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China refutes NATO secretary general’s misinformation accusation

By Du Qiongfang | Global Times | March 24, 2022

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Thursday that time will prove China stands on the right side of history and groundless accusations will collapse, refuting an allegation from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that “China has provided Russia with political support by spreading lies and misinformation.”

When asked about Stoltenberg’s allegation at Thursday’s press briefing, Wang said the accusation against China itself is spreading disinformation.

With an objective and fair attitude, China has made active efforts to realize an immediate ceasefire, to avoid a humanitarian crisis and to restore peace and stability, Wang said, adding that Ukraine should be a bridge between the East and the West, not an outpost in major power rivalry.

“We need calm and rationality to defuse a crisis rather than ignite the fire and add more fuel to the fire; we need dialogue and communications to resume peace instead of using pressure and coercion; to achieve lasting peace and stability, we need to accommodate the legitimate security concerns of all parties, rather than promote collective confrontation and seek absolute security,” Wang said.

He added that China’s stance is in line with the wishes of most countries and it stands on the right side of history as time will tell. Any groundless accusations and suspicions against China are indefensible and will simply collapse.

The West thinks the war is about defending democracy and freedom but in reality it’s about security in the European geopolitical landscape, so the Ukraine crisis is not about differences in social systems or ideology, Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Wang said that European countries should uphold the principle of strategic autonomy and work with Russia and Ukraine and other relevant countries to build a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture through dialogue and negotiations. The US and NATO should also engage in dialogue with Russia to address the root cause of the Ukraine crisis.

Wang also said that there are many loopholes in the US’ responses to the international community, including China’s questions surrounding the US biological laboratories in Ukraine which Russian experts claimed to have revealed new facts pointing to the direct involvement of the US Department of Defense in the development of biological weapons components in Ukraine.

The best way for the US to prove its innocence is to open its doors and accept the test of the international community, Wang said.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | 2 Comments

The spectre that haunts Biden as he wings his way to the borderlands of Ukraine

The Russian special operation may after all be inching toward successful conclusion

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MARCH 24, 2022

By a queer coincidence, former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright passed away while President Joe Biden was travelling in Air Force 1 en route to Europe on what is probably the most crucial diplomatic mission of his presidency. 

The general expectation is that 80-year old Biden is personally undertaking a mission to persuade the US’ European allies that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) should intervene in the Ukraine crisis in some way. And, ironically, Albright was the choreographer of the idea that in the post-cold war era, the NATO should reinvent itself and transform as a global security organisation. 

Albright, like most American diplomats of East European descent, was passionately devoted to the NATO. She supported the alliance’s brutal military intervention in Yugoslavia in 1999 and would have supported an intervention in Ukraine. 

The White House spin is that Biden will discuss additional sanctions against Russia. But the possibility of new restrictions has waned following the EU foreign and defence ministers’ meeting on Monday where a decision was taken to put off further sanctions. 

The EU meeting instead assessed that the ongoing Ukraine-Russian talks should proceed further and even if upbeat predictions may not be entirely correct, since the talks are challenging, the good part is that neither party has complained of any deadlock in the negotiations so far. 

Conceivably, Biden is travelling to Europe not to discuss tougher sanctions  (something which he could as well have handled in a videoconference) but to explore NATO’s potential engagement in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict for which his participation becomes absolutely essential. 

As things stand, there is every possibility of a prolonged conflict in Ukraine and Russia eventually prevailing. Such a scenario is extremely damaging for Biden politically in the US. Biden is facing domestic criticism both for his failure to prevent the conflict as well as for being ineffectual in blocking the Russian advance.

While the US rhetoric pillories Russia for “war crimes” and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, et al, the world capitals view this as a geopolitical confrontation between America and Russia. Outside of the western camp, the world community refuses to impose sanctions against Russia or even to demonise that country. 

The world community steers clear of taking sides between the US and Russia. The Islamabad Declaration issued on Wednesday after the 45th meeting of the foreign ministers of the fifty-seven member Organisation of Islamic Conference refused to endorse sanctions against Russia and instead counselled cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, avoidance of loss of lives, enhancement of humanitarian assistance and a “surge in diplomacy” — almost ditto China and India’s stance.

Not a single country in the African continent and West Asian, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asian region has imposed sanctions against Russia. Following a visit to Hanoi, Malaysian PM Ismail Sabri Yaakob said, “We discussed the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and agreed that Malaysia and Vietnam will remain neutral on this issue. As for sanctions against Russia, we do not support them. The sides do not support unilateral sanctions; we recognise only restrictions that could be imposed by the UN Security Council.” This is the consensus within ASEAN too. 

Interestingly, Chinese Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi was the chief guest at the OIC meeting in Islamabad. In his remarks, Wang Yi said, “China supports Russia and Ukraine in continuing their peace talks, and hopes that the talks will lead to ceasefire, end the fighting, and bring about peace. Humanitarian disasters should be avoided, and spillover of the Ukrainian crisis should be prevented so as not to affect and harm the legitimate rights and interests of other regions and countries.” 

The Chinese foreign ministry press release on Wang Yi’s meeting with the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said, “As to the Ukraine issue, the two sides agreed that all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected and their reasonable security concerns should be taken seriously. It is imperative to prevent any humanitarian crisis, maintain the peace talk process and resolve conflicts through dialogue and negotiation. Both sides emphasised that all countries have the right to make independent judgements, withstand external pressure, and disagree with the simple logic of “black or white” and “friend or foe”.

Again, the Chinese press release on Wang Yi’s meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry said, inter alia, “The two sides exchanged views on the Ukraine issue, and agreed to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries and stay committed to a comprehensive solution to the current crisis. Shoukry said, Egypt opposes some countries exerting pressure on China and stands for strengthening cooperation rather than escalating confrontation.” 

Curiously, four foreign ministers from West Asia travelled to Moscow last week to discuss the bilateral cooperation — from Qatar, Iran, Turkey and the UAE. 

Nonetheless, the outcome of Biden’s visit to Europe will have significant bearing on the conflict in Ukraine. If Biden succeeds in getting European backing for his proposal for a NATO intervention in Ukraine, the conflict may escalate dramatically into a world war involving nuclear weapons.   

 Will Biden push the envelope? It seems he’s unwilling to risk. Biden seems to have a Plan B as well. He has scheduled a separate visit to Warsaw. Poland indeed has its fair share of Russophbes and has been straining at the leash for some form of involvement in Ukraine. 

The heart of the matter is that Poland also has an axe to grind. Parts of Poland comprise today’s ethnically mixed western borderlands of Ukraine — oblasts of Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Lviv. If Ukraine fragments or collapses in defeat, Poland will most certainly seize the opportunity to reclaim its lost territories. Poland’s hyper-activism over Ukraine is self-evident. 

Incidentally, in recent days, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk have both accused Budapest of trying to lay its hands on Ukraine’s largely Hungarian-populated Transcarpathian region. On Tuesday, Sikorski alleged in a tweet that Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán and President Vladimir Putin reached a secret agreement on the partition of Ukraine! 

On the same day, Iryna Vereshchuk complained in a Facebook post: “The way the Hungarian leadership has been treating Ukraine lately is even worse than some of the Russian satellite states of the former Soviet Union. Hungary does not support the sanctions. They don’t provide weapons. They don’t allow transit of weapon supplies from other countries. They say ‘no’ to virtually everything.”   

Biden cannot but be exploring with the Polish leadership possibilities that fall short of an outright NATO intervention in Ukraine. The spectre that haunts the Biden administration, despite the swagger of its media bluster, is that the Russian special operation may after all be inching toward successful conclusion, creating a large buffer of regions on the eastern side of the Dnieper river, and gaining control of Black Sea coastline that denies access to NATO ships. 

Poland becomes a key stakeholder in such an outcome and Washington surely regards Warsaw as its number one interlocutor in the developing situation, as the fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance. 

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | 2 Comments

TRUDEAU’S EMERGENCIES ACT REAPPRAISED

By Alex Story | RECOVERY | March 22, 2022

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” 

THAT QUESTION troubled many of our greatest philosophers over generations. Last month, however, the question was finally answered. The sturdy and tough Canadian Maple tree fell in plain sight. The fall barely making a sound.

Democracy ended overnight – with little to no fuss, and some encouragement from neighbours and friends.

To deal with an old fashioned, “grease under your fingernails” workingman’s protest, Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, invoked the Emergencies Act on the 14th of February.

Barely a week later, his party, with the support of the New Democratic Party, ganged-up to pass the measure by 185 votes to 151. The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois voted against the use of the sweeping enforcement measures, accusing the prime minister of overreach. The Canadian government granted itself powers it did not have before.

These included the power to impose restrictions on public assembly and travel, to mobilize federal support for local and provincial police, impose fines on violations of the act, whatever that might mean in practice.

The police were given the ability to arrest without warrant those who were directly or indirectly “assisting others” in what it considered “criminal activities” – no justifications required. Added to physical restrictions, the Emergencies Act allowed banks and financial institutions to freeze accounts, again without court order, of those suspected of supporting the blockades – that is to say, directly or indirectly.

What the passing of the Act meant in practice was summed up by Steve Bell, Ottowa’s interim Police Chief, during a press conference on February 20th 2022. After seemingly imploring people to “go home”, Steve Bell revealed the reality behind the Emergencies Act: “if you are involved in this protest we will actively look to identify you and follow up with financial sanctions and criminal charges”.

Living in fear of the state

To make sure the message was understood, he clarified – anybody involved in this protest, will live in fear from the State “for months to come”. From losing access to personal bank accounts, to professional licences, to criminal charges and municipal breaches of court order, those who protested against the government’s narrow vaccine mandate and broader Covid policy, joined the new caste of the damned.

The Emergencies Act, as written by the Canadian Department of Justice, was rather specific. It stated that a national emergency “is an urgent, temporary and critical situation that seriously endangers the health and safety of Canadians or that seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada”.

Importantly, it added that it must be “a situation that cannot be effectively dealt with by the provinces and territories, or by any other law of Canada”.

Over its first four weeks, none of these prerequisites for the act even to have been considered were met. The Freedom Convoy seemed at worse an inconvenience; at best a carnival. To some it was incommodious; to others emancipating. As it was, the embarrassment for an administration that too quickly resorted to slander and opprobrium, seems to have been that the truckers and their followers were too well behaved and reassuringly civilised.

It was, by any measure, very peaceful.

Had there been acts of violence, looting or property destruction of any kind, the entire world would have been told with alacrity. Honest Constable Steve Bell would have delighted in telling us who the thugs were, had there been any. But, thugs there were none – or too few to mention.

He knew it, so when asked about them and about protestors allegedly in possession of firearms, he waffled and swiftly moved on to generalities and threats. The contrast between the celebratory mood on the ground and the paranoid, Bourbon-type, response from Trudeau and his administration is and will remain the greatest of all mysteries.

