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Brewing truth: Climate doomsayers’ cooked up coffee crisis

By Vijay Jayaraj | American Thinker | December 7, 2023

Every day, people across the world wake up to news about climate change affecting their lives. With the seeming randomness of a roulette wheel, the doomsday clique of the climate world daily selects a fresh topic to sow seeds of anxiety among the populace.

Popular things easily recognized — even cherished — by people are continually identified as being at risk of being damaged or destroyed by climate change. Coffee, for example, is a commodity experiencing a surge in popularity, and there are no prizes for guessing what climate doomsayers are saying now.

Yes, coffee is now said to be under threat from man-made climate change. CNN, in a recent article, made this statement: “climate change poses a huge threat to the coffee business and to farmers.” Keeping with its customary approach of presenting climate change as a threat to all manner of things, CNN quotes the Inter-American Development Bank as warning that “rising temperatures will reduce the area suitable for growing coffee by up to 50%.”

Is this claim true?  If so, plenty of people would be affected, because coffee is selling like hot cakes.

The brew is a staple in nearly 98% of households in Brazil.  According to the 2023 National Coffee Data Trends Report, coffee consumption in the U.S. has hit a 20-year peak, with over 50% of consumers gravitating toward specialty coffee.

Even in my home country, India, there is a sudden deluge of boutique coffee shops. Some chains have opened as many as 50 branches within a span of five years, and that is not an easy task in a country of 1.3 billion tea-lovers. India is now the eighth largest producer of coffee beans.

More than 99% of global coffee production comprises the arabica and robusta species, which are just two of over 140 different species in the Coffea genus. Coffea, especially arabica, depends highly on soil fertility and temperature.

The purveyors of climate apocalypse are particularly interested in the temperature aspect, as it provides a legitimate pathway for indulging in climate scaremongering. Despite widespread concern about increasing warmth, satellite temperature data collected from 1979 to 2023 indicate that there has not been a significant rise in temperatures.

Despite widespread concern about increasing warmth, global satellite temperature data collected from 1979 to 2023 indicates that there has only been a modest rise of less than one-degree C in temperature.

Besides, it is widely acknowledged that warming since the Little Ice Age and increased atmospheric CO2 since the Industrial Revolution have boosted agricultural production and the general greening of ecosystems.

Scientists in Brazil have discovered that “carbon dioxide fertilization offsets negative impacts of climate change on arabica coffee yield.” They say that the CO2 fertilization effect will cause a net increase of the average Brazilian arabica coffee harvest by the years 2040–2070.

CO2 enrichment studies in Latin America show that elevated CO2 increased photosynthesis by 40% and increased the efficiency plants’ water use by approximately 60%. Higher CO2 eventually caused a 7–14% increase in plant height and a 12–14% increase in yield.  Another study showed that there were significant increases in all leaf area and biomass markers in response to increased CO2.

The research indicates that we might already be reaping the rewards of increased productivity rates in both arabica and robusta coffee varieties thanks to the recent rise in atmospheric CO2. This reality is reflected in the plantations across the globe.  Production in South America and Southeast Asia have shown increases in yield during the past two decades.

Brazil and Vietnam are the top two coffee bean producers. Both countries have seen remarkable increases in their yield, with Vietnam’s production climbing from 0.54 tons per acre in 2002 to 1.11 tons per acre in 2021. Meanwhile, Brazil’s yield has also shown significant growth, rising from 0.49 tons per acre in 2002 to 0.87 tons per acre in 2020.

Even if the temperatures were to increase dramatically, experts say that coffee cultivation would be possible in cooler regions at latitudes away from equator or at higher altitudes.

So sit back and drink that morning cup of Joe. Climate is not going to steal your coffee, and thank CO2 for keeping the plantations productive.

Vijay Jayaraj is a research associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia.  He holds a Master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | 2 Comments

Pharma Giant Paid ‘Elite’ Obesity Specialists $25.8 Million to Promote Weight Loss Drugs

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | Decmber 8, 2023

An “elite” and influential group of obesity specialists over the last decade pocketed at least $25.8 million in payments from Novo Nordisk, maker of weight loss drugs Wegovy and Saxenda, in exchange for promoting the drugs in their lectures, treatment guidelines, clinics and medical societies, according to an investigation by Reuters.

“Those payments are part of a campaign to convince U.S. doctors to make Wegovy one of the most widely prescribed drugs in history — and to persuade skeptical insurers to pay for it,” according to the report.

Wegovy and Saxenda have rapidly transformed the treatment of obesity in the U.S., with a boom in prescriptions so big in 2023 that JP Morgan doubled its 10-year sales projection, predicting sales of $71 million for the drugs by 2032.

Despite the drugs’ serious side effects — including major gastrointestinal issues, self-harm behaviors and cancers — the Association of American Pediatrics recommends the drugs in its new clinical guidelines, the American Medical Association urges insurance carriers to cover the drugs, and the mainstream and medical press heavily promote them.

‘They have pushed for urgent prescribing of Wegovy’

Reuters examined data from the federal Open Payments database, which reports payments made by pharmaceutical companies to doctors, other medical professionals and teaching hospitals for consulting, speaking, research, travel or meals. It analyzed payments for speaking, consulting, food and travel for two of Novo’s obesity drugs, Wegovy and Saxenda.

The analysis also excluded payment for research.

Overall, Reuters found at least 57 U.S. physicians each accepted a minimum of $100,000 from Novo in payments related to the two drugs over 10 years. It also found Novo made other large payments to some of those same doctors, but the payments were not classified as related to a particular drug and were not counted in the $25.8 million total.

Of that group, 41 of the physicians run weight-management clinics, work at academic hospitals, write obesity-treatment guidelines or hold top positions at medical societies.

