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Eris vaccine marketing hits Germany, complete with panic about a nonexistent August “Covid wave”

eugyppius: a plague chronicle | August 20, 2023

We will not be free of the virus until we are free of the vaccinators.

The leftist taz newspaper on 17 August: New German Wave: The new Covid variant Eris has arrived in Germany. Concerns about a new wave are growing – but the country is not well prepared.

The pandemic is over, but the virus is still dangerous: Reports of the new variant EG.5.1. seem to confirm this analysis. EG.5.1. (Eris) has been considered a “variant of interest” since 9 August. According to the WHO, the phenotype does not differ fundamentally from other Omicron lineages and does not require special public health measures …

With the announced end of the pandemic, virtually all mandated protective measures have been lifted in Germany. The most important instrument in the fight against Covid-19 is thus the immunisation of the population through infection or vaccination.

Das Erste, state media, on 19 August: Covid Variant “Eris”: How Dangerous is the New Mutation EG.5?

The World Health Organisation WHO has upgraded the new Covid mutationEG.5. This variant, called “Eris,” now belongs to the “variants of interest.” …

As WHO Covid expert Maria Van Kerkhove explained in Geneva on Wednesday, more severe outcomes have not been observed with Eris, but vaccination confers less protection than with other virus variants. …

Even though the new variant is unlikely to cause severe disease, the [German vaccine regulatory authority] STIKO still recommends getting vaccinated – above all to avoid possible long-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection and to protect employees in medical and nursing care.

n-tv, a subsidiary broadcaster of RTL, on 18 August: The Number of Coivd-19-Cases Continues to Rise.

The pharmaceutical company Moderna has announced that its updated Covid vaccine according to an initial study is effective against the Eris sub-variant. The company now expects to launch the new vaccine in time for the autumn vaccination season. Approval from vaccine regulators however is still pending.

Moderna, like vaccine manufacturers Novavax and Pfizer, has developed versions of its vaccines with Biontech SE that target Eris subvariants. Shortly before, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer had reported that its revised vaccine had been effective against Eris in a study with mice. …

Most recently, it was suspected that the cinema hype surrounding the feel-good film “Barbie” and the gloomy biopic “Oppenheimer” may have caused many infections. At the same time, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) recorded an increase in the number of reported Covid infections. Experts, however, see no reason for concern so far.

Frankfurter Rundschau, a regional Frankfurt paper, on 17 August: Covid comeback with “Eris”: First experts demand return to masking.

Is Covid on the attack again? There are indications that the virus is once on the rise once more. …

British doctors are already calling for a return to masking. [Relentless virus charlatan and deranged hypermasker] Trisha Greenhalgh suggests that, “in view of the spread of new variants,” masking in high-risk situations should be considered.

The [virus surveillance] of the Federal Ministry of Health shows that the numbers are also on the rise in Germany. … “Eris” is already responsible for every fourth corona infection, according to new figures from the RKI. “The number of Covid-19 cases reported to the RKI .. seems to be related to the increasing circulation of this ‘variant of interest’,” the Robert Koch Institute says.

The increase in the case numbers – at least in Great Britain – coincides with the opening of the blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in British cinemas, which has given rise to talk of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon. It is well known that larger crowds in enclosed indoor spaces are associated with an increased risk of corona infection. So is it time for a mask renaissance?

In the USA, more and more voices calling for one. [Relentless virus pest] Eric Feigl-Ding … used the hashtag #MaskUp on Twitter to call once again for protecting oneself from Covid infections with masks. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach shared the post, warning that the latest Covid data from New York is “worrying.” …

“There is still a risk that a more dangerous variant will emerge, which could lead to a sudden increase in cases and deaths,” emphasises WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Not only adapted vaccines that take the new variants into account, but also wearing a mask would then help to protect oneself and others, Frankfurt virologist Martin Stürmer told Spiegel.

tagesschau, state media, on 17 August: Covid Case Numbers are Rising Again.

The number of laboratory-confirmed Corona cases in Germany is rising again – but at a relatively low level. This development has been ongoing for around a month, reports the Influenza Working Group at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) … According to the report, about 2,400 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were reported nationwide last week. This is more than double the number reported in the week ending 9 July, when there were about 1,000. …

According to the RKI report, the activity of acute respiratory diseases in general in the population was “at a low summer level.” … “Anyone with symptoms of an acute respiratory infection should stay at home for three to five days and until the symptoms have clearly improved,” advises the RKI. …

Despite all of this obnoxious verbiage, absolutely nothing of virological note is happening in Germany. Official Covid testing has been all but abolished here, forcing our journaloids to unearth statistics from RKI influenza surveillance – something they refused to do during the pandemic itself, because the flu people routinely posted data that undermined their panic narrative. Here, I’ve circled in red the scary rise in infections from the latest RKI report that we’re meant to be worried about:

This microscopic uptick is dwarfed by the February/March wave that peaked between weeks 8 and 13. Our media luminaries took next to no notice of this frightening late-winter surge, and as I type this, Covid diagnoses have not even re-achieved their June levels. The difference between the state of things now and the state of things in February is not the unremarkable Eris variant. XBB was also debuting across Europe early this year, driving the post-February case peak, and nobody cared. The only thing that is different now, is the proximity of the autumnal vaccination liturgy and the prospect of new, updated vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax. That is why we are hearing about variants and masks and Long Covid all over again. It is also why many of these articles contain buried within them somewhere the advice to line up for the shiny new anti-Covid juice this Fall. This whole thing is, very plainly, a psy-op, if a very low-effort one.

