Kata’ib Hezbollah: Iraq strikes stem from US statesmen’s criminal mindset
Press TV – February 4, 2024
Iraqi anti-terror group Kata’ib Hezbollah has roundly denounced the latest US military airstrikes against several sites used by resistance groups in the country, stating that the attacks emanate from the US administration’s criminal mindset and its craving for more bloodshed.
“We extend our condolences to our proud and steadfast nation for the martyrdom of several compatriots, who were targeted while protecting the homeland against the evils of American forces and the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group,” it said in a statement.
It added that criminality is deeply ingrained in the mindset of American politicians, and they long for relentless bloodletting as well as starvation and massacre of ordinary people in pursuit of their interests and advancement of their malicious agendas.
“US officials do not shy away from the occupation of other countries, plundering others’ national assets, influencing their decision-making and their humiliation.
“Under the American mindset, the first solution is murder. Such an attitude has historically been responsible for the extensive destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is now behind the deadly attacks against sites in al-Qa’im,” Kata’ib Hezbollah pointed out.
Separately, the Yemeni Ansarullah resistance movement censured the US aggression against areas in Iraq and neighboring Syria, terming them as barbaric, in breach of international law, and a serious violation of the two countries’ sovereignty.
“The aggression falls within the context of US support for the Zionist enemy as it continues its crimes against the Palestinian population of Gaza,” it added.
Ansarullah warned that US moves will drag the entire region into a more complex conflict, and will jeopardize international peace and security.
“Washington could have compelled the Tel Aviv regime to halt its aggression on Palestinians and lift the siege on Gaza. It, however, decided to target the countries and nations of the region.
“We reiterate that Muslim nations reserve the right to defend themselves and protect their security and sovereignty against repeated US acts of aggression,” the Yemeni movement underscored.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its military forces struck more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria “with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from the United States”.
“The air strikes employed more than 125 precision munitions,” it added in a statement.
US President Joe Biden said in a statement on Friday that the strikes were the first in a series of actions by Washington in response to a drone attack that killed a number of soldiers at a remote US base in Jordan.
“Our response began today,” Biden said. “It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” he stated.
Three US soldiers were killed and about 40 others injured in the assault on the military base known as Tower 22 near the Jordan-Syria border on Sunday.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel claimed responsibility for the drone strike.
In retaliation for the flurry of US aerial assaults on several locations in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced that it had conducted missile strikes against the Ain al-Asad Airbase, housing US occupation forces in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar.
The group also said it had staged missile and drone strikes against the strategic al-Tanf military base in southeastern Syria near the border with Jordan and Iraq, as well as the al-Khadra Village in Syria’s northeastern province of al-Hasakah.
Possible NATO Corps Deployment to Ukraine May Become ‘Suicide Mission for Those Troops’
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 04.02.2024
The UK has urged its NATO allies to consider sending the alliance’s expeditionary force to Ukraine, an informed source told Sputnik. According to the source, the alleged move came “in connection with the unfavorable developments in the Ukrainian theater of military operations for Kiev”.
The insider added that Britain also called on NATO to consider imposing a no-fly zone over the territory controlled by the Zelensky regime and to increase military aid to Ukraine.
”The UK’s reported plans about deploying NATO’s expeditionary corps to Ukraine is “a fantastical delusion on the part of the Brits and has no foundation in reality,” retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik.
“But just because the Brits are insane does not mean Russia can ignore them. It is a serious proposal,” he added.
Johnson was partly echoed by Matthew Gordon-Banks, an international relations consultant, former member of Parliament and retired senior research fellow at the UK Defence Academy, who said he didn’t think the rumors of a NATO force in Ukraine should be taken seriously.
“The suggestions I have heard are quite unrealistic at present,” Gordon-Banks stated.
Asked to comment on the “unfavorable development of events” for Kiev on the battlefield, he emphasized that “things are collapsing in Kiev quite quickly”.
“[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky has not been able to fire his top general, and I think he is now very much a ‘lame duck’ president,” Gordon-Banks argued, referring to the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny.
The same tone was struck by Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel turned geopolitical and military affairs consultant, who warned that if the information about London’s plans is true, and “if this is somebody’s dream, it could quickly become a nightmare for British and NATO forces.
“But it is not a realistic solution or proposal. Russia has complete air dominance, escalatory dominance, logistical dominance, ammunition dominance. This would be catastrophic for any UK forces and definitely would show a symbol of direct NATO involvement, which could really be dangerous, as far as escalation goes,” Rasmussen emphasized, noting that “the British forces would probably be wiped out, fairly rapidly.”
The US Army veteran suggested that someone in the UK military might be having “some type of delusional experience” for even suggesting such a scenario. “It’s a suicide mission for those troops. And it definitely would pull NATO into a much more dangerous situation and direct confrontation [with Russia],” Rasmussen concluded.
Nuland leaves sense of foreboding in Kiev

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | FEBRUARY 4, 2024
The commencement of political upheavals in world affairs sometimes lies with a seemingly obscure event. This is not to say that the shooting down of a Russian Ilyushin-76 military transport plane carrying dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war over the territory of Belgorod Region by two missiles fired from the area of Liptsy, in Kharkov Region (Ukraine) on January 24 is anything like the spark that set off World War I when a Serbian patriot shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the city of Sarajevo in 1914 and within a month, the Austrian army invaded Serbia.
