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Despite US Sanctions, Iran’s Revolutionary Public Health System Curbing COVID-19 Outbreak

Sputnik – April 3, 2020

Iran has managed to contain its coronavirus outbreak even under crippling US trade sanctions that have limited the country’s access to medical equipment and other resources, Sayyed Mohammad Marandi, an American studies and postcolonial literature professor who teaches at the University of Tehran, told Sputnik’s Loud & Clear Thursday.

Marandi told Sputnik the situation in Iran is “significantly better than in the US,” despite Washington’s adamant refusal to lower economic sanctions frustrating trade with Iran, which have made buying medicine and equipment for hospitals difficult.

“It has been managed, and that’s largely because – despite all the sanctions in the last four decades – after the [1979] revolution, Iran established a primary health care network across the country,” Marandi told host Brian Becker.

“It exists in villages, in towns, in cities, it’s a huge network. This is the foundation upon which the resistance or the fight against the coronavirus was based,” Marandi said, noting that “Iran had much less time” to prepare for the outbreak than did European countries or the US, being one of the first hit after the virus broke out of China’s Hubei Province.

“But since Iran had less time, Iran was obviously less prepared. And because of the sanctions, because the US government was trying to prevent Iran from being able to fight the virus by preventing Iran from purchasing [test] kits, by preventing Iran from purchasing masks, ventilators – the US government was doing everything it could, basically through the sanctions, to turn the coronavirus into a biological weapon to use against Iran. And they still do,” Marandi said.

“But despite all of that, and despite the hardship that the Iranians went through initially, not being able to purchase their needs, because of this very powerful and very extensive primary health care network that exists in the country, they were able to contain the virus. And now the situation in Iran, despite being hit very hard and being the first to be hit without knowing clearly what it was and how to deal with it – the situation in Iran is remarkably better than what we are seeing sadly in Europe and unfortunately in the US,” Marandi told Sputnik.

The latest data reveals that there are more than 50,000 cases of the virus in Iran, and more than 3,000 people have died as a result. The US has become the epicenter of the pandemic, with more than 242,000 cases and almost 6,000 deaths from the disease.

In a recent statement, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif referred to the US sanctions against Iran as “economic terrorism.”

“We had always said the sanctions are unjust, but coronavirus revealed this injustice to the world,” Zarif added.

In a Saturday tweet, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that Iran’s “concerted effort to lift US sanctions isn’t about fighting the pandemic” but is rather about Iran’s leaders “trying to avoid responsibility for their grossly incompetent and deadly governance.”

Even though the US claims that its sanctions don’t prevent the sale of medicine and medical devices, the secondary sanctions on financial institutions and businesses have prevented Iran from buying necessary items like ventilators that could save the lives of coronavirus patients, the New York Times reported.

Renewed Tensions With Iran in Iraq

In the midst of the pandemic, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday took to Twitter to warn Iran against attempting to attack US troops or assets in Iraq after claiming that Iran or its proxies “are planning a sneak attack on US troops and/or assets in Iraq.”

One day later, Zarif tweeted: “Don’t be misled by usual warmongers,” adding that the US “surreptitiously lies, cheats & assassinates,” while Iran “only acts in self-defense.”

“Iran starts no wars, but teaches lessons to those who do,” the minister added.

According to Marandi, Trump may be threatening Iran in an attempt to distract American citizens from the catastrophic mismanagement of the coronavirus within US borders.

“Iran is an extremely powerful country. If the US carries out an attack on the country, it will have devastating consequences for the Americans, and I think the Americans know that. The Americans had to leave Iraq about a decade ago when the small resistance with light weapons put up a fight against an American force with all its allies that were well over 150,000 troops. Now, the Americans in Iraq have 5-6,000 troops. They’re all alone, almost. Almost all of their allies have left, and the Popular Mobilization Forces of the Iraqi Armed Forces is itself well over 100,000. So, I can’t see a situation where Trump can win in Iraq, win in Iran,” Marandi added.

April 2, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , | 1 Comment

Ansurullah calls on Saudi-led alliance to consider Yemen’s mediation proposal

Press TV – April 2, 2020

Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement has called on the Saudi-led coalition of aggressors to consider its proposal for 12-party mediation aimed at ending the bloody war on the impoverished Arab state.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee of Yemen, proposed that twelve countries, including Russia, as well as the United Nations mediate to end the Yemen conflict.