There are several patterns in the German reporting that are worth noting. First of all, the latest hysteria was unleashed on 17 August, prompted by a report on Eris from the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Particularly in the realm of routine reporting, the news agencies are a powerful coordinating force, and their influence here means that the full media panic machine is not engaged. We’re looking instead at pieces thrown together by low-level staff desperate to fill column inches. Second, all the German stories are firmly downstream from Anglophone sources, going so far as to recycle from British tabloids the improbable theory of a “Barbenheimer” wave (it is painful even to type this stupid word). Third, at least German health authorities – Karl Lauterbach excepted – resolutely refuse to provide virus doom quotes. Thus the Frankfurter Rundschau had to appropriate the tweets of Anglosphere mask hysterics like Greenhalgh and Feigl-Ding to make Eris sound scary.

I know there are rumours that American authorities are planning to bring back mask mandates and other restrictions in the coming months, and I’ll be honest: We should be so lucky. If the pandemicists try to kick up another round of non-pharmaceutical interventions this fall, they’ll be flirting with self destruction. There are important prerequisites for virus panic: You need a plausibly novel pathogen, the risk of which can be exaggerated. You need a prevailing sense of stability, with nothing else much going on, because the public health interventions themselves have to seem new. Risk, excitement and the prospect of a break from routine are important enticements. That’s all gone now. Covid is not a new scary virus anymore; nearly everyone has had personal experience with it. Solid majorities everywhere have learned to hate lockdowns, despise masking and avoid the mRNA vaccines. The pandemicists need a plausibly new virus to reopen the circus, and they need a lot of people to forget about what a misery the last pandemic response was. They’ll have another chance in ten or fifteen years, I’d guess. Then, it’ll be time to worry.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Greg Tucker-Kellogg publishes fraudulent study to attack ivermectin

Tucker-Kellogg aimed to review research conducted in Brazil and conclude that ivermectin was ineffective against Covid-19. In order to do so, he and his colleagues had to fabricate over 250 fatalities.

Illustration. Reproduction photo from Greg’s YouTube channel.
Médicos Pela Vida | August 17, 2023

Greg Tucker-Kellogg, from the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of Singapore, who receives compensation from YouTube for creating content against scientific misinformation, along with two other authors, Ana Carolina Peçanha and Robin Mills, published a study on the Medrxiv platform on August 15th. The study used fraudulent data with the aim of undermining the research on ivermectin conducted in Itajaí, located on the coast of Santa Catarina, Brazil.

The study conducted in Itajaí, peer-reviewed and published in the prestigious Cureus journal in early 2022, concluded the effectiveness of ivermectin in its prophylactic use against COVID-19. The results were positive: among individuals who took ivermectin preventively, there were 68% fewer deaths, 56% fewer hospitalizations, and 44% fewer infections.

The False Data

Tucker-Kellogg and colleagues’ study, which aimed to recalculate and nullify the positive results, used fraudulent data to achieve its goal. In the article, they claim that the data is official.

The authors stated that 499 individuals died between July and December 2020, a period during which the effectiveness of ivermectin was studied in the city.

It is on page 3 of the PDF of the supposedly scientific article. The data is false.

However, the data of 499 COVID-19 deaths during the six months of the study in Itajaí is indeed false. In order to achieve their desired outcome, the number of deaths had to be inflated. You can verify the original PDF of the reanalysis here on page 3.

How We Investigated

The purported 499 deaths in six months, used as a basis for the calculations, raised suspicions due to being an unusually high number for the period in a city with just over 200,000 inhabitants. Consequently, the first step we took was to research the city’s epidemiological bulletins during that timeframe.

The official epidemiological bulletin, published on the Itajaí city government’s website on December 28, 2020, stated that a total of 254 individuals had died since the beginning of the pandemic. This figure represents deaths from when the virus first spread in the city in early 2020. Therefore, the deaths between July and December were even fewer, far from the reported 499.

In a second attempt to verify the numbers, we accessed consolidated data from the Brazilian Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde or SUS) through the OpendataSUS database, which is considered one of the most comprehensive and accurate in the world. As Brazil has a publicly funded healthcare system, data for all patients in the country is rigorously monitored.

The OpenDataSUS Numbers:

Deaths caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), with dates ranging from July to December 2020, among residents of the city. Database downloaded on March 13, 2023.

Based on the date of hospitalization:
Total SARS-related deaths: 234
Deaths due to Covid-19 only: 222

Based on the date of symptom onset:
Total SARS-related deaths: 256
Deaths due to Covid-19 only: 237

Based on the date of data entry:
Total SARS-related deaths: 240
Deaths due to Covid-19 only: 222

The Numbers from Brasil.IO

According to the information from the Brasil.IO database, which compiles data from confirmed cases and deaths from the bulletins of the State Health Departments (Secretarias Estaduais de Saúde or SES), during the period of the Itajaí study, the data were as follows:

Total Covid-19 deaths: 227

Fraudulent Study Used for Attacks

The authors of the original study have a long history in science and impeccable reputations. Lucy Kerr, the lead author, is the daughter of the late Warwick Stevam Kerr, and she deeply values his legacy. Warwick was the Scientific Director of FAPESP, served as the president of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, and received the Order of Scientific Merit in the Grand Cross category. Other authors include Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, a researcher with several COVID-19 studies, Dr. Fernando Baldi, a professor at the São Paulo State University (UNESP), Dr. Pierre Kory, an American medical professor, and Dr. Jennifer A. Hibberd from the University of Toronto, among others.

Following the publication of the reanalysis with fraudulent data, the attacks on the authors’ reputations turned defamatory. “There are people who prefer to keep believing in charlatans,” said Chloé Pinheiro, a journalist from Veja, one of Brazil’s major magazines.

Leandro Tessler, a professor at Unicamp, who represents the respected university in classifying true or false news on the internet and has admitted to not reading studies on cheap, generic, and unpatented treatments that he criticized, claimed that the original positive study had “cooked data.” Furthermore, Leandro criticized the journal’s quality by saying, “It’s something for Cureus.”

“Statistical trickery,” said Julio Ponce, a doctor in epidemiology and host of the podcast “Escuta a Ciência,” in response to the positive results of the original study.

Isaac Schrarstzhaupt, coordinator of the Rede Análise, criticized the quality of the Cureus journal. He stated that the original publication falls among the “lesser journals,” and he phrased it this way “to avoid using other terms.“

Original Authors Always Prioritized Transparency

The authors of the original study on ivermectin in Itajaí, responding to a call from the BMJ – British Medical Journal, which requested the publication of public data from studies on medications and vaccines, decided to make their raw data available for reanalysis.

This action was highly praised. “It’s excellent that they have released their data anonymously. They have true confidence in the results of their analyses. This is how good science is carried out,” stated Dr. Harvey Risch, a professor of epidemiology at Yale University, USA, emphasizing that patients’ personal data had been preserved.

Previously, the scientific community had speculated that the authors would not make their data available.

The doctor has been attacking the authors for some time

Ana Carolina, one of the authors of the study, has been attacking Dr. Flavio Cadegiani for some time. He is also the author of other studies involving different medications against Covid-19, such as those involving proxalutamide. She claims that those researches are a “hoax.” Regarding the study she chose to reanalyze now, inserting fraudulent data, Ana Carolina had already committed in early 2022 to disqualify it. She referred to it as an “international embarrassment” at the time and used quotation marks to refer to the researchers, seemingly implying doubt about their work.

“They had already decided that ivermectin doesn’t work. So, they tried – and made a great effort – to find calculations that ‘fit’ their pre-established conclusion. This is the exact opposite of what science is, which involves accepting results whether they contradict or support the hypothesis. In their quest to find the desired data, they most likely forgot to look at their own analyses – and even worse, at basic numbers. Furthermore, it seems to me that they didn’t quite understand the study, as I couldn’t find analyses related to rates derived from infections, matched with Propensity Score Matching,” stated Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, one of the authors of the Itajaí study.

“The most important thing is that this ‘study,’ by demonstrating its inability to invalidate us, has only reinforced our findings, and for that, we cannot help but be grateful,” he added.

MPV Comment

Scientific fraud is presenting unverified data as if it were official. And this wasn’t a small error. It was the central data point used to generate the result. It’s not a minor mistake that wouldn’t affect the studied outcomes. In order for the authors to attack the study and arrive at the conclusion of inefficacy, they needed to increase the number of deaths.

All those who subsequently attacked, even labeling the authors as “charlatans,” supposedly had the capacity and training to spot the fraudulent numbers. They are doctors, professors, epidemiologists, and data scientists. They either didn’t see it or feigned ignorance.

So far, all the scientific frauds published during the pandemic have targeted inexpensive, generic, and unpatented medications, or they were frauds promoting expensive and patented drugs. Surely, this is just a coincidence.

