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TRICKS OF TREATS? Ft. Tim Noakes, Prominent South African Athlete & Scientist

WorldsApaRT | September 6, 2020

There are times in life when much of what you hold as truth is debunked, when the sweetest of treats turn out to be the worst of poisons and when you realize that the people who took the oath of doing no harm, in fact, made you or your loved ones sicker. Such a realization has already arrived or is in store for millions of people around the world suffering from insulin resistance, a condition that wrecks the body’s metabolic and immune systems and often condemns people to a poor life and an awful death. How to see through these sweet lies before it’s too late? To discuss this Oksana is joined by Tim Noakes, founder of The Noakes Foundation.

This interview was organised with the help of The Noakes Foundation – http://thenoakesfoundation.org/

September 13, 2020 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

Jewish settlers torch agricultural land in West Bank town of Mikhmas

Palestine Information Center – September 13, 2020

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – A group of Jewish settlers on Saturday set fire to swaths of agricultural land belonging to Palestinian citizens in Mikhmas town in the northeast of Occupied Jerusalem.

According to local sources, a horde of settlers were seen touring an area near Mikhmas town before entering a Palestinian-owned grove and then setting trees ablaze.

Eyewitnesses said that the settlers fled the area and ran towards illegal settlements near the town.

Many olive trees were burned in the fire after the local residents experienced difficulty in extinguishing and controlling the flames due to the rugged nature of the area and the presence of Israeli soldiers who prevented them from reaching some plots of land.

September 13, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

US Presidential Elections and the Korean Peninsula

By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 13.09.2020

In the United States, participants in the presidential election that will be held on November 3, have been determined. The Republican nominee is the White House’s current head, Donald Trump, and the Democratic nominee is former Vice President Joe Biden. In this context, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea has launched a working group to forecast election results and analyze the promises and political positions of the two candidates as well as their possible impact on diplomacy, security, and the economy.

A reasonable step, since there are less than two months left until November 3, 2020, and, according to American experts, it is difficult to determine the clear winner. Still, this text will be about how the election results will affect the Korean Peninsula situation. To a lesser extent, the region as a whole.

Donald Trump intends to continue his current policy, the main principles of which are strengthening protectionism and creating new jobs. In his opinion, to be a global hegemon, the United States must first focus on internal problems and not waste forces and resources outside.

In this context, Trump intends to stop the endless and unprofitable from his point of view wars that the United States is waging: note that, despite the hostile rhetoric and aggressive Twitter, Trump so far, has turned out to be one of the few US presidents under whom the US military did not find another enemy.

On the other hand, Joe Biden intends to preserve the traditional model of US leadership in foreign policy, updating diplomatic ties and relations from which Trump pulled out as unprofitable. Biden wants to rejoin the world health organization and join the Paris Climate Agreement (UNFCCC), believing that Trump’s steps have led to a weakening of the US position in the world.

In terms of relationships, Trump is a more difficult partner for Seoul (South Korea) than Biden. If re-elected, he will further strengthen his “America first” policy, including the desire to “make allies pay their fair share.” According to experts of the Republic of Korea, having untied his hands for a second term, he will try to recall foreign military contingents to their homeland and force the allies to increase their share in joint defense spending with the United States.

While Washington and Seoul are still at an impasse over how much more burden South Korea should shoulder, Seoul offers a maximum of +13% of the previous amount. At the same time, Washington wants at least 50%. If re-elected, Trump will continue the pressure. Also, it is not known what Trump’s policy will be on maintaining the American contingent in the Republic of Korea in its current form. They may try to reduce it.

A similar situation applies to the Korea-US bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), which, according to Trump, created jobs only for South Korea: “We made a terrible deal with South Korea, remember? A particular case with Hillary Clinton. She said it would give 250,000 jobs, and she was right, except that, unfortunately, the jobs went to South Korea, not to us”.

Under Biden, such demands are likely to be curtailed, but one must remember that in general, Seoul’s economic and value dependence on Washington will not go anywhere.