The top Houthi official suggested that four Arab countries, four Muslim countries, three Asian nations, Russia as well as the UN be included in the group of mediators.

He referred to Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan as his proposed countries.

The proposal comes a week after United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a ceasefire in all conflicts worldwide amid a global fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Guterres warned that in war-torn countries health systems have collapsed and the small number of health professionals left were often targeted in the fighting.

The world body has been trying to mediate an end to conflicts in countries including Syria, Yemen and Libya, while also providing humanitarian assistance to millions of civilians.

Ansarullah has welcomed the call, saying an aerial and maritime blockade imposed on Yemen by the Saudi regime and its coalition allies should be lifted to facilitate the adoption of preventive measures against the coronavirus outbreak.

While Yemen has not recorded any COVID-19 cases to date, the possibility of an outbreak threatens the war-ravaged country’s already fragile healthcare system.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis have died since the beginning of the war that Saudi Arabia and its allies launched in 2015 to restore power to Yemen’s former Riyadh-allied officials. The aggression has also brought entire Yemen to the edge of famine.

The United States and many of its allies have been providing political, military, logistical, and advisory support for the war.

April 2, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

COVID-19: What the Virus Might Do to the American Empire

By Tony Kevin | Consortium News | April 1, 2020

Canberra, Australia – Under current CV19 lockdowns, there is much quiet time at home in which to reflect on how dramatically the virus is even now changing our familiar New Cold War world, and how such changes will gather force as the weeks of crisis unfold.

Australia is a good place from which to reflect: an excessively obsequious minor member of the U.S.-led anti-Chinese and anti-Russian Western strategic alliance, Australians are also conflicted by our need to earn a living and our obvious economic dependence on our major trading partner and Asia-Pacific strategic neighbor China. Two contradictory imperatives are gnawing at the minds of thinking Australians.

Meanwhile, the 120-year old Australian federal system is under strain: a symptom of world politics also under strain. The federal Prime Minister Scott Morrison, with the task of protecting as much as he can of the shrinking national economy, failed like President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson to take the hard lockdown decisions early enough. It has been a case of too little too late, with the state premiers finally this week seizing the baton from him, locking down and isolating their states to preserve their populations’ lives – with the federal government following belatedly behind.

Only today, a leading Australian mining-industry oligarch, Andrew Forrest, announced that the public interest, charity arm of his company, Fortescue Minerals, had negotiated with the Chinese government to secure ample supplies for his home state Western Australia of desperately sought Chinese-made personal protective equipment (PPE) which will be essential to combat the virus as it expands into WA.

Minutes earlier, WA Premier Mark McGowan had warned the federal Australian government in tough public language to rapidly move the Covid-19 quarantined German cruise ship Artania away from Perth, and away from Western Australian coastal waters. He asserted that his primary duty was to protect West Australians from CV19, and he would not let Perth become known as a safe haven for homeless, stricken cruise ships. The matter remains unresolved.

Changing How We Think

Around the world, borders are closing down to all but essential travel. Online, we still seem to be one world. I can, thank goodness, easily plug in to what people in Beijing and Moscow, as well as in Washington and London, are saying. But globalization is rapidly becoming anachronistic (in its original literal Greek meaning– “in the wrong time”) in terms of mass global flows of people and, increasingly even, of goods and services themselves.

For instance, it is hard to see the (largely American-created) massive cruise ships industry, or mass airborne global holiday tourism, recovering quickly — or even, ever — from CV19. For a long time, people are going to want to stay closer to home and avoid such risky disruptions in their and other people’s lives. The globalization model is broken.

The pandemic’s brutal, erratic course around the world – from China to Korea and Italy, thence to Spain, the U.K. and worst of all to the USA, is rapidly changing the way we will think about the world and about our respective countries’ and elites’ participation in it. CV19 is a disease with our rich elites’ fingerprints all over it: their privileged globetrotting lifestyle, serviced by armies of Third World serf labor, is in an ugly spotlight now.

Old Ideologies Dissolve

One cannot predict what the world will look like after this pandemic runs its course. One certainty: it will be very different from the world before CV19, with the knowledge of other such viruses potentially to come.

Let’s look at the de-coupling of supply lines: a concept first touted by U.S. strategic thinkers before CV19 struck, as part of warfighting Cold War Redux. Western governments wanted to reduce dependence on superstar firms like Huawei, to “de-couple” strategic Western industries from the risk of Chinese sabotage. The plan was to reduce markets for Chinese suppliers of key information technology, despite Chinese mastery of the lowest-cost capitalist production mode.

