US designates anti-govt. Bahraini group as ‘terrorist’ after Manama inks peace deal with Israel
Press TV | December 16, 2020
The administration of outgoing US President Donald Trump has designated Bahraini opposition group Saraya al-Mukhtar as a “terrorist” organization, months after the Manama regime agreed to a Washington-brokered normalization with Israel.
In a statement released on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his office had blacklisted the group as “a Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” claiming that it was “posing a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism that threaten the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
He alleged that Saraya al-Mukhtar receives “financial and logistic support” from Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and seeks to depose the Bahraini government.
“The group has plotted attacks against US personnel in Bahrain and has offered cash rewards for the assassination of Bahraini officials,” Pompeo further claimed.
The designation freezes any of the group’s US assets and generally bars Americans from dealing with it.
Iran has not commented on the claims so far.
The Bahraini government welcomed the US blacklisting of Saraya al-Mukhtar.
The Bahraini Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it “commends” what it called “the relentless efforts undertaken by the United States of America in combatting all extremist terrorist organizations.”
Bahraini courts have already sentenced suspects allegedly linked to Saraya al-Mukhtar to years in prison and revoked their citizenship.
Several Bahraini groups have faced accusations of ties to Iran since 2011, when an uprising began in the kingdom against the ruling Al Khalifah regime. Tehran has, however, dismissed such allegations as false.
Analysts see the blacklisting as an American reward to Manama, months after it reached a US-brokered normalization deal with the Israeli regime.
The agreement sparked several angry street protests in Bahrain, with the participants slamming the regime in Manama for turning a deaf ear to the nation’s calls against making peace with the occupiers of Palestine.
In addition to Bahrain, the UAE, Sudan and Morocco have also reached similar agreements with Israel.
Joe Macaron, a fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, told the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal that “the activities of Saraya al-Mukhtar have significantly diminished since 2018 but the Trump administration is standing by those Arab allies who normalized with Israel.”
“While Morocco got US recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara and Sudan was delisted as a state sponsor of terrorism, the Trump administration is showing support for Bahrain in a designation that has no real impact whatsoever,” he added.
Bahrain — home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet — has seen anti-regime protest rallies since the onset of the uprising. The major demand has been the ouster of the Al Khalifah dynasty and the establishment of a just and conclusive system representing all Bahraini nationals.
In an attempt to stifle those calls, the Manama regime has been pressing ahead with a heavy-handed crackdown against the protesters and persecution of human rights campaigners and political dissidents.
Pakistan returns $1 bln of Saudi Arabia’s loan over Kashmir dispute
MEMO | December 16, 2020
Pakistan has returned $1 billion to Saudi Arabia as a second installment of a $3 billion soft loan, as Islamabad reaches out to Beijing for a commercial loan to help it offset pressure to repay another $1 billion to Riyadh next month, officials said on Wednesday according to a report by Reuters.
Analysts say it is unusual for Riyadh to press for the return of money. But relations have been strained lately between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, historically close friends.
Saudi Arabia gave Pakistan a $3 billion loan and a $3.2 billion oil credit facility in late 2018. After Islamabad sought Riyadh’s support over alleged human rights violations by India in the disputed territory of Kashmir, Saudi Arabia has pushed Pakistan to repay the loan.
With the $1 billion flowing out, Pakistan – which has $13.3 billion in central bank foreign reserves – could face a balance of payments issue after clearing the next Saudi installment.
“China has come to our rescue,” a foreign ministry official told Reuters. A finance ministry official said Pakistan’s central bank was already in talks with Chinese commercial banks.
“We’ve sent $1 billion to Saudi Arabia,” he said. Another $1 billion will be repaid to Riyadh next month, he said. Islamabad had returned $1 billion in July.
Although a $1.2 billion surplus in its current account balance and a record $11.77 billion in remittances in the past five months have helped support the Pakistani economy, having to return the Saudi money is still a setback.
Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who visited Riyadh in August to ease the tensions, met the Saudi ambassador in Islamabad on Tuesday.
World Bank approves $250m loan to Morocco
MEMO | December 16, 2020
The World Bank has agreed to grant Morocco $250 million to support local agricultural, as part of a joint operation with the French Development Agency.
This came in a statement issued by the World Bank on Wednesday, after its executive board approved the loan on Tuesday.
The loan aims to support the Generation Green programme, a government strategy for developing agriculture.
The statement announced: “The funding will also support the country’s economic response to the coronavirus pandemic.”
The loan will finance entrepreneurship and training programmes for villages’ youth, with a view to attracting private investments into the agricultural food products sector, and removing regulatory and financing obstacles to stimulate the creation of job opportunities.
According to official statistics, the agricultural sector contributes about 14 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). It presents an important source of employment for 75 per cent of the country’s villagers.
Russia may benefit from trade rift between China and Australia
RT | December 16, 2020
Russian coal suppliers could boost their exports to China, as the world’s largest coal buyer is reportedly curbing shipments of the commodity from Australia amid escalating tensions between the two countries.
The developer of the largest Russian coal deposit, Elga, announced on Tuesday that it created a joint venture with a Chinese shipping company to promote Russian coal on the massive Chinese market. The project between Elgaugol and GH-Shipping is set to satisfy China’s growing demand for high-quality coking coal.
The deal is set to help boost Russian coal supplies to China from one million tons this year to 30 million tons in 2023, and the developer could potentially further increase annual imports to 50 million tons. The joint venture is also expected to contribute to the ambitious goal of the Russian and Chinese governments to significantly increase bilateral trade turnover, as it would increase the volume of trade between the two countries by $5 billion per year.
“The supplies of coking coal from Elga will replace a significant amount of Australian and American coal of similar quality,” Elgaugol Director-General Aleksandr Isaev said.
Another Russian producer, Mechel, previously said that it was planning to increase exports of coal to China amid Beijing’s restrictions on Australian imports. In November, the shipments rose by 13 percent, and are set to jump by 25-30 percent in December, Mechel CEO Oleg Korzhov said as cited by Russian media.
Tensions between the two countries have been growing for around three years, after the Australian government began limiting Chinese investments in the country. In 2018, Canberra added fuel to the fire when it banned China’s Huawei and ZTE from its 5G rollout. The most recent escalation occurred when Australia pushed in April for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.
Earlier this week, Chinese state-linked media reported that the nation’s top economic planner gave domestic power plants the greenlight to import coal without clearance restrictions from several countries “except for Australia.” While Beijing has not officially confirmed the restrictions, Canberra has already urged the Chinese government to clarify the reports.
This week’s reports are not the first to allege that China is quietly banning coal imports from Australia. Last month, several million tons of Australian coal worth more than $500 million were reportedly stuck in Chinese ports.
Cuban Officials Reject Claims That ‘Havana Syndrome’ Was Caused by Directed Radio Frequency Energy
By Gaby Arancibia – Sputnik – 16.12.2020
In late 2016, reports emerged that staff members at US and Canadian embassies in Havana, Cuba, were experiencing symptoms that included hearing loss, dizziness and a sensation or vibration of pressure in the head. The mysterious health effects resulted in the US accusing Cuba of carrying out attacks on its diplomats, resulting in new hostilities.
Cuban officials issued a statement on Tuesday rejecting claims made in a US report that alleged directed radio frequency energy was likely to blame for mysterious health ailments suffered by several diplomats working in Havana, Cuba.
Luis Velázquez, the president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, noted in the release that the organization disagrees with the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) December 6 report, even though it “made progress in defining the medical characterization of the causes and issued valid recommendations.”
“The report does not provide scientific evidence that radio frequency waves of great intensity existed in the area where the diplomats were located,” the statement read, before underscoring that the NAS conclusion was more of a hypothesis and “certainly not a proven fact.”
The NAS report was commissioned by the US State Department, a fact which likely raised red flags for the Cuban organization.
Velázquez’s statement further stressed that the Cuban body recommended both “journalists and governments to listen to science and refrain from endorsing conspiracy theories.” He added that symptoms reported by the affected individuals “should be considered and treated as a health problem, not as a political issue.”
NAS explained in its reporting that it had determined “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy” was the “most plausible mechanism”, after examining symptoms experienced by diplomatic staff. It’s worth noting that the study authors did indicate that a more thorough investigation would be needed.
Although health problems were first documented in late 2016, reports on the matter were not raised until 2017, after dozens of individuals reported symptoms. The unusual development was eventually dubbed the “Havana Syndrome.”
Initial reports suggested that afflicted individuals began first hearing an odd noise for a period of time, often late at night in their homes or hotel rooms. In some cases, the sudden wave of headaches and dizzy spells would prompt an individual to become nauseous.
With no clear understanding of what was happening, the Trump administration subsequently declared that the health problems were the likely result of a coordinated attack against American diplomats.
By August 2017, tensions between the US and the island nation reached a new height as two Cuban diplomats were expelled from the US. Some 15 Cuban diplomats would be expelled in the months that followed. Non-essential staff at the US embassy in Havana were later removed, leaving only a skeleton crew to keep the site running.
The Cuban government has repeatedly rejected all allegations that it had any involvement in the incidences, going so far as to offer its cooperation on investigations. Trump administration officials have refused to collaborate.
When the elderly and frail die after receiving the COVID vaccine
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | December 16, 2020
CNN has the story. And it’s quite a story: “Why vaccinate our most frail? Odd vote out shows the dilemma”, December 4. [1]
“The vote to recommend long-term care residents be among the first to receive Covid-19 vaccinations was not unanimous.”
“Out of a panel of 14 CDC vaccine advisers, a lone doctor said no.”
“’Odd woman out, I guess,’ Dr. Helen ‘Keipp’ Talbot, of Vanderbilt University, told her colleagues. ‘I still struggle with this. This was not an easy vote’.”
“Talbot was worried about whether the vaccine would even work in such frail, vulnerable patients. Even more, she worried about how it might look if the vaccine failed in that group, or how it would affect public perception if residents died soon after getting the vaccine.”
“The Covid-19 vaccines have not been tested in the frail elderly, many of whom are residents of long-term care facilities.”
Let’s stop here for a moment. First, we learn that the clinical trials of the COVID vaccine have not used the frail and elderly as volunteers. Therefore, there is NO evidence that the vaccine is safe or effective in that very large group. If this doesn’t give the frail and elderly and their families pause for thought, nothing will.
Second, Dr. Talbot is worried about “public perception,” when the elderly die right after getting the vaccination.
Well, what would YOU think if your mother died the day after she received the COVID shot?
The CNN article gets worse. Read on. Next up is a comment from Dr. Kelly Moore, “associate director of the Immunization Action Coalition, which is supporting frontline workers who will administer Covid-19 vaccinations.”
“’Since they [the COVID vaccines] haven’t been studied in people in those [elderly] populations, we don’t know how well the vaccine will work for them. We know that most vaccines don’t work nearly as well in a frail elderly person as they would in someone who is fit and vigorous, even if they happen to be the same age,’ Moore said.”
Again—zero evidence the COVID vaccines work in elderly and frail populations. Most vaccines don’t “work nearly as well.”
CNN: “When shots begin to go into arms of [nursing home and long-term care facility] residents, Moore said Americans need to understand that deaths may occur that won’t necessarily have anything to do with the vaccine.”
“’We would not at all be surprised to see, coincidentally, vaccination happening and then having someone pass away a short time after they receive a vaccine, not because it has anything to do with the vaccination but just because that’s the place where people at the end of their lives reside,’ Moore said.”
“’One of the things we want to make sure people understand is that they should not be unnecessarily alarmed if there are reports, once we start vaccinating, of someone or multiple people dying within a day or two of their vaccination who are residents of a long-term care facility. That would be something we would expect, as a normal occurrence, because people die frequently in nursing homes’.”
Right. Don’t be alarmed.
Don’t worry if people who are doing reasonably well suddenly die right after getting the COVID shot. It’s just a coincidence.
Their long-term health conditions just happened to kick in a day or two after vaccination. Nothing to wonder about.
Don’t kick up a fuss if it’s YOUR father or mother who died. Stay calm. You can be sure the doctors will let you know if your mother died from the vaccine. Of course they will.
Even though the vaccine has never been tested on the elderly and frail, the doctors know whether a death occurred from the vaccination or from other causes. And they’ll tell the truth. They always do.
The doctors quoted in this CNN article are obviously worried about people dying as a result of the vaccine. They know it’s going to happen. They’re thinking out loud about what they can do to stem the tide of public outrage—particularly from the families of those who die.
The best idea they can come up with is: “these people die anyway.”
I remind readers that, for months, I’ve been reporting on the huge percentage of all so-called COVID deaths that have been occurring among the elderly in nursing homes, in long-term care facilities, in hospitals, in their homes. [2]
These people were already suffering from multiple long-term serious health conditions. On top of that, they had been treated for years with an array of toxic medical drugs.
And then, they’re absolutely terrified when they receive a diagnosis of COVID. Then they’re isolated, cut off from family and friends.
And they give up and die.
NO VIRUS IS REQUIRED TO EXPLAIN THESE DEATHS.
This is forced premature killing of old people. It’s murder by COVID diagnosis and isolation. [2]
And now, these people will receive an experimental RNA vaccine, whose effects include auto-immune reactions; the body basically attacks itself. [3]
More killing.
And doctors advising the CDC are telling us not to be alarmed.
The deaths are just routine.
Lots and lots of doctors who know what’s going on are thinking, “What if all this comes back on ME?”
Well, it IS coming back on you, Doctors.
You’re killers in white coats who are supposed to be saving lives.
SOURCES:
[2] https://www.denverpost.com/2020/12/09/pfizer-covid-vaccine-allergic-reactions/
Iran calls for end to development, testing of nuclear weapons: Envoy
Press TV | December 16, 2020
Iran’s permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations has called for an end to the development and testing of nuclear weapons, saying such a move is the first step toward total nuclear disarmament.
Kazem Gharibabadi made the plea at the 55th Session of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the Austrian capital on Tuesday and underlined Iran’s long-standing position on the need for the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons.
“Iran supports the objectives stipulated in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with the ultimate goal of disarmament, as well as general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” he said.
“We also strongly believe that stopping all explosive tests of nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosions, as well as ending the quantitative development and qualitative improvement of these weapons, is the first necessary step towards nuclear disarmament,” Gharibabadi added.
The Iranian envoy censured Washington’s approach on the non-proliferation regime and expressed concern over the possibility of the US conducting nuclear test explosions, saying the move undermines international peace and security.
Gharibabadi stressed that a possible resumption of the tests would breach a treaty on the moratorium on such practices, and also violates the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Iran’s permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations touched on Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program and called on the kingdom to join the NPT.
Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions have prompted worries in the global community over the past few years, especially after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hinted in 2018 that the kingdom may go for nukes.
Widespread reports of Saudi Arabia’s undeclared nuclear activities were confirmed in August, when satellite images revealed a large compound in a suspicious location in the heart of the desert.
The Wall Street Journal, citing Western officials, reported that Saudi Arabia had built a facility, with foreign aid, for extraction of yellow cake from uranium ore near the remote town of al-Ula.
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Why vaccines for children are Big Pharma’s holy grail – Part 1
By Serena Wylde | TCW Defending Freedom | October 18, 2023
James A Shannon, director of the US National Institutes of Health 1955-68, said: ‘No vaccination can be proven safe before it is given to children.’
When he made that statement, it was still possible in the US to sue vaccine manufacturers under tort law for vaccine-induced deaths and injuries, which is no longer the case.
Today the US has the world’s most aggressive vaccine schedule and ranks as the sickest country, with the highest infant mortality, in the developed world. The UK does not lag far behind.
Vaccines carry three separate areas of potential risk. Firstly, they artificially stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies, which temporarily inhibits another part of the body’s defence mechanism. In an infant, whose immune system is just developing, this high demand of energy can in some cases overwhelm its metabolic reserves, and cause brain inflammation. The brain is the highest energy-consuming tissue in the body, followed by the gastro-intestinal tract and the immune system.
Secondly, vaccines contain chemicals, metals and drugs. Thirdly, according to the former pharmaceutical R&D executive Sasha Latypova, traditional vaccines are consistently contaminated with plant and animal proteins which hyper-sensitise the body, especially in children, giving rise to allergies.
In the US in the 1970s there were three inoculations recommended for children… continue
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