This is the second time the Itajaí study has been attacked without valid scientific arguments. In June 2022, the USP – University of São Paulo journal attacked it, even spreading false information. Our analysis can be read here: “COVID-19: USP Journal Lies and Distorts Science to Attack Ivermectin. Read the full analysis.” (portuguese).

We, at MPV (Médicos pela Vida) – Doctors for Life, are grateful for the collaboration of Professor Daniel Tausk from USP, for compiling data from official databases. His collaboration was essential for the report. Additionally, we thank the French researcher Massimaux, who prefers to remain anonymous on Twitter, for quickly pointing out fraudulent data. According to him, it was a “sanity check.” It didn’t pass.

Sources

Data from OpendataSUS
Data from Brasil.IO
Epidemiological Bulletin of Itajaí

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

The Green Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think — Or Not

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | August 19, 2023

Among the media sources serving as propagandists and cheerleaders for the “green energy transition,” two of the most prominent are the New York Times and Bloomberg News. To get an idea how the “transition” is going, let’s take a look at the latest from those two.

From the Times, in this morning’s print edition, we have a feature article that apparently first appeared online a couple of days ago, August 17. The headline is: “The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think.” The sub-head continues the excitement: “The United States is pivoting away from fossil fuels and toward wind, solar and other renewable energy, even in areas dominated by the oil and gas industries.”

But then Bloomberg News comes out yesterday with an editorial that seems to reach the exact opposite conclusion. Headline: “Net Zero Is Stalling Out. What Now?”

So which is it? Is the green energy future arriving “faster than you think,” or “stalling out”? Both can’t be right. Who has the better side of this?

Let’s look first at the Times piece. It is an uncritical litany of every possible piece of good news for the generation of electricity from wind and sun in the U.S. It is filled with more than twenty photographs and charts designed to impress you with the great progress being made: massive wind turbines, vast solar arrays, rows of EV charging stations, teams of serious-looking workers in a modern factory working away on some unnamed but clearly complex piece of equipment.

On the other hand, the piece is devoid of meaningful data on how the “transition” is progressing. Are wind and solar electricity actually making progress toward supplanting fossil fuels? You won’t find the answer to that here.

I’ll give you a few choice excerpts so you can get an idea of the technique:

Delivery vans in Pittsburgh. Buses in Milwaukee. Cranes loading freight at the Port of Los Angeles. Every municipal building in Houston. All are powered by electricity derived from the sun, wind or other sources of clean energy. . . . The nation that burned coal, oil and gas for more than a century to become the richest economy on the planet, as well as historically the most polluting, is rapidly shifting away from fossil fuels. A similar energy transition is already well underway in Europe and elsewhere. . . . Wind and solar power are breaking records. . . . Automakers have made electric vehicles central to their business strategies and are openly talking about an expiration date on the internal combustion engine. Heating, cooling, cooking and some manufacturing are going electric.

So what are these Bloomberg people talking about when they say that the “Net Zero” thing is “stalling out”? It turns out that they have plenty of data points, mostly (but not entirely) from Europe, and all relating to collapsing public support as costs become apparent:

[V]oters have legitimate questions about net-zero policies: How much will they cost? What benefits will they bring? Will they actually work as advertised? Such skepticism is already changing politics, from the recent losses suffered by Germany’s Greens to the fall of the Dutch governing coalition, which was partly fueled by farmers’ anger over forced reductions in nitrogen-oxide emissions. Even some avowed environmentalists — such as the governor of New Jersey and the leader of the UK’s Labor Party — have lately been siding with voters who feel aggrieved at the costs of environmental policies.

Can we get any actual data as to whether wind and solar energy are rapidly increasing their market share for energy production in the U.S.? The best source of information is the Energy Information Administration (part of the Department of Energy). The most recent two full years for which they have data are 2021 and 2022. Here’s the 2021 chart showing U.S. primary energy consumption by source:

Add up the percentages for petroleum (36%), natural gas (32%) and coal (11%), and you get 79% from fossil fuels in the aggregate.

And how about 2022? The chart is in a different format that is more difficult to read, but here is the key line of text: “Fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas, and coal—accounted for 79% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2022.” Oh, that’s the exact same percentage as in 2021. It didn’t budge by even 1%.

Here is the chart they provide for 2022. As you can see, it is not so easy to calculate the percentages by source from this chart, but the general result is still obvious:

For 2023, EIA has put out monthly data through April as part of its Monthly Energy Review. There are no pretty charts, but through April fossil fuels have generated 26.082 quadrillion BTUs out of total primary energy consumption of 33.209 quadrillion BTUs. That would be 78.53% for fossil fuels. In other words, to the nearest whole percent, it’s still 79%. All the billions upon billions of government subsidies don’t seem to be moving the needle in any noticeable way.

To be fair, these figures reflect little if any of the massive subsidies brought forth by the big federal green energy bill (“Inflation Reduction Act” [sic]), which was signed a year ago on August 16, 2022 and is just getting cranked up. Will those subsidies move this needle at all? You would think that they couldn’t help moving the needle at least a little. But my own prediction is that the percent of primary energy from fossil fuels will decrease only minimally.

Over at Bloomberg, while they report honestly that Net Zero seems to be stalling out, they are not happy about it. What is the remedy? Obviously, the government planners directing the green energy transition need to go about this in a more “purposeful” and “strategic” manner:

If the government is going to ban the sale of gas boilers in 2035, as it says, it will need to make sure that cheaper alternatives are available. Likewise with a planned ban on new gas and diesel cars: It’s a fine goal, but it won’t go anywhere unless consumers have compelling incentives, charging infrastructure can meet demand and the government has otherwise laid the needed groundwork. . . . Above all, what’s needed is leadership. Decarbonization can drive economic growth, create jobs and bring substantial benefits to the environment and public health. But it must be done purposefully and strategically.

It’s the usual touching faith that central planning really is going to work this time, because it will be done more intelligently. No amount of real world failures will ever convince the true believers otherwise.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 2 Comments

Air quality board approves sweeping demands on large buildings to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions

Big buildings in Colorado will now be on an energy diet

By Michael Booth | The Colorado Sun | August 18, 2023

Colorado’s largest buildings will have to follow a carbon consumption diet plan to cut state greenhouse gas emissions, with the Air Quality Control Commission passing the controversial regulations over days of intense opposition testimony from property managers.

State air and clean energy officials said they tried to accommodate objections that efficiency modifications had premature deadlines, would cost too much, and may not achieve the targeted emissions cuts. But in the end, the commission late Thursday approved the basic plan requiring 8,000 Colorado buildings to slash carbon emissions 7% by 2026, and 20% by 2030.

Regulation 28 applies to apartments, office and industrial buildings over 50,000 square feet, and fulfills 2021 legislation that called for Colorado’s building sector to share in the carbon cuts demanded from other major polluters such as transportation, utilities and oil and gas drilling. Colorado regulators say large buildings are one of the five highest categories of commerce contributing to state greenhouse gas emissions, which must be trimmed overall by 50% by 2030, from a 2005 benchmark.

“Reducing pollution from large buildings is essential to meet our greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets and ensure that the state’s existing buildings are ready for Colorado’s clean energy future,” Colorado Energy Office Executive Director Will Toor said after the measure passed. “Today’s investments to improve building energy efficiency and reduce building energy use will save Coloradans money on energy costs and improve Colorado’s air quality for decades to come.”

Owners and managers of large buildings have been conducting energy use audits and greenhouse gas emission inventories and filing them with the state. They must now plan upgrades that will lower emissions from those initial benchmarks.

Landlords can cut the emissions they are responsible for through insulated windows, thickening walls, replacing furnaces and other appliances with efficient models running on clean electricity, and other measures. Under the state law and the new rules, the gains must be separate from requirements that Colorado’s utilities deliver cleaner power to their doorstep, and not double-count those emissions cuts.

Property managers continued their months of objections at days of hearings over the regulation. Building owners around the Purgatory ski resort in southwestern Colorado said they are isolated, with a single propane pipeline supplier whose own investments need to be paid back over time, so they can’t easily switch power sources. They also said individual condo owners in large residential buildings could be hit with expensive special assessments when efficiency renovations prove difficult.

Timing alone could make the efficiency rules impossible to meet, the Colorado Real Estate Alliance said, in rebuttals filed with the commission for the hearing.

“A 2026 target of any level will be difficult to attain,” the alliance said. “The final rule likely will not become effective much before the end of calendar year 2023. That will leave building owners with less than two years to secure and carry out audits to identify potential compliance pathways, raise capital, secure contractors, and acquire equipment in an economy still suffering from supply chain disruptions.”

A LoDo Denver building manager told The Colorado Sun before the hearing that meeting the targets would require renovations such as tripling insulation and thickening walls, and could cost $6 million for one five-story structure. … Full article

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

London City Hall Tries to Put Pressure on Scientists Who Doubted Climate Policy – Report

Sputnik – 20.08.2023

London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office tried to “silence” scientists who called into question the effectiveness of the ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) policy promoted by the head of the city, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.

Shirley Rodrigues, the London Mayor’s deputy for environment and energy, told in emails to Imperial College London professor Frank Kelly that she was “really disappointed” by scientists publishing results that cast doubt on the effectiveness of Ulez, the newspaper reported, adding that the corresponding complaint was sent in November 2021.

In particular, Rodrigues said that she was “deeply concerned” about the damage done to the credibility of the Mayor’s office and Ulez. In response, Kelly promised to write a Ulez-friendly report, the report added.

The report stated that since 2021, Kelly’s research group has received over 800,000 pounds ($1.018 million) from the mayor’s office. However, the publication by scientists led to a cooling in their relations with the London city hall. This, in turn, caused the reluctance of representatives of the scientific community to write any new materials about Ulez, the newspaper noted.

The Ulez initiative was first announced by then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson in 2015. Later, Khan launched an initiative that included, among other things, the installation of special traffic signs and cameras. Since 2020, the London authorities have had to spend over 850,000 pounds to rebuild infrastructure for the initiative, which has been repeatedly damaged by vandals.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Biden rival labels F-16s for Ukraine ‘a disaster for humanity’

RT | August 20, 2023

The looming delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not prevent the “collapse” of the country’s military and will only benefit the military-industrial complex, Democrat presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Junior has claimed.

The Ukrainian conflict should be resolved through negotiations, RFK Jr. argued in a thread on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), stating that supplying F-16s to Kiev was a “great decision for the defense industry, but a disaster for Ukraine and humanity.”

“F-16s won’t stop the collapse of the Ukrainian military (which some experts say is imminent). These planes require a lot of training and maintenance. This isn’t the movies,” Kennedy stressed.

The presidential hopeful has long-opposed the enduring Western aid to Ukraine, spearheaded by Washington, arguing that the US should admit its “failure” in the country and focus on domestic issues instead. Kennedy’s criticism of the fighter-jet delivery comes after Washington enabled its European allies to re-export older planes to Ukraine, and hours before the move was officially announced by Denmark and the Netherlands.

The upcoming delivery was heralded by Dutch PM Mark Rutte on Sunday as he hosted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at a military airbase in Eindhoven.

“Today we can announce that the Netherlands and Denmark commit to the transfer of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine and the Ukrainian Air Force, including cooperation with the United States and other partners once the conditions for such a transfer have been met,” Rutte said at a press conference.

Simultaneously, the Danish Ministry of Defence released a statement confirming its pledge to provide Kiev with F-16s from its inventory, once certain “conditions” are met. The conditions “include, but are not limited to, successfully selected, tested and trained Ukrainian F-16 personnel as well as necessary authorizations, infrastructure and logistics,” it said.

Kiev has long-demanded modern aircraft, as well as other, increasingly sophisticated weaponry, from its Western backers, arguing the planes would help it turn the tide of the conflict with Russia, which has been going on since February 2022. Moscow has repeatedly urged the collective West to stop the military deliveries, arguing they would only prolong the hostilities rather than change their ultimate outcome.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

US Policymakers Are Caught In A Dilemma Of Their Own Making After The Failed Counteroffensive

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 20, 2023

Politico reported on Friday that US policymakers are starting to wonder whether “Milley had a point” when he suggested that last November was a good time to resume peace talks. Kiev had just reconquered the western half of Kherson Region less than two months after expelling Russian forces from the rest of Kharkov Region. Furthermore, the coming winter was bound to force a de facto freeze along the frontlines. In hindsight, Ukraine’s negotiating position was the strongest it had ever been.

Instead of seizing the opportunity, the decision was made to prepare for summer’s counteroffensive, which spectacularly failed and has recently sparked a vicious blame game between those responsible for this disaster as reported by two leading US outlets last week. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov reaffirmed several days back that the US is obsessed with dealing a strategic defeat to Russia, hence why it’s not interested in peace, yet Politico’s latest piece hints that its calculations might be changing.

According to them, one of their unnamed official sources lamented that “We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks” in spite of paradoxically insisting that there aren’t any regrets about the counteroffensive. Another such source went even further by claiming that the Biden Administration is now asking itself the following question: “If we acknowledge we’re not going to do this forever, then what are we going to do?”

Politico then reminded their readers that these views are being shared shortly after the Washington Post revealed that “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal”. Although not mentioned in their article, all of this occurred during the same week that a leading NATO official proposed that Ukraine formally cedes its former regions to Russia in exchange for joining that bloc. They retracted their idea shortly after, but it still made observers suspect that the West is becoming fatigued.

NATO’s “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia that Secretary General Stoltenberg declared in February is taking its toll as Moscow’s edge grows in parallel with the depletion of the West’s stockpiles. The frontlines still remain largely frozen due to the counteroffensive failing to break the stalemate that set in since November, but there are now reports that Russia might be preparing for its own offensive sometime this fall that could capitalize on the aforesaid to scale into a full-blown campaign by spring.

President Putin’s series of reminders two months ago that Russia is still sincerely interested in a political solution to this conflict might become irrelevant if he decides to seize the opportunity presented by the counteroffensive’s spectacular failure to militarily ensure his side’s objective national security interests. At minimum, the Kremlin seeks to obtain full control over the entirety of those four former Ukrainian regions that unified with Russia last September, but its forces might have to go further to guarantee this.

After all, Kiev’s NATO-supplied artillery, drone, and missile arsenals can still threaten those regions’ residents even if they’re deployed far away from the frontlines, thus compelling Moscow to advance deeper into the Ukrainian hinterland in order to carve out a buffer zone for protecting them. The further that Russia moves in that direction, the more hysterical NATO will become, which could lead to the bloc as a whole escalating or some of its members like Poland unilaterally intervening to stop the tide.

In any case, the preceding scenario spikes the risk of a larger war by miscalculation, which both sides presumably want to avert. Therein lies the rationale behind US policymakers starting to wonder whether it’s time to consider a compromise before it’s too late, the thoughts of which were unexpectedly voiced by that previously mentioned leading NATO official who later retracted their proposal under pressure. Despite the Biden Administration denying that any such plans are in the cards, Kiev became spooked.

Many of its lawmakers from different factions united in the aftermath of last week’s scandals to table a resolution prohibiting territorial concessions, which will likely pass just like last fall’s similar such one prohibiting Zelensky from negotiating with his Russian counterpart. Neither parliamentary reaction would have happened if the Rada sincerely had faith that the US wouldn’t ever coerce Ukraine into walking back its maximalist demands for ending the conflict.

Unlike then, this scenario is now more realistic than ever as evidenced by last week’s spree of reports aimed at preconditioning the public to accept the possibility of a compromise for resolving the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine before its cycle of self-sustaining escalations spirals out of control. If the political will is present on both the American and Russian sides, then it’s possible that they could reach a deal, but this can’t be taken for granted due to the dilemma that US policymakers inadvertently created.

Despite Politico reporting that officials are now wondering whether “Milley had a point” about last November being a good time to resume peace talks, politicians might fear the public’s wrath if they do so now after all that was spent on the counteroffensive for nothing. Moreover, Ukraine and the West’s newfound military-political weaknesses that were brought about by this debacle might have made Moscow disinterested in peace talks for the time being if it already decided on another offensive.

Each therefore has their reasons for staying the course: America wants to “save face” after this summer’s disaster while Russia might want to seize the aforesaid opportunity to militarily ensure its minimum national security interests by obtaining full control over the entirety of its new regions. That said, the first’s motivations relate to an intangible interest of dubious importance and are therefore negotiable, while the second’s concern a tangible issue of premier importance and thus aren’t negotiable.

Accordingly, the only way to reduce the risk of a larger war by miscalculation is for the US to make concessions on its abovementioned intangible interests in order to meet Russia’s tangible ones, which is likely one of the possibilities being discussed during their reportedly ongoing informal negotiations. In the event that an understanding is reached, then it could take the form of the US pulling Kiev’s strings (possibly through threats of curtailing arms shipments) to coerce it into informally accepting a ceasefire.

Just like it can’t be assumed that America and Russia both have the political will to agree to this, nobody should take for granted that Kiev would go along with it even if those two reach a related deal, not to mention Poland. Each has their own reasons not to, which thus results in a multidimensional dilemma that’ll likely necessitate the US having to practically force those latter two to comply if it’s to stand any chance of success, though it’s also difficult to imagine that happening too.

The takeaway is that US policymakers are now caught in a quandary completely of their own making, which lessens the odds of a political solution to the NATO-Russian proxy war materializing anytime soon and correspondingly spikes the risk of a larger war by miscalculation. Unless the US accepts that it’ll have to sacrifice its soft power by forcing Kiev and Poland to freeze the conflict against their will, which first requires accepting the loss of its unipolar hegemony, then the worst-case scenario can’t be ruled out.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

US, Ukraine Split Over Counteroffensive, Washington Braces for War of Attrition – Reports

Sputnik – 20.08.2023

Tensions are mounting between officials in Washington and Kiev over Ukraine’s strategy in the counteroffensive, with the United States seemingly girding for a war of attrition amid limited results on the battlefield, the Western media reported on Sunday.

US officials reportedly urged Ukraine to stop avoiding risks and make full use of its forces in the south. Washington also advised Kiev against concentrating its main forces in the eastern direction, but Ukraine instead sent its best units there, the newspaper said.

The report added that US officials are privately preparing for a war of attrition in Ukraine, which may last into 2024, while they continue to publicly reiterate support for Kiev’s counteroffensive.

Republican Congressman Andy Harris, a co-chair of the Ukraine Caucus in the US House of Representatives, said at a meeting with voters earlier this week that the counteroffensive “failed” and that aid to Kiev should be slashed, the report said. He also expressed doubt that the conflict is “winnable” for Ukraine.

Earlier this week, US magazine reported that the Ukrainian political leadership was allegedly misled by the military command on the true scale of Ukraine’s losses in the counteroffensive.

Ukraine launched its much-touted counteroffensive in early June after multiple postponements. Citing the counteroffensive’s needs, Kiev pushed its Western donors to step up the military and financial aid. According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s estimates, as of August 4, Ukraine’s losses in the counteroffensive were about 43,000 troops and 4,900 units of military equipment.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

German Long-Range Taurus Missiles Won’t Be Wunderwaffe Ukraine Is Looking For

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 19.08.2023

Berlin has joined Washington in climbing up the escalation ladder in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, sending more military aid to Kiev than any other country besides the US. Germany has also borne the brunt of the West’s economic war against Moscow, with its economy sinking into a recession and facing the threat of deindustrialization.

A majority of Germans are opposed to sending Taurus KEPD 350 air-launched long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, with a fresh poll finding while 36 percent are in favor of their delivery, 52 percent are opposed, with support falling to just 21 percent among residents of eastern Germany.

Despite opposition, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and other members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government have expressed support for delivering the missiles this week, with Lindner saying a decision on the matter would be reached “faster and at shorter notice” than in the past.

German media first reported on talks to send Taurus missiles to Kiev last week, saying the chancellor’s office was hoping to make changes to the missiles’ programming to prevent Ukraine from using them to attempt strikes deep into Russian territory.

Previous assurances in this vein by the US and other NATO powers have turned out to be empty promises, with Ukraine’s military eagerly using its Western-provided military hardware including artillery, missiles and drones to strike Russia, and to indiscriminately fire on cities and settlements in the Donbass.

“As in the past, we will always check every single decision very carefully,” Scholz told reporters last week when asked about the Taurus missiles’ delivery.

These “very careful” checks have already seen Germany send some €7.5 billion ($8.15 billion) in weapons to Ukraine over the past year-and-a-half, the second-largest amount only behind the United States. Berlin has already approved sending over 260 Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks, including from its own armories and those of other European NATO allies, plus Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, MARS rocket artillery systems, Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers, Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Bergepanzer armored recovery vehicles, Panzerfaust RPGs and billions more in other weapons, support equipment, ammunition and supplies.

What distinguishes the Taurus cruise missile is its range and firepower. The €950,000-a-piece bunker buster munition has a 481 kg warhead, and an operational range of over 500 km, making it a standoff weapon which, in the wrong hands, could turn into a tool for terror bombings.

No Wonder Weapon

“The long-range Taurus cruise missiles are an advanced high-precision unmanned weapon system, but they are not a wonder weapon,” AfD European Parliament MEP Gunnar Beck told Sputnik.

“They will add to Ukraine’s military capability, but not decisively,” the lawmaker, who serves as vice president of the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy fraction, said.

Instead, “the delivery of these missiles is significant in that it marks a further escalation of the conflict, leading perhaps to the delivery of other weapons with greater and more decisive offensive capability. That, to me, is the danger here,” Beck stressed.

The lawmaker noted that the danger of Ukraine using Taurus missiles against Russian territory is “the main point of controversy,” with government assurances that this won’t take place of little comfort to ordinary Germans.

“The German government says it would like to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles against Russian territory. However, this is just fanciful talk. In practice, Germany cannot do anything to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles as they like,” Beck said.

“Most Germans do not wish to be drawn into a major international conflict with Russia,” the AfD lawmaker emphasized. “This is particularly true of East Germans who still appreciate that without Russian blessing reunification could not have been achieved 33 years ago.” Most Germans “simply do not believe that Russia and President Putin are a real threat to Germany today. That is my own personal view too. Ordinary Germans have less to fear of Russia today than it has from the EU, their own government and any of the major political parties within Germany itself.”

Amid the Ukrainian crisis and economic downturn, Beck’s party has seen a major surge in support, with recent polling indicating it would win up to 18 percent of the vote if elections were held today – on par with Chancellor Scholz’ Social Democrats. The growing prominence of the upstart opposition party and its social conservative, Eurosceptic brand of populism has led to debate inside the German political establishment on whether it should be banned as an “extremist” organization.

Beck emphasized that notwithstanding the “relentless” “anti-Russian propaganda” in German media, many Germans, especially in the east of the country, “have lost faith” in Scholz’s coalition, and “cannot remember when their government last did something for them.” Instead, half of Germans “now regard their political elite as just the executor of the aims and objectives of large multinationals and foreign powers – very well-paid executors at that,” the lawmaker summed up.

Germans Don’t Want Nuclear War With Russia

Dan Kovalik, a US-based human rights and labor rights lawyer and peace activist, echoed Beck’s sentiments on the implications and dangers of the Taurus missiles’ potential delivery to Kiev.

“I think Russia is about to destroy the Ukrainian military and probably the Ukrainian state as it exists, and that’s just a fact. I don’t think the missiles will change that. Of course, what they could do is allow Ukraine to fire more into Russian territory in a more destructive way than they are now with drones, which of course presents a great danger of escalating this conflict into a major world war, possibly even into a nuclear conflict. That’s why I think the German people are against this,” Kovalik stressed.

“Of course, Germany and Russia have been through two world wars against each other, and I don’t think either wants to repeat that,” the observer added.

August 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment