began.

But only a small fraction of the victims or families of the deceased will go through the tedious process of reporting vaccine-related deaths and adverse events to the national health authorities.

It’s the Covid-19 mRNA “Vaccine” rather than the SARS-CoV-2 virus which is “the killer”.  

For further details see: The “Killer Vaccine” Worldwide. 7.9 Billion People

Media Disinformation: The Virus is a “Hit and Run Killer”, “The Vaccine Saves Lives!”

SARS-CoV2 detected by the PCR test is relentlessly portrayed as  a “killer virus”.

“there are many crucial unknowns about this virus, including how exactly it kills, whether it will evolve into something more — or less — lethal … . (Nature)

“The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, dry cough, and tiredness. … These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually. Some people become infected but only have very mild symptoms. Most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing hospital treatment. Around 1 out of every 5 people who gets COVID-19 becomes seriously ill and develops difficulty breathing.”

Moreover, rarely mentioned by the media or by politicians: The CDC (which is an agency of the US government) confirms that Covid-19 is similar to Influenza

If the public had been informed and reassured that Covid is “similar to Influenza”, the fear campaign would have fallen flat. And the vaccine program would have been rejected outright.

It is worth noting that the mRNA vaccine presented to public opinion as a solution to curbing the killer virus relied on the the PCR test as a valid means to assessing the spread of the disease. In the United States, the mRNA vaccine was launched on December 14, 2020. Six weeks later (January 20, 2021), the WHO repealed the validity of the PCR test. In turn on July 21, 2021 the CDC declares the PCR as invalid as a means to detecting the virus.

Phase IV: November 26, 2021, “Black Friday”. The Omicron Variant

Remember the Omicron crisis, still ongoing. Scary. A novel Covid variant allegedly discovered in South Africa  which has been spreading Worldwide. How was it detected? The PCR test?

It started on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, 26th of  November 2021.

It triggered a renewed fear campaign as well as instability on the stock markets with the shares of Big Pharma vaccine producers going fly high. It incited people to get their vaccine booster shots.

The omicron announcement was a carefully prepared fraud. Two days later, the WHO politely repealed the statement of  its own advisory task force:

“There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those from other variants.”  

In turn,  Dr. Angelique Coetzee, Chair of the South African Medical Association (SAMA) described the omicron variant  as “extremely mild,  for us [these are] mild cases. … I’ve spoken to other colleagues of mine and they give the same picture.” (See Video Interview on CNBC)

These rectifications did not in any way impede the 24/7 fear campaign sustained by media disinformation. In fact it created panic.

Meanwhile, a massive home testing campaign was initiated.

Phase V: Billions of Home and Antigen Tests Distributed  Worldwide

Massive Home Testing: Fear is “Good For Business”

Literally billions of antigen and home test kits have been distributed Worldwide. In the U.S. more than a billion test kits were made available for a population of 340 million Americans.

In Canada, 291 million test kits were distributed. Canada’s population is of the order of 38.5 million.

In many countries, the “deadly” Omicron variant became the pretext for implementing renewed partial lockdowns, the speeding up of the vaccine mandate, restrictions on travel as well as confinement and stay at home mandates over the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

Below are the figures for so-called “Covid-19 Confirmed Cases” Worldwide in early November 2021. (11/01/21)

Pushing up the Numbers of  FAKE “Covid-19 Confirmed cases”

Coinciding with the Omicron crisis, the surge in the import and distribution of literally billions of home and antigen test kits Worldwide has contributed to pushing up the number of  FAKE “Covid-19 confirmed cases”.

In the course of less than 5 months (November 1st, 2021 to March 18, 2022), the cumulative confirmed cases have almost doubled.

Joe Biden’s Purchase of More than A Billion Home and Antigen Test Kits  

In the US  the White House announced in January that it was buying at tax payers expense:

“One Billion Tests to Give to Americans for Free with Online Ordering of a Half-Billion Tests Begins on January 19th”. 

This purchase was in addition the earlier deliveries of several hundred million home kits.

Starting in late November, the home test kits contributed to hiking up the so-called “Confirmed Cases” in the US. (See graph below)

These figures are fake because the WHO and the CDC have categorized the PCR test as totally invalid.

And the home tests are categorized as less reliable than the PCR test which is upheld as the gold standard.

Justin Trudeau’s Purchase of 291 Million Home and Antigen Test Kits

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered the delivery of 94 million rapid home test kits (self testing and antigen testing kits) back in November 2021 which were delivered and distributed to the provinces.

Another 140 million were ordered by the federal government in early January 2022 at a cost of 1.7 billion (Canadian) dollars at tax payers’ expense.

Canada has a population of 38.5 million and we now have 291 million antigen rapid test kits (See table below). In other words exactly 7 tests per person. 

This process has  contributed in the course of the last few months to creating fear and havoc within Canadian families while hiking up the number of so-called “Covid-19 confirmed cases”

The estimated cost to Canadian tax payers is of the order of 3.5 billion Canadian dollars. (February 2022). A recent update (December 6, 2022), confirms that “the federal government has provided $4.28 billion to the provinces and territories to help them”:

• conduct testing (up to 200,000 tests per day across Canada)
• perform contact tracing
• share public health data to help fight the pandemic

Needless to say this 4.28 billion dollar budget sustained by a mounting public debt has created havoc in the Canada’s fiscal structure, to the detriment of routine expenditures on infrastructure in the areas of health, education, transport etc, etc.

---

 

See Health Canada (Table Below)

---

“The Gold Standard” PCR Test

Ironically the home tests are compared to the flawed PCR test which is currently upheld as the so-called gold standard. According to the NYT (Updated Nov. 10, 2021) the rapid antigen and home test kits are less effective than the PCR test:

The rapid antigen tests are less reliable for finding Covid-19 in people with low viral loads compared to the “gold standard” P.C.R. tests you’d get from a health care provider. One study found that a rapid home antigen test had a 64 percent chance of correctly spotting the virus in people with symptoms who had tested positive on a P.C.R. test. (The test caught only about 36 percent of those who had the virus but didn’t have symptoms.)

What the NYT fails to acknowledge is that the CDC had called for the “Gold Standard” PCR test to be discontinued on July 23, 2021 before it’s official withdrawal on December 31, 2021. (see analysis above)

The CDC directive tacitly admits is that the PCR test does not effectively differentiate between “SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses”. We have known this from the outset. While it has taken them almost two years to recognize that the PCR test is totally flawed and invalid, the PCR test is upheld as the gold standard in relation to the antigen and home test kits.

• December 31, 2021 CDC declares the PCR test as invalid
• Invalid PCR Test Upheld as the Gold Standard
• Billions and Billions of Antigen and Home Tests Push up the Numbers
• March 12, 2022   452,201,564 cumulative cases 

The results of the home and antigen tests are meaningless. They do not under any circumstances confirm an increase in the so-called “COVID-19 confirmed cases”.

The surge in the numbers is largely attributable to the worldwide sale and distribution of billions of  home and antigen tests. This in turn has contributed to a new wave of fear and social disruption.

This engineered surge in so-called  “COVID-19 confirmed cases” has occurred at a time when a large percentage of the world’s population has been vaccinated.

“Fear is Good for Business”: Big Money Behind the Covid-19 Self Testing Kits

“The FDA made this decision based on results from a study conducted by United Health Group. The Gates Foundation provided technical support on the design of this study” (Gates Foundation)

In August 2021, the Gates Foundation together with Soros’ Open Society Foundation invested in

“acquiring Mologic, a British company that specializes in the development of rapid-testing technology, including for Covid-19 and various tropical diseases”.

Mologic is described as  “a leader in rapid testing [which] presents a unique opportunity”

This initiative consisted in “rebranding” Mologic into “a non-profit social enterprise.” which would operate under the auspices of the Gates’ Foundation’s Global Access Health 

The stated purpose of GAH is to act as a “a social enterprise which expands access to affordable state-of-the-art medical technology such as diagnostic tests and manufacturing processes.”

 

---

Dear Readers, I am much indebted for your support.

For a more detailed and comprehensive analysis including the economic and social dimensions: Recently released Book.

---

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

Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression

By Michel Chossudovsky

Product Type: PDF File

Pages: 164 (15 Chapters)

As a means to reaching out to millions of people worldwide whose lives have been affected by the corona crisis, we have decided to distribute the eBook for FREE.

You are welcome to forward it to family and friends.

***

Price: $11.50. FREE COPY Click here to download.

About the Author

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

He has undertaken field research in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality. He has also undertaken research in Health Economics (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),  UNFPA, CIDA, WHO, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983)

He is the author of 13 books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005),  The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).

He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

See Michel Chossudovsky, Biographical Note

Michel Chossudovsky’s Articles on Global Research

 

 

 

There is an unseen culprit hiding in the shadows. It is a toxic poison contained in many of the foods and beverages that we commonly eat. A toxin that has been implicated in causing cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lowered cognitive function, addiction, depression, and obesity. The magicians and alchemists of the corporate food industry have cleverly disguised this ingredient and sing its praises. If you are waiting for mainstream media to undertake an in-depth investigative report on this topic, you will be waiting a long time.

Back in 2015 Tufts University’s department of nutritional sciences conducted a study published by the American Heart Association that documented the annual rates of global deaths directly due to over-consumption of beverages with high sugar content. The results estimated that 184,000 adults die annually from sugary drinks. Dr. Gitanjali at Tufts analyzed data documenting sugar-related deaths across 51 countries between 1980 and 2010. Deaths were compiled according to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and various cancers. Based upon the data, the study concluded that sugar contributed to 45,000 annual deaths from cardiovascular disease, 13,000 deaths from diabetic complications, and 6,450 deaths related to cancer. 

Credit Suisse’s Research Institute published a scathing report that brought sugar’s health risks into sharper focus. The study revealed that upward to 40% of American healthcare expenditures could be directly tied to overconsumption of sugar in the average American diet.  Today, the US’ national addiction to sugar contributes to $1 trillion in healthcare costs annually, which includes coronary heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome. There are numerous studies published in reliable peer-reviewed medical journals associating sugar with each of these life threatening diseases.

As far back as 1971, I began writing about the hazards of sugar. In 2002, my documentary Seven Steps to Perfect Health was premiered on PBS stations. During a special appearance on one station’s fund drive, I poured sugar out of a bag. The amount I poured equaled the number of teaspoons that an average American teenager consumes daily. My general counsel, David Slater, verified the quantity by proper measurement according to scientific food and diet data. 

After the initial airing of this special, I was informed by the station’s program director that they could not rebroadcast the performance, even though it was the most successful program during the fund drive. I was informed that the station had received harsh criticism from the sugar industry. The program director explained that the information I presented about sugar’s dangers, even though I provided full scientific verification of the facts, ran up against the president of the station board Sharon Rockefeller. I was told she had received a phone call from a sugar-lobbying group representing soft drink makers and sugar manufacturers.  Therefore the station made the decision to pull my program. I was never asked to return to the station. Not surprisingly, a subsequent investigation revealed Sharon Rockefeller sat on Pepsi’s board at the time, one of America’s largest manufacturers of sweetened soft drinks.   

That was my first personal encounter with the political forces supporting sugar. I wrote letters to the sugar industry, the station board and Sharon Rockefeller contesting their suppression of my program and their claim that sugar was unrelated to the declining health of Americans. They were presented with dozens of peer-reviewed studies.

However in recent decades, the sweetener industry has undergone a dramatic transformation with the introduction and widespread adoption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) throughout our food system. This shift from traditional cane sugar, which dominated my criticism earlier, to fructose corn sugars has led to deep human health and environmental concerns due to its economic benefits for food manufacturers. 

High fructose corn syrup was developed in the late 1960s by Japanese scientists who discovered a method to convert glucose from cornstarch into fructose using enzymes. This innovation was spurred by the need to find a cheaper and more versatile sweetener as an alternative to the more labor-intensive production of traditional cane sugar. HFCS is made by milling corn to produce cornstarch. The starch is then hydrolyzed into glucose by adding the enzyme alpha-amylase. Finally the glucose is further processed into fructose. The result is a syrup that typically contains 42-55 percent fructose, with the rest being glucose. Some methods can produce fructose as high as 90 percent. 

Today, HFCS production has been so optimized that it has become the most cost-effective and efficient means to produce sweeteners. Monsanto’s genetically modified Round-Up Ready corn, enabling the use of more toxic herbicides and pesticides, has now made HFCS the cornerstone of the sugar industry.  However, the shift to HFCS has been fundamentally driven by economics and the agro-chemical industry and has absolutely nothing to do with creating a healthier sugar.  Since corn is one of the most extensively cultivated crops in the United States, which is heavily subsidized by the government, it has provided an enormous, inexpensive supply of the raw material needed for HFCS production. In addition, the enzymatic conversion process can result in a high yield of sweetener from a relatively small amount of corn. 

HFCS is now a ubiquitous ingredient that permeates our entire modern food supply. Starting in the 1980s, the introduction of HFCS has gradually displaced traditional sweeteners such as natural cane sugar, glucose and honey. According to the USDA, HFCS can cost up to 50% less than cane and other traditional sugars. This cost differential is particularly significant in industries where sweeteners constitute a major portion of production costs such as in soft drinks, artificial fruit juices, sweet baked goods, snack foods and candy, breakfast cereals, condiments and sauces, sweetened dairy products such as yoghurt and ice cream, and a large variety of processed canned and prepared meals. A study published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that HFCS accounts for over 40% increase of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages.

 

Screenshot from American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

 

Having a purview of the distribution of different sugars in the American diet helps to illustrate the dominance of HFCS in the food system. Approximately 45 percent of added sugars in the American diet come from HFCS and an additional 2 percent from pure fructose. Between 35-40 percent of sweeteners derive from sucrose, the common table sugar made from sugarcane and sugar beets — the latter now being genetically modified. The production process involves crushing the plant material to extract the juice, which is then purified, concentrated, and crystallized to produce table sugar. 

Not to be confused with HFCS, corn syrup is largely glucose and represents about 10-15 percent of the nation’s sugar intake. It is the most common sugar used in baked goods and candy. Lactose and galactose each account for about 4-5 percent of consumed sugars. However they are typically not added sugars to foods but naturally present in all dairy products. 

Finally, honey, which at one time was a common food ingredient, today only accounts for about 1-2 percent of sweeteners.  Moreover, according to FDA testing, a lot of commercial honey found in grocery stores has been adulterated with HFCS and other sweeteners, such sucrose derived from cane and GMO beet sugars and artificial honey-flavored imitators.  A general estimate is that 20-30 percent of honey sold is impure. 

Back in the 1970s and 1980s when I frequently railed publicly against the sugar industry and the health risks of processed table sugar that then completely dominated the food industry, I would never have imagined that sucrose would be gradually replaced by HFCS. This replacement accelerated after the emergence of genetically modified (GM) corn.

As noted above, the vast majority of HFCS produced in the United States, the world’s larger corn producer globally, is derived from genetically modified (GM) corn. Estimates suggest that around 85-90% of the corn grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. Therefore it is reasonable to infer that approximately 85-90% of HFCS is derived from GM corn.

As many court cases and exposes of corruption in the agro-chemical industry have cone to light, GM corn has dire implications for the production and consumption of HFCS, especially considering the associated health risks linked to the use of toxic herbicides such as glyphosate. Research has linked glyphosate to various health issues, including cancer.

A decade ago, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a “probable human carcinogen”; today, it is no longer probable but a medical fact. Several studies have detected glyphosate residues in food products containing HFCS. A study published in Environmental Health found glyphosate residues in a variety of food products, highlighting the widespread contamination of the food supply with this herbicide. In addition to glyphosate’s carcinogenic potential, the toxin has also been shown to disrupt endocrine function and it has been implicated in gut dysbiosis, an imbalance in the gut microbiome. This disruption can lead to a range of health problems, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and other gastrointestinal disorders. Research published in Current Microbiology indicates that glyphosate exposure can alter the composition of the gut microbiota, leading to adverse health outcomes.

HFCS and traditional sugars like table sugar differ significantly in their composition and metabolic effects. Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of equal parts glucose and fructose, while HFCS is a mixture of free glucose and fructose, with the fructose content higher than that in sucrose. This difference in composition affects how the body metabolizes these sugars. Briefly, HFCS poses more serious health risks than sucrose. The free fructose in HFCS is absorbed more rapidly than the bound fructose in sucrose, leading to quicker spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels. In addition, the high fructose content in HFCS places a greater burden on the liver, leading to increased fat production and storage, contributing to fatty liver disease and metabolic disorders. In contrast, the balanced glucose-fructose composition of sucrose is metabolized more evenly, posing lower risks. However, it is crucial to realize that excessive or even moderate consumption of any form of sugar can be detrimental to health.

Extensive research has linked the consumption of HFCS to a range of adverse health effects. Key among these is metabolic disorders and cardiovascular diseases. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that high consumption of HFCS is associated with an increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome, which includes conditions such as obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. These conditions collectively elevate the risk of heart disease and stroke.

HFCS has been directly implicated in America’s obesity epidemic due to its high fructose content, which is metabolized differently than glucose. Fructose is primarily processed in the liver, where it can be converted into fat more readily than glucose. This process can lead to increased fat accumulation and insulin resistance, both of which are risk factors for obesity and type 2 diabetes. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition highlighted that high HFCS consumption is correlated with an increased risk of obesity and diabetes, particularly in children and adolescents.

HFCS intake also leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Unlike glucose, which is metabolized by all cells in the body, fructose is metabolized almost entirely in the liver. High levels of fructose overwhelms the liver’s capacity to process it, leading to fat accumulation and liver damage. Research published in Hepatology has shown a strong correlation between HFCS consumption and the progression to more severe liver diseases, such as cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Recent evidence reveals that HFCS has detrimental effects on cognitive function and mental health. Studies indicate that fructose impairs insulin signaling in the brain, which is crucial for maintaining cognitive functions. A study in the Journal of Physiology found that high-fructose diets can lead to insulin resistance in the brain, potentially increasing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Additionally, high sugar diets, including those high in HFCS, have been linked to mood disorders, such as depression and anxiety, as detailed in a review in Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

HFCS and other fructose-rich sugars can have profound adverse effects on the gut and digestive system. These sugars are known to disrupt the normal functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, contributing to various digestive disorders and altering the gut microbiome. Fructose, unlike glucose, is not directly absorbed by the body. It requires a specific transporter, GLUT5, to be taken up by the intestinal cells. Fructose interferes with these transporters, leading to malabsorption. Unabsorbed fructose travels to the large intestine, where it undergoes fermentation by gut bacteria. This process produces gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane, which cause bloating, gas, and abdominal pain leading to malabsorption and the intestine’s inability to absorb fructose efficiently.

The gut microbiome, a complex community of trillions of microorganisms living in the digestive tract, is crucial for maintaining digestive health, immune function, and overall well-being. High intake of fructose negatively affects this delicate balance. Studies have shown that diets high in fructose can lead to an imbalance in the gut microbiota composition. This imbalance is characterized by a decrease in beneficial bacteria such as Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli and an increase in harmful bacteria like Clostridia and Enterobacteria. 

A study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that high fructose levels increase intestinal permeability, also known as “leaky gut.” This condition allows harmful substances, such as toxins and bacteria, to pass from the gut into the bloodstream, triggering inflammation and contributing to the development of various diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Inflammatory bowel disease, which includes conditions like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is exacerbated by promoting inflammation and altering the gut microbiota. A study in the journal Gut reported that reducing fructose intake improved symptoms in individuals with IBS, suggesting a direct link between fructose consumption and IBS symptom severity.

Finally we need to also consider the catastrophic effects of HFCS on children. Children are particularly vulnerable to the health risks associated with HFCS due to their higher consumption levels relative to their body weight. According to data from the CDC, the average American child consumes approximately 12-16 teaspoons of added sugars per day, a significant portion of which comes from HFCS. This high intake is largely driven by the consumption of sweetened beverages, snacks, and processed foods that are marketed specifically to children.

The high consumption of HFCS among children is a major contributor to the rising rates of childhood obesity and metabolic disorders. Studies have shown that children who consume high levels of sugary beverages and snacks are more likely to develop obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. A study published in Pediatrics found that children who consume sugary drinks daily are at a significantly higher risk of developing obesity compared to those who consume them less frequently.

There is also growing concern about the impact of HFCS on children’s cognitive development and behavior. High sugar diets have been linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other behavioral issues in children. A study in the Journal of Attention Disorders found that excessive sugar consumption, including HFCS, exacerbates symptoms of ADHD and impair cognitive functions such as memory and learning.

A deeper look at the politics of the sugar industry reveals that huge sums are being doled out by the government to support and subsidize sugar companies. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, health journalist Alexandra Wexler explains that American taxpayers are currently responsible for shelling out $280 million to cover the cost of loans from the USDA which sugar producers are unable to pay back. Given the undeniable evidence demonstrating the toxicity of HFCS and other commercial sugars and their enormous toll on the wellbeing of Americans, why is it that our health agencies and elected officials are not calling for an urgent overhaul of existing policies, which graciously support the domestic sugar industry to poison the population? Where is the outrage over bailing out the purveyors of what is likely the most dangerous staple in the American diet? For our answers we must follow the money-trail.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including his recent Last Call to Tomorrow.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image source

The departure of Joe Biden and the possible victory of Donald Trump in the American presidential elections forced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba to change their rhetoric and adopt a more favourable position, but the reality is that the Kiev regime is not ready for peace negotiations with Moscow.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba signalled for the first time during his visit to Beijing on July 24 that his country is ready to negotiate directly with Russia and that these talks should achieve a “just and lasting peace.”

“I emphasized two principles that must be steadfastly upheld. First, no agreements about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he said during his three-hour meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “Second…full respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. If these two principles are adhered to, we can engage in any discussions and seek any solutions.”

It is recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that Moscow would immediately end combat operations if Kiev retreated from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, dropped its NATO ambitions, and recognized Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, ideas that the Kiev regime rejected as an absurd ultimatum. This suggests that Ukraine is not actually seeking a realistic peace deal and is still holding onto absurd demands but without the military capabilities to fulfil them if Moscow disagrees.

China is clearly advocating for a political solution to this conflict and for negotiations to begin, which is also why Kuleba chose Beijing to announce Kiev’s supposed new position. Although Zelensky recently said Russia might be invited to the second peace summit in November, Kuleba expressed a slightly different point of view, mentioning bilateral negotiations because China is encouraging it.

The first peace conference in Switzerland on Ukraine, which was mainly attended by Kiev’s Western allies, occurred without Russia’s participation. This was the first time in history that so-called peace negotiations were conducted without one side in the conflict and with an illegitimate president, Zelensky, whose mandate expired in May. Zelensky initially opposed Russia’s participation in that conference, even though China, among other countries like India and Brazil, stressed that this issue would not be peacefully resolved without Russia’s involvement.

It is recalled that Beijing invited Kuleba right after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited the Asian country as part of his “peace mission,” which included meetings with Zelensky in Kiev, Putin in Moscow, Xi Jinping in Beijing, and Donald Trump in Florida. It is not a mistake that Orbán met with Trump since he is the only presidential candidate in the US willing to push Kiev towards the negotiation table.

Another problem is that Kiev does not express consistent rhetoric. Take, for example, the recent speech of Valery Zaluzhny, the current ambassador of Ukraine to the UK and the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who said that it is impossible to reach any agreements and that the war must continue until Ukraine achieves victory.

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Secretary Maria Zakharova highlighted that Zelensky’s rhetoric is related to the US election. In other words, Kiev fears it will be left without support and financial and military assistance if Trump comes to power. For this reason, the regime is changing its rhetoric, even if some figures like Zaluzhny continue promoting war.

The Kiev regime has been following Trump’s position, who said that he would try to end the war in Ukraine after winning the November elections. Zelensky cannot do anything about this development. Therefore, it is no coincidence that he will invite Russia to the second peace summit, which, he says, will be held in November, the same month as the US election.

Despite Kiev saying it is open to the possibility of negotiations, which Moscow has repeatedly expressed an interest in, Kiev introduced a ban on negotiations at the legislative level. Russia has always favored negotiations, as seen with the Minsk and Istanbul Agreements, which were destroyed by Ukraine with the help of the West, notably Biden and now former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and not by Russia. This leaves Russia no other option but to continue fighting on the battlefield until Ukrainian forces capitulate entirely.

The Kremlin understands that if Trump returns to the White House, support for Ukraine will completely dry up, forcing the Kiev regime to negotiate with Moscow. But if the Democrats remain in power, support will not halt but will continue to decline as the US simply does not have the resources to save the Ukrainian military from its predicament short of direct intervention.

Zelensky and Kuleba are likely betting that if they appear to be willing to negotiate with Russia, but make no effort and blame Russia for not achieving it, Trump will continue providing weapons and funds to Ukraine. In this way, as the countdown towards the US election begins, we will likely hear more rhetoric of a willingness to negotiate from Kiev but with no serious efforts made.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image source

Anyone who knows anything about missile technology is perfectly aware that Russia is one of the pioneers in this field of military science. Moscow is not only developing and making the world’s best rockets and missiles, but it’s also second-to-none in terms of their usage. Namely, the Kremlin’s doctrine on using long-range strike capabilities is virtually without equal, as it has been leading the world in this regard since the 1950s. After the unfortunate dismantling of the USSR, Russia lost a decade’s worth of research and development in various fields of military high technologies, also losing the precious advantage it had over its adversaries. However, rocket science isn’t one of those, resulting in the development of some of the best and most advanced missile systems even during that period. This included everything from ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) to advanced ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles).

One of the missile systems that was developed during the troubled 1990s is the now legendary “Iskander”. This highly advanced, modular rocket complex (as it’s known in Russian military nomenclature) is arguably the world’s first land-based hypersonic missile platform. Due to its modularity, the 9K720 “Iskander” system has two variants. The first is the “Iskander-M”, armed with the advanced 9M723 quasi-ballistic/hypersonic missiles capable of massive speeds of up to Mach 8.7 and reaching a range of up to 500 km (due to INF Treaty limitations).

Most Western sources classify it as an SRBM (short-range ballistic missile), albeit it’s far more advanced than a regular ballistic missile. The second is the “Iskander-K”, modified to launch cruise missiles such as the 9M728 (essentially the R-500, with a range of up to 500 km) and the Novator’s 9M729 (which Western sources claim has a staggering range of up to 5,500 km).

The most commonly used variant of the missile system is the “Iskander-M” with the 9M723, which has a massive warhead weighing up to 700 kg. It has various types of payloads, including high-explosive fragmentation, submunition, penetration, EMP (electromagnetic pulse), and last but not least, thermonuclear with a yield of up to 50 kt. Due to its high precision, extreme maneuverability and hypersonic speed, the missile is one of the deadliest in the world and is virtually impossible to intercept, as evidenced by its performance during the SMO (special military operation). The “Iskander-M” gives Russia a significant advantage over NATO forces in Eastern Europe and, as of recently, Scandinavia, where the world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel is expanding the scope of its crawling aggression. However, the missile is particularly frightening to the Neo-Nazi junta and NATO personnel in Ukraine.

On July 23, military sources reported that a massive munitions storage was destroyed in Nikolayev, while dozens of NATO and Kiev regime personnel were wiped out after their hideout was located in the town of Dergachi in the Kharkov oblast (region). According to military reports, at least 50 NATO operators were obliterated, including nationals from the United States, United Kingdom, Georgia and several other countries. The political West is having trouble hiding such losses, as now even NATO officers themselves are talking about it. For instance, retired Spanish Army Colonel Pedro Bagnos reports that 18 British Special Air Service (SAS) operators, as well as their French counterparts, were neutralized in a single Russian strike on their base of operations in Odessa, with at least another 25 of the SAS members wounded. Official reports are scant, but military sources indicate that this was precisely the “Iskander-M’s” doing.

A day earlier, on July 22, the Russian military published a video showing the destruction of a large warehouse packed with various NATO-sourced weapons and munitions, including the overhyped HIMARS. The strike was conducted by the “Iskander-M”, hitting the area of Novopetrovka in the Nikolayev oblast. This operation was part of the wider hunt for US/NATO-made MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) such as the HIMARS and M270/MARS, as well as the ATACMS TBMs (tactical ballistic missiles) that these systems can fire. A day before, on July 21, another report surfaced about an “Iskander-M” obliterating a large group of enemy personnel in the DPR. The footage shows the destruction of around 240 troops (including foreigners) and over 60 pieces of equipment. The report mentioned the Neo-Nazi junta’s 41st Mechanized Brigade near Barvenkovo in the border area between the DPR and Kharkov oblast.

A week earlier, another “Iskander-M” strike neutralized a military train in the small town of Budy in Kharkov oblast. The strike soon turned into a double tap after which more hostile personnel were eliminated. First reports about the strike were published on July 14. Just three days earlier, on July 11, military sources reported on the “Iskander-M” destroying two batteries of the grossly overhyped “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) system. The Russian military reported that the NATO-sourced weapon was stationed near the settlement of Yuzhnoye in the Odessa oblast. Earlier, on July 8, another “Iskander-M” strike destroyed a military column of the Neo-Nazi junta forces in the Sumy oblast. Military sources report that the column was detected near Stetskovka, in the relative vicinity of the city of Sumy, after which 20 vehicles and up to 65 enemy personnel were neutralized. Local sources suggest that this unit also had a number of foreign personnel.

On the same day, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) released footage of the simultaneous destruction of three US-made HIMARS systems. The NATO-sourced weapons were located in a forested area close to Klapaya in the Kherson oblast. The Russian MoD noted that up to a dozen foreigners were eliminated, stressing that these crews were most likely responsible for the terrorist attack on beachgoers in Sevastopol, preventing another strike with the US-made ATACMS missiles. Earlier in July, an “Iskander-M” also obliterated several aircraft in the Mirgorod Air Base in central Poltava oblast, located around 250 km from the border. At least four Su-27 fighter jets were destroyed. The last days of June also saw stellar usage of the “Iskander-M” against the HIMARS and similar systems in Yasenovoe in the DPR and Shevchenkove in the Nikolayev oblast. Video footage shows that at least 20 and 25 enemy troops were neutralized in both areas.

It should be noted that the “Iskander” is not the most capable hypersonic weapon in the Russian arsenal, as there are also the “Zircon” and “Kinzhal” missiles. In the last two years, Moscow drastically expanded the production of these missiles, while there are indicators that it’s also procuring more affordable North Korean copies. The “Iskander-M” itself is a more cost-effective alternative to newer missiles and is regularly augmented by the “Tornado-S” MLRS. The Kiev regime has been unable to locate (let alone reach) the areasfrom which these systems are used, making them the most effective widely-deployed long-range strike platforms in the Russian military. They are particularly efficient when used in combination with military intel and advanced ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets, giving the Kremlin unprecedented strike capabilities, a terrifying prospect for any foreign personnel in Ukraine and beyond.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image: Russian Iskander-M nuclear missile (Source)

Believing that Ukraine can defeat Russia is a “mistake,” said former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, Major General Leon Komornicki. Yet, despite this reality being highlighted by Komornicki, among other experts, Warsaw and Kiev continue to jointly pursue a policy of war and provocation against Moscow even though they are embroiled in their own issues.

“It’s all nonsense, an endless and boring story, disinformation and propaganda. The talk that Ukraine will win this conflict is just a mistake,” Komornicki said in an interview with WNP. “Ukraine currently does not have the ability to win. It does not have the capabilities that could balance Russia’s potential, which would allow it to seize the strategic initiative and engage in military actions to protect Ukraine from Russian territory. This is impossible.”

He also warned that Poland would not be able to confront Russian forces in a conflict and doubted that NATO would come to the aid of its allies.

“The conflict in Ukraine is an important lesson for us. We must have an offensive defence strategy,” said the retired general, adding that the “question today should not be whether NATO will protect us, but whether Russia will dare to attack us. Because if they attack us, we will suffer defeat.”

Yet, despite the reality that Ukraine, even with Polish assistance, cannot defeat Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk met in Warsaw on July 8 to discuss new ways of shooting down Russian missiles and drones and establishing a new volunteer Ukrainian military unit, the Ukrainian Legion, on Polish territory.

Zelensky posted on X the news of the security agreement, describing it as an “unprecedented document.”

“Thank you for your solidarity with our country and people, and for all your support and assistance,” he added.

Warsaw is among the most ardent backers of the Kiev regime, often sabotaging its own interests due to blind Russophobia and enthusiasm to serve the US. For this reason, the two neighbouring countries are collaborating closely in a vain attempt to defeat Russia despite endless warnings, such as those from Komornicki, that this cannot be achieved.

Nonetheless, despite the common goal of defeating Russia, it has not been enough to fully reconcile the vast differences that still exist between Poland and Ukraine. As recently as July 23, Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz announced that Ukraine would not achieve EU membership without resolving the historical issue of the mass killings of Poles in Volhynia, a region once a part of Poland but now in Ukraine.

The Polish minister was referring to when the Nazi-aligned Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1941-43 massacred up to 120,000 Poles in Volhynia and said that although Warsaw supports Ukraine against Russia as much as it can, relations are “not perfect” due to unresolved historical issues.

“Amply documented the [Nazi] OUN-B (Stepan Bandera) and its National Insurgent Army (UPA) were actively involved in the massacres of Jews, Poles, Communists and Roma in major cities including Odessa and Kiev.

On September, 1 1941, the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian newspaper Volhyn  wrote, in an article titled Let’s Conquer the City, namely Lviv [Lwov in Polish]:

“All elements that reside in our land, whether they are Jews or Poles, must be eradicated.

We are at this very moment resolving the Jewish question, and this resolution is part of the plan for the Reich’s total reorganization of Europe.

The empty space that will be created, must immediately and irrevocably be filled by the real owners and masters of this land, the Ukrainian people”.(emphasis added)

Kosiniak-Kamysz’s emphasis that Ukraine will not join the EU unless the Volhynian issue is resolved follows from what former Polish Undersecretary of State Pawel Jablonski said in November 2023,

“[Ukraine] cannot dream of joining the European Union” without resolving the issue of the exhumation of Volhynian massacre victims’ remains on Ukrainian territory.

Despite several attempts at reconciliation between Poland and Ukraine, such as Zelensky’s promise in 2019 to lift the Ukrainian moratorium on the exhumation of Volhynian victims imposed in reaction to the destruction of UPA memorials in Poland, the matter has not yet progressed after five years.

It is also recalled that Polish farmers staged protests for several months earlier this year against cheap Ukrainian grain flooding the market and EU regulations on pesticide and fertilizer usage, whilst at the same time, the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees continue to be a burning issue and a drain on Polish society.

Although Ukraine and Poland have these issues, among many others, they share a deep-rooted hatred for Russia. Because of this, they can overcome differences and cooperate in the military sector, which is why Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski recently asked EU countries to lift restrictions imposed on Ukrainian strikes against Russia.

“Therefore, I asked my colleagues to lift national restrictions on the use of long-range weapons. Ukraine needs to be able to prevent such attacks in the future by hitting the aircraft that fire cruise missiles and the air bases from which they take off,” he said during a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels days ago.

However, Ukraine and Poland’s efforts to escalate the war by convincing EU members to change their position are in vain since Russia’s victory is not a matter of if but when, as Komornicki and other experts stressed. Most European countries are becoming weary of the war and want peace negotiations to begin since they share, at least in private, Komornicki’s assessment that Russia cannot be defeated in this conflict.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image: Polish retired General Leon Komornicki. Freeze frame: onet.pl

As predicted by several experts, Hungary’s patience with Ukraine has run out. Budapest has announced that it will block EU aid funds to Kiev until the neo-Nazi regime resumes the transit of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. The move is important for the recovery of the sovereignty of some European countries amid the current context of absolute submission to NATO – in addition to further deepening the diplomatic crisis between Kiev and Budapest.

The Hungarian ultimatum was announced by Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. Previously, Ukraine had interrupted the flow of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline, justifying its measure based on Western sanctions against the Russian energy company Lukoil. The move directly affected Hungary and Slovakia, EU member countries that need Russian oil to supply about 40% of their domestic consumption.

As well known, Hungary and Slovakia have been two of the main dissenting countries within the Collective West when it comes to war with Russia. Advocating a foreign policy focused on the protection of Christianity and traditional values, as well as having great humanitarian concerns for ethnic Hungarians in Ukrainian territory, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used his international influence to ease the anti-Russian atmosphere in Europe. In the same vein, Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia, maintains a pragmatic and pro-multipolar foreign policy, acting in accordance with the interests of the Slovak people – known worldwide for having fraternal ties with the Russians.

It is not by chance that the EU wants to create sanctions that will obstruct the energy supply of these countries. With Hungary and Slovakia avoiding imposing sanctions on Russia, the joint maneuver by the EU and Ukraine to affect these countries is through the use of specific sanctions targeting companies that supply oil to these states. Obviously, Budapest did not accept this type of blackmail and responded with an official ultimatum to Ukraine to reverse the coercive measures.

Until Kiev complies with Hungary’s demands, Budapest will block EU funds earmarked for Ukraine. As a result, at least 6.5 billion euros that would be delivered to Kiev will remain frozen, significantly damaging the military assistance program. This is a truly innovative punitive measure, and the first measure of this nature taken by a European country to sanction Ukraine since the start of the special military operation.

“As long as this issue is not resolved by Ukraine, everyone should forget about the payment of the €6.5 billion of the European Peace Facility compensation for arms transfers (…) Ukraine’s decision to not allow Lukoil to transit oil supplies through Ukraine poses a fundamental threat to the security of energy supplies to Hungary and Slovakia (…) (Ukraine’s move is) unacceptable and incomprehensible,” Szijjarto said during his statement on the matter.

Another important point presented by Szijjarto was the fact that Hungary and Slovakia have contributed significantly to Ukraine’s energy stability amid the war. Recently, Kiev has been asking for international aid and importing energy to repair the consequences from Russian attacks on critical Ukrainian infrastructure — which are retaliation for the ongoing terrorist attacks on Russian border cities. In June, for example, Hungary provided 42 percent of Ukraine’s electricity consumption, which shows Budapest’s diplomatic and humanitarian goodwill, despite Ukraine’s hostility toward ethnic Hungarians.

Even though Hungary and Slovakia helped Ukraine in the energy sector, they were met with hostility, and their oil stability was damaged by Kiev’s boycott. Having seen that no diplomatic approach is effective at the present time, Budapest took a significant step and decided to impose direct sanctions on Ukraine. In the same vein, there are rumors that Slovakia has suspended electricity exports to Ukrainian territories. It just remains to be seen whether Kiev will really relinquish its hostile attitudes under such pressure.

Although it is necessary to punish Ukraine, Budapest needs to remember that the Europeans are responsible for Kiev’s crimes. The actions taken by the neo-Nazi regime are done with the consent of the EU, with Kiev being merely a proxy state. Not by chance, Poland, which is the Ukrainian regime’s biggest supporter in the current war, has already spoken out condemning Hungary’s actions, considering the act a “disappointment”. Therefore, Hungary and Slovakia need to be strong in their positions and also impose measures against European countries, if necessary.

The only way to defeat the pro-war lobby in the EU is to react strongly at the diplomatic level, punishing Kiev and its partners for their ongoing crimes and taking the initiative to reconfigure international relations in Europe. Hungary and Slovakia are showing a path that can be followed in the future by other countries interested in peace.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

La direttrice dei Servizi Segreti USA, Kimberly A. Cheatle, si è dimessa dal suo incarico per l’incapacità dimostrata di proteggere Donald Trump dall’attentato. Nell’audizione al Congresso ha rifiutato di dire quanti agenti erano addetti alla protezione di Trump e perché i servizi segreti non presidiassero un limitrofo complesso di magazzini, dal cui tetto ha sparato l’attentatore nonostante il complesso fosse presidiato dalla polizia locale. La Cheatle non ha neppure spiegato come sia stato possibile che, quando vari partecipanti al comizio hanno avvertito gli agenti dei servizi segreti e della polizia della presenza di un uomo armato sul tetto, nessuno si è mosso. Tutto ciò getta un’ombra minacciosa sull’intera vicenda, rendendo poco credibile la versione ufficiale che l’attentato sia opera di una singola persona: un ventenne, che tra l’altro aveva dimostrato scarse capacità al corso di tiro del suo liceo, ucciso immediatamente dai tiratori scelti della polizia che avrebbero potuto invece bloccarlo con un colpo non mortale in modo da poterlo interrogare nell’indagine.

Uscito vivo dall’attentato, Donald Trump appariva ormai il candidato vincente delle prossime presidenziali. Il ritiro del presidente Biden e la scesa in campo della vice Kamala Harris hanno però ridato fiato ai Democratici. Hanno raccolto in un solo giorno oltre 50 milioni di dollari di donazioni online, le più cospicue degli ultimi anni. A rendere la situazione ancora più incerta è lo stesso sistema elettorale statunitense. Oltre il 20% degli elettori vive in giurisdizioni che utilizzavano macchine per il voto elettronico senza tracce cartacee, Queste macchine per il voto elettronico, gestite da società private, memorizzano i voti nella loro memoria.

“La mancanza di un documento fisico a supporto del voto elettronico significa che i funzionari elettorali devono confidare che le macchine non funzionino male e non modifichino o perdano un voto, o che gli operatori elettorali non alterino inavvertitamente i voti, o che le macchine non siano state violate”, avverte Douglas Jones, professore di informatica dell’Università dell’Iowa che ha trascorso decenni a studiare l’uso dei computer nelle elezioni. Per di più, un numero record di elettori, oltre 65 milioni, invia il proprio voto per posta. Gli uffici postali vengono ingolfati da circa 130 milioni di plichi con i voti degli elettori. Non essendoci personale sufficiente, lo spoglio delle schede viene svolto in gran parte da società private esterne. Tale sistema lascia ampi margini alla manipolazione dei dati, permettendo di spostare voti in modo truffaldino da un candidato all’altro.

Manlio Dinucci

VIDEO :

Aware that the window of opportunity for destabilizing their country might soon close, the Georgian Legion might desperately try to carry out a high-profile assassination attempt in the near future, even if it isn’t against the ruling party’s founder but someone else like the Prime Minister and they use a patsy instead of their own members.

Georgia’s State Security Service (SSS) informed the public that they’re investigating a criminal group linked to the former government which plotted to assassinate the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party. According to RT, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze claimed that these are the same forces that were behind the attempted assassinations of his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico and former US President Donald Trump, while Politico cited local media to report that the Georgian Legion is under suspicion.

It was explained in early May why “The Georgian State Security Service & The Georgian Legion Are On The Brink Of War”, namely because that pro-US armed group can play a crucial role in catalyzing a spree of urban terrorism ahead of, during, or right after fall’s parliamentary elections. The preceding analysis followed the failed attempt by rioters to storm the parliament over a week prior in protest of their country’s FARA-inspired foreign agents legislation, which readers can learn more about here.

In brief, although the ruling conservative-nationalist party aspires to join the EU and NATO, it doesn’t want to surrender the country’s sovereignty to the West in exchange and that’s why it’s been targeted for regime change over the past year and a half. The replacement of Georgian Dream with Western puppets would lead to “NGO”-propagated liberal–globalist values destroying their traditional society, hence the need for the foreign agents law, but there are also geopolitical consequences too.

The authorities warned last year that the prior attempt to overthrow them was aimed at opening up a second front against Russia, while there’s also the chance that a puppet regime would allow Georgia to be used by NATO to send more armed aid to Armenia in preparation of another war against Azerbaijan. Georgian Dream wants to stay out of all regional conflicts, so much so that it hasn’t even sanctioned Russia, which is yet another argument against their continued rule from the West’s perspective.

Speaking of Russia, its foreign intelligence service released a statement in early July warning that the West is preparing to exploit fall’s parliamentary elections as the pretext for another regime change attempt, and it’s possible that they shared information about this with their Georgian counterparts. That could explain why the local media cited by Politico said that some Georgian Legion members have been detained for questioning, while their leader claimed that 300 others have been added to the wanted list.

Although comparatively small in number, this pro-US armed group could play a similar role in Tbilisi later this year as the Azov Battalion did in Kiev a little more than a decade ago during “EuroMaidan”, which was explained in the earlier hyperlinked analysis about why they’re on the brink of war with the SSS. The most effective “Democratic Security” policy that Georgian Dream can promulgate right now is banning the Georgian Legion as a terrorist group if the ongoing investigation ties them to the assassination plot.

Allowing them to continue operating inside the country with impunity would constitute an enormous risk to Georgia’s national model of democracy considering the likelihood that they’ll catalyze a spree of urban terrorism ahead of, during, or right after the upcoming elections at the US’ regime change behest. Cracking down on this group ahead of the vote would greatly neutralize their ability to disrupt the democratic process and make associated Hybrid War threats much more manageable for the authorities.

Aware that the window of opportunity for destabilizing their country might soon close, the Georgian Legion might desperately try to carry out a high-profile assassination attempt in the near future, even if it isn’t against the ruling party’s founder but someone else like the Prime Minister and they use a patsy instead of their own members. Everyone should therefore keep a very close eye on Georgia since it’s still a major New Cold War battleground given its geostrategic significance in the broader region’s dynamics.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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

Featured image: Protest held in Tbilisi against the “foreign agent” bill reintroduced by the Kobakhidze government (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

Vielleicht erinnern Sie sich an die alternative Friedenskonferenz am 12. Juni 2024 in Flühli, Schweiz, die von einer Gruppe für „Gegenseitiges Friedensengagement“ (“Mutual Peace Engagement”) organisiert wurde, mit wahren Vertretern der USA / NATO, Russlands, Deutschlands und der Schweiz – als Alternative zur infamen, von der Schweizer Regierung organisierten Konferenz vom 15. und 16. Juni 2024, auf dem Luxusresort Bürgenstock am Vierwaldstättersee. Bedauerlicherweise hat die Schweizer Regierung nicht einmal Russland zu ihrer so genannten Friedenskonferenz eingeladen.

Siehe dies, dies und dies.

Diese Gruppe für „Gegenseitiges Friedensengagement“ hat nun die Initiative ergriffen und einen Offenen Brief an den ungarischen Präsidenten Victor Orbán gerichtet, dessen Land derzeit und bis zum 31. Dezember 2024 den Vorsitz der Europäischen Union innehat.

Wir möchten Präsident Victor Orbán unseren Dank und unsere Unterstützung für seine Friedensinitiative aussprechen, die er unmittelbar nach Übernahme der EU-Vorsitzes, mit überraschenden Besuchen in Kiew zu Gesprächen mit Präsident Zelenskyy, dann in Moskau zu Gesprächen mit Präsident Putin, und schließlich in Peking zu Gesprächen mit Präsident Xi Jinping eingeleitet hat.

Obwohl die Einzelheiten der Gespräche und ihre Ergebnisse nicht offiziell bekannt sind, wissen wir, dass es sich um eine mutige Initiative eines Mitglieds der kriegstreiberischen Europäischen Union oder zumindest des kriegslüsternen EU-Rates handelt.

Wir beglückwünschen Herrn Orban und sagen ihm unsere volle Unterstützung für seine Friedensinitiative zu.

—Peter Koenig, 26. Juli 2024

***

Offener Brief an Präsident Viktor Orbán

Lieber Präsident Viktor Orbán,

Sie haben sich die Freiheit genommen, sich aktiv für Frieden zu engagieren. Dafür möchten wir Ihnen – als ein Teil des Schweizer Souveräns – herzlich danken.

Sie haben das Gespräch mit allen Beteiligten des sinnlosen Krieges in der Ukraine und in Russland proaktiv gesucht. Jedes Kind versteht, dass bei Konflikten mit allen Beteiligten gesprochen werden muss. Man sollte so schnell wie möglich handeln, um Leid, Blutvergiessen, Umweltzerstörung und deren langfristige Schäden einzudämmen. All jene, die Sie kritisieren, haben offenbar den inneren ethischen Kompass verloren.

So wie Ihr Verhalten als Ratspräsident der EU, so haben wir als Teil des Souveräns der Schweiz am 12.6.2024, kurz vor der verlogenen Bürgenstockkonferenz, gehandelt. Auch wir haben niemanden gefragt und uns engagiert.

Die Konferenz hat Repräsentanten aus Russland, aus den USA (Nato, CIA), aus Deutschland, der Schweiz, und der Ukraine eingeladen.

Daraus sind kurzfristige und längerfristige Vorschläge für «Waffenstillstand» bis hin zu einem «friedlichen Zusammenleben» entstanden: siehe dies, dies und dies.

Mit diesem Brief möchten wir Sie auf Ihrem Weg unterstützen und stärken. Wenn Sie über die EU-Grenze Support wünschen, engagieren wir uns gerne mit Ihnen zusammen: Vereinigen wir die dringend nötigen Friedenskräfte!

Alle Partizipierenden der Mutual Peace Engagement Conference:

Alec Gagneux (Initiator),

Alexander Peske (representing Russian Federation),

Ray McGovern (representing USA),

Florian D. Pfaff (representing Germany),

Ralf Bosshard (representing Switzerland).

Weitere Unterstützer des Offenen Briefes:

Peter Koenig, former World Bank-economist, journalist, geopolitical analyst

Prof. Dr. Alfred de Zayas, Geneva School of Diplomacy, former UN Independent Expert on International Order, Member of the Geneva International Peace Research Institute

Dr. Eugen Drewermann, German theologian, psychoanalyst and writer.

Christian Oesch, President of the Swiss WIR-Association

Linard Bardill, Singer and Author

Guy M. Mettan, Journalist and Politician

Christoph Pfluger, Journalist and Author

Dr. Jenö Ebert, Author and Medical Doctor (internist) 

*

Klicken Sie auf die Schaltfläche „Teilen“ unten, um diesen Artikel per E-Mail an Ihre Freunde und Kollegen weiterzuleiten. Folgen Sie uns auf Instagram und Twitter und abonnieren Sie unseren Telegram-Kanal. Fühlen Sie sich frei, Artikel von Global Research weiter zu veröffentlichen und zu teilen.

Verbreiten Sie die Wahrheit, empfehlen Sie einen Freund an Global Research

Peter Koenig ist geopolitischer Analyst und ehemaliger leitender Wirtschaftswissenschaftler bei der Weltbank und der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO), wo er über 30 Jahre lang in der ganzen Welt tätig war. Er ist Autor von Implosion – Ein Wirtschaftsthriller über Krieg, Umweltzerstörung und Konzerngier und Co-Autor von Cynthia McKinneys Buch „When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis“ (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter des Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Er ist auch ein nicht ansässiger Senior Fellow des Chongyang Instituts der Renmin Universität in Peking.

Gekennzeichnetes Bild: Ministerpräsident Viktor Orbán (Quelle: NEO)

You may recall the Alternative Peace Conference on 12 June 2024, in Flühli, Switzerland organized by a Group for “Mutual Peace Engagement”, with real representatives from the United States / NATO, Russia, Germany and Switzerland – and alternative to the infamous Swiss-Government organized Conference of 15 and 16 June in the luxury resort Bürgenstock by the Lake Lucerne. Lamentably, the Swiss Government did not even invite Russia to their so-called Peace Conference.

See this, this and this.

This Group for “Mutual Peace Engagement” has now taken the initiative with an Open Letter to Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, whose country is currently and until 31 December 2024 presiding over the European Union.

We would like to express our gratitude and support in whatever ways we can to President Viktor Orbán for the Peace Initiative he has embarked immediately after taking the EU Presidency, with surprise visits to Kiev for talks with Mr. Zelenskyy, then to Moscow for talks with Mr. Putin, and finally to Beijing to talk with President Xi Jinping.

While the details of the talks and their results are not officially known, we are aware that his was a courageous initiative as a member of the warmongering European Union, or at least the belligerent EU Council.

We congratulate Mr. Orban and pledge our support to his Peace Initiative.

—Peter Koenig, July 26, 2024

***

Open Letter to President Viktor Orbán

Dear President Viktor Orbán,

You have taken the liberty of actively working for peace. As part of the Swiss sovereign, we would like to thank you most sincerely for this.

Your proactive efforts to initiate dialogue with all parties involved in the senseless war in Ukraine and Russia are commendable. Every child understands the necessity of speaking with all sides in a conflict. We must act swiftly to alleviate suffering, prevent bloodshed, and curb environmental destruction along with its long-term repercussions. Those who criticize your actions have evidently lost their inner ethical compass.

Just as you have acted decisively as President of the EU Council, we, as part of the Swiss sovereign, took action on June 12, 2024, just before the shameful Bürgenstock conference. We, too, did not wait for permission – we acted. The conference brought together representatives from Russia, the USA/NATO, Germany, and Switzerland. This gathering produced both immediate and long-term proposals for “ceasefire” and “peaceful coexistence”: see this, this and this.

With this letter, we aim to reinforce and embolden you on your path. The stakes are too high for us to act alone. If you desire support beyond the EU borders, we are ready and willing to collaborate with you: let us unite the forces of peace! Together, we can amplify our efforts and make a significant impact. Your fearless behavior inspires us, and we are committed to standing with you.

All representatives of the Mutual Peace Engagement Conference:

Alec Gagneux (Initiator),

Alexander Peske (representing Russian Federation),

Ray McGovern (representing USA),

Ralf Bosshard (representing Switzerland),

Florian D. Pfaff (representing Germany).

Further supporters of the Open Letter:

Peter Koenig, former World Bank economist, journalist, geopolitical analyst

Prof. Dr. Alfred de Zayas, Geneva School of Diplomacy, former UN Independent Expert on International Order, Member of the Geneva International Peace Research Institute

Dr. Eugen Drewermann, German theologian, psychoanalyst and writer

Christian Oesch, President of the Swiss WIR-Assosiation

Linard Bardill, singer and author

Guy M. Mettan, journalist and politician

Christoph Pfluger, journalist and author

Dr. Jenö Ebert, Author and Medical Doctor (Internal Medicine)

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research  

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

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

Featured image: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (Source: NEO)

Ao contrário do que afirma a propaganda estatal ucraniana, as pessoas estão realmente cansadas da guerra e prontas para qualquer tipo de concessões para pôr fim às hostilidades o mais rapidamente possível. De acordo com um inquérito recente, o número de ucranianos dispostos a reconhecer os Novos Territórios Russos está a aumentar exponencialmente, o que mostra o elevado nível de insatisfação com as medidas pró-guerra do governo.

O Instituto Internacional de Sociologia de Kiev divulgou recentemente dados de um estudo que mostra que pelo menos 32% dos ucranianos entrevistados estão dispostos a “abrir mão” de territórios para alcançar a paz. No final do ano passado, a mesma pesquisa apontava apenas 19% de aprovação entre os entrevistados. Anteriormente, no primeiro ano da operação militar especial, o índice de aprovação para a reconfiguração territorial da Ucrânia era inferior a 10%. Na prática, este aumento deixa claro que as pessoas estão cansadas do conflito, interessando-se em tomar qualquer medida que pareça eficiente para pôr fim à violência.

Obviamente, a pesquisa foi realizada em áreas sob controle ucraniano, razão pela qual os dados devem ser analisados ​​considerando o elevado nível de perseguição política e censura. É sabido que muitas pessoas evitam dizer o que realmente pensam na Ucrânia para fugir às represálias da ditadura neonazista. Neste sentido, o número real de pessoas a favor da paz deve ser ainda maior.

É também interessante notar que muitos dos entrevistados afirmaram estar genuinamente preocupados com a independência da Ucrânia. Afirmaram que é melhor abrir mão dos territórios já perdidos e assim preservar o que resta do país para evitar que a escalada da guerra gere ainda mais perdas territoriais para Kiev. O Instituto também informou que desde fevereiro, quando os russos libertaram a cidade de Avdeevka, no Donbass, o número de pessoas a favor de concessões territoriais aumentou. Isto mostra que as pessoas comuns estão a fazer uma avaliação correcta do futuro, compreendendo que quanto mais a guerra durar, maiores serão as probabilidades de a Rússia reintegrar ainda mais territórios.

O aumento recente também pode estar relacionado com os avanços russos no norte, na região de Kharkov. Além das Novas Regiões da Rússia, os territórios ucranianos foram libertados nas regiões próximas das fronteiras da Rússia para aliviar a pressão militar em áreas civis. Kiev tem levado a cabo ataques territoriais diários nos oblasts russos de Belgorod e Kursk, o que levou ao lançamento de uma operação militar em Kharkov – que muitos especialistas acreditam que será alargada a Sumy. Obviamente, ao ver estas notícias, as pessoas comuns entendem que a continuação da guerra pode levar à captura de ainda mais cidades, o que faz com que até os cidadãos pró-ucranianos apoiem o fim das hostilidades de acordo com o status quo territorial.

Para a Rússia, tudo o que importa é a garantia da paz. A reintegração de territórios é uma medida excepcional que decorre precisamente da agressividade do inimigo. Para Moscou, o cálculo é simples: tanto território quanto necessário deve ser libertado para evitar que as fronteiras russas sejam atacadas. Se os ucranianos se recusarem a evacuar as tropas das fronteiras, então Moscou será forçado a lançar uma operação militar e capturar estas regiões críticas, criando barreiras contra a infiltração territorial. Por enquanto, os termos russos são claros: Kiev só precisa reconhecer as quatro Novas Regiões e a Crimeia. No entanto, se o regime neonazista insistir na guerra, é possível que uma maior reintegração seja realizada no futuro, a fim de evitar que civis russos sejam atingidos pela artilharia ucraniana.

Na prática, os ucranianos comuns estão a demonstrar uma capacidade analítica mais precisa do que os seus líderes. As pessoas estão a constatar que a melhor forma de evitar novas perdas territoriais para a Ucrânia é precisamente reconhecer o que já foi perdido e não pode ser recuperado – para além, claro, de fornecer sólidas garantias de segurança através da evacuação das tropas e do fim dos laços com a OTAN. Continuar a guerra só levará a ainda mais perdas – tanto de territórios como de vidas.

As forças de Kiev estão fracas e perto do colapso militar completo. Não há qualquer possibilidade de que uma nova “contra-ofensiva” ucraniana seja eficaz na retomada das áreas libertadas pelos russos. Portanto, prolongar as hostilidades é inútil de um ponto de vista pragmático, deixando Kiev com a única escolha entre admitir o que já perdeu ou lutar e perder ainda mais.

O fato de o povo ucraniano já ter compreendido a realidade da guerra é prova de quão impopulares são as medidas pró-guerra da junta neonazista. Se qualquer acordo de paz for submetido a referendo popular, mesmo que envolva grandes concessões territoriais, certamente receberá ampla aprovação. E é precisamente por isso que o governo ucraniano exclui o povo do processo de tomada de decisão.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

Artigo em inglês : Ukrainian people open to recognize Russian New Territories, InfoBrics, 25 de Julho de 2024.

Imagem InfoBrics

*

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

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

War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu Addresses the US Congress

By Philip Giraldi, July 26, 2024

Polls have shown for months that more Americans disapprove than approve of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, but Congress and the White House are not interested in the views of the public when they are on the receiving end of hundreds of millions of dollars in “donations” from Jewish billionaires.

Bringing War Back Home: Vietnam and Siege Mentality. “Managing Chaos, Adventures in Alternative Media.” Greg Guma

By Greg Guma, July 26, 2024

It was March, 1968, and the US Senate had opened an investigation on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, passed four years earlier. The resolution had given President Johnson a blank check to wage war in Vietnam, based on a trumped-up military incident. Half a million troops were mobilized as American leaders used communist fears and falling dominoes to rationalize a major invasion. 

Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy: Presentation by Owen Schalk and Yves Engler

By Michael Welch, Owen Schalk, and Yves Engler, July 26, 2024

In the history book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, the late great author and journalist William Blum documented more than fifty documented incidences of military or covert U.S. interventions on countries around the world. The book shows that the aim of these many interventions, from Albania to Zaire being in service of democracies is hard to justify, especially as a large percentage of these displays of “the American Way” were actually used against democratic countries.

Gen. Mark Milley: Robots to Imminently Replace Human Soldiers in U.S. Military

By Ben Bartee, July 26, 2024

As all military brass who have ascended to the highest ranks — which are political appointments, not meritocratic ones — tend to do, the pudgy careerist hack who cosplays as soldier, Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been on a cash-grab bonanza since his “retirement” from “public service” last year.

Can the Already Very Serious Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen Worsen Further?

By Bharat Dogra, July 26, 2024

On July 23 the UN Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg informed the Security Council that recent developments in the Red Sea, Israel and inside Yemen “show the real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation.” This statement was made in the context of Israel’s air strike on Yemen and the preceding strikes by the Houthi rebels against Israel and ships in the Red Sea.

Ukrainian People Open to Recognize Russian New Territories

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, July 26, 2024

Contrary to what Ukrainian state propaganda claims, people are really tired of war and ready for any kind of concessions to end hostilities as soon as possible. According to a recent survey, the number of Ukrainians willing to recognize the Russian New Territories is increasing exponentially, which shows the high level of dissatisfaction with the government’s pro-war measures.

Netanyahu: A Standing Ovation

By Danaka Katovich, July 26, 2024

The architect of the genocide against the Palestinian people walked in and out of the “people’s house” to a standing ovation. He was given more time with our lawmakers than any of us will ever get in our lifetime and he used it to insist he was a good man that was commanding a moral army — insisting they have not killed anyone who did not deserve to have their life ended in the blink of an eye.

Around the time I turned 21, Sen. J. William Fulbright described what was taking place across the country as a “spiritual rebellion” of the young against a betrayal of national values. Almost half the US population was under 25 at the time. I’m not sure how spiritual they were, but, speaking personally, I did feel betrayed, conflicted and rebellious. 

It was March, 1968, and the US Senate had opened an investigation on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, passed four years earlier. The resolution had given President Johnson a blank check to wage war in Vietnam, based on a trumped-up military incident. Half a million troops were mobilized as American leaders used communist fears and falling dominoes to rationalize a major invasion. 

The operative logic was that it might be necessary to destroy the country in order to save it.

For a moment the storm clouds parted. Eugene McCarthy, an ardent opponent of the war, won an encouraging 42 percent of the Democratic Presidential primary vote in New Hampshire. Four days later, Robert Kennedy officially entered the race. By the end of the month Johnson announced that he wouldn’t seek re-election. It felt like history was speeding up and moving forward. But on the same day Kennedy announced his run, American troops lined up hundreds of old men, women and children in a South Vietnamese village, Mai Lai, and killed them. It was one of several massacres that were hidden for two years. 

Just as the country looked for a way out, it was losing its soul.

In the midst of this chaos the prescient muckraker I.F. Stone wrote something in his weekly newsletter that stuck with me. “Everywhere we talk liberty and social reform,” he warned, “but we end up by allying ourselves with native oligarchies and military cliques — just as we have done in Vietnam. In the showdown, we reach for the gun.”

As if hammering that home, a few weeks later, two months before I graduated from Syracuse University, a shot rang out in Memphis and ended the life of Martin Luther King Jr. A political assasination, five years after the death of President Kennedy, this one was possibly linked to a racist (and perhaps FBI) conspiracy. In the days that followed, riots erupted in at least 125 American cities, resulting in more than 20,000 arrests and the mobilization of federal troops and the National Guard. Like millions of others, I was stunned, confused, angry, and scared. Two months later, just after I moved to Vermont, Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles on the night he won the California primary.

The war had come home with brutal violence and death. In the first five months of the year, almost 10,000 soldiers died in Vietnam, more than in all of 1967. By July, there had been over 200 major demonstrations on campuses across the country. Yet despite the obvious signs of domestic unrest, especially about the war, it continued to escalate. And the domestic repression was just beginning.

After my last classes and a few goodbyes, I didn’t even hang around for the graduation ceremonies. Instead, I packed a suitcase, stored my Yamaha bike, and drove to Bennington. Nestled between Albany and Western Mass in southern Vermont, it felt like an escape from the urban rat race, high-energy aggression and ruthless competition, mass anxiety and gnawing fear. 

Out there, but not too far… 

***

Managing Chaos: Adventures in Alternative Media 

It is an eye-witness account that explores the unique, tumultuous history of Pacifica radio and alternative media in America. Filled with episodes from an eclectic career, Greg Guma’s new book discusses the evolution of radio and television, the impacts of concentrated media ownership, the rise of the alternative press, his complex relationship with Bernie Sanders, his work in Vermont before and during a progressive revolution that changed the state’s power structure, and decades later, what happened while he managed the original listener-supported radio network. Here is another excerpt.

Siege Mentality

In-person meetings of Pacifica’s national board were all-weekend affairs. Really more than a weekend: Managers and staff began arriving Wednesday for a full-day, staff-only summit on Thursday. Held every three months, these quarterly rituals took considerable energy and preparation time.

The location rotated according to a mandated sequence, another bylaw restriction created by the reformers who recaptured the network, evidently designed to equalize local participation. The trouble was that housing dozens of people for days in a venue like New York, plus a meeting space large enough to accommodate an audience and “public comments” from activists, could cost double the price of the same digs in Houston. But a summer session in Texas could be unbearable. It was arbitrary, uncomfortable, and sometimes unnecessarily costly.

On the other hand, the gatherings brought together people from disparate communities and cultures across the country. If the vibe was right, an in-person PNB meeting could build momentum behind new ideas. My plan for the March 2006 session in Los Angeles, two months after I started work, was to lay out problems and win early “buy in” for a network-oriented response. Not to reach consensus. It was more like critical mass.

As Affiliates Program Coordinator Ursula Ruedenberg delicately put it during a “thematic” discussion that weekend, national programming “is very thorny just beneath the surface. It set the stage for what happened in the ‘90s. There began to be pressure to work as a national network,” she recalled, “and that process aroused all sorts of issues.”

The timing and location looked right. The board was about to adopt a National Programming Policy, which would trigger the hiring of a coordinator. Theoretically, he or she could pull together people and programs across the country. Meanwhile, outside the hotel in the streets of Los Angeles, over a half a million people were gathering for “La Gran Marcha,” part of a nationwide protest against a proposed law to raise penalties for illegal immigration and classify the undocumented — or anyone who helped them — as felons. 

Over the next few days hundreds of thousands also showed up for rallies in places like Denver, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, and Nashville. In the wider debate over immigration these protests not only demonstrated opposition to the bill, they called for a “path to legalization” for the millions of people entering the country without documents or permission.

Living in Los Angeles more than a decade earlier, I’d watched immigration politics play a role during the riots of 1992. Border Patrol cops deployed in Latino communities arrested more than 1,000 people. Afterward, the INS began work with the Pentagon’s Center for Low-Intensity Conflict and the line between civilian and military operations was largely erased. Human Rights Watch accused border cops of routine abuse, a pattern of beatings, shootings, rapes, and deaths. In June 1995, detainees in a private jail had rioted after being tortured by guards.

In some ways, Southern California embodied both the American Dream and the right’s cultural nightmare. A confluence of climate, capital and demographics had made it an international zone and the world’s image capital. By the early 21st century, the City of Angels was populated heavily by brown and black residents, many of them recent immigrants. It would soon be more than 40 percent Hispanic, 12 percent Asian, 10 percent Black, and less than 40 percent European-American. As David Rieff noted in his book, Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World, the rest of the country, and possibly the world, would likely follow the L.A. model.

Moving to New Mexico in 1996, I ran a non-profit that provided legal support for both legal and undocumented immigrants. By then the border had become a battlefield. Government strategies for combating undocumented immigration had remilitarized the entire region. The recently-passed North American Free Trade Agreement meshed neatly with more obvious aspects of low-intensity conflict doctrine. The definition of immigration and drug trafficking as “national security” issues brought military thought and tactics into domestic affairs. Just as the projection of a “communist menace” had been a smokescreen for post-war expansionism, a “Brown wave,” the “Drug War” and terrorism were used as pretexts for military-industrial penetration.

Immersing myself in immigration law and regional race politics, I developed a coalition of sympathetic groups to fight back against the most draconian aspects of a new immigration reform law. We staged public rallies in Albuquerque, and brought Latino and Asian spokesmen to Santa Fe to testify at legislative hearings. 

Defending the rights of immigrants was a perfect focus for Pacifica, and the national board promptly took time out to join the march. For KPFK it was a golden programming opportunity. The station went live for five hours that day, airing reports and coverage in Spanish and English, the first show of its kind. Yet the other sister stations didn’t take it as a national feed, preferring local coverage or the usual shows.

Latino programming was at the top of the agenda. Largely at the urging of KPFK, the board had decided that a daily Spanish language news show should be launched nationally. New York and DC Latino activists were lobbying for more airtime. They had a practical point. The demographic trends in signal areas and nationally pointed to a large “under-served” audience. According to Arbitron, Latinos spent more time listening to the radio than any other ethnic group. 

In fact, Spanish-language media — Univision, Telemundo and radio stations — had helped to mobilize people for the immigration protests. In L.A. , Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo, a Spanish radio personality, persuaded friends at other stations to rally listeners and cover the event. But commercial radio’s interest in the issue was likely to fade, while Pacifica, if it made a sustained commitment, could build a large and loyal new listenership.

“I’m feeling a lot of pressure for change,” I told the board, “people waiting to see whether I will take sides, and waiting to judge. I’m bound to disappoint some people. There’s really no way to satisfy all of the expectations.” It might be possible to find common ground, I allowed, but winner-take-all wasn’t the best starting point. 

“What we have, with certain exceptions, is a siege mentality,” I reminded them, “sometimes referred to as protecting turf.”…

From the Epilogue

Pacifica had been through a decade of internal struggle when I arrived in Berkeley. Worried about a possible corporate takeover, members of the staff, board and volunteers at the stations had fought back, and eventually created a new, more democratic governance structure. You might even call it hyper-democratic. But also incomplete, unwieldy and difficult to amend. It didn’t prevent factions from forming at various stations. In fact, it seemed to produce contested board elections and bitter charges that the process was unfair, even rigged. 

In January 2006 the organization was battle-weary, but recovering and financially stable. The next two years were more peaceful than most. But the animosity and tribalism didn’t vanish. Rather than become the center of yet another internal power struggle, I stepped aside to make way for the next chief executive, someone who had been fired years before. 

As it turns out, she didn’t appreciate the new democratic structure and stayed for less than a year. Six years after that, one of her successors barricaded herself inside the national office rather than accept a replacement. The mood had gone from suspicious to openly hostile.

Personally, it was a productive decade. Despite the warning before becoming ED, I did work again. Once back in Vermont, I returned to writing and journalism, and wrote about Burlington and national politics for VTDigger.com, a new online platform that established itself as a leading news source. Gannett still owned the Burlington Free Press, but it was no longer a Vermont media leader and not much of a daily. Now a top news source was Seven Days, a robust print weekly that succeeded the Vanguard Press and provided breaking news through an effective online platform. 

After the Democrats resumed control of City Hall, I also ran for mayor, something I had postponed for decades, ever since stepping aside for Bernie. 

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

Greg Guma is author, historian, and former CEO of Pacifica Radio. He chronicled Vermont history in The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution and Restless Spirits & Popular Movements. His recent book, Prisoners of the Real, looks at the costs of expedient answers, authoritarian strategies, and a preoccupation with control and toward liberated groups that offer new opportunities and real choice.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Vietnam War protestors march at the Pentagon in Washington, DC on October 21, 1967. (Photo credit: Frank Wolfe / LBJ Library / Wikimedia)

---

Managing Chaos: Adventures in Alternative Media

Author: Greg Guma

ASIN: ‎B0D9RXBTQH

Publisher: ‎Independently published (July 25, 2024)

Paperback: ‎317 pages

ISBN-13:‎ 979-8324478988

An eye-witness account that explores the unique, tumultuous history of Pacifica radio and alternative media in America.

Filled with episodes from an eclectic career, Greg Guma’s 15th book discusses the evolution of radio and television, the impacts of concentrated media ownership, the rise of the alternative press, his complex relationship with Bernie Sanders, his work in Vermont before and during a progressive revolution that changed the state’s power structure, and decades later, what happened while he managed the original listener-supported radio network.

Weaving together an intimate chronicle of what he saw as Pacifica’s post-revolutionary CEO and episodes from his earlier life as a stressed out student, rookie reporter, radical organizer and unconventional editor, Guma explores the challenges of maintaining democratic institutions in a culture of distrust and polarization, of striking the delicate balance between truth and advocacy, observation and participation, and of handling conflicts with persuasion instead of force.

Managing Chaos is a media saga, a personal story, and a cautionary tale.

Click here to purchase.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Global Research Wants to Hear From You!

***

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

In the history book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, the late great author and journalist William Blum documented more than fifty documented incidences of military or covert U.S. interventions on countries around the world. The book shows that the aim of these many interventions, from Albania to Zaire being in service of democracies is hard to justify, especially as a large percentage of these displays of “the American Way” were actually used against democratic countries. [1]

He, together with figures like Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, and Howard Zinn distinguished himself as a prominent U.S. foreign policy critic and incited both praise and criticism for daring to speak out on a subject that smeared the profile of the world’s biggest champion of “democracy and human rights.” Hence, a lot of listeners out there are prepared to question the latest conflict with another major threat equated with the likes of Adolf Hitler.

Seldom, however, is the country of Canada equated with the U.S. in this regard. Even people who may not be friendly with the Prime Minister of the day are not seen by the people of Canada as launching a war, or aiding in the destruction of a democracy. From a young age, Canadians are trained to see Canada as a champion of democracy that tries through diplomacy and good will to aid nations in their struggles to hold and maintain democracy. And in war, they “punch above their weight” in order to ensure democracy. [2]

But author Yves Engler is one author who continues to relentlessly soil this vision of Canada as the Boy Scouts (and Girl Scouts) on the world stage. Together with his co-author Owen Schalk, Yves takes the Northern community on a discursion similar to William Blum’s epic journey of the more than 20 elected governments around the globe – from Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran to Patrice Lumumba in Congo, to Salvador Allende in Chile to Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti – that has witnessed Canada’s participation in coups and ousting of governments. [3]

The replacing authorities have less to do with the failings of democracy as devotees to traditional imperatives understand them, and more to do with furthering the corporate and imperial goals of the governments in office. Both Liberal and Conservative governments are complicit iin this endeavour.

On this week’s Global Research News Hour, we bring the listeners a talk, organized in the University of Winnipeg campus within the UW Hive on the evening of June 20, 2024. Owen Schalk was present at the talk. Yves Engler appeared via Zoom. The talk was sponsored by Peace Alliance Winnipeg and host station CKUW.

It was recorded with the assistance of videographer Paul Graham. Video of this talk is available here:

a

a

Owen Schalk is an independent researcher and writer whose work focuses on domestic and foreign policy. His articles have been published by Alborada, Monthly Review and Protean magazine, and he contributes a weekly column to Canadian Dimension. He is the co-author of Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy, 2024 and also the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A Story of Military, Diplomatic, Political and Media Failure, 2003-2023, James Lorimer & Co., 2023. He lives in Petersfield, Manitoba, Canada.
 
Yves Engler is one of Canada’s foremost Canadian foreign policy critics and dissidents. He is the author of ten books on Canadian foreign policy including Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy (with Owen Schalk) (2024) and Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People’s History of the Canadian Military (2021). His articles have appeared at globalresearch.ca, rabble.ca, canadiandimension.com, and on his own site yvesengler.com.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg.

 

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was the scene of an extended press conference held by the Detroit Coalition for Police Transparency and Accountability (DCPTA) on July 24.

The DCPTA was founded in July 2020 amid the mass demonstrations and rebellions around the United States and the world in the aftermath of the police executions of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Hakim Littleton, among others.

In a memorandum sent to Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice on April 23, the DCPTA once again requested a DOJ investigation of the Detroit Police Department for its use of excessive force, killings, racial discrimination, misconduct and the ineffective oversight by the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners. In earlier years, the Department of Justice conducted a widespread investigation into the DPD between 2000-2003 which resulted in the imposition of two federal consent decrees aimed at reforms related to the use of deadly force and the horrendous conditions then in existence at the police lockups.

The consent decrees were in force during the period of 2003 to 2014. The federal judicial consent judgment which enacted the decrees was lifted during the illegally declared bankruptcy in Detroit during 2013-2014.

Several federally appointed monitors failed to ensure that the measures mandated by the consent decrees were implemented by the DPD. The abuse by police has continued past the era of the consent decrees until the present period.

DCPTA press conference audience

The press conference on July 24 was chaired by Yvonne Jones of the DCPTA. A broad range of speakers detailed their experiences and observations regarding police misconduct in the city over the last four years.

These speakers included representatives from the DCPTA, Detroit Will Breath (DWB), residents of the southwest side of Detroit which is predominantly Latin American, religious leaders and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). The incidents of abuse and police killings have not led to a renewed intervention by the DOJ despite repeated pleas from DCPTA.

A similar press conference was held two years ago outside the Cass Commons in Midtown where the first memorandum was submitted to the DOJ. At the 2022 press conference, DCPTA members warned that the incidents of brutality and killings would continue if the federal and local authorities did not take immediate action.

Image: DCPTA press conference with Nakia Renee-Wallace

At the July 24 press conference, Nakia-Rene Wallace, a co-founder of Detroit Will Breath, spoke to the role of the police in Black and Brown communities in Detroit and around the country. Wallace emphasized that the purpose of the police was to suppress the political and cultural activities of people of color. She cited the violent destruction of the Wayne State University Palestine solidarity encampment which lasted for one week before it was ordered removed by WSU President Espy.

The destruction of the encampment, named by students as the Free University of Gaza, followed a national pattern of repression which could have only been coordinated by the White House and its DOJ. Over 3,000 students, faculty and community activists were arrested during the winter and spring as many were charged with misdemeanors and felonies. Many students were expelled from their campuses, evicted from campus housing and denied their degrees.

Bill Wylie-Kellerman, the retired pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church where the press conference was held, read a letter to WSU President Kimberly Andrews Espy, Provost Laurie M. Lauzon Clabo and the Board of Governors which was signed by 70 clergy and religious leaders on June 26. The letter condemned the actions of the WSU administration for their refusal to negotiate with the Students for Justice in Palestine and other organizations which demanded the full disclosure and divestment from the State of Israel and entities conducting business with the apartheid state.

The letter read in part that:

“We understand the demands of the students—the divestment from war and weapons manufacturing—to be a good and just pursuit for which you should take pride as university leadership. Instead, you authorized the deployment of riot police and the use of brutal force against members of our communities, including the violent removal of a woman’s hijab, a grave violation of the Islamic faith.”

This letter went on to say:

“We write to express our deep disappointment in the decisions that you made as leaders and to ask the following of you:

1. Take meaningful steps toward reconciliation with the students and community members you have harmed, beginning with formal apologies to each.

2. Commit to meeting with members of Students for Justice in Palestine to truly listen to their concerns and hopes for a more just and equitable world.

3. Give a promise to your university community and communities across Southeast Michigan that you will refrain from militarized use of force against students in the future.

Violence against students and community members who peacefully advocate for their belief runs counter to each of our faith traditions, and to the basic tenets of human dignity. As an interfaith group of leaders, we urge the university to uphold the principles of justice, equity, and respect for all individuals.”

Other Recent Incidents of Police Misconduct

On the southwest side of Detroit, police broke up the annual Cinco de Mayo celebrations which have been held for decades. Community members and small businesses were physically attacked and ticketed in early May.

A young woman talked about her abuse at the hands of the police. She was injured on her arms and ticketed by officers. The citation had no charges listed with no court date set for a hearing. Another young person addressed the police harassment of cultural workers preparing for the annual event called “Southwest Fest”.

In the April 23 updated memorandum from the DCPTA to the DOJ it documented additional incidents of misconduct at the hand of the Detroit police. Some of these incidents which occurred during 2023 remain unresolved by the Board of Police Commissioners and the local courts.

These incidents documented include:

“Daryl Vance, 71, on September 1, 2023, was punched in the face by Office Juwan Brown, causing the victim to hit his head on the concrete, resulting in his death. (Later the courts refused to hold the officer over for a trial on murder charges). Just two days earlier, officers assaulted a young man in front of his home which was caught on a body worn camera and home camera. The Assistant Chief reported to the media that it was a traffic stop, then later a different Assistant Chief told the Board of Police Commissioners that it was a pedestrian stop. On July 29 and 30, 2023, two officers were charged in two separate incidents—one for criminal sexual conduct and the other for brandishing a firearm in a road rage. An assaultive rant utilizing profanity was carried out in a city residential home. This officer was placed on administrative duty and returned to full duty on the streets while the investigation remained in progress. The officer was only returned to administrative duty after the Office of the Chief Investigator brought the matter to the Board of Police Commissioners and to the public’s attention in a meeting. A vehicle was illegally searched on May 4, 2023, as efforts were made to obscure the video capture by positioning the subjects of the search. On January 2 of the same year, police shot an animal without cause.”

The officers involved in these incidents have not been properly disciplined by the Board of Police Commissioners or the courts. Consequently, the DCPTA has criticized the failure of the Commission to exercise its authority mandated by the City of Detroit Charter.

Detroit has a long and sordid history of police misconduct. A research project at the University of Michigan Department of History has compiled thousands of pages of files documenting the excesses of the police dating back to 1957. (See this)

These problems related to police misconduct are rooted within the racist capitalist system in the U.S. In order to abolish this process, there must be a frontal assault on the institutions which govern the country aimed at its eradication and complete social transformation.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Spread the Truth, Refer a Friend to Global Research 

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

Featured image: DCPTA press conference chair Yvonne Jones (All images in this article are from the author)