Samizdat | October 13, 2022
Russia will not recognize the results of the ongoing investigation into the explosions at the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in late September unless its experts are allowed to take part in the probe, Moscow has said. Russia’s foreign ministry revealed on Thursday it had summoned the representatives of Germany, Denmark and Sweden to convey its “bewilderment” over a lack of official reaction to a request for cooperation sent earlier this month by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
In its press statement, the ministry noted that while Russian authorities and the country’s energy giant, Gazprom, have still not been granted access to the investigation, reports have been appearing which suggest that Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm have been far more accommodating to similar requests made by other nations, including the US.
Russian diplomats emphasized that if its calls for cooperation are ignored, Moscow will assume that the three European countries “have something to hide or [that] they are covering up the perpetrators of these terrorist attacks.”
“Russia will, of course, not recognize any ‘pseudo-results’ of such an investigation, unless Russian experts take part in it,” the statement read.
The warning comes after Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced on Monday that Stockholm would not share with Moscow the results of its investigation into the explosions that severely damaged the two conduits created to pump gas from Russia to Europe.
“In Sweden, our preliminary investigations are confidential, and that, of course, also applies in this case,” she explained.
The premier added, however, that Russia may conduct its own probe at the site if it so wishes.
Meanwhile, Swedish authorities have said they’d found evidence that points to sabotage.
Also on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted that despite the denial of access to the probe, “we all know well who the ultimate beneficiary of this crime is.” Earlier, he had publicly laid the blame for the attack at the doorstep of the “Anglo-Saxons,” a Russian colloquialism for the US-UK bond.
Commenting on the blasts, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had described them as a “tremendous opportunity” for Europe “to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy.”
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were rendered inoperable on September 26 following a series of powerful underwater explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm.
October 13, 2022
Posted by aletho |
War Crimes | Denmark, Germany, Russia, Sweden, United States |
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House Energy and Commerce Committee member Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) proposed a resolution to ask The White House to submit documents on its efforts to coerce Big Telecom companies to censor certain media organizations and the pressure on the FCC to regulate Big Tech. The resolution was backed by ranking member Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA).
We obtained a copy of the resolution for you here.
The resolution states: “This resolution requests from the President certain information and documents that concern regulating the content of multichannel video programming distributors (e.g., cable operators), broadcast stations, and video streaming services. The resolution also requests information or documents in which the President asks the Federal Communications Commission to take action to regulate Big Tech.”
The resolution came after telecoms like AT&T’s DirecTV blocked One America News Network (OAN) after pressure from Democrats on the committee, which has oversight over tech companies and telecoms, voted against the resolution, Breitbart reported.
Following the vote, Rep. Carter blasted Democrat’s, accusing them of trying to hide the truth about the Biden administration’s censorship efforts.
“Unfortunately, the left is waging a war on our right to free speech,” said Rep. Carter. “Every single committee Democrat voted against my commonsense resolution to require the FCC be transparent about politically-motivated censorship.
“The Biden Administration and Washington Democrats are keeping information out of the hands of the American people – information we deserve to have. What do they have against transparency? What do they have to hide? Free speech is a First Amendment right for a reason. Without it, we don’t have a democracy.”
October 13, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Democrat Party, United States |
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The recently announced decision only tends to worsen current security crisis on the European continent
By Lucas Leiroz | October 13, 2022
Contrary to all the recommendations by military experts to avoid further escalation in the European security crisis, France is apparently planning to expand its military presence in other regions of the continent, mainly in the eastern part. In a recent statement, the French Defense Minister said that an increase in his country’s military capability in Eastern Europe is currently being planned, which considerably tends to escalate tensions in the near future.
On October 11, Sebastien Lecornu, French Defense Minister, revealed that France will cooperate with NATO to deploy more troops and military equipment in Eastern Europe, as a way of reacting to the current situation of instability in the region. According to him, armored vehicles will be sent to the East, mostly to be deployed in Romania, allegedly in an attempt to prevent foreign attacks and seek security stability.
At a meeting of the French Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces, Lecornu said: “In view of the situation on the eastern flank of NATO due to the fighting that Russia is waging in Ukraine, the president of the republic decided to strengthen our defensive position in eastern Europe by sending a brigade of armored vehicles and tanks to Romania”.
The defense minister also made it clear that Paris plans to strengthen the NATO’s presence in the Baltic region. He said that France will soon be sending new Rafaele fighter jets to Lithuania. In addition, French troops are expected to be deployed to Estonia in the coming weeks. Lecornu stressed that such measures are likely to be implemented between October and early November.
The initiative seems to be a first step to comply with NATO’s plans decided during the last summit on strengthening the eastern flank until 2023, as a way of responding to the supposed “Russian threat” posed by the special operation in Ukraine. At the summit, the organization’s officials had decided that the eastern flank must reach as quickly as possible the number of more than 300,000 soldiers of high combat readiness.
Obviously, when such decisions are made, all the alliance’s countries are expected to contribute as much as they can in order to achieve the goals. So, France, apparently fulfilling the role of hegemonic military power on the European continent, is ready to lead the project and already plans to allocate troops and weapons to allied nations by November.
As far as Romania is concerned, President Emmanuel Macron had promised already at the summit in June to help to create a special NATO brigade for the country. Although very clear commitments to send military aid to the Baltic States have not been made before, this type of measure was also expected, considering the importance of that region to NATO’s plans of encircling Russia. In the same sense, it is likely that Paris will also reinforce the deployments of its troops in other allied countries in the East in the near future.
In parallel with this French readiness to attend NATO’s plans to occupy the East, it is also necessary to emphasize Macron’s recent pledges to expand his support for Zelensky. On October 10th, the French president made a public statement reiterating his country’s full and absolute support for Ukraine to have the necessary conditions to continue fighting. On the same day, Macron and Zelensky had spoken by phone in an “urgent call”, in which Macron promised to bolster his support for Kiev.
Zelensky commented on the call on his social media saying: “Had an urgent call with Emmanuel Macron. We discussed the strengthening of our air defense, the need for a tough European and international reaction, as well as increased pressure on the Russian Federation. France stands with Ukraine”.
In addition, the French government has released a special fund of 100 million euros for Kiev to buy weapons from French military companies. Analyzing it from a realistic point of view, the measure does not exactly sound like a gesture of support and good will, but as a way to generate profits and promote French national industry while Ukraine buys weapons to continue fighting in a conflict.
In fact, there are two ways of interpreting the French attitude. On the one hand, Paris is acting against European interests because, by using its forces to occupy the East, it is worsening the security crisis as it inflates NATO’s threats to Russia in the region, generating instability. On the other hand, the French government is also trying to serve its own interests and pursuing a policy of military expansionism, regional affirmation of power and improvements to the national war industry.
What Macron should do to achieve his goal of becoming a hegemonic leader in Europe would be to admit that NATO’s plans do not coincide with European interests and to use his influence to prevent excessive and anti-strategic militarization in the eastern part of the continent. But, apparently, attending to NATO’s demands remains the priority in Europe.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on Telegram.
October 13, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | France, NATO |
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In his 2020 book The Denial , journalist Ross Clark describes a dystopian future in which everything we buy or do has a carbon (CO2) value and each household or individual has a maximum allowance to use each month. Only the elite have no restrictions.
Now, disturbingly, it looks like that fiction is edging closer to becoming fact – as outlined in an article by Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum entitled My Carbon: An approach for inclusive and sustainable cities.
The writers, Kunal Kumar and Mridul Kaushik, see the ground for a carbon-controlled future as having been laid by what happened during the pandemic, and how willingly we submitted to the Project Fear clampdown on our freedoms.
‘A huge number of unimaginable restrictions for public health were adopted by billions of citizens across the world,’ they say. ‘There were numerous examples globally of maintaining social distancing, wearing masks, mass vaccinations and acceptance of contact-tracing applications for public health.’
They claim that our caving in to Covid dikats ‘demonstrated the core of individual social responsibility’. But perhaps all it really demonstrated is how bullying authorities, using Project Fear backed up by heavy-handed policing and mainstream media panic-peddling, coerced us into abject, cowering submission.
In a section on ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’, the authors discuss how advances in emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and digitisation, can enable tracking personal carbon emissions – one being a smartphone app. There are ‘a significant number of programs and applications enabling citizens to contribute towards carbon emissions by providing them in-depth awareness on the choices of personal carbon for food, transport, home energy and lifestyle choices.’
Perhaps most chilling is a proposed model showing how our rulers plan to control our individual carbon usage. It falls into three main approaches:
Economic Behaviour: The price of carbon will increase so ordinary people will eat less, heat their homes less, buy fewer products and restrict their travel.
Cognitive awareness: We will have to monitor our personal ‘carbon footprints’ so we can reduce our usage as part of the transition to a Net Zero society. This will cover most areas of everyday life.
Social norms: We will all be given fixed allowances of what are called a ‘fair share’ and ‘acceptable levels’ of personal emissions, which will be set by the ruling elites.
However, there is one part of this wonderful carbon-controlled future the WEF article doesn’t mention. I suspect the allowances scheme will include a carbon trading facility. This will allow ordinary people to sell parts of their allowances to companies which will sell them on to the political, business and media elites.
This will ensure the privileged can continue to live lives of unrestricted luxury with unlimited travel, the most expensive foods and other life pleasures. Meanwhile, the rest of us are likely to be huddling in our tiny, barely-heated homes, eating locally-grown potatoes, cabbage, insects or lab-produced fake meat.
It’s a grim picture. But perhaps we should be grateful to Klaus Schwab and his cohorts for so clearly describing the future they are preparing for us.
October 13, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity |
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Title says it all – the evil of Mandates, when they had to know they served no purpose but… totalitarianism and control! Great one to share with normies, as all the data is packed in here too.
NOTE: My extensive research and interviewing / video/sound editing, business travel and much more does require support – please consider helping if you can with monthly donation to support me directly, or one-off payment: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=69ZSTYXBMCN3W – alternatively join up with my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IvorCummins
Ivor Cummins | October 5, 2022
I’ve just been included in a nonsense propaganda publication! A book no less – publishing tomorrow Oct 6th – “Web of Lies”. Unbelievable deceit dripping through the piece they decided to share with me before publication – and stunningly incorrect throughout. Btw if referring to this book or sharing thoughts, always use the hashtag #WebOfLies – and PLEASE don’t comment if talking depopulation, radio waves or any other such stuff – always stick to the pandemic response ‘science’, and to published science/data – I never associate with anything other than the latter, as you should well know… 😠
That said, this vid will give you and your friends/family an invaluable education on how these guys craft propaganda. Enjoy, while I blow their deceit out of the water with trivial ease – directly from the published data – as always 😉 p.s. the white paper I sent them – a key resource to download and share: https://thefatemperor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Evidence-For-and-Against-the-Effectiveness-of-Lockdown-Policies-DRAFT-RevC.pdf
October 13, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Before the start of Palestinian national meetings in Algiers yesterday, Fatah rejected an Algerian proposal for the internal Palestinian reconciliation, Quds Press reported yesterday.
“While the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas has accepted the Algerian proposal for the reconciliation with Fatah, the latter rejected the proposal and suggested two major changes,” an informed source told Quds Press.
The source added: “Fatah set a condition that Hamas must accept the International Quartet’s decisions and recognising that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is the only representative of the Palestinian people.”
According to the source, Fatah wants Hamas to recognise the PLO without seeking to make any change to it.
For its part, Hamas told the Algerian mediator that “it completely rejects Fatah’s conditions,” stating that the Quartet, which was created in 2002 by the UN, US, UK and Russia, wanted Hamas to recognise the Israeli occupation of Palestine and give up legal resistance.”
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is hosting a comprehensive Palestinian dialogue for the Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas. Talks began yesterday and are due to resume today.
October 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Hamas, Palestine |
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Samizdat – October 13, 2022
The UN General Assembly has adopted a non-binding resolution accusing Moscow of an “attempted illegal annexation” and calling on member states to ignore the results of referendums in four former eastern Ukrainian regions to join Russia.
Wednesday’s 143-5 vote followed the General Assembly’s refusal on Monday to use secret ballots, as requested by Russia, amid pressure from the US and its allies to join them in condemning Moscow for the accessions. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia had argued that for many countries “it may be very difficult” to express their views publicly.
Despite that pressure, four nations joined Russia in voting against the UN resolution, including Belarus, Syria, Nicaragua and North Korea. Among those 35 abstaining were China and India, as well as South Africa, Pakistan, Thailand, Cuba, Vietnam, Armenia and Algeria.
Before launching its military operation in Ukraine in February, Russia recognized the sovereignty of two Donbass regions, the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) People’s Republics, arguing that the central power in Kiev has for far too long failed to represent and protect people living there. Residents of two other regions, Kherson and Zaporozhye, also voted by wide margins in public referendums last month to declare independence and join Russia. President Vladimir Putin signed the unification treaties with the four new Russian regions on October 5.
The UNGA condemned those plebiscites as “illegal,” saying the four regions are temporarily occupied because of Russian aggression, in violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Wednesday’s resolution calls on all nations and the UN to refuse recognition of the accessions.
Moscow argued the referendums were the only legitimate way for people to exercise their right for self-determination and be protected from their former government. In a recent speech, Putin cited “an inherent right sealed in Article 1 of the UN Charter, which directly states the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”
Putin also previously argued that the UN itself set a legal precedent for the referendums, after its International Court of Justice ruled that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not violate international law.
UN leaders have dismissed such parallels, with General Assembly President Csaba Korosi reiterating on Monday that the referendums in the former Ukrainian regions were illegal while calling to “find a political solution based on the UN Charter and the international law.”
Rejecting the referendums as a “sham,” Kiev – which receives military assistance, training and intelligence from NATO nations on an unprecedented scale – said it is determined to beat Russia on the battlefield. Ukraine insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked, even as its former president admitted that Kiev’s main goal since 2014 Minsk agreements was to use the Germany- and France-brokered ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
October 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Russia, Ukraine, United Nations |
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The infinite list
Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.
I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding.
- Insinuating that the lab leak hypothesis is a racist conspiracy theory is anti-science;
- Closing international borders to keep a virus out when the virus is already established in-country is anti-science;
- Panicked killing of Danish mink was anti-science. Public health apologizing for the mistake is pro-science;
- Redefining herd immunity to exclude immunity conferred by disease recovery is anti-science;
- Sending covid infected patients back to nursing homes to keep hospital beds empty was anti-science;
- Lockdowns and other trickle down epidemiology are anti-science;
- Science bureaucrats using their power to smear scientists who disagree with them is anti-science;
- Instituting lockdowns & restrictions on the basis of overly-simplistic covid models is anti-science;
- Pretending there is a scientific consensus on lockdown and so much else when there is not a scientific consensus (Especially while censoring sceptical voices) is anti-science;
- Arbitrarily dividing society into essential and non-essential is anti-science;
- Ignoring the obvious and devastating economic costs of policy is anti-science;
- Censorship of scientific debate is anti-science. Literally.
- Zoom school is anti-science;
- Politically partisan public health is anti-science;
- Not permitting healthy people to leave home for more than an hour, even for exercise, is anti-science;
- Jumping off the sidewalk to avoid the breath of an unmasked person walking by is anti-science;
- Shutting down kids’ sports is anti-science;
- Public health shaming people for not following public health diktats is anti-science;
- Forcing school kids to eat six feet apart from each other, outdoors and in silence was anti-science;
- Redefining health to be synonymous with the avoidance of a single infectious disease is anti-science;
- Six-foot social distancing is anti-science;
- Not letting family members visit dying relatives is anti-science;
- Contact tracing to contain a highly infectious and aerosolized respiratory virus is anti-science;
- Zero covid is anti-science;
- Mask mandates are anti-science;
- White washing the harm done to children by school closures by glibly asserting that ‘kids are resilient’ is anti-science;
- Institutionalized hypochondria is anti-science;
- Masking toddlers is anti-science;
- Requiring waiters to mask to serve unmasked patrons is anti-science;
- Noble lies are bad public health practice and anti-science;
- Pharmaceutical company funding of on-air news media and professional medical organizations is anti-science;
- Policing private doctor patient communication for non-CDC approved content is anti-science;
- Science & medicine are the common inheritance of all, regardless of party. Medical and scientific professional societies officially endorsing political candidates and thereby alienating half the population is anti-science;
- Not rapidly running randomized trials to evaluate off-patent early treatment options and denigrating doctors and patients who tried them (“horse paste”) when better options were not available is anti-science;
- Ignoring age-stratification in risk in determining pandemic policy and vaccine recommendations is anti-science;
- Vaccine discrimination is socially divisive and is anti-science;
- Public health experts have an obligation to speak respectfully with everyone, including people who oppose their recommendations (such as on vaccines). Guilt-by-association attacks on experts who fulfil this obligation are anti-science;
- Asserting that a vaccine stops transmission when it does not stop transmission is anti-science;
- Ignoring immunity after covid recovery is anti-science;
- Vaccine mandates have demolished public trust and are anti-science;
- Pausing childhood vaccination programs and tuberculosis treatment in poor countries because of fear of covid led to many unnecessary deaths and is anti-science;
- Ignoring legitimate vaccine injury is anti-science;
- Declaring oneself to be The Science itself is anti-science;
October 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has begun drafting Alberta-style Sovereignty Act legislation.
Moe says it’s time to defend and assert Saskatchewan’s economic autonomy by “drawing the line.” He wants to take several steps, including introducing provincial legislation to clarify and protect Saskatchewan’s constitutional rights.
The proposal would give the province exclusive use over their resources like electricity and any emissions associated with fertilizer, oil and gas.
Like all provinces, Saskatchewan has exclusive areas of jurisdiction under the Constitution, but Moe’s government is accusing the Trudeau Liberals of infringement.
“Saskatchewan is taking action to unlock our economic potential and defend Saskatchewan’s economy, families and jobs from federal intrusion that could cost our province as much as $111 billion by 2035,” Moe wrote on Twitter.
According to the Saskatchewan government, new climate change policies could cost the province over $110 billion within the next thirteen years.
The Alberta government called proposed federal environmental laws a “Trojan Horse.”
Chief of Justice Catherine Fraser, who spent 30 years serving as the Chief of Justice for Alberta, described the proposal as an unconstitutional legislative scheme. Fraser retired shortly after providing her statement.
Saskatchewan’s SaskPower says the Canadian federal government proposed Clean Electricity Standard is not achievable.
While the Canadian government has debated additional energy costs, many EU countries face an ongoing energy sector supply crisis. Some people in Scotland have been burning their energy bills to protest aggressive energy price increases. Law enforcement in France has been refusing gas station access to some citizens.
October 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Canada |
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Not to beat a dead horse, but most of the world has a delusional image in their head of the war in Ukraine. As I have written previously, much of the fault lies with Hollywood, which through a plethora of movies has conditioned the masses to think of war as the conquest of critical territory. But that is a misleading image when it comes to Ukraine. Yes, there are strategically important pieces of territory that must be captured or defended, but there also are vast swaths of plains (we call them prairies here in the United States) that are tactically difficult to control and, if you succeed in capturing an area of land, you create a problem of how to defend it.
Russia has a decisive advantage over Ukraine when it comes to battling for this territory, even though it ceded some of it a few weeks ago to advancing Ukrainian troops. Why? Because Russia’s air force is still intact and can be used to attack massed Ukrainian units. Ukraine’s air capability has been eviscerated. Russia also enjoys a lopsided advantage in tanks.
At the beginning of its full-scale invasion in Feb., Russia had around 3,330 operational tanks (2,840 with the ground forces, 330 with its naval infantry, and 160 with its airborne forces), according to the Military Balance 2021 database. . . .
However, Russia still has some 2,000 battle-ready tanks at hand, as well as an enormous amount in storage.
The Military Balance 2021 database says Russian storage facilities have around 10,200 tanks, including various T-72s, 3,000 T-80s, and 200 T-90s.
Tank battles on rolling plains is great grist for a Hollywood blockbuster, but the real peril for Ukraine has been on display over the last two days–Russia’s hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles and air launched rockets mangling power nodes and military headquarters throughout Ukraine. The Russian strikes in the last two days significantly degraded Ukraine’s ability to supply electricity and critical heat to its major cities. The attacks also are disrupting Ukraine’s cell phone network and its ability to move troops and equipment from the west to the frontlines in the east.
Ukraine does not have a comparable capability to counter the Russian attacks. Moreover, the Russian missile barrage has highlighted the weakness, if not absence, of Ukraine’s anti-missile defense system. It is neither a mistake nor a coincidence that Russia’s strikes in major Ukrainian cities–more than 100 missiles– caused very few human casualties, especially on the civilian side of the ledger. Despite Ukrainian claims that Russia’s strikes killed civilians, the evidence suggests otherwise–Ukraine’s own anti-missile system failed to intercept the Russian targets and then fell to earth and hit apartments and schools.
What is the United States and NATO going to do? Immediately deploy the Iron Dome anti-missile system? Unfortunately, these Western anti-missile systems are not designed to defeat the missiles Russia is launching. Then there is the logistics problem–i.e., getting those systems deployed and training personnel to operate them. This will take weeks, if not months. And Ukraine does not have the luxury of time in this regard. Making matters worse, the United States and NATO do not have the reserves to quickly resupply Ukraine:
The United States will soon be unable to supply Ukraine, as it has up to now, with the sophisticated equipment essential for its defense against Russia as its reserves are reaching their limits, especially in terms of ammunition. . . .
But US stockpiles of certain equipment are “reaching the minimum levels necessary for war and training plans” and getting weapons stockpiles back to pre-invasion levels could take years, Mark Cancian wrote in a recent analysis. of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Washington is “learning lessons” from the conflict about ammunition needs in a very powerful war, and that it is “much larger” than expected, said a US military official who requested anonymity.
Then there is the nightmare scenario for Ukraine and NATO of Russia invoking the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and Russia asking Belarus to join the fray. Russian and Belarusian troops already are gathering on Ukraine’s northern border. Whether this is a bluff by Russia or genuine preparation for opening a new front in the north, the massing of forces requires Ukraine to deploy already depleted forces to the northern border. This will weaken Ukraine’s ability to hold off a Russian offensive in Kherson and Zaporhyzhia.
I believe that the events during the next five weeks will create a crisis within NATO and the United States. If Russia seizes the initiative and moves in force against Ukrainian units, NATO will not be in a position to rescue Ukraine from defeat on the battlefield. Any further intervention by NATO will make it, in the eyes of the Russians, a legitimate military target.
Compounding the military challenges confronting the United States and NATO, there are the economic and political headwinds. Joe Biden is likely to lose control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. If this happens, he will no longer have a congressional ally eager to keep shoveling money and weapons into Ukraine. The economic conditions throughout Europe of inflation and shuttering businesses will fuel more domestic unrest and diminish enthusiasm for keeping Ukraine afloat.
When you take all of these factors into consideration, the conclusion is clear–Russia enjoys a strategic and tactical initiative that will be difficult to surmount. Conversely, NATO is in trouble.
October 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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While PayPal has walked back its threat to fine users $2,500 for “misinformation,” the payments company is still reserving the right to fine users the same amount for other alleged transgressions.
In its current “Acceptable Use Policy,” which has been active for a year, PayPal states that: “Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy constitutes a violation of the PayPal User Agreement and may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s).”
And PayPal’s list of “prohibited activities,” which can trigger this $2,500 fine, include any activities that relate to transactions involving “intolerance that is discriminatory,” “the promotion of hate,” and “items that are considered obscene.”
Not only is PayPal reserving the right to fine users based on broad and subjective terms but its “User Agreement” states that PayPal will fine users if it “believe[s]” they’ve engaged in a prohibited activity.
“If we believe that you’ve engaged in any of these activities, we may take a number of actions to protect PayPal, its customers and others at any time in our sole discretion,” the PayPal User Agreement states.
The terms that PayPal is using to justify these potential fines of up to $2,500 are often used by companies and governments to restrict online speech. One of the most relevant examples of this speech policing is fundraising platform GoFundMe’s decision to suspend a campaign from political commentator Candace Owens for “intolerance” over opinions on protests.
And even when it doesn’t fine users, there are many examples of PayPal suddenly shutting down user accounts for alleged violations of its Acceptable Use Policy.
Related: How to delete your PayPal account
October 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | PayPal |
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On 7 October 2022, late in the evening, at around 11.30 pm, I was detained at Gatwick Airport in London by anti-terrorism police. I was not released until shortly before 1 am and my computer was taken from me. It has not yet been returned.
My passport and all my personal belongings – my wallet, my phone, my keys, everything – were removed. I was taken to a room where I was questioned for an hour by two anti-terrorism police officers, acting under powers given to the police (as I learned for the first time) by Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-terrorism and Border Security Act.
The Act is supposedly designed to allow the police to detain ‘hostile actors’ who are travelling to the country to ‘plan, prepare or carry out their hostile acts’ (according to the leaflet the officers gave me). But the Act itself says, ‘An examining officer may exercise the powers under this paragraph whether or not there are grounds for suspecting that a person is or has been engaged in hostile activity’ (my emphasis)[1]. So an Act ostensibly designed to allow hostile actors to be stopped in fact applies indiscriminately to everyone, according to its own explicit terms.
It is certainly surprising that the powers were wielded, in my case, against a British national. Nationals should not normally be questioned in this way about their reasons for entering the territory of their own country.
One of the officers opened the interrogation by saying that I was not being detained and that therefore I could not have access to a lawyer. But of course I was being detained, since it was impossible for me to leave the interrogation room and, even more so, the airport, without my passport and personal effects. (I was kept on the ‘air side’, i.e. before passing through passport control.) The word ‘detained’ has evidently been emptied of all meaning.
According to the leaflet, ‘Unlike most other Police powers, the power to stop, question, search and, if necessary, detain persons under Schedule 3 does not require authority or any suspicion.’ So the special powers enjoyed by the Police at UK ports are a ‘regime of exception’ in which the normal safeguards of the rule of law have been tossed aside.
It goes on, ’You can be searched, and anything you have with you … this includes electronic devices … where searches are conducted, there is no requirement for a written notice of search to be provided to you. Under certain circumstances, the officer can seize any property they find.’
What are these ‘certain circumstances’? When I protested at the fact that my computer was being taken from me, which would prevent me from working until it is returned, and when I offered to bring it to a police station the following day, the officer replied that it was out of the question that it would not be taken. In other words, there are no ‘certain circumstances.’ The seizure of such devices is, on the contrary, the rule.
In a state of law, the Police can search someone’s property only with a search warrant. This is a document signed by a judge which authorises private property to be searched and seized. If you look up ‘search warrant’ in Wikipedia, it says, ‘In certain authoritarian nations, police officers may be allowed to search individuals and property without having to obtain court permission or provide justification for their actions.’ According to this standard, the UK is now an ‘authoritarian nation.’
It is precisely what separates a legal state from a dictatorship that the work of the police is not abused for political purposes, yet this is what occurred to me.
The officers questioned me about my work at the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in Paris from 2008 to 2018 and about my work at the European Parliament since then, and more recently for FVD. All the information they wanted is available publicly, for instance on Wikipedia. The questioning was polite but amateurish.
I was asked about my political views. The officer said, ‘It is a free country, not everyone is so lucky.’ I believe this is what is called ‘the British sense of humour’.
The officers told me that they had had two or three hours to prepare. This means that they were alerted in London to my imminent arrival at the moment when my boarding pass was scanned in Budapest. Everyone should know this.
They spent those hours looking things up on the Internet. The officer questioning me seemed unsure of what he was really trying to find out. The Internet, as everyone should know, is a veritable cesspit of false information and there are endless claims on it about me which are untrue. Many of these have been repeated recently in the Dutch press, as journalists go online, find what they are looking for and repeat lies told earlier by others. In my case, they never tire of telling the same fairy tale.
It is bad enough when journalists do this but it is frightening to think that anti-terrorism police officers regard Google as a reliable source of information. One dreads to think how many genuinely hostile actors pass through the net if this is the Police’s idea of investigation. Unfortunately that is the state of the world today.
It is particularly symbolic that this should happen to me. Ever since I started to get interested in international criminal law over 20 years ago, I have criticised the way in which international tribunals toss aside the myriad rules and procedures which have accumulated over the centuries to ensure due process. The British are traditionally proud of these procedures which have protected citizens against abusive state power for centuries. I have repeatedly warned that these dictatorial practices would soon percolate down into national jurisdictions and destroy the precious inheritance known as the rule of law. This has now happened.
Ever since the EU announced its Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime in December 2020, moreover, I have also pointed out that the EU has given itself the power to punish individuals by executive order. This is a very dangerous development. Individuals are punished under this regime without any legal procedure (no trial) and without any means of defending themselves. So much for human rights! I have warned for two years now that citizens of Western states would themselves be the target of these sanctions. This duly happened in July when a British blogger, Graham Philipps, was sanctioned by the United Kingdom which has the same system as the EU and the US.
In other words I, who have been warning that these procedures, introduced at international level, would soon corrupt the criminal law in domestic jurisdictions, have now been proved horribly right by an example of this abuse of which I have now personally been a victim. It was a profoundly disturbing experience.
Shortly before it happened, FVD International tweeted its disapproval of the EU sanctions imposed on the philosopher, Alexander Dugin. As we showed with a screen shot of the relevant EU document, the European Council (i.e. the executive) sanctioned Dugin purely for his views. Nowhere it is alleged that he has actually participated in the invasion of Ukraine nor even that he is guilty of incitement. Instead, he is sanctioned for thoughtcrime.
Some people who do not like Dugin are pleased at this. But they should understand that these are seriously abusive powers which can easily, as in my case, be directed against totally innocent people. To such people I can find no better response than the famous remarks by Pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak out for me.
Europe is sliding into dictatorship. In fact, it is already there.
October 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | European Union, Human rights, UK |
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