The Truckers demands were clear and simple: an end to Covid restrictions, in particular vaccine mandates for Truckers who work the cross-border route between the United States and Canada.

The usual vaxxer, anti-vaxxer dichotomy, was tried for a short while until, early on in the protest, the Canadian Trucking Alliance reminded the world that “around 90% of Canada’s 120,000 cross-border truckers are vaccinated, in line with the country’s adult population”.

Then, having tried vilification, Trudeau escaped in fear before the great unwashed – in an Opera-Bouffe replay of Louix XVI’s 1791 flight from Paris.

However, the Freedom Convoy, with simple demands and cheery smiles witnessed in a short few weeks the majority of the country’s 10 provinces – including Ontario and Quebec – lifting much of COVID’s egregious restrictions.

“The world is done with (the pandemic), so let’s just move forward,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Tuesday February 15th.

Not to be left behind, on February 23rd, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney called Trudeau’s doubling down on repression and defamation “the biggest mistake of any modern Canadian Government”.

He added that the Emergencies Act was “introduced for no good reason”.

Trudeau panicked and overreacted “with this use of extreme powers”, Kenney continued. He ended his piece to camera by saying that “the chief enforcement officer of Canada has said that if he disagrees with your opinions”, he “might freeze and seize your bank account without going to court”.

Where lies Canada now?

How can Canada still be considered a democracy in such circumstances?

Protest, in particular when respectfully conducted, as the Freedom Convoy seems to have been, is the sine qua non of democratic governance – as are the twins of consent and compromise.

Trudeau never deigned to seek to understand the protesters. The ordinary world is too distant, quaint and old fashioned for him. To spend time trying to understand the yearning for normalcy and freedom would have required wasting it speaking to people, who are not included in the Progressive Programme.

Of note, and perhaps most worryingly of all though, is, when it happened, how silent the fall of Canada’s democracy was. No Western country bore witness to the euphemistically titled “overreach”. Perhaps, they were too distracted with troubles on the Ukraine-Russian border. Or perhaps not.

Be that as it may, the take-away is that in the UK, as in other Western countries, we really could well be just one election – or Act – away from a Trudeau-type coup against the people. And that should keep us up at nights.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

The inhumanity of charging you to visit a loved one in hospital

By Tom Penn | TCW Defending Freedom | March 24, 2022

UNLESS there is a change of policy, from April 1 the public will have to pay for the testing still required to visit loved ones in care homes, hospitals and other regulated healthcare settings.

It is incredible that neither the mainstream media nor the public are discussing this injustice in any depth, let alone being up in arms about it. Most have likely yet to comprehend how ruinous a policy this will prove for so many people. Again.

For a citizen of England to have to pay to visit a sick, dying, or lonely relative in a care home or hospital – even if both are triple-jabbed (and whilst unvaccinated health workers may come and go) – is an inhumane policy.

That one’s visit might not even be permitted in the first place is another story – an ‘exclusive’ the Telegraph claimed to have broken on February 18, despite TCW having written about it as far back as December 7, 2021 ( see here and here, for example).

What are the real-life consequences of having to fork out to visit vulnerable loved ones? Let’s begin with the obvious: the mounting financial cost to the individual.

The high street price of a single lateral flow test is currently predicted to be from £2 to £5, depending on how many are bought at once. Better deals will doubtless be found online, but for simplicity let’s run with £2 per test.

That’s £14 a week straight off the bat (working on the assumption that consecutive daily visits are permitted: check with your local NHS Trust) but potentially much, much more for someone such as an elderly person not able either to shop confidently online, or trawl the high street for the best deal.

Throw in the cost of fuel for a 15-to-20-mile round trip at today’s wartime prices (or public transport), plus hospital parking charges which hover around £2.50 for two hours (one hour is often free, but would not suffice), then even in a best-case scenario, visiting a dearly beloved could end up costing from £7.50 to well over £10 a time.

Suppose one were unemployed and on Jobseeker’s Allowance – visiting a gravely ill loved one in hospital every day for a week could easily use up half of one’s weekly benefit. Food and energy stability, or being at a loved one’s bedside: some of the many new decisions to be faced by the less affluent in post-Covid England.

But no matter what the expense, it is the dehumanising ideology behind the imminent change in rules that displays how far England has sunk ethically since this rotten new era of hypochondriacal public health despotism began.

How on earth can paying to visit the sick and dying be said to be ‘living with Covid’? And with cases purportedly on the rise, who foresees any loosening of visiting protocols this year?

What of the elderly in care homes – the pandemic’s original totems for mass hysteria? For two years now they have had to endure a level of enforced solitude unthinkable in pre-Covid England, and yet even though Johnson has finally swapped playing public health-Connect Four for the chess game of war, the elderly have now to navigate their relatives’ financial concerns over visiting, set against the backdrop of a sharp rise in energy prices precipitated by the Prime Minister’s latest, and totally unrelated, geopolitical switcheroo.

It boggles the mind, boils the blood and cracks the heart to imagine any of the citizens of this country either being totally denied access to their loved ones, or having to pay for the privilege if granted. Lay aside how England compares with other countries: what on earth have WE become?!

As previously touched upon, compounding this grotesque unfairness is the fact that health workers will not only retain their access to free testing, but regardless of vaccination status may continue touching, breathing upon, bathing, feeding, and dressing those in need – for remuneration – whilst triple-vaccinated relatives have nonsensically  either to pay to sit quietly at the bedside of the very same needy, or be left out in the cold entirely. Riddle us that one, Covid Inquiry: we’re all ears!

