Daily Mail Promotes ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’ Scare that Experts Call “Junk Science”
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | DECEMBER 24, 2022
The Daily Mail recently published a story claiming the world could face a mass extinction of plants and animals within less than 80 years, with more than a quarter of species dying by 2100. It was an eye-catching headline, timed of course to appear at the same time as the UN’s biodiversity conference. But curiously missing from the article, based on a recent science paper, was a note that most of the data underpinning the eco-scare were created by the authors of the report, while assumptions were made that global temperatures would rise by up to 5°C. Given that global temperatures have risen only 1.1°C over the last two centuries, and over the last two decades probably no more than 0.1°C, this looks a tad on the high side.
The report authors give considerable weight to the view that food chains are fragile in nature, and one extinction leads to another. This may be true in some cases, although most animals in the wild are resilient in adapting their diets to changing conditions. But building a media ‘mass death’ headline surely needs a few actual facts. The authors admit: “Apart from the obvious modelling and computational challenges to incorporate interactions among species, the main reason why there are few studies accounting for interactions is that obtaining sufficient data in most communities is intractable.” They add that an important caveat is that “while our virtual species are functionally realistic, they do not have taxonomic or phylogenetic meaning.” According to the Mail, the scientists aimed to build an “ecologically plausible Earth”.
Modelled results were obtained via a supercomputer assuming temperatures suddenly leap by between 4-5°C in just 80 years. The so-called ‘pathways’ feeding in these huge temperature rises are themselves the product of computers. But reality has started to bite in climate model circles with the realisation that their mock-ups are running far too hot. Four decades of wrong forecasts and the knowledge that global warming went off the boil two decades ago has led to a slight lowering of the various projections. But claiming that a quarter of species could disappear within 80 years as temperatures rise five times more than they have done for the last 200 is just fanciful speculation.
The Mail reported that the scientists’ tool can map extinctions everywhere on earth. It is said to confirm “beyond doubt” that the world is in the throes of its sixth mass extinction.
The sixth mass extinction scare is becoming very popular in climate Armageddon circles. Heavily promoted by the World Wildlife Fund, it has a lot going for it on the propaganda front, although some may quibble that it is notably short on actual proof. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 823 animals and plant species (mostly animals) that have gone extinct since 1500. If we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, as the Mail reports, we might have expected to be able to name more than 823 extinct species in 522 years.
Five years ago, the eminent Smithsonian paleontologist Doug Erwin dismissed sixth mass extinction talk as “junk science“. He went on to state that “many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were”.
The Australian science blogger Jo Nova had an interesting take on the latest mass extinction science paper. “So a supercomputer adds up 15,000 webs of low level data on sloths, bark and butterflies, with error bars larger than trends, in systems we don’t understand, and a million lines of code, and extrapolates data up the kazoo – what could possibly go wrong?”
She goes on to quote Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, who has noted that most of the species going extinct, “never existed in the first place”. Moore is another who is underwhelmed by extinction work produced by computers. He is unimpressed by estimates from the biologist Edward Wilson that 50,000 species go extinct every year. This estimate is based on computer models of the number of potential but as yet undiscovered species in the world.
“There’s no scientific basis for saying that 50,000 species are going extinct. The only place you can find them is in Edward O. Wilson’s computer at Harvard University. They’re actually electrons on a hard drive. I want a list of Latin names of actual species,” he wrote.
Finally, let us remember the Bramble Cay melomys, the first animal said to have become extinct due to human-caused climate change. Until recently, this little brown rat lived on a small sandy island off the coast of Australia. How it got there nobody knows, but rats are very resourceful and it probably hopped on a passing branch, said goodbye to a billion of its close relatives, and set sail. It liked its new home since there were plenty of blue turtle and birds eggs to eat. But, alas, its home was only three metres above sea level and the area prone to cyclones (your fault), so one day it got washed away. The Guardian was particularly taken with its sad end since it called for a “moment of silence”, and said it would “continue to fight for the things you believe in” – although presumably not eating blue turtle eggs.
“Anti-Science” a Weaponized Term Used by Those Who Refuse to Face Vaccine Safety Data
By Peter A. McCullough | Courageous Discourse | December 24, 2022
Last night I was invited on national TV and appeared with former US Representative Jason Chaffetz on FOX News Ingraham Angle and was asked to react to the term “anti-science” used by Anthony Fauci. During my preparation I learned the term “anti-science” had been used to describe the conflict between old paradigms during the scientific revolution and the introduction of the scientific method. In recent years the term has been used within modern clinical science in a different and dark way. Dr. Peter Hotez, vaccine promoter at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, has developed a lecture tour and set of writings for several years before the COVID-19 crisis using the term “anti-science” as a way of denigrating those who are evaluating and discussing safety data on vaccines.
