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More vaccines and fake meat to appease the biotech monster

By Guy Hatchard | TCW Defending Freedom | April 26, 2023

Science Minister George Freeman has announced a record £52billion investment in public research and development over the next three years. That is £775 for every man, woman and child in Britain. So what are they spending your money on? You probably guessed it: the first grants under the scheme are being made to produce more biotech vaccines and industrial quantities of fake meat.

Freeman announced that traditional agriculture is inadequate to the task of feeding the world. Accordingly, the newly funded Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub will spearhead the development of processes to produce key food groups such as proteins sustainably and cost-effectively to feed a growing global population.

The Hub will undertake ‘upstream engagement with a wide range of stakeholders including consumers, food producers and retailers to promote transformational food development’. Translation: very soon the government will be rewriting our dinner menus.

According to Professor Marianne Ellis of the University of Bath, who will benefit from the first funding award, ‘This would enable production of foodstuffs and the vast array of co-products that are the same as traditional products produced in a system similar to brewing.’

Bearing in mind that no specific processes have yet been developed or their products tasted, the claim of similarity with traditional food and the analogy with the brewing of beer stumbles at the first hurdle. In fact what is being proposed is biotechnology on an industrial scale using processes which are already known to be energy-hungry, risk-intensive and subject to genetic contamination.

In my book Your DNA Diet, I discuss research illustrating the value of natural food based on DNA to maintain our health. We have enjoyed a co-evolutionary relationship with these foods for millions of years. Genetically processed foods will not have this same relationship. Industrial production of such foods will also change the relationship of consumers with producers, placing food supply in the hands of giant corporations.

The second recipient of government research largesse will be the Future Vaccines Manufacturing Hub led by Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert at Oxford University and Professor Martina Micheletti at University College London. This group is a follow-on from the Oxford University-AstraZeneca collaboration which gave us a Covid vaccine that is no longer used around the world possibly because of the danger of adverse effects.

The Vaccine Hub intends ‘to make it possible to undertake mass programmes of non-invasive vaccination’. For your reference, non-invasive delivery systems currently under development include oral and nasal vaccines, and vaccines built into foods.

The Vaccine Hub will develop cellular-level technologies. As we have noted previously, the basis of life as we know it is the cell. Genetically altering cellular processes is inherently mutagenic and undermines the very basis of biostability and health.

The press release from UK Research and Innovation announcing these new grants is headlined: ‘Vaccine and food manufacturing hubs will save lives and cut carbon’. It makes ample use of phrases designed to sound reassuring such as ‘Food production revolutionised’, ’A hub for health and life’, and so on. The release also reassures us that Covid vaccines have been ‘game-changing’ – they certainly have, but not in the way originally intended. The current high level of excess deaths in the UK and elsewhere, disproportionately affecting those in receipt of Covid vaccines, tells its own story.

The hubs are each associated with a long list of private-sector partners from the biotechnology industry. To facilitate the commercialisation of biotech products, the UK government is loosening the regulations requiring the public to be informed about what they are eating. The Genetic Technology Act, which passed into law last Thursday, ‘removes plants and animals produced through precision breeding technologies from regulatory requirements applicable in England to the environmental release and marketing of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)’.

The key change here is merely semantic: genetic manipulation is now described as a ‘precise’ process and will thereby escape regulation and labelling. Watch Dr Michael Antoniou of King’s College London discuss the dangers of gene crop deregulation in the new Act.

New UK policies appear to be at least in part a response to the huge pressure exerted by scientists, academic institutions and biotech firms on the government to continue the massive level of funding they enjoyed during the pandemic. All this is being undertaken in the absence of any credible official evaluation of the impact, advisability, cost and safety of pandemic policies. It is of note that independent evaluations such as this paper are pointing to huge mistakes, which the new grants appear poised to repeat. A form of madness has gripped our politicians as they rush ahead without bothering to inform themselves of potential dire consequences.

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Russia responds to Western asset seizure

RT | April 26, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree establishing a mechanism for temporarily taking over foreign assets. In its first practical application, the Federal Property Management Agency was put in control of Russian subsidiaries of Fortum and Uniper, energy companies based in Finland and Germany, respectively.

The decree allows for temporary state takeover of assets deemed to be “of paramount importance for the stable functioning of the Russian energy sector,” the agency said in a statement. Germany’s Uniper SE held a 83% stake in Russian energy generation and distribution company Unipro, while a Finnish state-owned company Fortum Oyj controlled over 98% of its local subsidiary, with a total power generation capacity of 11,2 and 4.7 gigawatts respectively.

The move will “ensure the uninterrupted operation of companies significant for the national economy and eliminate the risks of the political position of a number of unfriendly countries influencing” the security of Russia.

Original owners are considered to have temporarily lost control of the property, but not forfeited it outright. The measure “helps preserve the investment climate in Russia and reduce the outflow of capital from the country,” the agency added.

The decree also establishes a legal framework that enables the Kremlin to take over more foreign assets should other countries seize Russian private or government property in their jurisdictions, or threaten national, energy, or economic security of Russia.

Germany and Poland have so far seized an estimated $22 billion in assets belonging just to two Russian companies, Gazprom and Rosneft, according to media estimates. In June 2022, Berlin took over Gazprom Germania GmbH. In November, Warsaw confiscated Gazprom’s 48% stake in the EuRoPol GAZ joint venture, owners of the Polish portion of the Yamal-Europe pipeline.

The Polish subsidiary of Novatek, which dealt in liquefied natural gas and other hydrocarbons, was also seized. Its assets were put up for sale earlier this month.

In September last year, Germany seized Rosneft’s stake in three major oil refineries, accounting for 12% of the country’s total refining capacity. Rosneft’s complaints against the move were dismissed by German courts. A law enacted by the Bundestag on April 20 may allow outright expropriation of Russian assets by Germany.

The US government has sought to seize Russian state and private assets frozen under the Ukraine-related sanctions and turn them over to the government in Kiev, a move that critics have said would change the very nature of sanctions from an instrument of pressure to purely punitive.

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

“Freedom of Religion” and Other Lies

Christian and Muslim persecution in Israel ignored by the White House

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 25, 2023

The United States government, in its incessant bullying of foreign nations to get them to see the world the way that the cabal that runs Washington sees it, ironically often cites such fictions as the “rule of law” that guarantees such “rights” as “free speech” and “freedom of religion” to justify its illegal actions. Right at the moment, the United States maintains garrisons illegally in both Iraq, where the country’s parliament has asked it to depart, and also in neighboring Syria where the government is fighting an insurgency that seeks regime change and is supported by both the US and Israel. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is analogous to what Russia has done in Ukraine though Moscow certainly had stronger compelling national security reasons for doing what it did while the United States had to construct a series of lies to provide as an excuse to topple Saddam Hussein, an objective strongly supported by Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who added his own fabrications to the exchanges.

One has to look to the media to discern the reasons why some developments are wrapped in “religious freedom” or “democracy promotion” while other actions are ignored or even covered-up. Currently the right-wing Jewish extremists who have gained control of Israel’s government are engaging in something like genocide directed against the Palestinian population, many of whom are actually Israeli citizens though possessing second class rights when they are enforced at all. Israel regards itself legally as a Jewish state, so what is the “rule of law” for those who are not Jews and how does it perceive “religious freedom?” Considerable government pressure is being exerted to force the “terrorists,” as the Arab residents are frequently called, to emigrate or face the consequences if they choose not to. It is directed most particularly against those Palestinians who are leaders in their community and it has therefore focused on the major Arab religious groups, both the Christians and the Muslims.

Ironically, though one can read in the US media almost daily accounts of alleged surging anti-semitism and the myth of perpetual Jewish victimhood, the ongoing brutality against the Palestinians, including their religious foundations and practices, is hardly noticed. That is the fundamental problem as the silence or perhaps the willful connivance of the American media and entertainment industry, firmly in the grip of the Jewish community and its “standards,” has shaped the narrative and limited any propagation of contrary opinion. It is a process that is similar to what has taken place with any discussion of the Ukraine war in the mainstream media, where there is also a heavy Jewish footprint.

There have been two major incidents involving Jewish assertion of its occupation of and control over all of Jerusalem that have recently impacted on the country’s religious minorities during their holy seasons, Easter and Ramadan. The first consisted of two consecutive middle-of- the-night attacks by Israeli police and soldiers in full riot gear armed with stun grenades and clubs on Palestinians spending the night at the al-Aqsa mosque on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the third holiest site for Muslims. The Palestinian men were there in part to protect the building from Jewish settlers who have been threatening to destroy it. The Palestinians inside were beaten by police, who had broken into the mosque, and as many as 350 mostly young men were later arrested for resisting.

The second incident was an order by Israeli police limiting the regular Christian gathering on Holy Saturday, referred to as the “Holy Fire” celebration, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which normally attracts 10,000 worshippers, to no more than 1,800 attendees. On the day of the ceremony, Israeli police reacted with heavy-handed tactics to block hundreds of Orthodox Christians from gathering at the church, which is at the center of the old Christian quarter of the city. Several Coptic Orthodox priests were particularly targeted in front of the church and beaten with batons. Israeli forces closed off access to the site with roadblocks and barriers at the gates of the Old City, permitting only small numbers of Christians and those with government permits to enter.

Both steps restricting freedom of religion were taken without any consultation with the respective communities and without any evidence that there would be disorder or violence without the police interventions. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Israeli action as a “blatant attack on the freedom of worship” and a “flagrant attack on the existing political, historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem and on Israel’s obligations as an occupying regime in Jerusalem” that
“violate international law, international humanitarian law and signed agreements.” The Christian churches’ leadership also separately objected to no avail and responded to the threat by observing that Palestinian Christians are themselves under increasing pressure from the Israeli government to force them to emigrate. Christians constituted 20% of the Israeli population in 1947 but now are fewer than 2%.

Indeed, since the rise this year of Israel’s most far-right government in history, Palestinian Christians frequently experience Jewish Israeli discrimination at all levels. They directly observe how their 2,000-year-old community in the Holy Land has come under increasing attack. In March, two Israeli men assaulted and beat a priest in the church sited at the Tomb of the Virgin Mary. In February, a statue of Jesus was vandalized by an American Jewish tourist at the Church of the Condemnation, where Jesus was flogged and sentenced to death while a month earlier, dozens of Christian graves were desecrated by two Jewish teenagers at the Anglican cemetery on Mount Zion, where Jesus’s Last Supper took place. In November, two soldiers from the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade spit at the Armenian archbishop and other pilgrims during a procession in the Old City. Christian clerics living in Jerusalem claim that they are frequently physically assaulted and spat on by settlers and other Jewish Israelis when they are walking in the streets. The Israeli government has also been increasingly confiscating church properties for various projects that benefit only the Jewish community. When Christians seek redress from the Israeli courts they are almost always denied justice.

Now one would think that the United States, with its dedication to “rule of law” and religious freedom would at a minimum condemn the Israeli actions, particularly the unprovoked violent attack on peaceful Muslims during their high holy days at al-Aqsa. But no, and this is how a State Department spokesman Vedant Patel described it: “We are concerned by the scenes out of Jerusalem. And it is our viewpoint that it is absolutely vital that the sanctity of holy sites be preserved. We emphasize the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and any unilateral action that jeopardizes the status quo to us is unacceptable. We call for restraint, coordination and calm during the holiday season.”

So the State Department believes that Israel did not initiate the violence, which is, of course, false. And Patel felt compelled to add an additional comment on recent home-made rocket attacks coming from Lebanon in the wake of the police and army actions: “We condemn the launch of rockets from Lebanon and Gaza at Israel. Our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and we recognize that Israel has the legitimate right to defend itself against all forms of aggression.” Don’t you love the frequent assertion of the claim that Israel has a “right to defend itself?” Patel was in fact wrong about Gaza firing missiles – that was a fiction invented by the Israeli government to explain why it had responded with a bombardment of its own directed against the long-suffering Gazans. The hostile rockets, which did little damage and injured no one, actually came from a Palestinian group in Lebanon. Apparently, the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors do not have the right to defend themselves or to respond to Jewish violence. Rule of law and religious freedom appear to depend on who is attempting to exercise those rights and under what circumstances.

Interestingly, the New York Times had its own bizarre description of what took place at al-Aqsa. Their correspondent wrote how the crisis started when Palestinians “barricaded themselves” overnight inside the building before being “cleared” by police from the mosque in the middle of the night, to “protect Jewish worshippers” who were reportedly observing the Passover holiday in the vicinity. In other words, the violence was initiated by the Israelis but it was to prevent any threat against Jews, even though there is no evidence that anything like that was intended and why Jews were present at close quarters to a Muslim holy site is not clear. By one report, extremist Jews may have been preparing to sacrifice a goat.

On April 14th, to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Joe Biden demonstrated the he is not as brain dead as is often claimed. He knows exactly who owns him and knows how to pile it on. His proclamation reads: “During Yom Hashoah and throughout these days of remembrance, we mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the horror of the Holocaust—as well as the millions of Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQI+ individuals, and political dissidents who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Together with courageous survivors, descendants of victims and people around the world, we renew our solemn vow: ‘never again.’”

Clearly Joe had not gotten the message that in America every day is de facto holocaust remembrance day as measured by the frequent appearance of that expression in the media. But he makes sure of the trans gay vote by including the LGBTQI+ folks as victims of the Nazis. Perhaps Joe should pay some attention to the Americans murdered by the Israelis, to include the 34 crewmen of the USS Liberty killed by the Israeli military in 1967, activist Rachel Corrie crushed by a bulldozer in 2003 and most recently Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed by the Israeli army last May. Israel has not been held accountable for any of those deaths and it knows it can get away with anything, including targeting and killing US citizens.

Next week, the GOP will be doubling down on the message as Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy leads a delegation of twenty bipartisan fawning congress critters to Israel. He has carefully billed it as his first foreign trip as speaker, underlining what an important ally Israel is. He will address the Knesset on May 1st and there will no doubt be a lot of kissing and hugging with Bibi and many pledges of undying commitment to the Jewish state. The Israeli government is already describing it as “Speaker McCarthy’s speech in the Knesset will be a sign for the strong and unbreakable bond between Israel and the US.” And no doubt lots of money will appear in the pipeline so Israel can defend itself. Just don’t mention Israel’s recent premeditated murder of Shireen Abu Akleh back or “religious freedom.” And to hell with the Palestinian Christians. They have been hanging around for 2,000 years but are on their way out.

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

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 3 Comments

Australia’s Defense Review Shows Its Readiness to Side With US in Possible Conflict With China

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 25.04.2023

Implementing all the tasks outlined in Australia’s defense review is a challenge that will take plenty of time, Professor Joe Siracusa, US political expert and dean of Global Futures at Curtin University, told Sputnik.

Australia has rolled out its new defense strategic review, billed by the government as the most significant update of its military planning in nearly 40 years.

The document outlined at least six “priority areas for immediate action,” including the development of Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine capability and longer-range strike capacity, speeding up the integration of new technologies into the military, defense workforce retention and recruitment, plus improving strategic cooperation between Canberra and its key partners in the Indo-Pacific.

“These are major changes which are going to take a great deal of effort to realize, because they have neither the capability to produce the boats right now or the ability to manufacture the missiles unless they buy them off the shelf from the Americans,” Siracusa said, referring to nuclear­-powered submarines.

The expert argued that the review “does two things: shows that [Australia’s] Labor [Party] is changing the battle plan for the country, and number two, that it’s serious about funding it.”

“It’s been very hard to get this kind of money up in Australia because Australians don’t like to pay a lot of money for defense. […] And so this is a major decision. And once again, it’s a decision taken by a government on a proposal that will take years to come to fruition, when and if it does. This defense plan is sort of a promissory note,” Siracusa claimed.

Joseph Camilleri, emeritus professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne and one of Australia’s leading international relations scholars, in turn, told Sputnik that the goal of the country’s new defense review is “to equip Australian military forces to support the US in any future military confrontation with China.”
According to him, the Australian government looks “to demonstrate that it remains a close ally of the United States and that it will side with it in any future conflict with China.”

Camilleri was echoed by Scott Burchill, Honorary Fellow in International Relations at Deakin University and author of The National Interest in International Relations Theory and Misunderstanding International Relations.

He recalled that the review stipulates a shift in Australian defense policy towards a closer alignment with the US military in the Asia-Pacific outlined under the AUKUS arrangements, which he said “is an incremental rather than a revolutionary change.”

“The emphasis on greater ‘self-reliance’ is welcome and sensible, but the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines and the ‘interchangeability’ foreshadowed under the AUKUS procurements suggest Australia is heading in the opposite direction: to an even closer alignment with US maritime interests in the region,” Burchill pointed out.

He said that Canberra deciding to side with Washington is “a development that will not be lost on the other countries of the region, Australia’s neighbors, who will again question the sincerity of Australia’s desire to more fully integrate with the Asia-Pacific.”

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

EU demands more online censorship

RT | April 25, 2023

The European Commission has designated 19 online platforms under its Digital Services Act, a move that opens them up to hefty fines if they target advertisements at certain users, publish illegal content, or fail to “address the spread of disinformation.”

In an announcement on Tuesday, the commission named 17 “Very Large Online Platforms” and two “Very Large Online Search Engines,” defined as those reaching at least 45 million monthly active users. Among the platforms cited are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, while Google and Microsoft’s Bing are the two designated search engines.

The decision means that as of August, these platforms must be in compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a wide-ranging piece of legislation that came into force in November.

To avoid fines of up to 6% of their global annual turnover, the commission stated that these platforms must label all advertisements as such and avoid targeting ads at users based on “sensitive data” such as their ethnicity, sexuality, or political orientation.

Targeting ads toward children will no longer be permitted, and platforms will have to “redesign their systems to ensure a high level of privacy, security, and safety of minors,” the commission said.

Regarding content moderation, platforms will be required to restrict the “dissemination of illegal content” and “address the spread of disinformation.” The entire text of the DSA mentions the word “disinformation” 13 times without defining it. Free speech activists have argued that the term is often used by governments to silence factually correct yet politically inconvenient narratives.

The commission also warned that platforms and search engines will need to address “negative effects on freedom of expression,” a requirement that could clash with the demand to tackle “disinformation.”

While the DSA was being drafted last year, EU officials singled out Twitter as a company that would be forced to comply with its requirements. Immediately after billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform and set about rolling back some of its restrictive speech policies, EU industry chief Thierry Breton declared that “in Europe, the bird will fly by our European rules.”

Two months later, EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova warned that Twitter would face “sanctions” if it breached the DSA. Jourova cited Musk’s banning of several prominent journalists – who shared information on his whereabouts – as potential DSA violations.

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We Are All Tucker Carlson

Stand Up and Emulate his Pursuit of Truth

Michael Hoffman’s Revelation of the Method | April 25, 2023

No, not financially. He makes $20 million a year while producing $77 million in advertising revenue for Fox annually.

And no, not in terms of popularity. His daily audience was just south of four million viewers and now that he has been fired by Fox executives, he is among the most famous people in America, at least in this news cycle.

We may resemble him in one respect however: his truth-seeking. Yes, he got some things wrong. Unless we’ve lived a life of total perfection, the same can be said for us.

We admit to being annoyed at times by the extent to which he personally insulted people as being fat or stupid (one need not state the obvious). In a world sagging under the weight of vulgarity he should have maintained a higher standard of civility and decorum.

His hyperbole was frequent. Too many events, people, crimes and grievances became in Tucker’s parlance, the worst or the greatest in “all of history,” which is the conceit of pundits and philosophers of every age, who are tinctured with eschatological notions. The preceding examples are however, peccadilloes rather than discrediting offenses.

The one occasion on which he did cross the line was February 22, 2021 when he was fed disinformation about the late Wellesley College Prof. Tony Martin (1942-2013) and heedlessly parroted the character assassination on his show, as part of an attempt to discredit Kristin Clarke, Biden’s Assistant United States Attorney General, with a guilt-by-association slander.

When she was a student at Harvard University, Clarke invited Martin to speak on campus. That was enough for someone at Fox to persuade Tucker to denounce Dr. Martin. Tucker complied, calling him a “noted Trinidadian anti-semite” and, “the author of a “self-published manifesto called The Jewish Onslaught… He attacked Jews and Judaism as a religion. Tony Martin spent his final years giving speeches to holocaust denial organizations on topics such as ‘tactics of organized Jewry in suppressing free speech.’ Kristin Clarke strongly approved of Tony Martin.”

The preceding reads like a press release from one of the thought police organizations that are today celebrating Tucker’s removal. Tony Martin was not “anti” any ethnicity. He was a gentle Catholic scholar, a self-made man and a native of Trinidad who became an English barrister, a PhD., an authority on Marcus Garvey, and professor of African history at Wellesley, where he placed a book, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, on his class reading list, from which sprang most of his troubles, including the subsequent “onslaught” which he scrupulously documented in his book. The Secret Relationship is one of the most banned books in America (we surveyed it here).

Prof. Martin endorsed its thesis as historically valid. What should have been a matter of rational debate between scholars was turned into the familiar “no debate with hate” hysteria too often used as a cover for denouncing a work of merit which self-appointed arbiters of approved history have not the scholarly means to challenge. The irony is that Tucker permitted himself (albeit briefly), to be a tool of the political correctness which ultimately cost him his employment with the Murdoch dynasty.

We believe that had Tucker known the facts about Tony Martin he would not have broadcast the segment. Unlike Sean Hannity and other Fox News talking heads, Tucker seldom trafficked in callous anti-Palestinian rhetoric or Israeli government talking points. On that score he will be walking on thin ice if he signs with the Newsmax television network, which is at least as beholden to the hasbara public relations of war Zionism and racist Israeli settler violence as any media outlet, Right or Left.

After years of broadcasting five nights-a-week Tucker was probably bound to blunder on occasion, as he did in wronging Prof. Martin. Nonetheless, the good he did far outweighed his mistakes.

In a comment briefly published on the website of the Wall Street Journal and then removed for “violating community standards,” we wrote:

“Ad hominem attacks on Tucker do not impress. His investigation of the death of Jeffrey Epstein in federal custody was brilliant. Part of his investigation included an exposé of Trump’s Attorney General William Barr on whose watch Epstein’s death occurred. Epstein’s molestation network included some of the most powerful and wealthy men on earth. If he was murdered in federal custody, this is an indication of profound corruption, and deserves the highest possible media scrutiny; and yet it was primarily Tucker who shined a light.”

To his credit, Tucker traveled to Las Vegas and broadcast his show from that city to focus attention on the anomalies in the 2017 slaughter of 60 Country and Western music fans blamed by the Federal government and it’s mouthpiece media on gambler Stephen Paddock (see our investigation, “The Route 91 Harvest Massacre” in Twilight Language).

“Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the only major news program to undertake a skeptical examination of the official story of the Las Vegas mass murder. Glenn Greenwald points to some of Carlson’s other valiant investigations:

“Tucker was the cable host who most opposed US proxy war in Ukraine; denounced CIA, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for systemic lies and corruption; devoted himself to a pardon for Julian Assange; objected to regime change efforts in Cuba; criticized the Trump administration’s militarism.”

(He also exposed the U.S. government’s role in the sabotage of the Baltic Sea Nord Stream pipeline, and helped to kindle the memory of the largely forgotten Christian victims of the Nashville school shooter).