Collectively, the report said:

“[They] have pushed for urgent prescribing of Wegovy and similar medicines to a large proportion of patients with obesity and for comprehensive coverage by government and private insurers. The company and some of its paid experts have called denying coverage tantamount to discrimination against people with obesity, rooted in the faulty notion that they are to blame for their condition.”

Reuters also analyzed Novo’s spending among experts involved in writing five prominent sets of obesity-treatment guidelines for doctors. Among the 109 guideline writers and editors, 53 had accepted payments from companies selling or developing obesity drugs — $8 million of the total $12.4 million of those payments were from Novo.

In a statement provided to Reuters, Novo said, “Responsible engagement between pharmaceutical companies and the medical community is good for patients and advances care and science.”

Since the Affordable Care Act created the Open Payments system over a decade ago, it has been easier to expose the kinds of financial conflicts of interest identified in the report.

However, the increased transparency hasn’t stemmed the flow of industry money, Reuters found. “Companies’ annual payments have surged from $6.5 billion in 2014, the first full year data were collected, to $12.6 billion last year,” the report stated.

Dr. Arthur Kellermann, a health administrator and former dean of the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, the U.S. military’s medical school, told Reuters the investigation sheds light on a long-standing problem in the drug industry.

He called the payments “morally and ethically way over the line,” adding:

“The pharmaceutical industry still sees value in paying medical thought leaders to promote their products, and too many of them are happy to sign up for a six- or seven-figure check …

”As sales grow, Medicare and the insurance industry come under intense pressure to pay for these hugely expensive drugs … The end result is that everybody’s healthcare costs go up.”

Another recent report by investigative journalist Lee Fang similarly found a wide network of celebrities, physicians, patient advocacy groups, public health experts, academics, and community leaders have appeared in dozens of media outlets to tout the drugs without disclosing their financial ties to Novo Nordisk.

Which doctors take money from Novo Nordisk?

The report profiled several key physicians taking money from Novo.

For example, Novo paid Lee Kaplan, M.D., Ph.D., chief of obesity medicine at Dartmouth’s medical school, former head of Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, $1.4 million for consulting work and travel related to the two drugs between 2013 and 2022.

It also paid him another $976,019 million during that same period for unspecified reasons.

Kaplan, who teaches a popular obesity course taken by physicians seeking certification in obesity medicine or continuing education credits — for which Novo contributed $10,000 this year — dismissed the idea that he is a mouthpiece for the drugmaker. He told Reuters he accepts money from numerous companies and “that he’s not beholden to any one drugmaker.”

Another physician, Dr. Donna Ryan, former president of The Obesity Society and member of The Diplomate at the American Board of Obesity Medicine, has taken more than $1 million from Novo over the last decade, including $600,691 related to Wegovy and Saxenda.

Ryan was instrumental in persuading the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to cover Wegovy and similar drugs for millions of federal workers, an agency official told Reuters.

In the process, she connected government officials with two key groups: the Obesity Action Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group, and the STOP Obesity Alliance at George Washington University. Both have ties to drugmakers.

Novo is the Obesity Action Coalition’s top corporate donor, paying it more than $500,000 annually.

STOP medical director Dr. Scott Kahan, who will assist in writing The Obesity Society’s new “standards-of-care” guidelines that primary-care doctors commonly use as a quick-reference guide, has accepted more than $300,000 from Novo.

Dr. Jamy Ard, of Wake Forest University, the incoming president of The Obesity Society who will oversee the guideline writing, has taken over $200,000 from Novo.

Ryan told Reuters she had no qualms about taking such payments, “Being a purist isn’t helping anyone,” she told Reuters.

The report also quoted Ryan speaking to a group of doctors at a conference, where she argued that these blockbuster drugs have been positive for both patients and investors. “There is nothing wrong with money,” Ryan said.

She and obesity specialist Dr. Ken Fujioka, director of the Scripps Clinic Nutrition and Metabolic Research Center in San Diego, have taken 130 Novo-paid trips over the past decade, traveling to make speeches and do consulting.

They said the travel allows them to provide medical advice that is valuable to patients, physicians and the manufacturer.

But other doctors disagreed. Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, a professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center who studies pharmaceutical marketing practices, told Reuters :

“These highly paid doctors end up drowning out the voices of people who aren’t being flown around to every medical meeting. As a result, there’s not a lot of resistance to the prevailing industry-funded view.”

‘Serious and under-discussed risks for pregnant women’

The 2020 U.S. approval of Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda, a once-daily injection for weight loss, opened a new era of pharmaceutical-based weight management, The Defender reported.

This was followed, in June 2021, by the licensing of Wegovy, and less than a year later of Ozempic, which is indicated for Type 2 diabetes, but contains the same active ingredient, semaglutide, as Wegovy, and is prescribed off-label for weight loss.

Semaglutide drugs are taken as a once-weekly injection, which is considered a benefit compared to a once-daily jab. Liraglutide is a daily shot. Semaglutide is also available as a once-daily pill under the brand name Rybelsus, another Novo drug.

These drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone, which assists patients in losing weight by regulating their appetite.

In November 2023, the FDA approved Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, another injectable diabetes drug, for weight loss. The active ingredient in Zepbound, tirzepatide, sets this drug apart from Wegovy and Ozempic but it works similarly through a weekly injection.

Tirzepatide is sold by Eli Lilly as a diabetes drug under the trade name Mounjaro.

These approvals were accompanied by what Fang called a Novo Nordisk-driven “aggressive campaign to persuade Americans of the merits of semaglutide.”

According to a KFF Health poll, 45% of adults would take a “safe and effective prescription weight loss drug,” including 59% of those trying to lose weight.

Enthusiasm fell to just 23%, however, when they learned that treatment involved a routine injection, to 16% if either insurance did not cover the high monthly cost or if the drug was not specifically approved for weight loss.

The surging popularity of the medication led to shortages and made Novo Nordisk one of the most valuable global pharmaceutical companies, behind Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly.

