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This is one of the emails I received the other day. I get hundreds daily, and I am hearing you all.

This particular note spoke loudly to me and this lovely person gave me permission to share her words

By Jessica Rose · Unacceptable Jessica · July 17, 2022

“Dear Jessica,

I have been following your work for some time now. I thank God for you and your truth telling during this dark day of medical experimentation.

I’m sending this email to you to add colour to your work analyzing data. I know the trends and the data are vitally important but so are anecdotes and stories.

I have a 3 year old daughter and gave birth to my son in November. He’s almost 8 months now and, thank God, very healthy. I live in Fort Warrior.

[JUST FOR CONTEXT] I am unvaccinated (or un-injected is maybe what we should say). I knew I wanted to get pregnant in early 2021 and decided in advance that I wouldn’t take the jab based on the precautionary principle. I tend to be more skeptical of doctors and pharma than most — I favour nutrition and lifestyle interventions first but I know a lot of people feel “safe” going to their doctor for a pill/pharmaceutical that ails them. I kept a lot of my opinions to myself.

Fast forward to my first OB appointment in June of 2021. They were all over me about getting the COVID-19 jab at my appointment. I never brought it up, they did. The nurse practitioner fielding intake questions advised me of the following:

– the vaccine was highly recommended by the College of Obstetrics and Gynecology;

– the vaccine stays in the arm, and generates an immune response through antibodies that will also protect the baby (and do cross the placenta);

– pregnant women are at an especially high ICU risk and there have been bad outcomes;

– I’m at higher risk of infection because I have a child in daycare;

– they don’t have “long-term” safety data but they have no reason to believe that the vaccine is unsafe;

– pregnant women have priority on the vaccine.

I am a rule-follower so even though I had made the decision in advance to not take this death jab, it was a rattling appointment. It honestly caused me so much stress throughout the pregnancy because I felt they made it seem like you were doing something wrong if you didn’t get this death jab. Every doctors’ appointment had me so stressed and worried. You have this guilt about not doing “as the doctor told” and then worrying that if you got COVID and something did happen, they’d all be rolling your eyes and treating you like shit. I gave birth in a mask, but thank God everything went well and my son is healthy.

Since these jabs rolled out, I know of one woman who had a stillbirth a month before her due date. Devastating. I also have a good friend whose baby is having many health problems. Her first baby was born the same time as my first and didn’t have any of these problems. I notice too that doctors are not connecting the dots. One of the issues my friend’s baby has is a heart murmur. I’m no expert on this but she said to me that the cardiologist told her that up to 1/3rd of babies have murmurs and they just go away on their own. That didn’t sound right to me but I don’t know. She also said the baby had to go to physio and had a virus (and got COVID). It just seemed like there were so many issues and she never even raised the possibility that it might be related to taking the vax during pregnancy. Another colleague of mine who got the jab and booster while she was breastfeeding said her daughter had green poop for a week after the booster and that she lost her supply. She actually took her baby to Sick Kids and they told her she was basically crazy.

My cousin also didn’t get the jab and gave birth around the same time as me. Her baby is doing good. Got Covid at 2 months old and recovered faster than my cousin’s whole family who got it at the same time. Seems to fit the trend in the data.

I have so much rage and anger over this because I was so close to putting my baby at risk because of intense pressure from the OB office and from the mandates they rolled out at my work. I was able to get an “accommodation” because I started the job in March and had been working entirely from home and was about to take a leave. But it was gross listening to the head of HR at my job talking about the news related to “pregnant people” (ugh) and how vulnerable they were as she condescendingly implied that I was a moron for not doing more to protect my son.

Babies are being maimed; harmed. Women are being gaslighted. Breastmilk, which is literally medicine for a growing baby, is contaminated and causing harm because of these disastrous injections. This is evil. My heart is breaking every day. Every time I breastfeed my son with my milk I am so emotional. I want more kids but I’m terrified of the medical system. They doctors are in on this crime and are deliberately ignoring obvious data. I don’t even want to take my son back to the doctors for anything. It feels like going to a crime scene. I think of all the women I know who got this shot but want kids one day. They don’t even know what they’re in for and for their sake I hope I’m wrong, but damn.

I still don’t get the feeling people are waking up in Fort Warrior. I have a few friends who are aware, but they oppose all vaccines (and the more I read, so do I) so they were already for sure never going to get this experimental one. It feels really repressive here. People want to forget the medical tyranny and apartheid rolled out in the fall and pretend like we can just move on from the darkness.

I don’t know where things will go from here, but I’m so very grateful for your courage. I also appreciate the way you explain scientific findings in interviews. It’s really helpful.

Sending you so much love, mental, physical and spiritual health as you do this work. I am sure it’s so taxing to comb through these tragedies, but you are performing a vital human service.”

In gratitude, I stand. With mighty power.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Chinese military issues warning to US

Samizdat | July 19, 2022

The foreign and defense ministries in Beijing issued harsh statements on Monday condemning the Biden administration’s approval of a new US arms sale to Taiwan. The deal is worth an estimated $108 million and includes armored vehicle parts and technical assistance.

Beijing “demands” that the United States “immediately withdraw the above-mentioned arms sales plan to Taiwan,” as well as halt all other arms deals and cut military ties with the island, said Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Tan Kefei. “Otherwise, the US side will be solely responsible for undermining the relationship between China and the US and the two militaries and the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.”

“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army will take all necessary measures to firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely thwart any form of external interference and separatist attempts for ‘Taiwan independence’,” the colonel added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin echoed this sentiment, saying that Washington’s arms supplies “gravely undermine China’s sovereignty and security interests, and severely harm China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

“China will continue to take resolute and strong measures to firmly defend its sovereignty and security interests,” Wang added.