That said, the downing of the Russian plane would have far-reaching consequences now that Russian investigators found irrefutable proof that the plane was shot down with a US-made Patriot surface-to-air system. President Vladimir Putin disclosed this himself.
Russia sought an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in the matter but France as the president disallowed the request, which would have cast the West in bad light. The fact of the matter is that the US and Russia are not at war and the Americans would have no hesitation to call such an outrageous incident as an act of war if a Pentagon plane were to be shot down with a Russian missile in the US airspace.
To be sure, Russia will draw appropriate conclusions and formulate a measured reaction. This is an escalation spiral as Russia’s election approaches.
Indeed, all indications are that the US strategy through this year is to ‘hold, build and strike’ at Russia, as outlined in an article in the War on the Rocks co-authored by Michael Kofman, a leading American military analyst and the director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for a New American Security. Basically, the strategy is predicated on the premise that Russia is still far from its official goal of seizing the entire Donbas and therefore, what happens in 2024 is likely to determine the future trajectory of the war.
Kofman identified three elements as crucial: one, a well- fortified frontline in Ukraine which stalls Russian offensives; two, pressing ahead with reconstituting the battered Ukrainian military; and, three, most important, degrading the Russian advantages and “creating challenges for Russian forces far behind the front lines”, while doubling down on rebuilding capacity to resume offensive operations. In a nutshell, the strategy is to reach a level of capability where Ukraine can absorb Russian offensives while minimising casualties and positioning itself to retake the advantage over time. [Emphasis added.]
Russia is unlikely to remain passive without a counter-strategy. In fact, there is a perceptible acceleration of Russian operations lately. The factors of advantage largely lie with Russia which holds material, industrial, and manpower advantages, and therefore, recreating another opportunity to deal Russia a battlefield defeat is virtually impossible.
Washington should be aware that there is very little realistic chance of the West being able to outlast Russia and force it to accept peace on Ukrainian terms. Time is not on Ukraine’s side, either, militarily or economically. The noted American strategic thinker of the realist school and Harvard academic Prof. Stephen Walt is to the point when he wrote in FT recently, “Both [Biden and Trump] administrations will try to negotiate an end to the war after January 2025, and the resulting deal is likely to be a lot closer to Russia’s stated war aims than Kyiv’s.”
But that is the whole point. The new war strategy — which was outlined in a recent article in the Washington Post — takes into account the possibility of Ukraine becoming a dysfunctional state. But so long as Ukraine remains a cauldron boiling with nationalism that lends itself as a base for hostile moves to destabilise Russia and lock it in permanently in a confrontation with the West, the purpose is served —from Washington’s viewpoint.
The final act of the power struggle playing out in Kiev is, therefore, of decisive importance and is being supervised by none other than Biden’s agent in the administration ever since the Maidan coup in Ukraine in 2014 — Victoria Nuland, Undersecretary of State. Nuland’s two-fold mission has been, first, to put in place a calculus of power in Kiev that is firmly under US control and, second, to steer the transition from war to insurgency when the need arises.
The probability being talked about is that President Zelensky who has burnt his bridges with Moscow will remain in power while the army chief Valeri Zaluzhni may be replaced. That said, the outcome of high-stakes power struggles, as the one Kiev is witnessing, is also hard to predict. Gen. Zaluzhni’s nuanced op-ed in the CNN on the day after Nuland left Kiev leaves no one in doubt that the redoubtable general is in a defiant mood.
Chief of Defense Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov’s biggest qualification is that although a man of very limited military experience, his forte is intelligence and covert operations who did brilliantly well to create a network of field operatives within Russia for subversive work — just the man to navigate Ukraine’s transition from attritional war to a full-bodied insurgency against Russia.
The US agenda to weaken Russia in a long-drawn out insurgency is very much in the cards. This agenda enjoys the support of the transatlantic alliance, is “cost-effective” and allows the US to focus on Asia-Pacific, while keeping Russia down for the foreseeable future. No doubt, Russia’s reaction to the downing of the IL-86 military plane by Patriot missiles in Russian air space was anything but an accident.
Moscow’s best option would be to create a buffer that keeps Russian territories out of reach of game-changing western medium and long-range missiles that are capable of degrading Russian logistics and command and control nodes and make large swathes of territories in the east and south of Ukraine, including Crimea, untenable for Russian forces.
But that necessitates a full-fledged Russian offensive to take control of the entire region to the east of Dnieper river. Russia may face the same dilemma that Americans faced in Vietnam stemming from the requirement to expand the theatre of operations into Laos and Cambodia (aside North Vietnam.) For Russia, that involves colossal drain of human and material resources and the erosion of its international standing.
The only feasible alternative will be to end the war — through negotiations or militarily — in 2024. But Biden’s interest in negotiations is zero. That leaves the military option as the only choice. The strategy to degrade the Ukrainian military in the meat grinder was highly successful, but going forward, in reality, the US-led western alliance, especially key functionaries like Nuland (an ex-ambassador to NATO) with a long record of being Russophobic, are showing no signs of attrition.
Now that the US has broken the glass ceiling by enabling a military attack on Russian territory, Moscow should brace for more incidents like the downing of the IL-76 plane. The authorities will be keeping a beady eye. Nuland’s sudden appearance in Kiev as a psychopomp from Greek mythology at this inflection point needs to be factored in.
While in Kiev, Nuland forecast Ukrainian military successes in 2024 and that Moscow “is going to get some nice surprises on the battlefield”. The day before Nuland’s arrival in Kiev, Budanov had said that the Ukrainian military is in “active defence” but somewhere in the spring, Russia’s ongoing offensive “will be exhausted completely… and I think ours will start.” The tone of triumphalism is unmistakable, but how far it is rooted in reality time only can tell.
Israel Wants All of Palestine, and Denies the Existence of the Palestinian People

Steven Sahiounie interviews Kari Jaquesson | Mideast Discourse | January 28, 2024
“There was no such thing as Palestinians,” said Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, in an interview with The Sunday Times on June 15, 1969.
In March 2023, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, denied the existence of a Palestinian people or nationhood just weeks after calling for a Palestinian town to be “erased.”
137 countries worldwide (70%) have recognized Palestine. In 2014 the EU voted to ‘Recognize Palestine in principle’. Within Europe as a whole, only the Czech Republic, Iceland, Malta, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, and Ukraine have recognized Palestine.
We know that the US supports the genocide in Gaza, but what do the Europeans think? In an effort to answer that question, Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed the Norwegian expert on the Middle East, Kari Jaquesson.
#1. Steven Sahiounie (SS): EU foreign affairs council held a Peace Summit in Brussels on January 22, chaired by EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell. The EU presented a proposal, which some have called bizarre, to create a framework for a Peace Plan, with the ultimate goal of a two-state solution by 2025. It ignores the genocide being committed in Gaza today, and fails to call for a ceasefire.
How is this proposal being viewed in Europe?
Kari Jaquesson (KJ): Before we start, I just want to let your readers know who I am, Steven, and also that we know each other from when I first visited Syria in 2017 as an independent journalist and I did an interview with you on my stop-over in Beirut. It is a great pleasure to follow your work.
So, I am a Norwegian national, and Norway is not a member of EU, though much of our legislation is being dictated by EU-mandates. Much of our political cast is very pro-EU, even though Norwegians have twice voted not to become members.
I am a private citizen, do not belong to any political party, and participate in public discourse representing only myself. As more or less a household name in Norway, both because of a 20+ year-long TV career as a fitness and health expert, later as a presenter in different TV shows, and a debater and op-ed author of so-called controversial issues, I have been able to lift non-mainstream perspectives into the public eye. My profession is still in fitness and health, and in addition I work as a researcher, translator and occasional writer for steigan.no, the only truly independent major Norwegian non mainstream news portal, so I process daily a lot of news, discussion and commentaries from European, American, African and Arabic sources, as well as historical files. I just want to make it clear that I only speak for myself, I do not represent any organization or company.
The distance between the non-elected officials in the EU-administration and the peoples of Europe could hardly be greater. This has been ongoing for years, and the heads of state in West European countries have hardly any popular support at all. The people in Western Europe, and let me include Norway are in great numbers demoralized and struggling to make ends meet. The NATO proxy war against Russia is draining the state coffers, and even in a should-be wealthy country like Norway, we have long lines in the food banks, energy costs have gone through the roof, and the general cost of living is not sustainable for an increasing part of the population. The state is extremely wealthy, but people’s wallets are getting slimmer by the day. Most people have little or no time or interest in politics, and most people get their so-called news from the state-subsidized media, which includes not only the big newspapers and TV-channels, but also former so-called independent outlets.
So, quite frankly, most people do not know about nor care about, nor have the energy or will to reach out to more in depth coverage of such events as the announcement of EU’s proposal. But, on the other hand, there is an impressing engagement against both the genocide going on as we speak, and the occupation of Palestine as such.
“From now on I will not talk about the peace process, but I want a two-state-solution process,” Borell said to journalists ahead of a EU foreign ministers’ meeting.
This concept of two states has been dangled in front of the Palestinian people for decades, but I can’t see how anyone who has followed the history of the occupation for one minute can take such a stand seriously. The Zionist entity has made it perfectly clear, not only now, but through their actions since 1948 that they want all of Palestine, and more. Furthermore, the occupiers deny the mere existence of Palestine, and even of a Palestinian people.
The EU do not use the correct terminology, which is a sure give-away on the partiality. They keep saying conflict, but avoid at all cost the true description. The true description is occupation.
#2. SS: The Israeli foreign minister, Israel Katz, showed EU foreign ministers a video about creating an artificial island next to Gaza to house Palestinians. Various Israeli plans to deport Gazans to the Sinai desert in Egypt, and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to Jordan, have been openly discussed.
How do Europeans view the ethnic-cleansing of Gaza?
KJ: In all European cities there have been, and are still huge demonstrations against the ongoing genocide. I am not sure all are aware of all the indecent remarks and proposals for “final solution” the occupiers are announcing. The news coverage is biased, and a notable part of the public are easy targets for the type of shock and awe reporting that dominated the news right after the October 7th incident. Their mind is still fixed on what has long since been debunked as flat out lies.
But even so, an engagement not seen since the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France is keeping its momentum, and some admissions are being made by some Western-European leaders.
According to a poll in Norway’s biggest newspaper earlier this month, almost every second Norwegian thinks it would be right to boycott Israel, but the government has no such plans.
Minister of foreign affairs Espen Barth Eide has previously called Gaza “hell on earth”, but has been adamant that Norway cannot implement its own national sanctions. We have no tradition in Norway of unilateral sanctions, he said, adding that Norway would do it if the Security Council agrees. Norway has since 2011 been practicing the same sanctions against Syria as the EU, although we are not a member.
#3. SS: The EU is planning to impose visa bans on 12 or so of the most violent Israeli settlers soon, according to French foreign minister Stéphane Séjourné. However, many of the 700,000 illegal settlers in the West Bank are US citizens, so the ban would likely be meaningless.
Why would the EU propose something so insignificant, instead of calling for the end of occupation in the West Bank?
KJ: First of all, what difference would this make? What is the purpose? And what is this other than a pathetic symbolic suggestion? As you point out, they have dual citizenship, and though the numbers vary, it is reason to believe that hundreds of thousands of dual citizenship-holders have returned to their country of origin. Which is a harsh contrast to the situation of the Palestinians who have no citizenship at all, and who know that if they leave, they will never be able to return.
After this week’s ruling there is a legal ground to accuse Europeans who have been fighting with the IDF to be prosecuted and punished for having participated in a genocide. And there are many who are doing this.
#4. SS: The US Biden administration refuses to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. They are prevented in doing so, even though the majority of Americans are in favor of a ceasefire, because of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, which exerts overwhelming pressure on the politics in the US.
Does Europe have a similar Israel lobby which prevents EU leaders from demanding a ceasefire in Gaza?
KJ: It is almost impossible to understand to what extent France and Britain is controlled by Jewish Zionist groups, but you may get an impression if you try to make count of who is allowed on the TV-debates and the biased perspective from the TV-presenters and who they invite for interviews and for commenting. However, this is a complete taboo and you will not find any serious discussion about this in any major news outlet. No mainstream politician will touch the issue, well knowing it would be political suicide.
Years ago, the former Israeli Minister Shulamit Aloni was a guest on the American channel Democracy Now, and she explained the inability for the Zionists to accept criticism without resorting to false accusations of antisemitism and the second world war. She called it “a trick that we always use”.
Most of the Western European countries, including Norway may be described as ‘vallas’, in other words, satellite states of the United States of America. We have no independent foreign policy.
#5. SS: The German government has been supporting the revenge killing of 25,000 Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli government. They keep reiterating the mantra, “Israel has the right to defend itself.” Many experts have characterized Germany as a country held hostage to the holocaust, as they have refused to call for a ceasefire.
Isn’t it time that Germany divorce itself from the crimes of Adolf Hitler, and be allowed to treat Israel like any other country?
KJ: First of all, Israel is not a country, let me make that clear. It is an occupation. Secondly, the occupation is expanding with an insatiable appetite for more land, therefore this supposed country has no borders. Also, it has no constitution.
Is it really the alleged guilt from the second world war that is making Germany so docile vis-a-vis the genocidal Zionist? Maybe there is another reason, less noble. Unfortunately, this is verboten territory.
Germany and many other countries have made research and revisions of that period illegal, even for historians, and even if the number of alleged victims have been significantly reduced, yes, officially, it is forbidden to say so. Even the plaque at the most infamous concentration camp has been drastically revised, something few are aware of.
If the German leadership truly believed in their country’s history and crimes, wouldn’t they be the first to recognize and oppose new genocides? Yes, but they don’t.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist.
The covid booster cancer time bomb
By Professor Angus Dalgleish | TCW Defending Freedom | January 30, 2024
I have previously reported on my concern about the rise in stable cancer relapses that I have witnessed in my melanoma clinic.
None of these patients of mine presented with the classic prodrome of relapse that I had always noticed previously, such as severe depression due to bereavement, divorce or bankruptcy. Indeed the only thing I found they had in common was to have had a recent booster mRNA covid vaccine. I phoned around my colleagues not only in the UK but also in Australia to check their experience. In no case did they deny such a link. Indeed, they were equally alarmed at the association between booster vaccines and relapse that they too were witnessing, as well an increase in new cancers, particularly in those below 50 years old. In addition to melanoma these colleagues were also very concerned about a sudden big increase in young patients with colorectal cancer.
Rather than instigating a proper inquiry to investigate this when we raised these concerns, the medical authorities told us all that what we were witnessing was a coincidence, that we had to prove it and above all, not to upset our patients.
Recently the American Cancer Society (ACS) has warned of a surge in new cancer cases in the US this lastyear of over 2million, with many of these cases occurring in younger patients. Indeed, the chief scientific officer of the ACS, William Dahat, announced in addition that cancers were presenting with more aggressive disease and larger tumours at the time of diagnosis, especially in younger patients. Of further interest it noted a difference in the microbiome (the community of micro-organisms such as fungi, bacteria and viruses that exist in a different environment) between patients under 50 compared with those over 50.
This surge mirrors a report from Phinance Technologies of late last year which analysed in detail data from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) which showed that disability and deaths in 2021 and 2022 had increased dramatically in all age groups, but especially in the 15-44 age group.
The Lancet also published an article before Christmas reporting excess deaths post covid pandemic to be up by 11-15 per cent over than expected for under-25s and for between 25-49 year olds. This is in fact the pattern found in many countries that have looked at the data. Germany for example has reported excess deaths rising from 7 per cent in 2020 to 24 per cent in 2023.
What makes this all the more surprising is that negative deaths should be the norm after a pandemic as you cannot die twice!
The link between covid vaccines and myocarditis and early death particularly in the young, highlighted by Peter McCullough and colleagues as well as by Aseem Malhotra here in the UK, is incontestable. Now we have a confirmatory report from the CDC in the US, data that the authorities here have refused to act on so as not to alarm vaccinated patients!
Although it is obvious that these excess deaths are real and are continuing to rise, all we get from our Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty, are risible attempts to explain away the increase, such as that it is a result of patients not getting their statins in lockdown (hey, patients under 55 do not get statins routinely!) The situation is no better in the US where Harvard researchers have put the blame on sleep disturbance!
The first obvious candidate is lockdown itself when the National Health Service became the National Covid Service and all screening was cancelled or delayed, resulting in an increase in cancer detection and late presentation. Many negative lifestyle factors almost certainly increased as a result of lockdown, such as a lack of exercise and too much food, especially takeaways.
What very few of these reviews consider is that this rise in excess deaths could be a result of the booster vaccine programme, even it clearly follows the vaccine rollout programme starting in 2021 and increasing in 2022 and 2023.
With regards to the link to cancer, there are numerous reports in the literature of cancers arising within days of the vaccines being administered, especially in the case of lymphomas and leukaemias. There are several reports of PET scan mapped tumours exploding at the site and draining area of covid injections with the advice to inject covid vaccines away from known cancers! Outside my clinical observations, several friends have developed cancer after a totally unnecessary covid booster taken only to facilitate travel.
For a possible association between a booster vaccine and the appearance of cancer we need a plausible scientific causal explanation. Unfortunately for those who still insist that these cases are mere coincidences, there are several compelling ones to choose from:
Firstly, it has been reported that T cell responses are suppressed after the boosters (not the first two injections) and that this is especially marked in some cancer patients.
Secondly, the antibody repertoire switches after the first booster from a protective IgG1 and IgG3 dominant B cell response to a tolerising IgG4 one, made worse by further boosters, as reported in a recent Science Immunology paper. As many cancers are controlled by effective T cell led immunity, the sudden perturbation of this control would clearly explain the development of B cell leukaemia and lymphomas, melanoma renal cell cancers and colorectal ones, all tumours which can respond to immunotherapy.
Another report by Loacker et al in Clin Chem Lab Med shows that mRNA vaccines increase PD-L1 on granulocytes and monocytes, which means they effect the very opposite of what the immunotherapy agents do against these tumours, and whichin turn explains why many of these tumours appear to be resistant to this otherwise effective therapy. Taken together, the effect on the immune response of these boosters can easily explain the relapses and so-called turbo-charged cancers appearing.
Other reports document the presence of DNA plasmids and SV 40 (a known cancer-inducing gene) sequences, as well as the ability of mRNA to bind to important suppressor genes. Although this is controversial and has been challenged, it has led to the realisation of significant batch-to-batch variation that could enhance the cancer process yet probably not manifest itself for a few years. The very possibility that we could be sitting on a vaccine-inducing cancer time bomb means that we must never again get involved into a mass vaccine programme for another possible Disease X.
But unless the government wakes up to this now, we will be at the mercy of the World Health Organization doing the very same thing when they decide to release the Disease X virus in order to take back control and destroy our lives all over again.
Fluoride Expert Squares Off Against EPA on Day 1 of Landmark Trial
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.| The Defender | February 1, 2024
After a nearly four-year delay, federal Judge Edward Chen on Wednesday heard opening statements in a lawsuit seeking to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prohibit water fluoridation in the U.S. due to fluoride’s toxic effects on children’s developing brains.
Food and Water Watch sued the EPA in 2017 — after the agency denied its petition to end water fluoridation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This week’s trial is the first to challenge the dismissal of such a petition. Other plaintiffs include Fluoride Action Network (FAN), Moms Against Fluoridation and other advocacy groups and individuals.
Fluoride’s neurotoxic effects on children’s brain development were not in dispute during opening statements and in testimony delivered by the plaintiffs’ first expert witness, Dr. Howard Hu, an internist and preventive medicine specialist, with a doctoral degree in epidemiology.
Instead, attorneys for both sides faced off over the question of what level of fluoride in the water supply poses a risk to the developing brain of fetuses and children.
Levels of fluoride found in drinking water in the U.S. are typically 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L), which is lower than the 1.5 mg/L levels found to be neurotoxic by the key reports discussed in the trial.
Attorneys for FAN argued that according to the EPA’s own guidelines for chemical risk evaluation — which they allege the EPA is failing to implement — fluoridating water at a dose that is so close to a known hazard level is too risky, especially given that children are exposed to fluoride from other sources in their daily lives.
They also argued the EPA’s failure to follow its own guidelines is unprecedented. The agency bans other regulated toxic chemicals, such as methylene chloride or trichloroethylene at levels much lower than the known hazard level to ensure the chemicals won’t pose a risk to human health.
And, they said, water fluoridation is unnecessary because the benefits to dental health come from the topical application of fluoride, not from its ingestion.
The EPA argued there is no compelling evidence that fluoride is a neurotoxin at the current levels used for fluoridation in the U.S. and that therefore water fluoridation doesn’t pose a risk to children.
Over two hundred million Americans drink fluoridated water, a practice that has been backed by public health officials and dental associations for decades.
If Chen decides fluoride poses an unreasonable risk, the EPA will have to revisit its rules on water fluoridation.
Fluoride regulation ‘long overdue’
Wednesday’s trial was picked after a June 2020 ruling by Chen that placed the trial on hold pending the release of the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) report on the link between fluoride exposure and neurodevelopment effects.
The report was released in draft form under court order in March 2023, after top public health officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) tried for almost a year to block its publication.
The NTP report concluded that fluoride exposure at levels equivalent to 1.5 mg/L is associated with lower IQ in children.
The second phase of the trial is scheduled to take place over nine days at the federal courthouse in San Francisco, with a Zoom feed available for up to 1,000 viewers to watch live.
FAN member Clint Griess told The Defender that fluoride regulation was long overdue, but he had confidence Chen was carefully considering the science. He said:
“This [phase of the trial] is long overdue. We won after the first trial in my opinion. The judge is being extremely cautious. He has recognized, in his own words, that ‘justice delayed is justice denied.’
“Here we are in 2024, and we are still delaying and denying justice to millions of Americans. I’m very glad we are finally here and our lawyers are doing a great job. And I have every confidence that we will be victorious.”
EPA must apply its own guidelines to fluoride
In his opening arguments, the plaintiffs’ attorney Michael Connett told the court it faced an issue of national importance, “whether the widespread addition of fluoride to water presents a risk of neurodevelopmental harm to children, including IQ loss.”
The EPA faced a similar question in the 1970s, he said, when it had to address the question of adding lead to gasoline.
The EPA was in a quandary, he said, because, at the time, there was no clear evidence that lead was damaging at the levels used. But the EPA decided the margin between the hazard level and the exposure level posed too great a risk — leading the agency to outlaw lead in gasoline.
Connett said that properly applying the EPA’s risk assessment framework for existing chemicals under TSCA is at the heart of the decision the court is facing regarding water fluoridation.
During the first part of the trial in 2020, the agency used the wrong standard to assess the evidence, he said, holding the plaintiffs to a burden of proof the EPA had never held anyone else.
Connett said:
“What you see in this trial is the clash of fundamentally different paradigms. On one hand, you have the sort of 70-year-old longstanding approach by the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and dental interests where basically it’s not a risk until you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that 0.7 [mg/L] fluoride water is causing harm, and that’s been their approach.
“But that’s not how the EPA does business. They use risk assessment. And we are in a position where the plaintiffs are the ones explaining how the EPA is supposed to do risk assessment.”
The EPA’s risk assessment framework, he said, begins with determining whether and at what level a chemical poses a hazard through a dose-response analysis. Then it assesses community exposure. The third piece, he said, is that the EPA looks at the margin between the hazard level and exposure level.
Connett said there are two types of risk. The first is when human exposure exceeds the hazard risk, but that is very rare. For example, the EPA didn’t have that type of data when it decided to ban lead in gasoline.
Then, he said, there is inferred risk, where exposure is lower than the hazard level. This scenario focuses on whether that margin between hazard and exposure may put some people at risk. TSCA mandates the EPA protect the most susceptible people from risk, he said.
The EPA typically requires a margin of 30-fold to determine whether something has a risk. However, some are much higher — for example, tetrachloroethylene is banned at levels 89 times lower than the hazard level, and methylene chloride exposure is not allowed at levels 27 times lower.
In this case, he said, rather than inferring risk as it ought to, the EPA is requiring a risk hazard at the exposure level, which for fluoride is 0.7 mg/L.
Connett outlined the evidence the plaintiffs will present. It includes undisputed evidence that fluoride passes through the placenta and gets into the fetal brain. FAN also will present data from animal studies and human studies, including the NTP report at the center of the trial.
“The NTP found that a large number of studies have been published on fluoride and human IQ. In total, they identified 72 human studies, of which 64 found a connection between fluoride and IQ deficiency. Of the 19 highest quality studies, 18 found lowered IQ, a 95% consistency,” he said.
Connett introduced the first witnesses, Hu and Dr. Bruce Lanphear, professor of health sciences at Canada’s Simon Fraser University.
Connett also previewed evidence the EPA would introduce to attempt to show fluoride is not neurotoxic at low levels, namely a study conducted in coastal Spain by Jesus Ibarluzea, Ph.D., and published in 2022 after the NTP finished its systematic review.
That study did not find evidence that fluoride is neurotoxic at low levels. Instead, it found fluoride increased IQ for boys by 15 points — a finding Connett called “implausible.”
Connett told The Defender, “The EPA has never applied the principles of risk assessment to fluoridation and this case is finally getting them to confront the principles on this issue.”
Chen pushed back on EPA during opening comments
In its opening statement, the EPA argued that anything can be toxic at high levels. The agency’s attorney laid out the EPA’s core argument that there is not enough data showing fluoride’s neurotoxicity at low levels present in drinking water and the law requires a “preponderance of evidence” of risk.
He highlighted a line in the NTP report indicating that more studies at lower exposure levels were needed to fully understand the potential associations with neurotoxicity.
Chen paused the remarks to ask the EPA to confirm the NTP report did establish that with moderate confidence that fluoride caused neurotoxicity at 1.5 mg/L, a relatively low level, which the EPA attorney confirmed.
“Do you disagree with the NTP’s use of 1.5 [mg/L as a hazard level]?” Chen asked. The EPA’s lawyer said they did not.
The EPA also argued that TSCA says “must be a preponderance of the evidence that the chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk.”
According to the EPA, studies of fluoride’s neurotoxicity at low levels have mixed findings — some show there are statistically significant adverse effects at low levels and others found there are not.
Given that, EPA’s attorneys argued the data is “too inconsistent” to conclude that low-level fluoride exposure presents an unreasonable risk.
Chen interrupted the opening comments again to ask whether, as the plaintiffs argued, that uncertainty is precisely what should inform the discussion of risk. “If the outcome wasn’t lowered IQ but cancer or death,” he asked, “would that change things?”
The EPA closed by telling the judge that what matters for TSCA is whether 0.7 mg/L presents an unreasonable risk. Chen pushed back again, “Shouldn’t we consider that in context,” he asked, because fluoride exposure occurs through sources other than water?
The EPA named the expert witnesses it will call later in the case, including David Savitz, Ph.D., and the EPA’s Stan Barone.
‘The evidence is quite persuasive’
The first witness, Dr. Howard Hu, an environmental epidemiologist and chair of the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California took the stand yesterday to begin the trial’s deep dive into the science.
Hu has authored more than 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals and published several studies on fluoride. He also advises the EPA and collaborates with its scientists on issues related to lead exposure.
In 1993, Hu co-founded the ELEMENT research project, a pregnancy and birth cohort funded by the EPA and the National Institutes of Health and used to study how prenatal exposure to environmental toxins, including lead, mercury and fluoride affects children’s neurodevelopment.
In such cohorts, researchers collect epidemiological data during pregnancy and then from children over their lifetimes to study a variety of health outcomes tied to environmental exposures.
More recently at San Diego, Hu analyzed data on fluoride and neurotoxicity from the MADRES cohort, comprised of Los Angeles County residents, largely Latino. That research is not yet published.
Hu testified about his research, which consistently finds a link between fluoride and lowered IQ in children.
One of his fluoride studies examined the ELEMENT cohort and found that prenatal levels of fluoride that appeared in maternal urine predicted offspring intelligence scores at ages 4 and 12, with IQ levels lower with incremental increases in maternal fluoride levels.
A second paper expanded the analysis of the 2017 paper and made similar findings. Hu said the neurotoxic effects of fluoride were the strongest in the nonverbal domains, which he said is similar to lead.
Hu also addressed other cohort studies that have different findings, such as the MIREC study in Canada or the Danish study referred to as Odense where the research was conducted, which Hu also used in some of his research.
For example, the MIREC study found sex-specific findings whereas the ELEMENT study did not. The Danish cohort study did not find statistically significant toxic effects.
Hu told the court that different sexes and demographics can have different life experiences that can account for different outcomes.
Overall, he said, his research supports the idea that fluoride at current exposure levels in drinking water is toxic.
Hu also discussed his concerns about the Spanish study the EPA is using as a basis to argue fluoride is not toxic at low levels. He testified it did not control for seafood consumption, which creates high levels of fluoride exposure. He testified it did not control for seafood consumption by pregnant mothers, which creates high levels of fluoride exposure and also has been shown to confer IQ benefits, so it could be a confounding factor in an analysis.
He also criticized the EPA’s opening statements. He said the EPA was presenting data as black and white. Epidemiology, he said, is moving away from characterizing things in that way. Even when a study, like the Danish Odense study, is “negative,” as the EPA put it, the data in the study can indicate a more nuanced reality.
On cross-examination, the EPA asked Hu to concede that the Spanish study was well done. Hu agreed but said he had serious reservations about it, which he had previously discussed.
The EPA also challenged the work he did with Grandjean reporting the Danish study. The results of the Danish study, which did not identify neurotoxic effects, were only published in 2023 as part of a “pooled” study where he and his colleagues used the Danish, Mexican and Canadian data to characterize the dose-effect of fluoride exposure, which the EPA’s lawyer implied was a form of selectively reporting results.
Hu told the court combining the studies increased the power of the analysis and the ability of the research to address questions of public health.
After his testimony, Hu told journalist Derrick Broze, “The evidence is quite persuasive that there is a negative impact of fluoride exposure on the neurodevelopment of children.”
The Defender is providing daily updates on the landmark trial pitting Fluoride Action Network against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency taking place in San Francisco, beginning Feb. 1.
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.
The “NO LIABILITY” aspect of the unlicensed, novel vaccine developed in 100 days is in-your-face in the WHO’s proposed treaty
BY MERYL NASS | FEBRUARY 2, 2024
The globalist lawyers who drafted the pandemic treaty definitely anticipated injuries from the 100 day vaccines. So what did they do? They made sure that all the nations signing up to the Treaty “shall shall shall” i.e., MUST give the WHO, its lawyers, the nations, the manufacturers, the doctors and anyone else involved a bullet-proof liability shield.
Just in case someone did not understand, they said it 3 times, 3 different ways, in 3 paragraphs. I screenshot what they said so there would be no confusion.
If you don’t want the mandated experimental vaccines for which nobody is liable, join us to fight against this nonsense. DoorToFreedom.org

https://apps.who.int/gb/inb/pdf_files/inb7/A_INB7_3-en.pdf
Microsoft CEO Says the Company Is Working To Address Election “Disinformation and Misinformation”

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | February 2, 2024
Concerns are growing over the role of Big Tech companies in moderating “misinformation,” particularly due to the fear that these corporations already wield significant power and influence which could potentially sway political outcomes, including elections.
Many worry that the concentrated power in these tech giants allows them to arbitrarily define what constitutes misinformation, leading to a situation where they could suppress certain viewpoints or information. This raises questions about the impartiality and fairness of such moderation, especially in the context of political discourse and the democratic process. The debate is fueled by the concern that these companies, due to their size and reach, could have a disproportionate impact on public opinion and electoral processes.
In an AI-focused interview with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, it was revealed that Microsoft intends to combat alleged “disinformation” throughout the 2024 elections.
During his conversation with NBC’s Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News’ January 30 edition, Nadella was questioned about how AI might either assist or endanger the future election.
However, Nadella’s response seemed to imply a willingness to use technology for censoring content in pursuit of fighting what he identified as disinformation.
Nadella stated, “This is not the first election where we dealt with disinformation or propaganda campaigns by adversaries and election interference.
“We’re doing all the work across the tech industry around watermarking, detecting deep fakes and content IDs. There is going to be enough and more technology quite frankly in order to be able to identify the issues around disinformation and misinformation.”
Canada smears China over ‘interference’ in elections to fool its people, blindly follow US: expert
By Zhang Yuying | Global Times | February 3, 2024
After Canada released an assessment smearing China for “interference” on Thursday at a hearing investigating “foreign influence” in its past two elections, Chinese experts on Saturday pointed out that this is actually an attempt by the Canadian government to fool its people into supporting the policy of following the US to engage in strategic competition with China.
According to media reports, the assessment was released by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service at a hearing held to investigate whether foreign countries interfered in Canada’s past two elections, after the country smeared China as “meddling” and set up a commission to conduct an inquiry.
However, Canada’s repeated hype about China’s “intervention” in its elections was refuted by Chinese experts as an attempt by the Canadian government to gain social consensus supporting the country’s policy of following the US’ strategic competition with China.
Canada hopes that through such hype, its people’s fear and resistance to China will increase, so that they will give strong support to the Canadian government’s current policy and future direction toward China, which is to have competition and confrontation, Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Saturday.
“Canada is blindly following the US, and wishes to show its “loyalty” through such acts,” Li added.
The expert also pointed out that by smearing China, Canada is sending a warning to local Chinese, as well as those who have extensive economic, trade and people-to-people ties with China, to reduce their contacts with the Chinese side. “This is a very unwise and foolish approach that undermines the comprehensive connection and mutual understanding between China and Canada,” Li said.
In response to Canada’s smearing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in May 2023 that China follows a foreign policy of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, and is also firmly against interference by any country in other countries’ internal affairs.
“We have no interest in interfering in Canada’s internal affairs, including its elections, nor will we do any such thing. We urge Canada to abandon its ideological bias and Cold War mentality and stop making an issue of China,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.
Analysts noted that Canada’s repeated smearing will undoubtedly have a destructive impact on China-Canada relations. “Since elections involve politicians as well as high participation from all sectors of society, Canada’s false accusations against China not only undermine mutual trust and communication at the government level, but also disrupt people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,” experts said.
No Iranian base or advisors targeted by US strikes in Iraq, Syria: Diplomat
Press TV | February 3, 2024
Iran’s Ambassador to Damascus Hossein Akbari says no Iranian bases or military advisors have been targeted in deadly strikes by the US occupation forces on a number of sites in Iraq and Syria.
Akbari said on Saturday that contrary to claims, the attacks aimed to destroy Syria’s civil infrastructure amid the pro-Palestine actions undertaken by the resistance front.
He said the US government’s terrorist act on Friday night was carried out mainly to make up for Israel’s defeats in the Gaza Strip and strengthening armed Takfiri terrorists based on the borders of Iraq and Syria.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Friday that its forces had struck more than 85 targets “with numerous aircraft” during overnight raids on localities in Iraq and Syria.
The Syrian state media reported that the US aggression targeted positions in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr and the city of al-Bukamal near the Iraqi border, falling short of providing details on the extent of damage and the exact number of casualties.
Sixteen people were killed, among them civilians, and 25 injured in the US airstrikes in Iraq, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s office said.