Hotez is now joined by Tedros at the WHO and Fauci (retired NIH) in promulgating the term anti-science as a pejorative and insulting way of positioning clinical scientists who are studying the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and clinical consequences of COVID-19 vaccine injuries, disabilities, and deaths. Yes, the study of what COVID-19 vaccines do to the human body is “science” and it is insulting to hear the term “anti-science” thrown out as a blocking tool in order to discount any side effects of vaccination.
Tedros went so far as to say those studying vaccine injuries and who wisely chose to defer on vaccination themselves are “killing machines.” This unhinged hyperbole is symptomatic of a psychotic break in those who who have been the vanguard of the imploding worldwide narrative supporting mass vaccination.
I summarized these comments and pivoted on television to the opportunities that Drs Fauci, Walensky, Jha, Murthy, and several others had on Jan 24 and Dec 7, 2022, to attend US Senate Hearings and listen to COVID-19 experts and have an interchange on the “science” of what we have learned. Instead none of them showed up and now are painting themselves with the term “anti-science”. This regression can only lead to greater loss of credibility and dissolution of the crumbling false narrative “safe and effective.”
Nobody Knows What is in the Vials
Covid-19 injections are dangerous, non-compliant biological materials. Their production must be stopped until a full investigation can be done.
By Sasha Latypova | Due Diligence and Art | December 22, 2022
Many of us are familiar with the following conundrum: on one hand, highly credentialed scientists and doctors have written numerous research papers explaining the dangerous mechanisms of action underlying mRNA/DNA “platform” technologies. The papers are meticulously researched and depict, correctly in my opinion, many terrifying consequences of the technology that breaches the innate protective mechanisms of human cells. Furthermore, these theoretical papers are validated by the observed outcomes, such as for example, increases in all-cause mortality in high correlation with increases in rates of vaccination in a given territory, unprecedented increases in the adverse events and deaths recorded by various passive reporting (https://openvaers.com/), astonishingly high reports of the adverse events and deaths from the pharmas’ own pharmacovigilance systems, and autopsy findings in vaccinated post-mortem showing the mechanisms of mRNA technology damage in histopathologic evaluations. On the other hand, many who have received the injections report no adverse effects and deem the data points above a “crazy conspiracy”. The question from the uninjured seems to be – why don’t we see MORE deaths if what you say about mRNA products is true? Setting aside ethical limitations of this question, here is a possible answer why:
The mRNA shots do not conform to their label specifications. In practice both “blank” and “lethal” vials and anything in between is produced. Without full compliance, nobody, not even the manufacturers or regulators, know exactly what ends up being produced.
Vials of mRNA injections are not routinely tested by the manufacturers for conformity to the label. The only vial-level tests specified by Pfizer in leaked Chemistry Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) documents are the vial weight at filling, manual inspection for large visible particles, and some tests related to integrity such as vial capping. However, no vial or dose, i.e., “unit-level as dispensed” tests verifying the ingredients are described as routine. How is the public assured that each Pfizer dose contains 30 mcg of mRNA as stated on the label? What level of variability of this key ingredient and other ingredients is acceptable? The ingredient conformity tests described in Pfizer CMC package are based on the bulk product batch testing – an upstream manufacturing process step. It is a regulatory requirement to retain samples of each batch produced, and these samples of vials should exist and be available for examination. Per contracts with the US Government, the product is shipped to the DOD who retains the ownership of the vials until the product is injected into people. These contracts are very detailed and specify manufacturing data to be delivered to the DOD, however, I did not find any descriptions of sampling of the vials for purposes of verification of their contents vs the label. Furthermore, it is expressly forbidden by the international vaccine supply contracts to perform the vial tests for label conformity.
Despite the disturbing prohibition of the independent vial testing, covert random testing of the mRNA vials has been ongoing worldwide. Reported thousands of vials have been obtained and tested by dozens of research groups working independently of each other. The quality of these studies varies and depends on the conditions of the samples acquired, access to the lab equipment and the experience of the investigators. However, the consistent finding among all is that there is yet a single vial to be found in full conformance to the manufacturer’s label. A review of these independent testing efforts has been published recently. Another high-quality report summarizes experiences testing vials from various manufacturers in Germany. These studies use different techniques ranging from optical to electron microscopy, spectroscopy, as well as isolation of genetic and protein components and in some cases sequencing of the RNA.
Some vials contain RNA as well as high concentrations of DNA and protein impurities in quantities far exceeding allowed limits specified by the manufacturer. When RNA was sequenced, the sequences did not fully match the specified BNT162b2 sequence, and a large quantity of RNA fragments was found. In other instances, vials are found apparently without RNA or DNA in them (evidently absent nitrogen and phosphorus).
These results could depend on the methods used and more thorough testing may be needed. Nevertheless, I was able to confirm that the apparent “blank” vials from at least one researcher came from batches of Pfizer and Moderna that had almost no adverse events reports in VAERS: two batch numbers had 1 report each and one batch number had no reports. This should be contrasted with some batch numbers of Pfizer and Moderna associated with 5000+ adverse event reports in VAERS, and an average of ~1500 adverse event reports including ~700 serious reports and deaths across all CDC verified batch numbers.
Almost all vials examined contain high contamination levels of various metals that are toxic to human body. This finding is consistent across all groups and methodologies, and therefore should be deemed more conclusive. There is no explanation of the origin or purpose of these materials according to the known manufacturing processes. Additional findings include various forms of carbon, including, potentially graphene oxide which is a known toxin. Finally, almost all vials examined contain a variety nano- and micro-particulate contaminants – another conclusive finding with plenty of photo and video documentation. These appear under microscope examinations as shapes and structures of various sizes and include characteristic ribbons, fibers, and crystals. Several published reports by qualified and credentialed microscopy experts have excluded the possibility of environmental dirt on the microscope slides. Sometimes a process of movement and what can be described as “self-assembly” is visible and has been documented in a single take video. The researchers also take steps to maintain the chain of custody, examine unexpired product and keep the vials frozen per manufacturer’s instructions.
Below are some representative images from various manufacturers’ injection vials from many studies:
Dr. David Nixon – Australia, Pfizer
Another Dr. from Australia, Pfizer:
The images above are startling and remain unexplained to date. Some scientists insist these are all “salt and cholesterol”, and nothing to see here folks! I disagree. Images of salt and cholesterol under microscope may match some of these structures, but by far do not explain all of them, and seem especially poor explanations for assembly-disassembly processes that have been observed and video recorded. Sizes of these structures alone are problematic. Dismissing them as “manufacturing junk” is not a great way to instill confidence in anyone.
These contaminants and bizarre objects are not rare, in fact as the last image shows, at least some of the vials are teeming with them. While many speculations can be made, one overwhelming conclusion from all the vial tests by independent investigations is that the products are extremely “dirty”, do not conform to their labels and should thus be deemed adulterated. This is a clear indicator that the manufacture of these products is not compliant with the current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP).
Sloppy manufacturing process may result from numerous factors, including lack of accountability, negligence, incompetence and possibly fraud. Review of the contracts with the manufacturers made by the U.S. Department of Defense, BARDA and HHS shows that the main driver were the gigantic sums of money made available with no real accountability for quality or safety – all resulting from the forced extreme speed (“warp speed”) of the scale up of manufacturing. The U.S. DOD contracted Pfizer in May of 2020 for production of at least 100 million doses by October 31, 2020, and up to 500 million doses later. Pfizer’s initial contract award was for $10 billion, with many additional incentives for delivering more doses faster. Similar contracts were made with numerous other “vaccine” manufacturers, and hundreds of other suppliers, all under the guise of panic buying for covid countermeasures. No real accountability for product quality or consistency or safety was built into those contracts, in fact the manufacturers were explicitly exempt from all possible liability under the PREP Act, which is specified in a separate contract clause. The purchaser is the DOD, the distributor is the DOD (and not the licensed and accountable pharmaceutical distributors), and furthermore, the product is not serialized and hence open to both adulteration and falsification or mislabeling.
To meet the contract obligations, Pfizer’s manufacturing batch size has increased from microgram scale for lab and animal study volumes to commercial batches of ~140 liters at the end of 2020 and ~300 liters by late 2021. In my experience commercializing biotechnologies from academia, failure to scale is one of the leading causes of failures of all new technology ventures. Showering this problem with money rarely accelerates the solution, and very often accelerates the demise of the whole venture. This is common sense. For example, placing an order today for 1,000,000 of a new type of vehicles with Ford Motor Company to be delivered in 6 months will likely fail no matter the dollars spent, since even obtaining the raw materials in time will be problematic. Complex manufacturing requires materials, systems, capacity, experienced staff, established processes, suppliers, and most importantly control systems at the correct scale to be successful and produce high quality consistent product. Now imagine simultaneously asking several direct competitors – Ford, GM and Toyota to produce 1,000,000 new cars each in the next 6 months.
Based on review of available literature on mRNA manufacturing and my discussions with experts who have made mRNA in the lab, it is not clear that mRNA can be manufactured at the scale that is estimated for these injections from known shipment numbers and disclosed manufacturing documentation: 200-300 liters of drug product per average batch, 700+ batches a year in the US alone. This is particularly unlikely if strict cGMP rules are applied to the manufacturing requirements, and we know that cGMP is not followed for production of these injections. Recently FDA found Catalent non-cGMP compliant. Catalent handles large volumes of fill-finish for Moderna, therefore batches processed through Catalent are non-cGMP compliant.
The generation of mRNA by in-vitro transcription (IVT) at large scale and under current good manufacturing practice conditions is challenging. For example, the specialized components of the in-vitro transcription IVT reaction must be acquired from certified suppliers that guarantee that all the material is animal component-free and GMP-grade. Furthermore, the availability of large amounts of these materials is limited and purchasing costs are high. This is true, for example, in the case of the enzymes used for translation and capping. Even the glass vials themselves were reported as a shortage. Additionally, the low yields and batch failure are a known problem. Conceptual process flow of making mRNA drug substance contains several steps:
The process is composed of a 2-step enzymatic reaction in continuous form, followed by enzyme recycling using tangential flow filtration strategies and two multimodal chromatography steps, one in bind-elute mode for the intermediate purification, and a second in flowthrough mode for polishing. Formulation is achieved using a third tangential flow filtration module. This means the mRNA needs to be made by chemical reaction, and then purified, and then capped and purified again. There are many variations of this process, and no standards exist. At the “formulation” step (last box in the picture), there are further multiple steps to create lipid nanoparticles, and get the mRNA encapsulated. Further, there are fill and finish steps that likewise are not problem free and decrease the yield. Finally, transportation and manual dose preparation add an extra variability layer.
Here is a simple heuristic to understand any manufacturing process flow and not get confused by the jargon: each arrow in the flowchart points to places where errors accumulate Each output-input point in a complex manufacturing flow is where the errors can be checked for and rectified or, if unsolved, will amplify and destroy the product quality and consistency. This is especially dangerous at the extreme speed and scale.
In science papers mRNA manufacturing is described with problem-free cartoons, it all works beautifully regardless of whether it is microgram or kilogram output, and not a single paper on this topic dwells much on low yields or process failures. This is because the academia never has to confront reality. However, the pesky reality of manufacturing mRNA (or anything else) at large scale is highly error prone. Each step has a yield of anywhere between 50% and 80%, and sometimes the whole batch fails, and that is especially true at the large scale of production. mRNA reaction fidelity is less than 100%, the caps and tails fall off, mRNA breaks into fragments, lipid nanoparticles do not form perfectly and PEGylation can be inhomogeneous leading to their breakage and subsequent escape and breakage of mRNA. Large mRNA breaks into smaller fragments, and these remain in the substance. At large scale of reaction, the enzymatic process for making mRNA was reported seizing at 37.5 liters of mRNA substance (before encapsulation into LNP and making drug product) according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) documents. It is not clear how this was resolved and transitioned to 100’s of liters scale in a matter of few months, and for all suppliers. mRNA fragments were deemed process related impurities by the EMA who raised a significant concern, but they were dismissed by the FDA as a “theoretical problem” – as leaked emails from EMA have shown. mRNA “fragments” may or may not code for proteins, however micro-RNAs (miRNA) can interfere with endogenous cellular processes to detrimental health effects which is described in many scientific papers and even in a textbook on biological weapons published by the NIH in 2018. Chapter 6 of the book describes gene therapy as a class of biological weapons. Coincidentally, the DOD-pharma contracts for covid-19 shots also explicitly state that the product is being developed for both civilian and military applications.
Returning to mRNA manufacturing, multiplying even an optimistic 80% yield by, for example, 7 process steps results in 20% final yield, and if the in-process failures are larger, final yield is single digit percentage or a failure has occurred. Each step generates large amounts of impurities, which are never fully removed as aggressive purification will break the fragile product. Furthermore, the mRNA substance is never equally distributed in the batch volume as thorough mixing of the product is not possible due to its fragility, and lipids tend to float to the top of the vat as well as stick and congregate together. Dangerous possibly cytotoxic aggregates of broken LNPs and mRNA (mRNA adducts) can result and were reported by Moderna a full year after large scale deployment of their product. As a result, the larger the volume of the batch, the more inhomogeneity at the vial level. These conditions can create over-concentrated, toxic vials and the ones that could be “blanks”, or anything in between. The larger the batch volume the more duds it will produce, which in case of this product is largely good news for the injectees. Avoidance of specifying any product conformity tests at the vial level by the manufacturers seems to be intentional in this context.
Data from Pfizer’s own CMC documentation submitted to EMA at the end of November 2020 shows “failure to scale” beginning at approximately 25% of the current commercial scale of the batch (current scale = 600,000 vials = 3-4 million doses per batch). The graphs below were generated using exact sizes in vials and doses for each Pfizer batch manufactured between August and November 2020 (Figure 1) and all Pfizer shipped doses in the US up to end of April 2022 (Figure 2). I used reported deaths and adverse events in VAERS database associated with those batches as a measure of batch variability. This does not address vial variability but provides directional information especially for the scale of manufacturing. The batches in Figure 1 were the first ones to ship commercially and were likely all used close to 100% since at that time the demand for these injections was insatiable. As the “scale-up” of manufacturing proceeded in 2020, the batches were manufactured in a variety of sizes from 50,000 and up to 300,000 vials (~140 liters of drug product). During this time, several major changes were made to the manufacturing, for example, transition from the pilot facility at Polymun Scientific to Pfizer’s own plants and changing major manufacturing steps to new processes.
Figure 1.
First, the overall data indicate a statistical trend toward increased number of reported deaths with the increase in the batch size – the more this product is used, the more deaths are reported. This is not news for anyone who has been paying attention to the injection related adverse events and deaths. However, the variability batch-to-batch demonstrated by the vertical dispersion of the death reports associated with batches of the same size is already apparent at approximately 150,000 vial batch size (25% of the full commercial scale). Batches of the same size are 4-5 times different from each other in the number of reported deaths.
The “failure to scale” story gets larger at scale, no pun. Recently, the exact sizes of Pfizer lots shipped in the United States became known via a FOIA data release, including all doses with associated lot numbers shipped as of end of April 2022 to various vaccination centers. Figure 2 is the plot of all batches from Pfizer, by their reported size in doses on the x-axis and serious adverse events including deaths reported for those lot numbers on the y-axis. Data from VAERS was downloaded on September 24, 2022.
Figure 2.
This graph includes the “early” scale up batches from Figure 1, as well as what appears smaller shipments possibly for batches that were largely distributed overseas. What is immediately apparent from the data – the staggering inconsistency of the product batch-to-batch and the rapid decline of apparent toxicity measured by the adverse events with increase in batch size. The latter trend is the opposite of what was observed with the early batches. The product is causing fewer adverse events per dose when there are more doses available. This does not make sense, except if these doses are simply sitting on the shelves. Of note is batch FM0173 (only 26,700 doses shipped in the US) that generated the highest rate of serious adverse events (3.3/1000 doses), upper left dot.
The scale of manufacturing strains the credulity. A batch of 12 million doses translates to approximately 900+ liters of mRNA! Given the manufacturing steps involved, impurities generates and the amount of raw materials, and the scale of manufacturing equipment and disposables needed, it should be questioned whether this truly was a single production run.
Figure 3 is the same data as in Figure 2, with outlier batches removed for clarity (includes batch sizes from 100K to 4M doses):
Figure 3:
It is evident that the variability batch-to-batch is highly significant and remains unexplained. It is also strangely declining as the size of the batch is becoming larger. The only reasonable explanation to this is that the usage of this product per batch has plummeted. Most of what is produced later in the time period is sitting on the shelves. At the end of the time period in this graph (end of April 2022), an estimated 100M doses were manufactured but not administered in the United States. At the beginning of this graph, nearly all manufactured doses were administered. That is the only reasonable explanation – and it proves that these injections cause the injuries and deaths reported to VAERS!
Table below lists all batches >4 million doses, including their date of manufacture and the number of serious adverse events and deaths reported for them in VAERS:
Table 1:
The “mega” batches are not entirely benign. They are simply a larger lottery pool. The single death reported for batch FL0007 is for an 8-year-old girl who died in Texas from a multi-system organ failure (VAERS ID 2327226-1) – see Figure 4. While the first batch listed in her report RL0007 appears to be a typo (RL series do not exist for Pfizer), it is evident that she received both doses from the same FL0007 batch and passed away 3 months later.
Figure 4:
Here is my educated guess on what is going on with the batch variability: Pfizer’s (and other manufacturers’) contracts were for delivery of DOSES. Millions of them and fast. Contract scope is simply a “demonstration of large-scale manufacturing” and billion-dollar bonuses attached for shipping millions of doses by certain dates. No accountability, no checks, no liability, just ship the doses on time! The batches of 5 million+ doses should be questioned in this context. These appear largely benign from the adverse event perspective but, since the demand for these shots has plummeted coinciding with production of mega-batches, it is hard to say what the real driver of “safety” is – over-dilution of the product or refusal of the customers to be injected. I hope it is the latter.
Here is as close as I can get to answering the question “why aren’t MORE people dying?”: Too many people have died and have been injured by these injections, and plenty more will ultimately have their lives cut short. The manufacturers are making both – lethal shots and highly diluted “blanks” in a sloppy, uncontrolled, unaccountable, and ultimately fraudulent manner.
To know the truth, these products must be tested at the vial and dose levels, in a random sampling by independent 3rd party laboratories. In the meantime, the products must be recalled, and a proper investigation initiated.
The FBI won’t name other social media companies it pays
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | December 25, 2022
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has refused to indicate the exact social networks it has paid. This follows recent revelations verifying that the bureau paid Twitter at least $3.5 million.
Representatives for the FBI already spoke to Fox News and said that the substantial Twitter payment was a “reimbursement” for expenses and costs of its requests. The representatives indicated that the payment was to compensate the social media platform for acting in accordance with legal “requests.”
The FBI stated that the group had compensated social media platforms beyond Twitter as well. The news network requested the names of other companies that the FBI had paid for these purposes. The federal agency, however, was not willing to provide further information regarding the matter. The representatives did say, though, that the FBI has to offer reimbursement for any and all reasonable expenses that tie in with the acquisition of information that is essential for legal processes.
“While we are not able to speak to specific payments, the government is required to provide reimbursement for reasonable expenses directly related to searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing the information responsive to the legal process. This requirement is set by federal law and the courts are the final arbiters of what is reasonable compensation,” the FBI officials said.
Saudi Coalition forced to release detained Yemeni fuel ships
By Yusef Mawry – Press TV – December 25, 2022
Sana’a – Fuel prices have slightly dropped in Yemen after the release of two Yemeni fuel ships that were detained by the Saudi-led coalition earlier this week in the Red Sea.
The Yemeni army issued a stern warning to Saudi Arabia and the UAE that if the ships were not released soon, military action would follow.
Yemeni bus and motorbike drivers in the capital Sana’a who make a living from public transportation welcomed the lowering of fuel prices. They say this is going to help them cope with the fuel price hike caused by the blockade.
Yemeni political experts say the release of the fuel ships by the Saudi-led coalition isn’t enough, as Yemen will continue to struggle until Saudi Arabia and its allies completely lift the blockade and end their illegal involvement in Yemen.
Despite falling oil prices, tensions are rising on all active battlefronts in Yemen for what could soon be a resumption of war if a political solution is not reached soon, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE continue their militarization of strategic Yemeni Islands in the Red and Arabian sea.
The release of fuel ships detained by the Saudi-led coalition marks a big victory for the Yemeni government based in Sana’a and the people living in the areas controlled by Ansarullah. This also indicates that Saudi Arabia and the UAE simply cannot afford to have their oil industries targeted by Yemeni missiles and that’s why they decided to go with a safer option by releasing the fuel vessels.
Ukraine war tolls death knell for NATO
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | DECEMBER 25, 2022
The defining moment in US President Joe Biden’s press conference at the White House last Wednesday, during President Zelensky’s visit, was his virtual admission that he is constrained in the proxy war in Ukraine, as European allies don’t want a war with Russia.
To quote Biden, “Now, you say, ‘Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give?’ Well, for two reasons. One, there’s an entire Alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine. And the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and breaking up the European Union and the rest of the world… I’ve spent several hundred hours face-to-face with our European allies and the heads of state of those countries, and making the case as to why it was overwhelmingly in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine… They understand it fully, but they’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third World War.”
Biden realised at that point that “I probably already said too much” and abruptly ended the press conference. He probably forgot that he was dwelling on the fragility of Western unity.
The whole point is that the western commentariat largely forgets that Russia’s core agenda is not about territorial conquest — much as Ukraine is vital to Russian interests — but about NATO expansion. And that has not changed.
Every now and then President Putin revisits the fundamental theme that the US consistently aimed to weaken and dismember Russia. As recently as last Wednesday, Putin invoked the Chechen war in the 1990s — “the use of international terrorists in the Caucasus, to finish off Russia and to split the Russian Federation… They [US] claimed to condemn al-Qaeda and other criminals, yet they considered using them on the territory of Russia as acceptable and provided all kinds of assistance to them, including material, information, political and any other support, notably military support, to encourage them to continue fighting against Russia.”
Putin has a phenomenal memory and would have been alluding to Biden’s careful choice of William Burns as his CIA chief. Burns was Moscow Embassy’s point person for Chechnya in the 1990s! Putin has now ordered a nation-wide campaign to root out the vast tentacles that the US intelligence planted on Russian soil for internal subversion. Carnegie, once headed by Burns, has since shut down its Moscow office, and the Russian staff fled to the West!
The leitmotif of the expanded meeting of the Board of the Defence Ministry in Moscow on Wednesday, which Putin addressed, was the profound reality that Russia’s confrontation with the US is not going to end with Ukraine war. Putin exhorted the Russian top brass to “carefully analyse” the lessons of Ukraine and Syrian conflicts.
Importantly, Putin said, “We will continue maintaining and improving the combat readiness of the nuclear triad. It is the main guarantee that our sovereignty and territorial integrity, strategic parity and the general balance of forces in the world are preserved. This year, the level of modern armaments in the strategic nuclear forces has already exceeded 91 percent. We continue rearming the regiments of our strategic missile forces with modern missile systems with Avangard hypersonic warheads.”
Equally, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu proposed at Wednesday’s meeting a military build-up “to bolster Russia’s security,” including:
- Creation of a corresponding group of forces in Russia’s northwest to counter Finland and Sweden’s induction as NATO members;
- Creation of two new motorised infantry divisions in the Kherson and Zaporozhya regions, as well as an army corps in Karelia, facing the Finnish border;
- Upgrade of 7 motorised infantry brigades into motorised infantry divisions in the Western, Central and Eastern military districts, and in the Northern Fleet;
- Addition of two more air assault divisions in the Airborne Forces;
- Provision of a composite aviation division and an army aviation brigade with 80-100 combat helicopters within each combined arms (tank) army;
- Creation of 3 additional air division commands, eight bomber aviation regiments, one fighter aviation regiment, and six army aviation brigades;
- Creation of 5 district artillery divisions, as well as super-heavy artillery brigades for building artillery reserves along the so-called strategic axis;
- Creation of 5 naval infantry brigades for the Navy’s coastal troops based on the existing naval infantry brigades;
- Increase in the size of the Armed Forces to 1.5 million service personnel, with 695,000 people serving under contract.
Putin summed up: “We will not repeat the mistakes of the past… We are not going to militarise our country or militarise the economy… and we will not do things we do not really need, to the detriment of our people and the economy, the social sphere. We will improve the Russian Armed Forces and the entire military component. We will do it calmly, routinely and consistently, without haste.”
If the neocons in the driving seat in the Beltway wanted an arms race, they have it now. The paradox, however, is that this is going to be different from the bipolar Cold War era arms race.
If the US intention was to weaken Russia before confronting China, things aren’t working that way. Instead, the US is getting locked into a confrontation with Russia and the ties between the two big powers are at a breaking point. Russia expects the US to roll back NATO’s expansion, as promised to the Soviet leadership in 1989.
The neocons had expected a “win-win” in Ukraine: Russian defeat and a disgraceful end to Putin presidency; a weakened Russia, as in the 1990s, groping for a new start; consolidation of western unity under a triumphant America; a massive boost in the upcoming struggle with China for supremacy in the world order; and a New American Century under the “rules-based world order”.
But instead, this is turning out to be a classic Zugzwang in the endgame — to borrow from German chess literature — where the US is under obligation to make a move on Ukraine but whichever move it makes will only worsen its geopolitical position.
Biden has understood that Russia cannot be defeated in Ukraine; nor are Russian people in any mood for an insurrection. Putin’s popularity is soaring high, as Russian objectives in Ukraine are being steadily realised. Thus, Biden is getting a vague sense, perhaps, that Russia isn’t exactly seeing things in Ukraine as a binary of victory and defeat, but is gearing up for the long haul to sort out NATO once and for all.
The transformation of Belarus as a “nuclear-capable” state carries a profound message from Moscow to Brussels and Washington. Biden cannot miss it. (See my blog NATO nuclear compass rendered unavailing, Indian Punchline, Dec. 21, 2022
Logically, the option open to the US at this point would be to disengage. But that becomes an abject admission of defeat and will mean the death knell for NATO, and Washington’s transatlantic leadership goes kaput. And, worse still, major west European powers — Germany, France and Italy — may start looking for a modus vivendi with Russia. Above all, how can NATO possibly survive without an “enemy”?
Clearly, neither the US nor its allies are in a position to fight a continental war. But even if they are, what about the emerging scenario in the Asia-Pacific, where the “no limits” partnership between China and Russia has added an intriguing layer in the geopolitics?
The neocons in the Beltway have bitten more than what they could chew. Their last card will be to push for a direct US military intervention in the Ukraine war under the banner of a “coalition of the willing.”
China-Russia relations ‘strong as monolith’: Chinese FM
Press TV – December 25, 2022
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has praised Sino-Russia relations, saying ties between the two countries are “strong as a monolith” and do not change under the influence of the unstable international circumstances.
Wang made the remarks via video at a conference on Chinese diplomacy in the capital Beijing on Sunday.
“Relations maintained between China and Russia are firm as a monolith. They are not susceptible to interference and provocations; major changes in the state of affairs do not hurt them,” he said.
The top Chinese diplomat said both countries are proactively promoting bilateral cooperation, addressing mutual strategic interests and resting on mutual confidence. He said cooperation between the two sides is not antagonistic and is not aimed against any third party, adding that Beijing and Moscow “firmly speak out against hegemony and against a new Cold War.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, Wang defended China’s “impartial” position on the ongoing war in Ukraine, signaling that Beijing would deepen ties with Moscow in the coming year. “With regard to the Ukraine crisis, we have consistently upheld the fundamental principles of objectivity and impartiality, without favoring one side or the other, or adding fuel to the fire, still less seeking selfish gains from the situation,” Wang said, according to an official text of his remarks.
China would “deepen strategic mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation” with Russia, he said, pointing that warships from the two countries held joint naval drills in the East China Sea last week. He also said trade turnover between China and Russia is moving to the level of $200 billion per year, adding that major investment projects are under way.
Wang further blamed the United States for the deterioration in relations between the world’s two largest economies, saying that Beijing has “firmly rejected” Washington’s “erroneous China policy.”
Last week, Wang urged the US to abandon the “old routine of unilateral bullying” and stop suppressing China’s development, during a phone call with his American counterpart Antony Blinken.
The latest remarks by the top Chinese diplomat underscored deep tensions that have marked relations between the world’s two largest economies despite direct and indirect channels of communication.
China’s refusal to condemn the offensive against Ukraine and join others in imposing sanctions on Russia has also further frayed ties.
Russia launched the “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24. Since the onset of the war, the United States and its European allies have unleashed a wide array of unprecedented sanctions against Russia and poured numerous batches of advanced weapons in Ukraine to assist its military fend off the Russian troops, despite repeated warnings by the Kremlin that such measures will only prolong the war.
Russia Rules Out Possibility of Supplying Oil at Forced Prices Set by West
Samizdat – 25.12.2022
MOSCOW – Russia will look for new markets and logistics even at higher costs so as not to supply oil at prices set by the West, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Sunday.
“We will not supply oil by contracts, which will indicate price limits offered by Western countries. This is out of the question. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia will not supply oil under agreements that specify price caps,” Siluanov stated.
The minister also said that Russia will look for new consumers as the demand for oil is expected to increase.
“We will look for new markets, we will look for new logistics, and perhaps it will be more expensive,” Siluanov specified.
Earlier this month, the G7 nations (including the EU, associated with the club) and Australia capped Russian oil exports at $60 per barrel, citing the special military operation in Ukraine. Moscow lambasted the price cap, saying it was a brazen attempt to manipulate “the basic principles of free markets.” Russia warned it wouldn’t sell oil to those countries that adopt the price restriction, while Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak noted that the country stands ready to reduce oil production as a response to the cap.
Canadian Government Tells Kids They’ll Be On Santa’s ‘Naughty List’ Without COVID Vaccine, Masks
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | December 23, 2022
It’s the end of 2022 and the world is still witnessing new heights of Covid absurdity and fear-mongering authoritarianism coming from government figures.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam has issued a new public health announcement for the Christmas holidays, which comes in the form of a 2-minute interview with “Mrs. Clause” from the “North Pole”. In it, children are warned that they could be on Santa’s “naughty list” if they don’t get the Covid-19 vaccine and mask up. Adults too are told that they won’t make the “nice list” if they don’t have their boosters.
Dr. Tam begins the video with the “good news” that the vast majority of Canadians have made the nice list this year after having been vaccinated.
And “Mrs. Claus” responds: “It just warms my heart to see everyone in Canada, especially kids, working so hard to keep the holidays safe…” The suggestion is that the minority of citizens who remain unvaccinated or without their boosters are “naughty”.
Mrs. Claus then informs the children that she and Santa are “both up do date with our vaccinations, including Covid boosters and flu shots.” This is the holiday image Canada wants to convey to impressionable young children – that coronavirus now threatens the mythical North Pole, apparently.
From there the Christmas message goes into the kind of guilt-tripping rhetoric we’ve all come to expect from the Canadian government, and its top health official who is the equivalent of Dr. Fauci.
“I always tell Santa to make a list and check it twice,” Mrs. Claus says, and goes through the “list” by telling children to “stay up to date on your vaccinations” as well as “wear a mask… and make sure it’s nice and snug.”
Dr. Tam follows by telling families that if they gather for the holidays, “open a door, or a window” to let fresh air in.
All of this might actually be a step up for Canada when compared to the first couple years of the pandemic, given that across major cities there were strict curfews severely hindering freedom of movement, and not even relatives could visit family members after dark on fear of being ticketed by police.