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More evidence on Covid vaccine deaths

By Guy Hatchard | TCW Defending Freedom | March 20, 2022

The writer is in New Zealand

A NEW paper at an open access platform (OSF) about German excess all-cause deaths adds significantly to the growing body of evidence being reported around the world.

There are a number of interesting points in the German data which is broken down by age. During 2020, Covid infections peaked but all-cause mortality was not seriously elevated, whereas during 2021 while the mRNA vaccine was being rolled out, German all-cause deaths were elevated for the 15-79 age range.

This is not an isolated statistic. All-cause deaths among working age populations are increasing. Official US all-cause death data paints a depressingly similar picture to the German and New Zealand stats. Commercial insurance data confirms this.

A comparison of 15-79 German all-cause deaths with vaccinations by month shows how vaccination numbers mirrored deaths. It also shows how an increase in all-cause deaths occurred when boosters were rolled out. The relationship is similar to the observed excess all-cause deaths in NZ.

The significance of this data cannot be overestimated. UKHSA reports that the average age of people dying from Covid is 82.9 years, higher than the average UK life expectancy. Therefore all-cause deaths among the 15-79 year age bracket are not expected to increase significantly as a result of Covid infections. The implications of the observed rises across multiple countries are very disturbing. Most studies of long-term outcomes following Covid infection are not differentiating between subjects who have been vaccinated and those who are not. This allows vaccine advocates, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and governments to continue to blame adverse outcomes including deaths on Covid infection alone or chance events without considering the adverse effect of mRNA vaccination, whose long-term impacts may be even larger. The German data supports causal attribution of increases in all-cause deaths to the effects of mRNA Covid vaccination.

Some are beginning to see the light. Last week John Campbell, respected provaxx YouTube Covid commentator from the UK with 2million followers, changed sides. He read out the key points from the court-ordered Pfizer release of adverse effects documents, threw up his hands in despair, and expressed anger at how we have all been misled from the start. A list of 1,223 deaths and 42,086 adverse events across broad categories of serious illness led to his censure. 

New Zealand carries on regardless

At a press conference on Thursday, Northern Region Health Coordination Centre (NRHCC) chief clinical officer Dr Andrew Old said only a third of the 1,000 people currently in hospital with Covid-19 were there due to the effects of the virus. He did not provide any details about how many of this third were vaccinated and how many unvaccinated. He didn’t provide any data on how many of the modest number of deaths were ‘with Covid’ and how many were ‘because of Covid’. So all bets are off when it comes to analysing NZ data. Yet Dr Ashley Bloomfield, the NZ Director General of Health, who was interviewed by Mike Hosking yesterday morning, said the 1,000 people in hospital would not be there if it wasn’t for Covid. Hosking had to correct him.

This means for the last few weeks we have been subjected to a meaningless psychobabble of palpably false Covid statistics designed by the Ministry of Health to contain us in a state of constant fear. What the government hasn’t really talked about is their failure to upgrade the emergency departments of NZ hospitals (they’ve had two years to prepare), instead spending 64billion dollars of borrowed money promoting an ineffective Covid vaccination programme. The NZ Herald reports our hospital system is in crisis, strained to breaking point. The statistics show that the hospitals are overwhelmed with vaccinated Covid patients, but you wouldn’t know it unless you moved beyond government propaganda.

Despite the mounting evidence of ineffectiveness and serious harm, the focus of government and the health system is still saturation advertising proclaiming the safety and effectiveness of mRNA vaccination. Meanwhile thousands of people in and out of hospital with serious illness continue to be under-resourced and in some cases neglected.

Excess all-cause death is not a statistic that can be ignored. Dr Ashley Bloomfield says it is not necessary to institute mandatory reporting of adverse events following vaccination. What planet is he on? We need an immediate end to mandates, proper assessment of adverse effects, and adequate compensation and treatment for those affected.

Guy Hatchard PhD is a former senior manager at Genetic ID, a global food testing and certification company. He lives in New Zealand.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

China-Russia relations the most important strategic asset that cannot be damaged by US provocation

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Global Times | March 18, 2022

The close relationship between China and Russia has been a thorn in the US’ side, especially against the backdrop of the ongoing Ukraine crisis. With the simmering of the situation, it couldn’t be any clearer that Washington is eager to exploit the Russia-Ukraine conflict to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow.

For one thing, senior White House officials have on multiple occasions accused China of not exerting enough pressure on Russia to stop the country’s military action in Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday before US President Joe Biden’s virtual meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that Washington will “impose costs” for any support Beijing provides to Russia’s actions against Ukraine. He urged Beijing to assume “responsibility to use its influence and defend the international rules and principles that it professes to support.” For another, an increasing number of Western media reports and analyses have emerged to hype how China’s ties with Russia have made China “uncomfortable” and “awkward” and warn that Beijing risks isolation if it doesn’t distance itself from Moscow.

NATO’s eastward expansion is the root cause of Russia’s anger and military operation in Ukraine. It’s the US that should put out the fire it lit in Ukraine. Ridiculously, it is demanding Beijing to do this job at the cost of damaging China-Russia relations. This is unreasonable and insidious. By pushing China to denounce Russia and asking China to bear the responsibility for the fatal strategic mistake the US and NATO made in the construction of so-called European security, Washington has no intention of hiding its desire to sow discord between China and Russia.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday that China could use its unique relationship to bring an end to Russia’s actions against Ukraine. What nonsense. Russia is an independent major power and China has no ability to exert influence on Russia’s decision on the Ukraine issue which it deems as a “life-and-death” matter.

If China really pressures Russia in a way that is inconsistent with the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, it will only undermine the China-Russia relationship and sabotage mutual trust, which will be a huge strategic loss to both sides. This is what the US is eager and happy to see.

Washington knows that China cannot influence Russia or force it to do anything. But it has regarded the Ukraine crisis as a good chance to tear the two countries apart. The more discord Washington could sow between China and Russia, the more it will be in line with US interests. But how can Beijing and Moscow allow such an evil trick to succeed?

Not like the petty followers that Washington can manipulate at will, China and Russia are both independent great powers. Besides, China has maintained a consistent position over the Ukraine issue, emphasizing all sides’ security concerns and interests should be respected and upheld. Its position is out of its own interests and the interests of the region. It will never dance to the tune of the US or sacrifice relations with Russia to satisfy US demands.

It also should be noted that no matter how the Ukraine crisis evolves and how heavily Russia is targeted by the US now, Washington still views China as its biggest strategic competitor. China should bear this in mind all the time. It must not give the US any chance to drive a wedge in the China-Russia relationship.

For a long time, the West has misinterpreted the China-Russia relationship, believing it’s based on expediency and could be easily torn apart. The truth is, the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination has withstood the test of the time and is rock solid. It’s China’s most important and stable diplomatic strategic asset that cannot be damaged.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | 1 Comment

Mail Voting and Election Legitimacy

By Andrew E. Busch | Real Clear Politics | March 15, 2022

Although it had been a feature of elections in some parts of the United States for years, the phenomenon of mail-ballot voting exploded in the 2020 election. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, jurisdictions around the country expanded use of mail voting, sometimes sending ballots to every registered voter. Steps were taken to facilitate ease of mail voting, such as establishing drop boxes for returned ballots, relaxing rules regarding signature verification, and easing restrictions on “ballot harvesting,” the practice whereby paid political activists collect a large number of completed ballots and return them for counting. As a result, by some estimates, the proportion of ballots cast by mail nearly doubled from 2016 to 2020.

There is, of course, an ongoing debate over whether the turn to mail-ballot voting was necessary, given the pandemic circumstances, or a partisan maneuver to advance the prospects of Democrats, who seemed to reap most of the benefits electorally. Whether or not it was necessary, the development clearly contributed in two important ways to undermining confidence in the results – and is likely to continue doing so unless legislators and election officials take corrective measures.

First, mail-ballot voting is intrinsically less secure than in-person voting. Things might go awry at multiple points. The ballot might never be delivered, or it might be delivered to the wrong address, or to the right address but wrong person. Even if delivered into the right hands, it might ultimately be filled out by someone else or by the intended recipient under pressure; under these conditions, there is no guarantee that the secret ballot is preserved, a problem exacerbated by the activity of ballot harvesters. Once the ballot is completed, it can get lost in the mail, removed from a drop box, or otherwise compromised.

And this is without accounting for the potential for large-scale fraud. In 2020, an unnamed political operative in New Jersey described to the New York Post how he had developed and been using for years a system for replicating ballots and submitting them on behalf of his candidates. Despite the assurances of some that voter fraud is not an issue in the United States, a number of high-profile cases in the last quarter-century prove otherwise. Since 1997, mayoral elections in Miami and Paterson, New Jersey, as well as a congressional election in the Ninth District of North Carolina, have been vacated due to proven fraud. As John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky document in their 2021 book “Our Broken Elections,” these three cases are the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Fund and von Spakovsky note, most cases of large-scale fraud in recent years have involved mail ballots.

