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US ‘poised’ to transfer seized Russian assets to Kiev – DOJ

RT | January 20, 2023

The US will soon send the first batch of funds from confiscated Russian property to Ukraine, the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) special sanctions task force, Andrew Adams, revealed on Thursday. Adams said the move should inspire US allies to do the same, and insisted the unprecedented practice is not just possible and permissible under international law, but “imperative” given the current conflict.

“We’re also poised to begin the transfer of forfeited assets for the benefit of Ukraine,” Adams said at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute, a DC think-tank.

“It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s something that nevertheless makes me hopeful,” Adams said, adding that the relatively minor sums are important as “a model to our foreign partners” and to establish a legal precedent going forward.

US President Joe Biden proposed the scheme last April, and Adams hinted it was in the works in September, but said Congress needed to amend several laws to make it work. On Thursday, he revealed those changes were indeed inserted in the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill, passed by Congress in the final days of 2022.

The new laws give the DOJ power to “direct forfeited funds to the State Department for the purpose of providing aid to Ukraine,” said Adams.

Previously a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Adams was appointed head of Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency sanctions enforcement outfit created in March. KleptoCapture is part of the US-led Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force, which has frozen “hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian state assets and tens of billions of dollars belonging to Kremlin-linked elites,” according to the Hudson Institute.

Asset forfeiture is a controversial practice in US law. Proponents have defended it as a “key tool” for weakening organized crime and funding law enforcement, while critics accused it of being “policing for profit” and “egregiously at odds with our due process rights.” Adams insisted that taking Russian assets seized without trial “possible and permissible under fundamental norms of due process” and international law.

The freezing of Russian assets and finances by the US and its allies is “a completely illegitimate measure, violating commonly acceptable standards of commercial and international law,” and proof to the rest of the world “that they are thieves,” Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said last week. She warned that any attempt to confiscate those funds and redirect them to Ukraine would be a violation of property rights and met with an “appropriate” countermove from Moscow.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Corruption | , | 1 Comment

MHRA Passes the Buck: “All the Covid Vaccine Authorisation Decisions Were Taken by the Government Minister”

The Blame Game Begins

BY NICK DENIM | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JANUARY 19, 2023

I have just received a very interesting MHRA reply to an FOI request about whether the Healthy Secretary delegated Covid vaccine decisions to the MHRA.

MHRA said “All the Covid vaccines and therapeutics authorisation decisions were taken by the Licensing Minister and were not delegated.”

What makes this so interesting is the wider context. Under the Human Medicines Regulations, the Licensing Authority is the Secretary of State for Health. He or she delegates to MHRA all the work associated with that – licensing of medicines, pharmacovigilance, inspection of manufacturers, enforcement and so on.

But for the Covid vaccines, MHRA is saying that the Secretary of State personally took all the decisions.

I read that as the blame game having started. I’ll explain why.

Back in 2020, MHRA would have known only too well that the clinical trials had been rushed (10 months compared with typical time to market of 5-10 years), had not been comprehensive (e.g. limited pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics) and wouldn’t finish until 2024. There were many warnings from experts around the world.  MHRA’s line about ‘rolling review’ was, and remains, bunkum.

MHRA scientists and officials would have known about the problems (with all medicines) of scaling up production from small-scale, laboratory-based production for trials purposes to full-scale production. For example, larger quantities of ingredients can be more difficult to mix. They wouldn’t therefore have been surprised to have seen batch problems with the Covid vaccines around the world. One batch resulted in the hospitalisation of 120 children in Vietnam. One batch caused ocular injury to nurses when a vial was broken. In Japan, 1.63 million doses were recalled due to metallic contamination. Probably just the tip of the iceberg.

MHRA then saw adverse event reporting starting to reveal serious safety issues in the U.K. and around the world. First, myocarditis and blood clots, in March 2021, a few weeks after approval of the AstraZeneca vaccine (now effectively withdrawn) and later other heart issues, neurological problems and immunosuppression with Pfizer and Moderna.

MHRA knew in 2020 that the risk to younger age groups from Covid was very low and after rollout it would have seen assessments of vaccine effectiveness falling month on month. It wriggled hard against the evidence in the UKHSA weekly surveillance reports that vaccine effectiveness was even negative for younger age groups.

Since then the Covid vaccine narrative has continued to take a pounding as more clinicians around the world speak up, the research evidence about cardiac, neurological and immunosuppression problems continues to pile up, and the 1,000 per week excess deaths have still not been explained.

MHRA might have been criticised by Baroness Cumberlege for being “unresponsive and defensive”, but its staff aren’t all deaf, blind or stupid. They knew.

So my inference is that the blame game has started.

Mind you, MHRA is on a sticky wicket in any blame game. There are serious shortfalls in its own safety management:

  1. It doesn’t have a process for investigating individual Yellow Card reports. It says it tries to investigate individual fatal and serious Yellow Card reports but it doesn’t have a process so it doesn’t know how many it has investigated (FOI 21/1109);
  2. It’s never had a safety audit (FOI 22/562);
  3. It doesn’t actively seek out real-world data – for example, real-world population-level data such as hospitalisation for ‘adverse events of special interest’ segmented by vaccination status and age. In January 2022, MHRA did not hold such data (CSC 88243) and in August 2022, UKHSA (FOI 22/472) only held population level info on thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS). Instead, it waits for signal detection from Yellow Card reports of adverse events, which are massively under-reported;
  4. It doesn’t (or can’t) define the quantitative level of risk which is ‘acceptable’ as the basis of “acceptably safe” (FOI 22/390);
  5. It lost 20% of posts in 2021 due to funding cuts and has 20% vacancies below that new baseline (FOI 22/1007);
  6. It doesn’t have a process for delegating the authority to approve medicines for public use (FOI 22/1002) or governance of individuals competence (qualification, experience and training) (FOI 22/1007) to MHRA officers;
  7. It has hidden safety data (FOI 22/1083), redacting numbers in tables on the pretext of maintaining patient confidentiality;
  8. It appears quietly to have dropped a key strand of its Covid vaccine surveillance: Targeted Active Monitoring. FOI 22/1083 asked for a copy of the latest report but it was 15 months old (August 2021).

But back to “All the Covid vaccines and therapeutics authorisation decisions were taken by the Licensing Minister and were not delegated.” I’m left wondering what safety advice MHRA gave to Chris Whitty and ministers about the Covid vaccines back in late 2020 and early 2021 and subsequently as the serious safety issues started to emerge. And I wonder what briefings MHRA gave to the Commission on Human Medicines Expert Working Group on Covid Vaccine Benefits and Risks and to the COVID-19 Vaccines Safety Surveillance Methodologies Expert Working Group – neither publishes minutes.

It’s high time MPs and the Covid Inquiry started to ask some searching questions.

Until Nick retired a few years ago, he was a Senior Civil Servant in a Government Department.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

The WHO wants to control everyone and everything, everywhere, in the name of health, equity and global solidarity

By Libby Klein | Reclaim Ethical Medicine | January 18, 2023

I’ve gone through the “Conceptual Zero Draft” of the proposed pandemic treaty, line by line, trying to figure out what it means. It wasn’t that much fun. But it sure had my eyes out on stalks more than once. Like the bit where WHO can decide what is a fact. And what is a “falsified” treatment. And appropriate money from member States and use it to foist vaccines on people in developing countries. And set aside protections in other treaties if they are inconvenient. And dictate what “social measures” are required in addition to “public health measures”.

My summary of the proposed pandemic treaty is set out below. Notice how broad the scope is. How comprehensively the WHO will be in control of everyone, everything, everywhere, all in the name of health, equity and global “solidarity”.

It’s urgent to oppose this before it rolls over us like a steamroller. The World Health Organisation is working hard on the next draft, for consideration by the “Intergovernmental Negotiating Body” in February, and the World Health Assembly in May 2023 (see timeline below)

(Is the treaty a furphy? A decoy to take our eye off the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations, which are being negotiated in parallel with the treaty? Maybe, but there’s no way I want to take that risk and assume we can ignore it…)

MUST DO BEFORE FEBRUARY:

  1. Have a read of this amazing summary of everything the WHO is up to. There is also my summary of the treaty below. If you’re keen also read this plain English translation of the treaty.
  2. Pick out your 3 favourite horror-story highlights. Which 3 things are the most egregious, in your view?
  3. Tell your friends and your politicians we need to pull out of the WHO, before it’s too late.

Summary of the proposed pandemic treaty

The WHO is to control everyone and everything, everywhere, in the name of health, equity and global solidarity

Problem

Because of climate change and the likely increase in diseases crossing over from animals to humans, and increasing resistance to antibiotics, we are likely to have more pandemics in the future.

Assumptions

If we centralise decision-making about pandemics right across the globe, and if everyone falls into line, everyone can be healthier.  Vaccines and other new medical products are the solution to pandemics and the proposed treaty.

Solution

The proposed treaty will make sure everyone can access vaccines and other new pandemic products. The WHO is the right body to control everything centrally, because it is the directing and coordinating authority for:

  • international health work;
  • convening and generating scientific evidence; and
  • fostering international cooperation in global health governance.

Implications

Everything can impact health, so WHO has to be in charge of everything.

Actions

The world needs WHO to control and oversee:

  • a global system for production and distribution of medical products
  • stockpiling of medical products
  • fast-tracking of research and development, and licensing of new products
  • sharing of pathogen samples, genetic sequences, and benefits arising from those things being shared
  • increased surveillance of diseases
  • implementation of digital health
  • a system of peer reviews and table-top exercises
  • public health and social measures necessary for dealing with pandemics and situations that might give rise to pandemics
  • censorship

Obligations of parties to the treaty

  • All must cooperate with the WHO in relation to all of the above measures.
  • Wealthy nations must provide funding for the WHO and for developing countries
  • Nations maintain their sovereignty – except where that means other nations are at risk
  • Communities must be primed to accept public health measures and social measures

Implementation

Tho WHO reckons this treaty is urgent and important, so:

  • Start date is fast-tracked
  • Once in, you can’t get out for 3 years
  • The treaty can be amended by majority vote and amendments will apply to everyone.
  • No adjudication by a court of law if parties are in dispute.

Timeline for pandemic treaty

A “Consensus draft” draft will be considered at the May 2023 World Health Assembly. In other words: by May 2023, the content of the treaty already have been agreed in the backrooms.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 3 Comments

Tony Blair calls for WEF and WTO to introduce “digital infrastructure” that monitors vaccination status

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | January 19, 2023

Former  (UK) Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for global organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and  (WEF) to push national governments to introduce “digital infrastructure” that monitors who has been vaccinated and who hasn’t.

Blair pushed for this government-controlled digital vaccine database during an appearance at the World Economic Forum’s 2023 annual meeting — a yearly event where powerful business leaders, politicians, and other influential figures meet in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the agendas they want to advance.

The former Prime Minister emphasized the importance of “technology and digital infrastructure” and data collection for surveilling the status of the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

“You need the data,” Blair said. “You need to know who’s been vaccinated and who hasn’t been. Some of the vaccines that will come on down the line will be multiple, there’ll be multiple shots. So you’ve got to have, the reasons to do with the healthcare more generally, but certainly, for a pandemic or for…vaccines, you’ve got to have a proper digital infrastructure, and many countries don’t have that. In fact, most countries don’t have that.”

Blair continued by suggesting that his digital vaccination status surveillance dragnet should be pushed through by the WTO (an intergovernmental organization that regulates international trade), the WEF (an unelected global organization that seeks to “shape global, regional and industry agendas”), and intergovernmental forums such as the Group of Twenty (G20) and the Group of Seven (G7).

“Who are the people that can make this happen?” Blair said. “How do you get the right partnerships in place?…That should happen in the G20 particularly, I think, which is… G7 is an important forum, but the G20 is the broader forum… You’ve got to work out what is it that you want to achieve in order to make sure that any future pandemic is properly handled and what are the partnerships that you’re going to create in order to ensure that the answers you get are the right answers. And then you’re going to have the mechanisms of implementation. And those mechanisms will be partly through the formal institutions that you have, like the WTO, and they’ll also be through organizations like yours [the WEF] which… I think… have many advantages because they don’t get landed with the same bureaucracy and frankly small pea politics around them.”

Blair’s call is the latest of several that he and his nonprofit, The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, have made for an expansion of mandatory digital surveillance infrastructure.

His institute has called for digital IDs and said increased surveillance is a “price worth paying.” Blair himself has also called for mandatory vaccine passports.

And two of the global groups that Blair wants to help push through this digital surveillance system, the WTO and the WEF, are also huge advocates of digital surveillance systems.

The WEF and the WTO have previously pushed “global digital identity of persons and objects.” And the WEF regularly advocates for digital ID programs around the world. This year’s WEF 2023 annual meeting subjected journalists to some of the surveillance technologies it advocates for including digital IDs and biometric scanning.

Not only do these surveillance systems reduce individual privacy but vaccine passports discriminate against citizens and restrict their access to businesses and services.

And the WEF wants to expand this surveillance and discrimination via . It has proposed a system that monitors online behavior, biometrics, purchases, and more to determine access to a wide range of services.

Related:

How Big Government and Big Tech used COVID to accelerate the adoption of digital ID

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | 5 Comments

What’s behind Jacinda Ardern’s resignation?

By Guy Hatchard | TCW Defending Freedom | January 19, 2023

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resigned last night after months of rumours. Ardern, whose popularity has plummeted during the last six months, told us she ‘had nothing left in the tank’.

The backstory to this resignation is a tale of woe. Ardern said she wants to be remembered as someone who tried to be kind. The subtext is: the country is in an unprecedented mess but don’t blame me. School attendance is running at just 67 per cent on any given day. Machete-wielding teenagers are ram-raiding liquor, tobacco and luxury stores daily in an unprecedented crime wave. The health system is overwhelmed. Ardern’s government promised to build 100,000 new homes over three years. It has delivered 1,500.

Our tourist, farming and hospitality industries have never recovered from lockdowns and border closures. It takes months to get a visa to visit NZ and the government says it only wants rich people to come. Ardern insisted on universal Covid vaccination mandates. There is a suspicion that our 90 per cent vaccination rate has left most people in a lethargic fog. Excess all-cause deaths are still running 15 per cent above the long-term trends, and it is not Covid.

History will judge Ardern harshly, but don’t blame her alone. This was a Parliament who woke up on all sides of the house to the weakness of our constitutional arrangements (there are none). The Bill of Rights was tossed aside and no one in Parliament cared.

The leader of the National opposition Chris Luxon said if he was in power, he would withdraw benefits from unvaccinated single mothers. David Seymour, leader of the ACT party, said those losing their jobs through vaccine mandates only had themselves to blame. Labour’s coalition partner, the Greens, led by example. They encouraged mothers in labour to ride to hospital on a bicycle.

Revelations this week (here and here) that Ardern personally overruled her scientific advisers who were expressing doubts about the safety of Covid vaccines for young people and the wisdom of mandates have circulated very widely and no doubt this further undermined confidence in the government.

Political insider and right-wing commentator Cameron Slater published an article ten days ago saying that out of all the politicians he has known (and he has known most since Muldoon in the 70s) Ardern is the only one he rates as truly evil.

Ardern introduced ‘rule by regulation’. Adopting the enabling model favoured by fascists in the 1930s, her government has empowered authorities to tell us all what to do, when to stay at home, and where not to go. The courts, the Human Rights Commission and the broadcast regulators have all followed the government line meticulously which has had a devastating effect on business, families, communities and professions. To cement her policies, Ardern introduced massive government funding of our media and broadcasters.

Ardern’s government, in an absurd overreach, funded a nationwide effort to discredit critics of policy, labelling them terrorists. This has divided a formerly egalitarian society, instituting a Stasi-like snitch culture that encourages us to report a neighbour. Government Disinformation Project employees appeared on funded films aired on television labelling knitting, blond hair, braids, vaccine hesitancy, love of natural foods, yoga and motherhood as signs of terrorism that should be reported to the intelligence services (view it here if you can stand watching this nasty piece of propaganda and hate).

Why did Ardern suddenly change overnight in August 2021 from being a kindly figure saying she would never mandate vaccines, to being one of the world’s most draconian proponents? We can only speculate. NZ is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence network. Given the Pentagon’s recently revealed massive involvement in US Covid policy and gain of function research funding, was she fed information that a bioweapon was in play?

For a couple of weeks now government announcements and advertisements encouraging vaccination and boosters have been conspicuously absent. Has the penny finally dropped? We doubt it. It will take an honest, intelligent politician (are there any?) to roll back Ardern’s dictatorial powers and kickstart New Zealand. Why would any aspiring newby give up that much power? The prospect will be too intoxicating.

Ardern was a protege of Tony Blair and Klaus Schwab of WEF. They must bear some blame too. What fantasies of global power did they offer to a young person who was given to idealistic dreaming that segued into fanaticism?

Our final verdict: It is not Ardern but the whole NZ Parliament elected in 2020 that will be judged as the worst in our short history as an independent island nation, formerly famous for championing the underdog and offering opportunity to all. Ardern’s resignation has lit the bonfire of modern democracy.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | 5 Comments

Davos Leaders Collude to Force Permanent Global Vaccine Infrastructure

By Jefferey Jaxen | January 19, 2023

What is Davos? The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting happens each year in the alpine Swiss ski resort town. Each year global leaders, elected and unelected, gather to collude on policy initiatives and hot button topics concerning humanity overwhelmingly without the consent of the people.

Intel coming out of this year’s meeting has had a more pressing, alarmist nature from the self-proclaimed global elite minders. Don’t worry, the meeting was still filled with the annual hypocrisy we are used to. Squadrons of ‘unsustainable,’ carbon-emitting private jets still flew in at will. Fleets of non-electric cars openly chauffeured the climate alarmist around while they preached about the end of gas vehicles and individual car ownership… for the planet of course. But lets turn to moves by the medical–industrial complex.

Coming off the back of a rushed Covid shot that failed to stop transmission and whose harms and shortcomings are still unraveling in the public conversation, the ‘global leaders’ of Davos used the forum to do what they always do in the uncomfortable spotlight – double down on agendas.

After some of the biggest, concerted global protests in a century against lockdowns and the digital Covid vaccine passports used by governments to enforce them, a call was made to expand such tools of restriction.

Former UK PM Tony Blair of Iraq war criminal fame apparently received his new marching orders speaking passionately at Davos for the implementation of a ‘national digital infrastructure.’

For ‘the vaccines coming down the line [that] will be multiple shots,’ for ‘vaccines [in general]’ and for ‘a pandemic’ Blair stated you need a proper digital infrastructure to know ‘who’s been vaccinated and who hasn’t.’

Founded in Davos by the Gates Foundation, the UK-based Wellcome Trust, the WEF and other governments, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations or CEPI was a central player in global Covid vaccine development efforts.

They now have a new ‘100 day goal’ which has been embraced by the G7 and G20 nations according to a Davos speech attended by Pfizer’s CEO Bourla, Blair and others.

To ‘accelerate vaccine development over and above what was achieved in 2020’ and to be able to deliver vaccines for new threats within 100 days.

So the idea again would be to sidestep proper safety testing to put massive mutation pressure on a new circulating virus or pathogen by vaccinating in a middle of an ongoing pandemic – something Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche has continually warned against.

CEPI’s goal to take Covid’s fast tracking vaccine development precedent and fast track it further has been aided, intentionally or unintentionally, by the newly enacted FDA Modernization Act 2.0 which allows drug and vaccine developers to rely upon computer modeling and testing with virtual patients in their safety assessments of new products to convince regulators they’ve been ‘de-risked.’

While the Davos crowd, along with many others in the public, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, still believe the official narrative that the rushed Covid shot was a wild, safe and effective success, a growing critical mass continues to expose the truth.

Meanwhile, the FDA still doesn’t have ‘robust’ data from Pfizer or Moderna on their mRNA Covid shot product’s ability to cause potentially deadly heart inflammation.

A 2021 letter by the FDA to Pfizer gave the company until October 2025 to turn in their study looking at that piece which public health leaders and agencies will take, at face value, as the final word on the subject. Despite the foot-dragging by regulators, members of the public and medical community have filled the vacuum with actual data and warnings.

Top UK cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra made history becoming one of the BBC’s most watched segments of the last two years [27.1M view on Twitter] warning about the myocarditis risk live on-air along with its role in the soaring number of excess deaths – the highest in 50 years according to the BBC.

Will the public accept digital restrictions on their life again in the form of vaccine passports?

Will the public accept new, multi-dose vaccines unpinned by even less safety testing and transparency than the mRNA Covid shots?

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | 1 Comment

Israel approves decision to demolish school in Masafer Yatta

MEMO | January 19, 2023

An Israeli court has approved a decision by Israeli authorities to demolish a school in Al-Ain Al-Baida in Masafer Yatta, based south of Hebron in the Occupied West Bank, reported Wafa news agency.

Head of the Masafer Yatta Village Council, Nidal Younis, told Wafa that an Israeli court revoked a previous injunction issued against the demolition of the school and gave the Israeli Occupation army 10 days to destroy it.

He noted that the school was built last year with funding from the European Union, which 50 students from local Bedouin communities attend.

On 4 May 2022, the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that there were no legal barriers to the planned expulsion of Palestinian residents from Masafer Yatta to make way for military training.

The UN OCHA said then that this ruling “effectively placed the residents at imminent risk of forced evictions, arbitrary displacement and forcible transfer.”

According to the UN OCHA, in the 1980s, the Israeli Occupation designated part of Masafer Yatta as ‘Firing Zone 918’ and declared it a closed military zone.

Since this declaration, indigenous Palestinian residents have been at risk of forced eviction, demolition and forcible transfer. The two villages of Khirbet Sarura and Kharoubeh no longer exist after their homes were demolished.

“Approximately 20 per cent of the West Bank has been designated as ‘Firing Zones’, affecting over 5,000 Palestinians from 38 communities,” the UN OCHA said.

It added: “Currently, Masafer Yatta is home to 215 Palestinian households, including about 1,150 people, of which 569 are children.”

In an effort to force Palestinians out of the area, the Israeli Occupation has deprived residents of access to basic amenities, including drainage and permission to construct to meet the needs of the growing population.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

The content of AIPAC’s recent Political Leadership Forum was largely concealed from the public

By Kathryn Shihadah | If Americans Knew | January 19, 2023

The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) brought together last week 1,000 top political leaders to discuss the new political reality the pro-Israel lobby faces following the swearing-in of Israel’s new, extremist government, and to “strategize for the 2024 election cycle.”

The conference was closed to journalists, and only excerpts of some speeches have been released. Speakers included Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (via video call) on Monday, and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (in person) on Tuesday. Below is a partial summary of their remarks.

Normalization

PM Netanyahu addressed, among other topics, his hope to see the Trump-era Abraham Accords expand to include more Arab nations (read about the Abraham Accords here). According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, he is optimistic because many Arab leaders have changed their perception of Israel and now see it as a partner rather than an enemy.”

Secretary Austin likewise stated his eagerness to “deepen and broaden the Abraham Accords and to forge other normalization agreements.”

Both men overlooked the fact that in a recent UN meeting, all of the Abraham Accords signatories (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco) – as well as every other Arab country – had voted against Israel on a resolution calling for the International Court of Justice to weigh in on the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Iran

The Israeli Prime Minister made reference to Iran, which is under worldwide scrutiny at the moment for its brutal suppression of human rights protest. Netanyahu labeled Iran “a terrible regime, depressive and terroristic.”

The US Secretary of Defense similarly stressed Iran’s oppression: “The regime has killed, and beaten, and jailed its own citizens for daring to speak out against its repressive rule,” adding, “we’re working closely with Israel and our allies and partners to impose coordinated pressure on the Iranian regime.”

Neither of the speakers acknowledged Israel’s own brutal suppression of Palestinian protesters and resistors (for  examples, go here). United Nations data shows that in 2022, Israeli troops killed over 150 Palestinians in the West Bank alone (almost 50 in Gaza) – more than any other year since the UN started keeping track.

So far in 2023, at least 14 Palestinians have been killed already. Thousands more are held in prison or administrative detention without charge or trial – and many prisoners are tortured.

“Democracy”

AIPAC issued a statement in late December, immediately after the new Israeli government had been formed, congratulating the state and its new prime minister, adding, “Once again, the Jewish state has demonstrated that it is a robust democracy with the freedoms that Americans also cherish.”

Within a few days after forming the new government in December, PM Netanyahu tweeted the coalition’s intentions – which exclude any language about democracy:

“These are the basic guidelines of the national government headed by me: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel – in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria.”

(Note: “the Galilee” is part of the current state of Israel, but less than half of the population is Jewish; “the Golan Heights” and “Judea and Samaria” refer to lands belonging to Syria and Palestine, respectively; the internationally recognized name of “Judea and Samaria” is Occupied Palestinian Territory. 20% of the citizens of Israel and roughly 50% of the population over which Israel exercises control are Palestinian Arabs, largely Muslim and Christian.)

Rather than responding to Netanyahu’s blunt assertion, US Secretary of Defense Austin quoted a statement the Prime Minister had made back in November:”[We] will work for the benefit of all residents of the state of Israel, without exception” – a promise that preceded the formation of a government coalition that included some of the most extremist members in recent memory.

Notably, Israel has defied international law and the demands of the global community since the country’s inception – including its constant drive to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land and transfer Jewish Israeli citizens to that land.

American money for Israel

Austin went on to list the financial perks that the US is providing to Israel, including $3.8 billion annually in military aid (“the highest it’s ever been”). (Note: Congress spends another $3 billion a year on projects that benefit Israel, for a total of about $7 billion a year – $20 million a day.)

While some Congress members have pressed to block aid to Israel while it is in defiance of international (and US) law, the effort has gained little traction.

Full article

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 2 Comments

Russian military delegation meets with Kurds in northern Syria

The Cradle | January 19, 2023

Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on 19 January that a meeting was held between a Russian military delegation and Kurdish representatives in the northern Syrian town of Ain al-Arab.

Kurdish sources told the newspaper that the meeting focused on securing Ain al-Arab, also known by its Kurdish name Kobani, as the northern Syrian town is among the principal targets of Ankara’s long-promised ground offensive against Kurdish militants in northern Syria.

According to the sources, the Kurdish representatives were informed by General Alexander Alkous – the Russian general at the head of Moscow’s delegation – that Russia is prepared to support the city in the sectors of health, education, and basic services.

This coincided with a renewal of Turkish military bombardment against positions of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Ain al-Arab on 18 January, reigniting Kurdish fears that the Turkish operation is imminent. It also coincided with a meeting between Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in the US capital.

Al-Akhbar also revealed that the Russian Reconciliation Center is working to recruit volunteers from the Arab tribes across northern Syria, in order to counter US efforts at reviving the Raqqa Revolutionary Brigade, which Washington aims to merge with a ‘restructured’ version of the SDF. The report adds that Ankara, during the 18 January meeting between Blinken and Cavusoglu, expressed a “categorical” rejection of Washington’s plan.

Additionally, Al-Akhbar suggests that Ankara is “sticking to [the] path” of reconciliation with Damascus.

A day before the meeting in Washington, a meeting was held by several EU representatives in Brussels, aimed at confirming “the continuation of the existing EU position, which constitutes a rejection of any normalization with Damascus, a refusal to lift sanctions, and the blocking of attempts to initiate the reconstruction of Syria,” according to Al-Akhbar.

Meanwhile, the sentiment expressed by the US and EU towards Turkish-Syrian reconciliation is shared only by Syria’s armed extremist opposition, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

As a result, HTS and other extremist armed groups have stepped up ambush operations and hit-and-run attacks against Syrian army outposts over the past week. Just yesterday, heavy clashes erupted between the forces of Damascus and extremist militants in the countryside of Aleppo.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Why Arabs Bolster Energy & Security Cooperation With Russia in Defiance of Western Sanctions

By Ekaterina Blinova – Samizdat – 19.01.2023

Arab countries have not joined the anti-Russian sanctions, despite pressure from the West, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed during his press conference this week. What’s behind the Arab world’s resilience?

“The policy of the West in the East has gone bankrupt,” political analyst Vladimir Ahmedov told Sputnik.

“[Middle Eastern players’] trust in the United States, the leading western European states – the former colonizers who had colonies in this region – has already been largely lost,” the specialist in the modern history of Arab countries and senior research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences continued.

New major players have entered the global arena: China, India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, the scholar emphasized.

Ahmedov believes that the sanctions imposed against Russia are dictated by purely political considerations of a narrow circle of the western political elite. Meanwhile, the system of international relations and the world order has been undergoing changes, and the indirect proof of this is the position taken by the Arab countries, according to him.

“Russia’s policy in the East at the present time, and Russia’s policy in the world in general, has changed in comparison with the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s,” the researcher continued. “Now it is a resolute policy aimed at defending [Russia’s] national state interests and the national interests of third countries. It impresses the countries of the East and, above all, the countries of the Middle East, which have been waiting for such a policy for a long time. This policy is in great demand in the East and therefore it meets with approval and understanding.”

In light of this, Russia’s efforts to mediate the Israeli-Palestine conflict as well as those in Syria and Iraq – mentioned by Lavrov during his Wednesday presser – are steps in the right direction, according to the scholar. In addition, Russia’s military presence in Syria serves as a stabilizing factor, he added.

Meanwhile, the West’s Ukraine strategy looks like nothing so much as its previous Middle Eastern policies. The West is using Ukrainians much in exactly the same way it previously used Arabs in order to reach its geopolitical objectives, and Middle Eastern players are well-aware of that, according to the researcher.

“Russia is not fighting against Ukraine or the fraternal Ukrainian people, but against the West, which wants to dismember Russia, belittle its role, minimize it, and so on,” Ahmedov said. “And [the Western policy] does not meet with any approval from the political elites of the East, who themselves suffered from it previously.”

Opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa

“The region of the Middle East and the Arab world in general is of tremendous importance in the world system in terms of geography, demography, a powerful energy market, the world’s oil and gas pantry and as a very important transport artery. Therefore the attention to this region will only grow,” Ahmedov emphasized.

The region develops its position by becoming an influential energy actor, echoed Ramy El Kalyouby, a visiting lecturer at the School of Orientalism of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE).

“Gulf countries profited a lot from oil prices increase, and at some moment the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s oil revenues jumped to more than $1 billion daily,” El Kalyouby told Sputnik. “Egypt is also getting its chance to become an important gas supplier to the EU after discovering a few huge fields in the Mediterranean.

The academic singled out Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer. According to El Kalyouby, Russia can help Cairo replace a deficit of Ukrainian wheat, open its markets for Egyptian fruits and vegetables, and provide more tourists.

“There is also a project of a Russian industrial zone in Egypt that would help Russia to get around sanctions by changing the origin of products, and also to profit from the African Union free trade zone,” the lecturer highlighted.

Last year, the construction of Egypt’s first nuclear power plant was launched on July 20 in El Dabaa, Matrouh Governorate, by Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom.

The El Dabaa NPP is meant to be the cornerstone of Egypt’s energy diversification policy, allowing Cairo not only to cover its own electricity needs, but also to provide energy to its neighbors. On November 19, the main construction phase for Unit 2 of the NPP began in the northern African country.

“Gulf countries could cooperate with Russia in the regulation of the oil market, although this becomes more difficult, as Russia provides important reductions on Urals oil,” El Kalyouby continued, adding that “Russia also remains a key actor in Syria as a mediator between Damascus and Ankara.”

Regional Security

Nonetheless, the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region is continuing to suffer from local conflicts stemming from the bitter consequences of the Arab Spring, according to Ahmedov. The scientist noted that the reformatting of political systems of these countries is still going on while the common regional security system has not been formed yet.

Russia shares the same “geopolitical space” with the countries of the region and its objectives there include not only maintaining working ties with Middle Eastern players but also to protect its “soft underbelly” from extremist and terrorist elements reinvigorated by the Arab Spring havoc, the researcher explained.

In addition, Russia’s experience as a power broker in the region could come in handy for the West, since the latter has proven incapable of solving regional conflicts on its own, continued the scientist. According to him, European countries have no other alternative but to deal with Russia in the Middle East in the future if they want to ensure their security in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe.

Ahmedov noted that while Moscow cannot ensure a complete comprehensive settlement and stabilization of the situation in the Middle East, it can help regional players reach these goals.

“Russia can make a certain contribution to ensuring the system of regional security with the participation of other states,” he said. “We have excellent relations with Iran. And in this regard, of course, the Arab countries are interested in Russia in terms of softening the Iranian policy towards the Arab countries, which causes concern today in the Arab world. We have excellent relations with Turkey, which also plays a very important role as a major regional actor or player in this region, just like Iran. And therefore, in this case, we have a lot of advantages that we can realize. We have long-standing ties with Palestine since Soviet times. And therefore, in this case, we have a lot of advantages that we can realize.”

Russia has a long and successful record of work in the region, according to the scientist: in the 1960-1980s the USSR provided the primary industrialization of many MENA countries, including Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, and Yemen. While developing ties with the region, Russia can build upon its expertise and best practices of the past, Ahmedov concluded.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CIA Chief Warns Zelensky of Assassination (… by the CIA)

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 18, 2023

So CIA boss William Burns made a secret trip to Kiev in January last year to warn Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky that his life was in danger from assassination. The clandestine meeting occurred only weeks before Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine.

A new book that appears to have plenty of insider help from U.S. intelligence sources claims that Burns was sent on President Joe Biden’s orders to deliver a “reality check” to Zelensky.

Western news media are gullibly spinning the claim that Burns warned Zelensky that the Russians were plotting to kill him. The impact of the top secret briefing was said to have had a “sobering effect” on the man in Kiev. In less polite terms, he crapped in his pants.

Some questions arise, however, which the Western media as usual do not ask. Why was it deemed necessary for Burns to make a long and secret flight to Kiev to tell Zelensky of a purported Russian assassination threat? Why couldn’t the CIA director have briefed the Ukrainian leader about the danger in a phone call with a secure line? That Burns had to meet Zelensky in person suggests that the American spymaster wanted to convey another, unreported message, a message that only Zelensky would hear and one that could not be taped at any cost.

If the Russians wanted to kill Zelensky surely they would have done it by now during nearly 11 months of bloody conflict and given the evident capability of Russian missiles to hit anywhere in Ukraine?

Incongruously, the Ukrainian politician seems to be at ease in traveling around the country. Only last month he visited the frontline at Bakhmut where he obtained a battle flag from his troops that he then took a day later to Washington for a made-for-television presentation to Congress.

Are they the movements of a man who is really under threat of Russian assassination?

A partial explanation reported by Western media was that at the time of Burns’ trip to Kiev, Zelensky was doubting U.S. intelligence warnings of an imminent Russian invasion. Well not really “doubting” but, more accurately, not hamming up sufficiently. The CIA boss was reportedly dispatched to give the Ukrainian leader a reality check that Russian troops were poised to cross the then border into the Donbass eastern region. That telling implies that Zelensky was being complacent or disbelieving of a Russian threat.

But that telling is not correct. Zelensky was himself playing up the threat of a Russian invasion in the months and weeks leading up to February 24 when the Russian forces entered Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered that intervention because NATO-backed Ukrainian military was intensifying their eight-year campaign to terrorize the ethnic Russian people in the breakaway Donbass region.

Zelensky had been elected in 2019 on a platform of suing for a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian civil war. The war had been instigated in 2014 by the CIA-orchestrated coup d’état that brought to power a NeoNazi regime in Kiev.

After being elected, the comedian-turned-politician soon forgot his peace promises to the electorate with a little help from threats of assassination by the CIA-trained NeoNazi paramilitaries. He quickly transitioned from dove to hawk like a professional actor handed a new script.

Maybe Zelensky was getting cold feet and losing his nerve by the time of January last year. He would have known that U.S. and NATO military provocations against Russia and the spurning of Moscow’s diplomatic overtures by Washington and its European minions were leading to war. He did bridle somewhat against Washington’s incessant war drums saying that the “panic” was having an adverse effect on the Ukrainian economy. But that does not mean Zelensky was disbelieving U.S. intelligence. Far from it, he had up to then played along with it.

The reality check that Zelensky needed was to stiffen his nerves for what Washington was lusting for – a proxy war against Russia.

It seems more plausible that William Burns suddenly showed up in Kiev to maximize the intimidation. Washington wanted its proxy war against Russia to go ahead for bigger geopolitical reasons of preserving unipolar hegemony and cutting off Europe from Russian energy, and the Americans did not want their puppet in Kiev to blow it by running scared at the vital moment. Remember too that in April – two months after the conflict erupted – there were peace overtures from Zelensky to Moscow. That incipient diplomacy was promptly scuppered by the American paymasters using the British premier Boris Johnson as a conduit in a suspiciously timed visit to the Ukrainian capital. It seems like Zelensky’s pattern has been one of requiring a bit of ginning up every so often.

Burns warned Zelensky of assassination alright. But the threat wasn’t from Russia. It would have been from the Central Intelligence Agency, the agency that has excelled in bumping off American puppets down the years if they became awkward. Indeed as John F Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, in 1963 illustrates, the agency is capable of bumping off American presidents if they become awkward.

The dapper diplomat Burns who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Russia (2005-2008) would be too genteel to utter the vulgar words, “We’re going to kill you”. Oh no, Zelensky would have been told, “Regrettably, we may not be able to protect you”.

The destruction of Ukraine that Zelensky has permitted is the action of a man who is getting lucrative pay-offs as well as living under the shadow of assassination. And the shadow is cast from Washington and Langley, not Moscow.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , | 4 Comments

Serbian President Calls European Parliament’s Demands on Kosovo ‘Shameless’

Samizdat – 19.01.2023

BELGRADE – The resolution of the European Parliament, demanding Serbia recognize Kosovo as an independent state, is an example of the West’s “shameless” behavior, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Vucic met in Davos with EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue Miroslav Lajcak to discuss current developments around Kosovo after the EU parliament adopted a resolution based on the report on the common EU foreign and security policy for 2022.

The report demands Belgrade start talks with Pristina on mutual recognition and condemns Serbia’s “continued low level of alignment” with the EU on such issues as the Ukrainian conflict and sanctions against Russia, making the country’s further integration in the bloc contingent on the progress in these areas.

“They organized violent secession of our territory [Kosovo and Metohija in 1999]. How far could this shameless behavior go? I do not have the words,” Vucic told journalists on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

“They [West] say it is necessary to condemn those who allegedly encourage secession of parts of Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are the ones who decided to bomb our country and take away a part of our territory in defiance of the laws of the mankind, the UN Charter and norms of the UN Security Council.”

According to Vucic, the West is only interested in the topics of sanctions against Russia and Kosovo’s independence when talking to Serbia, and is not willing to tolerate any other views on these issues.

The Serbian leader also stated that some representatives of Western countries only understand the language of force, which makes it harder for Serbia to conduct its foreign policy.

In 2008, the Kosovo-Albanian structures in Pristina unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia. Since then, Kosovo has been recognized by 100 UN member states. In mid-December, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti handed over the application to join the European Union, though out of the 27 EU countries, Kosovo’s independence still is not recognized by Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia, and Romania.

January 19, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

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