The North Korean agenda of the two candidates differ more clearly. Donald Trump relies on friendly relations with Kim Jong-un (Supreme Leader of North Korea). He constantly gives reminders that another President would have brought the matter to war, which would have cost the United States “Very Dearly.” While the process “is paused,” each participant receives a minor victory: from Trump, the sanctions are working, and North Korean intercontinental Ballistic missiles (ICBMs) don’t fly; from the perspective of Kim, it is time to shift all their focus for a country’s economic development, overcoming the consequences of the pandemic and adjusting it to the next round of sanctions, that will allow him to continue to improve the standard of living of the population and to lead by carrot, not just by stick.

Nobody wants to make deals with a “lame duck”, but if Trump triumphs for a second term, we can expect a formal continuation of the dialogue, more precisely, a series of demonstration events designed to show that the discussion continues and there is no deadlock in it. Yes, significant counter steps will be expected from America. Still, for the sake of four years of calm in this direction, Trump may take a couple of steps towards it if his domestic political positions strengthen. So far, Trump has promised a “quick deal” if re-elected, but details remain in the shadows. The author expects a statement about ending the Korean war as a symbolic gesture, yet crucial for both sides.

From Biden & Co’s point of view, Trump is flirting with a tyrant without any result. The fact that North Korea does not launch intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) or conducts nuclear tests does not mean that the North’s nuclear missile program has stalled. No, it continues, which means that the problem is not solved. Also, if for the Republicans, the number 1 problem related to North Korea is the Nuclear Programm for the Korean Peninsula, for the Democrats – it is an oppressive regime that violates human rights. Let’s not forget that the US Democratic party’s agenda mainly revolves around protecting specific oppressed categories and from the standpoint of human rights violations, “digging up the North” is very convenient.

Biden himself was a scathing critic of Trump’s policies and his meetings with Kim Jong-un, which led North Korean media to call him a rabid dog that should be beaten to death for insulting the country’s “highest dignity.”

Therefore, in the event of his victory, everything that Trump and Kim have achieved will be reset to zero. Reuters openly say that if Biden wins, “there will be no more exchange of love letters or a spectacular summit”. There will be an attempt at “coordinated efforts” to build a coalition against North Korea, strengthen its diplomatic isolation, and “draw attention to human rights violations in the country in a way that has been lacking in current US policy.” In doing so, he will rely on hawks like Victor Cha or Evans Revere, and to a greater extent, take into account the requirements of Japan. For example, start making a big fuss over its citizens abducted by North Korea.

Revere admits that “the American arms control community is likely to have a strong voice in the Biden administration and will argue it is time to accept that North Korea is now a nuclear power“. But the conclusion from this will be made not “With the new nuclear power, we must conduct dialogue as an equal” but “Crush it at any cost.”

Of course, action will generate opposition, and experts suggest that a Biden victory could push North Korea into hostile action. At the very least, new demonstrations of North Korean military power “within acceptable limits,” such as Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile tests, and as a maximum, a break in the gentleman’s agreement on Intercontinental ballistic missiles or nuclear tests, which North Korea continues to observe, despite words that there is no longer a moratorium. However, according to Revere and his colleagues, such actions will only help to highlight the threat posed by the Kim regime, gaining more understanding from allies and justifying retaliatory measures.

Now about what will NOT change regardless of who takes the White House.

President Trump’s confrontation between Beijing and Washington continues, without prejudice of the President and his entourage, but with many complex reasons, both technical and ideological. China becomes a challenge in terms of having a successful alternative system of values, extremely dangerous for the US hegemony supported by a) the leading position it has held on the market of meanings and b) the idea that the liberal democracy the US embodies may have flaws, but by the sum of the factors it is still the best model.

Another thing is that if in the confrontation with China, Trump was more focused on direct pressure or methods of economic war, the Democrats will use more subtle ways. They are primarily attempting to brand Beijing as trampling on universal values. We may see increased support within Chinese dissidents and separatists, as well as a more effective fanning of hysteria around the fact that human rights are violated in China (up to the possible fabrication of witnesses or taking on faith outright fakes from the repertoire of the Falun Gong sect).

The sanctions loop will not weaken but strengthen. Although Trump criticized Obama’s policies, he continued Obama’s course of “strategic patience,” which consisted of refraining from risky and dangerous areas, gently rocking the boat, and waiting for North Korea to break in the ring of increasing sanctions. Moreover, he supplemented this with the concept of a secondary boycott, and most likely, Biden will continue this line.

But back to South Korea. Experts contacted by the Korea Times believe that the two candidates show both their good and bad sides for South Korean diplomacy and national security. On the one hand, the current problems with the Free Trade Agreement or the distribution of military spending, which make Trump the worse candidate. On the other hand, Moon Jae-In desires to promote the agenda of inter-Korean reconciliation, and here Biden is worse.

For North Korea, Trump is more acceptable: a bad peace is better than a good quarrel, and in the case of Biden, the probability of the latter increases. The author traditionally hopes for the best but is preparing to consider all options.

Konstantin Asmolov is a Candidate of Historical Sciences, leading science associate of the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East of the RAS.

September 13, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

A Truly Poisonous Foreign Policy: A Ridiculous Proposal from The New York Times

By Philip Giraldi | American Herald tribune | September 13, 2020

If one had been reading America’s leading newspapers and magazines over the past several weeks the series of featured stories suggesting that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is some kind of latter day Lucrezia Borgia would have been impossible to avoid. Putin, who was simultaneously being branded as some kind of totalitarian monster, apparently does not just go around chopping off heads. Instead, he prefers to slip military grade poison into people’s tea or wipes it onto their doorknobs. The case of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in England is being cited as evidence that poisoning is a routine way of cleaning out the closets, so to speak, together with that of Aleksandr Litvinenko, who died in England in 2006 under mysterious circumstances after reportedly drinking a radioactive isotope that had been placed into his cup of tea while dining at a sushi restaurant in London. Apparently the raw fish had nothing to do with it.

There are, of course, parts of the story that just don’t fit no matter how hard one tries. The Skripals, father and daughter, lived in Salisbury within walking distance of Britain’s chemical and biological weapons lab located at Porton Down, an option for poisoning that was never fully explored. And there was no real reason to kill them in 2018 as they no longer posed any threat to Russian interests, having escaped [in a spy swap] to England twelve years before. In fact, they did not die, which in itself seems odd since the lethal agent was eventually reported by the British to have been Novichok, which may have been smeared on their from door latch. Novichok is designed for battlefield use and reputedly kills instantly.

Poisoning is certainly a convenient short cut when one is unable or unwilling to persevere with the basic principle of politics among nations, often referred to as Diplomacy 101. The first rule in Diplomacy 101 is that you prioritize your interests so that you are not wasting your time and energy by pursuing objectives that are either essentially inconsequential or even meaningless at the expense of authentic vital national interests. By all accounts, Vladimir Putin is an astute politician who would recognize that killing political opponents is counter-productive. Far better to let them live to demonstrate that Russia is truly a country that allows dissent.

At the same time, if one wants to witness ignorance and hubris combined in news reporting, at its worst, it is only necessary to journey through the stories on Russia and Putin that comes out of the strange world inhabited by the punditry at newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post.

Bret Stephens, a self-proclaimed conservative voice at the New York Times, makes no attempt to conceal his hostility to nations like Russia, China and Iran. His latest foray into the unknown is to advocate congressional legislation to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin. He calls it the “Navalny Act.” The eponymous Navalny is Alexei Navalny, a leading Russian dissident who is currently in Germany being treated for what has been described as a poisoning carried out by unknown persons using a somewhat unidentifiable poison for an unknown objective, which is presumed to be killing him as he is a critic of the Putin regime.

Stephens advocates a law by Congress that would empower the U.S. government to both initiate and increase sanctions while also placing travel bans on those individuals who might be implicated in the claimed poisoning of Navalny. It is, in effect, direct interference in a foreign government’s domestic activities, which might have the consequence of inviting foreign governments and the U.N. to start inquiring into just how the U.S. does business. Stephens goes beyond sanctions and travels by further advocating linking his Navalny Act to the Senate’s proposed Defending American Security From Kremlin Aggression Act, or DASKA, that is being promoted by none less than Lindsey Graham. It would require inter alia that intelligence agencies issue available to the public reports on Vladimir Putin’s personal wealth.

There are inevitably a number of problems with the blame Putin narrative. As Israel Shamir observed shortly after the fact, it was at first by no means completely clear if Navalny was actually poisoned at all. He fell ill while flying from Siberia to Moscow and was tested for poisons before it being determined that he might have suffered a diabetic attack. When in Germany for treatment, a mysterious water bottle was produced by his family that the Bundeswehr labs are now claiming had traces of Novichok on its surface. If Novichok truly were on the bottle Navalny, his family and the air crew would all be dead, as well as the Bundeswehr technicians.