There is a reason France no longer uses mail-in ballots in its elections, and why the 2005 commission led by Republican James Baker and Democrat Jimmy Carter identified mail ballots as the least secure mode of voting (though in 2020 Carter rather weakly tried to walk back that conclusion).

Nearly a year and a half after the 2020 elections, a special counsel has charged that substantial voter fraud took place in more than 90 of Wisconsin’s nursing homes, where it appears that nursing home staff or administrators requested ballots for invalid patients, then filled out and returned those ballots, possibly forging the patients’ signatures. A private study (separate from the controversial Arizona “audit”) alleges that 200,000 mail ballots in Maricopa County were counted despite mismatched signatures.

Overall, one does not need to accept former President Trump’s expansive claims of national voter fraud – indeed, one should not, without a great deal more evidence than he has yet offered – in order to recognize that mail-ballot voting is vulnerable to a number of problems that make it chronically less reliable than in-person voting. Moreover, perhaps as importantly, many voters recognize this fact, and as a result will consistently question the validity of close results in elections using large-scale mail balloting, at least if their candidate loses.

Second, because of significant disparities in the political makeup of the mail-ballot electorate and the Election Day in-person electorate (in states that are not 100% mail ballot), the reporting of election results can become distorted. In the 2020 general election, we witnessed both a much-expected “red mirage” and a lesser-noted “blue mirage.” In a few states such as Texas and Ohio, mail-ballot votes were counted and reported first, leading to initial Democratic leads that were gradually wiped out through the night as Election Day votes were added to the tallies. In most major states, the reverse happened. Election Day votes were counted first, followed by mail-ballot votes. The predicted “red mirage” came to pass as President Trump took early leads in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin before surrendering them over the next few days as the mail ballots rolled in.

No one paid much attention to Texas and Ohio, which had their totals in relatively early, and in any case went the way they were expected to go. On the other hand, the “red mirage” states drew enormous scrutiny. They were already understood to be swing states that could go either way and would determine the election. Moreover, all had voted for Trump in 2016. Many Trump supporters went to bed on November 3 with their man seemingly headed to another surprise win, and found out on November 4 that it was slipping away in a process that was not completed for several days. That sensation, of having an election victory subsequently overridden, undoubtedly contributed to the willingness of many to embrace Trump’s “stolen election” narrative. That is an outcome we should hope to avoid in the future.

It is possible that the partisan makeup of mail-ballot versus Election Day voters depends on circumstances. In 2020, Democratic voters may have been more afraid of COVID and hence more likely to avoid voting lines, while Republican voters were urged by their president not to trust mail voting. Perhaps other circumstances will produce different tendencies. Unless both modes of voting are utilized equally by supporters of both candidates, the potential will exist that those who lose based on late-reporting mail results will wonder whether something nefarious happened.

The optimal solution would be to increase in-person early voting opportunities and the number of Election Day polling places, while strictly limiting mail voting to traditional absentee voting for reasons of illness, disability, or absence. However, many jurisdictions continue to be committed to widespread mail voting. It is a practice that is not going away anytime soon, so a key question is what can be done to reduce the damage that mail-ballot voting can do to confidence in electoral legitimacy.

The two problems outlined above – inadequate ballot security and delayed vote totals – require distinct measures.

The chief way to mitigate concerns around delayed vote totals is to enforce a strict Election Day deadline for the return of mail ballots and to require election officials to begin counting received mail ballots prior to Election Day. The other confidence-building measure would be to adopt Georgia’s new requirement that election officials must announce on Election Night the total number of votes received. This will prevent the perception that large batches of incoming votes are materializing out of thin air.

As for ballot security, some states have already taken steps that should be adopted more broadly. These include banning ballot harvesting and improving verification techniques (possibly using the last four digits of Social Security numbers instead of signatures). Not least, state and county election offices should take more seriously their obligation to keep their voter-registration rolls updated. If election officials want voters to be confident in the legitimacy of mail-ballot elections, they need to make sure that no household is getting five extra ballots for residents who haven’t lived there in years. Unfortunately, Democrats have widely condemned such measures as “voter suppression.”

None of these steps would prevent a nominally responsible eligible voter from casting a vote by mail, but they can help bolster confidence in our elections. If we have to learn to live with mail-ballot voting, we should be able – no, eager – to answer legitimate concerns rather than pretend that they don’t exist.

Andrew E. Busch is Crown professor of government and George R. Roberts fellow at Claremont McKenna College. He is co-author of “Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics” (Rowman & Littlefield).

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Stanford Study Finds Vaccine mRNA and Spike Protein Persist in the Body for Months Following Vaccination – But Not Following Infection

By Will Jones | The Daily Sceptic | March 18, 2022

A study from Stanford University, published in Cell, has found that vaccine mRNA and spike protein persist in lymph nodes for up to two months following the second vaccine dose. This is in contrast to what happens following infection, where spike protein was found only rarely.

In contrast to disrupted germinal centres in lymph nodes during infection, mRNA vaccination stimulates robust germinal centres containing vaccine mRNA and spike antigen up to eight weeks postvaccination in some cases…

The observed extended presence of vaccine mRNA and spike protein in vaccinee lymph node germinal centres for up to two months after vaccination was in contrast to rare foci of viral spike protein in COVID-19 patient lymph nodes… COVID-19 patient lymph nodes showed lower quantities of spike antigen.

The researchers also found the concentration of spike protein in the blood following vaccination was similar to that during infection.

At least some portion of spike antigen generated after administration of BNT162b2 becomes distributed into the blood. We detected spike antigen in 96% of vaccinees in plasma collected one to two days after the prime injection, with antigen levels reaching as high as 174 pg/mL. The range of spike antigen concentrations in the blood of vaccinees at this early time point largely overlaps with the range of spike antigen concentrations reported in plasma in a study of acute infection, although a small number of infected individuals had higher concentrations in the ng/mL range. At later time points after vaccination, the concentrations of spike antigen in blood quickly decrease although spike is still detectable in plasma in 63% of vaccinees one week after the first dose.

The researchers found evidence of ‘original antigenic sin’ from the vaccines, where a person vaccinated and then infected with a variant develops a weaker antibody response to that variant than an unvaccinated person infected with the variant. They describe it as a “strong imprinting effect of prior vaccination”.

We find that prior vaccination with Wuhan-Hu-1-like antigens followed by infection with Alpha or Delta variants gives rise to plasma antibody responses with apparent Wuhan-Hu-1-specific imprinting manifesting as relatively decreased responses to the variant virus epitopes, compared with unvaccinated patients infected with those variant viruses…

The extent to which vaccine boosting or infection with different variants will effectively elicit antibody responses to new epitopes or rather increase responses to the epitopes of antigens encountered previously, as in the ‘original antigenic sin’ phenomenon described for influenza virus infection and vaccination, will be an important topic of ongoing study.

The researchers confirmed the fast decline of antibodies following vaccination, finding a 20-fold drop after nine months.

Our data demonstrate that vaccinee plasma and saliva spike and receptor-binding domain-specific IgG concentrations decrease from their peak values by approximately 20-fold by nine months after primary vaccination but quickly exceed prior peak concentrations in seven to eight days after boosting with a third vaccine dose.

The study also confirms that vaccination doesn’t generate IgA antibodies (found especially in the respiratory and digestive tracts and mounting a first defence against infection) or IgM antibodies (found especially in the blood and lymph fluid), but only IgG antibodies (found in the blood). This has been proposed as a reason that vaccination is so poor at preventing infection and transmission.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the researchers found that vaccination (whether mRNA, adenoviral or inactivated virus) stimulated a broader antibody (IgG) response than infection, leading them to predict that “antibodies derived from infection may provide somewhat decreased protection against virus variants compared with comparable concentrations of antibodies stimulated by vaccination”.

However, the post-infection IgG antibody response improved over several weeks.

Over time, infected patient plasma samples showed improvement in variant receptor-binding domain binding relative to Wuhan-Hu-1 receptor-binding domain, suggesting evolution of the antibody response through at least seven weeks post-onset of symptoms.

In addition, the apparent breadth-benefit of vaccination over infection disappeared when “whole spike antigens” were tested rather than just the receptor-binding domain targeted by the vaccine, suggesting the benefit may be an artefact of the study design not found in a real encounter with the virus.

Notably, the increased breadth of vaccinee IgG compared with COVID-19 patient IgG binding to viral variant antigens was greatest for receptor-binding domain, the main target of neutralising antibodies, and was decreased or not detected when whole spike antigens were tested.