As usual, with each mutation of the narrative the public are left with nothing but a list of worrisome questions:

·       Will we have to pay for lateral flow tests for ever? After all, we are being told with great confidence that the virus is not going anywhere. If not, then at some point will testing be eradicated completely? How low must case numbers get before we REALLY start living with Covid?

·       Will tests become free again in the event of another Delta variant-style wave?

·       Will Ukrainian refugees also have to pay?

The majority of this nation went along with the Covid narrative – supposedly entirely out of fear, pressure from peers, family or employers; a sense of patriotism or moral duty; as a means by which to virtue-signal, or perhaps even just for kicks – either directly or indirectly succumbing to public health propaganda.

I don’t buy this wholesale. Not one bit.

My overriding impression is that most were simply too uninterested, too analytically inept or lazy, or too lacking in courage – imagination even – to rock the narrative-boat for fear of creating for themselves a modestly taxing degree of both mental gymnastics and personal sacrifices.

And so who do we ultimately have to blame for Government’s impending, exploitative and divisive ‘pay-to-love’ scheme: that of having to grovel for permission to shell out hard-earned money on visiting a perhaps dying loved one? Ourselves, unfortunately.

That’s what we get for two years of slavish obedience to the hyper-romanticised, brainless mainstream trash of the age.

In more ways than one it is not unreasonable to say that we have done this all to ourselves, and that the crippling costs of both our torpor and cowardice, as predicted, continue to be borne by all and sundry, but predominantly the weak and vulnerable.

Please don’t get seriously ill any time soon, Mum. You’ll likely have to go it mostly alone, cause I ain’t exactly flush these days.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | 1 Comment

London Mayor Advises People Not To Exercise Outside

By Richie Allen | March 24, 2022

Sadiq Khan has urged Londoners not to exercise outside because warm weather in Europe is leading to high pollution levels in the capital. According to The Telegraph :

As temperatures reached 20C in the capital on Wednesday, older people and those with heart and lung problems were told to limit “strenuous physical exertion” due to high pollution levels.

Anyone else “suffering discomfort” should also consider reducing their activity, official advice said.

A forecast from Imperial College London said that levels of fine particulate pollution, or PM2.5, would reach “high” levels on Wednesday and Thursday, causing health problems for vulnerable people.

The alert was the first issued by the Met Office since August 2020. Alerts were also broadcast in London train stations and to travellers at bus stops around the capital.

Despite the health warning, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, also urged people to walk or cycle to limit the air pollution from vehicles…

Mr Khan said: “I’m urging Londoners to look after each other by choosing to walk, cycle or take public transport, avoiding unnecessary car journeys, stopping engine idling and not burning wood or garden waste, all of which contributes to high levels of pollution.

“This is particularly important in order to protect those who are more vulnerable to high pollution.

“While this alert is in place people with heart and lung problems should avoid physical exertion.”

Did you note the use of the term “vulnerable people” by Imperial College? Did you note the language used by Sadiq Khan?

The Mayor said that he’s urging Londoners “to look after each other by choosing to walk, cycle, take public transport and avoid unnecessary car journeys.” Londoners should do this, said Khan, to “protect those who are more vulnerable to high pollution.”

The message is a stark one.

“Citizens! Driving your car is affecting the most vulnerable in society! Walking or cycling saves lives and protects the NHS!” Exercising indoors protects you and protects the NHS!”

I said it two years ago didn’t I? Climate lockdowns featuring initiatives like personal driving allowances are coming soon. I predicted that at some point the government would attempt to place legal limits on driving.

I imagined a day when people would be told that they could only take their cars out on the first and third Sunday’s of the month depending on their postcode. Others would be permitted to drive on the second and fourth Sunday’s.

SKY News ran a hit-piece on me for predicting climate lockdowns.

I’ve emailed the journalist to ask her if she still thinks the notion is preposterous.

Silence.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

Trudeau gets called a Dictator in front of the entire EU

BY KEEAN BEXTE | THE COUNTER SIGNAL | MARCH 23, 2022

On March 23, PM Justin Trudeau was called a dictator in front of the entire European Union over his response to the Freedom Convoy.

Addressing both the European Parliament and Trudeau specifically, Member of the European Parliament Mislav Kolakusic proceeded to deliver Trudeau perhaps the most humiliating international thrashing of his political career.

“Freedom, the right to choose, the right to life, the right to health, the right to work for many of us are fundamental human rights for which millions of citizens of Europe and the world have laid down their lives,” Kolakusic began.

“…. Canada, once a symbol of the modern world, has become a symbol of civil rights violations under your quasi-liberal boot in recent months. We watched how you trample women with horses, how you block the bank accounts of single parents so that they can’t even pay their children’s education and medicine, that they can’t pay utilities, mortgages for their homes.”

“To you,” he continues, speaking to Trudeau, “these may be liberal methods; for many citizens of the world, it is a dictatorship of the worst kind. Rest assured that the citizens of the world, united, can stop any regime that wants to destroy the freedom of citizens, either by bombs or harmful pharmaceutical products.”

Kolakusic, having once lived under a Communist regime in Croatia, is more than likely only too familiar with authoritarian regimes, their consequences, and the grievances of everyday citizens. And like many who have survived Communist dictatorships, it is apparent that he shares the disdain over Trudeau’s use of Emergency Powers to target peaceful protesters who only wanted their rights back.

And indeed, Kolakusic isn’t the only MEP to suggest Trudeau is acting like a dictator.

“[Trudeau’s] exactly like a tyrant, like a dictator. He’s like Ceaușescu in Romania,” said Romanian MEP Cristian Terhes last month.

Terhes subsequently decided not to attend Trudeau’s speech today.

In England, too, the response has been no better. During his first trip to the UK following the Freedom Convoy, Trudeau was greeted by protesters brandishing “F*** Trudeau” flags in front of PM Boris Johnson’s office, forcing him to sneak in through the back.

While it appeared that Trudeau was headed back to the EU for more PR after his first successful glam tour, the global community is done with his façade. Trudeau is a joke on the international stage.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , | 2 Comments

US escalates sanction threats over China’s balanced position on Ukraine-Russia crisis

By Paul Antonopoulos | March 24, 2022

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on March 21 the imposition of visa restrictions on a group of Chinese officials accused of being involved in or responsible for human rights violations against religious and ethnic minorities. The US official said he would use diplomatic and economic means to “promote accountability” for human rights abuses, such as alleged efforts by Chinese officials to “harass, intimidate, surveil and abduct” members of minority groups, including some individuals who had sought shelter in the US.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said a day later that Beijing will reciprocate a response if the sanctions against Chinese officials are not lifted. The spokesperson expressed strong opposition to sanctions that seriously violate China’s sovereignty and stressed that Washington needs to “stop slandering China for no reason,” pointing to “political prejudices and lies” in many of Washington’s statements against China.

The US is essentially outraged at China for its clear and consistent stance on the Ukraine crisis, which has not changed despite sustained pressure. In fact, it shows more desperation on the part of Washington, especially as traditional allies like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have snubbed both Blinken and US President Joe Biden whilst maintaining close ties with Moscow.

Biden wants China to abandon its balanced policy towards Kiev and Moscow, even though Washington makes no such demand on Turkey, a NATO member that has not closed its airspace or sanctioned Russia as it too opts to balance its relations. What is more absurd is the belief that Washington thinks Beijing would abandon Moscow despite maintaining pressure on the country through the AUKUS and QUAD military formations.

Essentially, due to Biden’s failure to even control traditional allies like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey, he wants to somehow save face by trying to show his country that he will punish the Chinese for their defiance of not turning against Moscow. In this way, the visa restrictions are essentially meaningless for Chinese officials who never planned to travel to the US to begin with, and therefore they just look all the more ridiculous.

Even if there was no political pretext to accuse Beijing of human rights violations, then another pretext would have been elevated as the current sanctions are motivated by nothing more than making Biden appear that he is punishing China. Beijing will undoubtedly commensurate countermeasures, but the question is whether they will be reciprocated in equal measure or escalate the situation further.

What is certain though is that China will continue to act consistently on the Ukraine issue despite US attempts to push China against Russia whilst simultaneously pressuring the Asian country through the two multilateral military blocs.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on March 21 that a “verbal condemnation” of Russia by China is “vital.”

“Our view is that verbal condemnation of the actions of President Putin and the actions of [the] Russian military is important and vital, and it’s about what side of history you want to stand on at in this point in time,” Psaki said, adding: “where [do] you want to be as the history books are written.”

However, as former US diplomat Alberto M. Fernandez wrote in his MEMRI column, “Rather than an appeal to history, or even to morality, American policymakers would have been better served by an appeal to Chinese national interests (the same applies, in different circumstances, to understanding Saudi or Indian national interests).” As he highlights, Chinese history does not write about the Americans favorably to begin with, which is why such an appeal to history is naïve.

In fact, a bigger concern for China than appealing to the US’ writing of history are the allegations of chemical weapon laboratories in Ukraine, especially after the White House accused Beijing of repeating “these conspiracy theories.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that it obtained evidence that the US spent more than $200 million on biological laboratories in Ukraine. It can be assumed that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov presented their evidence to the Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui during their meeting on March 21. China has repeatedly demanded that the US be fully transparent about the operation of biological laboratories abroad, yet the Americans continue to deny the charges.

None-the-less, the very fact that the US believes it can turn China against Russia whilst maintaining pressure via AUKUS and QUAD demonstrates a White House far removed from political realism. Despite snubbing’s from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, NATO member Turkey defying sanctions against Russia, and India open to ruble-rupee payments for oil, Washington is increasingly frustrated that it cannot completely isolate Moscow. In this way, a young country like the US appealing to the multi-millennia Chinese civilization to consider history is nothing more then a desperate, if not pathetic attempt to woo Beijing away from Moscow.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Unindicted US War Criminal Passes

Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit
By Stephen Lendman | March 24, 2022

On Wednesday, former Bill and Hillary Clinton regime secretary of state Madeleine Albright passed away at age-84.

She won’t be missed.

Paul Craig Roberts noted that she “escape(d) the hangman’s noose” — for the worst of high crimes too grievous to ignore.

Years earlier, retired academic John Ryan called her a “baleful specter who haunted us almost as destructively as the current crop of malevolent functionaries” infesting Washington.

Instead of having “the decency to disappear…she (collected) honorary degrees” from academia in the empire of lies and abroad.

“(N)o one (took) time to put an effective spoke into her wretched wheel of legacy.”

As Clinton crime family UN envoy and secretary of state, she was complicit in a near-decade of crimes of war and against humanity.

It included the rape, destruction and dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia.

Notably, 23 years ago on March 24, 1999, the Bill and Hillary Clinton regime’s so-called Operation Noble Anvil (sic) began.

For 78 days, it continued relentlessly through June 10.