Two authoritarians, New York Senator Schumer, the Democrat leader in the senate, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had demanded the government ban Carlson from the airwaves.

The Dominion Lawsuit

On her podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Kelly, a Fox News alumnus, stated in connection with Tucker’s firing and Fox Corpation’s $787.5 million out-of-court settlement with Dominion Voting Systems:

“This is a terrible move by Fox and it’s a great thing for Tucker Carlson. I don’t know what drove Fox News to make this decision, and it was clearly Fox News’ decision because they’re not letting him say goodbye. That’s my supposition. That’s not inside knowledge.

“The irony here is that — how did they get in trouble with Dominion? They called Arizona too soon, felt their critics, and ultimately that proved to be the case. They were under pressure by their audience to reverse the call.

“The audience started to leave them in droves because they felt betrayed. Like they didn’t understand the mission of Fox News, which is to be fair to especially the Republicans who don’t get a fair shake on other channels. And they (Fox) went into a panic as their audience started to flee. Then they over-corrected by covering the bulls**t claims about Dominion as though they were plausible and gave way too much credence to some of those claims on the air. He was not the reason for that $800 million settlement.

“So what do they do now in the wake of that settlement? They get rid of Tucker. Talk about misjudging your audience yet again. I think this is a massive error. I think this is a massive misjudgment of what their audience wants. If you are — this is a reaction to the Dominion lawsuit — why is Maria Bartiromo there? Why is Jeanine Pirro still there? Why is (Fox CEO) Suzanne Scott still there?”

Tucker’s Thought Crimes according to the New York Times

The New York Times, one of Mr. Carlson’s frequent targets after he stopped obsessing over small fry like CNN, could barely conceal its glee as Tucker was shafted by the “conservative” Murdoch family for whom he had made hundreds of millions of dollars. The Times haughtily charged him with begetting “misinformation.” This is a laugh coming from a newspaper that repeatedly states as an article of faith a lie of Brobdingnagian proportions: that individuals possessing xy chromosomes are “women.”  It’s on that hill that the credibility of the New York Times has died and is buried.

The Times (here and here) inventoried Tucker’s thought crimes:

“He seemed to shrug off his on-air popularization of a racist conspiracy theory known as the ‘great replacement’ … When Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Carlson’s show frequently promoted the Kremlin’s point of view, attacking U.S. sanctions and blaming the conflict on American designs for expanding NATO… Carlson warned his viewers that they were under assault from liberal elites and unchecked immigration, borrowing some of his central themes from the white nationalist and far-right web and polishing them up for a more mainstream audience.”

The New York Times doesn’t offer reasoned rebuttal to refute Carlson’s theses. The paper generates shabby guilt-by-association inculpation. If Carlson believes the billions spent on Ukraine would be better spent at home, that the U.S., in the wake of costly no-win wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, should halt its role as world policeman, and that risking nuclear war with Russia while undermining peace talks flirts, with planetary conflagration— well, he’s not articulating common sense, he’s promoting “the Kremlin’s point of view.” The  prestigious Times is the master of the cheap shot.

After much thought and observation, if an American honestly has arrived at the conclusion that President Biden’s far-Left open border immigration policies are disastrous for the country, then according to the New York Times that American is “borrowing central themes” of “the white nationalist and far-right web.” It is the brazen unfairness of that flimsy linkage, tossed recklessly for maximum effect, which Tucker shredded night after night amid peals of his own laughter. He was a merry warrior and his mirth was contagious.

The Times also avers that Carlson is guilty of the “racist conspiracy theory known as the ‘great replacement.” That concept puts forth the proposition that the U.S. government is conspiring to replace white Americans with a large immigrant population from south of the border. If that is a fact, it is not racist. Truth is not bias. The same obtains for statements of fact concerning our border. When you see facts subjected to politics you are in the presence of a commissar, not an individual interested in the advancement of knowledge.

Furthermore, the white nationalists enamored of the “You will not replace us!” slogan are in search of scapegoats to conceal their own failure. It is white people themselves who are at fault for voluntarily contracepting and aborting themselves out of existence. There’s no law in our nation that limits the size of one’s family, such as existed in Communist China. Get married; have at least three children. Train them up in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). Quit whining.

The smear that “Carlson backs white racist talking points about replacement theory” is actually a matter of prerogative. The media does not grant to Carlson the prerogative it grants to the ADL, the thought cops they rely upon for lists of dissidents to libel with impunity. It appears that the ADL is somehow, without so much as denting its brand, entitled to promote a replacement theory of its own. In 2010 the ADL went on record warning against the replacement of Israelis by Arabs. The New York Times does not disclose that fact when it is lauds and relies upon the ADL for data.

The Times also reported that in March one of Carlson’s former producers filed a lawsuit against him, claiming that he “ran a toxic workplace.” The producer, Abby Grossberg, said in her suit that “she endured an environment ‘where unprofessionalism reigned supreme, and the staff’s distaste and disdain for women infiltrated almost every workday decision.’ She also accused her former colleagues on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ of making antisemitic remarks… she accuses Mr. Carlson of presiding over a misogynistic and discriminatory workplace culture. Ms. Grossberg said… that on her first day working for Mr. Carlson, she discovered the work space was decorated with large pictures of Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit.”

If this suit is as frivolous as it appears to be, then it is little more than harassment. The opinionated charges it raises are subjective at best and more suited to a talkshow scream session than a courtroom. As a basis of litigation, unflattering photos of Pelosi are a nullity.

We Are All Tucker

The illusion factory seeks to project an image of justice, democracy and decency. Those who penetrate their veil of hypocrisy are stigmatized as little better than demons, haters and Fascists.

The ideal of dialogue and debate is increasingly delegitimated because, as the tenets of our Overlords become ever more preposterous, they can be readily exposed by granting a voice to doubters and dissenters. For most of us not in Tucker’s league, the suppression of us translates into censorship, online deplatforming and demonetization.

Many of us began our Internet outreach using YouTube to broadcast our discussions and lectures across America and around the world, and Paypal to efficiently process credit card orders for our book sales. When YouTube and Paypal were controlled by libertarians with a respect for the free marketplace of ideas which is critical to the advancement of knowledge, the free enterprise system was largely untrammeled on the relatively new Internet. By 2017 however, Paypal was under new ownership and began to deny service to dissidents. YouTube has also purged tens of thousands of independent researchers and scholars. The anti-monopoly aspect of the Internet, competing as it does with the corporate media, had to be curtailed for the sake of the success of the Novus Ordo Seclorum.

The potential of the Internet was being obstructed prior to the recent inauguration of the Rumble video service, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the podcasting host Transistor, and the emergence of Substack. These four are paving the way back to the original promise of the Internet as expressed in 1996 by one of its pioneers, the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s John Perry Barlow:

“I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us… a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth… a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”

Tucker Carlson’s domain was the old media. He had a position within it that gained him nearly four million direct viewers and who knows how many others who obtained bits and pieces of his reporting from barber and breakfast shop conversations, podcasts, tweets and e-mail.

The Cryptocracy and its auxiliary, the Deep State, have a morbid fear of any opposition, however small, a trait visible in all totalitarian regimes, whether that of Lenin, Hitler, Stalin or Mao. As big as Tucker’s position was on cable television—and his footprint was huge—he was sacrificed to the gods of woke. “Thou showest the difference ‘twixt ourselves and thee, in this thy barbarous damned tyranny.” (Christopher Marlowe).

Even in this Revelation of the Method era where the crimes perpetrated against the people have been made manifest to such an extent that we are exhausted by the truth, even the slightest chance that Tucker might spark a peaceful populist uprising, militant in character and knowledgeable concerning the depth of media and government deception, had to be terminated.

The billions of dollars in the company’s coffers that Fox News chief executive Lachlan Murdoch commands were not enough to keep him from caving to the relentless pressure to can Tucker. This is not only a display of pusillanimity but of spiritual weakness. It serves as a tool for demoralizing us. A fearsome lesson has been reinforced, “Don’t buck the system. We are invincible.”

There has been a good deal of whistling in the dark in the aftermath, suggesting that Tucker will be better off and he’ll be going on to bigger and better things. We hope so. Godspeed, Tucker.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Nothing online or at the relatively puny and Zionist-compromised Newsmax can equal an hour in primetime five nights a week, on a television network like Fox that is viewed on almost any TV in America. The awesome power of that plugged in presence remains unequaled. Any job Tucker takes with any alternative will diminish his reach, though not, we trust, his message.

In that sense, Tucker Carlson, for all his accomplishments and the good he has done, is in the same boat with those of us who have been kicked off YouTube, Facebook and Paypal, had those who host our websites harassed, and our credit card acceptance terminated. It’s all one war on alternatives to the System, and for that reason we are all Tucker Carlson. For this week at least, he shares what we have experienced as veterans of the war of ideas.

…..

How did this come about? How do our enemies exhibit such solidarity and unwavering loyalty to their cause? Their cleverness, exertion, skill, planning and organization are generally outstanding.

It seems that the adherents of the diabolic can oft-times exhibit more dedication than the purported followers of Jesus. They are effective, tenacious and willing to suffer massive losses for their infernal cause; while with many of us, it is not that way. We will go only so far for Jesus and then, when our struggle for truth threatens our bank account or reputation, we meekly withdraw, with regret to be sure. Our absence from the field of battle strengthens the enemy immeasurably. “What treachery was used? No treachery, but want of men and money” (Shakespeare).

Jesus drew our attention to this ignominy 2,000 years ago when he observed, “For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” (Luke 16:8).

Obviously, He who declared that all power in heaven and earth was given unto Him (Matthew 28:18), did not intend for those who love and follow Him to be powerless.

In Luke 16:8 Jesus was pointing out the perennial tendency of the diabolic to effectively fight the godly when we fail to use the instruments Jesus has placed before us for battle.

When we rise to our destiny by defending and invoking His holy name and recalling that our time on this earth is meant for spiritual battle, and that our rest is in the grave, then we will begin to equal and surpass the devotion and discipline of God’s opposers.

In the sight of the betrayal represented by Tucker’s defeat at the hands—not of his enemies, but of the people he served—we soldier on. We know that Jesus Christ has dominion and nothing happens on planet earth unless he allows it.

We help to curb evil when, seeing a truth-teller assaulted or overcome, we re-dedicate ourselves to the Cause and fill their shoes.

Let us put the Cryptocracy on notice that every time they take down a Tucker Carlson, millions of us will stand up to emulate his pursuit of truth. We are on firm ground here for the gospel of Jesus Christ is always and in every age, counter-cultural. Woe to us when we curry favor with men and the media speak well of us (cf.  Luke 6:26).

Because we are God’s people we reject demoralization. We remain more than ever resolved and stalwart in the face of what transpired at Fox News on the morning of April 24.

Hope is the virtue that expects God’s help. Truth is the witness we bear in order to receive it.

FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE CONTRA CANCEL CULTURE

Michael Hoffman is the author of Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare (2001), The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome (2017), Twilight Language (2021) and six other books, including two translated and published in Japan, and one in France. He hosts the podcast, Michael Hoffman’s Revisionist History®

Twitter: @HoffmanMichaelA

Copyright ©2023 by Independent History and Research

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

‘Difficult for Republicans to Win’ 2024 US Presidential Election

By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 25.04.2023

President Joe Biden and US Vice President Kamala Harris announced that they are going to run for reelection in 2024 on April 25, to the elation of some and the bafflement of others.

In the tweet announcing his latest presidential run, Biden said he is doing so because he believes that “every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy” and “their fundamental freedoms,” and urged his supporters to join him to “finish the job.”

James George Jatras, retired US diplomat and adviser to the US Senate Republican leadership, did not seem particularly impressed by the POTUS’ move, telling Sputnik that Biden is merely a “placeholder” and a “face for a deep state conglomerate that is essentially running the country.”

“We’ve got to the point where it really doesn’t matter who the Democrats put up as their candidate, it would be very difficult for any Republican candidate to win,” Jatras remarked.

He also remarked that, despite the Biden administration being saddled with quite a bit of economic and internal policy problems, the “very high proportion of Americans are simply not able to understand” what is really going on in the US and in the world, thanks to the “very managed legacy media here in the United States.”

“So they basically think, it’s all the Russians fault or it’s all Trump’s fault or maybe if they’re getting some money sent to them from the government a certain way that’s all they really care about,” Jatras elaborated. “I don’t think that’s a majority of the population, but a sufficient minority of the population, that provides the basis for the Democrats to be able to pull out a victory.”

Regarding the prospects of the Democratic Party in the upcoming presidential election, Jatras simply remarked that “that’s more than just the question of who counts the votes,” but also the “voting procedures, the media, the social media and everything else where it seems that the Democrats have mastered the art of political technology.”

“Especially in a presidential election, we don’t have a single national election as long as you can win several key states,” he added. “And the way you win those key states is to win several big cities in those states, you’re going to win the election. And given that the Democrats have virtually free reign to pack the votes in several major American cities, I think it’s very hard to see how they lose.”

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Timeless or most popular | | 1 Comment

Iran’s UN ambassador: US unilateral actions violate UN Charter, threaten multilateralism

Press TV – April 24, 2023

Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations says unilateral measures taken by the United States are against the UN Charter while threatening multilateralism in the world.

Amir Saeed Iravani made the remarks in a Monday address delivered during a UN Security Council debate on multilateralism.

“Multilateralism has been recognized as a well-established approach to addressing global challenges and effective multilateralism … is essential for ensuring international peace and security,” he said.

The official, however, warned that the integrity and effectiveness of multilateralism are undermined by the abuse of the UN system and selective application of international law, which pose a serious threat to international cooperation, peace, and security.

“Within this context, the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, re-imposition of illegal unilateral sanctions on Iran, its coercion of other countries to engage in these illegal actions, and defiance of the International Court of Justice’s order are striking examples of how such harmful unilateral acts violate the UN Charter, undermine the UN system and threaten multilateralism,” Iran’s ambassador said.

He was referring to Washington’s unilateral and illegal withdrawal in 2018 from a multilateral deal with Iran, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), whose other members included the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. After leaving the deal, the administration of former US President Donald Trump reinstated all anti-Iran sanctions that the accord had lifted and introduced its signature “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran.

The administration of Trump’s successor Joe Biden had alleged a willingness to compensate for Trump’s mistake by rejoining the deal, but it has retained the sanctions as leverage and even imposed a slew of its own coercive economic measures on the Islamic Republic.

“Unilateral coercive measures (UCMs), including their extraterritorial application, represent a concerning example of harmful unilateral acts that run counter to the fundamental principles of international law, the UN Charter, and basic human rights,” Iravani said, adding, “These illegal measures have far-reaching humanitarian consequences and can undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving disputes and promoting cooperation.”

Iravani also referred a March 30 verdict by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled that the United States had violated the international law by allowing American courts to confiscate nearly two billion dollars in assets from Iranian companies, and ordered Washington to pay compensation.

“The ICJ’s ruling is final and binding, requiring the US to comply with this decision,” the Iranian diplomat noted.

Iravani said, “Collaboration should be the cornerstone of multilateralism, rather than confrontation,” because “collaborative approaches foster trust, build consensus, and promote sustainable solutions to global challenges.”

He concluded by saying, “Through collaborative problem-solving and engagement with all parties, multilateralism can effectively address the challenges facing our world today. In this context, diplomacy, dialogue, and negotiation should be the preferred means for resolving disputes among member states.”

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Serbia warns of retaliation against Ukraine

RT | April 25, 2023

Serbia may change its stance on Ukraine’s territorial integrity after Kiev abstained during a vote on accepting the breakaway region of Kosovo’s request to join the Council of Europe, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has said.

The Ministerial Committee of the Council of Europe held an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday to decide the fate of Kosovo’s application. The bid was supported by 33 members out of 46, with seven against, and five abstaining.

“I must say that Ukraine has surprised us unpleasantly” by being among the abstaining members, Dacic said shortly after the vote.

“This whole story is based on territorial integrity when it comes to [the conflict in] Ukraine. You know how much effort it takes for [Serbia] to vote for all the resolutions, to condemn the violation of territorial integrity of Ukraine,” he said.

The diplomat pointed out that “foreign policy is based on reciprocity. This will certainly affect our views in the future on territorial integrity of those countries,” he said, referring to Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Slovakia, Armenia as some of the nations whose votes surprised him.

Serbia, which has close ties with Russia, has been resisting Western pressure to sanction Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine. However, it has condemned the use of force by Moscow and insisted that the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state should be respected.

The majority ethnic Albanian region of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia back in 2008. The US and many of its allies recognized the province as a sovereign state almost immediately. However, Belgrade still considers Kosovo to be part of its territory and the region is not recognized by Russia, China and several other nations.

Pristina’s Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla-Schwarz hailed the vote as “a historic step, perhaps the most important after our independence.” The final verdict on the bid by Pristina is to be delivered by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Dacic condemned the development, warning that it may well lead to a situation where “a part of some other country is going to be offered to join the Council of Europe.”

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US and Ukrainian agents plotted to assassinate Russians in Africa

By Lucas Leiroz | April 25, 2023

Apparently, it is increasingly difficult to hide the Western participation in attacks against Russians abroad. In a recent report it was revealed that the US and its proxies had a secret plan to assassinate some commanders of the private military company Wagner Group in Africa. Wagner’s representatives would be in Mali at the time of the attack, which would make them easier targets than inside Russia. The case shows how in fact Washington and Kiev coordinate and jointly perform terrorism and sabotage actions against Russian citizens, which brings possible answers to other recent cases.

The plan was leaked by sources to an important western media outlet. The purpose of the operation would be to prevent the growth of Russian influence in Africa. As well known, the Wagner Group operates in some African countries, responding to requests made by the local governments themselves. Faced with the failure of initiatives by western countries – mainly France – to halt the advance of terrorism in Africa, cooperation in defense and security with Russia has emerged as an alternative for some countries on the continent, which apparently worries western authorities.

It was reported in the media that the Ukrainian intelligence agency GUR planned to operate an attack in Mali, which would be commanded by Kiev’s officer Kirill Budanov. On that occasion, several Wagner officers would die at once, seriously damaging the Group’s presence in Africa – and consequently boosting the growth of terrorism, as Wagner combats criminal organizations on the continent. However, for reasons still unknown, the operation did not happen – perhaps because there were more serious priorities on the Ukrainian battlefield.

On the other hand, the report exposes a successful plan by the same agents interested in assassinating Wagner’s officials. The case supposedly occurred in Libya, where a Wagner logistics aircraft would have been shot down. No details were given about the case, and there is no concrete data on what exactly the contents of the aircraft’s cargo would be. However, the report makes it clear that US and Ukrainian agents in fact operate together to kill Russian nationals outside the combat zone, which suggests answers to many other questions.

In several recent cases, Russian authorities have claimed that Ukrainian agents are involved in attacks against ordinary, innocent citizens, as well as against civilian infrastructure in the country’s demilitarized zones. In most cases, there is also a strong suspicion of US involvement, as Ukrainian forces are too weak to coordinate major attacks and intelligence actions abroad.

For example, Russian authorities have claimed on several occasions that the GUR was responsible for the attack on the Crimean Bridge, which took place in October last year. On that occasion, a truck driver who was transporting a bomb in his vehicle (apparently involuntarily) died after detonating the explosive, also killing two other civilians who were on the bridge at the time. In fact, knowing that the GUR planned to kill Russians in Africa and probably participated in the attack on a Wagner’s aircraft in Libya, the suspicions surrounding the participation in the Crimea case gain even more strength, since it is clear that terrorism is really a practice of the Ukrainian agency.

The same can be said for attacks against specific human targets. The homicides of Daria Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, both journalists with no military involvement, were the ones that made obvious the existence of Ukrainian terrorism abroad. Moscow identified those responsible for both attacks and exposed their connections with Ukrainian intelligence. In the specific case of Daria, US military informants even admitted Kiev’s responsibility. It only remains to be seen to what extent the Ukrainians would be acting “alone” in such incidents.

Kiev’s neo-Nazi regime has proved many times that it is not capable of acting alone. The actions of the Ukrainian armed forces are nothing more than the execution of orders coming from Washington. This becomes clear in the mere fact that the Ukrainian army and its allied militias continue to fight against the Russians despite being heavily weakened, without any possibility of reversing the military scenario of the conflict. So, it is to be expected that the same happens with Kiev’s intelligence agencies, which certainly work as mere proxies for the US, in addition to being extremely dependent on foreign aid to operate any kind of complex action – even more so when outside Ukrainian territory.

Knowing that Americans and Ukrainians jointly planned attacks against Russians in Africa, it is even more difficult to deny that the same certainly happened in the attacks inside Russian territory. Washington will certainly not admit this and will try to blame its neo-Nazi proxy alone, but it is evident that the Ukrainians do not have the operational force, technical capacity or even autonomy to make these decisions on their own. In this sense, as American participation in brutal crimes committed by Ukrainians becomes clearer, the greater the need for an international reaction to NATO, which must begin to be seen as an organization that sponsors terrorism.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist and a researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Finland’s Military Spending Soars to Cold War Levels as It Joins NATO

By Igor Kuznetsov – Sputnik – 25.04.2023

Having formally joined NATO earlier this month, Finland has recorded its highest year-on-year spike in defense spending since 1962, the height of the Cold War.

Finland, which shares the longest border with Russia in Europe at 1,300 kilometers, recorded the most drastic spending boost in the EU (36 percent), underpinned by a number of costly purchases, such as a new fleet of 64 F-35 fighter jets from US weapons company Lockheed Martin. The 10-billion-euro procurement was billed as the single largest splurge in the Nordic country’s history.

During the late Cold War-era, Finland spent approximately 1.9 percent of its GDP on defense, yet saw its spending plummet in the subsequent years and reach its lowest in 2001 at 1.1 percent of GDP. Barely two years earlier, the defense expenditure still stood at a meager 1.3 percent of GDP. However, last year alone, Finland’s outgoing five-party government led by the Social Democrats agreed to add more than 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in defense spending, citing hostilities in Ukraine as a pretext.

In doing so, Finland notably eclipsed its fellow European nations, such as Lithuania, Sweden and Poland, which saw the next biggest spikes in their defense budgets at 27 percent, 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

As a new-fledged NATO member, Finland has emerged as one of the top military spenders in the alliance, spending about 2 percent of GDP. In 2022, only the US (3.5 percent of GDP), Poland (2.4 percent), Estonia (2.3 percent) and the UK (2.1 percent) spent more on defense per capita than Finland. Despite NATO’s spending goal of 2 percent, many nations fall well below this target. For instance, Finland’s neighbor Norway had a spending level of just 1.55 percent. Its neighbor Sweden, with which it filed a joint NATO bid only to part ways later on, has pledged to reach the bloc’s target of military spending “as soon as possible,” whereas Denmark seeks to reach NATO’s target within a decade, by 2033.

Meanwhile, global military expenditure rose to a record high last year amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which spurred European nations and, broadly, the West, into reaching spending levels unseen since the Cold War. European military spending alone shot up 13 percent last year.

According to an estimate by researchers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), last year’s total global military spending rose by 3.7 percent in real terms to $2.24 trillion. SIPRI stressed that the hike rests on multi-year plans to boost spending from several governments, which is why it is reasonable to expect military expenditure in Central and Western Europe to keep rising in the years to come.

April 25, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | | 1 Comment

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