Other limitations mentioned include not looking at “antibodies binding to the spike N-terminal domain” or other antibodies: “Our data do not reflect potentially functional antibodies binding to the spike N-terminal domain, or antibodies that may have other activities in vivo.”

The study also didn’t look at T cell responses, among other things:

Further mechanistic investigations into the differences in antibody breadth elicited by vaccination and infection are needed to define the roles of T cell help, antibody affinity maturation, germinal centre function, and innate immune responses to vaccine components, as well as the cellular and subcellular distribution of vaccine RNA and expressed antigen in lymphoid tissues.

The high concentration in the blood of spike protein following vaccination and its persistence along with vaccine mRNA in lymph nodes for months, in contrast to the situation post-infection where such persistence is rare, will fuel concerns about the safety of these Covid vaccines. It has been argued that the spike protein is itself pathogenic, not inert, and that the free spike proteins generated by the vaccines have greater capacity to bind to more types of cells than the virus particles themselves, and that this may be what lies behind many of the serious adverse events reported to regulatory bodies and identified in case reports. This warrants further investigation.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | 2 Comments

Russia’s U.S. Biowarfare Claims in Ukraine Need Serious Answers

Strategic Culture Foundation | March 18, 2022

The United States and Russia continued this week with furious sparring over the issue of biological laboratories in Ukraine. The U.S. accuses Russia of “disinformation” about the labs, saying that they were standard sanitary facilities studying common diseases and epidemiology. For its part, Russia claims that the laboratories were conducting far more sinister and illicit research into developing biowarfare weapons.

Surely, the quickest way to discern the relative validity of concerns is the following basic fact. The research facilities numbering up to 30 locations in Kiev, Kharkov, Kherson, Lvov, Odessa and Poltava, among other cities, were being funded by the Pentagon to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The figure is estimated at $200 million and, it seems, the research has been going on for several years up until recently. If the laboratories were involved in benign disease investigations then why was the Pentagon the sponsor and liaison organization? Why not the U.S. Department of Health, or Center for Disease Control, instead of the Department of Defense? And why were the laboratories ordered to destroy their samples when Russia launched its military intervention in Ukraine – an intervention that Moscow claims is justified on the grounds of self-defense?

This week the Russian Ministry of Defense named the Pentagon’s liaison officer formerly at the U.S. embassy in Kiev who was responsible for the laboratory programs as Joanna Wintrol. It was suggested that American lawmakers should ask this person to give testimony on the purpose of the facilities.

The involvement of the Pentagon in the activities of dozens of laboratories across Ukraine is the most strident fact pointing to concerns that the research was being conducted for the nefarious purpose of developing biological weapons.

It is telling, too, that anyone who raises questions about the activity is immediately denounced as a Russian propagandist. They are vilified as trying to amplify Moscow’s justification for its military intervention into Ukraine that began on February 24. A diverse range of American public figures has called for a transparent investigation into concerns over U.S. bioweapons being developed in Ukraine. They include journalists like Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald, former U.S. Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter, former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and professor of international law Frances Boyle.

Russia is endeavoring to have the matter raised at the UN Security Council despite American objections. China has also endorsed Russia’s concerns and calls for a full investigation. Given that China has previously raised questions about U.S. covert laboratory work on coronaviruses at Fort Detrick, Maryland, as possibly being responsible for releasing the Covid-19 coronavirus and the ensuing global pandemic it is understandable why Beijing is now taking a keener interest in the discovery of shadowy Pentagon laboratories in Ukraine. China has angrily rejected American attempts to smear it as the originator of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In any case, the matter of Pentagon-funded laboratories in Ukraine can’t simply be dismissed by arrogant assertions of innocence by Washington. After all the lies the U.S. has told about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that were used for justifying a war that killed over one million Iraqis, the Americans have no credibility whatsoever. The irony here is that Russia went into Ukraine and seems to have actually found evidence of WMD unlike the Americans when they invaded Iraq in 2003.

The background to the present inquiry is that Russia has long expressed fears that the United States was engaged in biological warfare research at facilities set up in former Soviet republics. This concern over clandestine facilities has been shared by independent investigative journalists such as Dilyana Gaytandzhieva who has reported on U.S. bioweapon laboratories in Georgia among other places.

Officially, the United States has sought to deny all allegations of such illicit activities which would put it in gross violation of the Biological Warfare Convention (1983). The Pentagon has claimed that laboratories in Ukraine and elsewhere have been charged with securing Soviet-era bioweapons. But decades later, surely that explanation is wearing thin, if not altogether obsolete.

The issue flared up again – unintentionally – when Victoria Nuland, the U.S. Under Secretary of State with responsibility for Ukraine (responsibility in more ways than her formal title indicates) admitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 8 that there were dangerous biological research laboratories in Ukraine funded by Washington. So dangerous, indeed, that Nuland openly expressed concern that Russian forces might come into their possession. To do what? Use them as weapons? Or, more realistically, be able to prove that the Pentagon was funding the development of bioweapons in Ukraine?

Some American media have gladly quoted a few Russian biologists who are dismissive of Moscow’s claims of U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine. They assert the strains of pathogens are not particularly dangerous. How they can be so insouciant is curious. The Russian military experts on biological weapons say the samples being experimented on in Ukrainian laboratories included pathogens causing a host of deadly diseases, ranging from brucellosis, diphtheria, dysentery, and leptospirosis. Pathogens being studied included anthrax and coronaviruses. Furthermore, the research also involved investigating animal to human transmission of these diseases, such as through bird migration paths specific to Russia. There is also evidence of local outbreaks of these diseases in recent years that are atypical for seasonal conditions.

The documents demonstrating Pentagon sponsorship of the Ukrainian laboratories are original and verifiable, according to Moscow. It has published some of the documents which appear to be genuine. Of course, with Western draconian censorship against Russian news outlets, it is harder for the international public interest to avail of relevant information.

Still, however, the case for an international investigation under the auspices of neutral biowarfare experts is one that is valid and urgent.

We have already seen the worldwide impact of the Covid-19 disease that erupted in late 2019. The last thing Europe and the world needs are a chain of potentially deadly bioweapons facilities in Ukraine that the Pentagon is desperate to cover up.

Many questions need answering seriously. It is contemptible to simply brush these questions aside as “Russian propaganda”. The U.S. has a long and vile history of using bioweapons dating back to killing native American populations with smallpox and later civilian populations in Central America and Cuba. Thus, the U.S. has forfeited any benefit of the doubt owing to its well-documented practices of bioterrorism; especially considering the conspicuous involvement of the Pentagon in Ukraine’s laboratories.

The issue also opens up the bigger picture of Russia’s demands for a security treaty in Europe and the end to NATO expansionism and decades of aggressive threatening. Right now the Western media is saturated with anti-Russian smears and Russophobia. Yet, this is precisely why the questions about the U.S., NATO, Pentagon, and their connections to Ukraine need to be focused on.

Russia has insisted on Ukraine and other former Soviet republics being excluded from the U.S.-led military bloc – for good reasons. The turning of Ukraine into a platform of hostility towards Russia since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 is the essential background to why the current war has manifested in Ukraine. The apparent involvement of Pentagon biowarfare laboratories in Ukraine is one reason among several why Russia was compelled to take defensive action with its intervention in Ukraine.

If we are ever to restore peace, then we need to understand where the hostility comes from, how, and why.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Aid convoys struggling to reach ‘encircled’ Ukrainian cities, UN claims

Samizdat | March 19, 2022

Aid agencies are struggling to reach civilians in Ukrainian cities blocked by the Russian military, Jakob Kern, an emergency coordinator with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Saturday.

“The challenge is to get to the cities that are encircled or about to be encircled,” Kern told the news agency AFP, describing the humanitarian situation on the ground as “dire.”

Ukraine’s food supply chain has effectively been broken amid the ongoing conflict, he said, with the WFP having to stock its warehouses “from zero.” He condemned what he described as Russia’s tactic of blocking cities, stating that it was “unacceptable in the 21st century.”

“The closer you go to these cities, the more worried [truck drivers] are about their safety,” Kern said. “And that means we’re not able to reach people in Mariupol, Sumy, Kharkiv… in the cities that are almost encircled by now – or completely, in the case of Mariupol.”

While Moscow and Kiev have agreed on efforts to organize humanitarian corridors out of those cities turned into combat zones, each side continues to accuse the other of targeting civilians and failing to uphold evacuees’ right of safe passage. Moscow said Kiev had refused to open routes for those seeking refuge in Russia or Russian-controlled territories.