Now the boot is on the other foot. Goaded by sanctions and other Western interference, China and Russia are well on the road to research, industrial and agricultural self-sufficiency for the Eurasia-centered heartland. Meanwhile the U.S., caught at the end of global supply chains that all seem to start in China, is begging for much-needed ventilators and PPE: in competition with people like Andrew Forrest, who know how to deal with China.

Two groups of people in our Western societies are finding it particularly hard to get their heads around the rapid dissolving of old ideological certainties.

First, the brave and bold radical movements in the West. Used to exposing a constant diet of disinformation from Western Deep State sources, they find it hard to believe that CV19 can be more than another propaganda trick by the Deep State to strengthen its control over society. They refuse to see the real threat CVI9 poses to decent human societies, by the fact of its extreme virulence, delayed visible symptoms, and generation-sensitive lethality. They cling to their familiar worlds of friends and enemies, and lose sight of medical and epidemiological realities. They try to rationalize CV19 away.

More significant here is the Western strategic community, caught now in a similar, increasingly anachronistic world of familiar friends and enemies. Cold War Redux, which by one measure began around 2013 with Western-instigated anti-Russian violent regime change in Ukraine, Russia’s vulnerable underbelly, is now so deeply embedded in Western strategic thinking that even the most thoughtful Western strategists find it hard to see beyond its familiar boundaries of thought and policy.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to fulminate thoughtlessly and vindictively, threatening ever-crueler sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. The White Helmets continue to foment false chemical warfare allegations, in the war against the legitimate Syrian government, which their side are losing. NATO continues automaton-like to arm and exercise against the imagined Russian threat.

Coronavirus patients at the Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, Iran. (Fars News Agency, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

A ‘Pitiful, Helpless Giant’

CV19 is collapsing this dangerously illusory world. Let’s look first at military logistics. Spectacular news broke on Tuesday that the captain of the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, on station near Guam, has requested the immediate evacuation of 90 percent of his crew of 4,000 into individual quarantine after the carrier reported an outbreak of CV19 on board. Over 70 crew members have tested positive for CV19 and in cramped ship conditions the disease is spreading fast. The captain recommends a skeleton crew of 400 be left on board, to safeguard the ship’s weapons and reactors while it is quarantined and sanitized.

More contradictions: The U.S. has been forced to suspend a planned attack on pro-Iranian Shia militia in Iraq, because of spreading CV19 in U.S. bases in Iraq. Planned massive NATO maneuvers this summer on the Russian border have had to be scaled back severely due to CV19 risks. Faced by horrendous mortality facts and projections in New York, Trump is forced to send the U.S. Navy’s largest hospital ship there to bolster local overstretched medical resources. China and Russia – the putative enemies – are flying much-needed medical relief supplies in to the U.S.

The U.S. may be sliding towards becoming the “pitiful, helpless giant” which Richard Nixon warned against in 1970.

The familiar diplomatic fabric of our former world is also under intense pressure now. The UN and the UN Security Council, for long theaters for ritualistic Cold War games, is being energized by the CV19 world crisis. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has denounced the anachronism and cruelty of wars and sanctions by powerful countries in the new CV19 world. He has called for a “ceasefire.” His call was supported by the Pope, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and so far 53 UN member nations. More and more, the U.S. and its NATO allies look like a resentful and recalcitrant rump of ill-wishers. The U.S. blocks a motherhood UN Security Council resolution calling for unified world action against CV19, because China and Russia reject draft resolution language claiming that the virus originated in China.

The Dark Web

Let’s look at that troubling question. In what country did the CV19 virus first break out? In wet wild animal markets in Wuhan, or in germ warfare laboratories? Did it break out accidentally or was it deliberately released? The Dark Web is full of disturbing allegations and counter-allegations. So far, none of the major powers have dignified any such allegations at the level of official government statements. The ships of states sail on, but there is angry gossip just below decks.

Trump, Putin and Xi would undoubtedly know of these ugly stories. It is no coincidence that in recent days the three leaders are again talking cordially. Trump’s Cold War hawks in Washington have been silenced for now. Trump knows he has to maintain civility towards his partner leaders who are now helping his stricken country. He needs them. And they are too professionally gracious to humiliate or reprimand him in America’s hour of need. All three will observe the courtesies, whatever the Dark Web is alleging.

Let me draw this together: the pre-CV19 economic, strategic and diplomatic world is starting to unravel in myriad ways which are not yet clear. In its death throes, the dying Cold War world will take casualties: NATO, conceived as a Euro-American aggressive military alliance against Russia; the war-mongering Pompeo and the U.S. fondness for economic sanctions against its enemies.

What Might We Expect?

In the new diplomatic landscape, which can as yet only be dimly seen, old verities going back to 1945 will be rediscovered. The UN Security Council will again find its proper role as a collective instrument of world solidarity against aggression by any – any – powerful nation that goes rogue. The U.S. will learn again how to practice real diplomacy based on nations’ sovereignty and mutual respect, instead of crude great power bullying. Russia and China will generously put their past hurts behind them, secure in their new strength after Putin’s establishment of an invulnerable, nuclear MAD deterrent and the nightmare experience of CV19.

In this model future – I will admit, an optimistic model, but not grossly so – the world will begin to recover its sanity. We will gradually step back from the precipice of nuclear devastation on which we have teetered for at least the past seven years. We will work together to build less environmentally destructive systems of global trade and travel, armed with the new knowledge that having survived CV19 lockdowns will bring. We will concentrate on rethinking societies, and on rebuilding public order and confidence and respect for all classes in Western societies after the terrible wounds CV19 is inflicting on the weak and poor as I write. We will work together to put in place more resilient, less fragile systems of global trade and cooperation.

I argue here, in sum, that the U.S. and its obedient allies cannot go on fighting an anachronistic Cold War Redux against China and Russia, while the world struggles to defeat CV19, this stealthy new common enemy.

And that when this war is won — as it will be won: to then go back to Cold War Redux will seem increasingly distracting and pointless. I think Trump, for all his faults, dimly gets this already. As Xi and Putin certainly do.

Tony Kevin is a former Australian senior diplomat and the author of six published books on public policy and international relations.

April 2, 2020 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

“Business as Usual” Isn’t Even a Choice

By Anatoly Karlin • Unz Review • April 1, 2020

A few days ago, I joked on Twitter:

The choice isn’t between boomer genocide and an economic collapse.

The choice is between boomer genocide and economic collapse, or producing millions of 5 cent masks and making people wear them.

Reality is, it is only boomer genocide that isn’t a choice.

74% of Americans support a national quarantine, and that even includes 72% of Republicans. In France, there is a near consensus on lockdown at 96%. In Italy it is 94%.

In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro – the only President of a major democratic polity who continues to insist on treating coronavirus as a nothingburger – has been made into a lame duck, his commands ignored by 24 out of Brazil’s 27 governors and even by his own Health Minister.

Meanwhile, as predicted by Ron Unz, Trump has performed a volte face, extending federal social distancing guidelines past Easter up to April 30 and now touts 100,000 deaths as a “good scenario.”

Which is just as well, because as we know see, modern democracies are simply incapable of “powering through” even through what is a fairly low-mortality pandemic in historical terms.

Consequently, the only choices are:

  • Nip it in the bud early on through mass testing-tracing-treatment, border controls, and limited lockdowns, resulting in limited economic damage. [for example]
  • Wait until later, necessitating progressively more massive, longer, and economically ruinous lockdowns. [for example]

So the only correct move is to clamp down close to the start, and to clamp down hard. This is what was done in all the East Asian polities, be they chaotic democracies, city-state technocracies, or Communist single-party states.

Because in the latter scenario, there will eventually come a time when you are simply sidelined by your own underlings and by regional authorities, adding a political crisis on top of a healthcare and economic one.

In my post on Trump’s initial decision, I speculated:

Far out scenario: Blue states may outright defy Trump on abandoning containment measures, in which case they too would be doing starkly better than Red states (unless it also sparks a Constitutional crisis into the bargain).

Well, on that note, here’s a Tweet from California governor Gavin Newsom today. That’s some interesting wording there:

So again, good on Donald Trump to have come to terms with Corona reality and averting what could have become a very dangerous experiment.

This brings us to another interesting question: Will we get a “clean” experiment anywhere?

As per above, I don’t think it’s going to happen in any democracy. Britain backed away from its “herd immunity” idea two weeks ago, on realizing that their models didn’t include a term for ventilator shortages. The Dutch followed soon afterwards. With Sweden’s coronavirus mortality trajectory beginning to radically diverge from those of its Nordic cousins, I believe it is only a matter of time before they go into lockdown as well.

My guess is that our best “hope” – inappropriate as that expression may be – lies in Belarus, which is run by a decidedly non-coronapilled dictator.

April 2, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , | 2 Comments

EU Demands Serbia to Help Kosovo During Coronavirus But Restricts Assistance for Bosnian Serbs

By Paul Antonopoulos | April 2, 2020

The Working Group for the Chapter 35 of the Serbian National Convention on the European Union (EU) has called for the authorities in Serbia and Kosovo to create a cooperation to reduce the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We witness the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) representing a great danger everywhere in the world and the health systems increasingly burdened with the number of infected patients. The pandemic has shown that the spread of the disease goes beyond borders, national and ethnic origin or religion of the affected, and can only be combatted through joint action, cooperation and solidarity. Cooperation is necessary primarily for the sake of humanity and responsibility for human lives in these difficult times,” the press release reads.

In times of crisis, the EU proclaims that Kosovo is in fact Serbia’s responsibility. This unprincipled nature of the EU is solely guided by the interests of its major members and aims to palm off the medical responsibility of the illegal breakaway province of Kosovo back to Serbia. The EU did nothing to suppress Albanian separatism. In fact, the EU supports the illegality of Kosovo’s independence by deploying over 1,000 police officers under the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo mandate and all member states with the exception of Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia, recognizing Kosovo’s independence.

The EU Task Force on Chapter 35 calls for communication channels between medical staff in Serbia and Kosovo to be open as it would allow the exchange of information on the pandemic to be crossed over on a daily basis. This could also perhaps even contribute significantly to the reconciliation of the two entities. Even though Serbia is under EU pressure to help Kosovo, Belgrade should not give in to any concessions offered by Brussels on the Kosovo issue. The promise of EU membership will certainly be mentioned.

The EU is trying to force Serbia to expend their resources to send aid to Kosovo without expecting any acts of good will from the Albanian side. This is a policy that requires Serbia to treat Kosovo as its own territory while the EU still attempts to make Belgrade accept that Kosovo is an independent state. A similar appeal was sent to Serbia from the EU at the time of the migrant crisis when the EU also isolated itself from the problems in Kosovo and asked Belgrade to cooperate with Pristina in controlling migrant flows and make records of illegal immigrants traveling via Kosovo in 2015 and 2016.

While Serbia is expected to help Kosovo, despite the EU’s insistence that it is independent, Serbia is not able to assist the Republika Srpska in Bosnia. As part of Bosnia’s independence deal, two entities were formed, the Serbian-majority Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Hezegovina, where the majority of Muslims and Croatians in Bosnia live. Sarajevo’s political leaders are vetoing the decision of the Republika Srpska National Assembly to introduce a state of emergency in its territory to stop the spread of the coronavirus. For political reasons, Muslim Bosnians are stopping life-saving security measures, which are supported by the international community, and while Serbia is expected to help Kosovo, it cannot help the Republika Srpska.

Bosnia blocked the Republika Srpska so that the borders between the two entities could not be closed as the Serbian entity wanted to do. However, if we look internationally to places like Australia, states in the same country have closed their own borders to those who do not live in a particular state. According to the laws of Bosnia, Republika Srpska cannot close their border without approval from Sarajevo.

Therefore, Sarajevo’s moves are about antagonism and political contradiction at a time when coronavirus can engulf both entities of the country. The Bosnian Muslims have no argument for denying measures to protect people from coronavirus and are using this situation to stir up ethnic tensions rather than seeing this as a medical issue. As already shown earlier, it is not a contradiction to close the borders of the entities as many states and regions around the world have closed their borders despite being the same country.

The Republika Srpska is trying to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously and its National Assembly even voted in a majority to declare a state of emergency. Even EU High Representative to Bosnia, Valentin Incko, welcomed the decision and the commitment of Republika Srpska President Željka Cvijanović to use extraordinary powers in the interest of public health. Incko also pointed out that stopping the spread of the coronavirus and saving the lives of citizens must be priorities for all Bosnian authorities. However, his recommendations did not go into the realm of pressuring Bosnian authorities, and so long as the borders remain open, the people of Republika Srpska remain susceptible to higher rates of infection.

While Serbia is expected to assist Kosovo on the behalf of the EU, despite not being an EU member and the EU insisting on Kosovo’s independence, Belgrade also cannot assist Republika Srpska without being accused of interfering in Bosnian affairs. It is little wonder then that Belgrade has lost interest in appeasing Brussels and no longer responds to promises of EU membership, and rather it continues to build its relations with traditional ally Russia as well as emerging superpower China.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

April 2, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

The lies the U.S. is using to blame Covid-19 on China

By Rainer Shea | Medium | April 1, 2020

The Washington imperialists and the corporate media are manipulating the narrative around Covid-19 in the same ways that they’ve controlled discourse around the comparably dramatic crisis of 9/11. Just like how the Bush White House immediately concluded (based upon still dubious evidence) that Osama Bin Laden was the one who had directed the attacks in order to justify starting the war in Afghanistan, and like how the Bush team campaigned to associate Saddam Hussein with 9/11 to justify invading Iraq, Covid-19 is being weaponized as a war propaganda tool. And now the designated enemies are China, Iran, Russia, and the other countries which threaten U.S. hegemony.

As was also the case after 9/11, the imperialist narrative managers are using McCarthyism, censorship, and intensive demonization of the designated enemies to hide the growing amount of evidence that the U.S. is connected to the crisis.

The evidence is in favor of the virus having originated in the U.S., not China

Like how the CIA conspired with Saudi Arabia to cover up details about 9/11 which contradicted the official Washington narrative, or how the media has ignored the evidence of Mossad foreknowledge of 9/11, the U.S. State Department and major media outlets are working to conceal and deflect from the questions about America’s potential responsibility for the virus.

There have been many events in the last year that suggest the U.S. brought the virus to China, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute in Fort Detrick was closed down in July 2019. Then in October, a team of U.S. troopers who had trained near Fort Detrick traveled to Wuhan, staying a mere 300 meters from the seafood market where the virus spread from. If these troops were deliberately sent there to proliferate the virus, it wouldn’t be unprecedented in U.S. warfare; Washington has a history of transferring viruses to use as diplomatic cargo for secret military programs.

These coincidences, while not necessarily compelling evidence for the bioweapon hypothesis on their own, are accompanied by solid evidence that Covid-19 started in the United States. As Larry Romanoff has written, “the genome varieties of the virus in Iran and Italy have been sequenced and declared to have no part of the variety that infected China and must, by definition, have originated elsewhere. It would seem the only possibility for origination would be the US because only that country has the ‘tree trunk’ of all the varieties.” Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University, has helped support the hypothesized link between the U.S. troops and the original Wuhan outbreak by concluding that “The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace.”

But enough with my hesitant language about how it’s supposedly still unclear whether the virus came from America. Chinese spokesman Zhao Lijian has formally accused Washington of bringing the virus to China, saying “When did patient zero begin in U.S? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! U.S. owe us an explanation!” Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali has made a similar statement about Covid-19’s origins: “Instead of leveling false accusations against China and Iran, U.S. officials should respond to international demands regarding its role in creating and spreading the coronavirus and the continuation of its crimes against the Iranian people by keeping in place the economic sanctions.”

Was Covid-19 engineered in an American laboratory? While a recent study has provided evidence against this, the scientific debate over whether it was artificially created will continue to go on. Plus, bioweapons don’t even have to be artificially created-just look at all of the already existing diseases that U.S. biowarfare operations have brought to Cuba. And even if the virus came from the U.S. to China by accident, it’s certain that China is not the country where the virus came from.

Painting China’s response to the virus as “incompetent” and “authoritarian”

Anti-Chinese propaganda often takes the form of the Western media observing benign events in China or minor slip-ups in Chinese policy, and twisting them into outrage stories. So was the case for the imperialist propaganda machine’s representation of the story of Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who mistakenly spread a false message on WeChat and was subsequently warned about it by Chinese authorities. The government then paid tribute to Li for helping combat the virus and retracted their warning against him after his death, but disingenuous pundits used the incident to score rhetorical points in the information war against China.

The government’s response to Wenliang didn’t have to do with his public revelation of the virus, which was done only a day before the government decided to officially announce that the virus was a problem. Yet it’s been suggested that his decision to speak up about the virus conflicted with the agenda of the government, and that the government had targeted him for his whistleblowing.

This ridiculous distortion of events was used to justify the Western media’s deeply unfair overall portrayal of the Chinese response to the virus, as represented by this paragraph from a recent Vice article:

China initially ignored the outbreak that first surfaced in Wuhan in early December, silencing doctors who tried to raise the alarm before eventually enacting a draconian and restrictive lockdown that impacted 50 million people.

Vice, which is one of the outlets that’s been known to promote content under the direct guidance of the U.S. government in recent years, is here engaging in a subtle ploy to associate China’s response to the virus with “authoritarianism.” China’s “draconian restrictive lockdown,” which is another way to say “quarantine,” was entirely necessary and in line with how most other governments have handled the virus. But Vice’s phrasing is meant to reinforce the narratives that China had failed to respond to the virus quickly enough, and that the actions it took against the virus were oppressive and sinister.

The underlying message, which is that those quarantined by China’s government were put in an unusually miserable and repressive state compared to the other quarantined populations around the world, is absurd. Thanks to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, China’s people have had access to universal healthcare during this crisis. They’ve been in a country that’s virtually eradicated poverty. They’ve been able to contact police officers who go shopping for families in need of assistance during the quarantine. This contrasts with capitalist countries like the United States, where the gutted and highly privatized healthcare system is being overwhelmed, the people who’ve lost their jobs during the quarantine are already largely in financial hardship due to neoliberalism, and the police have continued to act as a terrorizing force which frequently shoots innocent people.

Another claim the Vice article makes is that “even the slightest reference to coronavirus or the government’s response was erased” as a result of China’s censorship. This is also misleading. Most of what the censors deleted was people referring to the military games in regards to the virus, likely as a measure for keeping the public from jumping to conclusions too early about America’s potential role in the crisis. They did not go after posts that referenced the severity of the crisis, but rather material that could be harmful to international relations.

This week, the U.S. propaganda machine expanded upon these claims by alleging that China lied about the extent of the virus. Unsurprisingly, the intelligence agents who are cited as sources for this revelation are anonymous. And the Bloomberg reporters who helped break this story didn’t even see the report behind it, instead having the details outlined to them by these mysterious officials. There was no evidence to back up their claims; all they did was craft another headline that reflects the other baseless insinuations from imperialist propagandists.

These charges and mischaracterizations distract from the enormously effective efforts of the CPC in combating the virus. Because of the party’s rapid construction of medical centers and sustained widespread quarantine, the disease has recently been close to obliterated within the country. China has also provided medical resources to numerous countries, a humanitarian act which the mentioned Vice article somehow tries to spin as a bad thing.

The CPC responded as best as was possible for it to, and keeping a spreading pandemic within a country’s border is essentially beyond the powers of any state. So China can’t be accused of letting the virus spread throughout an unnecessary amount of its people (as the U.S. government can certainly be accused of). Nor can China reasonably be accused of “letting” the virus spread globally.

Using McCarthyism and censorship to shut down those who challenge the warmongering claims

Pandemics create a scary kind of political psychology. Similar to the mass fears of terrorism throughout the last two decades, when people feel threatened by a disease they become hostile towards those who step out of the defined parameters for keeping society safe. While those urging people to disregard all of the Covid-19 safety advice are engaging in dangerous misinformation, this fringe and extreme position is being conflated with voicing dissenting views about where the virus came from and which country is responsible.

Headlines about pro-China Covid-19 content being “foreign disinformation” are promoting the perception that it’s wrong to ask the questions I’ve posed throughout this article, or to point out the falsehoods of Western reporting on China’s handling of the virus. It’s making dialogue about the issue harder to have, and it’s giving leverage to the oligarchic censorship engines within the U.S./NATO empire.

Facebook has been deleting posts about the virus to a far more thorough extent than has been the case for China’s censors. At the same time, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the BBC, and other entities have joined in on a project called the Trusted News Initiative. TNI partner Noel Curran has said about the project’s goal that “There is a tide of misinformation and bad information, driven mainly through online social platforms, which is threatening to undermine public trust and cause further anxiety for people. This initiative underlines the role of public service media in tackling misinformation head-on and delivering accurate content that audiences can safely rely on.”

It’s an extension of the McCarthyism, censorship, and stigmatization of supposed “fake news” that’s dominated Western politics in recent years. Media hysteria about “Russian interference” after the 2016 election facilitated an unprecedented series of censorship measures from corporations and governments, rationalized by a desire to protect trust in institutions. Amid the last decade’s growing backlash to neoliberalism, the ruling class has been waging a war on dissenting journalism and socialist politics. Now is another opportunity to silence and shame those who challenge imperialist and capitalist narratives.

An example of the emerging hostile atmosphere towards dissent can be found in a recent graphic from Counter Hate UK, which advises people to respond to “Coronavirus misinformation” with the following measures: “Report misinformation to platforms,” “[don’t] reply, share, or quote misinformation,” and “spread official advice” to “drown out fake news.”

This is the psychological weapon that the U.S./NATO empire is using to keep itself on the path of war escalations and internal repression: instilling people with the fear that if they challenge anything the centers of power tell them about the virus, they’ll endanger society. But we need critical thinking and open dissent more than ever during this time. The capitalist ruling class is neglecting the needs of the masses while using the crisis to exacerbate inequality, and we poor and working people need to fight back. We must challenge the narratives which enable the imperialist war campaigns against China and other countries, and we must work to intensify the class struggle.

April 2, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 1 Comment

India introduces new Kashmir domicile law, raising fears of demographic manipulation

Press TV – April 2, 2020

India has introduced a new law that would make its citizens eligible to become permanent residents of the Indian-administered Kashmir, raising fears of demographic change in the Muslim-majority, Himalayan region.

The new law, which was announced by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday and which reportedly is not subject to parliamentary review, will deem any person who has resided in the Indian-controlled Kashmir for a period of 15 years or studied at certain school grades there as “domicile” of the territory.

The new law will also provide domicile status to the children of central government officials who have served in the Indian-controlled Kashmir for a total period of 10 years.

It will also open local jobs to non-residents.

The introduction of the law comes almost eight months after the Indian government stripped the disputed region of its limited autonomy. On August 5 last year, New Delhi revoked Article 370, a constitutional provision that had come into effect in 1949 and had granted special status to Kashmir, allowing it to have its own flag and constitution, among other rights.

In the lead-up to the revocation, India sent thousands of additional troops to the disputed region, imposed a curfew, arrested political leaders, and shut down telecommunication lines.

The new law also comes as the country of 1.3 billion people is under a 21-day lockdown in an attempt to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, raising speculation that the timing is intentional.

Legalizing settlements?

Residents in the Indian-controlled Kashmir fear that the new law would alter the demographic status of the region, with experts saying it will lead to “demographic flooding.”

“It is a lot to circumvent the law. I think it illustrates clearly that some will not stop from politicking during coronavirus [epidemic],” Siddiq Wahid, a political analyst based in the Indian-controlled Kashmir, said.

“Obviously it is an attempt to change the demographics, not only change but flood it. It will lead to demographic flooding,” Wahid said, according to Al Jazeera.

Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a professor of legal studies based in the region, said the move had already been in the offing.

“The whole purpose of revoking Article 370 was to settle outsiders here and change the demography of the [Jammu and Kashmir] state. Now this provides the modalities and entitles so many categories of Indians whose settlement will be legalized over here.”

India’s ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has denied that the new law is an attempt to change the demography of the region.

Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since partition in 1947. Both countries claim all of Kashmir and have fought three wars over the territory.

Meanwhile, Muslims elsewhere in India have also been facing abuse and violence.

April 2, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

West Trying to Take Advantage of Venezuela’s Coronavirus Woes to Topple Gov’t – Moscow

Sputnik – April 2, 2020

The West is trying to take advantage of Venezuela’s difficulties during the coronavirus outbreak to depose the Maduro government, Russian Foreign Minsitry said on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, we see that a number of countries are still guided by the desire to take advantage of the difficult situation in the world and the epidemiological situation in Venezuela in particular to achieve political goals”, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said during a briefing on Thursday.

According to her, the idea of a coup that would lead to the ouster of the legitimately elected president of the country still remains in the minds of some political forces in the West.

“We object to the blocking of assistance to Caracas through the IMF. We condemn the US far-fetched drug-trafficking accusations against the head of a sovereign state”, she added.

Venezuela has so far registered 143 COVID-19 cases and three deaths. Last week, Russia delivered the first batch of 10,000 coronavirus test kits to the country and vowed to continue this assistance. China, in turn, sent a team to medical experts to help the sanctioned and the cash-strapped country. Both nations have called for lifting sanctions on Venezuela.

Amid these developments, Pompeo said on Tuesday that an interim government could be established in Venezuela, consisting of National Assembly members and accepted by both Caracas and the opposition, to serve until the next presidential and legislative elections. The US pledges to remove sanctions should the conditions of its plan, including “the departure of foreign security forces” and free elections, be met.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza rejected firmly on Tuesday Washington’s crisis settlement plan, which envisions the creation of an interim government and elections within the next year.

April 2, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 4 Comments