The shortages raised concerns because the drugs are not made for short-term use. Studies show that when people stop taking them, they regain much of the weight they lost, or potentially gain even more weight. Most people who start taking the drugs and want the effects to last will have to stay on them long-term.

But recent pharmacy claims data shows that most people who start taking Wegovy stop taking it within a year, some because of side effects and some because of the high cost of the drugs.

In addition to suicidal ideation and thoughts of self-harm, pancreatic cancer and gastrointestinal disorders, other adverse effects linked to semaglutide are also becoming apparent. A study using data from EudraVigilance, also found metabolic, nutritional, eye, renal, urinary and cardiac disorders were also reported.

The drugs also carry serious and under-discussed risks for pregnant women.

Despite the high drug cost and the associated risks, there is an ongoing debate about whether insurance companies and Medicare should cover the cost of weight loss drugs, which would increase profits exponentially.

Reuters reported that Wegovy’s U.S. prescribing label recommends the drug for anyone with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, the threshold for obesity and for people with a 27 BMI who also have a weight-related medical condition.

That would cover about 46% of American adults — about 120 million people, according to the report.

A study published in March in the NEJM estimated that if Medicare were compelled to cover Wegovy, with an estimated 23% discount, it would cost $27 billion to treat just 10% of patients with obesity enrolled in Medicare. That would equal nearly a fifth of the yearly spending for Medicare’s program covering prescription drugs.

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.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Austrian Vaccinator: After 3000-4000 Vaccinations – 10% now have problems

Transcript by Aussie17

Austrian Doctor Cornelia Tschanett’s U-Turn on the vaccinations:

“We have carried out around 3,000 to 4,000 vaccinations in my practice. And as few side effects as we saw at the beginning. This slowly became more the case over the course of the year.

You may not notice the first cases that much or dismiss it as an isolated case. Possibly also as a psychological overreaction. Towards the end of the year this increased. Then more and more people came with supposed complaints after the vaccination. And then you question your own perception a bit. And it was also difficult to discuss it.

We will then have it in the course of autumn 2021. There are also groups founded by doctors who also vaccinate. And then you realize they perceive the same thing in their patient clientele. People report the same complaints such as cardiac arrhythmias, insane fatigue, persistent muscle pain, nerve inflammation. This then slowly became reproducible. And then of course you also try to look for scientific discourse. And that was shocking to me that that wasn’t possible. That was dismissed.

It was actually an absolutely dogmatic and certain and rock-solid statement, this is not from the vaccination. And the more patients came, the greater the inner conflict became for me and for many doctors, who actually want the best for their patients.

An impressive, the first case, was a 16-year-old boy, who arrived at us 48 hours after the second dose with nausea and chest pressure. I took an EKG and the EKG was impressively changed. So not normal for a 16 year old.

We then sent him to the hospital. A massive myocarditis of the heart was diagnosed there. Thank God he got well again. But that was the moment where I really stopped. Because people come at the same time, mothers with their children, young people, and they have literally said the sentence very often, “I don’t know what’s right, I put my life in her hands.” And this power of trust induces an enormous responsibility for me personally, to be honest. It makes no difference whether you have seen this case once or ten times. The risk exists, the connection is vacant. Until proven otherwise, we actually have to educate people about what we see and what experiences we have. A person has this right if he or she decides to undergo physical intervention, who is so small decides.

That was an inner conflict for me, because the social pressure to vaccinate as many people as possible and to vaccinate all age groups was very great. And on the other hand, personal experience as a doctor has increased, that this is not possible without side effects. That was the moment when I thought to myself, I can’t continue to vaccinate here, I have to stick to the truth, I have to live up to this trust.

We must have had 300-400 people, who have come to us with the feeling that they have had problems since the vaccination. I have about 60-80 EKGs, the ones on previously young, healthy people had clear changes or rhythm disturbances have shown.

This clip was taken from of the two-part documentary ‘UN-SICHTBAR Der Film Teil 1’ published by Schutzfilm on October 12, 2023.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/mxZVBB8DNaUz/

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | | 1 Comment

Cost of Empire: Study Says US Military Intervention Making Americans Less Safe

Sputnik – 10.12.2023

Empirical data demonstrates that, although US warmongering may fatten the pockets of military contractors, the consequences for citizens around the world have been dire.

Former Congressman Ron Paul was met with a decidedly mixed reaction in 2007 when, during the height of the so-called “War on Terror,” he lambasted the pernicious influence of US-backed militarism around the globe.

But since then his analysis has gone mainstream, and now a new study from Brown University provides empirical backing for the claim the US war machine is making Americans – and the world – less safe.

“There are more militant groups than there were when we started the so-called ‘War on Terror’ in 2001,” said Stephanie Savell, a senior researcher with the university’s Costs of War project. “There are more recruits to those groups, there’s a ton of blowback to all of this military action around the world,” she added.

“And we’re seeing in Iraq and Syria right now that the US presence in these places in the name of counterterrorism actually… makes it more likely that [US troops] engage in aggressive actions abroad,” the researcher emphasized.

In other words, war and violence only beget more war and violence.

The United States military currently has a “footprint” in 78 countries according to Savell’s research, a full 40% of the world’s nations. Her study also pinpoints 800 US military bases around the globe (controversy over what constitutes a “base” provides some uncertainty to this count – some have placed the number of military installations at over 900).

Meanwhile, US and allied troops have been attacked some 82 times in Iraq and Syria since October 17 as American support for Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza has fueled rage throughout the Arab world.

Savell’s research has also found that at least 4.5 million deaths have occurred as a direct or indirect result of US-led wars since September 11, 2001.

“We’ve gotten extremely far in the direction of using the military as the primary tool of US foreign policy,” said Savell. “And arguably, that’s not keeping Americans or anyone else in the world any safer.”

“A lot of times what’s happening is that the US is providing funding, weapons and training for regimes that are very far from democratic. They’re using those tools to crack down on political dissidents and political opponents. And it’s really creating and fueling a cycle of blowback in which those targeted groups are then joining militant movements,” the researcher stressed.

Contrary to America’s oft-stated goal of promoting democracy and “freedom,” another study demonstrated the United States militarily backs 73% of countries deemed “dictatorships” throughout the world. US belligerence has damaged the country’s global reputation in recent years, especially in the Middle East, where Russian President Vladimir Putin has forged diplomatic relations on the principles of sovereignty and mutual respect.

Recently the late Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” went viral on the TikTok platform. The missive cast opposition to the United States throughout the Arab world as a function of resistance to the country’s militarism, contradicting the oft-repeated “they hate us for our freedom” mantra of the post-9/11 era.

US lawmakers responded by renewing calls for the banning of the TikTok platform, and British newspaper The Guardian removed the letter from their website lest Americans be encouraged to further engage in wrongthink.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Migrant-loving Western leaders are at war with their own people

By Tony Cox | RT | December 10, 2023

The ongoing ruling-class meltdown over the recent Dublin riots tells us a lot about the breadth and depth of the gulf fixed between Western governments and their citizens. It’s as if those in charge are outraged by the temerity of their subjects to cry out over the pain and death inflicted upon them by their supposed leaders.

Angry Irish citizens took to the streets, chanting “Enough is enough,” after suffering the latest consequence of mass migration: The November 23 stabbing attack in which three children and two adults were injured in central Dublin. Having failed to be heard by the policymakers who are destroying their quality of life, they burned buses, torched police cars, and clashed violently with officers.

The suspect hasn’t been identified or officially arrested. Unlike the Irish people, he’s being protected by their government, and he’s reportedly too incapacitated to be questioned by police because of injuries suffered during the stabbing spree. He has been described as a 49-year-old Algerian who was given Irish citizenship.

A media controversy erupted days after the attack when independent journalist John McGuirk reported – incorrectly – that the suspect was an Algerian migrant who had been living in Ireland, at taxpayer expense, since 2003. McGuirk referred to a man who faced a deportation order after an arrest years ago, but he was allowed to stay in the country and was later given an Irish passport. Earlier this year, he was arrested for illegal knife possession and damaging a car. He was let go by the court because of a mental health issue, according to media reports.

McGuirk was assailed by establishment mouthpiece media figures not for getting the story wrong, which wasn’t initially known, but for deciding not to withhold sensitive information from his readers. Pressed in a television interview by host Ciara Doherty on whether he “inflamed” a “hostile situation” by reporting details about the suspect’s background, he replied, “Your essential position is that you, as a journalist, sitting in that chair, should decide what information the people watching this program have, and if you decide they can’t handle it, you don’t give it to them.”

Police subsequently revealed that McGuirk had identified the wrong Algerian migrant. Although he wasn’t named in the article, the details of his background made it possible for online sleuths to identify him. Police are now protecting the man who was misidentified, according to media reports, while continuing to withhold information about the actual suspect.

McGuirk took down his erroneous article from the internet and issued a statement saying that the source who gave him false identification was a senior police official. He also cross-checked the information with a senior official in the Irish justice system before posting his story. His media outlet, Gript Media, is now investigating whether the false tip was a deliberate act of sabotage.

It would be easy to see why powerful figures in the Irish government would be pleased to have such a story misreported by an adversarial journalist. The discussion has turned to the spread of “misinformation” and the inciting of angry citizens rather than excessive immigration and poor public safety.

The situation is reminiscent of when WikiLeaks reported on emails showing that America’s Democratic National Committee had rigged the party’s 2016 presidential primaries in favor of its chosen candidate, Hillary Clinton. Rather than focusing on the scandal, legacy media outlets made the story about Clinton’s unproven claims that Russian hackers stole the emails and gave them to WikiLeaks.

The thing is, even if you knew that an adversary with ulterior motives had revealed that your spouse was cheating on you, wouldn’t you be more concerned about the infidelity than the source? The story in Ireland should be destructive immigration policies, not identifying the wrong Algerian migrant criminal.

Ironically, the distraction and misdirection in the Dublin story doesn’t really matter. The fact is that the dangerous migrant identified by McGuirk has been allowed to stay in Ireland by a government that doesn’t prioritize the safety of its own people. He didn’t perpetrate this particular assault, but he’s a criminal migrant, and if and when he commits another crime, it will be an unforced error inflicted on the Irish people by their government. The fact also remains that the real suspect is an Algerian migrant, meaning he came from a country more than 1,000 miles away that isn’t at war. If he was a legitimate refugee, Ireland wasn’t the nearest available safe haven – not by a long shot.

However, if Ireland’s leaders can help it, attention will be shifted away from the country’s migration crisis. Never mind the policies that endanger Irish citizens and diminish their quality of life. There won’t be a serious discussion, either, of why illegitimate asylum seekers and other migrants are allowed to stay in the country, even after they’ve committed crimes.

Rather than decrying the stabbing of children or confronting the policy questions raised by the rampage, Irish government officials and their media stenographers are focusing their ire on the citizens who violently demanded change, dismissing them as “emboldened racists.”

National police chief Drew Harris blamed the riots on a “complete lunatic hooligan factor driven by far-right ideology.” Justice Minister Helen McEntee pledged tougher police tactics to quell any such revolts by the “thugs and criminals” who were using the stabbing attack to “sow division.” Kenyan-born UK politician Lilian Seenoi-Barr blamed the unrest on a small far-right minority and called the rioters an “organized terrorist group of people who want to harm immigrants.”

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar insisted that people shouldn’t connect the stabbing spree to the mass migration that is transforming Ireland’s population. The PM said the rioters couldn’t possibly have been motivated by a desire to protect their way of life; rather, they were “filled with hate, they love violence, they love chaos, and they love causing pain to others.” He also called for enhancements to Ireland’s hate-speech legislation. “We will modernize our laws against incitement to hatred and hatred in general.”

To the extent the mob was whipped up, it was whipped up by reality – the reality created by the policies of the country’s tone-deaf leaders. The influx of migrants – many of them illegitimate asylum seekers from outside war zones – has swelled Ireland’s population to 5.15 million, up 31% in the past two decades. One in five residents of Ireland isn’t Irish-born. Many young people have given up on looking for homes because of the housing crisis and crushing inflation. Rates of murder and other crimes have risen sharply.

As for the notion that people are violently angry about their collapsing quality of life, recent polling shows that 75% of Irish people believe their country is taking in too many asylum seekers. An even larger majority, 76%, agreed that it was justifiable for people to be angry when migrants were moved into their communities. Presumably, most of those citizens aren’t inclined to torch trams or burn buses, but if even one in 100 of the people who oppose what’s being done to their country are angry enough to rise up, you have a mob nearly 40,000 strong.

Not all of the rioters were motivated by real grievances. Some, for instance, took the unrest as an opportunity to loot. In any case, a strong majority of the Irish people aren’t getting what they want from policymakers. Their message isn’t being heard when they burn things, just as it was ignored when they held peaceful protests. So, what comes next?

Irish leaders have responded by demonizing their critics and criminalizing dissent. For example, Irish MMA legend Conor McGregor is reportedly among the many people being investigated for alleged “incitement to hatred.” McGregor posted on social media that the stabbing suspect was a “grave danger among us in Ireland that should never be here in the first place.” Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin denounced the fighter’s accurate comment as “absolutely disgraceful,” to which McGregor responded by calling the politician “worthless and spineless.”

McGregor doubled down on his criticism last week, saying Irish officials were trying to use him as a “scapegoat.” He added, “The truth of the many failed policies of this government, however, will never stop being the reason we have innocent children in hospital on life support after being stabbed by a deranged criminal.” The fighter even hinted on Monday about running for president.

Contrast the reaction in Dublin with how the Western ruling class treated the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020. There were scenes of police kneeling with the protestors rather than calling them extremist hooligans. Rather than calling for everyone to hush up about the racial overtones of the triggering event – the death of a black criminal, George Floyd, after a white police officer kneeled on his neck – the story was made all about racism.

Even as cities burned and dozens of people were killed, many politicians agreed with the mob’s demands to “defund the police” and “reimagine policing.” The future US vice president, Kamala Harris, promoted a fundraising campaign to bail out rioters who had been arrested during the mayhem. Nike, Google, Apple, and other big names in Corporate America pledged massive donations to “racial justice” causes.

And while inflaming the Dublin rioters by linking the crime to migration has been deemed irresponsible, inflaming the BLM mob with falsehood may even have been a government strategy. A new documentary on Floyd’s death has claimed that the original autopsy found no indication that he had died from injury to his neck; however, he was infected with Covid-19 and had fatal levels of fentanyl in his blood. A day after the medical examiner met with FBI agents, the documentary said, the autopsy was altered to suggest that Floyd had been killed by police.

The cop who was found guilty of killing Floyd, Derek Chauvin, is still serving a long sentence in prison, where he was stabbed 22 times by another inmate last month. His attacker was a former FBI informant.

Western rulers seem to base their reaction to civil unrest and violent crimes on the ideology of the perpetrators. If it aligns with the political agenda, the message is amplified and treated sympathetically. If it exposes the folly of destructive policies, it must be crushed. The BLM riots provided an opportunity for race-baiters to further divide the people and promote “reforms” that favor criminals over law-abiding citizens and non-white people over whites. The Dublin riots screamed that the people had reached their breaking point with mass migration and leaders who refused to serve the interests of their citizens.

The same criteria were on display when an election fraud protest at the US Capitol escalated into a riot in January 2021. Rioters breached the Capitol to disrupt congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. Biden reacted by calling the riot the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” More than 1,100 people have been arrested for their alleged roles in the riot. Many have received long prison sentences. One man who wasn’t even in Washington on the day of the riot – but who sent messages cheering on the breach from his Baltimore hotel room – was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

A similar approach is taken to other high-profile crimes. When a white gunman wounded four people at a Missouri Walmart last month, the FBI came out just two days later to report that the shooter may have been motivated by racist ideology. Never mind that two of his victims were white, and two were black.

And yet, more than eight months on from an incident in which a transgender shooter killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Tennessee, police are still refusing to release the “manifesto” written by the murderer. In fact, seven officers have been suspended on suspicion that they may have leaked part of the document online. In leaked pages of the manifesto, shooter Audrey Hale spoke of killing “all you little crackers” with “white privileges.” Similarly, it took seven months for police to reveal that the man who killed five people and wounded eight at a Kentucky bank wanted to inspire tougher gun control laws by killing “upper-class white people.”

The suppression of truth, the lying, and the situational outrage cannot be sustained forever. Leaders who cram down policies that destroy their countries and harm their citizens, whom they supposedly represent, cannot endlessly evade a real reckoning of their betrayals. The critics can no longer be completely silenced, no matter how aggressive the censorship efforts.

How sustainable is being at war with your own people? How long can a government defy the interests of its citizens and vilify those who complain? Short of replacing the native-born population quickly enough to avert accountability, the leaders will have to answer to their subjects at some point.

The same voices that call for tamping down the rhetoric and even suppressing the facts to avoid inflaming the mob in Dublin are only inciting more escalation by dismissing the rioters as extremist, racist thugs. People whose lives are being destroyed – at their own expense, as taxpayers, and by the traitorous leaders who have a moral duty to serve their interests – will eventually find a way to be heard.

Tony Cox is a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Venezuela, Guyana to hold talks on disputed Essequibo region

RT | December 10, 2023

The presidents of Venezuela and Guyana – Nicolas Maduro and Mohamed Irfaan Ali, respectively – will sit down next week to discuss a long-standing territorial dispute that has recently intensified, the prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has revealed. While Caracas has laid claim to the oil-rich Esequibo region since the late 19th century, President Maduro recently took steps toward gaining actual control over the area, which covers some 160,000 square kilometers.

Earlier this week, the Spanish daily El Pais reported that the Venezuelan government had deployed troops to the border with Guyana.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines PM Ralph Gonsalves, who also serves as president pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), broke the news after speaking with Maduro on Saturday, saying the negotiations would take place on Thursday.

The Venezuelan government has confirmed the planned talks, saying they hoped to “preserve our aspiration to maintain Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.”

The Office of the President of Guyana, for its part, stressed that “Guyana’s land boundary is not up for discussion.”

Also on Saturday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with Maduro, calling for dialogue and warning against unilateral measures that could escalate the situation. The Brazilian head of state has also been invited to take part in Thursday’s talks as an observer.

Speaking on Tuesday, the Venezuelan president said Caracas wanted the “peaceful rescue of the Guayana Esequiba,” which “has been de facto occupied by the British Empire and its heirs and they have destroyed the area.” Maduro also unveiled a new map of Venezuela that incorporates the disputed territory, and appointed a new governor to the region.

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, in turn, gave a televised address to the nation, accusing Venezuela of attempting to annex more than two thirds of his country.

“This is a direct threat to Guyana’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence, and a violation of fundamental principles of international law,” the leader stressed.

“The Guyana Defense Force is on high alert… Venezuela has clearly declared itself an outlaw nation,” Ali added.

The recent escalation followed Sunday’s referendum, in which 10.4 million Venezuelan voters backed Caracas’ claim to Guayana Esequiba.

The territorial dispute stems from the US’ decision in 1899 to assign the territory to what was then British Guiana – a move Venezuela never accepted as legitimate.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | 1 Comment

Father of American journalist jailed in Ukraine blames Biden

RT | December 9, 2023

The administration of US President Joe Biden was complicit in the arrest of an American journalist who has been jailed and tortured in Ukraine for criticizing the Kiev government, the father of Gonzalo Lira has claimed. He believes his son may have sealed his fate when he also spoke out against Washington.

Gonzalo Lira was apprehended by Ukrainian authorities for the third time in August while trying to escape to Hungary after being released on bail. The Chilean-American writer had repeatedly criticized the government of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, arguing that Kiev had provoked its conflict with Russia and had no chance of winning.

“This that is happening to my son, he’s a victim of this Biden government and his relation with that puppet Zelensky,” Gonzalo Lira Sr. said on Saturday in an interview with US journalist and political commentator Tucker Carlson. “Zelensky is a man that has made opponents, political opponents, disappear.”

The 80-year-old father said his son had bravely reported on about a dozen Zelensky opponents who had been “disappeared.” The younger Gonzalo Lira also predicted correctly that the Russian economy would be relatively unscathed by Western sanctions and that NATO members would suffer a boomerang effect from their efforts to arm Ukraine and punish Moscow.

However, it was only after the blogger sharply criticized Biden and US Vice President Kamala Harris that he was arrested for a second time in May, Gonzalo Lira Sr. told Carlson.

“Isn’t it odd that four days later, after condemning Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Gonzalo was arrested?” the father asked. “Why was he not detained earlier? When he was let go the previous year, he continued the same criticism against the war.” He added, “The USA government, with its silence in the face of this scandalous incident, suggests a degree of complicity, or at least tacit approval of Gonzalo’s arrest.”

Lira contrasted the Biden administration’s “conspicuous lack of response” to his son’s arrest to Washington’s aggressive efforts to secure the release of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested in Russia on espionage charges in March.

The younger Lira is relying on a court-appointed Ukrainian attorney who speaks no English for his legal defense. Just before being captured in August, he warned his audience that if he failed to get safely into Hungary and be granted political asylum, he would likely die in a Ukrainian labor camp.

Gonzalo Lira Sr. has called his son a political prisoner and has argued that his case illustrates the absurdity of US claims that the world must defend “freedom and democracy” in Ukraine. “If we are going to protect democracy in the world, let’s start by taking out that puppet called Zelensky,” he said.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , , | Leave a comment

US imposes media restrictions on Palestine FM as visa condition, Saudi FM confirms

MEMO | December 10, 2023

The United States imposed restrictions on Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki’s communication with the media as a precondition for his visa to the country, according to reports seemingly confirmed by his Saudi counterpart.

In a press conference in the American capital Washington yesterday, in which the foreign ministers from a number of Middle Eastern nations addressed reporters, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan revealed that US authorities restricted his Palestinian counterpart al-Maliki from speaking to reporters and media representatives.

“The US government has imposed restrictions on his Excellency that does not allow him to respond to media questions or to engage with the media”, bin Farhan said. When a reporter – Yunus Paksoy from CNN Turk and Hürriyet – asked “what happens if he talks?”, the Saudi minister reportedly replied that “there will be sanctions”.

Following the press conference and the remarks made, further reports emerged claiming that Washington and the administration of president Joe Biden restricted his communication with the media as a precondition for the issuing of his visa.

The US State Department has since denied that any such restrictions were imposed, however, with spokesperson Matthew Miller stating that “Visa records are confidential under US law, so we cannot discuss the details of any individual visa case, but United States immigration law does not include any provisions that prohibit individuals from speaking to the press, and we have imposed no restrictions that prohibit individuals from speaking to the press”.

Although the reports of al-Maliki’s restrictions have not yet been verified, the confirmation by bin Farhan is perceived by some as enough of a verification. If true, it raises significant questions and criticism by many as to why the Palestinian foreign minister would be subject to sanctions for speaking to the media while Israel is able to commit war crimes in its bombardment and invasion of Gaza without consequences or condemnation from the US.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | 1 Comment

Israeli army fires on 6 Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances escorted by UN vehicles

MEMO | December 10, 2023

The Israeli army opened fire on six ambulances of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, escorted by UN vehicles, carrying 11 patients with critical injuries, including amputations and head wounds, in Gaza, the Red Crescent said on Sunday, adding that one of the injured died before receiving any treatment, Anadolu Agency reports.

“The Palestine Red Crescent Society coordinated with the United Nations to evacuate 11 casualties in critical condition last night from Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City to the hospital in the south of the Strip,” the Red Crescent said in a statement on X.

A convoy of six Red Crescent ambulances, accompanied by UN vehicles, set off from Khan Younis after waiting about four hours for the first green light to move towards the military checkpoint that separates the north from south in the Gaza Strip, it added.

“The convoy then waited a full hour to get a second green light to cross the checkpoint,” the Red Crescent explained, noting that “It was then subjected to a thorough inspection that lasted for about two hours, during which two paramedics were detained and released as soon as the convoy was allowed to pass.”

As soon as the convoy left the checkpoint and arrived near the Kuwait Roundabout, the statement said, “The occupation soldiers opened fire on one of the ambulances.”

One of the side windows was hit, and the bullet damaged the ambulance, the Red Crescent said.

“After the convoy returned from the Baptist Hospital and upon reaching the checkpoint on the way back, the convoy’s path was deliberately obstructed and paramedic Rami Al-Qatawi was detained again,” it said.

The Red Crescent said the Israeli military repeated its thorough inspection procedures, obstructing the convoy’s passage, and “interrogation at the checkpoint for more than two hours led to the martyrdom of one of the wounded.”

“After a detention that lasted for more than four hours during which he was subjected to beatings, abuse, and blackmail while being interrogated, paramedic Rami Al-Qatawi was released,” according to the statement.

He arrived at the other side of the checkpoint in a deplorable state after being forced to walk more than 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) on a rough road in cold weather while “naked and handcuffed,” the Red Crescent said.

Israel resumed its military offensive on the Gaza Strip on Dec. 1 after the end of a week-long humanitarian pause with Hamas.

At least 17,700 Palestinians have been killed and more than 48,780 others injured in relentless air and ground attacks on the enclave since Oct. 7 following the cross-border attack by Hamas.

The Israeli death toll in the Hamas attack stood at 1,200, according to official figures.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment

Doha Summit: US Risks Alienating Muslim World by Vetoing Gaza Ceasefire Resolutions

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 10.12.2023

A DC think tank has pointed out that Washington could lose influence in the Arab and Muslim world by killing off the UN ceasefire resolutions.

The US was the only country that vetoed a UN Security Council Gaza ceasefire resolution on Friday. The 15-member gathering voted 13-1 in favor of the initiative – with the United Kingdom abstaining.

Israel’s military operation in the strip has already claimed the lives of more than 17,700 people with 70% of them estimated to be women and children, per Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Judging from the opening remarks at the 21st Doha Forum in Qatar on Sunday, the Arab world is deeply frustrated by Washington’s veto, DC think tank The Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft pointed out.

In particular, Foreign Minister of Qatar Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said that Washington’s move to kill the resolution exposed the “great gap between East and West… and double standards in the international community.”

He placed emphasis on the necessity to create a new multipolar world order that “respects justice and equality between the people where no people are more powerful than the other.” The Qatari leadership vowed to continue exerting pressure on Tel Aviv and Hamas to implement a new truce despite “narrowing” chances.

Palestine Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh argued that the US gave the “greenest of green lights” to Israel’s brutal methods of waging war in Gaza. Per him, Washington should be held responsible for Israel’s attacks and the loss of Palestinian lives.

For his part, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Tel Aviv of implementing a policy of expelling Palestinians out of Gaza by military actions.

Addressing the forum, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that the humanitarian system is currently under threat: “We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system. The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.”

“Last week, I delivered a letter to the President of the UN Security Council invoking Article 99 of the Charter of the UN for the first time since I became Secretary General in 2017,” said Guterres. “I wrote that there is no effective protection of civilians in Gaza. As a matter of fact, during my mandate, the number of civilian casualties in Gaza in such a short period is totally unprecedented.”

Article 99 of the UN Charter states: “The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

Meanwhile, DC think tank The Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft highlighted that humanitarian advocates repeatedly called the situation in Gaza “unprecedented”, adding that UN agencies are continuing to lose people in the war zone. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has lost 134 relief workers in Gaza since Tel Aviv’s military operation began.

The Quincy scholars also warn about the growing anti-American sentiment in the Arab world, as Washington is seen as the major obstacle on the way to peace in Gaza due to its repeated vetoes of ceasefire resolutions in the UN.

Khaled Saffuri, executive director of the National Interest Foundation in Washington, told the think tank that he was “struck by the backlash against American brands” during his travels in Kuwait and Qatar over the last week. Per him, Arab customers and restaurants are boycotting Coke, Pepsi, McDonald’s, and Starbucks. Saffuri called Washington’s latest veto in the UNSC “horrible.” “America is losing a lot in the Muslim world,” he told the think tank.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia readies for a brave new world

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | DECEMBER 10, 2023 

The announcement on Friday by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will seek reelection for a fifth term in office came as no surprise. That he chose the occasion of a Kremlin ceremony conferring the Hero of Russia medals to servicemen who had taken part in Russia’s military operation against Ukraine to make the announcement is striking. 

Putin was found responding to an exhortation by the Hero of the Donetsk People’s Republic Artyom Zhoga, commander of the famous Sparta Battalion (who succeeded his son Vladimir, who died at the age of 28 in 2022 and was posthumously awarded the title “Hero of Russia”) that the entire Donbass would like him to participate in the election. There is no question that Col. Zhoga voiced a collective wish of the Russian people. 

The Ukraine war has turned out to be a defining event in Putin’s political life. There was some misjudgement initially when the special military operation commenced in late February 2022 that it would be a short-lived affair and President Vladimir Zelensky would take up the Russian offer to negotiate. But where Moscow went horribly wrong was that the US wouldn’t get into a proxy war with them with such gusto and manipulate Zelensky from seeking peace. (See an excellent account, in English, of the US’ sabotage of the Istanbul Agreement, titled Peace for Ukraine authored by a distinguished German troika of a diplomat, an historian and a general.)  

Indeed, Putin eventually steered the tentative special military operation out of the woods by making a tactical withdrawal of troops in the northern sectors, allowing a large mobilisation of troops to pursue a war of attrition and ordering an effective multilevel fortification of the frontline. In retrospect, his military decisions turned the tide of war and Russian weaponry and military technology outclassed what the US and NATO supplied to Kiev. 

As of now, Russian forces are pressing ahead all across the 900-km frontline and the momentum might carry them far, even across the Dnieper. Crimea and the Black Sea are not in any serious danger; the four new territories are resource-rich and Russia controls all the ports in the strategic Sea of Azov, which is an important access route for Central Asia from the Caspian Sea via the Volga-Don Canal. 

However, although the US failed to achieve a military victory in Ukraine, the Biden Administration will try to prolong the conflict for as long as possible through 2024 hoping to bleed Russia in a gruelling struggle as in Afghanistan in the eighties. But it is a vain hope. 

Sergey Naryshkin, chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence service wrote last week in the agency’s journal Razvedchik (The Intelligence Operative) that “there is a high probability that further support for the Kiev junta, especially given the increasing ‘toxicity’ of the Ukrainian theme for transatlantic unity and Western society as a whole, will accelerate the decline of the international authority of the West.

“Ukraine itself will turn into a ‘black hole’ absorbing material and human resources the further it goes,” he continued. “In the end, the US risks creating ‘another Vietnam,’ which every new US administration will have to deal with until some sensible person who has the courage and determination to break this vicious circle takes over in Washington.”

Ukraine will remain a priority issue for Russia and that is one main reason why the Russian elite and the nation at large want Putin to remain in power until 2030. The heart of the matter is that Putin also brilliantly tweaked the economic and social policies to sequester the lives of ordinary Russians from the usual deprivations characteristic of a ‘war economy’. Life moves on, and the ‘new normalcy’ is working well. 

Putin has scattered the US’ goal to entrap Russia in an apparent quagmire — sending the Russian economy into a tailspin and stoking social discontent and creating conditions for an insurrection against the regime — to weaken Russia and remove it from the global stage as an increasingly effective counterpoint to the western hegemony by fuelling fissiparous tendencies to threaten the unity and integrity of the Russian Federation. 

In reality, Putin’s achievements are a work in progress and his continuance in power remains a pre-requisite for Russia’s re-emergence as a ‘superpower’ surpassing even the Soviet Union in some ways in circumstances that are as much challenging as offering opportunities that must be creatively seized in a volatile world environment in historic transition. 

Putin tested the waters and has put Russia on the right side of history, so to speak, which presents a study in contrast with the disarray and lack of conviction and mediocre leadership in the US and the transatlantic system as a whole. 

If the above-mentioned essay by Naryshkin (entitled 2024 Is the Year Of the Geopolitical Awakening ) is taken as benchmark, the world in transition can be expected to have a trajectory on the following lines: 

  • A fundamental conflict between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ world, which has been maturing below the surface through the three decades since the end of the cold war, has “moved into an open phase” with the commencement of Russia’s special military operation and has “acquired a geographically all-encompassing character” in the last year. 
  • An increasing number of countries that “share the ideas of multipolarity and adhere to a traditional worldview” are pushing back the West’s globalist and anti-humanistic agenda.
  • Consequently, the risks of instability are multiplying, which lead to “an increase in the chaotic nature of the processes taking place in the foreign policy arena.” The emergent situation demands “remarkable restraint and foresight” from world leaders. 
  • In sum, the current situation is “increasingly reminiscent of a class revolutionary situation, when the ‘upper classes’ in the face of the weakening United States can no longer provide their own leadership, and the ‘lower classes’, as the Anglo-Saxon elite refer to all other countries, no longer want to obey Western dictates.” 
  • In order to preserve their global hegemony, the Euro-Atlantic elite will follow the well-trodden path of creating controlled chaos — de-stabilising the situation in key regions by pitting some ‘recalcitrant’ states against others and “forming a sub-system around them as operational and tactical coalitions controlled by the West.” 
  • However, “responsible world players, especially Russia, China and India and some others demonstrate their readiness to resolutely resist external threats and independently implement crisis management.” Even the closest allies of the US are striving to diversify external relations faced with lack of confidence in America as provider of security. The eruption of Israel-Palestine conflict is “a sobering example” for many Western politicians.
  • In such a backdrop, “the world stage will be marked by a further intensification of the confrontation between the two geopolitical principles — namely, the Anglo-Saxon, or island, ‘divide-and-rule’ and the continental ‘unite-and-lead’ directly antagonistic to it. Manifestations of this fierce confrontation in the coming year will be observed in even the most remote regions of the world.”

Interestingly, in Naryshkin’s prognosis, it is not the Indo-Pacific but the Arab world that will remain “the key arena of the struggle for a new world order” in 2024. By the way, the essay appeared on the eve of Putin’s daylong trip to the UAE and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday where he recieved a hero’s welcome. In an extraordinary courtesy by the host countries, Putin’s presidential jet was flanked by four armed Su-35 multi-role 4th + + generation multi-role fighter jets noted for great combat power, high speed and matchless flight range. 

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 2 Comments

NEW TWIST IN CHINESE WHITE LUNG SAGA

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | December 7, 2023

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | 1 Comment