Children ages 12 to 17 who received the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine face a heightened risk of heart inflammation, according to a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) study.
But because the study only identified a safety signal for two heart conditions — myocarditis and pericarditis — in children “these results provide additional evidence for the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines in the pediatric population,” FDA researchers concluded.
Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough said he disagreed. “My concern is that these data represent a gross under-reporting of the frequency and severity of COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis,” McCullough told The Epoch Times.
“There have been > 200 papers in the peer-reviewed literature and over 100 fatal documented cases largely among young men, peak ages 18-24 years, some with autopsy-proven COVID-19 vaccine heart inflammation resulting in death,” McCullough added.
In the study, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, FDA researchers examined health outcomes in more than 3 million children who received the Pfizer mRNA vaccine through mid-2022.
They found the number of cases of both myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, and pericarditis, inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart, were high enough to meet the criteria for a safety signal.
The researchers also found reports of myocarditis and pericarditis cases among vaccinated children ages 5 to 11, but not enough to trigger a safety signal, they said.
Conclusions ‘pretty ludicrous’ and ‘political,’ experts say
Norman Fenton, Ph.D., professor emeritus of risk at the Queen Mary University of London, called the claim that the results provide additional evidence that the vaccines are safe in children “pretty ludicrous.”
He said that conclusion didn’t make sense given that the signal was both strong and “likely underestimated given some obvious weaknesses of the study” and also that children of that age are at no risk from COVID-19 but at higher risk of getting COVID-19 if they are vaccinated.
Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, told The Defender the safety claim didn’t hold up because the study identified two safety signals. “The signal is what indicates they are not safe,” he said.
He said with previous children’s vaccines such as RotaShield, the first vaccine to prevent rotavirus gastroenteritis, about 100 vaccine-related cases of intussusception, or folding of the intestine, led to the conclusion that it was unsafe and it was withdrawn from the market. But with myocarditis in young people, he said, “we’re at thousands,” and the cases are likely undercounted.
Experts question study’s methodology
The researchers reviewed medical records from healthcare claims filed in three commercial health insurance claims databases run by Optum, HealthCore and CVS Health.
They examined insurance claims made for different possible vaccine-related adverse events within a window of time following vaccination that varied for the different events studied.
They found 153 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis among children ages 12 to 17. The children sought care for their symptoms within seven days of vaccination on average.
The researchers’ study period began in December 2020, when the FDA authorized Pfizer’s vaccine for emergency use and ran through May or June 2022, depending on the database.
The FDA also monitored the databases for 18 other potential adverse events that included anaphylaxis, Bell’s palsy, Guillain-Barré syndrome hemorrhagic stroke and others, but the study reported that none of the other conditions met the criteria for a safety signal.
The researchers reported their findings were consistent with other findings in peer-reviewed publications that demonstrated an elevated risk of myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA vaccines, especially among younger males ages 12 to 29.
Some experts questioned the study’s methodology, noting that the risk windows were short given that some effects can take time to express themselves and that the signal threshold for some criteria was set so high they would have to occur at double the rate in the unvaccinated to be recognized as a signal.
They also said categories of outcomes were sometimes overly narrow, and some adverse events were not even considered.
“I think the idea that they look at only 20 very specific AEs [adverse events] then declare them safe upon not finding anything is very myopic,” Hebrew University lecturer Joshua Guetzkow, Ph.D., wrote in an email.
Experts also said the study didn’t account for the effects of the “healthy user bias,” where people who take up certain treatments tend to be healthier than people who don’t, usually related to socio-economic factors.
Research has shown that people who decide to get vaccinated tend to be healthier than people who don’t.
In this case, all of the people in the study were vaccinated, fully insured for the entire duration of the study and able to visit a doctor who maintained their continuous health records.
Milhoan added that prior to COVID-19, it wasn’t common practice for scientific papers to make public health acknowledgments at the end of the papers.
Previously, he said, researchers wouldn’t imply recommendations, they would just say, “This is what we found medically.” He added, “These public health claims aren’t scientific, they’re political.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine |
1 Comment
White House Tells Social Media Platforms To Take A “Zero-Tolerance” Stance Against “Hate Speech”
The White House unveiled a strategy to fight antisemitism that involves telling Congress to push social media platforms to be held “accountable” for hate speech.
The 60-page document details four pillars of the strategy which are raising awareness, improving safety for Jewish communities, reversing what they call the normalization of antisemitism, and countering antisemitic discrimination and hate speech.
In a pre-recorded message before the unveiling of the strategy, President Joe Biden described it “a historic step forward” and the “most ambitious and comprehensive US government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history.”
The document contains over 100 calls to action for legislators and others in society to fight antisemitism, including calling on online platforms to have “zero-tolerance” for hate speech.
The outline involves working with social media platforms heavily.
“We also call on Congress to hold social media platforms accountable for spreading hate-fueled violence, including antisemitism; impose much stronger transparency requirements on online platforms,” the White House said in a statement.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, United States |
3 Comments
The Biden administration has been accused of using a grant program initially created to combat terrorism to crackdown on the speech of conservatives, the Republican Party, and Christians, according to documents obtained by MRC Free Speech America through freedom of information requests.
Under the Biden administration, the Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Grant Program (TVTP) has awarded public and private institutions almost $40 million to fight “all forms of terrorism and targeted violence.” However, the program has not been targeting actual terrorism. Instead, it has focused on targeting right-leaning organizations through “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives” and other similar seminars.
Source: MRC
The program was created under the Obama administration in 2011. Its plan was titled “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States. The Trump administration paused it for about three years, before the DHS revamped it and renamed it the “Office of Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention.”
During his campaign, Biden promised to disband the program. However, the DHS, led by Alejandro Mayorkas, has repurposed it to target specific organizations.
The DHS itself has refused to provide documents revealing details about the program. However, the organizations that received the grants did provide documents.
One of the recipients of the grants was the University of Dayton, which received $352,109 to create the PREVENTS-OH program to combat “domestic violence extremism and hate movements.
A chart used by the grantee and the DHS in a training program puts conservative organizations like the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Republican National Committee, the Heritage Foundation, Turning Point USA, and the National Rifle Association in the same category as organizations like The Base and websites like The Daily Stormer.
In the same seminar, President Trump was compared to Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, who was responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people.
It was also suggested that Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis wanted to start a second Holocaust because in 2021 he proposed a civilian military force to assist the National Guard during emergencies.
In another seminar, Michael Loadentahl, a self-proclaimed member of the organization Antifa, the report alleges, explained how to create fake accounts on social media platforms like Gab, Rumble, and Telegram to infiltrate and destabilize conservative political movements.
In total, the TVTP program has awarded 80 grants, totaling $39,611,999.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | DHS, Obama, United States |
Leave a comment
Israeli forces secure demolition of a building belonging to Palestinians claiming that it was unlicensed at Jabel Mukaber Neighborhood in East Jerusalem on May 24, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]
China has called on Israel to “stop encroaching” upon Palestinian territory and resources, as Tel Aviv continues to allow and approve the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories.
Speaking to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, Geng Shuang, China’s deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, stated that “since the beginning of this year, Israel has continued to advance unilateral actions on approving returns, building new settlements and legalising settlements”.
Emphasising that such settlement building and activities violate international law and UN Security Council Resolution 2334, he expressed Beijing’s stance to “urge Israel to immediately halt these actions and stop encroaching upon the land and resources of the Palestinian people”.
Shuang also stressed that “the historical status quo of religious holy sites in Jerusalem must be respected and upheld”, saying that Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir “caused renewed tensions” by storming the Al Aqsa Mosque compound for the second time this year and proclaiming Israel’s alleged ownership of the Islamic holy site.
“On the issue of religious holy sites, Israel must stop its provocations, guarantee the right to worship of Muslim worshipers, uphold the peace and tranquillity of religious holy sites, and respect the custodianship of Jordan”, he asserted.
Shuang also drew attention to the fact that tensions and clashes between the Israeli occupation and Palestinian Resistance groups “have been repeating themselves over the past few years, fully demonstrating that a long-stalled peace process is not sustainable, that piece-meal crisis management will not last, and that a comprehensive and just solution is irreplaceable”.
He indicated China’s increasing role in the issue, as with others in the region, and the possibility of surpassing the United States as a mediatory force and hegemon. Supposedly referring to the US, he stated that “the country with major influence on the parties concerned should make concrete efforts to advance the Middle East peace process and should not unjustifiably prevent the Security Council from arriving at the minimum consensus on the Palestine-Israeli issue”.
The Chinese diplomat’s remarks came as the Israeli government yesterday approved the proposed state budget for 2023-2024, which allocates around 3.5 billion Israeli shekels ($941 million) for the illegal settlement projects and the upgrading of their infrastructure.
Current estimates report that there are around 700,000 illegal settlers living in 164 settlements and 116 outposts in the Occupied West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem, with that set to expand as Tel Aviv frequently approves thousands of more settlement units.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | China, Israel, Palestine |
1 Comment
The West has claimed for a while now that Iran is secretly arming Russia despite both countries’ denials, with CNN reviving these accusations in their latest report about how “Iran has a direct route to send Russia weapons – and Western powers can do little to stop the shipments”. They’re furious that the West can’t obstruct this corridor, which could improve Russia’s position in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that the NATO chief declared them to be in a few months back, if it even exists that is.
It makes sense that NATO and Russia would look to third parties for military-industrial support amidst their neck-and-neck race in Ukraine, with the first reportedly relying on Pakistan and South Korea while the second reportedly relies on Iran and North Korea. While there’s nothing new about these four claims apart from the South Korean component, the Mainstream Media’s (MSM) latest reminder of the Russian-Iranian dimension comes at a pivotal moment in the NATO-Russian proxy war.
Russia’s victory in the Battle of Artyomovsk preceded Kiev’s impending NATO-backed counteroffensive, the first of which was symbolic while the second will likely be the West’s “last hurrah” before agreeing to ceasefire and peace talks by year’s end or early next year like many now predict will happen. Unnamed Biden Administration officials told Politico in late April how much they fear the public’s reaction if the counteroffensive doesn’t meet their expectations, however, hence the need for a scapegoat.
Therein lies the implied purpose of the MSM’s latest information warfare campaign fearmongering about Russia and Iran’s reported trans-Caspian arms trade. If Moscow manages to thwart the upcoming counteroffensive, including the potential scenarios of Ukraine invading Belarus and/or Russia’s pre-2014 territory, then NATO will likely blame it on the alleged support that the Kremlin received from Iran instead of acknowledging that their single opponent has military parity with their 31-member bloc.
To be clear, it would be in Russia’s interests to receive some level of support from Iran in order to obtain an edge over NATO in their “race of logistics”, but whatever it might have already gotten or will soon get from there wouldn’t be game-changing since its partner must also ensure its own security interests. It’s unrealistic to expect the Islamic Republic to empty its stockpiles supplying Russia like most NATO members have already done in supplying Ukraine when regional security threats still remain a problem.
While its Chinese-brokered rapprochement with Saudi Arabia relieved Riyadh’s pressure upon it, Israel and the Taliban still pose their own problems to Iran that must be taken seriously. The MSM’s notion that Iran will irresponsibly leave itself defenseless just to arm Russia to the hilt out of New Cold War solidarity is nothing but a political fantasy. While the NATO countries remain under the US’ nuclear umbrella, Iran has nobody to depend on but itself, which is why it would never do what those states did.
The reason why the MSM is preconditioning its targeted Western audience to blame Iran in the event that Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive fails to meet the public’s expectations is to preempt the uncontrollable proliferation of conspiracy theories that could weaken Western unity in that scenario. Former Russian chess champion-turned-pro-Kiev-troll Garry Kasparov already publicly speculated that Kremlin agents infiltrated the White House and sabotaged the counteroffensive before it even began.
The MSM’s prior propaganda was so effective in manipulating a critical mass of minds in society that some of these people will never accept that they were lied to and that Russia is much more resilient than they were told. Instead, they’ll resort to increasingly kooky QAnon-like conspiracy theories such as Kasparov’s wildly speculating their own version of the “stab-in-the-back” myth, which could lead to the most unstable of them becoming radicalized and thus posing a domestic terrorist threat with time.
Western propagandists realized that it’s much better to distract them with the theory that Iran might be responsible for Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive failing to meet the public’s expectations than risk letting these toxic conspiracies uncontrollably circulate in the information ecosystem. As was earlier written, whatever aid Iran might have already sent to Russia or will send would be helpful though in no way game-changing, but it’s a convenient boogeyman and that’s why it would be blamed in that event.
The very fact that the MSM is preconditioning its targeted Western audience to think this speaks to how fearful the elite are that their “last hurrah” in the NATO-Russian proxy war will flounder. In order to avoid the proliferation of kooky conspiracy theories blaming their leaders for being Kremlin agents or whatever like Kasparov and other pro-Kiev trolls are beginning to imagine is the case, they’re preparing the narrative that Iran is to blame instead, which is equally ridiculous but more easily believable for most.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | NATO, Ukraine |
2 Comments
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has placed the national armed forces on high alert and ordered units to move towards the administrative line dividing the breakaway province of Kosovo from the rest of the country. The move comes following clashes between police and protesters in a majority-Serb town in the region on Friday.
“An urgent movement of forces to the Kosovo border has been ordered,” Defense Minister Milos Vucevic confirmed in a TV broadcast, adding that it is clear that “terror against the Serb community in Kosovo” is continuing.
Vucevic said the security of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija was being threatened by the region’s ethnic Albanian prime minister Albin Kurti. He called on citizens to remain as calm as possible and not to fall for provocations.
Earlier in the day, Serbs in the town of Zvecan had clashed with police as a newly-elected ethnic Albanian mayor prepared to enter his office following local elections. The votes in four municipalities had been boycotted by the majority-Serb residents who had sought more autonomy and representation and regarded the votes as an attempt to seize the Serbian municipalities by illegitimate representatives. Turnout in the vote on April 23 was a mere 3.47%, with locals saying they would not work with the newly elected officials.
According to local media, police from Pristina used stun grenades and fired tear gas at protesters who had gathered in front of an administrative building, while Reuters reported that a police car had been set ablaze.
RT Balkan reported that around a dozen people were admitted to hospital with minor injuries.
Vucevic told Pink TV that what President Vucic had been warning the international community about for days and weeks has now “turned out to be true,” accusing Pristina of escalating tensions and instigating terror against Serbs.
“Someone needs to understand that what Albin Kurti is doing is leading us to red lines and to a complete collapse of dialogue and an escalation on the ground,” Vucevic said.
Last Friday, Vucic declared that Serbia’s refusal to acquiesce to the West’s demands and recognize Kosovo’s independence had made his country a target for foreign interference, but that he would “never surrender” and would “never let them make Kosovo independent.”
Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 with the support of the US and many of its allies. The breakaway region is not recognized by several countries, including Russia and China, or by Serbia itself.
The EU, however, has repeatedly demanded that Belgrade must recognize and “normalize” relations with Pristina if it wants to become a member of the bloc.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | European Union, Serbia |
Leave a comment
No one has the courage and aptitude to lead Europe today, meaning there is no political leadership in the European Union, especially in the European Commission, said Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga at a Budapest conference on Thursday.
“In the European Union today, it is non-governmental organizations (NGOs), foundations and think tanks that tell Europe how to run Europe, according to the will of their own leaders,” she said.
“Recently, for asymmetric reasons, a crisis of confidence has arisen between the EU leadership and the Hungarian government. This is because the Hungarian government, unlike the EU institutions, says what it thinks and does what it says,” she added.
Varga said Europe is stumbling around the stage of history as a clumsy sideshow, drifting from crisis to crisis, and since the migration crisis, it has been trying to make policy in a way that is completely divorced from the real needs of its citizens. She said the institutional system also failed during the Covid crisis and then shot itself in the foot with sanctions against Russia after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
She warned that immigration is a crisis that still affects Europe and continues to cost the Hungarian budget heavily.
“At the same time, by defending Europe, we have to constantly fight the judgments and proceedings of the European Court of Justice,” she said. “Waiting for yet another slap in the face instead of any good deed, that is the fate of Hungary.”
Varga noted that during the coronavirus crisis, the EU made deals regarding vaccines, and yet those text messages have never been produced, referring to the murky case involving EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“We make no secret of the fact that we want to hold the functioning of the institutions in the European Union accountable in terms of the rule of law. Let’s talk about whether the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European institutions are respecting the rules, whether the rule of law is working in the institutions,” said the minister.
On the issue of the Hungarian EU presidency, the European Parliament has no say in this, the minister said, stressing that more than 10 years ago, a unanimous European Council decision had established the order of the member states, which can only be changed by unanimity. The presidency is not only a right but also an obligation, and the opposition will not achieve anything by such an attempt, but it could do enormous damage.
According to the minister, the European Parliament wants to block Hungary’s EU presidency precisely because it fears that Hungary will take stock of the dysfunctional state of EU institutions.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics, Militarism, Science and Pseudo-Science | European Union |
Leave a comment
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky made an unexpected trip to Britain last week on a whistle-stop tour of European capitals, pleading for more powerful and longer-range weapons to use in his war against Russia.
What was hard to ignore once again was the extent to which the UK is playing an outsize role in Ukraine.
Last year, shortly after the start of the war, the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, hurried to Kyiv – presumably on Washington’s instructions – apparently to warn Zelensky off fledgling peace talks with Moscow.
At around the same time, the Biden administration made clear it favoured an escalation in fighting, not an end to it, as an opportunity to “weaken” Russia, a geo-strategic rival along with China.
Since then, the UK has been at the forefront of European efforts to entrench the conflict, helping to lobby for the supply of weapons, training and military intelligence to Ukrainian forces.
British tanks and thousands of tank shells – including, controversially, some made from depleted uranium – are being shipped out. Last week, the UK added hundreds of long-range attack drones to the inventory.
And an unspecified number of £2m-a-blast Storm Shadow cruise missiles, with a range of nearly 300km, have started arriving. Last week Ben Wallace, Britain’s defence secretary, said the missiles were already in use, adding that Kyiv alone was deciding on the targets.
Storm Shadow allows the Ukrainian military to strike deep into Russian-annexed parts of Ukraine – and potentially at Russian cities too.
A recent leak revealed that the Pentagon had learnt through electronic eavesdropping of Zelensky’s eagerness for longer-range missiles so that his forces were “capable of reaching Russian troop deployments in Russia”.
Lip service
Britain now pays little more than lip service to the West’s claim that its role is only to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression. The supply of increasingly offensive weapons has turned Ukraine into what amounts to a proxy battleground on which the Cold War can be revived.
During Zelensky’s visit to the UK last week, Johnson’s successor, Rishi Sunak, effectively acted as an arms broker for Ukraine, joining with the Netherlands in what was grandly dubbed an “international coalition” to pressure the Biden administration and other European states to supply Kiev with F-16 fighter jets.
Washington appeared not to need much cajoling. Three days later, Biden dramatically changed tack at a G7 summit in Japan. He effectively gave a green light for US allies to supply Ukraine not only with US-made F-16s but similar fourth-generation fighter jets, including Britain’s Eurofighter Typhoon and France’s Mirage 2000.
Administration officials surprised European leaders by suggesting the US would be directly involved in the training of pilots outside Ukraine.
After a highly staged “surprise” visit by Zelensky to the summit at the weekend, Biden said he had been given a “flat reassurance” that the jets would not attack Russian territory.
British officials, meanwhile, indicated that the UK would start training Ukrainian pilots within weeks.
‘Rightful place is in Nato’
No 10 has made clear that Sunak’s purpose is to build “a new Ukrainian air force with Nato-standard F-16 jets” and that the prime minister believes “Ukraine’s rightful place is in Nato”.
These statements seem intended once again to block any potential path towards peace. President Vladimir Putin repeatedly spoke out against Nato’s growing, covert involvement in neighbouring Ukraine before Russia launched its invasion 15 months ago.
“The prime minister believes “Ukraine’s rightful place is in Nato”
It is hard to imagine that the UK is heading off-script. More likely, the Biden administration is using Britain to make the running and soften up Western publics as Nato becomes ever more deeply immersed in the military activities of Russia’s neighbour.
Ukraine is being gradually turned into the very Nato forward base that first set Moscow on course to invade.
At the same time, Britain appears to be exploiting the Ukraine war as a showcase for its weaponry. After the US, it has been the largest supplier of military equipment to Ukraine.
This week it was reported that UK arms exports hit a record £8.5bn, more than double last year’s total. The last time Britain was so successful at selling weapons was in 2015, at the height of the Syrian war.
Risk to health
Europe’s weapons largesse is, we are told, the precondition for Ukraine to mount a long-awaited counter-offensive to take back territory Russia has seized in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.
Speaking candidly in Florence this month, Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, ruled out peace talks. Ukraine needed massive supplies of arms because otherwise “Ukraine will fall in a matter of days”, he said.
Borrell’s warning not only suggested the precariousness of Ukraine’s situation but implied that, out of desperation, its leaders might be prepared to approve ever riskier combat scenarios.
And thanks to British meddling, the heavy toll of casualties as the war rages on – among the Ukrainian population and Russian soldiers, as well as potentially inside Russia’s borders too – may be felt not just over the coming months but for decades.
In March, Declassified broke the story that some of the thousands of tank shells Britain is supplying to Kiev are made of depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive heavy metal produced as waste from nuclear power plants.
Keir Starmer’s opposition Labour party has said it “fully supports” the UK government’s supply of these armour-piercing shells to Ukraine, despite the long-term risk they pose to those exposed to the chemically toxic contamination left behind.
DU shells fragment and burn when they hit a target. One analyst, Doug Weir, from the Conflict and Environment Observatory, told Declassified that the ammunition produces “chemically toxic and radioactive DU particulate [microscopic particles] that poses an inhalational risk to people”.
Nonetheless, British ministers insist the threat to human health is low – and worth the risk given the military gains in helping Ukraine to destroy Russian tanks.
Cancer deaths
As Declassified has highlighted, however, a growing body of evidence following the use of such shells by the US in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and by Britain and the US in Iraq a decade later undermines these reassurances.
Italian courts have upheld compensation claims against the country’s military in more than 300 cases where Italians who served in the police or as soldiers in Bosnia and Kosovo have died of cancer after being exposed to DU.
Many thousands more Italian former service-people are reported to have developed cancers.
In 2001 Tony Blair’s government downplayed the role of DU in Italy’s deaths to avoid upsetting the new administration of George W Bush. Both leaders would soon approve the use of DU rounds in Iraq, though the UK admitted a “moral obligation” to help clean up some of the contamination afterwards.
The West has taken little interest in researching the effects of DU weapons in Iraq, even though local civilian populations have been the most exposed to its contamination. DU shells were used extensively during both the 1991 Gulf war and more than a decade later during the US and British-led occupation of Iraq.
Nonetheless, Iraqi government statistics suggest the rates of cancers leapt 40-fold between the period immediately before the Gulf war and 2005.
The city of Fallujah, which the US devastated after the 2003 invasion, is reported to suffer “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied”. Birth defects are said to be roughly 14 times the rate in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki regions of Japan, where the US dropped atomic bombs.
In 2018 the British government reclassified a 1981 report into the dangers of DU weapons by the Ministry of Defence’s Atomic Weapons Research Establishment it had made available three years earlier.
Meanwhile, James Heappey, the armed forces minister, has misleadingly suggested that international bodies such as the World Health Organisation and the United Nations have found no long-term health or environmental hazards associated with DU weapons.
But as Weir told Declassified in March: “None of the entities cited by the MoD has undertaken long-term environmental or health studies in conflict areas where DU weapons have been used.”
In other words, they simply don’t know – and possibly don’t care to find out.
Weir added that the WHO, UN and International Atomic Energy Agency had all called for contaminated areas to be clearly marked and access restricted, while at the same time recommending that risk awareness campaigns be targeted at nearby communities.
British officials have also recruited the Royal Society to their efforts to claim DU is safe – as the US did earlier, in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, citing two of its reports published in 2001 and 2002.
However, the Royal Society has vocally distanced itself from such claims. A spokesperson told Declassified that, despite the British government’s assertions, DU was no longer an “active area of policy research”.
Back in 2003, the Royal Society rebuked Washington, telling the Guardian that soldiers and civilians in Iraq “were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminated sites were particularly at risk.”
At the same time, the chairman of the Royal Society’s working group on depleted uranium, Professor Brian Spratt, also warned that corroding shells could leach DU into water supplies. He recommended removing ordinance and conducting long-term sampling of water supplies.
Voices silenced
By lobbying for more overtly offensive weapons and introducing DU shells into the war, Britain has raised the stakes in two incendiary ways.
First, it is driving the war’s logic towards ever greater escalation, including nuclear escalation.
Russia itself possesses DU weapons but is reported to have avoided using them. Moscow has long warned that it regards use of DU in Ukraine in nuclear terms: as the equivalent of a “dirty bomb”.
In March Putin responded to the UK’s decision to supply DU tank shells by vowing to move “tactical” nuclear weapons into neighbouring Belarus. Meanwhile, his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said it put the world “fewer and fewer” steps away from “nuclear collision”.
But Britain is also creating a situation where a catastrophic move, or miscalculation, by either Russia or Ukraine is becoming ever more likely, as events last week highlighted only too clearly.
Russia struck a military ammunition depot in western Ukraine, creating a giant fireball. Rumours suggested the site may have included British DU shells.
Whether this is true or not, it is a reminder that Moscow could hit such a storage site, intentionally or not, spreading contamination widely over a built-up area.
With Ukraine soon to be in possession of a full array of offensive weapons, largely courtesy of the UK – not only long-range drones, cruise missiles and tanks but fighter jets – it is not hard to imagine terrifying scenarios that could quickly bring Europe to the brink of nuclear conflict.
Moscow hits a DU ammunition depot, exposing a large civilian population to toxic contamination. Ukraine retaliates with air strikes deep inside Russia. The path to a nuclear exchange in Europe has never looked closer.
Those who warned that peace talks were urgently needed rather than an arms race in Ukraine are looking more prescient by the day. For how much longer can their voices continue to be silenced, not only by western leaders but by the western media too?
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | NATO, UK, Ukraine |
1 Comment
On the 19th of May, the Financial Times quoted the British Minister of Defense, Ben Wallace, stating that the West could face the threat of full-scale war with Russia and China by the end of the decade and proclaimed defence preparation a paramount task for Western countries.
One has to wonder what universe Mr. Wallace and his boss, Rishi Sunak, are living in since Britain is engaged in war with Russia right now, has, with every step, every hostile action, set itself up for a full-scale war, a full-scale catastrophe, which they cannot prevent. Why Britain would go to war with China as well as Russia when China has not threatened it and is oceans away, no one can explain in rational terms. Yet, this is the British rhetoric, the fetishistic parroting of the words of their lord and master, the USA.
Many argue that statements, a war is not happening, that it is something that exits only in the future, are desperate attempts to fool the British people, to lie to them about their government’s intentions and what is coming. Others argue that they are signs that the British government has no sense of reality. But, in the end, one has to conclude that they are both at the same time.
Worse, these statements speak of a government, that seems to think it is untouchable, that the war with Russia will be limited in geographic space to Ukraine, that Britain’s participation in the war against Russia will have no direct consequences for Britain and its people, that Russia will not dare to follow military and political logic and conduct military strikes against Britain. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet the British establishment, dreaming of its past, is unable to accept reality, is leading the British people towards disaster, as the gathering storm of war edges ever closer to their shores.
The deluded thinking in Britain is an extension of the same psychosis that grips all the halls of power in the western world, a psychosis that has its roots in the deeply troubled societies which have developed in the west and whose causes will be the subject of study of future social scientists and historians if there are any. In fact, these governments display observable and classical symptoms of paranoia and delusional disorders, leading to the complete break with reality that constitutes psychosis. This is a very dangerous state of affairs because someone who is delusional, who has no grip on reality, who cannot make distinctions between reality and imagination or wishful thinking, will make decisions and take actions that are dangerous to everyone around them, in this case, Russia, and beyond, the whole world.
Just after Russia began its Special Military Operation, Britain declared its support for Ukraine along with the rest of NATO and announced it would supply it with weapons and munitions to fight Russia. Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, in response, stated that NATO states providing weapons to Ukraine could be hit in strikes.
Ms Zakharova said:
“Do we understand correctly that for the sake of disrupting the logistics of military supplies, Russia can strike military targets on the territory of those NATO countries that supply arms to the Kyiv regime?
“After all, this directly leads to deaths and bloodshed on Ukrainian territory. As far as I understand, Britain is one of those countries.”
The Russian defence ministry, after several attacks inside Russia backed by NATO, has repeatedly said:
“We would like to stress that the direct provoking by London of the Kyiv regime into such activities attacking Russian territory, should there be an attempt to realise them, will immediately lead to our proportional response.”
In April, when the UK announced it was sending depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine, Russia said it would respond and did so, destroying those munitions in Ukraine just after they arrived, and now a radioactive cloud is drifting west towards Europe and the UK. Russian warnings of the danger of this happening were ignored.
On May 11, Ben Wallace announced a further act of aggression against Russia with the decision to send Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine, which have since been used to attack civilian centres in Russia. Again, Russia stated clearly that there would be a military response to this action.
On May 23, during his visit to Laos, Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev issued another warning, on the day Russian security forces destroyed the Ukrainian raiding force that attacked civilians in the Belgorod region, an openly terrorist action backed by the UK and the other NATO states. From Vientiane, he stated,
“The North Atlantic alliance does not take the threat of nuclear war seriously enough, thus making a big mistake. NATO is not serious about this scenario. Otherwise, NATO would not have supplied such dangerous weapons to the Ukrainian regime. Apparently, they think that a nuclear conflict, or a nuclear apocalypse, is never ever possible. NATO is wrong, and at some point events may take a completely unpredictable turn. The responsibility will be placed squarely on the North Atlantic Alliance,”
Medvedev pointed out that no one knows whether the point of no return has been passed,
“No one knows this. This is the main danger. Because as soon as they provide something, they say: let’s supply this, too. Long-range missiles or planes. Everything will be all right. But nothing will be fine. We will be able to cope with it. But only more and more serious types of weapons will be used. That’s what the current trend is.”
But Russia can strike using its conventional weapons as well, against which the UK has no defence whatsoever.
Still, the British attitude towards these warnings is to call on the magic of “legality” as if they can weave a protective cloak around the island with incantations. Yet, everyone knows that to use incantations to ward off danger, the formula used must have mojo or force; otherwise the words have no effect.
In 2022, for example, then Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, hit back, after Russia suggested it could target British military installations over its support for Ukraine, by branding the Kremlin’s claim “unlawful.” Wallace, Sunak, and others have repeated this claim multiple times.
Raab, and the rest, can only be right if Britain had maintained its neutrality in the war between Ukraine and Russia. But, as we know, this is really a war by the USA, Britain and their NATO mafia against Russia and has been all along. Ukraine is the present battlefield. So, for Britain to claim that it has maintained neutrality is an absurdity.
A neutral state violates neutrality by breaching its obligation to remain impartial, to not participate in the conflict. It violates neutrality by supplying warships, aircraft, arms, ammunition, military provisions or other war materials, either directly or indirectly, to a belligerent, by engaging its own military forces, or by supplying military advisors to a party to the armed conflict, by allowing belligerent use of neutral territory as a military base, or for the storage of war material or passage of belligerent troops or munitions in neutral territory, by furnishing troops to a belligerent, or providing or transmitting military intelligence on behalf of a belligerent are also examples of violations of neutrality.
A State’s neutrality ends when the State becomes a party to an armed conflict, or, in other words, a belligerent. A State becomes a belligerent under the law of neutrality by either declaring war; or participating in hostilities to a significant extent, or engages in systematic or substantial violations of its duties of impartiality and non-participation.
Britain meets all the requirements of a co-belligerent, that is, of a party to the war with Russia; it not only supplies munitions and weapon systems to Ukraine with the objective of attacking Russia and Russian forces in Ukraine it has a direct role in directing the war against Russia, including sending military officers and soldiers to advise and operate with the Ukrainian forces, by preventing any peace negotiations – we remember the action of Boris Johnson just as Ukraine and Russia were about to conclude a peace settlement – by the training of Ukrainian soldiers in Britain and transporting them to the front, by supplying the Ukrainian forces with reconnaissance and intelligence data, actively sending aircraft close to the war zone for this purpose, by providing communications systems, by providing financial aid to Ukraine at the same imposing economic warfare measure on Russia, euphemistically termed “sanctions. These conditions apply to all the NATO allies, of course, but Britain’s role is an especially egregious one.
In fact, Britain’s aggression against Russia began much earlier than 2022. Britain, as part of NATO, supported the insurgency in the Caucasus region in the mid-1990s. Britain took part in the aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, part of the strategy to attack Russia, eliminating a potential Russian ally, just as Hitler did in 1941. The Georgian attack on Russian forces in 2008 was also supported by NATO.
All through this period, the UK government and media put out a constant stream of propaganda against Russia, culminating in the wild claims by the British that Russia tried to use novichok nerve poison to kill two Russian citizens, the Skripals, in the UK. That incident had one objective, to prepare the minds of the British people for war with Russia. That no one has seen or heard from the Skripals for several years now, that Britain rejects Russia’s right to meet with them to see if they are all right, is never mentioned in the West. They have disappeared, their fate unknown, two expendable pieces on the chessboard of war.
Lastly, Russia claims, with some evidence to back up their claims, that the UK was involved, with the US and other NATO nations, in the attack on the NordStream Pipeline, an act of war against both Russia and Germany, though the Germans, still occupied by US forces, are required to accept this humiliation and keep quiet.
So British claims that Russia has no legal right to retaliate against it are absurd. Britain, as with all the NATO countries, cannot claim to have a neutral status in the war. It has become in law and in fact a party to the war.
It follows that any action taken by Russia against the UK to force the UK to stop its assistance to Ukraine and end its participation in the war against Russia will be legitimate under international law and justified under the ancient military doctrine that a nation cannot suffer the attack of another without retaliating to stop the attack and making sure that another attack will not follow.
The NATO gang’s claim of acting in “collective self defence,” a phrase Ben Wallace likes to use a lot, so that they can claim to maintain a neutral status, is not a valid or logical one and does not apply. It is clear that the USA and NATO have been planning an attack on Russia for a long time, and the Ukraine war is a part of this attack. The conspiracy to commit aggression has been developed over decades. Part of the preparation for the war was the overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine and the installation in its place of a puppet government that was then used to attack the Donbass and Russia itself. They now openly admit that the Minsk Accords were a ruse to stall Russia while they prepared the Ukrainian forces for war against Russia.
Further, they cannot rely on Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, since that clause can only be invoked if there is an unprovoked Russian attack on a NATO country. But when a NATO country attacks Russia, and here we have them all joining in the attack, it is the aggressor and therefore cannot claim to be are acting in self-defence. It is also important to bear in mind Article I of the NATO Treaty, since it requires NATO to act in conformity with the UN Charter. It states
Article 1
The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
But the NATO nations have done the exact opposite. They have blocked peace at every turn and push Ukraine to keep the war going. Their forces are directly involved. They have even attempted to expand their military bloc by inviting Finland and Sweden to join the war alliance, in order to increase the forces available to them, with one purpose, to prosecute the war against Russia. They now openly state their objective is to destroy Russia. So, the NATO nations are not only active co-belligerents in the war, they are, in fact, the main protagonists of the enemy camp that Russia faces. They are, therefore, all legitimate targets.
But is an attack likely, and what will its nature be, and what will be the consequences? These are questions only the Russian General Staff can know and foresee. We can only speculate. But speculation can be useful, especially for the British people to realise the danger their criminal government is putting them in.
Medvedev warns again of the dangers of nuclear war, but Russia has no need to resort to that to retaliate against Britain. Conventional stand-off weapons will be more effective, and what can the UK do if a strike on military airfields takes place, on port facilities, to stop the shipment of weapons, on army bases where Ukrainian soldiers are trained, on warehouses storing munitions and weapons marked for shipment to Ukraine, or eliminating the UK Trident nuclear submarine force in Scotland, or any number of other targets they could select? They can do nothing.
The National and Defence Strategies Research Group based in the UK stated in a report on Britain’s air defences in 2016, that,
“Since the withdrawal from service of the Bloodhound missile system in the 1980s, the UK’s Air Defence posture has diminished to mainly a homeland benign airspace policing and point defence posture for deployed forces. The UK no longer has a comprehensive, integrated, or robustly layered short to long-range Air Defence capability, nor a credible or enduring operational capacity.”
Nothing has changed since then, except to get worse. In other words, the UK is defenceless against modern Russian stand-off weapons.
I can remember, as a boy, my mother taking me several times on a bus through London. It must have been 1955 or so and I can remember mile upon mile of burnt-out blackened buildings, as far as the eye could see, especially in east London where entire districts were levelled by German bombs. The country, despite its heroic RAF fighter pilots, could not stop the bombing and then missile attacks which went on for five years.
The British government assured the people before that war, that all would be well, that they would have peace in their time. But they lied to the people then, as they are lying to them now. Britain was never the same after that war. It never really recovered from it. Once again, the British government, ever saluting the masters in Washington, leads the British people into a dangerous war, which they were never asked about, and which they do not want. It lies to them about the causes, it lies to them about the fighting, and it lies to them about the dangers they face, placing them in a distant future, and hides from them the consequences of its actions. The British people must be warned. Britain is at war, and no amount of bluffing and lying can protect them from the consequences their government is provoking. They are predictable and they will be catastrophic.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, War Crimes | NATO, UK, United States |
1 Comment
Leaked secret US documents have revealed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been planning to escalate the current confrontation with Moscow by invading Russian villages, targeting Russia beyond the Donbass and the current conflict zone with longe-range missiles and even blowing up the Druzhba pipeline which provides NATO member Hungary with Russian oil, according to the Washington Post. Kiev’s plans for further exacerbating the crisis cross a number of red lines and should be a problem for Washington too, as US President Biden has already made clear to Zelensky that he and his Western allies want neither “to go to war with Russia” nor “a third world war”. However, paradoxically, the US seems to be pushing for precisely such escalation.
The possible scenarios are quite worrisome. In addition to the aforementioned developments, according to the same leaks, Ukraine was also planning to attack Russian forces in Syria, which would mean making the Eastern European conflict spill into the Middle East and thus risk spiraling out of control across Western Asia and subsequently maybe even the Caucasus, too. Some analysts have already pointed out that the Russian-Ukraine confrontation potentially intersects with the South Caucasus, which is already the stage for today’s Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
According to Pulitzer Prize winner American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’ report, countries in the region such as Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic, led by Poland are pressuring Zelensky to find a compromise and end the crisis, even by resigning himself if needed.
The conflict had been transitioning into a protracted phase and the US seems to be encouraging Kiev to intensify its hostilities along the whole front line. However any kind of trench warfare or proxy attrition war is extremely harmful for Ukraine – and would not be such bad news for Russia, who can go on with a minimal offensive strategy further exhausting Ukrainian forces.
A major problem, from an American perspective, is that the Ukrainian political elite and its military leaders seem to be increasingly inclined to ignore the advice and instructions of their Western benefactors. Besides the aforementioned bold plans against Russia, there have been other signs of it: Zelensky refused to withdraw troops from Artemovsk, for example, which resulted in Ukrainian defeat there. Kiev’s political and military elite itself are divided however, and a rising number of voices are reconsidering Zelensky’s ideas about “reconquering Crimea” and openly talking about compromising.
Moreover, in the US itself, according to Hersh’s intelligence sources, “some of the better intelligence about the war does not reach the president” and he “is said to rely on briefings and other materials prepared by Avril Haines, director of National Intelligence”, while CIA Director William Burns “has come around in opposition to some of the White House’s foreign policy follies.” This indicates that there is division within Washington’s “deep state” also over the issue.
Calls for escalation, both in Kiev and in Washington, might also be a sign of desperation. There clearly is no consensus in the United States’ own establishment regarding the matter of aid to Ukraine itself – Republican lawmakers are opposing it also due to the debt ceiling now and former President Donald Trump, who is still a Republican favorite, has promised to end it if re-elected. Corruption scandals abound in both US and Ukraine and recent reports about a $3 billion Ukraine aid “error” are part of the latest one. The truth is that American weapons’s manufacturers as well as Western ones have been profiting from prolonging the conflict while also selling obsolete military equipment. Moreover, Zelensky’s rebellious “stubbornness” can only increase such division within Washington and across the transatlantic alliance, as seems to be already happening in Eastern and Central Europe. All of that creates a very dangerous and unstable situation which is quite unpredictable.
Harvard political scientist Graham Ellison has warned that Western countries are trying to solve their own problems by escalating the Eastern European crisis and should it spiral out of control this could lead to dangerous war between the great powers involved.
The Western air defense systems Kiev is getting are in itself, for a number of reasons, not enough to protect Ukraine’s airspace, as I wrote. Neither are F-16s, for that matter. So far, Washington has been showing itself to be really willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian” (as in the cruel joke which Biden almost paraphrased in a December statement). Further escalation would show a willingness to fight if not literally to “the last European”, at least to something quite near it in terms of the damage to local economies and the migration/refugee crisis. It remains to be seen whether Europe in general and particularly Poland, Hungary and other nations in the region happen to also have a similar inclination – and for how long.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Ukraine, United States |
1 Comment
The stability of oil supplies from Kazakhstan to the global market relies on transit through Russia, the country’s ambassador to the US, Yerzhan Ashikbayev, has stated. He added that any disruption to flows caused by sanctions could trigger a dire scenario.
“We proceed from the mutual interest of all parties, the interest in the stability of the global market, in the stability of supplies. This is vital both for the functioning of our [Kazakh] economy and for the entire global economy,” the envoy told RIA Novosti on Thursday on the sidelines of the Trans-Caspian Forum in Washington.
When asked whether he sees any risk that sanctions could make it difficult or impossible for Kazakhstan to transit oil, the diplomat described it as “some kind of apocalyptic scenario.”
Kazakhstan supplies oil to the global market via one of the world’s largest pipelines, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC).
A multinational project, the CPC involves Russia, Kazakhstan and a consortium of leading oil companies. The pipeline system mainly collects crude from the large oil fields of western Kazakhstan, but also from Russia. Its total capacity is over 1 million barrels of oil per day, which is 2.3% of global seaborne crude trade.
The CPC delivers around 1.2 million barrels of crude oil daily from Kazakhstan to Europe, and for subsequent shipment to the US. The pipeline’s operations were interrupted last year by storm damage to equipment at a Black Sea terminal, with the disruption sparking concerns of a global supply crisis.
According to Ashikbayev, the CPC remains an important project for Kazakhstan, accounting for 80% of the country’s crude oil exports.
Kazakhstan has strengthened its oil and gas ties with Russia despite the threat of secondary sanctions from the US and EU.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | European Union, Kazakhstan, United States |
Leave a comment
By Ahmed Adel | May 26, 2023
On May 22, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the country may be unable to service its debt by June 1 unless Congress raises its ceiling or suspends it. In turn, President Joe Biden ruled out the declaration of default. At the same time, despite all the predictions of doom and gloom, the US could benefit from a default, especially to wreak havoc on the international economy and competitors.
In the US, the amount of public debt is limited by law. Currently, it has reached $31.4 trillion. It is up to the US Congress to raise the national debt ceiling, but this year the issue became a major contention between Republicans and Democrats. The Republican party, with a majority in the House of Representatives, set a condition: it will vote to raise the ceiling if the Democratic government accepts significant cuts in budget spending.
Specifically, the Republicans propose cutting tax credits for the purchase of electric cars and the installation of solar panels, as well as reducing public spending on the repayment of educational loans. For Democrats, if they want to win the 2024 presidential election on their terms, these conditions are unacceptable.
No economic reasons for default prevent raising the public debt ceiling. Still, there are political reasons. The Republican majority in the US House of Representatives want to bring greater accountability to the Biden Administration, which has been making economic decisions without consulting Congress. The Republicans hope to catch the Biden Administration, the Federal Treasury, the State Department, and the Defense Department violating American law.
There is a low chance of default in Washington, but this does not rule it out entirely because a default can be used as a financial weapon capable of unleashing a global economic crisis which will also affect the US’s main competitors. It is much easier and more politically legitimate to default in the context of increasing global military and political tensions. For this reason, it cannot be entirely ruled out that Biden will pursue such a path.
Likewise, the US could use default to influence other countries. Despite the enormous debt figure of $31.4 trillion, the external debt is only $7 trillion. Consequently, some countries —which Washington will want to target economically and geopolitically— may be the victims of this default.
Even so, the main thing for the US is not to let doubts about the sustainability of its economy and debt loom. If a default occurs, it will be more difficult for the US to obtain loans.
For this reason, the probability of default is low because many tools exist to avoid it. Article 14 of the Constitution could be invoked, which states that the US debt cannot be called into question. Also, the Federal Reserve could easily double its balance sheet and buy all foreign debt.
On May 24, the US House of Representatives speaker, Kevin McCarthy, acknowledged that the Republicans and the White House maintain substantial discrepancies on the increase in the public debt limit requested by the Biden administration. The senior official expects to negotiate with the president daily until an agreement is reached.
Even if Republicans and Democrats overcome the impasse, it is recalled that in 2011, the last time the two parties had such fiscal odds, the most severe turmoil happened after a deal was struck, which saw shares fall the most steeply since the 2008 financial crisis. This was also amid worries about the impact of the spending cuts made to get the agreement and the implications of a downgrade in America’s bond rating by one credit rating agency.
Fitch Ratings on May 24 put the US on a negative watch – the first step toward a downgrade in the country’s rating by the major credit ratings firm. The credit agency cited “increased political partisanship” and weak governance compared to other countries that hold its top rating.
“The brinkmanship over the debt ceiling, failure of the US authorities to meaningfully tackle medium-term fiscal challenges that will lead to rising budget deficits and a growing debt burden signal downside risks to US creditworthiness,” the company said.
All this signals that the US is on the economic brink. What is most alarming, though, is that if the US was to default, it might not do so quietly and calmly but instead use an opportunity to bring down the world economy to hurt enemies and partners alike.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
May 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | United States |
Leave a comment
Aletho News 