The Pentagon revealed on Friday that the US State Department had greenlit the transaction, which is valued at up to $108 million. It has yet to receive congressional approval, however. The military aid package will include parts for tanks and other combat vehicles, as well as technical and logistical support services provided by the US government and its contractors, in order to enhance the Taiwanese military’s interoperability with American forces and other allies, according to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

State Department spokesman Ned Price dismissed China’s concerns, claiming later on Monday that the US has certain obligations to supply Taiwan with the necessary means to “defend itself.”

“Under the Taiwan Relations Act, we make available to Taiwan defense articles and services necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability. This is something that successive administrations have done. It is entirely consistent with our One China policy,” said Price.

Taiwan has been ruled by the nationalists who fled to the island in 1949 after losing the civil war on the Chinese mainland. Beijing considers the island of 23.5 million a part of its own territory, under the One China policy.

China has recently increased its maritime and aerial military activity around the island, saying that this was needed to deter “collusion activities” between “Taiwan independence forces” and the US government.

While agreeing with the One China policy on paper, Washington maintains strong unofficial ties with Taipei, selling weapons to the island and tacitly encouraging its push for sovereignty. Beijing has repeatedly decried such contacts as provocations and as meddling in China’s internal affairs.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 6 Comments

Why the BBC’s new “anti-vaxxer documentary” is a complete farce

The BBC is either the worst media organisation on Earth or the best, depending upon your perspective. On the one hand it is a truly world-class propaganda machine. On the other it is completely incapable of challenging government narratives or power because it is effectively a branch of the UK government and is itself beholden to power.

As an agency of the state, the BBC has actively sought to destabilise overseas governments around the world. It is a master of propaganda and frequently lies to the public, either overtly or by omission, with the goal of convincing the people to accept whatever falsehood or agenda it has been tasked to sell.

From top to bottom, the BBC’s commitment to journalistic integrity is missing. It is simply a mouthpiece for the ruling cartel. It comprehensively fails to deliver the most crucial social function of journalism: holding power to account.

According to the corporation’s published values, “trust is the foundation of the BBC.” The Oxford English Dictionary offers a pejorative meaning of the word “trust”: “acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation.”

This definition of “trust” seems appropriate for the BBC. While it declares itself to be “independent, impartial and truthful,” it routinely trots out claimed “facts” that lack supporting evidence and produces investigative reports absent any real investigation. Indeed, the BBC broadcasts appalling lies as a matter of course.

And so it is with a certain degree of mirth that we now learn from the BBC that it intends to air a “documentary” about a phenomenon it has already opted to call “vaccine hesitancy.” (Bear in mind: A “documentary” is “a film or television or radio programme that gives facts and information about a subject.”)

The producer of the upcoming programme, due to air on the 20th of July, Craig Hunter, explains:

Moving beyond the often misrepresented debate, this programme reveals why some people remain vaccine hesitant.

The deprecatory word “hesitant” means “tentative, unsure, or slow in acting.” There is no room in the programme-maker’s minds for the possibility that people who chose to remain “unvaccinated” have considered the risk-benefit of these shots, have looked at the available evidence and have decisively concluded that they don’t want a COVID-19 jab.

Hunter’s statement absolutely “misrepresents” the debate. As Craig is the producer of the forthcoming BBC documentary, it seems the chance of the programme delivering a balanced exploration of the issue is remote to non-existent. There is little reason to expect the BBC to provide anything that is “independent, impartial and truthful.”

Indeed, objectively discussing any facet of the alleged pandemic is way beyond the reach of the BBC. As a state propaganda operation, all it can do is parrot the official narrative spouted by the government and its partners, who are, in this instance, the pharmaceutical corporations.

In its press release announcing the documentary, the BBC claims that the programme will focus on:

. . . confronting the latest science and statistics to emerge in the field and dissecting how misinformation spreads on social media.

The BBC cannot succeed in this task because the science and the statistics rarely support the disinformation it has been commissioned to spread. Consequently, it must deceive and misdirect its audience to make sure they believe its propagandist tripe. More to the point, the BBC is itself one of the most prolific distributors of online misinformation.

For example, in its press release the BBC says:

After multiple lockdowns and more than 197,000 deaths, experts are warning we’re now entering a fifth wave of the pandemic. So why are five million adults in the UK still yet to receive a single dose of the vaccine?

Putting aside for the moment that there are actually more than eleven million UK adults yet to receive a single dose of the vaccine and the fact that the BBC itself reported that there were just three million less than a week later, the rest of this claim assumes, without good reason, that there was a “pandemic” in the first place. We now know there is very little evidence that a genuine pandemic ever occurred, yet the BBC keeps up its charade by omitting key facts.

Here is one such key fact: In 2009 the World Health Organisation (WHO) suddenly and radically changed its long-time definition of the word “pandemic.” It removed the defining phrase “several, simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness,” replacing it with reference to a disease for which “most people do not have immunity.” Under this definition, practically any new disease can be declared a pandemic. But the BBC won’t inform its audience of the WHO’s changed definition nor the fact that under the original, and more valid, definition, COVID-19 disease could never have been described as a pandemic.

The BBC has left its audience in the dark about a number of other important facts: (1) as of the 19th of March 2020, UK public health authorities did not consider COVID-19 to be “a high-consequence infectious disease” due to its low mortality; (2) all-cause mortality (the overall death rate) in 2020, the year of the so-called “outbreak,” ranked as only the 9th highest death rate in the first two decades of the 21st century; (3) people with injured limbs and stomach pain were being admitted to hospital as registered COVID-19 patients, thus giving an entirely false impression of a severe pandemic disease; (4) there is no statistical evidence of any beneficial effect from any supposed COVID-19 vaccine; and (5) many deaths have been caused, not by any single disease, but by the policy response to an alleged pandemic.

In the press release for its upcoming “documentary,” the BBC refers to the figure of 197,000 UK deaths from COVID-19 as if that figure is scientifically or statistically indisputable. Not only can it be questioned, it has been! So why doesn’t the BBC mention this?

By deliberately using the largest possible figure, the BBC is attempting to elicit an emotional reaction to the highly questionable number of supposed COVID deaths. The BBC is playing on people’s emotions in order to avoid any objective analysis of the data. Its intention is to manipulate its audience into unquestioning acceptance of a story about a severe pandemic which does not stand up to scrutiny.

Let’s pause to make an important point: The collection, analysis and reporting of COVID-19 mortality data has been deliberately altered and manipulated by governments around the world, all of which worked and continue to work in partnership with the WHO. Nowhere has this manipulation been more pronounced than in the UK, where the engineering of COVID-19 mortality statistics has been quite remarkable.

Mainstream media outlets, especially the BBC, have perpetuated baseless fearmongering. For example, for the first time in the history of reporting deaths from a respiratory disease, propagandists like the BBC are reporting cumulative deaths instead of the annual mortality rates or the more common seasonal variation in these figures. If the same were done for, say, influenza, total flu deaths would be measured in millions, depending on the chosen start date for the accumulation of the mortality data.

Another example: The BBC has chosen to report what the government claims to be “deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate.” While some of these likely were genuine COVID-19 deaths, the expansive, all-encompassing methodology that the government and the WHO created to attribute as many deaths as possible to COVID-19 renders the bulk of these statistics virtually meaningless. In truth, we don’t know how many people in the UK have died as a direct consequence of COVID-19, though estimates in the region of 20,000 – 25,000 seem reasonable.

The BBC never questions the mortality statistics. It simply takes the figures from the government and reports them without any investigation or analysis. This is essentially the BBC’s purpose: to report whatever it is told to report.

In announcing its faux documentary, the BBC says:

In this timely, eye-opening investigation [. . .] Professor Hannah Fry seeks to understand why eight percent of the population remain unvaccinated against Covid-19.

In reality, more than twenty percent of adults in the UK are “unvaccinated.” The BBC can’t even write a press release for its forthcoming documentary without publishing deceptive statistics. So it is safe to say the “documentary” itself will be little more than a marketing promotion for the jabs.

Statistics from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) on vaccine coverage in England show that the actual percentage of the “unvaccinated” population is very close to thirty percent, not the eight percent the BBC alleges. The English figures are broadly representative of the UK as a whole and can be extrapolated.

Jab uptake increases with age. Thus, if we exclude children under 18, then more than twenty percent of the UK adult population are unvaccinated.

The subsequent uptake of booster jabs has declined markedly from the one-and-two dose uptake. Millions of Brits decided, for whatever reason, that two shots was their limit. Only fifty-two percent have elected to have the first booster (the third jab).

Speaking in December 2021, then-Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that, in order to be considered fully vaccinated for the proposed “covid pass,” one would need to have three jabs. If three becomes the definition of “fully vaccinated,” which seems unlikely given the lack of interest, then currently forty-eight percent of the total UK population, and more than thirty-five percent of the adult population, are not “fully vaccinated.”

The BBC launched its “documentary” by trying to deceive its audience into believing that there is only a tiny fringe minority of indecisive folk who don’t want the COVID jabs. In point of fact, it is nearly half of the UK population.

Not only has the BBC lied about the statistics in its press release, it has even misrepresented the debate it proposed to examine by calling the millions of people who made an informed decision not to have the jabs “hesitant.” But that’s because the BBC is all about propaganda, not journalism.

When some diligent independent researchers did what real journalists are supposed to do and picked up on the BBC’s deception, the BBC simply changed its press release. Since citing real statistics was a bit too tricky for the BBC—after all, it only has an annual budget of around £5 billion—the revised web page now reads:

In this timely, eye-opening investigation [. . .] Professor Hannah Fry seeks to understand why a portion of the population remain unvaccinated against Covid-19.

Despite there being no reason to trust anything the BBC ever says, the broadcaster implores its viewers to “trust” it simply by pronouncing its own trustworthiness. For the BBC, your “trust” demonstrates your “faith,” allowing it to tell you stories without the need for investigative journalism or even supporting evidence. By contrast, the evidence invariably reveals that the BBC is completely untrustworthy.

According to BBC, its so-called “documentary” is going to be based on bombarding seven hapless unvaccinated lay people with a barrage of pro-vaccine “experts.” Once browbeaten into submission by these authoritative opinions, the victims will then be subject to the BBC’s logical fallacy tactic of appeal to authority. In other words, these high priests of “the science” will explain how the BBC’s seven victims have been misled by “anti-vaxxer” propaganda.

It is highly likely that even if the seven subjects cogently explain why they have decided not to be injected with experimental concoctions, the BBC will edit out any and all valid points they make—and/or deny whatever evidence they cite. We can make these predictions with relative ease, simply by noting the extraordinary level of deceit already present in the BBC’s press release announcing its “programme.”

We can make still further forecasts about the BBC’s alleged “investigation.” For one thing, it won’t honestly report on the current status of the vaccine trials.

Namely, it will neglect to inform its audience that the NCT04368728 trial of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab isn’t finished. And it will not reveal that neither the NCT04470427 trial of Moderna’s mRNA jab nor Johnson & Johnson’s NCT04614948 Jansen trials have posted any results, because these trials, too, are incomplete. Moreover, the BBC will strenuously avoid pointing out the implication of these facts—probably by not reporting them.

Unless the recipients of these drugs were told that the jabs they were about to receive were experimental, they couldn’t possibly have given their informed consent. Consequently, whenever they weren’t informed, administration of the jab contravened nearly every known medical ethic, including those outlined in the Nuremberg Code. But the BBC won’t mention this, either.

It is also safe to say that the BBC will not tell its audience that AstraZeneca concluded the NCT04516746 trial of its AZD1222 adenovirus jab more than a year before schedule by not bothering to conduct a quality control review, rendering its so-called vaccine trial results practically meaningless.

The BBC will not tell anyone that the British Medical Journal (BMJ) disclosed that both Moderna and Jansen (J&J) confirmed that they had given the jabs to their placebo control groups, ending any prospect of their trials ever meeting the basic standards for randomised controlled studies. When the BMJ asked Pfizer if it had done the same, Pfizer declined comment.

Instead, the BBC will almost certainly claim that the jabs have been through extensive clinical trials. It will just omit the part about them having failed to properly complete any.

The BBC will not acknowledge the freedom of information requests and subsequent court ruling in the US that overturned the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to delay release of Pfizer’s primary safety monitoring data for 75 years. The Federal Court forced the FDA to release the damning results of Pfizer’s own early monitoring of adverse reactions following the jab rollout in the US and Europe.

In the space of just a couple of months, there were approximately 42,000 adverse reactions to the Pfizer mRNA jab alone, with just over 25,000 of those confirmed by medical exam and the other 16,000+ unconfirmed. Of these, more than 1,200 injuries resulted in death. More than 11,000 of the injured had not recovered from their serious adverse event at the time of reporting.

The BBC certainly won’t report the Israeli study, the results of which indicate that the Pfizer jab prompts a marked decline in male fertility.

Nor will the BBC mention that Pfizer’s own research shows that, contrary to all of Pfizer’s marketing claims, the corporation knew during the trial phase that the lipid nanoparticles used in its jabs found their way into the liver, adrenal glands and spleen and, in particular, accumulated in female recipients’ ovaries.

The BBC may well have to acknowledge the more-than-38,000 possible vaccine deaths reported to the US VAERS system, the 2,200 deaths reported in the UK and the 46,000 deaths recorded by the European Medicines Agency. Its “experts” will point out that there is no evidence that these deaths are caused by the vaccines and will say that the risk of the disease COVID-19 is far higher than any known risks from the COVID-19 jabs.

The BBC will almost certainly make extraordinary and extremely silly claims about how many lives the jabs have allegedly saved. Again these claims will be based upon nothing but baseless assumptions about what could have happened according to some spurious “predictive model.” Rather like claiming your anti-unicorn spray has stopped a million unicorns from grazing your lawn because you don’t have any unicorns in your garden.

As we have just discussed, the risks of harm from COVID-19 claimed by the government and its propaganda outlets—the BBC foremost—are so implausible they verge on absurd. Yet the BBC will not inform its audience that, to date, not one of the regulators has produced a comprehensive risk-benefit analysis for any of the jabs. So the inevitable BBC claims that the jab benefits outweigh the risks will literally be based upon nothing at all.

Something else that the BBC won’t mention is that none of the respective regulatory agencies have done anything to investigate any reported vaccine deaths.

The BBC will not go anywhere near reporting the findings of a team of eminent German pathologists who performed autopsies on 40 corpses of people who died within two weeks of vaccination—and who identified the vaccine as the likely cause of death in one-third of the cases.

Nor will the BBC report statements like those from the UK regulator, the MHRA, that adverse reactions, including deaths, are significantly undereported, with just ten percent of serious reactions and between two percent and four percent of non-serious reactions recorded.

What the BBC will do instead is rely upon carefully cherry-picked scientific papers, a narrow band of selected “expert opinion,” speculative statistics and emotionally charged anecdotes to convince its audience that the seven victims of its hit piece, though well meaning, are all hopelessly deluded due to the scourge of online disinformation. It may well try to squeeze in reference to the proposed Online Safety Act and suggest that this government policy is essential to tackle the disinformation problem fabricated in its documentary.

Of course, if the BBC were serious about its professed wish to “fully explore this complex and deeply divisive debate,” it wouldn’t simply subject a group of ordinary men and women to a tirade of unchallenged claims from its hand-picked group of “experts.” If it really wanted to tackle the debate with any objectivity or journalistic integrity, it would also report the views of some of the many eminently qualified scientists and physicians who do question the COVID-19 narrative and the alleged safety and efficacy of the vaccines.

It would be genuinely interesting to see people like Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, Dr. Mike Yeadon, Professor Carl Heneghan and Professor Arne Burkhardt explain some of their reservations. Perhaps other scientists, physicians and experts who have questioned the vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic could be heard.

Maybe the statistician and Nobel Laureate Professor Michael Levitt; epidemiologists like Professor John Ioannidis or Professor Knut Wittkowski; experts in clinical drug development such as Alexandra (Sasha) Latypova; or physicians such as Dr. Peter McCullough or Dr. Roger Hodkinson could be invited to challenge the BBC’s preferred experts.

The audience and the seven subjects of the BBC’s attack could then hear both sides of the argument. But that won’t happen.

Alas, many won’t get to see the BBC’s vaccine marketing programme because they have already decided that they will no longer pay for its propaganda to be beamed into their heads. These numbers are swelling all the time, hence the deceptive plan to allegedly end the BBC license fee while a desperate workaround is conjured up to make sure the BBC’s coffers remain stuffed with gargantuan amounts of public money.

Still, we might get to watch “Unvaccinated, with Professor Hannah Fry” when it finds its way on to Odysee, BitChute, Rumble or some other worthy video-sharing platform. If so, it will perhaps be interesting for some to see how accurate or inaccurate this article is.

In the meantime, let’s give the Beeb the benefit of the doubt and hope this post is way off the mark. Instead of the awful propagandist drivel we might expect, let’s hope the BBC proves that these suspicions are born of nothing but unfounded, anti-BBC bias.

Bet they aren’t.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

Ukraine plots partnership with Big Tech, a cashless society, and the use of AI to assess criminals

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 18, 2022

Ukraine hopes to team up with Big Tech for some big plans to make the war-torn country “digitally indestructible,” reports citing statements made by officials during recent conferences suggest.

The main goal is to move towards a cashless society by introducing non-crypto digital money, and use AI systems even for purposes like producing “pre-trial and pre-sentencing reports assessing the risk of a suspect re-offending.”

An initiative, called “Digital4Freedom” was presented by Ukraine’s Deputy PM and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov in Switzerland. Fedorov is described as long-time friend of President Volodymyr Zelensky and a fellow enthusiast in ushering it ever greater levels of digitalization.

The initiative appears very ambitious, and optimistic: it is to make Ukraine “the most digital state in the world,” and that has been the pitch made to the audience in Lugano, who were asked to contribute funds and cooperate on forging a “digital Marshall plan” for Ukraine.

The general promise is that in the future, the Ukrainian government and Big Tech will be “closely interlinked,” while turning the country into “a European Israel.”

The push presented by Fedorov is to make Ukraine 100 percent digital, and he has a lot of faith in storing data on Amazon’s and Microsoft’s severs, which he says “cannot be destroyed by missiles.”

The plan is to allow Ukrainians to use digital services for all administrative tasks, like car, property, and land registration, paying customs duties and starting businesses.

More sectors slated for similar transformation, other than the payments system that is supposed to completely do away with paper money, are education and healthcare.

In his own appeals made on several occasions, Zelensky made it clear he expects Big Tech to build this infrastructure. According to reports, Fedorov left out mentioning Big Tech by name as he asked for donations and funding.

Even though appearing to address an eager audience, one part of the plan that was viewed with some apprehension is the judiciary using AI in risk assessment.

Fedorov’s name for this portion of the presentation was, “Judge Dredd.” Fair Trials seems to agree that’s what it might turn into, and expressed concern, saying that using AI for this purpose should be banned, as it “undermines the fundamental right to be presumed innocent.”

Ukraine, meanwhile, already has pilots that “produce pre-trial and pre-sentencing reports assessing the risk of a suspect re-offending,” the reports say.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | | 1 Comment

Facebook introduces encrypted links to hinder privacy efforts

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 18, 2022

Facebook is actively fighting back the attempts by browsers to provide their users with better protection against unwanted tracking on the web.

And for all the talk about using encryption to ensure privacy and improve security in its apps, Facebook seems to have managed to find a way to turn encryption against internet users’ best interest.

In order to prevent browsers like Brave and Firefox from deploying URL stripping that removes tracking parameters added to links by Facebook and others, like Amazon, Facebook is reportedly turning to encrypting links.

Instead of changing tracking parameters in URLs, they are now encrypted and cannot be automatically removed. This means that browsers at this time cannot do anything to prevent tracking via Facebook URLs.

One recourse is to stop using Facebook, and another not to sign into it and delete site data and cookies often – since URL tracking alone is not as efficient a tracking tool for Facebook if not paired with the latter two.

For now at least, the URL stripping functionality is still useful in a large number of other cases where parameters are appended in order to track users across the internet when they’re not on the sites that are tracking them, Ghacks reports.

Until now, Facebook used its “click identifier” (fbclid): Google’s version is known as “gclid,” while Microsoft has “msclkid.” These added parameters have only one purpose – to track users, and are not needed for sites to operate correctly. Unless, that is, the personal data-hungry sites like Facebook make it impossible to remove them.

In that case, a link to a post will lead to the main Facebook page of an account, rather than the post itself.

Brave Browser has been stripping tracking from URLs by default for several years now, while Firefox introduced it (“Query Parameter Stripping”) with the version rolled out this June.

In Firefox, the feature is on by default only in so-called private browsing mode. Users can also activate it by going to the settings and choosing “strict” Tracking Protection, or via the configuration page (“about:config”).

Or they can use an add-on, like the open-source ClearURLs that automatically removes tracking elements from URLs to protect privacy.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | | 1 Comment

Nations Fail to Restrain Surveillance Industry 1 Year After Pegasus Revelations

Samizdat | July 18, 2022

The international scandal over Pegasus spyware, used by the Israeli authorities to spy on “terrorists,” broke in July 2021 after a joint media investigation unveiled that the spyware had also been used by private company NSO Group to conduct unlawful surveillance on politicians, businessmen, activists, journalists and opposition figures around the world.

Following the disclosures, human rights watchdogs have been repeatedly calling for the surveillance industry to be regulated, with some steps made “in the right direction,” yet governments’ action has been insufficient, Amnesty International said in a statement.

“The Pegasus Project offered a wake-up call that action was urgently needed to regulate an industry that is out of control. Shamefully, governments worldwide are yet to step up and fully deal with this digital surveillance crisis,” Deputy Director of Amnesty International – Technology Danna Ingleton said.

Currently, there are open investigations against NSO Group in France, India, Mexico, Poland and Spain. In November 2021, the United States designated the NSO Group as an entity engaged in “in activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests.” In March, the European Parliament set up the PEGA Committee to probe the misuse of Pegasus and other spyware across Europe. Nonetheless, most states have failed to mount a robust response to unlawful surveillance, Amnesty International noted.

“One year after the Pegasus spyware revelations shocked the world, it is alarming that surveillance companies are still profiting from human rights violations on a global scale… We continue to call for a global moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of spyware until human rights regulatory safeguards that govern its use are in place,” Ingleton added.

Under international law, states are not only obliged to uphold human rights, but also to protect them from abuse by third parties, including private companies, the watchdog said, stressing that unlawful surveillance infringes on the right to privacy as well as the rights to freedom of expression, belief, association, and peaceful assembly.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lack of Air Conditioning, Not Climate Change, Is the Real Summer Heat Wave Threat

By Ben Lieberman | CEI | July 11, 2022

Climate change policies often pose a greater risk than climate change itself, and that is especially true during summer heat waves. Each new heat wave invariably brings media coverage drawing overstated links to climate change, but the bigger threat to public health comes from climate activists’ war on affordable air conditioning.

It has always been the case that summer heat can be deadly, especially during heat waves, and the evidence points away from any appreciable increase attributable to anthropogenic climate change. In fact, the data show much worse heat waves in 1930s than today, though there has been a smaller uptick since the 1960s.

Far more important is access to air conditioning, which greatly reduces heat-related deaths where available. Studies show that widespread air conditioning use in the United States has considerably negated the health impact of high temperatures and prevented an estimated 18,000 heat-related deaths annually. The benefits would be even greater if and when the rest of the world acquires air conditioning, especially the nearly 3 billion people who live in tropical nations where residential air conditioning is still relatively uncommon.

That is where the cure-worse-than-the-disease part comes in. Climate activists have targeted air conditioning in numerous ways, all of them compromising affordability.

Congress passed production quotas on refrigerants called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) on the grounds that they contribute to climate change. Most residential systems use one such HFC for which the price has skyrocketed to the point that replacing refrigerant lost from a leak costs several hundred dollars more than it did last year. New systems designed to use one of the supposedly environmentally friendly alternative refrigerants will also carry a hefty premium, which is why their producers, including Honeywell and Chemours, joined environmentalists in lobbying Congress to push the cheaper HFCs out of their way. Thus, both repairs of existing systems or purchases of new ones have been adversely impacted.

The Kigali Amendment, a United Nations climate treaty, imposes overlapping global restrictions on these affordable HFCs. The Senate may soon decide whether or not to ratify the Kigali Amendment, adding yet more environmental red tape to air conditioning.

Operating costs have also shot up thanks to climate policy. The war on coal and natural gas has contributed to electric rate increases—up 12 percent in the last year alone. Thus, low-income (and even some not so low-income) households now need to be careful about how much they run their air conditioners.

Overall, both owning and running an air conditioning system has gotten costlier in 2022, and that trend will very likely continue for as long as the climate agenda does.

Thanks to climate change, a future that is slightly warmer than today is quite possible. But thanks to climate change policy, a future with less air conditioning to counter the effects of summer heat is more likely.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

Germany’s Energy Crisis About To Get Even Worse As Rhine Water Levels Plummet

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | July 18, 2022

What has already been a year from hell for Germany, which is suffering energy hyperinflation as a result of Europe’s sanctions on Russia, and which is “facing the biggest crisis the country has every had” according to the president of the German employers association, is about to get even worse as the declining water level of the Rhine river, which has historically been a key infrastructure transit artery across Germany, continues to fall and as it does, the flow of commodities to inland Europe is starting to buckle threatening to make an already historic crisis even worse.

The alarming lack of water is contributing to oil product supply problems in Switzerland and preventing at least two power plants in Germany from getting all the coal they need, and what’s more, the continent’s sizzling summer temperatures are forecast to climb even higher in the coming week, leading to even lower water levels.

The 800-mile (1,288-kilometer) Rhine river runs from Switzerland all the way to the North Sea and is used to transport tens of millions of tons of commodities through inland Europe. But with water levels at their lowest for the time of year in 15 years, there is a limit how much fuel, coal and other vital cargo that barges can carry up and down the river.

Low water levels on the Rhine River mean that barges hauling middle distillate-type oil products – typically gasoil/diesel – past Kaub in Germany, are limited to loading about 30% of capacity, according to maritime brokerage services firm Riverlake.

A barge loading in the energy hub of Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (or ARA), which can haul 2.5k tons when fully laden, is restricted to taking on about 800 tons if sailing to destinations beyond Kaub. The water level at Kaub has fallen in recent days and is at its lowest on a seasonal basis since at least 2007. According to Riverlake, further decreases in loading volumes for barges hauling middle distillates from ARA to inland destinations beyond Kaub are expected in coming days.

This – coupled with capacity issues on German railways – has meant that Switzerland is struggling with supplies of oil products, mainly diesel/heating oil, according to Avenergy Suisse, the landlocked country’s organization for fuel importers.

Low Rhine water level combined with capacity problems on German railways are the reasons, managing director Roland Bilang told Bloomberg, adding that supply problems mainly concern diesel/heating oil.

“It has happened from time to time in the past that temporarily not enough mineral oil products could be transported to Switzerland and therefore the compulsory stocks had to be tapped.” Biland recommends private households fill their heating oil tanks early.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that power plants at Mannheim and Karlsruhe in Germany, operated by Grosskraftwerk Mannheim and EnBW, have been struggling to source coal because of the shallow water – just as the country frets that Russia won’t restart flows on a key gas pipeline. The companies said their generation operations aren’t currently affected.

Because of the tight coal market and low Rhine levels making it hard to deliver the fuel, only 65% of Germany’s coal capacity will be available in coming months, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights analyst Sabrina Kernbichler. This is bad news for a country whose biggest energy utilities are starting to drain natgas reserves as a result of the halt in Nord Stream 1 shipments, jeopardising millions of Germans with freezing should the country fail to restock fully ahead of the winter.

Germany also imports oil products up the Rhine, including fuel and heating oil. There’s currently no shortage of gasoline or diesel in the country, according to Herbert Rabl, spokesman for Tankstellen-Interessenverband e.V., which represents fuel station leaseholders and owners in Germany.

Shell – which owns the Wesseling and Godorf refineries along the Rhine – is monitoring the situation, according to a spokesperson.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 1 Comment

UK testing drone swarms in Ukraine might lead to escalation

By Drago Bosnic | July 18, 2022

Air superiority is how the political West wages war. US and UK air power has been instrumental in all wars waged by the two leading Western imperialist thalassocracies since the Second World War to this day, although it existed doctrinally since at least the 1920s. This is so ingrained in their concept of warfare that it’s considered nearly impossible for them to lead a successful military campaign without it. This stands in stark contrast to most other comparable military doctrines, particularly the Russian one.

The Nazi onslaught destroying much of their air force before it got the chance to take off forever changed the way Russians see air power. Realizing (over)reliance on it can have a detrimental effect, coupled with the devastating consequences of American and British firebombing of German cities, which in some cases had an effect no less destructive than nuclear weapons (minus the radiation), Russia’s post-WWII military doctrine adopted a distinct and (up until recently) unique focus on advanced air defenses. Since then, Russia has been developing top-notch SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems, some of which are so advanced they effectively nullify the entire Western air dominance concept. And although Western state-run mass media love to downplay this, the very fact US legislation directly and very specifically targets these systems with sanctions speaks volumes.

The proliferation of these systems is a strategic nightmare for aggressive Western planners, who can’t simply bypass them without incurring “unacceptable losses”. In order to counter Russian SAMs, Western Military-Industrial Complexes have been working on a plethora of new systems. Some prominent examples include advanced drones, particularly miniature ones, which are also planned to operate in swarms, saturating hostile air defenses and paving the way for the more traditional aviation to bomb its way through enemy ground forces.

RAF (Royal Air Force) experiments with drone swarms show “they can overwhelm enemy defenses” and the concept would be ready for action in a war, according to the UK military service’s Chief of Staff. Air Chief Marshall Sir Mike Wigston told the Global Air and Space Chiefs’ Conference 2022 in London last week that the RAF’s 216 Test and Evaluation Squadron and the Rapid Capabilities Office trialed five drone types in 13 experiments with various payloads and equipment over three years. According to Wigston, this yielded enough insights for the service to declare an “operationally useful and relevant capability,” using its current fleet of drones.

“We are exploring new models of capability delivery and accelerated production ‘when we need them’ rather than ‘in case we need them,’ from the twin jet 3D-printed Pizookie, to commercially available large drones fitted with novel payloads, to large quadcopters,” Wigston stated.

“The problem of overcoming air defenses is a key obstacle to employing [air] power. Planning for air operations increasingly entails ensuring that planes can fly safely in the first place, putting at risk untold amounts of money that militaries have pumped into beefing up their fleets to fourth- and fifth-generation technology. That conundrum is on display in Ukraine, where Ukrainian and Russian air-defense capabilities are effectively canceling out the other side’s air power arsenal,” according to Justin Bronk, a defense analyst with the London-based Royal United Services Institute.

“The fact air power has been mutually denied, relatively speaking, in Ukraine by both sides has far more serious implications for us than for either [Russians or Ukrainians]. That’s because both militaries are ultimately dependent on massive land manpower and artillery, whereas joint forces of the UK and other Western powers are critically dependent on having air access and air superiority,” Bonk said at the London conference on July 13.

“Swarming, which means throwing enough expendable drones at a defensive radar and interceptor position so as to overwhelm them, can be effective, but only to a point. The idea of small and cheap drones attacking air defenses by way of swarming may not be feasible because those drones lack the requisite range and speed. If you want things to go fast and far, they’re going to be jet-propelled and they’re going to cost a fair bit. Getting drone swarms close enough to sophisticated air defenses with a range of hundreds of kilometers requires risky and potentially pricy insertion tactics that negate the widely cited cost benefit of cheap, small drones,” he added.

Western strategists are closely following their latest proxy war against Russia, trying to devise new strategies to fight the Eurasian giant. The deployment of never-before-seen ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) assets around Russia’s borders is a testament to that. In addition, increasing reliance on unmanned systems isn’t just the result of Western militaries trying to adopt new technologies. With NATO having severe manpower problems, drones might be the only way for members to have functional militaries in the near future. The UK itself is faced with this issue, having a very limited ground force with barely a few combat-ready brigades, to say nothing of other micro-satellites carved up after the dismantling of post-socialist federal states.

What’s truly dangerous at this point is the possible deployment of these systems to Ukraine. Most NATO weapons deliveries happened weeks or months before they were officially announced. Thus, it’s highly likely the same is true in this case. How Russia might react is up for debate, but it most certainly won’t take it kindly, which opens up new possibilities for escalation, particularly in the context of the latest controversial statements coming from the UK.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 2 Comments

EU hits back at Hungary over Russia claims

Samizdat | July 18, 2022

The EU’s top diplomat has hit back at those who criticize the Western sanctions slapped on Russia, saying on Monday that he does not believe them to be a mistake, and adding that the bloc will continue to stand by its policies.

“There is a big debate about ‘are the sanctions effective? Are the sanctions affecting us more than Russia?’ Some European leaders have been saying that the sanctions were an error, were a mistake. Well, I do not think they were a mistake, it is what we had to do and we will continue doing,” Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, told reporters prior to the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels.

Borrell’s comments come after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban castigated EU sanctions against Russia on Friday, claiming they were “miscalculated” and could destroy Europe’s economy. He also noted that the sanctions have failed to destabilize Russia’s economy and haven’t forced Moscow to stop its military operation in Ukraine, instead causing massive damage to the EU’s economic stability.

The senior diplomat also declined to admit that oil prices soared due to the oil embargo that Brussels had imposed on Russia. He said the price of the fuel is now back at the same level as it was before February 24.

“So, how can someone say that it was the ban which has increased the price of oil?” Borrell argued.

Following the start of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine, Brent crude prices skyrocketed, reaching more than $120 per barrel in early March. Later, however, the prices went down, with Brent crude trading now at just above $100 per barrel, despite the EU’s decision on June 3 to impose an embargo on Russian oil.

Borrell said at the Council meeting on Monday that ministers would discuss a new sanctions package against Russia, as well as measures to better implement the restrictions already in place, and added that he had presented new proposals on the matter, including a ban on Russian gold.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | 2 Comments

220-Meter Turbine Breaks in Two in One of Sweden’s Largest Wind Parks

Samizdat – 18.07.2022

A 220 meter high wind turbine with a span of 145 meters, part of a wind farm in Viksjö outside the city of Härnösand in Västernorrland County, has broken in half and crashed into the forest.

No one was injured and the wind farm will be closed until an accident team examines the wind farm.

According to the Nysäter Wind company, which owns the farm, no one was injured. An accident team is on its way to investigate the wind turbine, and is expected to begin its work on Monday. Until then, the farm is closed, and access to the adjacent areas is limited.

“Parts of the turbine are sticking up and leaning against each other. That is why we approach with caution and block off. We also ask ourselves the question of how this could happen. We hope that the investigation can find out,” Nysäter Wind board member and advisor Per Nordlund told national broadcaster SVT.

Nysäter Wind suspected that oil had leaked from the gearbox and urged the public to stay away from the site.

The Nysäter windfarm in Viksjö is touted as one of Sweden’s largest wind power projects. With its 114 turbines, it will be one of Europe’s largest onshore wind turbines and by far the largest investment ever in the history of Härnösand.

However, the wind farm in Viksjö previously ran into trouble during the construction stage. Journalist investigations by SVT and others indicated that subcontractors had been left unpaid for their work, which led to bankruptcy risks, and about 30 companies being owed money to the tune of at least SEK 60 million ($5.7 million).

No fewer than six reported violations of environmental regulations were reported during construction; forests with protected species were felled and waste was dumped in sensitive natural environments.

Furthermore, the massive project was stopped by the county administrative board over environmental criticism, leading to further delays in construction. Only in June 2022 was the park ready for inauguration.

The share of domestic wind power resources in Swedish national consumption has risen from 0.3 percent in 2000 to 20.3 percent in 2020.

To counter soaring electricity prices and alleviate Europe’s dependence on energy fuels, the Swedish government plans a massive expansion of offshore wind power. However, critics slammed the plans as inefficient and a way of shifting the bill to the customers themselves. Among others, energy expert Marie Knutsen-Öy called it “an indirect subsidy that creates unnecessary costs and impairs the functioning of the electricity market”.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Environmentalism | | 1 Comment

Germany and France ‘killed’ Minsk agreements – Russia

Samizdat | July 18, 2022

Germany is demanding that Russia guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but such a deal was previously signed, only to be “killed” by Berlin and Paris, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

“When [German Chancellor] Olaf Scholz demands that Russia should be compelled to sign an agreement granting Ukraine guarantees of territorial integrity and sovereignty, all his attempts are in vain. There was already such a deal – the Minsk agreements – which was killed by Berlin and Paris. They were shielding Kiev, which openly refused to comply,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Russian newspaper Izvestia.

Russia, Germany and France brokered the 2015 Minsk agreements between Ukraine and Donbass, which were designed to put an end to hostilities. But according to Lavrov, Berlin and Paris failed to ensure Kiev’s compliance.

The Russian foreign minister noted that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko admitted the Minsk agreements meant nothing for Kiev, and Ukraine used them only to buy time.

“Our task was to stave off the threat… to buy time to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces. This task was achieved. The Minsk Agreements have fulfilled their mission,” Poroshenko said in June.

Lavrov also mentioned that in December 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a chance to fulfil the Minsk agreements at the so-called Normandy format summit held in Paris. After negotiations with leaders of Russia, Germany and France, Zelensky pledged to resolve issues surrounding the special status of Donbass. “Of course, he did nothing, and Berlin and Paris were shielding him once again,” he noted.

The Minsk agreements included a series of measures designed to rein in hostilities in Donbass and reconcile the warring parties. The first steps were a ceasefire and an OSCE-monitored pullout of heavy weapons from the frontline, which were fulfilled to some degree.

Kiev was then supposed to grant a general amnesty to the rebels and extensive autonomy for the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Ukrainian troops were supposed to take control of the rebel-held areas after Kiev granted them representation, and otherwise reintegrate them as part of Ukraine.

Poroshenko’s government refused to implement these portions of the deal, claiming it could not proceed unless it fully secured the border between the breakaway republics and Russia. He instead endorsed an economic blockade of the rebel regions, initiated by Ukrainian nationalist forces.

Zelensky’s presidency gave an initial boost to the peace process, but stalled after a series of protests by right-wing radicals, who threatened to depose the new Ukrainian president if he tried to deliver on his campaign promises.

Kiev’s failure to implement the roadmap, and the continued hostilities with rebels, were among the primary reasons cited by Russia when it attacked Ukraine in late February. Days before launching the offensive, Moscow recognized the breakaway Ukrainian republics as sovereign states, offering them security guarantees and demanding that Kiev pull back its troops. Zelensky refused to comply.

July 18, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | 3 Comments