Electric Power vs. Green Goals
By Steve Goreham | MasterResource | February 27, 2024
“The green movement calls for a shutdown of coal and gas power plants. At the same time, it demands a switch to electric vehicles, electric home appliances, and green hydrogen produced by power-intensive electrolyzers. This and the AI revolution portend a breakdown of the so-called energy transition.”
Twenty-three states have adopted goals to move to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. State governments propose to retire coal- and gas-fired power plants and adopt wind and solar systems. But these goals conflict with efforts to promote electric vehicles (EVs), electric appliances, and a new application (AI) that will increase the demand for electric power.
The green energy push seeks to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions to fight human-caused global warming. Leaders tell us that without a complete transformation of electric power, transportation, and home appliances to achieve Net Zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, we are doomed to suffer from increasingly severe climate change impacts.
Michigan
For example, Michigan passed Senate Bill 271 on December 29 of last year, as part of its “Healthy Climate Plan.” The bill requires 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2050. Michigan’s electrical power in 2022 was generated by gas (34%), coal (29%), nuclear (22%), with wind and solar at 12%.
Michigan plans to close its gas and coal plants, which provide 63 percent of the electric power, while also retiring nuclear plants. At the same time, the state wants residents to switch to EVs and electric appliances.
The Healthy Climate Plan calls for two million EVs to be on the road by 2030 along with expanded electric-powered mass transit. It calls for replacement of gas appliances with electric heat pumps. But today, more than three quarters of Michigan homes are heated with natural gas. The state is also the largest user of propane fuel for home heating.
Efforts to adopt EVs and heat pumps will produce rising electricity demand and directly conflict with efforts to close power plants. Michigan’s carbon-free electricity goals appear to be impossible to achieve.
In 2022, 60 percent of US electric power was generated by coal and natural gas. About 85 percent came from the traditional generators: gas (40%), coal (20%), nuclear (18%), and hydroelectric (6%). After two decades of subsidies, wind and solar provided only about 15 percent of US electricity.
US demand for electricity has not grown since about 2005. But the push to electrify homes and transition to EVs will usher in a new era of rising power demand.
Almost all states striving for Net Zero by 2050 will run into the problem that Michigan faces. Shutting down coal and gas plants while promoting electric vehicles and heat pumps will produce electric power shortages. The only states that may be able to approach carbon-free electricity are Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, where hydroelectric generators produce most of the power.
ISO – NE Warning
The New England Integrated System Operator (ISO) issued a report in 2022 that looked at four scenarios to decarbonize the New England power grid by 2040. The report projected increases in power demand from EVs and electrification of home and business heating.
Only one scenario could meet state decarbonization goals and rising demand. That scenario called for 84 gigawatts of new wind, solar, and storage, to provide 56 percent of electricity by 2040.
But the ISO concluded that such a wind-, solar-, and battery-dominated system would not be reliable, requiring periodic operator-imposed blackouts. Even with 2,400 gigawatt-hours of battery-energy capacity and system reserve margins that were 300 percent over typical electricity demand, the system would fail for an estimated 15 days, and be at risk of failure an additional 36 days each year.
Wind and solar buildouts also conflict with alarming climate forecasts. Climate warnings call for increasingly severe weather, including stronger and more frequent storms, floods, and droughts. Yet climate-policy advocates demand a switch to intermittent wind and solar electricity sources. Wind and solar typically fail to operate during heatwave, cloudy, rainy, snowy, or stormy weather conditions.
After a transition to electrified energy systems, blackouts would be more severe. When the lights go out, residents won’t be able to cook with an electric stove or drive an EV either.
Other nations also depend upon coal, gas, and oil generators for much of their electricity. Examples of hydrocarbon-produced power in 2022 were Australia (52%), China (64%), Europe (38%), India (77%), and Japan (65%). Switching to EVs and heat pumps while shuttering coal and natural gas generators will not be possible in most countries.
Two additional trends will drive electric power demand. First, the revolution in artificial intelligence (AI) requires data centers to upgrade servers with high-performance computer processors. Data center power consumption will jump by a factor of six to ten over the next decade, rising from about 1.5 percent of world power demand today to approach ten percent of world demand.
Second, governments are pushing to establish a new green hydrogen fuel business to power heavy industries such as steel. Production of green hydrogen from electrolysis of water is very electricity intensive.
The electricity required to drive electrolyzers to produce hydrogen to power a single steel plant with a four-million-ton annual capacity will require solar installations covering an area of approximately 70 square miles. About 5,000 terawatt-hours of electricity would be needed to drive electrolyzers to generate hydrogen for the world steel industry, equaling one and one-half times total non-hydroelectric global renewable electricity generated today.
The green movement calls for a shutdown of coal and gas power plants. At the same time, it demands a switch to electric vehicles, electric home appliances, and green hydrogen produced by power-intensive electrolyzers. This and the AI revolution portend a breakdown of the so-called energy transition.
Iraqi resistance launches drone strike at Israeli chemical storage sites in Haifa port
Press TV – March 3, 2024
Iraqi resistance forces have carried out a drone strike against the largest and busiest port in the Palestinian territories controlled by Israel since 1948 in a new show of solidarity with the Palestinians under Israeli attack in Gaza.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel on Sunday, claimed responsibility for an aerial attack targeting chemical storage facilities inside the port of Haifa that had taken place two days earlier.
The statement noted that the attack had taken place “in rejection of US military presence in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, in support of our people in Gaza and in response to the massacre of Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and elderly people, by the usurping entity.”
The Iraqi resistance underscored that it will continue to target the occupying regime until the complete “destruction of enemy strongholds.”
Last month, Iraqi resistance forces said they had carried out a drone attack on the port of Haifa in the Israeli-occupied territories.
“In continuation of our approach to resisting the occupation and supporting our people in Gaza, our (fighters), using drones, attacked the port of Haifa in the occupied territories in Palestine,” the IRI said in a statement on the first of February.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has also claimed responsibility for attacks targeting US-occupied military bases in the region, including one in late January on Jordan’s border with Syria that left three US soldiers dead.
The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against the Palestinians.
Since the start of the aggression, Israel has killed at least 30,410 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the Gaza Health Ministry.
The US, Israel’s traditional ally, has backed Tel Aviv’s attacks on the Palestinian territory and provided the regime with extensive military support since the onset of the war.
Washington has also used its veto power to block the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
EU tells citizens to further reduce gas consumption
Greenpeace activists put giant sticker on European Union Commission HQ in Brussels, March 1, 2023 © Thierry Monasse / Getty Images
RT | February 28, 2024
EU residents must maintain the reduced natural gas consumption levels imposed in the wake of sanctions targeting Russia’s energy sector, according to a draft proposal from the European Council published on Tuesday.
The proposal states that usage levels at least 15% below average demand (measured between April 2017 and March 2022) should be maintained on a voluntary basis for another year. This is despite claiming that the reductions undertaken up to now – or an even more severe rate of 18% – had successfully achieved many of the original proposal’s goals.
Despite diversified supply, lower, more stable prices and higher storage reserves “benefiting the competitiveness of the EU economy,” the Council claims cutbacks must continue for another year. The proposal also notes that such a restriction would also push the EU towards Net Zero carbon emissions.
Should EU residents or their leaders become unwilling to cut back on their fossil fuel consumption, the resolution allows the “voluntary” cutbacks to be mandated, eliminating any risk of scuttling the concept entirely with one or two holdout countries.
Brussels recently confirmed that a five-year pipeline gas transit agreement via Ukraine with Russia’s Gazprom would not be renewed when it expires at the end of March.
Despite passing 13 sanctions packages since 2022 in an effort to punish Russia for its military operation, the EU still bought nearly €30 billion in oil, petroleum products and natural gas from the country last year.
At the same time, Germany, traditionally the EU’s strongest economy, is in crisis, with 15% of its companies in distress, consultants Alvarez & Marsal reported earlier this month. Many analysts blame high energy costs and predict the worst is yet to come, with a real estate crisis looming as companies that can no longer afford to pay for their office space are defaulting, among other secondary effects.
UK Has Only Itself to Blame for Red Sea Attacks, Houthis Say as They Vow to Ramp Up Campaign
© Photo : Ansar Allah Media
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 03.03.2024
The Yemeni militia began a campaign of hijackings, missile and drone attacks against commercial ships operating in the crucial Red Sea global trade chokepoint in November, vowing to target any vessel thought to be affiliated with Israel, and subsequently shutting down a good chunk of global trade.
London has only itself to blame for attacks targeting its commercial vessels in the Red Sea, and the strikes will continue, officials from Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthi) militia said in a series of statements over the weekend.
“Yemen will continue to sink more British ships, and any repercussions or other damages will be added to Britain’s bill,” Houthi deputy foreign minister Hussein al-Ezzi said in an X post Sunday.
“[The UK] is a rogue state that attacks Yemen and partners with America in sponsoring ongoing crimes against civilians in Gaza,” al-Ezzi wrote, referencing the joint US-UK campaign of airstrikes inside Yemen which the Pentagon says are aimed at degrading the Houthis’ missile and drone capabilities.
The official’s comments came hours after United States Central Command confirmed that the UK-owned M/V Rubymar cargo ship carrying 21,000 tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertilizer had sunk in the Red Sea after being targeted by the Houthis on February 19.
Houthi Supreme Political Council member Mohammed Ali al-Houthi took to X Saturday night to address the UK prime minister directly.
“We say to [Prime Minister Rishi] Sunak: you and your government bear responsibility for the M/V Rubymar, and responsibility for supporting the genocide and siege in Gaza,” al-Houthi wrote in an Arabic-language X post.
“You have a chance to salvage the M/V Rubymar by sending a letter of guarantee signed by George Galloway that the relief trucks agreed upon would enter Gaza,” al-Houthi added, referencing the Workers Party of Britain MP elected in a landslide in the Rochdale by-election on February 29.
Galloway has been an outspoken critic of British support for Israel amid the Gaza crisis, and an outspoken critic of American and British policy in the Middle East going back to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Houthis kicked off a months-long maritime campaign of ship hijackings, drone strikes and missile launches in November in solidarity with Gaza amid Israel’s ground assault into the besieged Palestinian enclave. The US announced the formation of a naval ‘coalition of the willing’ against the Houthis in December, and began bombing Yemen in January together with Britain. The Houthis responded by barring all commercial and warships belonging to British and American “losers” from operating in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, repeatedly firing at Western warships deployed in waters adjacent to Yemen.
Shipping through the Red Sea has declined precipitously by as a much as 40 percent from its normal levels, with the Houthis adding tens of billions of dollars in global shipping costs, disrupting supply chains linking Europe and Asia, and resulting in a rise in energy prices.
The Torturers’ Poor Memories
By Andrew P. Napolitano | Ron Paul Institute | February 29, 2024
As the pre-trial hearings in the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others who are charged with masterminding the 9/11 attacks proceed at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, the government continues to stumble with its own witnesses. In hearings last week, government lawyers tried to demonstrate that statements the defendants made to CIA and FBI agents were voluntary.
When the government’s principal torturer, a now retired psychologist, had difficulty recalling that during a torture session he threatened one of his victims by offering to slit the throat of the victim’s young son and that he had recounted that threat under oath in previous testimony, it became apparent to all in the courtroom and to those of us who monitor these awful proceedings that the government was encountering a strange and unexpected difficulty in defending the behavior of its torturers.
Here is the backstory.
Mohammed and others were violently tortured at various so-called CIA black sites outside the U.S. for about three years. They were raped, hanged by their wrists for weeks inside large refrigerators, beaten with fists and wooden boards, and waterboarded whereby water was forced into their nasal cavities so as to create the perception of suffocation and drowning. Many of the records of all this were destroyed by CIA officials, a crime for which no one has been prosecuted.
During these horrific events, the torturer in chief, who was conducting his grisly business in Thailand, called a CIA lawyer in Langley, Virginia, and obtained permission to threaten his victim with slitting the throat of the victim’s young son. The torturer admitted this in testimony he gave in court at Gitmo in 2020.
Why was the torture conducted in Thailand? Because CIA lawyers had erroneously told their bosses that the U.S. Constitution and federal law do not apply in foreign lands.
This has never been American law. The common law of England and in America has always been that when government personnel leave the country for the purpose of doing something that is clearly unlawful in the country they have left, they can be held accountable for their criminal behavior when they return. The U.S. Supreme Court made this clear in one of its five major rulings against the George W. Bush administration over its behavior at Gitmo.
Bush’s own White House counsel advised the president that because Gitmo is physically located in Cuba, the Constitution doesn’t apply, federal laws don’t apply and federal courts lack jurisdiction. All of this erroneous advice was tailored to tell Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney who, according to former CIA personnel, had a particular fondness for torture, just what they wanted to hear.
This terrible legal advice became the stated legal basis for the torture regime and the proposed but never implemented kangaroo courts at Gitmo, until the FBI entered the scene and put a stop to the torture and the Supreme Court entered the picture and required real trials.
However, in protecting the rights of these defendants — the Constitution protects all persons who have contact with the government, not just citizens — the courts have overlooked the right to a speedy trial. It is this salient failure that was manifested last week when the chief torturer “forgot” that he had already admitted under oath to threatening to slit the throat of his victim’s young son.
The lack of a speedy trial and the government’s cavalier attitude about it also were made known last week when the lead FBI investigator involved in the post-torture interrogations at Gitmo asserted 199 times in one day under oath that she could not recall what she saw and heard 20 years ago during interrogations in which she participated.
Here is the government’s problem: When the government plans to use the defendant’s own words as evidence against him and the defense counters that the words were extracted under or due to torture, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty — the highest standard of proof in American law, the same standard for proof of guilt in criminal cases — that the words were uttered voluntarily.
The court is addressing two categories of words — those articulated during torture, and those articulated afterward. Defense and government psychiatrists agree that victims of prolonged torture will say what they think the questioner wants to hear long after the torture has ended, just as victims during torture will say what they think the torturer wants to hear.
Yet, when the torturers have forgotten what they heard or said, when they have intentionally or negligently destroyed records of the torture, they have made it nearly impossible for the government to prove voluntariness beyond a reasonable doubt.
Evidence extracted during or from torture is inadmissible in all American courts, civilian and military. Torture is criminal under federal law and all 50 states’ laws, no matter its purpose or its location. Government lawyers are not permitted to whitewash torture without confronting serious ethical consequences.
The Bush/Cheney torture regime and its Devil’s Island at Gitmo are among the darkest events perpetrated by a modern American presidency. Far from preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution — as Bush and Cheney both swore to do — by destroying the free will and personhood of their victims, they have undermined the values upon which the Constitution is based.
Those values are articulated in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution’s Ninth Amendment. Taken together they reflect the unanimous public understanding of the revolutionary generation — those who fought the war for independence and those who crafted the founding documents — that our rights are natural to our humanity, they are indefeasible, and they are permanent. And the sole purpose of the rule of law is to protect our rights.
Why do we repose the safekeeping of our rights into the hands of those who destroy them?
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
The Rome-Kiev Pact of Steel Under CIA Shadow
By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | March 3, 2024
The “Agreement on security cooperation” between Italy and Ukraine, which Italian Prime Minister Meloni and President Zelensky signed in Kijev, is not a formal declaration, but a real military pact that makes Italy a belligerent country in the war against Russia.
The pact commits Italy to supply more armaments to Kijv and to train its troops according to NATO operational procedures. Not only this. The pact states that:
“In the event of a future Russian armed attack against Ukraine, Italy, and Ukraine will consult within 24 hours to determine the measures necessary to counter the aggression and Italy will provide Ukraine with rapid defence support.”
Since French President Macron announced that European NATO countries might send their troops to Ukraine against Russia, there is a real possibility that Italy will do so too, taking us directly into war against Russia. Moscow’s voice went unheeded, warning that in this case there would be a direct clash between NATO forces and Russian forces, both equipped with nuclear weapons.
In this situation, “the war of spies” takes place. As a major New York Times investigation shows, the CIA has built its vast network in Ukraine and other European countries. It trains Ukrainian agents on how to assume false identities and “find out Russian spies in other countries!” The program was called Operation Goldfish. Operation Goldfish operatives have been deployed to 12 new operational bases along the Russian border, linked to two new secret electronic espionage bases.
What Zelensky declared falls into the same context: “Meloni is with us but there are too many pro-Putin in Italy.” Zelensky then announced: “We are preparing a list of Russian propagandists – it is not regarding only Italy. It’s a long list and we want to present it to the European Commission, to the European Parliament, to the EU leaders.” Soon, therefore, Zelensky will hand over to Meloni the proscription list of “pro-Putins”, drawn up by the CIA.
Scores of Palestinians killed, injured as Israel bombs aid truck in central Gaza
A humanitarian aid vehicle which had been the target of Israeli airstrikes resulting in the death of nine and dozens of injured in Deir Al-Balah of Gaza on March 3, 2024. [Ali Jadallah – Anadolu Agency ]
MEMO | March 3, 2024
Scores of Palestinians were killed and injured when the Israeli army dropped bombs on people collecting humanitarian aid from a truck in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday, Anadolu reports.
This is the second major Israeli attack in the last five days on displaced Palestinians in Gaza who are waiting for humanitarian aid.
Earlier on Thursday, at least 112 Palestinians were killed and 760 others injured when Israeli forces shelled a crowd waiting for humanitarian aid south of Gaza City.
“Many people were killed and others wounded in an Israeli bombing that targeted an aid truck in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip,” sources in the medical field told Anadolu while requesting anonymity.
So far, the number of casualties from the latest attack is not clear as neither the Health Ministry in the besieged Gaza Strip nor Israeli authorities have issued statements.
Israel has launched a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack led by Hamas, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed.
At least 30,410 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and 71,700 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, leaving its population, particularly residents in the north where the Thursday shootings took place, on the verge of starvation.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Jordan’s hyped aid airdrop over Gaza helps Israel more than Palestinians
By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | March 3, 2024
Throughout last week, Jordan’s air force, with the approval of the Israeli regime, delivered aid via airdrop to people in the besieged Gaza Strip. The move was widely hailed as heroic.
Overseen by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the aid was dropped in large pallets of items, which included goods like ready-to-eat meals, medical supplies, and feminine care items.
These pallets were delivered through several airplane drops, causing a rush of Palestinians to flee throughout the Gaza Strip to gain access to the boxes. The airdrop itself was also used as a media opportunity for the king, who was filmed dropping parcels while awkwardly posing for cameras.
Though some aid was received by hungry and desperate Gazans, many parcels simply went missing, particularly in north Gaza where acute food shortages have caused death by starvation.
Parcels, despite being waterproof, were purportedly dropped into the Mediterranean Sea far beyond reach or even fell into the Gaza envelope – which can effectively only be accessed by Zionist settlers and military.
For the parcels dropping into the sea within reach, rowboats had to be deployed to gather the precious aid. If Gazans go beyond a specific point in the sea, they are targeted by Zionist naval forces, which have been given shoot-to-kill orders.
Unfortunately, some of these parcels will never be received by any needy Palestinian.
Other pallets landed in locations where the Zionist regime is enacting a full entry block for Palestinians. Even if the aid drop landed in an accessible street or rooftop, the occupation army would murder anyone who went to it, as they have demonstrated with what is now known as “The Flour Massacre.”
The massacre occurred when Zionist forces opened fire on Palestinians accessing designated aid trucks full of food for hungry Gazans. Over a hundred were murdered and many more were injured.
The massacre has been met with global condemnation of the Zionist regime, which has deflected and denied accusations of opening fire despite documented footage of Israeli troops doing exactly that.
Airdrops are a last resort for dispersing aid. They are ineffective, uncoordinated, and ultimately unable to predict exactly where the aid will land. Consider this with the fact that if Zionist troops are willing to open fire on designated aid trucks, traveling to a parachuted pallet is even more dangerous.
Many have criticized King Abdullah II for using these aid drops as a self-serving and self-promotional opportunity, particularly because in contrast to Palestinian aid, the Jordanian regime has not restricted any economic activity with Israel.
In fact, it has surged. Though Jordan is not part of the Abraham Accords, it is in practice a state that has normalized economic and some political ties with the Tel Aviv regime.
So much so that despite the carnage in Gaza since October 7, Jordanian exports to the regime have increased, with no signs of boycott or sanctions to condemn what’s unfolding in the besieged strip.
Jordan and Israel have been the beneficiaries of economic cooperation brokered by Arab regimes such as the UAE, which signed the Abraham Accords. For example, Jordan and Israel have partnered in an unpopular (in Jordan) energy deal meant to further a process of normalization between them.
There is also the shocking export of fruits and vegetables from Jordan to the occupied territories.
Media source Arabi Post revealed that Jordan was the second highest exporter of most fruits and vegetables to the Israeli-occupied territories from October 7 2023 to February 11, 2024, second only to Turkey.
These two countries constitute 55 percent of the total fruits and vegetables that the Israeli regime imported globally. Even more insultingly, Jordan is the final leg of the land corridor set up by some traitorous Arab states to circumvent the blockade enacted by Yemen in solidarity with Gaza.
The reality is stark. While Gazans have to rush to airdropped pallets as they starve, often while dodging Israeli sniper and tank fire, Zionist settlers get Jordanian commodities delivered right to their markets for easy consumption.
The Jordanian government is in one of the best positions to halt the Zionist economy. It shares a massive border with the occupied territories, controls a chunk of imports Israel receives from the east, and produces commodities for the occupation entity.
Yet, Jordan instead works hand in hand with the Zionist regime to coordinate airdrops that are ineffective for Gazans, who are facing genocide, all the while working against resistance factions by hosting US military bases and allowing its roads to deliver products to the Zionist entity.
It cannot be overstated that we must separate the Jordanian regime from the Jordanian people.
Jordanians have rallied for Gaza from Amman to the occupied Palestine border, calling an end to the occupation and their government’s normalization with the Zionist entity.
Furthermore, they are protesting their government’s trade routes with the occupying entity – even forming human chains to block the land corridor created to sustain Israel.
Finally, we must reckon with the most obvious reality: King Abdullah II and the Jordanian Air Force could not have had their photo shoot opportunity without the blessing of the US and the Israeli regime, which ultimately means that these aid drops play into the very hands of the Zionist regime.
By allowing for ineffective aid drops, Israel, who is facing allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), can simply say they are not committing genocide because they allow countries to help aid starving Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the same aid that is dropped is either impossible to reach, or Palestinians must risk their lives under gunfire and starvation to obtain it.
It is a mix of political and media manipulation meant to obscure the reality on the ground: access to aid is systematically prevented as Gazans are being starved and hospitals are being shut down.
Jordan is ideally placed to put an end to Israeli bloodthirst, but it seems the King has prioritized flashy videos and normalization over the fate of the Palestinian people and the region.
Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.
Italy to withdraw its air defense system from fellow NATO state
RT | March 3, 2024
Italy plans to withdraw its SAMP/T surface-based air defense system from Slovakia, according to media reports on Saturday, citing Prime Minister Robert Fico.
The system in question was temporarily deployed to Slovakia last year to replace the US Patriot anti-aircraft system, which the country transferred to Ukraine.
“I received a notice from the Italian government that the Italian air defense system, which they lent us for a year, will be withdrawn from Slovakia, because they need it elsewhere,” Fico was cited as saying, without elaborating on where exactly the system will be transferred next. The prime minister expressed concerns regarding his country’s security once the system is removed, as Slovakia currently has no alternative to protect its air space.
“First, the previous government donated a functional massive Russian S-300 air defense system to Ukraine. Then we had American Patriots here for a while, they were also removed, and now the Italian [system] will also be taken away.”
The wisdom of Slovakia sending military aid to Ukraine at the expense of its own security was also recently questioned by the country’s newly-appointed defense minister, Robert Kalinak. In an interview with the newspaper Standard in January, the official accused the previous government of surrendering key military hardware to Ukraine without making plans to secure replacements, noting that it would likely take years to fix the damage done to national security.
Upon being elected in September last year, Fico, an outspoken critic of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict, halted Slovakia’s military aid to Kiev. In a video statement on social media last month, he also pledged not to send Slovak troops to Ukraine, even if it costs him his premiership.
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Why vaccines for children are Big Pharma’s holy grail – Part 1
By Serena Wylde | TCW Defending Freedom | October 18, 2023
James A Shannon, director of the US National Institutes of Health 1955-68, said: ‘No vaccination can be proven safe before it is given to children.’
When he made that statement, it was still possible in the US to sue vaccine manufacturers under tort law for vaccine-induced deaths and injuries, which is no longer the case.
Today the US has the world’s most aggressive vaccine schedule and ranks as the sickest country, with the highest infant mortality, in the developed world. The UK does not lag far behind.
Vaccines carry three separate areas of potential risk. Firstly, they artificially stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies, which temporarily inhibits another part of the body’s defence mechanism. In an infant, whose immune system is just developing, this high demand of energy can in some cases overwhelm its metabolic reserves, and cause brain inflammation. The brain is the highest energy-consuming tissue in the body, followed by the gastro-intestinal tract and the immune system.
Secondly, vaccines contain chemicals, metals and drugs. Thirdly, according to the former pharmaceutical R&D executive Sasha Latypova, traditional vaccines are consistently contaminated with plant and animal proteins which hyper-sensitise the body, especially in children, giving rise to allergies.
In the US in the 1970s there were three inoculations recommended for children… continue
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