Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Biden Cynically Uses Ukraine to Cover Food Sabotage

By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern outlook -26.04.2022

It’s beginning to look like some bad actors are deliberately taking steps to guarantee a coming global food crisis. Every measure that the Biden Administration strategists have been making to “control energy inflation” is damaging the supply or inflating the price of natural gas, oil and coal to the global economy. This is having a huge impact on fertilizer prices and food production. That began well before Ukraine. Now reports are circulating that Biden’s people have intervened to block the freight rail shipping of fertilizer at the most critical time for spring planting. By this autumn the effects will be explosive.

With the crucial time for USA spring planting at its critical phase, CF Industries of Deerfield, Illinois, the largest US supplier of nitrogen fertilizers as well as a vital diesel engine additive, issued a press release stating that, “On Friday, April 8, 2022, Union Pacific informed CF Industries without advance notice that it was mandating certain shippers to reduce the volume of private cars on its railroad effective immediately.” Union Pacific is one of only four major rail companies that together carry some 80% of all US agriculture rail freight. The CF company CEO, Tony Will stated, “The timing of this action by Union Pacific could not come at a worse time for farmers. Not only will fertilizer be delayed by these shipping restrictions, but additional fertilizer needed to complete spring applications may be unable to reach farmers at all. By placing this arbitrary restriction on just a handful of shippers, Union Pacific is jeopardizing farmers’ harvests and increasing the cost of food for consumers.” CF has made urgent appeals to the Biden Administration for remedy, so far with no positive action.

Direct sabotage

CF Industries noted that they were one of only thirty companies subject to the severe measure, which is indefinite. They ship via Union Pacific rail lines primarily from its Donaldsonville Complex in Louisiana and its Port Neal Complex in Iowa, to serve key farm states including Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and California. The ban will affect nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), as well as diesel exhaust fluid, DEF (called AdBlue in Europe). DEF is an emissions control product required for diesel trucks today. Without it engines cannot run. It is made from urea. CF Industries is the largest producer of urea, UAN and DEF in North America, and its Donaldsonville Complex is the largest single production facility for the products in North America.

At the same time, the Biden gang has announced a fake remedy for record high gasoline pump prices. Washington announced the EPA will allow a 50% increase in corn-based biodiesel and ethanol fuel mix for the summer. On April 12 the Secretary of Agriculture announced a “bold” initiative by the US Administration to increase the use of domestically-grown corn-ethanol biofuels. Secretary Tom Vilsack claimed the measure would “reduce energy prices and tackle rising consumer prices caused by Putin’s Price Hike (sic) by tapping into a strong and bright future for the biofuel industry, in cars and trucks and the rail, marine, and aviation sectors and supporting use of E15 fuel this summer.”

Only the capitalized “Putin Price Hike” is not a result of Russian actions, but of Washington Green Energy decisions to phase out oil and gas. The energy price inflation is also about to go vastly higher in coming months owing to US and EU economic sanctions on export of Russian oil and likely gas. However the central point is that every acre of US farmland dedicated to growing corn for biofuels removes that food production from the food chain, to burn it as fuel. Since passage of the 2007 US Renewable Fuel Standards Act, which mandated annually rising targets for production of corn for ethanol fuel blends, biofuels have captured a huge part of total corn acreage, more than 40% in 2015. That shift, mandated by law, to burning corn as fuel had added a major price inflation for food well before the covid inflation crisis began. The USA is by far world’s largest corn producer and exporter. Now to mandate a significant increase in corn ethanol for fuel at a time of astronomical fertilizer prices, and fertilizer rail shipping are being blocked reportedly by White House orders, will send corn prices through the roof. Washington knows this very well. It is deliberate.

No wonder the price of US corn reached a 10-year high in mid-April, as exports from Russia and Ukraine, major sources, are now blocked by sanction and war. Aside from the energy-inefficient use of US corn for biodiesel supply, the latest Biden ethanol initiative will add to the growing food crisis while doing nothing to lower US gasoline prices. A major use for US feed corn is as animal feed for cattle, pigs and poultry as well as for human diets. This cynical biofuel order is not about US “energy independence.” Biden ended that in his first days in office by a series of bans on oil and gas drilling and pipelines as part of his Zero Carbon agenda.

In what is clearly becoming a US Administration war on food, the situation is being dramatically aggravated by USDA demands for chicken farmers to kill off millions of chickens in now 27 states, allegedly for signs of Bird Flu infection. The H5N1 Bird Flu “virus” was exposed in 2015 as a complete hoax. The tests used by the US government inspectors to determine bird flu now are the same unreliable PCR tests used for COVID in humans. The test is worthless for that. US Government officials estimate that since first cases were “tested” positive in February, at least 23 million chickens and turkeys have been culled to allegedly contain the spread of a disease whose cause could be the incredibly unsanitary cage confinement of mass industrial chicken CAFOs. The upshot is sharp rises in prices of egg by some 300% since November and severe loss of chicken protein sources for American consumers at a time when overall cost of living inflation is at a 40-year high.

To make matters worse, California and Oregon are again declaring water emergency amid a multi-year drought and are sharply reducing irrigation water to farmers in California, who produce the major share of US fresh vegetables and fruits. That drought has since spread to cover most agriculture land west of the Mississippi River, meaning much of US farmland.

US food security is under threat as never before since the 1930s Dust Bowl, and the Biden Administration “Green Agenda” is doing everything to make the impact worse for its citizens.

In recent comments US President Biden remarked without elaborating that the US food shortages are “going to be real.” His administration also is deaf to pleas of farmer organizations to allow cultivation of some 4 million acres of farmland ordered left out of cultivation for “environmental reasons. However this is not the only part of the world where crisis in food is developing.

Global Disaster

These deliberate Washington actions are taking place at a time a global series of food disasters create the worst food supply situation in decades, perhaps since the World War II end.

In the EU, which is significantly dependent on Russia, Belarus and Ukraine for feed grains, fertilizers and energy, sanctions are making the covid-induced food shortages dramatically worse. The EU uses its foolish Green Agenda as an excuse to forbid the Italian government from ignoring EU rules limiting state aid to farmers. In Germany, the new Green Party Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, who wants to phase out traditional agriculture allegedly for its “greenhouse gas” emissions, has given farmers who want to grow more food a cold response. The EU faces many of the same disastrous threats to food security as the USA and even more dependence on Russian energy which is about to be suicidally sanctioned by the EU.

The major food producing countries in South America, especially Argentina and Paraguay, are in the midst of a severe drought attributed to a periodic La Niña Pacific anomaly that has crippled crops there. Sanctions on Belarus and Russia fertilizers are threatening Brazil crops, aggravated with bottlenecks in ocean transport.

China just announced that owing to severe rains in 2021, this year’s winter wheat crop could be the worst in its history. The CCP also has instituted severe measures to get farmers to expand cultivation to non-farm lands with little reported effect. According to a report by China watcher Erik Mertz, “In China’s Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning provinces, officials have reported one in three farmers lack sufficient seed and fertilizer supplies to begin planting for the optimum spring window… According to sources within these areas, they are stuck waiting on seed and fertilizer which have been imported to China from overseas – and which are stuck in the cargo ships sitting off the coast of Shanghai.” Shanghai, the world’s largest container port, has been under a bizarre “Zero Covid” total quarantine for more than four weeks with no end in sight. In a desperate bid by the CCP “ordering” increased food production, local CP officials throughout China have begun transforming basketball courts and even roads into cropland. The food situation in China is forcing the country to import far more at a time of global shortages, driving world grain and food prices even higher.

Africa is also severely impacted by the US-imposed sanctions and war ending food and fertilizer exports from Russia and Ukraine. Thirty five African countries get food from Russia and Ukraine. Twenty two African countries import fertilizer from there. Alternatives are seriously lacking as prices soar and supply collapses. Famine is predicted.

David M. Beasley, executive director of the UN World Food Program, declared recently on the global food outlook, “There is no precedent even close to this since World War II.”

Notably, it was the Biden Treasury Department that drew up a list of the most comprehensive economic sanctions against Russia and Belarus, pressuring a compliant EU to dutifully follow, sanctions whose impact on global grain and fertilizer and energy supply and prices was entirely predictable. It was in effect a sanction on the US and global economy.

These are but the latest examples of deliberate US Government sabotage of the food chain as part of the Biden Green Agenda, of Davos WEF, Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation, as part of their dystopian Great Reset eugenics agenda. Traditional agriculture is to be replaced by a synthetic lab grown diet of fake meats and protein from grasshoppers and worms, worldwide. All for the supposed glory of controlling global climate. This is truly mad.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

The NATO Lie

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | April 26, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to the forefront the NATO treaty to which the United States is a party. President Biden and the Pentagon have steadfastly maintained that a Russian attack on any NATO member automatically obligates the United States to go to war against Russia. That, of course, would necessarily mean the virtual certainly of all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States, a war that would, needless to say, end up destroying both countries and killing hundreds of millions of people in the process. 

There is one big problem with the Biden/Pentagon position: It’s a lie. In fact, the NATO treaty does not obligate the United States to automatically come to the defense of any NATO member in the event Russia attacks that particular country. That’s because the NATO treaty does not operate to amend the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution is the document that the American people used to call the federal government into existence. The Constitution established a federal government of limited powers. The government was divided into three branches — executive, legislative, and judicial — with enumerated powers being delegated to each branch of government. 

With respect to war, the Framers delegated the power to declare war to Congress and the power to wage war to the president. What that meant was that the president is prohibited from waging war against another nation without first securing a declaration of war from Congress. 

When the U.S. government was converted from a limited-government republic to a national-security state after World War II, a fourth branch was effectively added to the federal government: the national-security branch, consisting of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

While it has been said that these entities are actually part of the executive branch, as Michael Glennon has pointed out in his excellent book National Security and Double Government (which I cannot recommend too highly), the national-security section of the federal government, owing to its overwhelming power, is actually the part that is running the show, with the other parts of the federal government operating deferentially in support. 

The Constitution provides for the specific ways to amend the Constitution. Quoting whitehouse.gov: “An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.”

Notice something important: The Constitution does not provide that it can be amended by treaty. The Framers did not want federal officials to have the power to amend the Constitution by simply entering into treaties with other nations that changed the terms and conditions of the Constitution.

Therefore, the NATO treaty cannot operate to amend the constitutional provision that requires a congressional declaration of war before the president can legally wage war. Thus, if Russia attacks, say, NATO member Poland, the Constitution requires the president to secure a declaration of war from Congress against Russia before the president, the Pentagon, and the CIA can wage war against Russia.

Now, take a look at an article entitled “The NATO Treaty Does Not Give Congress a Bye on World War III” by Michael Glennon, who I mentioned above. It’s posted at a website entitled lawfareblog.com. This is one of the most important articles that you will read in your lifetime. I cannot emphasize too highly why you should read this article and, equally important, share it with everyone you know and, equally important, ask them to share it with everyone they know. 

Glennon is professor of international law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. From 1977-1980, he served as counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You can read more about his credentials on Wikipedia by clicking here. 

Glennon’s article makes the scholarly but easily readable case that the NATO treaty does not — and cannot — automatically obligate the United States to go to war in the event Russia (or any other nation) attacks a NATO member. 

Of course, there is a much more fundamental question that Americans must confront: Why is the United States in NATO at all? NATO was established after World War II to ostensibly protect Western Europe from an attack by the Soviet Union, notwithstanding the fact that there was never any real likelihood that the Soviet Union, which was totally devastated in World War II, had any interest in going to war with Western Europe (and a nuclear-armed United States).

Regardless of whether NATO was necessary or whether it was just part of the Cold War racket, one thing is crystal clear: Once the Soviet Union dismantled, NATO’s mission became moot. At that point, this Cold War dinosaur should have been dismantled and sent into extinction. 

Instead, what the NATO bureaucrats did was keep this dinosauric entity in existence and, even worse, began using it to absorb former members of the Soviet Union, which enabled the Pentagon to establish its nuclear missiles ever closer to Russia’s borders. It was when the Pentagon, operating through NATO, announced an intention to absorb Ukraine that Russia decided to invade Ukraine, as the Pentagon knew it would, in order to prevent the Pentagon from establishing its nuclear missiles (and military bases, troops, tanks, and other weaponry) on Russia’s border. 

Thus, one of the keys to getting America back on the right track — toward liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people of the world — is to immediately withdraw from NATO, which would bring the immediate dissolution of this Cold War dinosauric entity, as well as bring U.S. troops home from Europe (and everywhere else). It is U.S. foreign interventionism that is a root cause of the loss of liberty and prosperity in America as well as America’s disharmony with the people of the world.

In the meantime, it is in the interest of every American to understand the nature of the NATO lie, a lie that holds that the NATO treaty automatically obligates the U.S. government to go to war against Russia in the event of an attack by Russia on another member of NATO. That’s why, again, I highly recommend reading Michael Glennon’s article and sharing it with everyone you know and asking them to share it with everyone they know.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | 2 Comments

US Diplomacy Continues to be Invisible

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 26, 2022

Remember the Beatles’ song that went like this: “I read the news today, oh boy!”? To be sure there has not been much good news to savor recently, though notably, under the cover provided by the war in Ukraine’s domination of the news cycle, the Israel Lobby in the United States has been working harder than ever to promote the interests of the country that is most dear to its heart. It’s associated media arm has been ignoring the regular killing of Palestinians by Israeli security forces while also dismissing the ultra-violent incursion by the Jewish state’s police at one of Islam’s holiest sites, the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, during Ramadan prayers.

Recently, the Zionist focus has been most intense on one area: to kill the stalled negotiations over the renewal of US participation in the currently ineffective multiparty Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with Iran to monitor its nuclear program and prevent its development of a weapon. Ironically, Israel, unlike Iran, already has an undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal that is even protected from exposure by US officials, who are not allowed to mention it in spite of the fact that its existence is widely acknowledged. Recently, Sam Husseini, a critic of the US pandering to Israeli interests, tweeted how “I recently contacted the offices of @IlhanMN, @AOC, @CoriBush, @RashidaTlaib, @SenSanders and 10 others asking if they would acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons. None would do so.” Not one of the fifteen, mostly describable as progressives, would even confirm that the Israelis possess such weapons, so terrified were they of even mentioning what the entire world knows to be true.

To be sure, the issue of what to do about Iran is certainly the number one foreign policy problem for Israel as it is the only regional opponent of the Jewish state that could reasonably be described as militarily formidable. For something like thirty years successive Israeli governments have been seeking to convince a number of gullible American presidents to treat the Islamic Republic as a serious international threat, which is ridiculous as Iran has neither the necessary resources nor a history of seeking to dominate even its own region. This Israeli persuasion has included manipulation of a bought and paid for Congress and media which support a steady flow of propaganda seeking to depict Iran in the most negative terms, intended to appeal to the American desire to frame its foreign policy in terms of “good versus evil” with the US/Israel always being good no matter what wartime atrocities they might commit.

One might reasonably observe that the pattern of “good versus evil” is also playing out with regard to Russia in Ukraine. Given such a faux ethically based worldview, the US rarely acts in terms of genuine national interests, witness the relationship with Jerusalem more generally speaking. Israel’s security service Mossad has as its motto “By Way of Deception Thou Shalt Do War.” With that in mind it has been hard at work fabricating “intelligence” that the Iranian leadership has initiated a secret nuclear proliferation program. A laptop that surfaced in 2004 through the dissident Iranian group MEK allegedly contained information regarding covert plans for an Iranian nuclear bomb. It was, however, revealed to be a clever Mossad forgery.

Israel has never quite convinced the White House to take the final step and make war directly against the Iranians, though it came close when a gullible Donald Trump ordered the assassination of senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who was in Baghdad for peace talks in January 2020. But Israel has nevertheless managed to obtain what is apparently considerable covert CIA collaboration in its own semi-secret program to kill scientists and technicians that might be involved in nuclear research, while also hacking into and sabotaging Iranian computer systems and other infrastructure. Under Trump, CIA Director Mike Pompeo focused particularly on Iran, setting up a “special action group” to counter its presence and claimed “malign activities” in the Middle East. That task force presumably still exists under the current Director William Burns appointed by Joe Biden.

The Joe Biden Administration has long been dancing around re-joining the JCPOA, which was entered into under President Barack Obama in 2015. President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018, convinced by his neocon and hardline advisers that it would only provide Iran cover to ramp up its secret program and produce a nuclear weapon. Trump’s associates argued that JCPOA would actually make eventual Iranian acquisition of a nuke inevitable.

As of right now, the discussions on JCPOA in Vienna are at a standstill and appear about to break down completely, though some reports alternatively claim that a new agreement is within reach. The Iranians believe that the US is not negotiating in good faith and is failing to take even relatively minor steps that could lead to a reasonable understanding without compromising the vital interests of any of the parties involved. Those steps could include removing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force from the US terrorist list and releasing some frozen Iranian assets, while also cutting back on sanctions. It appears that Biden would actually like to renew the agreement, but his own associates at the State Department, whose top three officials are Zionists, as well as the powerful Israel Lobby are pushing against such a course of action.

In reality the JCPOA is in the interest of the United States, pledged as it is to stop nuclear proliferation, since it permits unannounced inspection of virtually all Iranian research facilities by UN officials. It would make attempted proliferation by Iran extremely difficult, even if an elaborate deception operation were attempted. Nevertheless, a number of the usual journalists and self-proclaimed “experts” continue to push the Trumpean neocon derived argument that the agreement would actually accelerate an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Think tanks like the Foundation of Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have been lobbying Congress and the White House assiduously, as have some conventionally conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, which argues that reviving JCPOA would be a “dangerous mistake.” In a recent paper it maintains that “Reviving the deeply flawed Iran nuclear deal would reward and empower a hostile dictatorship by lifting sanctions and squandering US bargaining leverage. Iran never fully complied with the JCPOA and is currently in violation of it on several accounts. A much more restrictive agreement is necessary. A new agreement should include Iran’s ballistic missile program, disclosure of its past nuclear weapons efforts, and better protection for Israel and Arab allies.”

The Heritage paper is, of course, more speculative than fact-based and false in several respects, particularly the claim that Iran never fully complied with the agreement. Iran opened up to UN inspectors and it was the United States that continued with sanctions contrary to the intent of the original deal. If Iran were to abandon its missile program and provide “better protection” for Israel and select Arab states it would be basically surrendering its sovereignty in the area of national defense.

Another recent effort to attack JCPOA comes from an article written by two Israelis featured in The Atlantic magazine entitled “A Case Against the Iran Deal: Reviving the JCPOA will ensure either the emergence of a nuclear Iran or a desperate war to stop it.” One of the two authors is Michael Oren, until recently the Israeli Ambassador to the United States. The article’s title is self-explanatory and the argument it makes, largely based on what passes for Israeli “intelligence,” is that Iran has a secret weapons program and already has enough of enriched uranium to begin construction of a weapon within a few months. If its clandestine activities are in a sense shielded by a revived JCPOA, they will no doubt do just that, according to the authors.

Against the Israeli argument which, by implication, calls for war to disarm the Iranians, a sustainable inspection routine run by the UN would seem to be a preferable option but a number of Democratic Party Congressmen apparently do not agree and are pressuring President Biden to rethink his acceptance of the desirability of something like a rapprochement with Iran. Eighteen Democratic Congressmen, led by Josh Gottheimer and Elaine Luria, both of whom are Jewish, are pushing back against the Biden efforts, arguing that the agreement is flawed. Gottheimer added that “We need a longer and stronger deal, not one that is shorter and weaker. It’s time to stand strong against terrorists, protect American values and our allies.” Note the emphasis on protecting “our allies,” though one need not point out that there is only one ally in the region that matters to Washington politicians, particularly to folks like Gottheimer.

Republicans are also on board. They are expressing particular concerned because Russia is a signatory to the agreement and would be a guarantor of it, or at least that is what they are arguing to block any Biden effort to reengage. Pennsylvania Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, remarked that he was very concerned about a new deal because “Russia should not be at any table with us right now. They’re committing egregious acts of terrorism and murder in a free democracy in Ukraine, in Europe right now.” That Fitzpatrick, on the Foreign Affairs Committee, should be so ignorant of actual US interests as well as regarding the nuances of the Russia-Ukraine conflict illustrates better than anything the abysmal level of ignorance that prevails in the federal government, leading to a collapse of what used to be called Diplomacy 101.

Finally, nothing better illustrates the disarray in US foreign and national security policy than a brief exchange that took place more than three weeks ago in Israel, where US Secretary of State Tony Blinken was trying in part to sell the possibility that the Biden Administration might actually re-enter the JCPOA. Israel of, course, strongly opposes that option, particularly if it involves any concessions to Iran, while Blinken’s State Department persists in repeating the Israeli line that Iran is the “world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” while also asserting that “this administration’s commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.” So, what did an obviously between a rock and a hard place Blinken do? He asked Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett for suggestions of what might be arranged in lieu of an actual agreement. Naftali reportedly suggested harsher sanctions on Iran. When the US senior-most representative involved in crafting foreign policy feels compelled to ask the agenda-driven head of a rogue foreign government to tell him what to do, there is something very wrong in Washington.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , | 1 Comment

Germany to supply Ukraine with heavy weaponry

Samizdat | April 26, 2022

The German government has given the green light for the delivery of self-propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, the country’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Tuesday.

Speaking at US-hosted defense talks at the American airbase Ramstein in Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state, Lambrecht said that the leadership in Berlin made the decision on Monday. She emphasized that Germany was “determined to help the Ukrainian people with unified resolve in this existential emergency.”

The minister explained that “Ukraine will order” hardware from German manufacturers and “Germany will pay.” Berlin would earmark some 2 billion euros to that end, Lambrecht added.

The armored vehicles in question are Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, which were decommissioned by the German military back in 2010. Designed to take out cruise missiles and aircraft, Gepards can also be used against targets on the ground. As many as 50 heavy vehicles could reportedly be delivered to Ukraine. Defense firm Krauss-Maffei Wegmann will now refurbish the equipment before transferring it on to Kiev, Germany’s dpa news agency reported. It is, however, not known when exactly Ukraine can expect delivery of the anti-aircraft systems.

Lambrecht also announced that Berlin “has initiated a swap scheme with our partners in eastern Europe” that is ensuring that “Ukraine is quickly obtaining heavy weaponry that doesn’t require lengthy training.” But, according to the minister, Germany could do a lot more in this respect.

On top of that, Berlin will be cooperating with the US and the Netherlands when it comes to providing training to Ukrainian troops on German soil in the use of various artillery systems.

Lambrecht made the announcements during a meeting of defense ministers from 40 countries hosted by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, several German outlets reported that Germany’s Rheinmetall arms manufacturer was prepared to sell 88 decommissioned Leopard tanks, as well as ammunition, spare parts and tools to repair the hardware. Training on the equipment would also be provided to Ukrainian troops. The company was awaiting the German government’s approval, the media said at the time.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned NATO arms supplies to Kiev, saying they only destabilize the situation on the ground and hamper the prospect for peace. It also warned that any equipment deliveries will be considered a legitimate military target for the Russian forces once they cross into Ukrainian territory.

“NATO is essentially going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy. War means war,” Russia’s Foreign Minister said on Monday.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 3 Comments

Kiev says ready to attack Crimean Bridge at first opportunity

By Lucas Leiroz | April 25, 2022

The Ukrainian government seems to be willing to further increase its military actions just to continue a conflict in which it has no chance of winning. On April 21, a Kiev official announced that they are about to bomb and destroy the Crimean Bridge.

In a recent speech, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, revealed that Kiev’s armed forces are ready to attack the bridge at any time, having plans to act at the first possible opportunity. His words during an interview with Radio NV leave no doubt about the Ukrainian intentions: “If we had the ability to do it, we would have already done it. If there is an opportunity to do it, we will definitely do it”. Danilov also commented on the reasons behind the plan, mentioning the strategic value of the bridge, which destruction would largely obstruct the movement of Russian troops.

There are many problems with Danilov’s statement. In fact, it is possible to speak of a “strategic value” in its destruction of the Crimean Bridge, but this is far from implying any justification. Many anti-humanitarian measures have “strategic value” but should be avoided simply because they are legally and ethically wrong procedures. For example, it is precisely to avoid unreasonable civilian casualties and damage to historical heritage that Moscow refrains from excessive use of air force during the special military operation in Ukraine. No doubt there would also be strategic value in escalating the use of air force.

Carefully measuring one’s own acts to avoid mass victims should be the attitude of any side during a conflict. And this is what should be expected of Kiev, considering that the destruction of the bridge would cause civilian casualties, since non-military people still circulate in the region and would completely obstruct the flow of goods between Crimea and the rest of the Russian territory, which could lead to large supply deficits and social crises.

But, apart from the humanitarian and ethical argument, the main factor is another: Kiev is announcing military attacks on the sovereign territory of the Russian Federation. Both Kerch and Taman, cities connected by the bridge, are part of Russia, so the attack would hit a non-border Russian zone and its respective marine territory, generating a serious provocation. The risk of escalating the conflict into Russia’s sovereign territory may be too high for the Ukrainian side.

The words of Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, confirm this prediction of reaction in the event of an attack: “I hope he [Oleksiy Danilov] understands what Russia would target in retaliation”. Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had already announced that Moscow would interpret a bombing of the bridge as a terrorist attack and announced that Moscow is already acting to prevent any Ukrainian action in this regard: “Such a statement [about the potential bombing of the Crimean Bridge] is nothing but an announcement of a possible terrorist act; this is unacceptable (…) All the necessary security measures and precautions by the relevant service are being taken around the bridge and all strategic facilities”.

Still, it is necessary to emphasize the omission of Western countries and international organizations in this case. Kiev announces that it is organizing terrorist-like attitudes and Moscow condemns it, but with no statement of the rest of international society. Ignoring Kiev’s threats seems to have become standard, commonplace action in recent years while, on the other hand, actions of the Russian army are automatically condemned.

Finally, Kiev is on the verge of an escalation of the conflict in which it will not be able to deal with the consequences. If there’s really a plan going on to destroy the bridge, the best thing to do is to abort it.

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

April 26, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , | 3 Comments

Dutch Party Asks Zelensky to Account for $850 Mln Personal Wealth

By Ilya Tsukanov | Samizdat | April 26, 2022

Last year, a Pandora Papers leak revealed that Mr Zelensky, who campaigned on promises to “break the system” of oligarchic control and corruption in Ukraine, set up a spider web of offshore companies in 2012. Zelensky’s office justified the move by saying they were a form of “protection” against former President Viktor Yanukovych.

A Dutch political party has taken an interest in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s personal finances.

“Zelensky has a fortune: various estimates put his wealth at around $850 million. He amassed most of it after taking office as president. Where does the money come from? And more importantly, where is it going?” the Forum for Democracy asked in posts on its Twitter and Telegram accounts on Monday.

The Dutch national conservative and hardline Eurosceptic party boycotted Zelensky’s speech to the Dutch parliament last month, denouncing it as a violation of nearly two centuries of democratic tradition, which forbid foreign heads of state from speaking before the House of Representatives.

The party also expressed concerns about Zelensky’s ban of political parties, including the main opposition party, and the shuttering of TV channels critical of his regime.

The Forum for Democracy did not specify where it got its $850 million estimate.

Ilya Kiva, a Ukrainian opposition lawmaker who was stripped of his mandate last month, alleges that “hundreds of millions of dollars” are being wired to accounts controlled by the president’s office, where they are being plundered, not just by Zelensky and his staff, but by “Western politicians who get kickbacks for their [countries’] assistance”. Kiva has suggested that Zelensky’s earnings have recently jumped to about “$100 million a month”.

Before becoming president in 2019, Zelensky co-owned the Kvartal 95 television entertainment company, which he co-founded in 2003. Last week, Volodymyr Landa, deputy editor-in-chief of Forbes Ukraine, said that the company earns about $20-$30 million per year, with Zelensky owning a 25 percent stake.

Before the 2019 election, Zelensky’s family also earned a 25 percent stake in the Maltex Multicapital Corp, a tax shelter in the British Virgin Islands, through a separate Belize-registered shell company, Film Heritage, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Zelensky insisted after the election that he had dropped his share in the company, and has not mentioned the company in any of his tax declarations since 2018.

However, in October 2021, the OCCRP reported that the president, his family, and members of his inner circle have held on to Maltex, and operate an entire network of shady offshore companies, at least two of them used to buy property in London near the famous 221B Baker Street and the Houses of Parliament.

Ihor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian oligarch who heavily sponsored Zelensky’s campaign in 2019, has himself been accused of stealing $5.5 billion from PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest commercial lender, and funnelling it offshore.

Pressed by media over the offshore-related revelations late last year, Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to Zelensky’s chief of staff, assured that the president had been forced to create the offshores to “protect” income from the “aggressive actions” of the “corrupt” government of President Viktor Yanukovych. “Journalists have de facto confirmed the president’s absolute respect for the standards of anti-corruption legislation”, Podoliak said.

Yanukovych was ousted in a Western-backed coup in 2014, giving rise to the Ukraine crisis which continues to this day.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Corruption | | 5 Comments

Ukraine wants $2bn per month from US

Samizdat | April 26, 2022

Ukraine’s finance minister, Sergey Marchenko, has solicited at least $2 billion per month in emergency economic aid from the Biden administration. The official also revealed that Kiev hopes to raise an additional $3 billion per month from other sources.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Marchenko said that Ukraine needs “to cover this gap right now to attract the necessary finance and win this war.”

During his visit to Washington, DC last week, Marchenko met with a number of senior US officials, warning them that absent the requested financial support, Ukraine would likely not be able to cope with the humanitarian crisis brought on by Russia’s military offensive. A total of $5 billion per month is needed to cover Ukraine’s immediate needs in April, May, and June, the minister explained. In addition to that, Kiev is expected to request another tranche down the road to help Ukraine recover from all the damage incurred.

Last Thursday, the minister also reportedly attended a private dinner hosted by Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, which included representatives from top US firms such as Goldman Sachs, and the Business Roundtable lobbyist association. Moreover, Marchenko met with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during the G20 summit in Washington last Wednesday.

Since the start of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine in late February, the US has already shelled out approximately $1 billion in economic aid for Kiev. An additional $500 million was cleared by the Biden administration last week, on top of the generous military aid.

Yellen told reporters last Thursday that America has to “find ways to meet Ukraine’s needs.” She added that this “will involve going back to Congress with a supplemental request.” Her comments came shortly after President Joe Biden made it clear that he would ask Congress to give the green light to more financial assistance for Ukraine – something an anonymous US official described to the Washington Post as one of the administration’s top priorities.

Several members of Congress and senior Ukrainian officials alike have repeatedly suggested handing frozen assets belonging to Russia’s central bank over to Ukraine. However, the Biden administration has stopped short of making any promises so far. Yellen described this potential handover as something she “wouldn’t want to do so lightly,” telling reporters that “it’s something that I think our coalition and partners would need to feel comfortable with and be supportive of.”

The Ukrainian finance minister told the Washington Post that his country needs the money to provide care to millions of internally displaced Ukrainians, as well as paying pensions to retirees and salaries to medical and education professionals.

Marchenko concluded by saying that Washington has become “more cooperative” over time, adding that support from the US is “becoming greater and greater.”

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 14 Comments

Russia warns about threats of Israeli settlement plans in Syrian Golan

Press TV – April 26, 2022

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has once again denounced Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, stating that the regime’s plans for the expansion of its illegal settlements in the strategic region undermine regional stability.

He made the remarks during a UN Security Council session on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question in New York on Monday.

“Israel’s settlement plans in the occupied Syrian Golan threaten to undermine regional stability,” Nebenzya said.

In 1967, Israel waged a full-scale war against Arab territories, during which it occupied a large area of the Golan and annexed it fourteen years later – a move never recognized by the international community.

In 1973, another war broke out, and a year later, a UN-brokered ceasefire came into force, according to which Tel Aviv and Damascus agreed to separate their troops and create a buffer zone in the Heights. However, Israel has over the past several decades built dozens of illegal settlements in the Golan in defiance of international calls for the regime to stop its illegal construction activities there.

In a unilateral move rejected by the international community in 2019, former US president Donald Trump signed a decree recognizing Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan.

Nevertheless, Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Golan, saying the territory must be completely restored to its control.

The United Nations has also time and again emphasized Syria’s sovereignty over the territory.

Earlier this year, Deputy Russian Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy said Russia is concerned over Tel Aviv’s announced plans for expanding settlement activity in the occupied Golan Heights.

He said the move directly contradicts the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention.

“We stress Russia’s unchanging position, according to which we do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights that are an inalienable part of Syria,” Polyanskiy said on February 23.

Last December, Israel announced that it intends to double the number of its illegal settlements in the Golan, despite an earlier resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly demanding the regime’s full withdrawal from the occupied territory.

Israeli-Russian relations have soured since the beginning of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Observers had already predicted that the Russia-Ukraine crisis could put Israel in a difficult position, as the Tel Aviv regime has good relations with both Moscow and Kiev.

Earlier this month, the Israeli regime voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution suspending the Russian Federation’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council.

Reacting to the vote, the Russian foreign ministry called the resolution “unlawful and politically motivated.”

It also called the Israeli regime’s support for it “a thinly veiled attempt to take advantage of the situation around Ukraine in order to divert the attention of the international community from one of the oldest unresolved conflicts — the Palestinian-Israeli one.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, following Moscow’s recognition of self-declared Lugansk and Donetsk republics, collectively known as the Donbass. The two breakaway regions, located in eastern Ukraine, are largely populated by ethnic Russians.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , | 1 Comment

Housing Ukrainian Refugees To Cost Irish Taxpayer €3 Billion

By Richie Allen | April 26, 2022

Ireland’s Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath is expected to tell the cabinet today that the cost of helping Ukrainian refugees could reach €3 billion.

Last month the government estimated the cost at €2.5 billion.

According to Ireland’s state broadcaster RTÉ:

Latest figures show that 25,173 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Ireland.

Of that number, 16,788 have been provided with accommodation by the State. However, it is expected around 33,000 Ukrainian refugees will have arrived by the end of next month.

On his way into Cabinet this morning, Mr McGrath said we are now at a point where we can no longer rely on traditional emergency accommodation like hotels and B&Bs to house Ukrainian people.

“That system is now under real pressure and that is why we’ve had to use facilities such as Millstreet, and I think its likely we’ll see more examples like that depending on the number of refugees that continue to come to Ireland but we will do the very best that we can,” he said.

Minister McGrath said the main focus of Cabinet discussions today would be the accommodation needs of Ukrainian people and looking at all the available options to Government to find accommodation quickly.

“The system is now under real strain and we are at a point where we are offering accommodation that is not of a standard we would like.”

He said Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien would have a memo outlining the options.

Yesterday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that there would be no limit placed on the number of Ukrainian refugees entering Ireland.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | | Leave a comment

The Nation’s Top Scientists Lied

By Dr. Scott Atlas | Brownstone Institute | April 13, 2022

This adapted excerpt is from Dr. Scott W. Atlas’ bestselling book, A Plague Upon Our House, published by Bombardier. 

CDC Director Robert Redfield’s congressional testimony on September 23, 2020, immediately caught my attention. I watched in disbelief as Redfield told Congress that “more than 90 percent of the population”—more than three hundred million people in the US—remains susceptible to the illness.

The statement was based on incomplete and outdated data, as well as an apparent lack of understanding of the literature, and it struck me as one of the most erroneous and fear-inducing proclamations of any public health official to that moment. Approximately two hundred thousand Americans had already died from COVID; the last thing the public needed was an exaggeration of the future risks, implying to some that ten times that number could still die.

First of all, the numbers didn’t add up. At that point, confirmed cases in the US already totaled approximately seven million, and the CDC itself had estimated that approximately ten times the number of confirmed cases, a very conservative estimate, were likely to have had the infection. A Stanford seropositivity study back in April had shown that confirmed cases underestimated the total infections by a factor of approximately forty times. It made no sense that only 9 percent, or thirty million Americans, had been infected.

Second, the 9 percent calculation was blatantly wrong. That number came from antibody testing by the states. I looked at the CDC website myself, and sure enough, the data was based on antiquated testing from several states.

Some antibody totals were pulled from several months earlier, before many of those states had experienced a significant number of cases. It therefore grossly underestimated the number of cases that had already occurred. The data was simply not valid, but you needed to pay attention to the details.

More importantly, Redfield’s basic claim was fundamentally flawed. The conclusion that serum antibody testing revealed the entire population of those protected from COVID was counter to an entire body of published literature and contrary to fundamental knowledge of immunology, including other coronavirus infections.

It was well known that antibody tests showed one cross-section in time—they were transient—even though immune protection can last. From studies on SARS-2 and most other viruses, antibody levels change over a span of months. They typically appear in the first couple of weeks, peak in a few months, and then decrease over a span of several months.

The literature on COVID had already shown these patterns. A month before this press conference, a Nature Reviews Immunology study on COVID-19 explicitly stated, “The absence of specific antibodies in the serum does not necessarily mean an absence of immune memory,” and explained, “memory B-cells and T-cells may be maintained even if there are not measurable levels of serum antibodies.”

Japan’s study demonstrated this dramatically. In their study, antibody levels increased from 5.8 percent to 46.8 percent over the course of the summer. The most dramatic increase occurred in late June and early July, paralleling the rise in daily confirmed cases within Tokyo, which peaked on August 4.

Out of the 350 individuals who completed both offered tests, 21.4 percent of those who tested negative became positive, and 12.2 percent of initially positive participants became negative for antibodies. A striking 81.1 percent of IgM-antibody-positive cases at first testing became negative in only one month. They stated that “[antibody tests] may significantly underestimate previous COVID-19 infections.” It had also been widely reported in several major scientific journals that antibody responses are not necessarily detectable in all COVID patients, especially those with less severe forms.

But the flaws in Redfield’s estimate extended deeper. Even those familiar with first-year college biology know that other components of the immune system, memory B-cell and T-cells, provide protection from virus infections. Some T-cells kill the virus, and they also help antibodies form. T-cells develop and provide protection that lasts far longer, even after antibodies disappear—sometimes for years in other SARS viruses.

T-cells for this virus had already been documented, even in people unexposed to SARS-2, meaning that in these cases, cross-protection was present from T-cells originating in response to other coronaviruses. T-cells had also been found in individuals with completely asymptomatic SARS-2 infections.

NIH Director Francis Collins had highlighted that very data in his Director’s Blog a few weeks earlier, writing, “In fact, immune cells known as memory T cells also play an important role in the ability of our immune systems to protect us against many viral infections, including—it now appears—COVID-19.”

Scientists from some of the top research institutions in the world, like Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, San Diego’s La Jolla Institute, Duke University, Berlin, and others had published this evidence. Karolinska demonstrated T-cell immunity in both asymptomatic and mild cases of COVID—even if antibody-negative.

Singapore researchers had noted robust T-cell responses to this virus, SARS2, from seventeen-year-old SARS1 samples. Since T-cells are obviously not discovered by antibody tests, those individuals were not included in Redfield’s count. Yet he apparently had not considered this essential, indeed fundamental, point as he testified to Congress and made headlines.

After watching this debacle on TV, I knew full well what was coming later that day. The media would latch on to this and create even more public panic. I also knew that the responsibility for clarifying this grossly erroneous statement would be mine. There was no question it would come up at the president’s press conference, and even if it did not, it still needed to be explained.

I rushed over to Derek Lyons’s office to update him and to make sure we would alert the president beforehand. A few others in the West Wing were there, so I summarized to them what had been said to Congress.

The mood ranged from amazement to dejection to frustration. An advisor to the president on legal matters warned me, with a smile on his face, “Scott, don’t just bluntly say, ‘Redfield is wrong!’ Say something softer, like ‘He misstated things.’”

I nodded, knowing that I needed to restrain my words, even though this was the same man who had tried to destroy me in the national press a few days earlier. But this wasn’t personal at all. Clarifying the facts about the pandemic and countering the unending barrage of misinformation and pseudoscience about it, in this case coming from within the administration itself, was one of my most important roles in this national crisis.

During the pre-brief in the Oval Office a few hours later, I outlined the issue to the president. It was decided, as expected, that I would answer the question when it came up. And so it did.

A reporter from ABC News directly asked me if Redfield’s statement that more than 90 percent of Americans remained susceptible to the disease was true. I took the friendly advice I had received earlier in the day.

“I think that Dr. Redfield misstated something there,” I said, and then did my best to calmly explain the problems with outdated information and the contribution of cross-reactive T-cells and T-cell protection that would not have been included in his data. I correctly stated what was widely known and factual—that the protection from the virus “is not solely determined by the percent of people who have antibodies.” During my answer, as I fended off interruptions, I tried to explain in understandable language as best I could.

I also made a serious effort to be somewhat delicate, because I felt extremely uncomfortable about having to correct the director of the CDC on the national stage.

Unfortunately, my disgust with the confrontational mood in that press room prevented me from being more diplomatic when that reporter asked, “Who are we to believe?” My reflexive answer was “You’re supposed to believe in the science, and I am telling you the science.” Then I referred him to several expert scientists by name. However, I had the strong sense that he was not really interested in the facts at all. Rather, it was another attempt to amplify discord.

After exiting the press room, I walked alongside the president. He briefly stopped to check the news coverage on the set of TV monitors outside the briefing room, as he typically chose to do. After some banter between the president and the staff standing in the area, we began walking back toward the Oval Office.

President Trump turned to me on his right, smiling wryly but with a genuinely puzzled look on his face. “Is Redfield political or just stupid?” he asked, subtly shaking his head. I looked right back at the president and hesitated. The answer was obvious to both of us.

Needless to say, the media immediately played up the disagreement between me and Redfield. It fed into their narrative of conflict between me and the other Task Force doctors, one that Redfield personally caused with his offensive and unwarranted remark that everything I said was “false.”

Later, Dr. Fauci appeared on TV and criticized my straightforward attempt to clarify important information as “extraordinarily inappropriate.” I wondered if he was more concerned with protecting his bureaucrat colleague’s reputation and undermining mine than ensuring that correct information was being told to the American public.

Martin Kulldorff, the world-renowned Harvard epidemiologist, posted his reaction on Twitter: “Scott Atlas stated the simple fact that immunity is higher than those with antibodies, whereupon Dr. Fauci criticizes him without contradicting what was actually said. Stating a simple scientific fact is not ‘extraordinarily inappropriate.’ What is going on?”

Scott W. Atlas, M.D., is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow in health care policy at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and a fellow at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

Moscow lays blame for stalled Ukraine talks

London and Washington made Zelensky backtrack on Istanbul deal, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov says


Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, April 22, 2022
Samizdat | April 26, 2022

There is a belief in Moscow that Washington, London and other Western capitals – not Kiev – are the real decision-makers when it comes to Ukraine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview on Monday. He said that Kiev’s negotiators backtracked on the tentative understanding reached last month in Istanbul on advice from the US and the UK.

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met face-to-face in Turkey at the end of March. Russia then took Ukraine’s outline, put it together in a “contractual” format and sent it to Kiev, only to get back “radically different” ideas in what was a “huge step back,” Lavrov said in the interview with the ‘Great Game,’ a political show on Russia’s Channel One.

“We know for sure that neither the US nor the UK – which is trying in every possible way to compensate for its current lonely status after leaving the EU – advised [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky to speed up the negotiations, but to harden his position each time,” Lavrov said. The backtracking after Istanbul, he added, “was taken on the advice of our American or British colleagues. Maybe the Poles and the Balts played some role here.”

Meanwhile, Western leaders – such as the British PM Boris Johnson and EU foreign minister Josep Borrell – make statements to the effect that Russia “must be defeated” and that the conflict needs to be resolved “on the field of battle,” while sending weapons to Kiev, Lavrov pointed out.

“These weapons will be a legitimate target for the Russian Armed Forces,” the foreign minister said. “Warehouses, including in the west of Ukraine, have become such a target more than once. How else? NATO is essentially going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy. In war, as in war.”

While “casting spells” against a Third World War, the West is fueling the conflict with weapons and hoping to have the “fight Russia to the last man” in order to bleed Moscow, Lavrov said.

“You know, goodwill is not unlimited,” he added. “If it is not reciprocated, then this does not contribute to the negotiation process. As before, many of us are convinced – as I have already mentioned – that the real position of Ukraine is determined in Washington, London and other Western capitals,” he said, noting that some political scientists have said that talks should be held with NATO, and not Zelensky.

However, Lavrov also pointed out that Russia has not had much luck talking to NATO directly. When Moscow presented its security proposals to the US and NATO in December 2021, they were politely heard and then ignored.

“Rather impolitely, they made it clear that what was needed for our security was not up to us to decide,” Lavrov said.

The objectives of the “special military operation” announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24 have not changed, Lavrov said: the destruction of military infrastructure in Ukraine that threatened Russia, with “the strictest measures in order to minimize any damage to the civilian population.”

Lavrov also offered a prediction how the conflict would end. “As in any situation where armed forces are used, everything will end with a treaty,” he said. “But its parameters will be determined by the stage of hostilities at which this treaty becomes a reality.”

Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered Minsk Protocol was designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin has since 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.

April 25, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 2 Comments

5 signs they are CREATING a food crisis

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | April 25, 2022

It’s no secret that, according to politicians and the corporate press, “food shortages” and a “food supply crises” have been on the way for a while now. They have been regularly predicted for several years.

What’s really strange is that despite its near-constant incipience, the food shortage never seems to actually arrive and is always blamed on something new.

As long ago as 2012, “scientists” were predicting that climate change and a lack of clean water would create “food shortages” that would “turn the world vegetarian by 2050”.

In 2019, UN “experts” warned that “climate change was threatening the world’s food supply”.

Later the same year, the UK was warned that they could expect a food shortage as a result of “post-Brexit chaos”.

By early March 2020 supermarkets were already “warning” that the government had been too slow to act on the coronavirus outbreak, and they might run out of food. (They never actually did).

A month later, in April 2020 when the “pandemic” was less than three months old, “officials” warned Covid was going to create a global food crisis. Three months later it had ballooned into “the worst food crisis for 50 years”.

In the Summer of 2021 the British press was predicting the “worst food shortages since world war 2” and “rolling power cuts”, allegedly due to a lack of truck drivers blamed equally on Covid and Brexit (neither the shortages nor power cuts ever really materialised).

By September 2021, the UK was told the gas price spike would create a shortage of frozen food, and just a month later, that we may have to ration meat ahead of Christmas, due to the gas crisis. (There never was any rationing)

In January 2022, Australia saw “empty supermarket shelves” blamed on the Omicron variant crippling the supply chain, while the US had the same empty shelves blamed on bad winter weather.

Moving into the spring of 2022, the food crisis is still on its way…only now it’s because of the war in Ukraine, or China’s “Zero Covid” policies, or the bird flu outbreak.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that – since the food crisis is always expected but never arrives, and is always blamed on the current thing – that it doesn’t really exist. That it’s nothing but a psy-op designed to spread panic and give suppliers an excuse to jack up their prices in response to fake “scarcity” created by the press.

However, there are indications that this may be about to change.

In a Brussels press conference on March 25th of this year, Joe Biden said…

Regarding food shortages – yes, we did talk about shortages, and they’re going to be real.”

… which is a decidedly odd thing to say.

Most of the time the only reason to strongly affirm something is “going to be real” from now on, is that up to that point it was not.

Indeed, there are a few signs that the food supply is about to genuinely come under attack.

1. UKRAINE WAR & WESTERN SANCTIONS

It’s well documented that Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine has driven up the prices of oil, gas and wheat. Partly due to disruption on the ground, but mostly due to Western sanctions.

Russia is the largest exporter of wheat and other grains in the world, and these products are used not just for making food for humans, but also as animal feed. Western nations boycotting Russian wheat will therefore potentially drive up the price of a huge variety of foodstuffs.

We have already seen rationing of sunflower oil (a major Ukrainian export), with reports that this could extend to all kinds of other products including sausages, chicken, pasta and beer.

This war did not need to happen, it could have been prevented (and could still be stopped) by a simple agreement on Ukrainian neutrality. Combine that with the sweeping nature of the anti-Russian sanctions – unmatched in recent history – and you can reason that the chaos on the ground and concomitant increase in food prices is part of a deliberate policy serving the Great Reset agenda.

2. INCREASING THE PRICE OF OIL

The increased price of oil has natural and obvious knock-on effects for every industrial sector – most especially transport, logistics and agriculture. Despite fears of a cost of living crisis, warnings of food shortages and Russia’s status as the largest exporter of oil and gas in the world, Western nations and their allies have made virtually zero effort to lower the cost of oil.

The high oil price has already seen the Russian ruble bounce back to pre-war strength, and yet Saudi Arabia has been increasing their prices, not flooding the market to tank the price as they did in 2014/15.

Keeping the cost of petroleum high is a deliberate policy decision, and one that shows the cost of living crisis – and any resultant food shortages – are being engineered on purpose.

3. BIRD FLU

The press is claiming there is a major bird flu outbreak going on. As we published last week, the dynamics of “bird flu” seem to be identical to Covid. Birds are tested for the virus using PCR tests, culled if they are “positive”, and these culls are then labelled “bird flu deaths”.

This process has already seen at least 27 million poultry birds destroyed in the US alone, the world’s largest exporter of both chicken and eggs. France, Canada and the UK have also culled millions of birds.

Bird flu has already (allegedly) caused the price of chicken and eggs to skyrocket.

(As a potentially important aside, a new report has also warned that pigs can pass “superbugs” to humans, so pigs may be for the chop sometime soon, too)

4. UK & US PAYING FARMERS TO STOP FARMING

Going back to last May, the Biden administration began pushing farmers to add agricultural land to the “conservation reserve program”, a federally funded program allegedly aimed at preserving the environment. The program is essentially paying farmers not to farm. A very odd policy decision, given the widely predicted food shortages.

A state-level plan in California is going to pay farmers to grow less, this time in the name of saving water.

Interestingly, the UK has a similar program going on for (again, allegedly) totally different reasons. Starting this past February, the British government is paying lump sums of up £100,000 to any farmers who want to retire from farming. Again, a strange policy during a period of geopolitical unrest impacting the food supply.

5. MANUFACTURED FERTILISER SHORTAGES

Russia and Belarus are two of the biggest exporters of fertiliser and fertiliser-related products in the world, accounting for around 10 billion dollars worth of trade manually. So, the war in Ukraine (and the sanctions) are already hitting the fertiliser market hard, with prices hitting new all-time highs in March.

China, the third biggest exporter of fertiliser in the world, has had a self-imposed export ban on the product since last summer, allegedly in an effort to keep domestic food prices low.

Given that, it is very strange that America’s Union Pacific Railway has suddenly placed a limit on the number of fertiliser deliveries it will make, informing fertiliser giant CF Industries they will need to cut their train car use by as much as 20%.

In their public response, CF Industries stated:

The timing of this action by Union Pacific could not come at a worse time for farmers…Not only will fertilizer be delayed by these shipping restrictions, but additional fertilizer needed to complete spring applications may be unable to reach farmers at all. By placing this arbitrary restriction on just a handful of shippers, Union Pacific is jeopardizing farmers’ harvests and increasing the cost of food for consumers.”

BONUS: FIRES AT FOOD PROCESSING PLANTS

This get’s a bonus slot, not an official spot, because of the multiple unknowns in this case.

In the strangest and most ephemeral story on the list, it seems there has been a rash of fires at food processing plants all over the United States in the last six months. Since August 2021 at least 16 major fires have broken out at food processing plants all across the country.

In September last year a meat processor in Nebraska burned down, impacting 5% of the country’s beef supply. In March of this year fire shut down a Nestle frozen food plant in Arkansas and a major potato processing site in Belfast, Maine was almost levelled by a huge fire.

The examples just keep on coming.

In just the last week two different single-engine planes have crashed into two different food plants, causing major fires. One at a potato processing plant in Idaho, another at a General Mills plant in Georgia.

Right now we can’t prove this is a deliberate campaign, or even statistically unusual, but it certainly warrants some further investigation.

There’s a good write-up on this story on Tim Pool’s website, and an in-depth twitter thread covering all the recent events from Dr Ben Braddock here.

*

In summary …

  1. A war which did not need to happen is driving up food and oil prices.
  2. Sanctions which did not need to be put in place are also driving up food and oil prices.
  3. Western allies are intentionally raising their oil prices.
  4. Despite warning of a food crisis, US and UK are paying farmers not to farm.
  5. A “bird flu epidemic” very much like the fake Covid “pandemic” is driving up the price of poultry and eggs.
  6. Western companies are actively making the fertiliser shortages worse.
  7. Bizarre fires are crippling large sections of the US food industry.

Taken individually maybe these points could all be seen as mistakes or coincidences, but when you put them all together it’s not hard to spot the pattern. The press may claim we are “sleepwalking” into a food crisis, but it looks more like they’re running head-first into it.

After years of saying there’s a food shortage on the way, it looks like they might be about to finally actually create one.

April 25, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | 2 Comments

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »