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Doctors who are accused of spreading “misleading information” could be jailed under new British Columbia law

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | November 29, 2022

During the pandemic, several doctors in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) hit the headlines for opposing Covid measures. State-sanctioned medical authorities responded by warning physicians that if they “put the public at risk with misinformation,” they may face investigations and regulatory action. Now, just 18 months later, these threats from medical authorities have evolved into a sweeping piece of legislation that includes two-year jail sentences for doctors who are deemed to be spreading certain types of “false or misleading information.”

The new legislation, Bill 36 — Health Professions and Occupations Act (HPOA), was approved by the legislature last Thursday and immediately received Royal Assent. A Cabinet order will determine when it comes into force.

According to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that defends the freedoms of Canadians, the bill will permit BC’s Health Minister to appoint College Boards who have the power to enforce many of the bill’s provisions. The bill also gives the Health Minister powers to enforce some provisions.

These combined powers can be used to jail, fine, and suspend doctors who are deemed to have spread certain types of “false or misleading information to patients or the public” and force doctors to get vaccinated as a condition of being eligible to practice. These powers are outlined in sections 259, 514, 518, 506, 511, and 200.

You can see the full text of Bill 36 here.

Powers to suspend and impose limits on health practitioners

Section 259 (“Summary protection orders”) states that health practitioners can be suspended or have limits imposed on their practice authority if they provide “false or misleading information to patients or the public” and it’s deemed that “a person who acts on the information is significant risk of harm” or providing the information is deemed to be a “health hazard” under the Public Health Act.

The Public Health Act classifies any activity that “is likely to interfere, with the suppression of infectious agents or hazardous agents” as a health hazard. This definition is broad and could easily be applied to criticism of vaccines, masks, lockdowns, thermal surveillance, lateral flow tests, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, antibody tests, and any other measures that authorities claim are necessary to stop the spread of Covid or another infectious disease.

Bill 36 also doesn’t define “false or misleading information” which raises the possibility that doctors could be suspended for sharing something that challenges the current narrative and later turns out to be true.

During the pandemic, multiple statements that were branded false later turned out to be true, such as those related to vaccines. Initially, high-ranking public health officials praised the purported 90% Covid-19 vaccine efficacy rate and said the vaccine will protect against the delta variant. Big Tech platforms made questioning the effectiveness of the vaccine a bannable offense. Yet this year, high-ranking health officials have reversed their stance and admitted that they “knew” Covid-19 vaccines wouldn’t prevent infection.

Powers to jail and fine health practitioners

Section 514 (“Offences”) and Section 518 (“Penalties”) permit fines of up $200,000 per individual or $500,000 per company and prison terms of up to two years for those that “knowingly” disclose information that contravenes a provision of Bill 36.

This seemingly suggests that someone who “knowingly” violate’s Bill 36’s rules on false or misleading information can be jailed or fined.

Just like the term “false or misleading information,” the term “knowingly” isn’t defined in Bill 36 and there’s no methodology or test in the bill that describes how courts will determine whether someone knowingly violated the rules.

Section 506 (“Search and seizure order”) permits judges to authorize a person to search and seize items from a health practitioners’ premises on the pre-crime-esque premise that the target will “likely contravene” a provision of Bill 36.

And section 511 (“Warrantless search”) allows those petitioning the judge for a search and seizure order to perform warrantless searches if they deem there to be “grounds for a search and seizure order” and “the delay necessary to obtain the order would result in the loss or destruction of evidence.” Those performing warrantless searches are also allowed to prevent the lawful owner of the premises from entering and seize items if they deem there to be “reasonable grounds” for it.

This seemingly means that if a health practitioner is deemed to be “likely” to break the bill’s false or misleading information rules or “likely” to push back against the bill’s mandatory vaccine provisions, even when they haven’t actually done any of these things, they could have their premises searched and items seized without a warrant if the person performing the search decides that there are grounds and that evidence could be destroyed.

Powers to force health practitioners to get vaccinated

Section 200 (“Eligibility to practise”) allows the Health Minister to introduce regulations that make being “vaccinated against specified transmissible illnesses” a condition of eligibility to practice. This means that doctors could be forced to get the Covid vaccine and any other vaccines specified by the Health Minister in order to continue practicing.

“An end run around democratic checks and balances”

Bill 36 has been blasted by legal groups and political parties.

“The legislation represents an end run around democratic checks and balances,” the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote in a statement on Bill 36.

BC lawyer Charlene Le Beau added: “The enactment of Bill 36 would evidence a further erosion of the rights and freedoms our Charter is supposed to protect, particularly individual liberty. As Aristotle posited, ‘The basis of a democratic state is liberty.’”

David Leis, the vice president of engagement and development at the public policy think tank the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, called the bill “a full-frontal assault on the professional integrity and freedom of the health-care professions” and said the bill is “entirely inappropriate.”

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | 6 Comments

The Covidification of Influenza

eugyppius: a plague chronicle | November 30, 2022

Two weeks ago, NBC News posted a long and disturbing article about “What Covid taught scientists and the public about the flu.” It’s basically as bad as you can imagine. It taught them that “Flu transmission can be stopped” and thus that “Nonpharmaceutical interventions work,” that “Flu can spread via aerosols,” that “‘Long flu’ may be a risk,” that “Asymptomatic flu infections may be underappreciated” and that “People want to test – and they’re good at it.” In short, scientists have learned that if an excess of hygiene hysteria can be stirred up over one unremarkable virus, it can be stirred up over another, and there’s every reason to hope for a new pandemic party in the near future.

A great part of the article is written around the statements of an obscure virologist named Seema Lakdawala, who specialises in influenza and is eager to see Covidian approaches applied to her field:

Before Covid, experts put limited stock in so-called nonpharmaceutical — that is, nonvaccination — strategies for preventing flu transmission. While behaviors such as hand-washing, wearing masks and air filtration were considered good ideas, they weren’t believed to move the needle significantly in stopping the spread.

“Prior to the pandemic, we were very focused on promoting vaccination as the primary way to decrease transmission of flu,” said Seema Lakdawala, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University in Atlanta. “Now what we realize is that, yes, vaccinations are really important, but additional measures can really bring down the public health burden of influenza.”

Before 2020, she said there had been a handful of studies attempting to measure how well these interventions work, but they were inconclusive. “Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, we now have conclusive evidence that mitigation strategies like masking, social distancing and staying home when you are ill can drastically impact the transmission of influenza viruses,” she said.

It also features Linsey Marr, an engineering professor at Virginia Tech who has spent most of the pandemic whining about airborne transmission and masks; and also recurrent plague chronicle villain Akiko Iwasaki, who is brought in to raise concerns about Long Flu:

“Covid is definitely not alone in having these long-term consequences, even after a mild infection,” she said. After the flu, it’s not unheard of to experience symptoms, especially lingering fatigue and brain fog.

According to Iwasaki, seasonal flu is less likely to cause lasting symptoms than pandemic flu strains like the 2009 H1N1 virus, but more research is needed to say for sure.

She said that for the 2009 pandemic flu and “even the 1918 flu, there are a lot of stories about people developing psychosis or neurological diseases over a long period.” …

If you start testing everyone for influenza, you’ll soon count hundreds of thousands of influenza deaths. From there, it’s a short leap to paranoia about asymptomatic transmission, followed by closures and vaccine mandates during every worse-than-average flu season. Arguments that the young and healthy should be spared these burdens, as they are little risk of dying from flu, will be shot out of the sky by vague appeals to Long Influenza.

All of this is downstream of the massive overreaction to Corona. Rather than admitting their mistake and backing down, the public health establishment spent two years progressively lowering the standards of acceptable risk to justify their ruinous measures. Perversely, this has positioned them to demand equally catastrophic containment measures in response to literally any other virus, which is precisely what they’re trying to do now. Whole careers and research programmes, after all, hang in the balance.

People like Iwasaki, the journalists who print her statements, and the politicians who pay attention to her research, all represent a grave, long-term danger to basic human well-being. This is particularly the case in countries like Italy and Germany, where older populations are far more susceptible both to media propaganda and to virus hysteria.

I don’t think the pandemicists will get their way any time soon. We’ve entered a refractory period, marked by an unacknowledged exhaustion with the virologists and their assorted snake oils, but the danger is far from over. These people will lurk underground in their institutions for years until the next opportunity presents itself. They know as well as I do that all the exotic fundraising pathogens they dine out on are no serious risk to humanity; and that, realistically, seasonal influenza is their best chance at another panic.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Tensions grow between Apple’s censorship practices and Elon Musk’s Twitter

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 29, 2022

 has claimed that  has threatened to “withhold”  from the App Store without giving a reason.

“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” Musk tweeted on Monday.

The announcement came after Musk said that the iPhone maker had “mostly stopped advertising” on Twitter. He also posted a poll asking users if Apple should “publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers.”

Apple is yet to respond to Musk’s claim. It is unclear what “withhold” means. In most cases, it could mean refusing updates to the app or even removing the app from the App Store completely until Twitter obeys its demands.

There have been various clues about Musk’s growing annoyance at Apple’s monopolistic practices. The Twitter owner criticized the App Store’s in-app purchases fee, calling it a “hidden 30% tax.”

Musk has said he is going to loosen the platform’s content censorship guidelines, and has already begun reinstating banned accounts.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

College Graduates Are the New Favored Class of Democratic Largesse

By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | November 28, 2022

When Americans make lists of the persecuted, downtrodden groups in our society, college graduates rarely top the ranking. But President Joe Biden is offering one bribe after another to convert college graduates into perpetual dependents of the Democratic Party. Biden’s handouts helped prevent a “red wave” of Republican victories on Election Day and he appears hellbent on forcing taxpayers to pay any price to continue buying votes for his party.

Federal subsidies for higher education have been one of the least recognized boondoggles of recent decades. Federal-backed loans for higher education took off in the 1960s and have skyrocketed in this century. Almost $2 trillion in federal student loans are owed by 46 million people.

Federal aid spurred tuition increases that make it far more difficult for unsubsidized students to afford higher education. A student’s financial “need” is defined largely by tuition fees. Every tuition increase means an increase in federal aid for students—and thus an increase in the federal aid for the college. A 2012 study by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity concluded that financial aid “inevitably puts upward pressure on tuition. Higher tuition reduces college affordability, leading to calls for more financial aid, setting the vicious cycle in motion all over again.” A 2015 Federal Reserve analysis “found that for every new dollar made available in federally subsidized student loans, schools…rose their rates by 65 cents.”

Federal policies have helped turn young people into a debtor class perpetually clamoring for relief from its burdens. Rather than seeing the federal government as a potential peril to their rights and liberties, some debt-burdened young adults view it as the “Great Liberator”—presuming the right candidate is elected.

Rather than ending the perverse incentives embedded in federal aid, Biden “solved” the problem by canceling borrowers’ obligation to repay their subsidized loans. On August 24, Biden invoked an obscure provision of the post-9/11 Heroes Act to justify hundreds of billions of dollars of handouts to people who had taken out federal college loans. The Heroes Act permits the Education Department “to waive or modify student loan payments in times of national emergency.” Individuals earning less than $125,000 could have up to $20,000 in federal debt automatically erased; couples earning $250,000 could see a $40,000 forgiveness windfall.

Biden had previously admitted that the law would not justify blanket forgiveness of college loans, but he and his advisors decided to force Americans to pay any price for Democrat votes in the midterm congressional elections. The Department of Education justified Biden’s decree as “a program of categorical debt cancellation directed at addressing the financial harms caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” including “cancellation for borrowers who have been financially harmed because of the COVID- 19 pandemic.” But college graduates were doing much better financially than other Americans who get stuck with the bill for their schooling. Their unemployment rate was less than two percent at that time.

Former Education Department lawyer Hans Bader estimates that the total cost of Biden’s student loan write-offs could exceed a trillion dollars. A Wall Street Journal editorial headlined “Biden’s Half-Trillion-Dollar Student-Loan Forgiveness Coup” derided his decision as “easily the worst domestic decision of his Presidency.” The Journal pointed out that Biden based the loan cancellation for more than 40 million borrowers “on no authority but his own” power as president. “This is a college graduate bailout paid for by plumbers and FedEx drivers,” the Journal noted. As former OMB director David Stockman observed, “Student debt is overwhelmingly an investment in professional credentialization that should never have been an obligation of the taxpayers in the first place.” ZeroHedge quipped on Twitter: “Have colleges raised tuition by $10,000 yet or are they waiting a few days first?”

There was no rationale for blanket cancellation of student debts that would not justify blanket cancellation of almost any debt citizens owed to the government. At the same time that Biden played Santa Claus with student loan forgiveness, his administration was hiring 87,000 new IRS agents and employees to squeeze more money out of working Americans.

The handouts helped buy Democrats their biggest boost among voters — a 28% advantage over Republicans in voters age 18 to 29 in the mid-term elections. Two days after the election, Biden tweeted, “I want to thank the young people of this nation” who voted for “student debt relief.” Jon Cooper, a former top Biden campaign operative, tweeted, “Young people: You saved our butts. THANK YOU.”

Two days after the election, federal judge Mark Pittman struck down the bailout as an unconstitutional decree: “In this country, we are not ruled by an all-powerful executive with a pen and a phone. Instead, we are ruled by a Constitution that provides for three distinct and independent branches of government.” Pittman rejected the “emergency” basis of the order in part because Biden had proclaimed in September on “60 Minutes” that “the pandemic is over.” The following week, a federal appeals court in St. Louis unanimously voted to impose a nationwide “injunction considering the irreversible impact the Secretary’s debt forgiveness action would have” on “Americans who pay taxes to finance the government.”

Some activists believe Biden intentionally swindled young voters with a bait-and-switch scheme. Briahna Joy Gray, who was the press secretary for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, asked, “Did Biden RIG student debt forgiveness to fail, just to help him in midterms?” She explained on Twitter: “They used the promise of student debt cancellation to induce young voter turn out—knowing it wasn’t going anywhere [because] they relied on faulty legal authority. Hard to convince me the Biden admin didn’t do this intentionally.” A student activist group called the Debt Collective is circulating a petition: “I refuse to pay a debt the President promised to cancel.”

Biden came up with a Solomonic solution—sawing taxpayers in half—to placate his enraged supporters. He announced on Twitter, “Republican special interests and elected officials sued to deny this relief even for their own constituents. It isn’t fair to ask tens of millions of borrowers eligible for relief to resume their student debt payments while the courts consider the lawsuit.” On November 22, Biden announced that he was extending the moratorium on repaying student debt until August 2023. That moratorium began in March 2020 during the first COVID lockdowns and has already cost taxpayers $155 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. When Biden announced his loan forgiveness decree in August, he promised, “The student-loan payment pause is gonna end. It is time for the payments to resume.” Biden betrayed that promise, apparently believing that no one should be obliged to fulfill their legal obligation as long as there was a snowball’s chance in hell that some judge would uphold his scheme. Extending the loan payment moratorium could give a crucial boost to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, locked in a tight December 6 run-off election.

What happens when the latest moratorium extension ends in August 2023? Biden may be formally kicking off his re-election campaign at that time. And what better way to buy support than by extending a handout to one of his most important constituencies? In the 2022 mid-term elections, “52 percent of voters with college degrees supported Democrats while 42 percent of voters without degrees did so,” The Washington Post reported.

Protecting former students from the federal debts they voluntarily accepted has become one of the great human rights issues of our times. Michael Pierce, chief of the Student Borrower Protection Center, is calling for Biden to “make it clear that the student loan system will remain shut off as long as these partisan legal challenges persist. Borrowers’ fate is in Biden’s hands.”

And this is the ultimate problem for democracy. Student loan bailouts have extended Biden’s power over a huge swath of American voters. Each new federal benefit program extends political control over both the recipients and anyone forced to finance the handouts. Speaking to an AFL-CIO convention earlier this year, Biden shouted, “I don’t want to hear anymore of these lies about reckless spending. We’re changing people’s lives!” “Changing” means controlling—but only for their own good, or at least for the re-election of their benefactors

French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenal warned, “Redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, than a redistribution of power form the individual to the state.” If Biden’s loan repayment moratorium is extended through 2024, “a typical medical student who graduated in 2019 would effectively have $107,000 forgiven and a law school graduate would have $65,000 forgiven… New doctors receive almost ten times the benefit of the average borrower and $107,000 more than someone who never attended college,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reported. Even The Washington Post editorial page slammed Biden’s student debt forgiveness decree as a “regressive, expensive mistake.”

But the inequity is irrelevant if the handouts enable Biden and his Democratic colleagues to perpetuate their grip on power. As legal fights over loan bailouts continue, Americans will continue to be assailed by claptrap about ex-students as a holy class of martyrs—or at least oppressed victims. But most of the self-proclaimed “best and brightest” are not smart enough to recognize how they have been converted into tools for Leviathan.

Jim Bovard is the author of Public Policy Hooligan (2012), Attention Deficit Democracy (2006), Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994), and 7 other books.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Economics | | Leave a comment

Moscow names condition for resuming arms control talks with US

RT | November 30, 2022

Russia sees no possibility of resuming talks with Washington on the cornerstone New START arms control treaty while the US continues to arm Ukraine, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

Speaking in a live interview on radio Sputnik, Maria Zakharova said: “The US intends to supply even more weapons to the conflict region, in which the Russian Federation is directly involved. That is, they will supply all these weapons, they will encourage the Kiev regime to cause even more bloodshed, they will allocate money for extremist activities that are carried out under the auspices of these delusional people [in the Ukrainian presidency], and we will sit with them at the same table and discuss issues of mutual security with them, including those in their interest?”

The spokeswoman stressed that Moscow values the New START agreement, as it serves the best interests of both Russia and the US, adding that the necessary conditions must be met before talks can be resumed.

Russian and American diplomats were set to meet in Cairo on Tuesday for a new round of talks on prolonging the deal, set to expire in early 2026. The meeting, however, was called off shortly before it was set to happen, with no new date announced.

“The event is being postponed to a later date,” the Russian Foreign Ministry told RT on Monday. Meanwhile, CNN has quoted the US State Department as saying Washington was ready to hold talks at the earliest possible date, and considered that “resuming nuclear inspections under the New START treaty is a priority.”

New START, signed back in 2010, is effectively the last arms control agreement between the two major nuclear powers following Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019. The pact limits the number of nuclear warheads that the US and Russia can possess, and restricts the number of deployed silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and nuclear bombers. The total number of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles must not exceed 800.

Russia suspended the inspection regime under the treaty back in August, blaming the move on Western sanctions that had prevented Russian inspectors from doing their work in the US and giving Washington an unfair advantage. Moscow said the inspection could resume only when the principles of parity and equality were restored.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Satellites Used Against Russia in Ukraine May Become Legitimate Targets

Samizdat – 30.11.2022

MOSCOW – Quasi-civilian satellites used by Western countries to support the Ukrainian military throughout the conflict may become legitimate targets for Russia, Vladimir Ermakov, the director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s non-proliferation and arms control department, has told Sputnik.

“Western countries are actively using the potential of civilian space infrastructure, first of all, a group of low-orbiting satellites, to support operations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. These are used to exclusively perform combat tasks to reveal locations, routes of movement and actions of Russian troops, to control combat aerial vehicles, as well as to target high-precision munitions from space,” Ermakov said.

He added that such a provocative use of “civilian satellites at the very least raises questions in the context of the Outer Space Treaty” and “requires the most serious condemnation by the world community.”

“We confirm that such quasi-civilian infrastructure, should it be used in military action against Russia, may quite logically become a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Ermakov said.

Given the global coverage of the Earth by civilian spacecraft, “the Pentagon is testing the concept of a prospective command and control system for troops anywhere in the world, and the vast majority of countries have no effective means of countering it,” the director said.

“We advocate the prevention of the use of civilian commercial satellites to achieve combat tasks. We urge all countries interested in the proper use of space technologies to make joint efforts in the interests of the exploration of near-Earth space for purely peaceful purposes,” the diplomat noted.

“The development of legally binding norms of international law that would be comprehensive in nature and aimed at the prevention of an arms race in outer space” is the only way to ensure that outer space is used only for peaceful purposes, Ermakov said.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 3 Comments

Pentagon cannot account for $20 billion worth of weapons in Ukraine while another $19 billion for Taiwan is missing

By Drago Bosnic | November 30, 2022

As if ongoing corruption scandals, including the FTX-Kiev regime-DNC connection, weren’t enough, the troubled Biden administration is now faced with another one. According to the latest reports, the US government is unable to account for the approximately $20 billion worth of weapons it sent to the Kiev regime. The US Congress has become a place of heated debates as Republicans warn there will be “impending audits” after they take full control of the House of Representatives in January. Major news media, such as Fox News, claim that the US government under Biden inspected only 10% of approximately 22,000 weapons it sent to the Kiev regime from late February to November.

The GOP wants audits to determine what is going on with the massive amounts of weapons the US is sending and how much of it is ending up “where it’s supposed to be.” Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has vowed to “hold our government accountable” for spending US taxpayers’ dollars for the sake of the corrupt Kiev regime. Other members of the US Congress have been asking for audits for months, while Senator Rand Paul asked on Twitter: “Didn’t someone try to legislatively mandate a special inspector general to scrutinize Ukrainian spending?  Oh, that’s right, it was my amendment and most Democrats AND Republicans opposed any semblance of oversight.”

Back in May, the Biden administration promised it would pledge more than $54 billion in the military, financial and humanitarian “aid” to the Kiev regime. Various estimates of the full amount of funds the political West sent (and is still sending) put the actual number much higher (more than $65 billion back in May). Since Russia launched its counteroffensive on February 24, the US provided the bulk of those funds, far more than all of its vassals and satellite states combined, according to data cited by Summit News. On multiple occasions, the US government and the Pentagon indirectly admitted they weren’t able to track Ukraine-bound funds and resources after they reached the Polish-Ukrainian border.

On the other hand, representatives of some of the US vassals and satellite states in Europe have expressed frustration with the GOP’s requests for accountability of where the funds earmarked for the Kiev regime are ending up. These European officials “hope that such measures would not lead to cutting off funding to Ukraine and ultimately to victory for Russia.” Others, such as the United Kingdom Parliament member Tobias Ellwood, have been more direct and accused the Republicans of “playing into Putin’s hands” by asking for audits and imposition of stricter control, oversight and accountability regarding the funds for the Kiev regime.

Yet, weapons deliveries to the Kiev regime are hardly the only issue the US is faced with at present. Weapons the Biden administration promised to deliver to China’s breakaway island province of Taiwan have been considerably delayed and slowed as a result of the US commitment to arming the Neo-Nazi junta. It is estimated that Washington DC approved approximately $20 billion in arms sales to the government in Taipei since 2017. In late August, a Defense News report claimed there was a $14 billion backlog in weapons sales to Taiwan. However, the latest data indicates that the number has now drastically increased to nearly $19 billion in delayed deliveries, according to a new estimate by The Wall Street Journal.

“US government and congressional officials fear the conflict in Ukraine is exacerbating a nearly $19 billion backlog of weapons bound for Taiwan, further delaying efforts to arm the island as tensions with China escalate,” the WSJ report begins. “The US has pumped billions of dollars of weapons into Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February, taxing the capacity of the government and defense industry to keep up with a sudden demand to arm Kiev in a conflict that isn’t expected to end soon,” the authors added in an admission rarely seen in mainstream media.

The information indicates that the US might not be able to respond effectively to a potential escalation of tensions in Taiwan. “The flow of weapons to Ukraine is now running up against the longer-term demands of a US strategy to arm Taiwan to help it defend itself against a possible invasion by China, according to congressional and government officials familiar with the matter,” WSJ report states.

Somewhat ironically, many Washington DC and Taipei officials have consistently used the Ukraine crisis as a reference point to reinforce the narrative that the US “must urgently equip the island with everything it needs.” However, very few of them have admitted that the US Military Industrial Complex doesn’t have the production capacity necessary to concurrently arm the Kiev regime and the government in Taipei. This is especially true given the aforementioned issues with tracking weapons and other funds earmarked for the Neo-Nazi junta in Kiev.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , | 4 Comments

US exaggerating ‘China threat’ to justify nuclear build-up – Beijing

RT | November 30, 2022

The US is hyping up a supposed “Chinese threat” as an excuse to expand its nuclear arsenal and maintain its military hegemony, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday, calling it a “go-to tactic of the US.”

China’s nuclear policy remains consistent and clear, the spokesman explained, noting that Beijing was sticking to its no-first-use policy in regard to nuclear weapons and has limited the development of its strategic arsenal to the minimum level required by national security. “We are never part of any form of an arms race,” he pointed out, stating that China does not pose a threat or challenge to other countries, with which it hopes to be a development partner.

Meanwhile, the US has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and openly devises first-strike deterrence policies against particular countries, Zhao noted.

“What the US should do is to seriously reflect on its nuclear policy, abandon the Cold-War mentality and hegemonic logic,” the spokesman said. He called on Washington to “stop disrupting global strategic stability,” and cut down its nuclear arsenal in order to “create conditions for attaining the ultimate goal of complete and thorough nuclear disarmament.”

Zhao’s comments come after the US Defense Department published on Tuesday the so-called 2022 China Military Power Report, which describes Beijing as “the most consequential and systemic challenge to our national security and to a free and open international system.” The report also suggests that China could step up the modernization of its nuclear forces in the next decade and produce about 1,500 tactical warheads by 2035.

Last month, the US also released its 2022 National Security Strategy, in which China was labeled as “the most consequential geopolitical challenge,” noting that Beijing had the intent to reshape the international order and possessed “the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.”

Beijing responded by accusing Washington of being driven by “the logic of domination” and deliberately “misrepresenting” China’s foreign and defense policies.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

Russian Foreign Ministry: No Evidence That Tehran Wants to Develop Nuclear Weapons

Samizdat – 30.11.2022

MOSCOW – There is no evidence that Tehran intends to develop nuclear weapons, reviewing its participation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Vladimir Yermakov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department, said in an interview with Sputnik.

“Iran has been and remains a conscientious participant in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The conclusion of the JCPOA in 2015 helped to finally and irrevocably remove all the questions that the [International Atomic Energy Agency] had to Tehran at that time.”

“After that, for several years Iran remained the most verified state among agency members. No deviations from its obligations were identified,” Yermakov said. “There is no evidence that would indicate Tehran’s intention to ever reconsider its participation in the NPT and start developing a nuclear explosive device.”

Yermakov’s remarks come as the US undertakes joint military drills with Israel, complete with fighter jet simulations on strikes against Iran’s nuclear program infrastructure. Earlier announcements detailed the drills would be held in the Mediterranean Sea starting November 29, and lasting through December 1.

At the time, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz stressed that the drills were needed in order for Israel to “prepare” its service members for any “possibility.”

Days before the drills kicked off, US media reported that Tehran was inching toward achieving a weapons-grade enrichment, paving the way for Iran to acquire the technology to assemble nuclear weapons.

However, it’s worth noting that Iran has repeatedly indicated it has no intention to create nuclear arms; in fact, Iranian leadership imposed a fatwa in 2003 on the production or usage of any form of nuclear weapons.

Tension between Iran, Israel and the US has remained high for years. Under the Trump administration, however, escalations were at near-boiling after the US withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, reimposed past sanctions and continued on a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

Talks to restore the agreement under the Biden White House have remained stalled for months. Iran earlier dispatched a “constructive” response to Washington’s proposals but was ultimately shut down by administration officials who deemed the messages “not constructive.”

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 2 Comments

Israel calls on world leaders to oppose ICJ opinion on occupation

The Cradle | November 29, 2022

On 29 November, acting Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sent a letter to more than 50 world leaders, demanding them to oppose a Palestinian bid at the United Nations regarding an advisory position of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

“This resolution is the result of a concerted effort to single out Israel, discredit our legitimate security concerns, and delegitimize our very existence,” Lapid said in the letter.

Among the recipients were the heads of government of the United Kingdom, France, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Latvia, Georgia, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, and Vietnam.

With a majority of 98 votes in favor and 17 against, a committee of the UN General Assembly approved a resolution on 11 November requesting the ICJ to “urgently” issue a stance on the effects of Israel’s illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian territories, The New Arab reported.

In the coming weeks, the resolution has to be voted on for a second time by the plenary of the General Assembly.

The acting Prime Minister stated that this resolution resulted from a “biased campaign” by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and its Commission of Inquiry, which have repeatedly denounced human rights abuses against the Palestinians.

According to Lapid, the “status of the disputed territory must be subject to direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

However, Israel has illegally expanded its territory since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and built settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem for over 700,000 settlers, clearly violating international law.

On 13 November, Israeli authorities announced their plans to construct 9,000 new illegal settlement units over the ruins of Palestine’s Jerusalem International Airport.

The settlement plan was initially submitted for discussion last year by the Israeli-run Jerusalem Municipality but then halted due to pressure from EU member states and several rights groups; however, the plan has been revived and is under review by the municipality.

On 8 November, the ‘Elad’ settlement association in occupied East Jerusalem received roughly $7.9 million to support illegal settlements in the Palestinian town of Silwan.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | 10 Comments

‘Deliberate ambiguity’: Israel’s nuclear weapons are greatest threat to Middle East

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | November 28, 2022

As western countries are floating the theory that Russia could escalate its conflict with Ukraine to a nuclear war, many western governments continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s own nuclear weapons capabilities. Luckily, many countries around the world do not subscribe to this endemic western hypocrisy.

‘The Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction’ was held between November 14-18, with the sole purpose of creating new standards of accountability that, as should have always been the case, be applied equally to all Middle Eastern countries.

The debate regarding nuclear weapons in the Middle East could not possibly be any more pertinent or urgent. International observers rightly note that the period following the Russia-Ukraine war is likely to accelerate the quest for nuclear weapons throughout the world. Considering the seemingly perpetual state of conflict in the Middle East, the region is likely to witness nuclear rivalry as well.

For years, Arab and other countries attempted to raise the issue that accountability regarding the development and acquisition of nuclear weapons cannot be confined to states that are perceived to be enemies of Israel and the West.

The latest of these efforts was a United Nations resolution that called on Israel to dispose of its nuclear weapons, and to place its nuclear facilities under the monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Resolution number A/C.1/77/L.2, which was drafted by Egypt with the support of other Arab countries, passed with an initial vote of 152-5. Unsurprisingly, among the five countries that voted against the draft were the United States, Canada and, of course, Israel itself.

US and Canadian blind support of Tel Aviv notwithstanding, what compels Washington and Ottawa to vote against a draft entitled: “The risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East”? Keeping in mind the successive right-wing extremist governments that have ruled over Israel for many years, Washington must understand that the risk of using nuclear weapons under the guise of fending off an ‘existential threat’ is a real possibility.

Since its inception, Israel has resorted to, and utilised the phrase ‘existential threat’ countless times. Various Arab governments, later Iran and even individual Palestinian resistance movements were accused of endangering Israel’s very existence. Even the non-violent Palestinian civil society-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement was accused by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015 of being an existential threat to Israel. Netanyahu claimed that the boycott movement was “not connected to our actions; it is connected to our very existence.”

This should worry everyone, not just in the Middle East, but the whole world. A country with such hyped sensitivity about imagined ‘existential threats’ should not be allowed to acquire the kind of weapons that could destroy the entire Middle East, several times over.

Some may argue that Israel’s nuclear arsenal was intrinsically linked to real fears resulting from its historical conflict with the Arabs. However, this is not the case. As soon as Israel finalised its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their historic homeland, and long before any serious Arab or Palestinian resistance was carried out in response, Israel was already on the lookout for nuclear weapons.

As early as 1949, the Israeli army had found uranium deposits in the Negev Desert, leading to the establishment, in 1952, of the very secretive Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC).

In 1955, the US government sold Israel a nuclear research reactor.  But that was not enough. Eager to become a full nuclear power, Tel Aviv resorted to Paris in 1957. The latter became a major partner in Israel’s sinister nuclear activities when it helped the Israeli government construct a clandestine nuclear reactor near Dimona in the Negev Desert.

The father of the Israeli nuclear program at the time was none other than Shimon Peres who, ironically, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. The Dimona Nuclear Reactor is now named ‘Shimon Peres Nuclear Research Centre-Negev’.

With no international monitoring whatsoever, thus with zero legal accountability, Israel’s nuclear quest continues until this day. In 1963, Israel purchased 100 tons of uranium ore from Argentina, and it is strongly believed that, during the October 1973 Israel-Arab war, Israel “came close to making a nuclear preemptive strike”, according to Richard Sale, writing in United Press International (UPI).

Currently, Israel is believed to have “enough fissionable material to fabricate 60-300 nuclear weapons,” according to former US Army Officer, Edwin S. Cochran.

Estimates vary, but the facts about Israel’s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are hardly contested. Israel itself practices what is known as ‘deliberate ambiguity’, as to send a message to its enemies of its lethal power, without revealing anything that may hold it accountable to international inspection.

What we know about Israel’s nuclear weapons has been made possible partly because of the bravery of a former Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, a whistleblower who was held in solitary confinement for a decade due to his courage in exposing Israel’s darkest secrets.

Still, Israel refuses to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), endorsed by 191 countries.

Israeli leaders adhere to what is known as the ‘Begin Doctrine’, in reference to Menachem Begin, the rightwing Israeli Prime Minister who invaded Lebanon in 1982, resulting in the killing of thousands. The doctrine is formulated around the idea that, while Israel gives itself the right to own nuclear weapons, its enemies in the Middle East must not. This belief continues to direct Israeli actions to this day.

The US support for Israel is not confined to ensuring the latter has ‘military edge’ over its neighbours in terms of traditional weapons, but to also ensure Israel remains the region’s only superpower, even if that entails escaping international accountability for the development of WMDs.

The collective efforts by Arab and other countries at the UNGA to create a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons are welcomed initiatives. It behoves everyone, Washington included, to join the rest of the world in finally forcing Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a first but critical step towards long-delayed accountability.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | 2 Comments

Israeli officials slam director over ‘propaganda’ claim

RT | November 29, 2022

Israeli officials tore into their countryman, filmmaker Nadav Lapid, after he condemned popular Indian film The Kashmir Files as “propaganda” and “vulgar” before an audience at the International Film Festival of India in Goa. Lapid had been invited to lead the jury of the festival, which is funded by the government and counts many politicians and other VIPs among its attendees.

“We were all disturbed and shocked by the 15th film, The Kashmir Files, that felt to us like a propaganda, vulgar movie inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival,” Lapid said during the closing ceremony. The film dramatizes the flight of Hindus from Kashmir in the 1990s amid an armed Muslim uprising, and has galvanized Islamophobic sentiment in the country.

“You should be ashamed,” Ambassador Naor Gilon chided Lapid via tweet on Tuesday, accusing the filmmaker of abusing “the trust, respect, and warm hospitality [the International Film Festival of India] have bestowed upon” him.

“It’s insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them and which are an open wound in India because many of those involved are still around and still paying a price,” Gilon continued, suggesting that by publicly casting aspersions on The Kashmir Files’ version of history, Lapid was encouraging Indians to question the Holocaust.

Former ambassador to India Danny Carmon agreed, calling for Lapid to “apologize for the personal comments on historical facts without sensitivity and without knowing what he is talking about.” Consul General of Israel to Midwest India Kobbi Shoshani was quick to reassure local media that Lapid’s words were “not the opinion or the attitude of the government of Israel,” declaring “we completely don’t accept such speeches.”

While Lapid clarified he meant his comment as an artistic rather than personal criticism – “I feel totally comfortable to share openly these feelings here with you on stage since the spirit of the festival can truly accept also a critical discussion, which is essential for art and for life,” he said – that did little to blunt the attacks that came his way, from Indians as well as Israelis.

Lapid was denounced as “a Hindu-hating bigot who whitewashes ethnic cleansing” and as “not less than a Nazi enabler” by Abhinav Prakash, head of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha youth movement, while Aditya Raj Kaul, executive editor of the TV9 network, questioned whether the filmmaker would “call Holocaust a propaganda [sic]” or say the same about Holocaust films Schindler’s List and The Pianist.

November 30, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Film Review, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | 1 Comment

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