Moscow launched a large-scale assault on its neighbor in late February, following a seven-year standoff over Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk ceasefire agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of the breakaway regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military alliance. Kiev says the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two rebellious republics by force.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Canada has ‘exhausted’ its stock of weapons

Samizdat | March 19, 2022

Canada has depleted its stock of weapons in its bid to support Ukraine amid Russia’s military operation in the country, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand has acknowledged.

“I believe that we have exhausted our inventory … to the extent that we are able to provide [more] weapons,” Anand said during a live appearance on CBC on Friday.

“There are capacity issues we need to make sure we are on top of for the purposes of ensuring the Canadian Armed Forces are well resourced,” she added.

Ottawa had been among Western capitals that have provided Kiev with so-called “lethal aid.” It has so far sent or is in the process of sending 4,500 rocket launchers, 7,500 hand grenades, 100 anti-tank launchers with 2,000 rounds, two C-130J tactical aircraft, and various other pieces of kit from Canada.

Russia sent its troops into Ukraine in late February, following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the breakaway Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

German- and French-brokered protocols were designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc.

Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Nasrallah Denies Hezbollah Fighting in Ukraine alongside Russian Forces

Al-Manar | March 18, 2022

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah on Friday categorically denied the media reports which alleged that a number of Hezbollah fighters and military experts are fighting in Ukraine alongside the Russian Forces.

Addressing Al-Mahdi Scouts Anniversary Ceremony, Sayyed Nasrallah said that Arab Channels circulated rumors, alleged to be quoting Ukrainian Military Staff, claiming that Hezbollah dispatched fighters and military experts who are professional at street battles.

“I categorically deny such rumors. These are baseless lies and rumors. Hezbollah did not dispatch any fighter or expert to Ukraine.”

Sayyed Nasrallah warned against similar media rumors about the alleged Hezbollah participation in Ukraine war, confirming that they are false.

Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah called on the Lebanese government to form an emergency committee to cope with the economic repercussions of the war in Ukraine, pertaining mainly the prices of the basic commodities.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

Yemen’s Ansarullah turns down GCC invitation for talks with Saudi Arabia in Riyadh

Press TV – March 19, 2022

Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement has declined to attend talks to be held by the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at the regional union’s headquarters in Riyadh, stressing that it will welcome talks to discuss a peaceful settlement to the ongoing conflict if the venue is a “neutral country”, and that the priority is lifting “arbitrary” restrictions on Yemeni ports and Sana’a airport.

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a top-ranking Ansarullah official and a member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, wrote in a post published on his Twitter page that a solution to the Yemeni crisis would be within reach in case members of the Saudi-led military coalition and their Takfiri militants demonstrated a genuine will for peace.

“Riyadh is a party in the war not a mediator,” Houthi highlighted.

The senior Ansarullah official said Saudi Arabia and its regional allies, which are involved in a devastating military campaign against Yemen, must feel ashamed for their actions and must put an end to the current fuel crisis in Yemen that has been triggered by a combination of tighter restrictions on fuel shipments into the country’s Red Sea ports and long holding delays.

Houthi said Yemen’s fuel crisis as a result of the continued detention of Yemen-bound tankers is badly hurting the Yemeni nation.

Abdulmalik al-Ajri, another senior Ansarullah official, also stated that his group is seriously interested in the establishment of comprehensive and just peace.

He sharply rebuked the Saudi-led coalition for its cruel and inhumane treatment of Yemenis, stating that the people have been unfairly treated by the alliance because of their race or ethnicity.

“Peace is sacred to us. We will welcome a fair and just peace once we come across it, no matter the initiative is developed in the East or in the West,” he tweeted.

Moreover, Yemeni Information Minister Zaifullah al-Shami said “the Saudi-led coalition has intensified its aggressive attacks against Yemen.”

He said the parties involved in the bloody Saudi-led onslaught against Yemen are attempting to escape the repercussions of the war, which entered its eighth year last Tuesday.

Shami said those involved in the bloodshed against the Yemenis are financing their Takfiri mercenaries.

‘Saudi-led coalition is not serious about peace’

Additionally, Yemen’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein al-Ezzi said the Saudi-led coalition continues to dither when it comes to stopping the war and establishment of peace.

“No one is deceived. This is not good… Peace and war are two different paths; each of which requires special behavior and clear indications,” Ezzi tweeted, commenting on the GCC’s intention to invite the Ansarullah movement and other Yemeni parties for consultations in Riyadh this month.

“Unfortunately, the opposite side is still indecisive about peace and left us with no option but to either surrender or fight back. Certainly, we do not want either of them,” he said.

“Only peace is all we want (for them and ourselves). This is what differentiates us,” Ezzi said.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war against Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western states.

The objective was to bring back to power the former Riyadh-backed regime and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

The war has stopped well short of all of its goals, despite killing hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and turning the entire country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

US to remove IRGC from terror blacklist

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MARCH 19, 2022

Axios reported earlier this week citing Israeli officials and US sources that the Biden administration is considering the removal of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] from its terror blacklist, in return for a ‘public commitment from Tehran to de-escalation in the region.’

It is improbable that Tehran will give any such ‘public commitment’. But, a ‘private commitment’? Well, that may be possible. Indeed, the Axios report acknowledged that ‘The IRGC designation is not directly related to the nuclear deal, and any decision would take the form of a separate bilateral understanding between the US and Iran.’

No doubt, the lifting of the US sanctions is incompatible with the ban on the IRGC. The IRGC is deeply incorporated into the country’s economy and business. According to some estimates, up to 60% of Iran’s economy — including both state and private companies — is controlled by individuals and entities linked to the IRGC.

And the IRGC is well represented in the organs of the state. Executing a nuclear deal at Vienna while excluding the IRGC elites from plucking its low-hanging fruits is simply unrealistic. Arguably, even Americans wouldn’t want that to happen.

It is entirely conceivable that they too are eagerly looking forward to doing business with the IRGC top brass. After all, it’s best to do business with those who matter most in Tehran.

On balance, therefore, the Biden administration will concede Iran’s demand to drop the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. The crux of the matter is that the US is desperate to normalise with Iran since they also see potential to erode Iran’s friendly ties with Russia. The immediate goal of the Biden administration is to release Iran’s oil reserves. The amount of Iranian oil that may enter the market once sanctions are lifted is estimated at over two million barrels a day!

That said, even a US-Iran ‘bilateral understanding’ over the activities of the IRGC is not easy to achieve. The IRGC functions directly under the Supreme Leader’s supervision. Clearly, while from the American side, it is rather a formality requiring an executive order by the state department to legitimise IRGC, from the Iranian part, there is an ‘operational angle’ to it — namely, a commitment to end Iran’s expansion in the so-called Shiite Crescent of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

That involves the jettisoning of Quds Force’s ‘resistance’ and settling for peaceful co-existence with Israel. Does that look simple? 

But then, when it comes to Iran, nothing is simple, because nothing is iron-cast. Didn’t Iran help in the US invasion of Afghanistan and the creation of a puppet government in Kabul? Resistance politics too was the child of difficult times when the country was besieged. With the lifting of sanctions, Iran is unbound for the first time after the 1979 revolution.

To be sure, there is a growing uneasiness among regional states — and, possibly, even in Moscow — about Iran’s future trajectory. The Raisi government now proclaims a ‘balanced foreign policy’ — ‘neither with the West nor the East.’ The framing of the paradigm in this suggests that Tehran anticipates the world community to queue up on the road to Tehran.

Iran’s few steadfast friends in the region may begin to wonder what lies in the womb of time. Syrian President Assad’s visit to the UAE on Friday hints at realignments. Assad hopes to create more space for himself by rejoining the Arab family. Now, he has never been an acolyte of ‘resistance’ and is well aware that the UAE is Israel’s closest regional ally in West Asia.

The bottom line is that Iran will certainly seek integration with the industrial world, which will help it get the best that money can buy in technology or goods and services. But Iran also harbours ambitions that it will not be a junior partner of the West.

This is going to be a trapeze act. Integration into the world economy will require the freeing of market forces, which, in turn, carries attendant risks, as the pent-up social and economic discontent within the country seeks political expression and the genie gets out of the bottle. Colour revolution can take many forms, as current history shows. When George Soros and company move in, nothing is impossible!

Iran, of course, will be in doubts about the US’ intentions, too. Presently, Washington needs an accommodation with Iran devolving upon its capacity to pump more oil. But the US’ male-fide intentions are yet to be exorcised. And the crimes it has committed to the Iranian nation are no secret, either.

Above all, there is never any consistency in the US policies. Its self-interests come first and last. Iran doesn’t have to look far to see in the next-door Gulf region the debris of the US’ discarded Arab alliances once their purpose was served.

March 19, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment