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A Primer on the WHO, the Treaty, and its Plans for Pandemic Preparedness

By David Bell | Brownstone Institute | May 19, 2022

The World Health Organization (WHO), whose constitution defines health as ‘a state of physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,’ has recently orchestrated remarkable reversals in human rights, poverty reduction, education, and physical, mental and social health indices in the name of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.

WHO proposes to expand the mechanisms that enabled this response, diverting unprecedented resources to addressing what in terms of history and disease are rare and relatively low-impact events. This will greatly benefit those who also did well from the Covid-19 outbreak, but has different implications for the rest of us. To address it calmly and rationally, we need to understand it.

Building a new pandemic industry

The World Health Organization (WHO) and its Member States, in concert with other international institutions, is proposing, and currently negotiating, two instruments to address pandemics and widely manage aspects of global public health. Both will significantly expand the international bureaucracy that has grown over the past decade to prepare for, or respond to, pandemics, with particular emphasis on development and use of vaccines.

This bureaucracy would be answerable to the WHO, an organization that in turn is increasingly answerable, through funding and political influence, from private individuals, corporations and the large authoritarian States.

These proposed rules and structures, if adopted, would fundamentally change international public health, moving the center of gravity from common endemic diseases to relatively rare outbreaks of new pathogens, and building an industry around it that will potentially be self-perpetuating.

In the process, it will increase external involvement in areas of decision-making that in most constitutional democracies are the purview of elected governments answerable to their population.

WHO does not clearly define the terms ‘pandemic’ and ‘public health emergency’ that these new agreements, intended to have power under international law, seek to address. Implementation will depend on the opinion of individuals – the Director General (DG) of the WHO, Regional Directors and an advisory committee that they can choose to follow or ignore.

As a ‘pandemic’ in WHO parlance does not include a requirement of severity but simply broad spread – a property common to respiratory viruses – this leaves a lot of room for the DG to proclaim emergencies and set the wheels in motion to repeat the sort of pandemic responses we have seen trialed in the past 2 years.

Responses that have been unprecedented in their removal of basic peace-time human rights, and that the WHO, Unicef and other United Nations (UN) agencies have acknowledged to cause widespread harm.

This has potential to be a boon for Big Pharma and their investors who have done so well out of the last two years, concentrating private wealth whilst increasing national indebtedness and reversing prior progress on poverty reduction.

However, it is not something that has just appeared, and is not going to make us slaves before the month is out. If we are to address this issue and restore societal sanity and balance in public health, we need to understand what we are dealing with.

Proposed International Health Regulations (IHR) amendments

The IHR amendments, proposed by the United States, build on the existing IHR that were introduced in 2005 and are binding under international law. While many are unaware of their existence, the IHR already enables the WHO DG to declare public health emergencies of international concern, and thereby recommend measures to isolate countries and restrict movement of people. The draft amendments include proposals to:

  • Establish an ‘emergency committee’ to assess health threats and outbreaks and recommend responses.
  • Establish a ‘Country review mechanism’ to assess compliance of countries with various recommendations / requirements of WHO regarding pandemic preparedness, including surveillance and reporting measures. This appears to be modeled on the UN’s human rights country review mechanism. Countries would then be issued with requirements to be addressed to bring them into compliance where their internal programs are considered inadequate, on the request of another State party (country).
  • Expand the power of the WHO DG to declare pandemics and health emergencies, and therefore recommend border closures, interruption and removal of rights to travel and potentially internal ‘lockdown’ requirements and send teams of WHO personnel to countries to investigate outbreaks, irrespective of the findings of the emergency committee and without consent of the country where the instance is recorded.
  • Reduce the usual review period for countries to internally discuss and opt out of such mechanisms to just 6 months (rather than 18 months for the original IHR), and then implement them after a 6-month notice period.
  • Empower Regional Directors, of which there are 6, to declare regional ‘public health emergencies,’ irrespective of a decision by the DG.

These amendments will be discussed and voted on at the World Health Assembly on May 22-28, 2022. They only require a simple majority of countries present to come into law, consistent with Article 60 of the WHO constitution. For clarity, this means countries such as Niue, with 1,300 people, have an equal weight on the voting floor as India, with 1.3 billion people. Countries must then signal intent to opt out of the new amendments within 6 months.

Once approved by the WHA, these measures will become legally binding. There will be heavy pressure applied to governments to comply with the dictates of the WHO DG and the unelected bureaucrats that comprise the organization, and thereby also the external actors who are influential in WHO decision-making processes.

Proposed WHO pandemic ‘treaty’

The WHO proposes a new ‘instrument’ to allow it to manage pandemics, with force of a convention under international law. This has been formally discussed within WHO since early 2021, and a special session of the WHA in November 2021 recommended it go to a review process, with a draft to be presented to the World Health Assembly meeting in Q2 2023.

This proposed treaty would give WHO powers to:

  • Investigate epidemics within countries,
  • Recommend or even require border closures,
  • Potentially recommend travel restrictions on individuals,
  • Impose measures recommended by the WHO which, based on Covid-19 experience, may include ‘lockdowns,’ prevention of employment, disruption of family life and internal travel, and mandated masks and vaccination,
  • Involve non-state actors (e.g., private corporations) in data gathering and predictive modeling to influence and guide pandemic responses; and in implementing, including providing commodities for, the response;
  • Impose censorship through control of, or restrictions on, information the WHO considers to be ‘mis-information’ or ‘dis-information’, which may include criticism of the measures WHO imposes.

Notably, it envisions the setting up of a large entity within WHO to support permanent staff whose purpose is to undertake and enforce the above measures. This sounds very similar to the ‘GERM’ entity proposed recently by Mr Bill Gates, a wealthy US software developer with major pharmaceutical investments, who is the second largest funder of the WHO and one of a number of ‘billionaires’ who have greatly increased personal wealth during the Covid-19 response.

The proposed treaty would prioritize vertical structures and pharmaceutical approaches to pandemics, reflecting approaches by Gavi and CEPI, two organizations set up in the past decade in parallel to the WHO. It would create another bureaucratic structure on pandemics, not answerable directly to any taxpayer base, but imposing further support, reporting and compliance requirements.

Process, acceptance and implementation

These two mechanisms for increasing direct WHO control of pandemics have strong backing from private sector funders of the WHO, and from many national governments, starting with Western governments who adopted Covid draconian measures. To come into practice they must be adopted by the WHA and then be agreed, or ratified, by national governments.

The proposed IHR amendments modify an existing mechanism. A simple majority of States present at the WHA voting against them at the May 2022 meeting would also reject them, but this appears unlikely. To prevent their application, sufficient individual countries will need to signal non-acceptance or reservations after the coming WHA and WHO DG’s notice of adoption, so probably before the end of November 2022.

With regard to the proposed treaty, a two-thirds majority at the 2023 WHA will be required for its adoption, after which it will be subject to national ratification by processes which vary according to national norms and constitutions.

Funding for the large increase in bureaucracy proposed to support both mechanisms will be necessary – this may be partially diverted from other disease areas but will almost certainly require new, regular funding. Other mechanisms in parallel are already being discussed, with the World Bank also proposed as the home for a similar bureaucracy to manage pandemic preparedness, and the G20 mulling their own mechanism.

It is unclear whether these would be tied into the WHO’s proposed treaty and IHR mechanisms or be presented as a ‘rival’ approach. The G20 task force of the WB and WHO suggest a $10.5 billion additional annual budget for pandemic preparedness is required. With such potential financing on offer, and the promise of building powerful institutions around this pandemic preparedness agenda, there is going to be much enthusiasm and momentum, not least from institutional staff and the global health community in general, who will sense lucrative employment and grant opportunities.

While all this depends on money being available, a refusal of countries to fund may not be sufficient to prevent it, as there is considerable private and corporate interest in the treaty and related proposals. The same entities that benefited heavily financially from the Covid-19 response will also stand to benefit from an increased frequency of similar responses.

Whilst pandemics are historically rare, the existence of a large bureaucracy dependent on their declaration and response, coupled with the clear gains to be made by influential funders of the WHO, raise a strong risk that the bar to declaring emergencies, and imposing human rights restrictions on States, will be far lower than before.

Independent States are not however directly subject to the WHO, and adopting these amendments and treaties will not automatically allow the WHO to send teams across borders. Treaties must be ratified according to national processes and constitutions. If accepted by the WHA, it will however be difficult for individual States to avoid compliance unless they are particularly influential on the WHO itself.

International financial agencies, such as the IMF and World Bank, can also exert considerable pressure on non-complying States, potentially tying loans to implementation and commodity purchase as the World Bank has done for the COVID-19 response.

The IHR amendments also allow measures to be taken such as interrupting international travel that can be economically very harmful to small States, irrespective of the State providing permission. Powerful States that are highly influential on the DG election may also in practice be subject to different levels of implementation than smaller ones.

There seem to be at least two feasible scenarios for preventing the adoption of the two new mechanisms.

Firstly, the populations in democratic donor States, who have most to lose in terms of autonomy, sovereignty and human rights and whose taxes will predominantly fund these institutions, can stimulate open debate leading to decisions of national governments to reject the treaty at the WHA, and/or otherwise refuse to ratify.

Secondly, large blocs of countries could refuse to ratify or subsequently comply, making the treaty and IHR amendments unworkable. The latter is conceivable if, for instance, African nations perceive all this as a form of neo-colonialism that needs to be fought in the name of independence.

Some background on pandemic risk, and the WHO.

What is the risk of pandemics?

WHO records 5 pandemics in the past 120 years:

  • The Spanish Flu (1918-19), killed 20-509 million people. Most died due to secondary bacterial infection, as this was before availability of any modern antibiotics.
  • The 1957-58 influenza outbreaks that killed about 1.1 million people each
  • The 1968-69 influenza outbreak that also killed about 1.1 million
  • Swine Flu in 2009-10 killed about 120,000 to 230,000.
  • Lastly, COVID-19 (2020-22) is recorded by WHO as contributing to the death of several million, but most in old age with other severe comorbidities, so actual figures are difficult to assess. As this indicates.

Pandemics have therefore been rare – once per generation. For context, cancer kills many more people each year in Western countries than Covid-19 at its height, tuberculosis kills 1.6 million people every year (much younger than Covid-19) and malaria kills over half a million children annually (barely affected by COVID-19).

However, as pandemics are very loosely defined by WHO, it Is not unreasonable to assume that a large bureaucracy dependent on pandemics to justify its own existence, and heavily invested in surveillance for new strains of virus, will find reason to declare far more pandemics in the future.

Pandemic response

COVID-19 is the first pandemic in which mass lockdowns, including border closures, workplace closures and prolonged school closures, have been used on a large scale. It is worth remembering that 1969 is remembered for the Woodstock music festival more than the ‘Hong Kong flu,’ a pandemic that targeted young people more than Covid-19. Human rights and economic health did not suffer such declines in any of these prior events.

These new approaches used in the Covid-19 response have resulted in wide disruption of supply lines and healthcare access, increases in early marriage / enslavement of women, mass loss of education of children, and increases in current financial inequality and educational (so future) inequality. Many low-income countries have increased debt and undergone recession, which will reduce future life expectancy, while child deaths have increased, including from former priority diseases such as malaria.

What is WHO, and who owns or runs it?

The WHO (the World Health Organization) was set up in the late 1940s, to coordinate health standards and data sharing internationally, including support for the response to pandemics. It is the main health agency of the United Nations Organization (UN). It provides some support for low-income country health systems where local technical expertise is lacking.

It has country offices in most countries, 6 regional offices, and a global office in Geneva. It is a hierarchical organization, with the Director General (DG) at its head. It has a few thousand staff (depending on definition) and a budget of roughly $3.5 billion a year.

The WHO is controlled in theory by the member nations (most UN members, and a couple of others), on a one country-one vote basis through the World Health Assembly, that usually meets annually. As example, India, with 1.3 billion people, has the same power on the voting floor as Nuie, with 1,300 people. The WHA elects the DG through a 4-yearly vote that is often heavily accompanied by lobbying by major countries.

WHO funding was originally nearly all derived from member countries, who contributed to the ‘core’ budget. WHO would then decide on priorities for expenditure, guided by the WHA. In the past 2 decades, there has been a significant change in funding:

  1. A rapid increase in private funding, from individuals and corporations. Some is direct, some indirect through parallel international health organizations (Gavi, Cepi) that are heavily privately funded. The second largest contributor to the WHO budget is now a private couple in the United States heavily invested in the international pharmaceutical sector and in software / digitization services.
  2. The budget has moved from mainly core funding, to mainly ‘directed’ funding, in which the funder specifies the area in which the funding can be used, and sometimes the actual activities to be undertaken. The WHO therefore becomes a conduit for their funds to undertake their intended activities. Both country private funders heavily use this directed approach.

The WHO therefore retains under overall control of an assembly of countries, but day-to-day priorities are increasingly directed by single countries and private interests. Former strong rules on conflict of interest regarding private sector involvement are less externally obvious now, with WHO working more closely with private and corporate sector entities.

Reference documents:

David Bell is a public health physician based in the United States. After working in internal medicine and public health in Australia and the UK, he worked in the World Health Organization (WHO), as Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, and as Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, USA. He consults in biotech and global health. MBBS, MTH, PhD, FAFPHM, FRCP

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Twitter Introduces Policy to Prevent Spreading of Misinformation During Crises

Samizdat | May 19, 2022

Twitter announced on Thursday that it has introduced a new global policy to address the spread of misinformation during crisis situations.

“Today, we’re introducing our crisis misinformation policy – a global policy that will guide our efforts to elevate credible, authoritative information, and will help to ensure viral misinformation isn’t amplified or recommended by us during crises,” Twitter said.

The new approach will help to slow the spread of the most visible, misleading content, particularly that which could lead to severe harms, Twitter said.

The social media company explained it may add warning notices to posts, including those that contain: false reporting that mischaracterizes conditions on the ground of a conflict; false allegations regarding use of force or incursions on territorial sovereignty; false allegations of war crimes or mass atrocities against specific populations; and false information regarding international community response, sanctions, defensive actions, or humanitarian operations.

Strong commentary, efforts to debunk or fact check and personal anecdotes or first person accounts will not fall within the new policy’s scope, Twitter also said.

Tweets that violate the policy will be placed behind a warning notice that informs the reader that the material could be false or misleading, Twitter added.

Adding warning notices to highly visible tweets, such as those state-affiliated media or official government accounts, will be a company priority, according to Twitter.

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Hamas: Victory in Birzeit elections confirms support for resistance

Palestine Information Center – May 19, 2022

RAMALLAH – The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, congratulated Birzeit University students, student blocs, and the university administration for the success of this year’s student elections that progressed in a democratic atmosphere on Wednesday.

Hamas said, in a statement, that the elections process represents a source of pride for the student movement and the Palestinian people and a success against Israel’s attempts to disrupt Palestinian democratic life.

Hamas also congratulated the participating student blocs and sent congratulations to the members of the Islamic bloc for their great and worthy victory with the students’ trust to represent them in this great scientific edifice.

It noted that despite Israeli targeting, arrests, persecution and ban on activities, the Islamic bloc managed to decisively win the elections.

This clear victory is another confirmation of the popular rally around the option of resistance, which adheres to the principles and national unity in the face of projects of liquidation and compromising rights and coordination with the occupation, Hamas said.

The Movement called on the various student blocs and the university administration to preserve this democratic atmosphere, work together to serve the students and the educational process, and preserve Birzeit as a model of unity and democracy.

The Islamic bloc “Al-Wafaa Al-Islamiya” won a major victory in the student council elections at Birzeit University in Ramallah, which experts saw as the a victory for the resistance option.

According to the elections results, the Islamic Bloc (Hamas) won 28 seats, the Youth Bloc (Fatah) 18 seats, and the Qutb (Popular Front) 5 seats, while the Student Unity (Democratic Front) and Progressive Student Union (People’s Party) did not win any seats.

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

UK using Cold War’s black propaganda tactics against Russia

By Lucas Leiroz | May 19, 2022

Once again, the West appears to be operating with an old Cold War mentality against Russia. Documents recently declassified by the British government reveal a series of sabotage practices used by the UK during the bipolar era whose similarities to the current relations with Russia seem evident. In fact, sabotage, fomenting hatred, spreading lies and other common tactics seem like a commonplace part of British foreign policy and the current Special Operation in Ukraine is just another target.

Recently, it was revealed that the British government ran a series of secret “black propaganda” campaigns against enemy countries during the decades of the Cold War. Not only the Soviet Union and Communist China were targets of British intelligence, but also countries in Africa, the Middle East and specific regions of Asia. The tactics included various methods of sabotage, from information warfare to the promotion of racial and terrorist tensions, always aimed at promoting the destabilization of rival nations.

Commenting on the case, expert in intelligence Rory Cormac told The Guardian during an interview: “These releases are among the most important of the past two decades (…) It’s very clear now that the UK engaged in more black propaganda than historians assume and these efforts were more systemic, ambitious and offensive. Despite official denials, [this] went far beyond merely exposing Soviet disinformation (…) The UK did not simply invent material (…), but they definitely intended to deceive audiences in order to get the message across”.

An example of how British praxis worked was the extensive and complex action operated to promote tensions between the Soviet Union and the Islamic community. In the second half of the 1960s, the Information Research Department (IRD) forged at least eleven Soviet state media documents exposing the government’s alleged “anger” at the “waste” of Soviet weapons by Egypt during the 1967 Six-Day War. Later, the same department forged documents supposedly originating from the Muslim Brotherhood accusing Moscow of sabotaging the Egyptian campaign, criticizing the quality of Soviet military material and calling the Russians “filthy-tongued atheists” who saw the Egyptians as “peasants who lived all their lives nursing reactionary Islamic superstitions”.

Last year, The Observer had already revealed that the IRD was directly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of people in Indonesia through the spread of lies in a black propaganda campaign in 1965. At the time, the department financed the preparation of pamphlets allegedly belonging to the PKI, then the largest communist party in the non-communist world, which were actually just British false flags. This encouraged anti-communist militias to promote an unprecedented massacre in the country, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of communist militants and civilians. Now, with the new declassified documents, it is possible to see that this was not an isolated episode, but a regular practice in British intelligence services.

In fact, it seems impossible to analyze this case and not correlate in some way to the current Western campaign against Russia, in which the UK seems to be very involved. In a way, it appears that despite the end of the Cold War, the bipolar mentality has never stopped working in the West. Simply, what was once aimed at the Soviet Union is now aimed at Russia.

This is precisely what political analyst Joe Quinn thinks: “The timing of this declassification of the documents is interesting insomuch as it may serve, for some, as confirmation that the West’s geopolitical war against the Soviet Union never really ended, it just continued as a war against the Russian Federation, but without the justification of fighting against Communism”.

The British media has been one of the most active in spreading anti-Russian narratives, fake news and pro-Kiev propaganda. Although most of the work is operated by the private sector, it is naive to think that there is no state incentive for pro-NATO propaganda. The British state – as well as the US and allied nations – has a very deep interest in creating a psychological warfare scenario, so there is a type of clandestine public-private cooperation between the state departments and these media agencies for their common objective to be achieved.

The special military operation in Ukraine is the main reason why Russia is attacked by Western propaganda today. From accusations of war crimes, false flags (like the tragedy in Bucha) to the absolutely unrealistic “analyses” alleging that Ukraine is “winning” the conflict, we have in all these cases examples of how the British media acts in collusion with the interests of NATO, operating old tactics of misinformation and black propaganda against London’s geopolitical enemies.

In this regard, Adriel Kasonta, a London-based foreign affairs analyst and former chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Bow Group think tank, believes that currently the main interest of British intelligence is to have a public opinion approving the sending of weapons to Ukraine and believing it is strategic, forging data to make it appear that that Kiev is close to “winning”.

“It aims to mislead the domestic audience by convincing them that the ‘special operation’ is not going according to plan and to persuade them that sending lethal weapons to the front by NATO allies contributes to the alleged victories and successful resistance of the Ukrainian side. It is a psychological game, and nothing persuades the naturally peaceful population to support a war in a distant land [more] than the opponent’s alleged low morale and military losses”, says the analyst.

With that, it seems to be clear that there is indeed a blatant anti-Russian campaign going on which aim is to harm Moscow using old and well-known black propaganda and information war tactics. It is essential that the recently declassified documents are released so that Western public opinion is aware of the weapons used by their governments and media agencies against nations that are not aligned with NATO’s geopolitical plans.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

George W. Bush Inadvertently Condemns “Unjustified and Brutal Invasion of Iraq”

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | May 19, 2022

Former President George W. Bush endured an awkward moment during a speech when he meant to refer to Ukraine but instead condemned “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.”

Whoops.

Bush made the error during a speech where he compared Ukrainian President Zelensky to Winston Churchill.

“The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine,” said Bush.

Freudian slip, much?

Bush blamed his age for the gaffe, joking, “I’m 75,” but his entire presidency was replete with similar such moments.

Bush’s reference to Russia eliminating political opponents from participating in the electoral process can equally be applied to Ukraine.

President Zelensky recently signed a law banning political opposition parties if they are deemed to be “pro-Russian,” a vague smear that could be applied broadly.

He also nationalized all television networks in the country, freezing out any possibility of dissent.

A YouTuber who criticized Zelensky was also recently detained on an international arrest warrant in Spain and faces possible extradition at the behest of the Ukrainian government.

Last month, footage was released of Associated Press accompanying armed men from the Ukraine Security Service as they kidnapped and arrested dissidents from their own homes.

But yeah, Putin bad!

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

WHO Stealth Coup to Dictate Global Health Agenda of Gates, Big Pharma

By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern Outlook – 18.05.2022

Acting on an initiative from the Biden Administration, by November 2022, conveniently at the onset of the next flu season in the northern hemisphere, the World Health Organization, barring a miracle, will impose an unprecedented top-down control over the national health regulations and measures of the entire planet. In what amounts to a stealth coup d’etat, WHO will get draconian new powers to override national sovereignty in 194 UN member countries, and to dictate their health measures with force of international law. It is sometimes referred to as the WHO Pandemic Treaty but it is far more. Worse, most of the WHO budget comes from private vaccine-tied foundations like the Gates Foundation or from Big Pharma, a massive conflict of interest.

Draconian New WHO Powers

Doing something with stealth means doing it in a secretive or concealed manner, to prevent it being widely known and possibly opposed. This applies to the proposal given by the Biden Administration to the Geneva WHO in January 18, 2022 according to official WHO documents. The WHO hid the details of the US “amendments” for almost three months, until 12 April, just a month before the relevant body of the WHO meets to approve the radical measures. Moreover, rather than the previous 18 month waiting time to become treaty in international law, only 6 months are used this time. This is a bum’s rush. The US proposal is backed by every EU country and in total 47 countries ensuring almost certain passage.

The proposals, officially titled, “Strengthening WHO preparedness for and response to health emergencies: Proposal for amendments to the International Health Regulations,” were submitted by Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs (OGA) in the US Department of Health and Human Services, Loyce Pace, as “amendments” to a previously ratified 2005 WHO International Health Regulations treaty. The WHO defines that 2005 treaty thus: “the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) provide an overarching legal framework that defines countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergenciesthat have the potential to cross borders. The IHR are an instrument of international law that is legally-binding on 196 countries, including the 194 WHO Member States.” (emphasis added).

Ms Pace came to the Biden Administration from heading the Global Health Council, whose members include the most corrupt names in Big Pharma including Pfizer, Lilly, Merck, J&J, Abbott, Bill Gates-funded AVAC, to name a few. Her proposals for the radical transformation of WHO “pandemic” and epidemic powers, could easily have been written by Gates and Big Pharma.

Before we look at what the Loyce Pace “amendments” will do to empower the transformation of WHO into a global health dictatorship with unprecedented powers to overrule judgments of any national governments, one stealthy legal issue must be noted. By disguising a complete change in the 2005 WHO treaty powers as mere “amendments” to a ratified treaty, WHO claims, along with the Biden Administration, that the approval of the amendments requires no new ratification debate by member governments. This is stealth. With no national debate by elected representatives, the unelected WHO will become a global superpower over life and death in the future. Washington and WHO have deliberately restricted the process of public participation to ram this through.

A De Facto New Law

As required, the WHO finally published the US “amendments.” It shows the deletions and as well the new additions. What the Biden Administration changes do is to transform a previously advisory role for the WHO to national governments on not only pandemic responses but also everything tied to national “health,” with an entirely new power to override national health agencies if the WHO Director General, now Tedros Adhanom, determines. The US Biden Administration and WHO have colluded to create an entirely new treaty which will shift all health decisions from a national or local level to Geneva, Switzerland and WHO.

Typical of the Washington amendments to the existing WHO Treaty is Article 9. The US change is to insert WHO “shall” and delete “may”: “If the State Party does not accept the offer of collaboration within 48 hours, WHO shall may…,. In the same article now deleted is “offer of collaboration by WHO, taking into account the views of the State Party concerned…” The views or judgment of say, Germany or India, or USA health authorities become irrelevant. WHO will be able to override national experts and dictate as international law its mandates for any and all future pandemics as well as even epidemics or even local health issues.

Moreover in the new proposed Article 12 on “Determination of a public health emergency of international concern, public health emergency of regional concern, or intermediate health alert,” WHO head–now Tedros in his new 5-year term–alone can decide to declare an emergency, even without agreement of the member state. The WHO head will then consult his relevant WHO “Emergency Committee” on Polio, Ebola, Bird Flu, COVID or whatever they declare to be a problem. In short this is a global dictatorship over citizen health by one of the most corrupt health bodies in the world. The members of a given WHO Emergency Committee are chosen under opaque procedures and typically, as in the current one on polio, many members are tied to the various Gates Foundation fronts like GAVI or CEPI. Yet the selection process is entirely opaque and internal to WHO.

Among other powers the new Pandemic Treaty will give Tedros and WHO the power to mandate vaccine passports and COVID jabs worldwide. They are working on the creation of a global vaccine passport/digital identity program. Under the new “Pandemic Treaty”, when people are harmed by the WHO’s health policies, there’s no accountability. The WHO has diplomatic immunity.

Former WHO senior employee and whistleblower, Astrid Stuckelberger, now a scientist at the Institute of Global Health of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva, noted, “if the new Pandemic Treaty is adopted by member states, “this means that the WHO’s Constitution (as per Article 9) will take precedence over each country’s constitution during natural disasters or pandemics. In other words, the WHO will be dictating to other countries, no longer making recommendations.”

Who is WHO?

The Director General of WHO would have the ultimate power under the new rules, to determine for example if say, Brazil or Germany or USA must impose a Shanghai-style pandemic lockdown or any other measures it decides. This is not good. Especially when the head of WHO, Tedros, from the Tigray region of Ethiopia, is a former member of the Politburo of the designated terrorist (then by Washington) Marxist organization, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. He holds no medical degree, the first in WHO director-general history without such. He has a PhD in Community Health, definitely a vague field, hardly medical qualification for a global health czar. Among his published scientific papers are titles such as “The effects of dams on malaria transmission in Tigray Region.” He reportedly got his WHO job in 2017 via backing from Bill Gates, the largest private donor to WHO.

As Ethiopia Minister of Health in the Tigray-led dictatorship, Tedros was involved in a scandalous coverup of three major cholera outbreaks in the country in 2006, 2009 and 2011. An investigative report published by the Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health found that during one major cholera outbreak, “Despite laboratory identification of V cholerae as the cause of the acute watery diarrhea (AWD), the Government of Ethiopia (Tedros) decided not to declare a “cholera outbreak” for fear of economic repercussions resulting from trade embargos and decreased tourism. Further, the government, in disregard of International Health Regulations (WHO), continually refused to declare a cholera epidemic and largely declined international assistance.”

As Ethiopian Health and later Foreign Minister Tedros was accused of systematic ethnic cleansing against rival tribes in the country, especially Amharas, denying opposition supporters World Bank and other food aid, as well as nepotism, diversion of international funds for hospital construction into political support for his minority party. Ironically this is the opposite of the new WHO law Tedros backs today. On 22 September 2021 Merkel’s Germany proposed Tedros for a further term without opposition.

WHO, Gates, GERM

A hint of what’s in store under the new rules was given by WHO’s largest donor (including his GAVI), the self-appointed “Globalist Everything Czar”, Bill Gates. On his April 22 blog entry, Gates proposes something amusingly with the acronym GERM — Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization—team. It would have a “permanent organization of experts who are fully paid and prepared to mount a coordinated response to a dangerous outbreak at any time.” He says his model is the Hollywood movie, Outbreak. “The team’s disease monitoring experts would look for potential outbreaks. Once it spots one, GERM should have the ability to declare an outbreak…” It would be coordinated by, of course, Tedros’ WHO: “The work would be coordinated by the WHO, the only group that can give it global credibility.”

A dystopian notion of what could take place is the ongoing fake “Avian Flu” epidemic, H5N1, that is causing tens of millions of chickens to be terminated worldwide if even one chick tests positive for the disease. The test is the same fraudulent PCR test used to detect COVID-19. Recently, Dr Robert Redfield, Trump’s head of CDC, gave an interview where he “predicted” that Bird Flu will jump to humans and be highly fatal in the coming “Great Pandemic,” for which COVID-19 was a mere warm-up. Redfield declared in a March 2022 interview, “I think we have to recognize – I’ve always said that I think the COVID pandemic was a wakeup call. I don’t believe it’s the great pandemic. I believe the great pandemic is still in the future, and that’s going to be a bird flu pandemic for man. It’s gonna have significant mortality in the 10-50% range. It’s gonna be trouble.” Under the new WHO dictatorial powers, WHO could declare a health emergency on such a fraud regardless of contrary evidence.

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

The (Undercover) Epicenter Nurse | Episode Nine

Perspectives on the Pandemic | June 9, 2020

Erin Marie Olszewski is a Nurse-turned-investigative journalist, who has spent the last few months on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic, on the inside in two radically different settings. Two hospitals. One private, the other public. One in Florida, the other in New York.

And not just any New York public hospital, but the “epicenter of the epicenter” itself, the infamous Elmhurst in Donald Trump’s Queens. As a result of these diametrically opposed experiences, she has the ultimate “perspective on the pandemic”. She has been where there have been the most deaths attributed to Covid-19 and where there have been the least. Erin enlisted in the Army when she was 17. She deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Part of her duties involved overseeing aid disbursement and improvements to hospital facilities. While in country she received the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service, and was wounded in combat.

Erin eventually retired as a sergeant, and became a civilian nurse in 2012. Erin is a medical freedom and informed consent advocate. She co-founded the Florida Freedom Alliance but no longer has any connection with the organization. Watch more episodes of Perspectives on the Pandemic here:

Episode 1: https://dai.ly/x7ubcws

Episode 2: https://dai.ly/k7af1wKOAvcoA7w5DkZ

Episode 3: https://youtu.be/VK0Wtjh3HVA

Episode 4: https://youtu.be/cwPqmLoZA4s

Episode 5: https://dai.ly/k3l3VyZ2YQv6Zbw5VqE

Episode 6: https://youtu.be/3f0VRtY9oTs

Episode 7: https://youtu.be/2JbOvjtnPpE

Episode 8: https://youtu.be/WlLmt6_w_AM (As of publication of this video, the producers are still awaiting comment from Elmhurst Hospital). Produced by Libby Handros and John Kirby, The Press and the Public Project. Ref 7814

May 19, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

An open letter to my pro-jab GP

By James Rogers | TCW Defending Freedom | May 18, 2022

Dear Dr X

Just over a year ago, as I made efforts to inform myself, you were kind enough to respond to my questions about taking the C-19 jab.

You may recall saying to me, ‘These drug companies would not run the risk of being sued for supplying dodgy drug products.’ I replied that the drug companies had been given immunity from civil action and criminal prosecution. You seemed not to know this. In this regard, I am writing to describe what has happened in the interim.

For a very unpleasant and lengthy period, the British people were begged, bribed, browbeaten and bullied into accepting C-19 jabs. Most submitted – at least to one jab – but a few million of us were highly dubious, and declined. Consequently, we were pejoratively labelled ‘anti-vaxxers’ and pressured, abused, socially outcast and even forced out of jobs.

I declined the jab for three reasons: firstly, I was neither vulnerable nor afraid and had faith in my immune system; secondly, I do not believe it is possible to develop an effective jab against cold and flu viruses; and thirdly, my instincts told me that everything about the lockdown regulation and development of C-19 jabs was wrong, irrational and political.

Oddly enough, this ‘anti-vaxxer’ took all of the childhood inoculations that the NHS of his day provided to counter illnesses such as TB, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and hepatitis B, and his child has taken all of those and more. This is because those illnesses are genuinely nasty and potentially fatal – people do not get ‘mild’ cases of tetanus, whereas the overwhelming number cases of C-19 have been just that. It is also the case that the true vaccines took decades to develop and test – measles 46 years, polio 45, HPV 33, hepatitis A 22.

The official line is that the C-19 jabs were authorised after about six months of testing – I think the Salem Witch Trials were longer, and were a more open process. Last autumn in the USA  a group of 200+ conscientious doctors, scientists and public health officials, ‘Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency’, took the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to court to force them to obey their legal obligation in respect of a freedom of information (FoI) request about the trials that Pfizer had conducted on its C-19 products.

The case was heard by District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas. The FDA had made public commitments to be fully transparent so there was no dispute as to whether the information would be released, just the time-frame. The FDA stated that with 450,000 pages to release, and with personal data therein that required redaction, only 500 pages a month could be released. At that rate it would take 75 years to discharge their FoI obligations.

Judge Pittman delivered his ruling in early January  stating that the FDA’s position was anathema to the spirit of the legislation, ordering them to release 55,000 pages a month. The process commenced on March 1, 2022, and the FDA’s obligation should be fully discharged by the end of this year.

Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency have assembled a broad alliance of scientists and experts to assimilate and analyse the material, and after three months, the results have been alarming.

It is important to note that as C-19 jabs were authorised in an emergency situation, the ‘trial’ is still in progress, and the effects the jabs have on people must be fully recorded. So, this matter has two spheres to consider: firstly, the trials that were run in 2020 that persuaded the FDA (and our own MHRA, CHM and JCVI) to approve the jabs; and secondly, the trials run in 2021 – and ongoing – that are necessary to allow those drug authorisations to remain valid.

After some 150,000 pages of Pfizer’s documents, some very fishy and worrying facts have emerged – here is one assessment. It turns out that ‘these drug companies’ did indeed ‘run the risk of supplying dodgy drug products’.

What happens now? Doubtless, the likes of Dame June Raine, Sir Chris Whitty, Sir Patrick Vallance, Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, Wei Shen Lim and many others anxiously scan the internet for news of what the FDA papers reveal. I mean ‘the internet’ specifically, because none of this is being reported on television or in newspapers.

If it is established that Pfizer’s trials were fraudulent, their immunity from civil and criminal action becomes invalid. Sadly, even with ample evidence to evince serious doubt about the legitimacy, efficacy and safety of these drugs, governments have taken no steps to cancel any authorisations. Why? It is impossible to say. All I know is that my instincts have proved correct, and that in the past two years my trust and confidence in our government, our public health officials and the NHS has completely evaporated.

Tragically, for reasons of avarice or something more sinister, we have been subjected to a huge fraud, one that has generated grave implications for health, welfare, livelihoods, relationships and general wellbeing.

I respect you as a conscientious GP and wish you well.

Sincerely,

James Rogers

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

FDA Authorizes Pfizer Booster for Kids 5 to 11, Bypasses Advisory Panel

By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | May 17, 2022

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today authorized a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, without convening its vaccine advisory panel of independent experts to discuss Pfizer’s data on 5- to 11-year-olds — and based on a study subset of only 67 children, CNBC reported.

The FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the boosters despite data showing higher infection rates among fully vaccinated children in the 5 to 11 age group compared to unvaccinated children, no studies testing the efficacy of the vaccine against the current dominant BA.2 COVID-19 variant and two new studies showing that for vaccinated people who get Omicron, the infection provides better protection against future infections than a second booster dose.

The vaccine advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is scheduled to meet Thursday. The agency and its director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, are expected to sign off on the boosters, The Washington Post reported.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said data increasingly show protection provided by two shots wanes over time, but the agency determined a third shot could help boost protection for children in the 5 to 11 age group and the “benefits outweigh the risks.”

The FDA authorized the third shot after analyzing data from an ongoing Pfizer clinical trial in which a small subset of only 67 children in the age group had higher antibody levels one month after receiving a booster dose.

As The Defender reported, antibody levels alone are not indicative of immune protection. When it comes to COVID-19, T cell and natural killer cell responses are the crucial part of immune protection.

Pfizer has not published its actual data, precluding experts from conducting this analysis.

The authorized booster dose, the same strength as the first two doses, generated neutralizing antibodies to Omicron and the ancestral Wuhan version of the virus, according to The New York Times.

The FDA said it did not identify any new safety concerns and found the children in the trial experienced the same mild side effects other people do after receiving a booster.

However, a subset of only 67 children is not large enough to detect potential adverse events like myocarditis, and it is unknown how rapidly any protection provided wanes because trial participants were not followed beyond a 28-day period.

About 8.1 million, or 28%, of children ages 5 to 11, received their primary series of two COVID-19 vaccine doses as of May 11, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Those children will now be eligible for a third dose five months after their second dose based on data obtained from the 67 children who were followed for only one month.

COVID cases higher in vaccinated children aged 5 to 11, CDC data show

According to the latest CDC data, since February, higher COVID-19 case rates were recorded among fully vaccinated children compared to unvaccinated children in the 5 to 11 age group.

The CDC on Feb. 12 reported a weekly case rate of 250.02 per 10,000 population in fully vaccinated children ages 5 to 11, compared to 245.82 for unvaccinated children in the same age group.

The trend continued through the third week of March, which is the latest week of available data.

“Several factors likely affect crude case rates by vaccination and booster dose status, making interpretation of recent trends difficult,” CDC spokesperson Jasmine Reed told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Limitations include higher prevalence of previous infection among the unvaccinated and unboosted groups, difficulty in accounting for time since vaccination and waning protection, and possible differences in testing practices (such as at-home tests) and prevention behaviors by age and vaccination status,” Reed said. “These limitations appear to have less impact on the death rates presented here.”

According to CDC data, the gap between fully vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in all age groups has grown increasingly smaller, with the death rate showing the same trend for people over age 50.

For people under age 50, death rates are almost identical between the vaccinated and unvaccinated since the beginning of the vaccine rollout.

Data show COVID-19 vaccines have a “negligible effect” on people, said Dr. Peter McCullough, a prominent cardiologist and epidemiologist.

“With these results in hand, it is clear the vaccines are having a negligible effect in populations,” McCullough told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Given the overall poor safety profile and lack of any assurances on long-term safety, Americans should be cautious in considering additional injections of these products.”

Having COVID may be more effective than getting a booster, studies show

Two new studies show, for people who are vaccinated against COVID-19, getting a breakthrough Omicron infection may provide better protection than receiving a second booster, Fortune reported.

One study conducted by German biotechnology company BioNTech SE assessed vaccinated individuals who had breakthrough COVID-19 infection associated with the Omicron variant.

BioNTech found these individuals had a better B-cell response than individuals who had received a booster but had not been infected.

According to MD Anderson Center, B cells are a type of white blood cell that create antibodies that bind to pathogens or foreign substances and neutralize them. B cells bind to a virus and prevent it from entering a normal cell causing infection. They also recruit other cells to help destroy infected cells.

A second study by the University of Washington and Vir Biotechnology investigated the immune responses of various groups based on vaccination and infection status.

The study analyzed blood samples of individuals who had been vaccinated and then caught the Delta or Omicron variants and compared them with those who had COVID-19 first and were then vaccinated, those who had been vaccinated but were not previously infected and those who were infected but had never received a COVID-19 vaccine.

The study found vaccinated individuals with breakthrough Omicron infection produced antibodies that formed a strong defense against other variants of the virus. Unvaccinated people who caught Omicron did not have a similarly robust immune response.

Efficacy of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine wanes rapidly

A study published May 13 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found protection from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine turned negatively effective among children and adolescents five months after receiving a second dose — meaning recipients were more likely to get COVID-19 five months after being vaccinated.

Vaccine effectiveness “was no longer significantly different from 0 during month 3 after the second dose,” the researchers wrote. They also found protection against hospitalization waned significantly over time.

In adolescents, the authors said, efficacy increased again with boosters.

Most non-randomized studies attempting to determine vaccine efficacy (VE) had “common flaws,” including no accounting for baseline prior COVID-19 infection, no reporting for those who received a booster within a six-month time window and no adjudication of hospitalization or death due to COVID-19 or other conditions, McCullough told The Epoch Times.

“As a result, most studies of COVID-19 VE have biases towards overestimating any clinical benefit of vaccination,” McCullough said.

As The Defender reported on May 13, a different study published in JAMA showed second and third doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine provided protection against the Omicron variant for only a few weeks.

“Our study found a rapid decline in Omicron-specific serum neutralizing antibody titers only a few weeks after the second and third doses of [the Pfizer-BioNTech] BNT162b2,” the authors wrote.

A preprint study released in February showed Pfizer’s two-dose regimen of its COVID-19 vaccine for children was only 12% effective against Omicron in children ages 9 to 11, and the effectiveness of the vaccine “declined rapidly” for children 5 to 11.

Researchers at the New York State Department of Health and the University at Albany School of Public Health examined the effectiveness of the vaccine in children 5 to 11 and adolescents 12 to 17 from Dec. 13, 2021, to Jan. 30, 2022, and determined the effectiveness of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine declined rapidly for children, particularly those 5-11 years.

According to a Danish study of 128 people who had received two or three doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, levels of Omicron-specific “neutralizing” antibodies decline rapidly after a second and third dose of Pfizer’s shot.

Compared to original and Delta variants, researchers found the proportion of Omicron-specific antibodies detected in participants’ blood dropped “rapidly” from 76% four weeks after the second dose to 53% at weeks 8 to 10 and 19% at weeks 12 to 14.

After the third shot, neutralizing antibodies against Omicron fell 5.4-fold between week 3 and week 8.

Last month, Moderna requested EUA for its COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 6 months to 6 years. Pfizer plans to seek EUA for a three-dose regimen for the same age group.

The FDA’s top vaccine official told a congressional committee on May 6 COVID-19 vaccines for children under 6 will not have to meet the agency’s 50% efficacy threshold required to obtain EUA.

Megan Redshaw is a staff attorney for Children’s Health Defense and a reporter for The Defender.

© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Twitter Lead Client Partner Says Woke “Ideology” Responsible For Company’s Inability To “Profit”

Samizdat | May 18, 2022

A senior Twitter executive has apparently been caught on tape mocking Tesla CEO Elon Musk for having Asperger’s syndrome, while criticizing free speech.

In an undercover video posted by Project Veritas on Tuesday, Alex Martinez, who is claimed to be Twitter’s lead client partner, and who sometimes speaks on behalf of the company at events, claimed that Musk is “literally special needs” and that he can’t take anything he says seriously, adding that “he’s a loony tune.”

“Elon Musk as a person, he is whatever. I don’t… like he’s a loony tune, he has Asperger’s,” Martinez said, adding that Musk being “special” is “fine” and that no one is “gonna say some f**king crazy s**t because he’s special,” but did mock Musk’s calls for peace.

“Don’t you also see his piece about ‘why can’t we just all love each other? Haven’t you seen his other tweets where he’s like… I’m like, you’re special needs. You’re literally special needs. Literally, though, you really are. So I can’t even take what you’re saying seriously. Cause you’re special.”

The 50-year-old billionaire caught wind of the executive’s statements and took to Twitter, writing: “Twitter exec trashing free speech & mocking people with Asperger’s.” Musk also separately tweeted a frown emoji in response to the video.

Martinez also went into a long rant about free speech, arguing that the employees of Twitter “believe in something that’s good for the planet and not just to give people free speech.”

He claimed that this ideology was behind Twitter’s policies that were “put in place for misinformation or mislabeling media,” which the employees were not going to give up without a fight, insisting that there would be a revolt against Musk’s proposed changes.

In the video clip posted, the executive also commented on the issue of censorship on Twitter, stating that “people don’t know how to make a rational decision if you don’t put out correct things that are supposed to be out in the public.”

Martinez also said the reason Twitter doesn’t make money is because its employees are in it for the ideas rather than profit. “If we’re implementing all these rules… and Elon wants to dismantle them, then technically our ideology has led us to not making money because we’re not making money, and Elon wants to turn it the other way so that we can make money.”

He also expressed concern that Twitter’s leaders, such as current CEO Parag Agrawal and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey, who co-founded the platform and currently sits on the board of directors, are motivated by greed.

“At the end of the day, I think the real truth – that they can’t ever say – is that it’s all about money. That it’s all about money, and making all this money. Parag, Jack, the board members, everyone gets paid,” Martinez said.

“Elon gets like tax benefits. Doesn’t have to pay taxes forever. Everything. Like it’s all like money, s**t, greed, America.”

At the end of the video, Martinez also showed the undercover reporter an email that Twitter’s corporate security had sent out to employees, warning them of sting operations like the one actually being carried out by Project Veritas.

“Like they’re trying to go on dates with them, like this,” Martinez told the undercover reporter. “Lucky I met you organically, or I would be questioning you.”

On Monday, Project Veritas released another undercover video in which a supposed senior engineer at Twitter admitted that the company culture was extremely far left and that many of the workers are “commie as f**k” and hate Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover.

The engineer also said that Twitter “did not believe in free speech” and was actively censoring conservatives on the platform.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Trudeau Accuses Russia of ‘Silencing’ Media After CBC Office Shut in Tit-for-Tat Move

Samizdat – 18.05.2022

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Russia of “silencing” media after Moscow closed the local bureau of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in retaliation for Ottawa banning TV service providers in the country from distributing RT.

“Putin’s decision to expel Canadian media from Moscow is an attempt to silence them from reporting the facts, and it is unacceptable,” Trudeau said. “Journalists must be able to work safely – free from censorship, intimidation, and interference. That is something Canada will always stand up for.”

In March, the state telecommunications commission announced that Canada is banning the transmission of Russian broadcasters RT and RT France, citing the alleged exposure of Ukrainians to hate on the basis of race or national origin. The ruling came just weeks after Trudeau asked the commission to review RT’s license in the country.

While the ruling officially put a halt to RT’s presence on Canadian airwaves, the state Russian broadcaster had been pulled from all major television packages weeks earlier.

On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that in response to Canada’s actions, Russia is closing the CBC office and is canceling the accreditation and visas of its journalists.

Since the start of Russia’s military operation, a number of countries, including those in the European Union, have banned Russian media and introduced sanctions against journalists affiliated with the news outlets.

RT and Sputnik Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has said Western countries always wanted go get rid of Russian media because the latter provided informative and balanced reporting, and are now using Russia’s special operation in Ukraine as an excuse to do so.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

UK police are solving the lowest ever proportion of crimes after focussing on speech offenses

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 17, 2022

To paraphrase an old adage, if a police force has to ask itself whether it is acting like a thought police – it probably is. And another certainty is that the answer it comes up with will highly likely still be, “no.”

But now, there is seemingly a desire to reverse the trend and once again have the police focus on dealing with actual crime, instead of, to all intents and purposes, getting involved in politics.

That’s what UK’s new chief inspector of constabulary, Andy Cooke, is saying, asserting that the country’s police should not act like the thought police, and unwittingly revealing how bad things have gotten by saying that officers must “remember that different thoughts are not forbidden.”

But how did it even come to a point where the fact that allowing different thoughts, a foundation of any democracy, is something the police must make an effort to remind themselves of?

It’s been a slippery slope that saw speech – but not action – related to transphobia and misogyny, among other hot-button issues, be treated as hate crimes by the police.

A turning point may have been the introduction in 2014 of “non crime hate incidents” that means this kind of “incident” can be reported to law enforcement. All it takes to justify such a move is for the alleged victim or somebody else to “perceive” that the incident in question was motivated by “hostility and prejudice.”

These reports, that cannot be appealed against, then crop up in people’s criminal record checks for a period of six years.

Judging by Cooke’s statements, published on Sunday, non crime hate incidents are not going away, but how and when the rule is applied could become more strict, as the UK police have more pressing issues such as solving serious crimes. The rate at which these cases have been solved has been the lowest ever compared to other types of offenses, the Home Office said.

“We’re not the thought police, we follow legislation and we follow the law, simple as that,” said Cooke, who’s job is to provide assessment and make recommendations on how to improve the police force, and added, “It’s important that the prioritization that we give is to those most at risk, and that policing stays away from the politics with a small p, and the different thoughts that people have.”

“Those thoughts, unless they become actions, aren’t an offense. The law is quite clear in relation to what is an offense and what isn’t an offense,” he said.

May 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

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