Does the Meningococcal Vaccine Used in the U.S. Stop Infection and Transmission of Meningococcal Bacteria?
Your bite-size dose of immunity against vaccine misinformation. Spread the truth.
Injecting Freedom by Aaron Siri | April 2, 2024
Does the meningococcal vaccine (MenACWY) used in the United States stop infection and transmission of meningococcal bacteria?
“Yes” or “No”?
When picking an answer, keep in mind that MenACWY is one of the vaccines mandated to attend secondary school in most U.S. states (and to attend university/college in many states), and the justification for these rights-crushing mandates is to prevent transmission of meningococcal bacteria in the school setting.
According to the CDC, “Rates of meningococcal disease have declined in the United States since the 1990s and remain low today. Much of the decline occurred before the routine use of MenACWY vaccines. … [D]ata suggest MenACWY vaccines have provided protection to those vaccinated, but probably not to the larger, unvaccinated community (population or herd immunity).”
Also consider that according to the CDC, “Protection from MenACWY vaccination wanes in most adolescents within 5 years,” and the CDC does not recommend routine administration of this vaccine for adults. And as for the claimed protection from this vaccine, its clinical trial did not prove it prevented a single case of meningococcal disease (relying instead on antibody levels, not clinical findings).
Screenshots of the relevant portions of the websites linked above (in case they change).
‘Shocking Cover-up’: DOJ Lawyers Committed Fraud in Vaccine Injury Case, CHD Attorney Alleges in Motion Filed Today
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 2, 2024
Rolf Hazlehurst, a Children’s Health Defense (CHD) staff attorney and father of a son with autism, today filed a motion in federal court alleging lawyers representing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) fraudulently concealed evidence that vaccines can cause autism.
In a motion filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Hazlehurst alleged that U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers who represented HHS in vaccine injury cases repeatedly defrauded the judicial system — from the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP) to the U.S. Supreme Court.
That fraud led to thousands of families of vaccine-injured children being denied the right to compensation and the right to have their cases heard, according to the motion.
“This motion makes very serious and well-substantiated allegations of a massive scheme of fraud on the courts,” said Kim Mack Rosenberg, CHD general counsel who also is of counsel to Hazlehurst in the federal case.
“The evidence submitted in support of the motion clearly shows that attorneys from the Department of Justice concealed and misrepresented highly relevant information from the special masters in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the judges in the courts,” Mack Rosenberg told The Defender.
Hazlehurst’s son Yates regressed into autism after being vaccinated as an infant. In the early 2000s, his family and thousands of others filed cases seeking compensation for vaccine-induced autism through the NVICP.
The program consolidated all of the petitions into the Omnibus Autism Proceeding (OAP) and selected six representative “test cases” — of which Yates’ was the second — as the basis for determining the outcome of the remaining 5,400 cases.
Unbeknownst at the time to the petitioners and the NVICP special masters, the DOJ’s star expert medical witness, Dr. Andrew Zimmerman informed DOJ attorneys during the ongoing omnibus proceedings that he had reversed his original opinion and determined that vaccines can and do cause autism in some cases.
In what Hazlehurst alleges was “a shocking cover-up,” instead of allowing Zimmerman to share his revised opinion, the DOJ attorneys relieved Zimmerman of his duties as a witness.
However, they continued to use excerpts from his unamended written opinion to make their case that vaccines did not cause autism — misrepresenting his position and committing “fraud on the court.”
According to the motion, the DOJ’s first act of fraud snowballed into a scheme of deception with far-reaching implications in which DOJ attorneys repeatedly misrepresented Zimmerman’s opinion and concealed other evidence that emerged during the test case hearings in the OAP in subsequent cases before multiple courts.
“As a result, thousands of cases in the Omnibus Autism Proceeding were denied compensation and the impact beyond the OAP is enormous,” Mack Rosenberg said. “This fraud affected the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program — especially the Omnibus Autism Proceeding — the Court of Federal Claims, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and even the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Hazlehurst said he is “asking the court to give this motion the serious attention it deserves.” He added, “At a minimum, the court should allow discovery and hold a hearing on this motion.”
Overturning a ruling due to fraud on the court is an extraordinary remedy reserved for extraordinary cases but according to Hazlehurst, “This motion we filed shows that this indeed is an extraordinary case.”
The DOJ has until April 30 to respond to the motion.
CHD CEO Mary Holland told The Defender, “Vaccines most definitely do cause autism, and the government has been lying about this reality for decades.”
Holland added:
“With others, I published a law review article in 2011 showing that the government absolutely knew that vaccines cause autism — and yet they have covered it up and lied about it since the inception of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
“How many hundreds of thousands of children and families would have been spared the heartaches and crushing financial burdens of autism had the government come clean?”
‘Exceptionally difficult’ to obtain compensation through NVICP
In the late 1980s, a substantial number of lawsuits for vaccine injuries related to Wyeth’s (now Pfizer) DPT vaccine, combined with “grossly insufficient compensation” for victims of vaccine injury, threatened the vaccine program’s viability.
In response, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which established the “vaccine court.” The law gave the pharmaceutical industry broad protection from liability and proposed to compensate vaccine-injured children through the new NVICP.
The NVICP originally was designed to be a “swift, flexible, and less adversarial alternative to the often costly and lengthy civil arena of traditional tort litigation.”
To receive compensation, parents file a claim with the program.
The Court of Federal Claims (which oversees the program) appoints “special masters” — typically lawyers who previously represented the U.S. government — to manage and decide the individual claims. Attorneys may represent the petitioners, and the DOJ represents HHS.
NVICP proceedings are more informal than a typical courtroom. Unlike regular court proceedings, petitioners in the “vaccine court” have no right to discovery.
If a petitioner files a claim for a vaccine covered under the program and listed on the Vaccine Injury Table — the list of known vaccine side effects associated with certain vaccines within set time frames — it is presumed that a vaccine caused the petitioner’s injury and the petitioner is eligible for compensation without proof of causation.
However, if a petitioner experiences an “off-table injury” — an injury not listed on the table or that didn’t happen in the recognized injury time frame — the petitioner must prove by “a preponderance of evidence” that the vaccine caused the injury. Evidence includes medical records and expert witness testimony.
Claims must be filed within three years of the first symptom or two years of death.
Petitioners must provide a medical theory of the cause, a sequence of cause and effect, and show a temporal relationship between vaccine and injury.
However, the NVICP does not specify the required volume and type of evidence, so meeting the “preponderance of evidence” standard is largely at the discretion of the special master.
Petitioners can appeal NVICP cases to the Court of Federal Claims, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court.
It is “exceptionally difficult” to obtain compensation within the NVICP, Hazlehurst told The Defender. The proceedings are often turned into drawn-out, contentious expert battles and the backlog of cases is substantial.
The Vaccine Act of 1986 is unjust for petitioners, Hazlehurst alleges. And that injustice reached its zenith with the OAP, when the DOJ perpetrated fraud right under the noses of the special masters, signaling the beginning of the fraud on the courts that continues to this day.
Hazlehurst told The Defender he hopes his motion will shed light on the damage inflicted by this law and that it will ultimately help end the autism epidemic.
“The Vaccine Act of 1986 is one of the fundamental causes of the autism epidemic,” Hazlehurst said. “Understanding why this is true, and how the United States Department of Justice perpetrated fraud upon the courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, is the key to ending the autism epidemic.”
A short history of the autism omnibus proceedings
By 2002, to address a “massive influx” of petitions alleging vaccine-induced autism, the Office of Special Masters combined over 5,000 claims into the OAP to determine whether vaccines cause autism and if so, under what conditions.
Initially, the NVICP planned to investigate causation issues and apply those general findings to individual cases. However, the program changed its strategy and instead selected six “test cases” by which it would examine the evidence for injuries caused by the measles mumps rubella (MMR) vaccine, thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCV), or a combination of both.
Then it would apply the findings of the test cases to other similar cases.
In doing so, Hazlehurst alleges, the court conflated general causation evidence with specific causation evidence from a few cases, without allowing for rules of discovery or evidence that would apply in an actual court.
This, Hazlehurst said, “was a recipe for disaster” as each test case was then used to determine the outcome for the remaining 5,000 cases.
Three cases — Cedillo v. HHS, Hazlehurst v. HHS and Poling v. HHS — are at the center of the alleged fraud by the DOJ.
Fraud #1: the Zimmerman testimony
Hearings for the first OAP test case, Cedillo v. HHS, began in 2007. Zimmerman had worked with the DOJ to prepare an expert report on behalf of HHS finding that Michelle Cedillo’s autism had likely not been caused by the MMR vaccine.
Zimmerman later wrote in a 2018 affidavit that he attended the Cedillo hearing and listened to the testimony of Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne, another world-renowned expert in pediatric neurology.
On that basis, Zimmerman stated, he decided to clarify his written expert opinion about Michelle Cedillo, concerned it would be taken out of context.
Zimmerman spoke with DOJ attorneys to clarify that his expert opinion in the Cedillo case “was not intended to be a blanket statement as to all children and all medical science,” according to the 2018 affidavit.
He specified that advances in science, medicine and his own clinical research had led him to believe there were exceptions in which vaccinations could cause autism.
He also referred the attorneys to a paper he published with colleagues in 2006, the Poling paper, describing the case of an unidentified child who suffered regressive autism following vaccine adverse reactions. The paper suggested a possible association between mitochondrial dysfunction, vaccinations and regressive autism.
After communicating this evidence to DOJ attorneys, the DOJ dismissed Zimmerman as a witness but continued to use his written opinion as general causation evidence.
The DOJ was also allowed to use that report, submitted in one test case, as general causation evidence in other test cases.
None of the petitioners in the test cases could cross-examine Zimmerman, because he was no longer a witness. This was only possible because the federal rules of evidence do not apply in NVICP proceedings.
Yates’ case, Hazlehurst v. HHS, was the second test case in the OAP. His treating neurologist, Dr. Jean-Ronel Corbier testified Yates’ autism was likely caused by a genetic predisposition combined with an environmental insult in the form of vaccinations administered when Yates was ill. (Yates was a patient of Zimmerman in 2002.)
Corbier’s theory of causation in Yates was similar to the theory developed by Zimmerman in the Poling paper and shared with DOJ attorneys.
Yet, despite knowing Zimmerman had concluded that in a subset of children like Yates, vaccines can cause autism, the DOJ “intentionally and fraudulently” misrepresented Zimmerman’s expert testimony in its closing statements in Yates’ case, Hazlehurst alleges.
DOJ attorneys selectively quoted Zimmerman’s expert report from the Cedillo case, telling the court that Zimmerman found there was “no sound evidence to support a causative relationship with exposure to both or either MMR and/or mercury,” when Zimmerman had explicitly told the DOJ that his opinion was the opposite, according to the affidavit.
Fraud #2: the Hannah Poling case
Three weeks after closing arguments in Yates’ case, the DOJ quietly conceded Hannah Poling’s case, which was on the verge of becoming the fourth test case.
Hannah regressed into autism over several months after being vaccinated against nine diseases at one doctor’s visit.
In 2003, Poling’s father, Jon, a physician and trained neurologist, and mother, Terry, an attorney and nurse, filed an autism petition against HHS under the NVICP for their daughter’s injuries.
Jon Poling was a co-author of the 2006 paper with Zimmerman that analyzed an unnamed child, later revealed as Hannah Poling, who had a mitochondrial disorder — a condition with which Yates was later diagnosed.
In 2007, just three weeks after the lead DOJ attorney misrepresented Zimmerman’s opinion during the hearing in Hazlehurst, the same DOJ attorney submitted a report to the special masters conceding that in the case of Poling v. HHS, Hannah’s “regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder” (i.e., regressive autism) was caused by a vaccine injury, based upon a preponderance of the evidence standard.
This was the same neurological diagnosis Zimmerman had made for Yates in 2002.
According to court documents, if HHS had not conceded Poling, Poling v. HHS would have been designated as a test case. However, because the DOJ conceded the case, it was taken out of the omnibus and the DOJ had the case records sealed —- although they were later leaked to the press and published in the Huffington Post in 2008.
In March 2008, Hannah’s parents moved to make the proceedings transparent and available to the public, but the DOJ opposed the motion and the NVICP deferred a ruling on the motion for 60 days.
During those 60 days, the DOJ filed amendments to its report conceding the Poling case. It retroactively changed the basis for compensation to say that Hannah had a “table injury.”
This meant that instead of conceding that the petitioners had proven with a preponderance of evidence that the vaccines caused her autism, they said she had a presumptive injury on the vaccine table, in which causation is presumed.
By conceding the Poling case, opposing the parents’ motion for complete transparency and changing the basis for compensation, the DOJ was able to conceal fraud and critical material evidence of how vaccines cause autism, according to Hazlehurst.
Fraud #3: appellate courts and the U.S. Supreme Court
On Feb. 12, 2009, the special masters denied compensation in the first three cases. They found the petitioners failed to establish causation between MMR or TCV vaccines and autism.
In Hazlehurst’s case, the NVICP explicitly relied on the portion of Zimmerman’s expert report that DOJ attorneys misrepresented.
The Hazlehursts appealed to the Court of Federal Claims and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, both of which upheld the special master’s decision — by relying on Zimmerman’s misrepresented opinion and knowingly fraudulent statements made by a DOJ attorney, according to Hazlehurst.
Those prior decisions directly influenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Bruesewitz v. Wyeth.
In that case, Wyeth, now Pfizer, argued that a decision favoring the Bruesewitz family — who was attempting to sue the company for their daughter’s vaccine injury — would lead to a “flood of frivolous lawsuits,” including by the families from the omnibus.
Amicus briefs from the American Academy of Pediatrics, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Sanofi Pasteur on behalf of Wyeth relied on Hazlehurst v. HHS and other OAP decisions that were based on the misrepresentation of Zimmerman’s testimony that there was “no scientific basis” that vaccines cause autism.
The Supreme Court ruled that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and the NVICP it created, preempt all design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers by individuals seeking compensation for injury or death.
In oral arguments and in their written opinions, the justices explicitly cited the portions of the amicus briefs citing Hazlehurst v. HHS and other OAP rulings that relied on the DOJ misrepresentations in their rulings.
Since that ruling, the special masters have continued to rely on the DOJ’s fraudulent claims to deny compensation to families filing complaints in the NVICP.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD chairman on leave, and Hazlehurst in September 2018 filed a complaint with the DOJ Office of Inspector General outlining what they then knew about the DOJ’s fraud during the OAP.
The DOJ Office of Professional Misconduct investigated and responded in a June 2019 letter that it found no wrongdoing.
In that letter, however, the Office of Professional Responsibility conceded the DOJ had in fact kept Zimmerman’s testimony while dismissing him as a witness in order to avoid creating the appearance that he had changed his opinion and to prevent the petitioners from cross-examining him, according to Hazlehurst.
The ‘fraud on the court’ doctrine
It has taken 17 years, Hazlehurst said, since the DOJ’s first alleged act of fraud upon the court, for him to gather all of the admissible evidence necessary to “connect the dots and reveal the DOJ’s web of deceit” to make this claim under the “fraud on the court” doctrine.
Under this doctrine, codified as Rule 60(d)(3) in the rules of the Court of Federal Claims, there is no time limit for the court to overturn a judgment made on the basis of fraud on the court.
The petitioner must demonstrate that there was fraud, intent to defraud and that the fraud affected more than one instance of litigation — putting the integrity of the judicial process at stake.
Hazlehurst alleges DOJ attorneys committed fraud by knowingly making false statements and offering evidence they knew to be false and that they did not take remedial action to disclose information they knew to be false and misleading to the court.
The special masters themselves have an obligation to consider all relevant evidence, but didn’t, in this case, Hazlehurst said. Instead, they ignored the contradictions in Zimmerman’s opinions and ignored the Poling evidence.
This is particularly problematic for NVICP cases, where petitioners can’t conduct meaningful discovery or cross-examination and the special masters’ oversight is the only meaningful safeguard to prevent the DOJ’s abuse of power, according to Hazlehurst.
“There is nothing fair about a government proceeding where the government controls the admissibility of evidence,” he said.
Hazlehurst said that by forcing people injured by vaccines into an administrative program, petitioners are deprived of the basic constitutional rights to due process and equal protection under the law. “It should be declared unconstitutional,” he said.
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.
‘Havana Syndrome’ More Likely US Homegrown as Western Media Bangs Anti-Russia Drum
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 02.04.2024
On Sunday, a popular US news program ran a feature on the so-called “Havana Syndrome” alleging that Russian spies are utilizing secret energy weapons to damage the brains of US officials. The report came despite a years-long investigation by five US intelligence agencies that determined it was “very unlikely” to have come from a foreign adversary.
The so-called “Havana Syndrome,” a long-debunked theory that has been revived by Western media in recent days is part of the “game” the administration of US President Joe Biden plays of trying to blame “everything on Russia,” Michael Maloof, a former senior security analyst in the office of the US secretary of defense.
“Why would ‘60 Minutes’ be resurrecting it? Because somebody put a bug in their ear and they’re trying once again [to] play the game of the Biden administration to blame everything on Russia,” Maloof asserted.
Maloof noted that most of the victims of the supposed Havana Syndrome were in the US, which makes it even less likely that Russia would be involved. “Yet they keep trying to create this narrative, that is they say it long and hard enough, it’s got to be true. But who knows what it is?”
Maloof added that many of the alleged victims likely spent a lot of time in SCIFs (sensitive compartmented information facilities) that are full of specialized electronic equipment which may have contributed to the symptoms.
If there is a real affliction affecting these people, Maloof contends that it is more likely coming from within the US than from Russia. “One of those who got hit was in an area where the president of the United States was, and that was in Western Europe. Why wasn’t [the president] affected? Or anybody around him?”
“The only thing I can conclude is that this is coming from within… They’re saying who it isn’t but not what it is, and that’s strange, which means they don’t know,” he added.
“So, once again, this tortuous approach is basically to put up their own little narrative and then shoot it down, but say it still could be true. And this is supposed to be our basis for fact-finding? I don’t think so,” Maloof said, adding “You cannot mistrust these people enough.”
“If there was a unit of the GRU (General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) or something like that, and they were traipsing around the world zapping people, I think that would have been noticed,” Maloof explained.
“It could be anything. It’s just mindless,” he concluded.
Ships to turn back from Gaza with 240 tonnes of undelivered aid: Cyprus
One of the World Central Kitchen vehicles targeted by Israel as it was passing through a “deconflicted zone” in the besieged Gaza Strip, April 2, 2024. (Photo by Reuters)
Press TV – April 2, 2024
Ships loaded with humanitarian aid for the Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip will turn back in the wake of a deadly strike by the Israeli regime forces on relief workers.
Cyprus’ foreign minister said on Tuesday that undelivered food and supplies were being returned after aid groups suspended operations due to the brutal killing of members of an international charity.
Seven World Central Kitchen workers were killed in the Israeli strike on vehicles used by the US-based charity organization.
Minister Constantinos Kombos said the charity is suspending its operations in Gaza out of respect for the victims as well as to review its security protocols. Cargo ships loaded with 240 tonnes of canned food destined for Gaza were preparing to return.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Theodoros Gotsis had said earlier that around 100 tonnes of aid had been unloaded before the World Central Kitchen suspended operations after its workers were killed.
Cyprus’ port city of Larnaca has played a key role in trying to establish a maritime aid corridor to Gaza. Those efforts suffered a major setback when the World Central Kitchen halted operations.
The World Central Kitchen said its aid workers were traveling in a “deconflicted zone” in two armored cars branded with the charity’s logo as well as “a soft skin vehicle.”
Despite coordinating movements with the Israeli military, “the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tonnes of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route,” the group said in a statement.
The Israeli regime has acknowledged the strike, claiming it will carry out an independent investigation into the attack.
Israel’s Attack on Iranian Consulate Highlights Netanyahu’s Pending Defeat in Gaza
Sputnik – 02.04.2024
Tel Aviv launched a strike against the Iranian diplomatic compound in the Syrian capital of Damascus this week, killing several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers in the process.
Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria suggests that it is trying to “widen” the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip by drawing Iran into it, said Foad Izadi, an associate professor at the University of Tehran’s Department of American Studies.
“They have been trying to start a military confrontation between the United States and Iran for many years. And they think that they have an opportunity to have this done fighting Iran using American soldiers,” he told Sputnik, apparently suggesting that the US would be quick to leap to Israel’s defense if the latter were threatened by Tehran.
Izadi also remarked that Israel displayed a blatant disregard for international law by attacking a diplomatic compound, which is a violation of the Vienna Convention.
“That is what Israelis are trying to do. Netanyahu realizes that he has lost the war in Gaza. He has managed to kill more than 30,000, mostly women and children, without achieving any goals except killing these people and ruining their homes,” Izadi said.
“They say that they want to destroy Hamas, but that’s not a goal they can achieve. Obviously, they would have done that if they could. That’s why criminal acts and genocide in Gaza continue. And Netanyahu realizes that sooner or later this war needs to end. And that would be the end of his prime ministership. And so he’s trying to prolong the war, he’s trying to widen the war,” Izadi added.
Noting that Iran’s attempt to seek justice via the UN Security Council may be unsuccessful due to the likelihood of the US vetoing a resolution critical of Israel, Izadi suggested that Tehran may opt to “cause pain for the Israelis so that these types of actions are not repeated.”
“Because Iranian officials realize that if there is no pain in engaging in this type of activity, then they will continue,” he elaborated. “So I think Iran’s response would be two-fold in a manner that is not satisfying the Israeli aim of widening the war. I think that’s what Iranian leaders will do.”
NATO ‘de facto’ part of Ukraine conflict – Moscow
RT | April 2, 2024
NATO is aiming to retain control over Ukraine and turn it into an “anti-Russian” proxy, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, claimed in an interview published on Tuesday.
The US-led military bloc has long been a “de facto” party to the conflict between Kiev and Moscow, as it controls Ukrainian arms supplies and helps to plan attacks on Russia, Patrushev told the Russian newspaper AiF.
Washington and its allies have been actively militarizing Ukraine ever since the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, the official said in an interview covering the US-led military bloc, ahead of its 75th anniversary. NATO now seeks to “keep Ukraine or at least a part of it, as a fully controlled anti-Russian territory,” he stated.
NATO collectively decides on the quantity and types of weapons its members provide to Ukrainian troops, the Russian official noted, adding that the range and technical characteristics of those arms are constantly increasing.
The bloc’s instructors also “train mercenaries and sabotage units on several nations’ territories to be used in anti-Russian operations,” Patrushev told the paper. Under such circumstances, the Kremlin’s goal of bringing about Ukraine’s “demilitarization” remains a priority, the Security Council secretary said.
Stirring up Russophobia and whipping up the perceived “Russian threat” has also turned into a “major policy” for the West, the official said, arguing that such tactics allow the US and its allies to draw public attention away from internal economic issues.
Anti-Russian hysteria ultimately benefits the US military industrial complex, Patrushev stated.
“The US is gaining profits through… dictating very specific arms purchasing conditions to its allies,” the official told AiF, adding that those arms are then produced by American manufacturers, and such contracts can become economic shackles for other NATO members.
Patrushev’s remarks come amid a historic low in Russia-NATO relations. The situation is now worse than during the Cold War, the head of Moscow’s delegation at the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, Konstantin Gavrilov, acknowledged on Monday.
Gavrilov stated that constant talk from Western politicians about Russia’s alleged plans to attack NATO after defeating Ukraine are aimed at diverting public attention from their own governments “pumping … money into the Ukrainian ‘corruption black hole’.”
Moscow has repeatedly stated that it has no plans to engage in a military confrontation with NATO or any of its members. President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that Russia “has no interest … geopolitically, economically or militarily… in waging war against NATO.”
Israeli attack on Damascus was terrorist act – Moscow
RT | April 2, 2024
The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has described Monday’s airstrike on the Iranian Consulate in the Syrian capital as a terrorist attack committed by the Israeli government.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with his Belarusian counterparts on Tuesday, the spy chief condemned the strike, which reportedly killed several Iranian diplomats as well as seven officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including two generals – Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi.
Naryshkin described the attack as “an ugly and criminal step in relation to the sovereign state of Iran, and in relation to the sovereign state of Syria, on whose territory this terrorist act was committed.”
He added that the SVR has received additional information about the incident, and reactions from various countries, but did not provide further details.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has also condemned the bombing of the Iranian compound in Damascus, stressing that any attacks on diplomatic missions, which are protected under the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations, are unacceptable.
The ministry noted that the strike posed a high risk to Syrian civilians, as the building is located in a residential area, and warned that such brazen acts by Israel could trigger a major escalation in the region.
Israel has yet to comment on the attack, but officials have previously admitted to targeting Iran-linked forces on the territory of Syria.
Russia Reiterates Call on Int’l Organizations to Conduct Probe Into Bucha Events
Sputnik – 02.04.2024
Moscow reiterates its call that international organizations conduct an investigation into the events in the city of Bucha and reveal the names of the victims, the time and the reasons for their deaths, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.
“Once again, we demand that international agencies stop covering up for the Kiev regime and ensure a thorough investigation that will finally reveal the names of the victims, the time and the cause of their death, the signs of the bodies having been moved from one place to another, and the individuals responsible for this terrifying crime by the Kiev authorities,” Zakharova said in a statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Russia has sent “multiple” requests to international organizations, including to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Tuerk, but they remained unanswered, Zakharova said, adding that this shows that the “organisers of this heinous act have things to hide.”
“The propaganda-driven disinformation campaign in Bucha came as a response to our goodwill gesture to withdraw troops from the Kiev and Chernigov regions which was made in the wake of progress at the Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul on March 28, 2022. Clearly, the goal of this campaign was to disrupt the dialogue between the parties and to launch a package of pre-arranged Western sanctions on Russia at the behest of London,” Zakharova also said.
She added that Kiev intended to distract the international community’s attention “from its own crimes and inconsistencies” of the Bucha “provocation” and to spread a “fake theory” about the civilians allegedly killed by the Russian military among the public in Western countries.
Immediately after the start of Moscow’s special military operation in February 2022, Russia took control of the territory of the Kiev Region, including Bucha, a small city located northwest of Kiev. Following the Russian military withdrawing from the region, Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of numerous killings of civilians in Bucha and surrounding areas.
Moscow has denied its role in the killings of civilians and insists that the footage of the murdered local residents, which was distributed in the Western media, is nothing more than a staged provocation on the part of Ukraine to put pressure on the Western ruling circles in order to achieve their goals in the conflict with Russia.
Update on the Crocus terror attack
By Gilbert Doctorow | April 1, 2024
Day by day, the Russian security officials are expanding upon their claims that Ukraine financed and directed the terror attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue. Sunday evening’s edition of News of the Week hosted by Dmitry Kiselyov pointed to crypto currency payments and other financial channels which were used by the Ukrainians, as the latest results of interrogations and further arrests have revealed. A substantial success reward is said to have awaited the assailants upon arrival in Kiev.
Meanwhile various Western media outlets including Deutsche Welle tell us the Kremlin has demanded the hand-over of the head of Kiev’s Security Service (SSB), brigadier general Vasyl Malyuk on charges of directing terrorist attacks in Russia. To be sure, Malyuk himself has claimed responsibility for the 2022 bombing of the Kerch (Crimea) bridge. But we may now assume that the Russians have evidence to hold him to account for directing the Crocus City Hall atrocity.
There is speculation in social media that Kiev’s refusal to surrender its terror campaign leaders would allow Russia to declare Ukraine a terrorist state. This would open the possibility for ‘neutralizing’ top Ukrainian officials on justifiable grounds.
However, we need not speculate about what may come next. De facto, Russia’s current offensive against Ukraine has escalated to a new, vastly more threatening level. There are daily punishing aerial bombing and missile attacks on military command centers across Ukraine, on training centers, on concentrations of foreign mercenaries. And then there is a new dimension to the destruction of Ukraine’s electricity network.
In the winter of 2022-2023, all the Western media spoke of Russian attacks on the energy infrastructure, on how Russia was allegedly seeking to impose misery on the Ukrainian civilians by depriving them of heat and light in the midst of freezing cold. But back then the reality was that Russia only struck substations and other distribution points. Such destruction was meant to knock out power for tactical advantage over the Ukrainian armed forces. It was obvious that the substations and other gear could be replaced in a matter of weeks or months. By contrast what is now going on is Russian destruction of power generating stations. Replacing them will be a matter of years, not months.
Very much to the point, the mayor of Kharkiv yesterday remarked to the press that the city’s power supplies have been utterly destroyed. This development corresponds very nicely to the calls that were made on the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show last week for Kharkiv’s inhabitants to be sent packing in their cars headed west ahead of the city being razed to the ground. The intent was to end once and for all the missiles and artillery shells that Kharkiv has been sending daily into the neighboring Belgorod region of Russia to kill civilians in the greatest numbers possible. Kharkiv may not yet be razed, but it certainly is on the way to becoming uninhabitable.
In the face of this massive and undeniable destruction by the Russians both on and off the battlefield, the bravado of Zelensky and his clique is fading. Indeed, the Ukrainian president has finally said publicly that it may be time for peace negotiations.
Let us hope that Russia’s post Crocus viciousness may bring the Ukrainians to their senses and end this awful war.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
Why is Western Press Trying to Revive Havana Syndrome Hoax?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 01.04.2024
US broadcaster CBS has claimed there is reason to believe that American officials struck by the so-called Havana Syndrome were “attacked” by Russia, despite five US intelligence agencies debunking the theory last year. What’s behind this new round of hysteria?
In what appears to be a bad April Fools joke, a group of Western mainstream media outlets, namely CBS’ 60 Minutes, The Insider, and Der Spiegel, has brought a busted “Havana Syndrome” theory that points the finger at Russia back to life, again.
The latest 60 Minutes show featured a retired army lieutenant colonel, an FBI agent, a Washington DC-based lawyer representing Havana Syndrome sufferers, and Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev, well-known for his anti-Russian bias and accused by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in December 2022 of working hand in glove with the Ukrainian security agents on a plan to hijack several Russian warplanes. CBS’ interlocutors asserted to the broadcaster that “there are no barriers on what Moscow” could do.
What’s Havana Syndrome?
Havana Syndrome is a condition that was seemingly first reported in 2016 by employees of the US Embassy in Cuba who complained about vertigo, migraines, hearing and memory loss, and nausea. The symptoms described by the sufferers are often reported to follow pressure in their heads or strange sounds.
Later, some American government, military and intelligence officials and their family members cited similar symptoms at US embassies around the world, triggering speculation about the use of some sort of mysterious energy weapon. Cuba, Russia and China were named as potential culprits behind what the US mainstream media called a “hostile power attack”.
US Intelligence Agencies Debunked Claims of Russian Involvement
After conducting a thorough investigation into the matter under the Biden administration, the US intelligence community (IC) concluded that it was highly unlikely that the collection of debilitating symptoms was caused by unidentified foreign actors’ attacks.
The Washington Post reflected on the IC’s years-long probe, which included the review of approximately 1,000 cases of “anomalous health incidents”, on March 1, 2023.
“Five of [the US intelligence] agencies determined it was ‘very unlikely’ that a foreign adversary was responsible for the symptoms, either as the result of purposeful actions — such as a directed energy weapon — or as the byproduct of some other activity, including electronic surveillance that unintentionally could have made people sick,” the newspaper wrote.
The IC said it found no pattern or common set of conditions that could link the cases in question. It also did not find any proof, including forensic information or geolocation data, that would indicate that a potential adversary had used some sort of “directed energy such as radio waves or ultrasonic beams.”
One official interviewed by the WaPo stated that in locations where US intelligence had a complete ability to monitor the environment for signs of malicious interference, they had found no evidence of an adversary power targeting US government employees. On top of that, there was no intelligence confirming that foreign leaders, including from Russia, had any knowledge of or had authorized a hypothetical attack on US personnel.
The findings of the US intelligence community were met with ire by Havana Syndrome sufferers and their attorneys. This outrage could be partially explained by six-figure compensations promised by the Biden administration to those severely affected by the “syndrome.”
National Institutes of Health Nipped Mystical Sonic Weapons Theory in Bud
Independently of the IC investigation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirmed its conclusions in two studies released on March 18, 2024. The NIH found no evidence of brain or inner ear injury in scans or blood markers of Havana Syndrome sufferers. The results were published in the reputable Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
According to the NIH, 41% of those who complained of the mysterious Havana Syndrome from nearly every geographic area either “met the criteria for Functional Neurological Disorders (FND)” or showed symptoms indicating underlying psychological distress. The reported health complaints were also usually closely related to a wide range of pre-existing conditions, anxiety reactions, or environmental factors.
Commenting on the NIH studies, Robert E. Bartholomew, an honorary senior lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, lambasted peddlers of an “adversary power attack” theory in the scientific community and referred to flaws in their studies in his op-ed for Skeptic.
The scientist stressed that one shouldn’t underestimate the role of psychogenic disorders and distress US diplomats and spies are usually subjected to during their work overseas.
It’s hardly surprising that a mating call of the Indies short-tailed cricket was taken by some US Embassy employees in Cuba as the sound of a mysterious sonic weapon, according to him. Psychosis was quick to spread, instigated by fears of an adversary attack.
“Some media commentators and rogue scientists continue to speculate that a small number of cases in US personnel in both Cuba and later around the world, may have involved a directed energy weapon. Yet, Occam’s razor fits well here. Given two competing explanations, the simplest is the most likely,” Bartholomew wrote. “The entire episode is explainable using conventional psychology, and without recourse to foreign actors and secret weapons.”
Havana Syndrome Theory Used to Stoke Fears About US Rivals
What’s behind the Western media agitation with Havana Syndrome? According to Jacobin staff writer Branko Marcetic, one should pay attention to the timing of the fuss surrounding the energy weapon theory.
“The supposed foreign culprit behind the alleged attacks was constantly cycling through the rogues’ gallery of Washington’s villains of the week, from Cuba, initially, to Russia, then China. The most surprising thing is that Iran didn’t at any point end up in the rotation,” Marcetic noted.
Indeed, the theory of Havana Syndrome being caused by adversaries of the US gained traction at the time when the Trump administration cracked down hard on the Caribbean nation. Reports alleging Chinese traces were fuelled by the US’ trade wars against the People’s Republic and crusade against its hi-tech sector.
Naming Russia as a potential “culprit” fitted into the US foreign establishment’s agenda under both Trump and Biden so as to stoke fears about the alleged “Russian threat”.
The rhetoric of US adversaries being behind Havana Syndrome was just one in a string of other debunked outlandish claims, including fake news that Iran had sentenced fifteen thousand protesters to death; that Russia blew up the Nord Stream pipelines; that China had deliberately flown a spy balloon over the US, and many more, Marcetic emphasized.
According to the journalist, the hysteria was deliberately stirred up by the US to justify unfriendly and hostile acts against the aforementioned nations.
Timing of Havana Syndrome’s Revitalization Speaks Volumes
The timing of the US mainstream media’s effort to bring the Havana Syndrome theory back to life speaks volumes.
First, it comes amid a string of Ukraine’s defeats on the battlefield which appears to inflict serious reputational damage on Biden’s 2024 campaign ahead of the election. Second, it follows the Crocus City Hall terror attack, conducted by Islamists with the apparent participation of Ukrainian operators.
Most recently, Russian investigators have confirmed that the terrorists received cash and cryptocurrencies from Ukraine. What’s more, the Russian Investigative Committee’s report suggests that alleged Ukrainian masterminds could be directly connected to the CIA, MI6 and MI5, Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, told Sputnik on March 30.
On Sunday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in an official statement that it had conveyed to the Kiev regime its demand that those involved in terrorist attacks on Russian territory, including Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) head Vasyl Malyuk, be arrested and extradited to Moscow.
The Foreign Ministry’s demand was followed by a Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) statement on Monday saying that the Biden administration is “covering up those responsible for the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall” and is “stepping up work to form a distorted picture of the large-scale terrorist attack that took place in Russia on March 22.”
Are the allegations once again being circulated by the Western press of powers adverse to Washington causing Havana Syndrome just a part of this strategy?
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From the Archives
The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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