If Putin was behind the poisoning of a prominent dissident, it would have served no purpose beyond freeing oneself up from a political nuisance, so there would have been little in the way of motive. Quite the contrary, as Russia is, in fact, in the final stages of setting up the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project with Germany, which with be highly profitable to both countries and is being strongly opposed by the Trump regime.

The White House has been trying hard to kill the project on “national security grounds” to benefit potential U.S. gas suppliers, so much for Trump being a tool of Putin. That rather suggests that the U.S. might have more motive than the Kremlin to poison Navalny, namely to create a cause celebre damning Putin. At the moment, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in fact reported to be hesitant about completing the project due to the Navalny furor and pressure from Washington.

Interestingly, Stephens quotes his good friend Bill Browder, who was enthusiastic about the prospects for a new piece of legislation to beat Putin over the head with. Browder, the original darling of the war party who has described himself as Vladimir Putin’s “number one enemy,” was the driving force behind much of the original legislation to punish Russia, but his story has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.

Browder is much loved by Congress as he embodies Russo-phobia. He is a major hedge fund figure who, inter alia, is an American by birth. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1997 in exchange for British citizenship to avoid paying federal taxes on his worldwide income. He is what used to be referred to as an oligarch, having set up shop in Russia in 1999 as Hermitage Capital Management Fund, a hedge fund registered in tax havens Guernsey and the Cayman Islands. It focused on “investing” in Russia, taking advantage initially of the loans-for-shares scheme under Russia’s drunkard President Boris Yeltsin, and then continuing to profit greatly during the early years of Vladimir Putin. By 2005 Hermitage was the largest foreign investor in Russia.

Similar to the proposed Navalny Act and central to the tale of what Browder really represents is the Magnitsky Act, which the U.S. Congress passed into law to sanction individual Kremlin officials for their treatment of alleged whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, arrested and imprisoned in Russia. Browder has sold a narrative which basically says that he and his “lawyer” Sergei Magnitsky uncovered massive tax fraud and, when they attempted to report it, were punished by a corrupt police force and magistracy, which had actually stolen the money. Magnitsky was arrested and died in prison, allegedly murdered by the police to silence him.

The Magnitsky Act asserts American “rights” to punish crimes occurring anywhere in the world, a right that is claimed by no other nation. By it, the U.S. asserted its willingness to punish foreign governments for human rights abuses. The Act, initially limited to Russia, has now been expanded by virtue of 2016’s Global Magnitsky Act, which enabled U.S. sanctions worldwide. The proposed Navalny Act coupled with Lindsay Graham’s DASKA would together go well beyond even that bit of draconian legislation.

The basis for the Magnitsky Act was essentially fraudulent, just as might turn out to be the case with the Navalny story. Contrary narrative to that provided by Browder concedes that there was indeed a huge fraud related to as much as $230 million in unpaid Russian taxes, but that it was not carried out by corrupt officials. Instead, it was deliberately ordered and engineered by Browder with Magnitsky, who was actually an accountant, personally developing and implementing the scheme, using multiple companies and tax avoidance schemes to carry out the deception.

The pending legislation dreamed up by Stephens is undeniably driven by extreme hatred of Putin and of Russia, using contrived and evidence-free scenarios to condemn the Russian government for crimes that do not even make sense from a risk-gain perspective. The Magnitsky Myth alone has already done more even than the contrived Russiagate to launch and sustain a dangerous new Cold War between a nuclear-armed United States and a nuclear-armed Russia.

It would perhaps not be too off base to suggest that the Navalny poisoning has the smell of a possible false flag operation by the U.S. with the possible collusion of anti-Russian elements in Germany. Moscow had no real motive to kill Navalny while the White House is certainly keen on terminating Nord Stream 2. That the U.S. media also continues to be attracted to schemes like Stephens’ is symptomatic of just how far the Russia-phobia current in America and Europe has robbed people of their ability to see what important even when it is right in front of them. Good relations with Russia are more important than either getting involved in Moscow’s politics by validating Navalny or selling gas. To suggest that yet more foreign meddling as advocated by Brent Stephens of the New York Times could well lead to tragedy for all of us would be an understatement.

September 13, 2020 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment