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US confiscates assets of Russian businessman for ‘rebuilding Ukraine’

Press TV – May 11, 2023

The US Justice Department has announced the first transfer of assets illegally confiscated from a Russian businessman to a fund purportedly intended for “rebuilding Ukraine” amid its persisting efforts to punish entities on good terms with Moscow.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland declared in a statement on Wednesday the first transfer to the Ukraine fund of assets seized from the US accounts of Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev, who Washington has accused of funding pro-Russian forces in Crimea in 2014.

“While this represents the United States’ first transfer of forfeited Russian funds for the rebuilding of Ukraine, it will not be the last,” Garland boasted in what appears as more of a pro-Kiev publicity move.

Last year, the US Justice Department pressed charges against Malofeyev — a Russian banker whose business interests include the pro-Moscow Tsargrad media group, described by American officials as “one of the main sources of financing” Russian interests in eastern Ukraine and Crimea — for violating sanction against Russia.

At that time, Garland further claimed that millions of dollars had been seized “from an account at a US financial institution traceable to Malofeyev’s sanctions violations.”

Moscow has repeatedly warned that the US-led sanctions imposed against Russia as well as the massive transfer of advanced weaponry to Ukraine will further prolong the war and add to the casualties that have reached several hundred thousand since the Ukraine conflict began in February 2022.

Garland’s announcement came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at Western governments for unleashing a “real war” against his country, vowing that the battle with the US and its allies over Ukraine will end in Russia’s victory.

“Today, civilization is again at a decisive turning point. A real war has been unleashed against our homeland,” Putin said in a Tuesday address on Moscow’s Red Square marking the anniversary of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

He also vowed to continue to defend the pro-Russian population in eastern Ukraine and protect Moscow’s interests against Western ambitions.

Putin further slammed “Western global elites”, saying they are “sowing hatred, Russophobia, and aggressive nationalism.”

The development also came after US President Joe Biden called on the nation’s divided Congress to make it easier to transfer confiscated assets of Russian businessmen to Ukraine. In December 2022, Congress passed a law that allowed certain assets seized by the Justice Department to be funneled to Ukraine via the US Department of State.

Among the Russian assets seized by Washington was a fleet of super yachts, including a 106m (348-foot) vessel owned by Suleiman Kerimov valued at over $300m, which had been docked in Fiji.

It is quite unclear, however, how the assets transferred in this case will be used by Ukraine or when they will be available to Kiev. This is one of the issues G7 finance ministers gathering in Japan for a meeting, ahead of the leaders’ summit in Hiroshima later this month, will be discussing.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Washington Wants War with China Served Hot, Not Cold

By Connor Freeman | Libertarian Institute | May 11, 2023

The ruling class in Washington is planning on using America’s sons and daughters as cannon fodder to wage their long-awaited war against China. President Joe Biden along with the other de facto employees of the military industrial complex, including in Congress, have not made their plans a secret. Contrarily, they are quite happy to brag about basically any escalation they can get.

Hawks in the Pentagon, along with those in the administration and legislative branch—including the key leadership—have been speaking explicitly about the coming war with China for a while now, usually boasting about all they are doing to prepare for, as well as provoke, such a conflict.

This all began in earnest during the Barack Obama administration. War with China, despite the Republican Party’s obsession with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the Progressive Democrats’ project led by—among others—the likes of Obama, Biden, Hillary Clinton, Kurt Campbell, Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, and Michelle Flournoy.

In 2011, Obama launched the “pivot to Asia.” The policy has been expanded by each successive administration. Obama’s project for the new American century entails the largest military buildup since the Second World War, shifting hundreds of bases as well as two-thirds of all U.S. Air and Naval forces to the Asia-Pacific region. Washington is encircling China for a future war with Beijing. In the words of Lew Rockwell, “The U.S. seeks to encircle China and make it bow down before the hegemon.”

The new Cold War on China has been heating up for years, but things have taken a turn for the worse under the Biden regime which is significantly more hawkish than both the Obama and Donald Trump administrations.

In January, the top U.S. Marine Corps general in Japan explained to the Financial Times that Washington and Tokyo are “setting the theater,” for war with China. Lt. Gen. James Bierman, commander of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) and of Marine Forces Japan, said Washington is working with its allies in the region to prepare for the coming war with China, much like the U.S. did with its NATO allies following the 2014 U.S. backed coup in Kiev.

“Why have we achieved the level of success we’ve achieved in Ukraine? A big part of that has been because after Russian aggression in 2014 and 2015, we earnestly got after preparing for future conflict: training for the Ukrainians, prepositioning of supplies, identification of sites from which we could operate support, sustain operations,” the general said. He went on to explain this is called “setting the theater. And we are setting the theater in Japan, in the Philippines, in other locations.”

Later the same month, NBC News reported on a memo written by four-star U.S. Air Force General Mike Minihan, the head of Air Mobility Command (AMC), discussing the coming war with China. AMC includes 50,000 airmen and oversees roughly 430 aircraft. “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me [we] will fight in 2025,” Minihan said, ordering his forces to begin preparing for war with Beijing.

In recent weeks and months, the U.S. has worked on deals to gain exclusive military access to the Federated States of Micronesia, secured an agreement with Manilla to gain access to four more military bases in the Philippines, awarded contracts to begin work on a new radar installation in Palau, announced increased cooperation between American and Japanese armed forces for a future confrontation with China, and made plans to deploy additional Marine units armed with anti-ship missiles along the Okinawa islands.

In April, Washington and Manila carried out their largest ever joint military exercises. 17,600 military personnel took part, including 12,000 American troops. The Balikatan exercises saw more than 100 Australian soldiers participate. The increasing pressure on both Russia and China has seen Moscow and Beijing step up their own cooperation in the region.

Later this year, the U.S. and Australia will carry out the “largest-ever” iteration of their Talisman Sabre war drills. This bilateral military exercise takes place every two years. As Antiwar.com News Editor Dave DeCamp has explained,

The plans for the massive exercises come after the US, Australia, and Britain unveiled their plans under the AUKUS military pact with the ultimate goal of Canberra being able to produce nuclear-powered submarines by the 2040s.

The U.S. Navy envisions AUKUS will turn Australia into a full-service submarine hub for the United States and its allies in the region in operations targeted at China. As part of the deepening U.S.-Australian military ties, the United States also plans to deploy more troops and aircraft to Australia, including nuclear-capable B-52 bombers.

The rhetoric of U.S. military leaders may seem unhinged, but it is now all too common. In February, U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth declared that “we” need to be prepared to fight a direct, hot war against China over Taiwan, and win it. “I personally am not of the view that an amphibious invasion of Taiwan is imminent,” she told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute, adding but “we obviously have to prepare, to be prepared to fight and win that war.”

Her plan consists of sending more U.S. troops and advanced weapons to the region, including hypersonic missiles. She also discussed setting up “theater distribution centers” in the region where weapons and other supplies can be pre-positioned for the coming war, suggesting Japan and Australia would make good candidates.

She said “our goal is to have Army forces in the Indo-Pacific seven to eight months out of the year,” when the war starts their job will be establishing “staging bases for the Navy, for the Marines, for the Air Force,” adding they will be providing “intra-theater sustainment.”

Wormuth also discussed what appeared to be a plan for the Army to impose martial law in the United States during the coming war with China. “If we got into a major war with China, the United States homeland would be at risk as well, with both kinetic attacks and non-kinetic attacks. Whether it’s cyberattacks on the power grids, or on pipelines, the United States Army, I have no doubt, will be called to provide defense support to civil authorities.”

In March, General Kenneth Wilsbach, the head of U.S. Pacific Air Forces, told a symposium in Colorado that his focus is on blowing up Chinese ships in the event that Beijing orders a blockade on the island of Taiwan. “You saw when Speaker Pelosi went to Taiwan, what [China] did with their ships,” Wilsbach said, adding, “They put them on the east side of Taiwan… as a sort of blockade.”

The General’s conclusion is “[w]e’ve got to sink the ships.” He continued, “sinking ships is a main objective of not only PACAF [Pacific Air Forces] but really anyone that’s going to be involved in a conflict like this.” In other words, even if the cross-strait conflict which Washington’s build up and closer ties with Taiwan is actively provoking does not immediately go kinetic, General Wilsbach will ensure that it escalates quickly as a result of his attempts to shoot through the Chinese naval blockade.

That same month, Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien said in the event of a cross-strait conflict, the U.S. would bomb and destroy Taiwan’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities. The “United States and its allies are never going to let those factories fall into Chinese hands,” O’Brien threatened during an interview with Semafor.

A similar plan was laid out, as a potential joint operation with Washington and Taipei, in a 2021 paper published by the U.S. Army War College. The paper characterizes obliterating the island’s chip factories as a “scorched earth strategy” designed to leave Taiwan in ruins “not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain.”

The paper continues, explaining this “could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.”

This month, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) told a think tank conference “the U.S. should make it very clear to the Chinese that if you invade Taiwan, we’re going to blow up [the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company],” which produces most of the world’s advanced semiconductors.

Apparently, the Taiwanese military brass did not get the memo. Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng fired back against the Congressma, saying “[i]t is the military’s obligation to defend Taiwan and we will not tolerate any others blowing up our facilities.”

In April, for the first time, the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command defended Taiwan from a mock Chinese invasion as part of CAPEX, the command’s annual capabilities exercise.

Lt. Gen. Jonathan P. Braga declared it was about time, these war drills are “in accordance with our national defense strategy, [China] is our true pacing challenge out there.”

According to Military.com, “[m]embers of the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command fired Carl Gustaf recoilless rifles, breached tunnels and operated Switchblade drones that flew with an unsettling whiz over a training area… The exercise combined some of the hallmark tactics and weapons that were used during the Global War on Terror with other tools reflecting a seismic shift for the command as it prepares for potential conflict against major military rivals… and the mission they were gaming out was an insertion into Taiwan to defend against a Chinese invasion.”

Last fall, Navy Admiral Charles Richard, the head of Strategic Command, which oversees American nuclear forces, ominously warned the “Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup… The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested [in] a long time.” Unmistakably, the “big one” is the coming war with China.

For almost 50 years, the One-China policy has governed the now extremely fragile relationship between Washington and Beijing. Thirty years after Mao’s forces won the civil war, Washington accepted reality and made an agreement which has kept the peace and prevented war. Under the policy, the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Taipei and recognized that there is but one China, with Beijing as the sole Chinese government.

One-China means the U.S. does not have an official relationship with Taipei, with Washington recognizing China and Taiwan as the same country. The U.S. also maintains “strategic ambiguity” towards Taiwan or at least it did until the Joe Biden administration unilaterally overturned that part of the delicate policy.

Per the former approach, the U.S. would never commit to defending or not defending the island against a potential attack against the breakaway province. Critically, “strategic ambiguity” has aimed to deter Beijing from attempting to retake the island by force and, at the same time, to discourage Taiwan’s radical factions seeking to declare Taiwan’s independence.

But for the bipartisan China hawks, that successful arrangement is no longer good enough. Worst of all, some are proposing, and in some cases outright issuing, defense commitments in contradiction of the longstanding U.S. policy.

Since Biden came into office, he has continued to make “gaffes” announcing the U.S. is doing away with “strategic ambiguity” and even potentially the One-China policy. Biden has seemingly committed Americans to Taiwan’s defense multiple times. But now it appears that these notorious mistakes which were often walked back by the White House, were not “gaffes” at all.

In March, speaking before a House Intelligence Committee hearing, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines announced that “strategic ambiguity” was dead and gone. When asked by Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) if the policy needed to be changed, Haines responded by announcing “I think it is clear to the Chinese what our position is, based on the president’s comments.”

Indeed, Washington constantly ramps up U.S. military cooperation with Taipei, committing billions of dollars in military aid to Taiwan, expanding U.S. National Guard training programs with the Taiwanese military, sending ever more Congressional delegations to the island, deploying ever higher numbers of U.S. troops to the island, concurrently training hundreds of Taiwanese soldiers for war on U.S. soil,  converting Taiwan into a “giant weapons depot,” and sailing American warships through the sensitive Taiwan strait almost every month.

The U.S. government absurdly promises these provocations are done to “deter” war, but China has made clear that Taiwan is a “red line” and Washington’s actions make war more likely. Beijing has repeatedly said that they are seeking a “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan but they have not ruled out using force.

Even Haines appeared to admit this when, at the same hearing, she admitted “it’s not our assessment that China wants to go to war.” Bellicose members of Congress are foaming at the mouth for a confrontation with China nonetheless.

In April, during an interview on Fox News Sunday, Republican senator and neoconservative spokesman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called for an outright reversal of “strategic ambiguity,” as well as a complete overhaul of Washington’s China policy. As the Libertarian Institute’s Kyle Anzalone reported,

Graham claimed the United States had only a short window of time to prepare for the coming conflict, calling to “increase training and get the F-16s they need in Taiwan,” He also complained about a “backlog“ of arms sales to the island, arguing the transfers should move ahead while proposing new US military deployments in Asia and elsewhere.

“I would move war forces to South Korea and Japan. I would put nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on all of our submarines all over the world,” Graham continued.

He additionally explained he was willing to send US troops to fight for Taipei, a dramatic departure from longstanding policy, saying “Yes, I’d be very much open to using US forces to defend Taiwan.”

The ultra-hawkish Republican Chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), further declared that sending U.S. troops to fight China over the island of Taiwan is “on the table.” McCaul clarified his position that if “communist China invaded Taiwan, it would certainly be on the table and [that’s] something that would be discussed by Congress and with the American people.”

How gracious of our ostensible representatives! After more than 70 years of illegal, undeclared wars and millions killed, some are willing to concede perhaps before going to war with another nuclear superpower, it may warrant at least a discussion with the American people.

To date, we—the people—have not been consulted regarding any of these horrendous and reckless policies. The hyper-drive propaganda against China is already designedly overwhelming our neighbors’ psyches. Given the current anti-Russia hysteria among the populace, with minimal domestic resistance, the White House has been able to ratchet tensions with Moscow—via its proxy war in Ukraine—to levels not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact, it’s even worse, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says the risk of nuclear war has never been higher.

There is no telling what Americans may be frightened into consenting to if a cross-strait conflict kicks off, or if there is an accident or confrontation between U.S. and Chinese forces in the South China Sea. Not too long ago, some were almost calling for war with China over a weather balloon.

As is the case with Russia, the U.S. launching a direct war with Beijing is essentially guaranteed to lead to a nuclear exchange. In such a scenario, China has the ability to destroy continental American cities, not just the aircraft carrier strike groups and the hundreds of U.S. military bases encircling China.

This should go without saying, if the hawks were honest about the risks of the war with China they are proposing, and indeed cultivating, the American people would refuse to allow a continuation of the buildup at all.

It is not inconceivable that, under the circumstances, an informed American populace may collectively decide they no longer wish to be ruled by notoriously venal people in Washington irrevocably caught up in the insane, outmoded, long discredited, and arms industry funded neoconservative ideology of unipolar, global hegemony.

And yes, that is what this coming war with China is about: world domination by Washington. The same Democrats and Republicans whose hands are still covered in blood from Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan now want to go to war with China.

But just like the other wars you’ve likely lived through, it’s not our war—it’s their war—even if the American people are fighting it.

We must stop this madness.

Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on Conflicts of Interest. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pakistan’s top court orders release of ex-PM khan, declares his arrest ‘invalid’

Press TV – May 11, 2023

Pakistan’s top court has ordered the anti-graft agency to release former Prime Minister Imran Khan from its custody amid violent and widespread protests sparked by his detention.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Imran Khan’s arrest earlier this week, which sparked deadly protests across the South Asian country, was “illegal and invalid”.

“Your arrest was invalid so the whole process needs to be backtracked,” Pakistan’s Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial told Khan, who has been in custody since Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, the court directed the the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to present the former premier before the court.

Subsequently, Khan was presented in court amid tight security about 5:45 pm local time. The top court’s order on Thursday came after Khan’s legal team challenged his arrest by the NAB on Tuesday.

The shock arrest has triggered violent protests across the country, prompting the government to call out the army to help restore order.

Tensions remained high on Thursday with paramilitary troops and police on the streets in big cities.

Supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party have attacked military establishments and set other state buildings and assets ablaze.

A total of nearly 2,500 people have been arrested so far and at least 11 killed and dozens injured. Authorities have also arrested at least three senior leaders of PTI party as of Thursday.

Footage shared by an Islamabad police official showed military vehicles with mounted guns lined up on the side of a road and soldiers holding assault rifles.

Mobile data services remained suspended and schools and offices were closed in two of Pakistan’s four provinces. Social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram have been blocked.

More than 100 police cases have been registered against Khan by the government since his removal from power in April 2022 after he lost a confidence vote in parliament.

Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi, who is also a senior PTI leader, said he was “alarmed, shocked and deeply disturbed” over the situation in the country.

After his ouster in April last year, Khan accused an unnamed “foreign power” — in a clear reference to the United States — of funding a “conspiracy” to topple his democratically elected government.

Khan insisted that the “foreign power” sent millions of dollars to opposition parties to launch a no-confidence vote against him in the parliament.

The former prime minister has declared he fears for his life if detained, and that authorities want him jailed to prevent him from contesting an election.

Last year, Khan was shot in the leg during a political rally. Previous attempts to arrest Khan from his home in Lahore saw clashes between his supporters and security forces.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Vice President of Imran Khan’s Opposition Party Arrested in Pakistan

Sputnik – 10.05.2023

Fawad Chaudhry, the vice president of the opposition Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in Pakistan, has been arrested from outside the Supreme Court premises, Pakistani media reported on Wednesday.

Chaudhry was arrested late Wednesday night after he came out of the apex court premises after having spent over 12 hours inside the Supreme Court in a bid to evade the arrest, media reported.

It was earlier reported that Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the vice chairman of the PTI, and PTI Secretary-General Asad Umar were also arrested in Pakistan.

The Pakistani authorities said Monday that former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had been taken into custody following a hearing of the Islamabad High Court in the Al-Qadir Trust case.

PTI called on citizens of Pakistan to gather for mass protests, demanding Khan’s release.

On Tuesday, Pakistan’s authorities said Khan was facing an inquiry by the National Accountability Bureau in the Al-Qadir Trust case, related to a settlement between the PTI government and a property tycoon, which reportedly caused a loss of 50 billion Pakistani rupees ($17.6 million) to the national exchequer.

The actions spurred mass protests across the country, with activists setting police vehicles on fire and damaging government property and the police using tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | | Leave a comment

NATO’s Planned Liaison Office In Japan Will Accelerate The Expansion Of AUKUS+

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 11, 2023

“The US Is Rounding Up Allies Ahead Of A Possible War With China”, which the former plans to fight via the emerging alliance system that can be described as AUKUS+ if it unfolds. This refers to that regional group’s function as the core of a larger anti-Chinese network that informally includes Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea. NATO will also obviously play a role too, with that bloc building upon its Secretary-General’s related statement of intent by opening a liaison office in Japan.

Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told CNN that this development is supposedly due to the Ukrainian Conflict making the entire world less stable, but the reality is that this is part of a preplanned move to more effectively coordinate the containment of China. It would have happened on a different pretext had that aforementioned conflict’s latest phase not broken out last year, but that event provided a convenient excuse for speeding up their plans and disguising them as anti-Russian instead.

NATO’s liaison office in Japan will serve as that alliance’s first official outpost in the Asia-Pacific, thus enabling it to more directly organize AUKUS+’s expansion. Assembling that regional dimension of this emerging system is important in and of itself, but the European one is indispensable for maximally pressuring China. It’s therefore expected that more countries from the continent will soon dispatch vessels to the region as part of the joint operations that the liaison office will organize.

This is precisely what EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had in mind when suggesting late last month that member states should patrol the Taiwan Strait. Since practically every EU member is also part of NATO, this de facto amounts to that alliance doing this, which is dangerous due to the risk of this provoking an incident with China that could prompt the implementation of Article 5. That’s probably the point though, namely to create a crisis that can justify the further acceleration of AUKUS+’s expansion.

Nothing good is therefore expected to come from the opening of NATO’s planned liaison office in Japan. This development will only destabilize the Asia-Pacific, put additional pressure on China, and thus take the chance that whatever incident transpires as a result is incapable of being contained. It’s an irresponsible risk, but NATO has convinced itself that it’s worth taking in order to speed up its regional hegemonic plans.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Who is behind Canada’s state-level Sinophobia?

By Timur Fomenko | RT | May 11, 2023

On Tuesday, China and Canada engaged in a tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats. The row was triggered by allegations that Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei had“interfered” in Canadian politics, apparently targeting anti-China Conservative MP Michael Chong.

The claims created a media firestorm in Ottawa after the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service (CSIS) reportedly accused “an accredited Chinese diplomat” of targeting Chong. Justin Trudeau’s government, under political pressure from the opposition, subsequently decided to act.

This row isn’t the first to derail relations between China and Canada. It’s one of many, including Ottawa’s decision to arrest Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018, China’s retaliatory arrest of Canadian nationals Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, Ottawa’s sporadic allegations of Chinese interference, and then Xi Jinping’s harsh rebuke of Trudeau on the sidelines of the G20 summit last November. It’s fair to say that relations between the two countries are in a state of freefall. But the question might be asked, who is the real culprit here? Or more to the point, who governs Canada?

Allegations of foreign interference are a funny thing, because they tend to only be used against countries who represent an ideological or cultural “other.” They never focus on certain “allied” countries that actually do interfere in the nation’s politics, controlling its media and political discourse, while using think tanks, often sponsored by military and government bodies, and to deliberately cause controversies in Canada in order to steer the country in a certain direction. It seems, for example, very fishy that in the midst of this whole saga, the US-sponsored Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank published an article calling for Canada to join AUKUS, the Australia, UK, US Pacific military alliance.

If it was not obvious enough already, no country has interfered in Canadian politics more than the United States. Although Canada appears more “progressive” and “forward-thinking” than its southern neighbor in many respects, the reality is that Ottawa is a loyal and obligated follower of the US and steadfast in its commitment to Anglophone exceptionalism. Although Canada is geographically larger than the US, its population is about 10% the size and as such, it is strategically, economically, culturally, and geographically dominated by Washington, giving it very little leverage in its foreign policy direction.

Arguably, out of all the Five Eyes nations (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), these realities mean Canada has the least political autonomy and space to pursue its own foreign policy path. While under Trudeau the country is not as openly aggressive as it might have been under its conservative prime ministers, the US has been deftly manipulating Canadian politics by either driving through “wedge issues” such as arresting Meng, or using economic leverage to coerce Canada into making anti-China commitments. The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) and its “poison pill” clause, which allows the US to terminate the entire agreement if Canada enters into a free-trade agreement with a “non-market” economy (i.e. China), is an excellent example.

Likewise, through the Five Eyes mechanism, the US exerts direct influence over Canada’s intelligence service, the CSIS, which in turn, then cooperates with and manipulates the Canadian mainstream media through newspapers such as the Globe and Mail. This has long been revealed in detail by Canadian investigative website The Canada Files. With Canada having a higher percentage of ethnic Chinese residents than any other Anglosphere country, amounting to nearly 5% of the population, this has been weaponized into a wholesale “yellow peril” narrative. While Canada is seemingly more progressive, one should note that beneath the surface, the foundation of the country and its heritage is built on racism. The liberal image of Trudeau’s government, for one, is easily overshadowed by the dark legacy of indigenous boarding schools, wherein thousands died at the hands of authorities in what is considered genocide by many.

Yet, despite this heritage, Canadian politicians regularly point fingers at China, accusing it of genocide of Uyghurs, especially figures such as Chong, who sponsored a 2021 motion to that end. This demonstrates the problem the country faces. Who really governs Canada, and which country is actually interfering in its politics? The fact that Ottawa is repeatedly roped into supporting Washington’s preferences, policies, and worldviews is not so much an alliance bound by common values as it is full-scale manipulation of the country’s politics. The US baits Canada into making abrasive and rash moves which provoke China, only for Beijing to respond, and then for Ottawa to frame itself as the victim. But is this narrative really true? Canadians ought to think about who the real culprit is here.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

America faces major hurdles trying to form ‘Asia-Pacific NATO’

By Drago Bosnic | May 11, 2023

While serving as the UK Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss pompously announced that so-called “Global NATO” was in the making, while also calling for the United Nations to be reformed to the political West’s liking (although quite the opposite is sorely needed). However, the ever-belligerent power pole seems to be having trouble forming even the “Asia-Pacific NATO”, let alone a global organization that would gather virtually all of Washington DC’s vassals and satellite states. The main issue seems to be stemming from the unresolved historical disputes of the Second World War and the way it affected the Asia-Pacific region.

It should be noted that attempts to create a NATO equivalent in the region are hardly new. The United States has been trying to accomplish this for decades during the (First) Cold War. However, the deals would usually fall apart faster than it took them to be signed by all parties involved. Such disunity greatly contributed to the humiliating defeat of US aggression in Vietnam/Indochina half a century ago. Nowadays, similar disunity is once again emerging among America’s East Asian satellite states, specifically between South Korea and Japan. The US insists that the two countries should set their differences aside and go for a historical push that would lead to complete reconciliation.

However, numerous Japanese war crimes during WWII (as well as in the decades prior) are deeply ingrained in the minds of the Korean people, on both sides of the 38th parallel. In fact, it’s one of the few things both Seoul and Pyongyang actually agree on, albeit tacitly. A recent South Korean court case was supposed to resolve the issue of several major Japanese companies using forced labor in Korea during WWII, but Tokyo was still left unscathed by the process, which angered many Koreans. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol dubbed the court decision “a step towards trilateral cooperation to defend freedom, peace and prosperity not only in our two countries, but also around the world”.

The “trilateral cooperation” he was referring to is between the US, Japan and South Korea. However, only a third of South Korean citizens support the deal, as they consider it didn’t truly address Japanese war crimes. Worse yet, this isn’t the first time such deals have fallen through. In 2015, a similar arrangement regarding the so-called “comfort women battalions”, another Japanese war crime that went largely unpunished, collapsed shortly after it was announced, as the vast majority of South Koreans rejected the deal. On the other hand, Japan considers this to be a “case closed”, further antagonizing the (rightfully) angered Korean people who suffered tremendously during decades of Japanese occupation.

To add insult to injury, South Korea is doing all this so it could firmly join an explicitly anti-Chinese coalition (and also implicitly anti-Russian), becoming the first country in the line to get quite literally obliterated in a possible superpower confrontation, as if the US inability to deal with North Korea wasn’t enough already. And while Seoul might feel “motivated” by incessant US pressure, the people of South Korea are wholly unmoved. They see China as an important trade partner, as well as a virtually endless market for South Korean pop culture. Thus, they have no interest in an open confrontation (or any other kind) with their giant neighbor. On the contrary, they prefer the current status quo.

The US is worried this could greatly weaken their ability to form a wider and more compliant anti-Chinese coalition. For years, Washington DC has been trying to enlist Beijing’s neighbors in a “freedom and democracy alliance”, the bulk of which would be composed of Japanese and South Korean forces. Precisely this is the reason why Tokyo started a massive rearmament program last year, while Seoul engaged its fast-growing domestic military-industrial complex to arm several key US vassals around the world (particularly Poland). However, the question remains, how ready this anti-Chinese/anti-Russian coalition would be to deal with powers that make North Korea’s nuclear program look like a footnote?

America’s usual warmongering doesn’t only bring instability to the region that enjoyed decades of relative peace, prosperity and economic cooperation, but it also risks leading to the complete fracturing of US-imposed alliances, which itself could backfire and cause Washington DC to lose influence in the region. Naturally, this would be fantastic for the advancement of actual peace, but it makes America’s foreign policy framework look completely self-defeating and even suicidal. Similar efforts have already led to such results, with the Quad (Japan, UK, US, India) effectively dead as New Delhi has outright rejected anti-Russian rhetoric. The only exception to this is the AUKUS (Australia, UK and US), but even this alliance has created issues with other US partners.

Apart from being virtually redundant, as the so-called Five Eyes (UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) covers its functions, AUKUS created a lot of controversies after Australia backed out of the extremely lucrative submarine deal with France and opted for an arrangement with its Anglo-American overlords. This didn’t only make Canberra look like an outright satellite state, but also made Paris deeply frustrated, which might have contributed to its (for now only apparent) tilt towards Beijing, the very superpower AUKUS is aimed against. Such dictatorial US moves are creating multilayered problems in other geopolitical theaters as America is effectively forcing others to prioritize its national interests over their own.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pfizer trial data showed danger for babies but health czars recommended jabs to pregnant women anyway

By Guy Hatchard | TCW Defending Freedom | May 11, 2023

A PREPRINT paper published this month highlights just how many unknowns we are dealing with when it comes to assessing the long-term outcomes of mRNA vaccination. It shows that IgG4 antibodies are present in umbilical cord blood of infants born to vaccinated mothers, meaning a theoretical risk to newborns of an ineffective response to Covid infection.

But was this really unknown to those recommending that mRNA vaccination was safe for pregnant women? Documents released by Pfizer under court order reveal that Pfizer and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were well aware of clinical trial results indicating appalling outcomes for babies of pregnant women.

Watch this 20-minute video where dozens of so-called experts in New Zealand are recorded telling us that the mRNA Covid vaccines are completely safe for pregnant women in direct contradiction of Pfizer trial results available in April 2021. These results indicated an unfolding disaster for babies including miscarriage, premature birth, cardiac arrest, toxic breast milk and spike protein crossing the placenta.

In the video, their comments are juxtaposed with scientists exposing the highly disturbing content of the Pfizer trials of pregnancy outcomes.

Was the NZ government aware of this information? Certainly the contractual arrangements that our government had made with Pfizer would have required Pfizer to fully inform the Ministry of Health of all the results of vaccine trials. But the MoH has completely ignored the information which has become public knowledge. Since the start of this month they are again encouraging pregnant and breastfeeding mothers from 16 and up to get a further booster shot. Why? Especially considering the increased incidence of miscarriages and stillbirths since the NZ vaccine rollout began.

I can’t imagine at this time a more important video to watch than this 20-minute film of our experts lining up to misinform prospective mothers of safety. Were they misled by Pfizer, by the MoH, by politicians, by the FDA, or by all of the above? Or did they just decide to promote a safety rating without any evidence to back up their statements? We may never know, but the lesson of this video is clear: we will not be able to trust the medical czars again.

Bitchute

May 11, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Covid jabs the big picture: Part 1

Overview of evidence prior to rollout

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | May 10, 2023 

HART have been asked to submit evidence to module 3 of the Covid-19 Public Inquiry. That module is about the impacts on healthcare but we were specifically asked to include evidence around deaths in males aged 15-18 years of age and so provided an overview of the full impact these novel products have had on the healthcare system. What follows are some of the highlights. There will be three parts to this series. Here the evidence on what was known before rollout will be presented. Part two covers the evidence after rollout (excluding deaths) and part three the evidence on deaths.

It is worth remembering how cautious people were about any novel products that might claim to prevent covid. In February 2020, Chris Whitty said,

“The rate limiting steps are late clinical trials for safety & efficacy, & then manufacturing. For a disease with a low (for the sake of argument 1%) mortality a vaccine has to be very safe so the safety studies can’t be shortcut. So important for the long run.”

He was right.

The belief that vaccines were safe had led to a circular belief that vaccines required fewer safety checks than other novel therapies. Novel vaccines take a decade or more to go through safety checks. Flu vaccines don’t. These novel drugs were treated like flu vaccines for regulatory purposes.

The regulators failed us in numerous ways as set out in The Perseus Report.  Examples include:

  1. Companies were allowed to skip testing for gene and cancer toxicity and even studies showing how much spike is produced, for how long and where in the body it reaches. Pfizer said these studies were “not considered necessary.” Even while their trial info sheet said “Due to the urgent need for a vaccine against Covid-19, with agreement from the MHRA, some of the tests usually required for a newly manufactured vaccine have been modified, in order to make the vaccine available more quickly for assessment.”
  2. They did not demand these studies were done after rushed emergency approvals either. No human studies were carried out to see what happened to the synthetic modified RNA – no-one knows how long it takes to be removed from the body. There is evidence that in some it lasts between at least 28 days and 4 months in the blood.
  3. The regulators let the pharma companies get away with terminating the placebo arm of the study after ~3months by offering them all the novel products.This was despite us knowing that narcolepsy caused by Pandemrix vaccine took on average of 8 months to be diagnosed.
  4. The lipid nanoparticles that deliver the modified synthetic mRNA are themselves toxic. This mechanism of delivery was shelved in 2016 for gene therapy to treat inherited genetic conditions because of the multiple doses needed. It was claimed it could still be used in vaccine technology because that only requires one dose…
  5. The viral vector used for delivering the AstraZeneca DNA message was reported in 2007 to cause platelet activation, which can lead to blood clots.
  6. There were many more points made including failings in investigating deaths, failing to listen to patients, problems with manufacturing processes and problems with accountability and governance all of which are in the report.

Since 2005 there have been concerns about the regulator losing “sight of the need to protect and promote public health.” The CEO of the MHRA, Dame June Raine, claims the MHRA is now an “enabler” not a “watchdog.” Even before there was political capture there were pre-existing conflicts of interest.

The spike protein is the most toxic part of the virus. It damages lungs, vessel walls and causes clots. Part of the sequence is identical to a region of a bacterial sequence that can bind directly to a particular type of white blood cells resulting in lethal cytokine storms. This part of the sequence was heavily mutated in the Omicron variant making it less lethal. However, even the most recent injections contained the original Chinese spike sequence with this dangerous sequence.

The manufacturers decided to use the WHOLE chinese spike sequence rather than parts of it, or peptides, which have been shown to be safer for vaccine design. Some manufacturers modified the spike so that it could not bind to the receptor and enter a cell. This might have reduced some harm from receptor binding but not from the action of spike within cells. The spike was delivered into cells so spike was produced INSIDE the cells in the first place. AstraZeneca did not modify the sequence. From November 2020 it was clear that parts of AZ spike could be shed outside of cells.

The Pfizer and Moderna clinical trial data shows a higher rate of serious adverse reactions from the treatment group (12.5 per 10,000) than any reduction in serious events from covid (2.3 and 6.4 per 10,000 for Pfizer and Moderna respectively). Yet the claim of 90%+ efficacy was all that was reported and all that Dame June Raine claimed she needed to see in order to approve the drugs.

AZ issued a press release claiming 100% efficacy against hospitalisation and death after only two severe covid hospitalisations and one death in the placebo arm. This claim was repeated widely and was believed.

At the time, the priority was to protect the old and vulnerable who accounted for 98% of covid deaths. There were going to be 15 million jabs to freedom:

The evidence presented is damning. The failures of the regulators to adequately test the safety and efficacy of these novel vaccines are shocking. The circular belief that vaccines required fewer safety checks than other novel therapies is a dangerous assumption that has put the lives of millions at risk. The fact that serious adverse reactions were higher in the treatment group than any reduction in serious events from covid is deeply concerning. We must demand accountability from the regulators and demand that the safety and wellbeing of the public is always the top priority, not profit or political gain. There was total regulatory failure in allowing these products to be given to anyone, which was compounded by not withdrawing them promptly once evidence these issues were clinically relevant became clear.

May 10, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Andrew Bridgen MP Joins Reclaim Party and Announces He is Suing Matt Hancock for Defamation

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | MAY 10, 2023

Ex-Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, who was expelled from the party for criticising the Covid vaccines, has announced he’s joining Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party, making him its first member of Parliament. At a press conference today Bridgen said he would be standing at his North West Leicestershire constituency at the next General Election. He also confirmed he would be suing Matt Hancock MP for defamation over an allegation of antisemitism.

At the press conference this morning Bridgen confirmed he has decided not to appeal his expulsion and blasted the Conservative Party. He said:

Even if I were to be given a fair hearing, which I doubt, I would not wish to rejoin the party after the treatment received by myself and my family over the past few years.

I feel now that the party no longer represents the people of this great country. If I am to represent my constituents and countrymen it must be from outside the party which I have served dutifully for many decades.

I will be standing again in North West Leicestershire at the next election. Not as a Conservative, but as a Member of the Reclaim Party. More than anything, the Reclaim Party stands for freedom of speech.

I will cross the floor today, Wednesday May 10th, and sit on the opposition benches as the first Member of Parliament for the Reclaim Party. I say first because I have no doubt I will not be the last. This is just the beginning.

If the Conservative Party wishes to contest my seat it can do so at the next General Election.

I have more confidence that I will win my seat than the vast majority of sitting Conservative MPs, so I welcome the challenge should the Prime Minister and Parliamentary Party wish to take it.

Bridgen was accused of antisemitism for agreeing in a tweet with an anonymous heart doctor he quoted that the Covid vaccine rollout was “the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”.

He has denied the allegation – which we at the Daily Sceptic agree is spurious and an example of a weaponised antisemitism allegation to achieve political ends. This morning Bridgen confirmed that he will be suing ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock for defamation after the Conservative MP tweeted in January that he was spouting “antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories”.

In a YouTube video Bridgen said he has submitted a “defamation claim to the Royal Court of Justice against Matthew Hancock MP”. The basis of the claim is that Hancock’s accusation of antisemitism is “a false slur to deliberately try and shut down valid concerns raised by me on behalf of constituents and thousands of others around the world about the safety and efficacy of the experimental COVID-19 injections”.

Matt Hancock in the dock: that’s a court case to look forward to.

You can donate to Andrew Bridgen’s legal fund here.

May 10, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

‘Absolutely Reckless’: NIH Allows EcoHealth Alliance to Resume Coronavirus Research

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 10, 2023

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) this week reinstated a controversial federal grant to EcoHealth Alliance to study the risk of bat coronavirus spillover.

EcoHealth is a New York-based nonprofit whose stated mission is to develop “science-based solutions to prevent pandemics and promote conservation.”

In 2014, EcoHealth received $3.7 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to study the risk of bat coronavirus emergence and the potential for outbreaks in human populations — research that included genetically manipulating coronaviruses to make them more infectious to humans.

At the time, Dr. Anthony Fauci was the director of the NIAID, which operates under the NIH.

Nearly $600,000 of the $3.7 million went to EcoHealth’s collaborator, the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

However, in April 2020, under the Trump administration, the NIH terminated EcoHealth’s grant over concerns the organization had violated the grant terms, using U.S. taxpayer money to fund gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.

EcoHealth on Monday announced that the NIH reinstated the grant, but with new terms, and that EcoHealth will collaborate with the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School to study zoonotic coronaviruses “with the aim of being transparent about the study’s goals.”

Peter Daszak, Ph.D. — who secretly collaborated with Ralph Baric, Ph.D., and Fauci to steer the media and scientific community away from questions about whether COVID-19 could have originated in a lab — is EcoHealth’s executive director and principal investigator on the grant.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee that found multiple serious violations by EcoHealth of the contractual terms and conditions of the 2014 NIH grant, said the decision to reinstate the grant was “absolutely reckless,” given the organization’s “negligence and breach of their contract with the NIH on the coronavirus research done at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).”

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., bioweapons expert and professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender he wasn’t surprised to see the grant reinstated.

“People involved in this, like EcoHealth Alliance, Fauci, the Biden administration, et cetera, know they have crossed the Rubicon and there is no turning back. And they don’t intend to turn back unless and until we stop them. It’s as simple as that,” he added.

Boyle, who authored the Biological Weapons Convention known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was approved unanimously by both houses of the U.S. Congress and signed to law by President George Bush Sr., also added:

“Clearly, all this gain-of-function work is offensive biological warfare weapons work in violation of the convention and my biological weapons anti-terrorism act, the penalty for which is life imprisonment.”

In January, the Office of Inspector General in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report outlining missed deadlines, confusing protocols and misspent funds in EcoHealth Alliance’s grant management, particularly as it related to the Wuhan lab.

In response, HHS set new terms for the four-year, now-$2.9 million NIAID grant, under which EcoHealth will receive $576,290 this year.

Under the new terms, EcoHealth is barred from conducting any research in China or collecting any new samples from vertebrates and must implement additional oversight of its finances and accounting practices.

The conditions also prevent EcoHealth from doing any work “involving enhanced potential pandemic pathogens,” although the organization can continue to work with “highly pathogenic agents” or “infectious agent[s] or toxin[s]” that may warrant a biocontainment safety level (BSL) of 3 or higher. The Wuhan lab was a BSL-4 lab.

EcoHealth is the recipient of 17 active U.S. government grants totaling more than $50 million, The Epoch Times reported.

Publications like Nature and Science celebrated the reinstatement of the grant. Nature said the research was “essential for preventing the next pandemic.”

Science wrote that the Trump administration called for the cancellation of the grant, “amid unsupported allegations that a lab leak at WIV started the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The origins of the COVID-19 virus continue to be debated, but evidence has emerged over the past several years that the “lab-leak theory” is a plausible hypothesis despite attempts to dismiss it.

Several U.S. agencies, former agency officials and independent scientists have concluded that a Wuhan lab leak most likely caused the COVID-19 pandemic. A U.S. Department of Energy report released in February and a Senate report released in April both arrived at the conclusion that COVID-19 likely stemmed from a lab leak.

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 10, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

NBC Host Worries No One Will Be Able to “Police” What Tucker Carlson Says if He Moves Show to Twitter

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | May 10, 2023

NBC host Tom Costello is worried that no one will be able to “police” what Tucker Carlson says if he moves his show to Twitter.

Oh no, the absolute horror.

The former Fox News host posted a video to Twitter yesterday announcing that he would move his content to the platform owned by Elon Musk.

“There aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world is Twitter,” said Carlson, adding, “You can’t have a free society if people aren’t allowed to say what they think is true.”

The legacy media reacted by panicking that Carlson will go uncensored.

NBC host Costello accused Twitter of peddling “misinformation, disinformation, all out lies” (information that doesn’t fortify regime narratives) before expressing his real fear.

“Will anybody be able to police what Carlson says, or is this the point, it’s just a free for all?” he asked former CNN host Brian Stelter.

Stelter responded by claiming that Tucker’s increased presence on Twitter will cement the platform as a “right-wing website.”

Because God forbid someone be allowed to speak freely without having their activity ‘policed’ by censors – we can’t have that!

Yesterday, CNN faced ridicule for describing Carlson, who at his peak enjoyed a viewership of over 5 million people, as a “right wing extremist.”

Carlson moving full time to Twitter might be a way to circumvent the fact that Fox is trying to keep him locked in a contract until 2025, preventing him from being signed up by other broadcasters and freezing him out of the 2024 election.

Elon Musk responded to the announcement by clarifying that Twitter and Carlson have not signed “a deal of any kind whatsoever,” and that the former Fox host will be supported by user subscriptions and advertising revenue.

May 10, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

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