Around 600 aircraft flew about 3,000 sorties.

Thousands of tons of ordnance were dropped, as well as hundreds of ground-launched cruise missiles.

The ferocity terror-bombing over the time it lasted was unprecedented.

Nearly everything was targeted for maximum destruction and disruption, including:

power plants

factories

civilian transportation

telecommunications facilities

roads, bridges and rail lines

fuel depots

schools

a TV station

China’s Belgrade embassy

hospitals

government offices

churches

historic landmarks and more.

The former Yugoslavia ceased to exist.

The bloody hands of the Clinton crime family and Albright were all over what happened.

Commenting on the atrocity, the late Nobel laureate Harold Pinter called it “barbaric (and despicable), another blatant and brutal assertion of US power, using NATO as its missile (to consolidate) American domination of Europe.”

Throughout their time in office, the Clintons and Albright were indifferent to human suffering while consistently supporting wrong over right.

On her watch, the Clinton regime installed US-trained Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) General Paul Kagame in power.

Notably it was to use country as a platform to plunder neighboring resource-rich Congo (DRC).

The Clintons and Albright bore full responsibility for the 1994 Rwandan massacre that was unrelated to a fabricated Tutsi/Hutu conflict.

Enforcing genocidal sanctions on Iraq throughout the 1990s, Albright shared guilt with the Clintons for the deaths of about 1.5 Iraqis.

Most were young children. Around 7,000 died monthly.

Former UN humanitarian coordinator Dennis Halliday resigned in protest.

So did his successor Hans von Sponeck for the same reason, as well as World Food Program head in Iraq at the time, Jutta Burghardt.

They refused to be part of what they called “genocide.”

Notably in his resignation remarks, Halliday said the following:

“We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.”

Two days before resigning, von Sponeck said the following:

“As a UN official, I should not be expected to be silent to that which I recognize as a true human tragedy that needs to be ended.”

“How long should the civilian population, which is totally innocent on all of this, be exposed to such punishment for something they have never done?”

Throughout the 1990s to the 2003 Iraq war and its aftermath, the cradle of civilization was erased.

“Shock therapy” followed “shock and awe.”

So did repression, daily killings, deprivation, mass detentions, torture and other crimes against humanity.

Iraq was destroyed in similar fashion to what happened to the former Yugoslavia.

Albright shared blame for two of history’s greatest crimes.

Supporting aggressive use of NATO in defiance of international law, she was part of a regime that prioritized war-making and its mass slaughter and destruction.

In 1996, 60 Minutes host Lesley Stahl asked her the following:

“We have heard that a half million children have died” in Iraq since 1991.

“(That’s more children than died in Hiroshima…(I)s the price worth it?”

Albright replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”

Support for genocidal high crimes defined her involvement in the Clinton regime’s war on humanity.

In her 2003 memoirs, Albright said the following about her 60 Minutes remarks:

“I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it.”

“Saddam Hussein could have prevented any child from suffering simply by meeting his obligations.”

Not only were the above remarks made 7 years after her 60 Minutes interview, “reframing — as she put it— wouldn’t have infused life into the corpses of 1.5 million Iraqis who perished on her watch by sanctions war.

As Clinton regime UN envoy in 1993, she was also infamous for saying the following to General Colin Powell during a White House situation room session:

“What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

Later in his own memoir, Powell said:

“I thought I would have an aneurysm” on hearing what she said, adding:

Albright advocated use of US military personnel as “toy soldiers to be moved around on some global chessboard.”

Powell had his own cross to bear in the run-up to the Bush/Cheney regime 2003 Iraq war.

Knowing that Saddam eliminated all WMDs in the country years earlier, he lied, saying:

“(F)acts and Iraq’s behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction (sic).”

“(E)very statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources (sic).

“What we’re giving you are the facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence (sic).”

“The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction pose to the world (sic).”

Intelligence about Iraqi WMDs revealed their elimination. Powell pretended otherwise.

As the saying goes, the rest is history.

The same reality applies to Albright’s bloodstained hands.

Commenting on her death, the infamous NYT suppressed all of the above damning facts.

It failed to reveal the true measure of the woman behind the phony facade of diplomatic dignity — an unapologetic war criminal to the day she passed.

A special place in hell awaits her arrival.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 22 Comments

The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Were War Crimes Too

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | March 24, 2022

President Biden is accusing Russian forces in Ukraine of committing war crimes by engaging in brutal attacks on civilians. What he is referring to is a longtime principle of warfare in which military forces battle military forces and do not knowingly target civilians with death and destruction.

Meanwhile, the media is reporting that Russian forces are becoming increasingly stalemated on the battlefield, unable to complete their conquest of Ukraine and effect the regime change that they seek within the Ukrainian government. If Russia fails in its effort to bring regime change to Ukraine, that would enable Ukraine to be absorbed into NATO, the corrupt dinosauric bureaucratic entity from the old Cold War racket. That, in turn, would enable the Pentagon to achieve its goal of installing its nuclear missiles pointed at Russia along Russia’s border.

WIth the relentless pressure that the U.S. government and its NATO cohorts are putting on Putin, including with sanctions that are designed to kill Russian civilians, a question must be asked: If Putin’s back is to the wall, if Russia is faced with defeat in Ukraine, if the Russian economy is disintegrating, if the Russian people are faced with death by starvation or massive impoverishment, and if the Russian government is close to collapsing, would Putin resort to dropping a nuclear bomb on Kiev in order to bring a quick end to the war?

If he were to do so, there is no doubt what the response of U.S. officials, the mainstream press, and American statists would be. They would exclaim, and rightly so, that Russia had just committed a massive war crime by targeting and killing a massive number of civilians with a nuclear bomb.

But there would be one big problem staring U.S. officials and the mainstream press, along with American statists, in the face: The U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which knowingly and intentionally targeted, killed, and injured an untold number of Japanese civilians during World War II.

Ever since those bombings, U.S. officials, the U.S. mainstream press, and American statists have maintained that the bombings were justified because they “shortened the war.” Their argument has always been that the lives of thousands of American soldiers were saved by bringing about a quick surrender by Japan.

Here at FFF, we have always opposed that reasoning. In war, soldiers die. That’s just the way of war. To knowingly and intentionally kill innocent women, children, seniors, and other civilians so that soldiers could live was, well, quite immoral and, yes, a war crime.

But given the continued support by U.S. officials, the mainstream press, and American statists of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what would they say if Russia were to say the same thing — that its nuclear bombing of Kiev saved the lives of Russian soldiers by bringing about a quick surrender of Ukraine?

My hunch is that U.S. officials, the mainstream press, and American statists would take a different position than they do with the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think they would say, “Our atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a good thing but your atomic bombing of Kiev was a bad thing. That’s because we are good and you are bad.”

Why do I reach that conclusion? Well, for one, isn’t that what they are saying about the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan compared to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Aren’t they essentially saying, “Our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were good while your invasion of Ukraine is bad. That’s because we are good and you are bad”?

Or consider the dark-side activities engaged in by the U.S. national-security establishment, such as state-sponsored assassinations, torture, kidnappings, secret torture-and-prison camps, indefinite detention, coups, massive secret surveillance, military tribunals, and alliances with dictatorial regimes. Don’t U.S. officials, the mainstream press, and American statists say to the Russians (and the Chinese, North Koreans, Saudis, Cubans, etc.): “Our dark-side activities are good while yours are bad. That’s because we are good and you are bad”?

The crisis in Ukraine provides the American people with a tremendous opportunity to engage in some serious soul-searching by looking at ourselves and our very own government. Looking at what the Russian regime (and other totalitarian, authoritarian, or communist regimes) can provide a revealing mirror into our own government, specifically the national-security establishment part of the government.

There is no greater benefit we could provide ourselves, our families, our nation, and the world than to lead the way toward a free, peaceful, harmonious, and prosperous society here at home. That necessarily entails restoring our nation’s founding principles of a limited-government republic, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and a restored regard for the principles in the Bill of Rights.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | 11 Comments

Israel’s balancing act in Ukraine is likely to backfire

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | March 24, 2022

Israel’s balancing act in the Russia-Ukraine war is likely to falter soon, simply because the resulting NATO-Russia conflict is expected to last for years, not weeks or months. Eventually, Israel would have to make a choice. Alas, whatever that choice may be, Israel will stand to lose.

From the first day of the war, Israel somehow became involved. Top Israeli officials, including the country’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, began calling their Ukrainian and Russian counterparts. Initially, some in the media surmised that Israel is concerned because of the large Jewish populations in both Ukraine and Russia.

However, the headlines quickly moved on, with terms such as ‘Israeli oligarchs‘, ‘Jewish oligarchs‘, and other combinations of Israel-friendly oligarchs dominating the news. Business interests quickly began replacing the supposed concern over the safety and welfare of ordinary Ukrainians.

The latter fact was demonstrated in a most tragic way when Israeli Channel 12 reported, on 10 March, that many Ukrainian refugees were “stuck at Ben Gurion Airport, facing cold and callous treatment”.

Israeli hypocrisy reared its ugly head once more on 26 February, when Israeli Minister of Aliyah and Integration, Pnina Tamano-Shata, said in a statement, “We call on the Jews of Ukraine to immigrate to Israel – your home.”

It is obvious that Israel does not care about the welfare of Ukrainians or, frankly, Ukrainian Jews either. After all, these newcomers to Israel would eventually be incorporated into the country’s illegal settlement enterprises. We know this from history and particularly from the history of the migration of Russian Jews to Israel, who arrived in their hundreds of thousands in the early 1990s. Not only do many of them now reside in illegal Jewish settlements, but to some extent, they also represent the backbone of some of Israel’s far-right political parties, the likes of Avigdor Lieberman‘s Yisrael Beiteinu.

Aside from the fact that a country moving its residents to an occupied territory is a stark violation of international law, it is also a violation of the rights of these vulnerable refugees, who will be expected to live in another war zone in the service of Israel’s Zionist ideology.

It is unfortunate, but typical that Israel finds opportunities to bolster its settler colonial model in occupied Palestine by exploiting the tragedies of other societies to its advantage. It has done so many times in the past: in Ethiopia, following the famine in 1984, in Russia, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in France, following the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015.

While France was still trying to fathom the enormity of its tragedy when 130 people were killed in broad daylight on 13 November, 2015, then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on French Jews to move to Israel. “Of course, Jews deserve protection in every country, but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home,” he said.

Shamelessly, Israel finds tragedies as political opportunities worth exploiting. While this quality is not unique to Israel – the Russia-Ukraine war has also exposed the opportunism of other countries around the world – Israel’s exploitation is doubly shameful as it hopes that war-torn Ukraine would help it sustain its own war waged against the Palestinian people.

However, serious cracks in the Israeli balancing acts are already on display. On 11 March, US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland called on Israel to join sanctions against Russia. “We’re asking as many countries as we can to join us. We’re asking that of Israel as well,” she said.

Understandably, much of that pressure is coming from the Ukrainian government itself. Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called on Israel to reciprocate for the Ukrainian support of Israel during its genocidal wars on the Palestinians. Indeed, Zelensky has taken every opportunity to express his solidarity with Israel in the past, even though Palestinians were the ones dying in their thousands.

“The sky of Israel is strewn with missiles. Some cities are on fire. There are victims. Many wounded. Many human tragedies,” the Ukrainian President tweeted on 12 May, 2021. Even during his inauguration speech in May 2019, Zelensky did not forget to bring Israel into his budding political discourse. “We must become Icelanders in soccer, Israelis in defending our land, Japanese in technology,” he said.

Still, aside from the occasional lip service, Israel insisted on remaining largely neutral. Analysts have explained the Israeli position in terms of Israel’s concern over Russia’s possible retaliation in Syria, for example, by allowing Iran greater geopolitical access to Syria that may compromise Israel’s ‘security.’ Others cited Israel’s deep financial interests, especially through the aforementioned oligarchs. Whatever the reasons may be, pressure is mounting on Israel to completely abandon its interests in Russia in favour of fully supporting Ukraine.

On 20 March, Zelensky upped the ante when he gave a speech at the Israeli Knesset. Not only did the Ukrainian President ask for Israel to provide Ukraine with an Iron Dome similar to the one that Tel Aviv uses to intercept Palestinian resistance rockets, he went much further, by infusing the Holocaust, an extremely sensitive discourse that only Israeli officials are allowed to use – and, indeed, manipulate – to silence any criticism of Israel internationally.

“The Nazis called this ‘the final solution to the Jewish question,'” Zelensky said. “And now, in Moscow, (…) they’re using those words, ‘the final solution’. But now, it’s directed against us and the Ukrainian question.”

For the Ukrainian President, although himself Jewish, to dare strike such a historical parallel to serve his country’s interests outraged many Israelis. “I admire the Ukraine president and support the Ukrainian people in heart and deed, but the terrible history of the Holocaust cannot be rewritten,” Israeli Communications Minister, Yoaz Hendel, tweeted. Many others joined in, in Israel and the US, attacking Zelenky’s supposed audacity.

Aside from its fear that injecting the Holocuast as part of Ukraine’s anti-Russian discourse could deprive Israel from its monopoly over the use and misuse of that historic tragedy, the Israeli official response to Zelensky also further exposed Israel’s stance on the war as defensive, suspicious and uncertain.

As the war rages on, Israel’s balancing act is becoming increasingly unsustainable. By allying fully with Ukraine, Israel could find itself at risk of losing Russia’s somewhat tolerant position pertaining to Israel’s ‘security’ in Syria and throughout the Middle East. Israel could also likely find itself at odds with Russia’s allies and semi-allies in China, India and other Asian countries. However, taking Russia’s side, a less likely scenario, means a break up of Israel’s historic alliance with its main benefactors in Washington and other European capitals.

As the world is likely to splinter among various power camps, Israel will find itself torn between its interests in the West, on the one hand, and the massive, emerging markets in the East, on the other. Though the West’s margin for tolerance when it comes to Israel by far exceeds its patience with other countries, it is only a matter of time before Israel will be expected to make a clean break from Russia and its economic, political and military interests that are tied to Moscow. When that happens, the geopolitical balance of power in the Middle East will likely shift against Israel, a scenario that would become even more difficult for Tel Aviv, if Iran manages to negotiate a return to the nuclear deal with the US and its western allies.

Though from the onset, Israel attempted to exploit the Russia-Ukraine war to its advantage, future scenarios are quite bleak for Tel Aviv.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | 1 Comment

China denounces Israel’s illegal settlements and urges UN to focus on Palestine

MEMO | March 24, 2022

Israel’s ongoing illegal settlement expansion has been slammed by China during a UN briefing on the situation in Palestine. Beijing’s representative at the world body insisted that settlements are a violation of international law and urged the international community to support the Palestinian people.

“We call on Israel to halt the expansion of settlements, stop the eviction of Palestinians, stop the demolition of Palestinian homes, and create conditions for the development of Palestinian communities in the West Bank, as called for in [Security] Council Resolution 2334,” said Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the UN.

Adopted unanimously in 2016, Resolution 2334 states that Israel’s settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity”. It demands that Israel should stop such activity and fulfil its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

“Settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory violate international law, disrupt the contiguity of the occupied Palestinian territory, squeeze the living space of the Palestinian people, and affect the prospects for achieving the two-state solution,” continued Jun.

The Chinese envoy also expressed concerns over the deterioration of security in Palestine and the plight of children. “The protection of children in conflict settings is not an empty slogan, but an unshakable moral responsibility and an international obligation that must be fulfilled. We call for a thorough investigation of the recent violence and for effective accountability.”

He also urged the international community to continue to help Palestine alleviate its fiscal crisis, improve its economy and people’s livelihood, and tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. Underscoring the need to keep the focus on Israel’s occupation, he stressed that the Palestinian question should not be marginalised, much less allowed to be pending for a long time.

“China will continue to work with the international community to make unremitting efforts and contribute China’s share to a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the question of Palestine,” the envoy added.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | 3 Comments

Covid Crimes

A Witness: Dr. Richard Fleming

March 11, 2022

Richard M. Fleming MD, PhD, JD, Fleming testifies under oath, showing how COVID-19 is a Biological Weapon.

March 24, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments