Journalist killed by Ukrainian drone strike
RT | January 4, 2025
Aleksandr Martemyanov, a freelance reporter with the newspaper Izvestia, has been killed in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic after the civilian vehicle he was riding in was attacked by a Ukrainian drone, Russian media reported on Saturday.
At least five other journalists, who were also in the car, including two RIA Novosti reporters, were injured in the attack, the news agency said. The vehicle was hit while traveling on a road away from the frontline between the town of Gorlovka and the regional capital city of Donetsk.
The car carrying the reporters was hit by a kamikaze drone. Martemyanov succumbed to his wounds shortly thereafter, Izvestia has confirmed.
At the time of the attack, the reporters were returning from Gorlovka after filming the aftermath of the strikes on the town, which has been coming under indiscriminate Ukrainian artillery, missile, and drone attacks on an almost daily basis.
The attack on the journalists’ car appeared to be deliberate, Maksim Romanenko, a reporter with RIA Novosti, suggested. Romanenko sustained relatively minor injuries – bruising on his face and a concussion – during the incident.
Radicalization of pupils in UK Jewish schools
Press TV – January 4, 2025
Jewish schools in the UK are abusing children in their care by promoting the racist ideology of Zionism. Pupils have even been encouraged to write supportive letters to soldiers in the Israeli occupation forces who were engaged in genocide.
There is a Jewish school in Birmingham, where more than 80% of the pupils are Muslim. At this school, the pupils sing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and celebrate the anniversary of the creation of the Zionist entities each year with Israeli flags. Only 8.85% of the pupils at the school are actually Jewish.
In Glasgow, Calderwood Lodge is the only Jewish school in Scotland. It was first set up in 1962 by the Zionist Federation. In 1998 it was reported that approximately 10% of the students were not Jewish. By 2017 a sharp decline in the number of Jewish pupils to 52% was reported. This school also celebrates Israeli Independence Day, including with a Happy Birthday Israel banner.
In Liverpool’s King David High School, as of January 2023, it was reported that only 11% of pupils are Jewish, whilst the majority are Christian or Muslim, yet the school insists on ramming the racist ideology of Zionism down the throat of all the pupils, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
Until the genocide in Gaza, hardly anyone even noticed that there were Zionist schools in the UK, let alone saying that it was a problem. But how widespread is the problem of Zionist schools?
There are around 140 Jewish schools in the UK, and almost all appear to promote Zionism, either openly or in many ultra-orthodox schools teaching versions of religious Zionism.
The King David Primary School in Manchester says explicitly, it is a Zionist school. The Simon Marks primary is too. It is proud to celebrate the genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Nakba that led to Israel’s independence.
JFS in London says it too is proud of its long-standing and deep connections to the State of Israel. For over 40 years, the school has offered a bespoke residential program in Israel to provide an opportunity for students to immerse themselves in life in Israel.
The JFS program in Israel promotes the values and ethos of JFS, including the ideals of Zionist Modern Orthodoxy.
In October 2023 the school revealed that pupils had been encouraged to write letters to the Israeli soldiers, to support them, and to receive thanks in reply.
In November 2023 students had what the school described as the rare privilege of an audience with Aviv Kohavi, the former General Chief of Staff of the Israel occupation forces. This was posted under the headline, IDF the moral army.
There is a serious problem of radicalization in Jewish schools in Britain. Urgent action needs to be taken to stop the abuse of young school students, Jews and non-Jews alike, by Zionist schools.
Another key hospital taken out of service by Israel in north Gaza
Press TV – January 4, 2025
Gaza health officials say one more key hospital on the northern edge of Gaza has been taken out of service by Israeli forces.
The Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the Indonesian Hospital “no longer provides any services to patients or the wounded.”
On Friday, the regime’s forces surrounded the health facility, which is home to many displaced Palestinians in the northern town of Beit Lahiya and ordered the immediate evacuation of staff and patients.
According to the ministry, the North Gaza governorate has three public hospitals Kamal Adwan, Beit Hanoon and the Indonesian Hospital, all of which are now out of service.
Beit Hanoon also received an evacuation order on Saturday.
Israel’s military has also issued a separate evacuation order to al-Awda Hospital, in Jabalia. The military ordered the staff and patients to immediately leave, or it would bomb the facility, with all the people inside. There are reported 65 staff and 36 patients inside the hospital.
Healthcare in the besieged enclave has been pushed to the brink of collapse under relentless attacks by Israeli forces, including last week’s barbaric destruction of the Kamal Adwan Hospital. The regime’s forces raided the hospital, forcibly removed patients and staff, and set the building on fire on Friday.
Both the Indonesian and al-Awda Hospitals have been damaged due to relentless Israeli attacks since October 2023.
‘Israel’ deploys additional forces, armored patrols in Syria
“Israel” continues illegal operations in Syrian territories, expanding its occupation in different areas, particularly Mount Hermon.
Al Mayadeen | January 4, 2025
Local sources told Al Mayadeen that the Israeli occupation deployed reinforcements in the al-Jazeera barracks in the village of Maariya, in the Daraa countryside, near the Syrian-Jordanian border, erected high concrete barriers and paved all roads leading to the barracks.
Moreover, the source stated that for the first time, the Israeli occupation army is deploying armored patrols on the hills of the recently occupied areas of Mount Hermon, overlooking the territories in the Nabatieh region of Lebanon.
This comes after Israeli media reported that the Israeli military is preparing for an extended presence in Syria.
According to Walla, “Despite pressure from European parties on Israel, political leaders have instructed the Israeli army to brace for a prolonged stay in Syrian territory.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously instructed the military to prepare to remain in the Syrian Mount Hermon area and the UN-patrolled buffer zone until at least the end of 2025, Israeli Army Radio reported.
In contrast, Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, pledged that he would not allow the country to be used as a launchpad for attacks “against Israel or any other state”.
South Korea prosecutors ask acting president to allow for Yoon arrest
Al Mayadeen | January 4, 2025
South Korean investigators renewed their call for the acting president to enforce an arrest warrant for impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday following a tense standoff at Yoon’s compound.
On Friday, Yoon’s presidential security service, supported by soldiers, obstructed prosecutors from executing the warrant during a six-hour confrontation. The warrant was issued in connection with Yoon’s brief declaration of martial law on December 3, which marked the first time in South Korean history that an arrest warrant was issued for a sitting president.
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO), which is leading the investigation, announced on Saturday that it had again urged Acting President Choi Sang-mok, who also serves as finance minister, to instruct the presidential security service to comply with the warrant.
When asked for a response, a finance ministry spokesperson declined to comment.
Additionally, the police have summoned Park Chong-jun, the chief of the presidential security service, for questioning on Tuesday, according to Yonhap news agency.
Warrant to shortly expire
A CIO official told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday that the current arrest warrant for Yoon is valid until January 6, adding that Yoon could be held at a police station or the Seoul detention center.
“The reason for the warrant is that there is a concern that the individual may refuse to comply with summons without justifiable reasons, and there is sufficient probable cause to suspect the commission of a crime,” the official explained.
Angela Merkel’s Revelation: The Minsk Agreements Were Not Intended To Be Pursued
By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – January 4, 2025
The EU was born as a peace project. Is it still so? The former German Chancellor reveals in an interview and in her Memoirs that Europe preferred conflict to peace with Russia.
The Minsk Agreements: A Tactical Pause, Not a Path to Peace
The former German chancellor Angela Merkel sparked controversy with her candid reflections on the Minsk agreements. These accords were ostensibly negotiated to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine after Russia’s accession of Crimea in 2014 as a result of a referendum by its residents and the subsequent outbreak of hostilities by the Ukrainian army and the Azov Battalion against ethnic Russians in the Donbas and Donetsk regions.
In an interview and in her memoirs titled Freedom, Merkel stated that the agreements were not genuinely pursued as a path to peace with Russia but rather as a strategic delay tactic, buying Ukraine time to strengthen its military and prepare for an inevitable confrontation.
Her statements highlight deeper underlying tensions within the European Union, particularly among member states like the Baltic nations and Poland, who viewed Russia’s actions as an existential threat. This perspective helps explain why efforts for peace were limited, and why many in the EU tacitly or openly preferred to prepare for conflict rather than seek reconciliation.
The Minsk agreements—Minsk I in 2014 and Minsk II in 2015—were brokered under the Normandy Format with the involvement of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia. These agreements called for an immediate ceasefire in Donbas and Donetsk, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, granting autonomy for these regions in eastern Ukraine, and constitutional reforms in Ukraine to ensure the autonomy of these regions. If the agreements had been implemented, they would have saved the lives of 14,000 Russian ethnics in Donbas and Donetsk, and certainly, they would have avoided Russian special operation in Ukraine.
However, Merkel’s remarks suggest that these agreements were never fully intended to resolve the conflict. Instead, they were a way to “freeze” the situation, allowing Ukraine to rebuild its military capacity and align itself more closely with NATO and the West. This approach mirrored a broader strategy within the EU that saw Russia’s actions, such as the accession of Crimea, not as isolated incidents but as part of a larger pattern of aggression.
Baltic and Eastern European Perspectives: Security over Diplomacy
For the Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—Russia’s accession of Crimea and its support for people in eastern Ukraine were seen as dire warnings. These countries, which share borders and historical tensions with Russia, viewed any peace deal as a potential opportunity for Russia to consolidate its gains and prepare for further expansion.
The Baltic States, are deeply rooted in Russophobia. As a result, they prioritise strengthening NATO and bolstering their defences over engaging in diplomacy, which they perceive as a tool Russia has exploited for strategic advantage. Additionally, there is a persistent mistrust of European institutions, viewed as incapable of guaranteeing their security. Consequently, they place greater reliance on the United States through NATO and favour purchasing American defence equipment over European alternatives.
This is the stance held by the EU Foreign Affairs Chief, Kaja Kallas, the former Prime Minister of Estonia, who is hindering a diplomatic solution in Ukraine. This makes her unfit for the role, as she is driven by deep Russophobia and is little inclined toward diplomacy.
EU’s General Stance: Divided but Increasingly Hawkish
Within the broader EU, member states were divided over how to handle Russia. Western European countries like Germany and France initially pursued dialogue and diplomacy, partly due to their economic ties with Russia. However, Merkel’s remarks suggest even these efforts were tempered by a recognition that peace with Russia might only be temporary.
By contrast, Eastern European members like Poland and the Baltics were vocal advocates for a tougher stance. Their influence grew as Russia’s actions in Ukraine escalated, pushing the EU toward a more unified, confrontational approach.
The Militarization of Ukraine was pursued as the EU and NATO believed that a stronger Ukraine was essential to deter future Russian aggression. This focus on military preparedness left little room for genuine peace efforts. As a result, the U.S. did not respond to Putin’s letters and security guarantee requests.
Further, there was the question of strategic interests. For many EU members, particularly the Baltics and Poland, a weakened Russia was viewed as essential for regional stability. Consequently, the West and NATO members were accused of unnecessarily prolonging the war. A former U.S. Senator famously remarked, “We will fight until the last Ukrainian,” underscoring the approach of continued military engagement.
The peace agreement reached in Istanbul in April 2022 was reportedly rejected by Western powers. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, acting on behalf of U.S. President Joe Biden, hurried to Kyiv to dissuade President Zelensky from signing the deal, assuring him of full Western support to defeat Russia.
Merkel’s Legacy and the Fallout of Her Comments
Merkel’s acknowledgement that the Minsk agreements were merely a strategic delay has sparked debates about the sincerity of European diplomacy. Her remarks have also undermined Europe’s moral narrative, exposing the calculated realpolitik behind decisions often framed as efforts towards peace. While Merkel defended her actions as necessary to protect Ukraine and Europe, they raised uncomfortable questions about the EU’s commitment to its proclaimed values of diplomacy and conflict resolution.
At the time, the guarantors of the Minsk agreements—France and Germany—still held significant diplomatic clout on the international stage. Today, however, these nations have become diplomatic dwarfs, rendered increasingly irrelevant by their subservience to U.S. interests—a dependency deepened by the war in Ukraine. This decline is also compounded by the West’s hypocrisy and double standards, which have eroded its legitimacy on the global stage.
In sum, Merkel’s comments highlight a Europe that, while officially advocating peace, frequently prioritised U.S. interests over genuine reconciliation. For the Baltics and other Eastern European nations, their warmongering approach underscores the challenges of pursuing balanced diplomacy in an era of resurgent great-power rivalry.
Over 2,600 UK Troops to Take Part in Exercises on NATO’s Eastern Flank
Sputnik – 04.01.2025
More than 2,600 UK troops and 730 vehicles will take part in exercises on NATO’s eastern flank, the country’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“Leading from the front, the UK is providing the largest contribution of forces with over 2600 personnel, and 730 vehicles deploying to NATO’s eastern flank,” the ministry said.
According to the statement, the UK’s 1st Division will command all of NATO’s land forces during Exercise Steadfast Dart 25 in Bulgaria and Romania to practice the deployment of the new Allied Reaction Force, which can “rapidly reinforce” NATO’s eastern flank.
Russia has pointed to NATO’s unprecedented activity near its western borders. The alliance is expanding its initiatives and says this is being done to contain “Russian aggression.” The Kremlin has noted that Moscow is not threatening anyone, but will not ignore actions that are potentially dangerous to its interests.
The Pandemic Planners Come for Hoof and Hen… and Us Again
By Clayton J. Baker, MD | Brownstone Institute | January 4, 2025
On December 31, 2024, the world received a year-end parting gift from the good folks at NIAID, Anthony Fauci’s old fiefdom at the National Institutes of Health. NIAID – the same unaccountable and secretive agency that Fauci used to fund the gain-of-function research of Ralph Baric at UNC Chapel Hill and the Bat Lady in Wuhan that resulted in Covid – has a new director, one Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo.
Marrazzo and another NIAID colleague, Dr. Michael G. Ison, wrote a year-end editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine that accompanies a research paper on recent H5N1 Bird flu cases in the United States, as well as a case report of a lone case of severe illness associated with Bird flu in British Columbia.
Marrazzo and Ison summarize the findings of the research paper and case report as follows:
Investigators now report in the Journal a series of human cases from the United States and Canada. The former series involves 46 case patients with generally mild, self-limited infection with [Influenza type] A(H5N1): 20 with exposure to poultry, 25 with exposure to dairy cows, and 1 with undefined exposure.…Most case patients presented with conjunctivitis, almost half with fever, and a minority with mild respiratory symptoms, and all recovered. The only hospitalization occurred in the case patient with undefined exposure, although hospitalization was not for respiratory illness.
They elaborate on the single case of serious illness:
In Canada, a 13-year-old girl with mild asthma and obesity presented with conjunctivitis and fever and had progression to respiratory failure…After treatment that included oseltamivir, amantadine, and baloxavir, she recovered.
In other words:
- Over an eight-month period, from March to October 2024, 46 cases of human bird flu occurred in the United States, a country of 336 million people.
- There were zero deaths.
- 45 out of 46 infected persons had known exposure to animals.
- The majority of the cases consisted of conjunctivitis (commonly known as “pink eye”).
- Only one US patient was hospitalized, but this was not due to pneumonia – the principal life-threatening complication of influenza – and the patient recovered.
- One severe case was identified in Canada, a country of 40 million people, in an asthmatic, morbidly obese girl. She was treated successfully with respiratory support and existing antiviral medications, and she recovered.
Does this sound to you like a public health emergency worthy of the legacy media’s recent exhumation of discredited Covid-era fear-mongers like Dr. Leana Wen and Dr. Deborah “Scarf Lady” Birx? Does it justify their hair-on-fire pronouncements on cable news shows everywhere, pushing for indiscriminate PCR testing of animals and emergency authorization of more mRNA vaccines for humans?
Does this sound to you like justification to continue to kill and destroy (pro tip: “cull” means kill and destroy) millions upon millions of farm animals, when most animals who contract Bird flu survive, recover, and develop immunity?
Does this sound to you like justification for another Emergency Use Authorization of another mRNA vaccine?
No? Me neither.
But wait, there’s more.
In their editorial, NIAID experts Marrazzo and Ison fail to mention the following:
- There have been zero cases of human-to-human transmission of this virus.
- The current circulating clade of the virus has been determined by independent researchers to very likely have originated at a US Government gain-of-function laboratory, namely the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) in Athens, GA.
- Multiple bioweapons laboratories, including the Yoshihiro Kawaoka lab at the University of Wisconsin, and the Ron Fouchier lab in the Netherlands (both of which have been affiliated with NIAID and with work done at SEPRL) have been doing gain-of-function research on Bird flu for many years, including experiments so outrageously dangerous that their work prompted President Obama’s ultimately unsuccessful ban of gain-of-function research in 2014.
- In 2019, NIAID reapproved and resumed funding Kawaoka and Fouchier’s dangerous work at increasing human transmissibility of Bird flu – the very same gain-of-function research that had prompted Obama’s ban.
- According to its package insert, Audenz, the current Bird flu vaccine, was associated with death in 1 out of every 200 recipients, compared to 1 in 1,000 placebo recipients.
- According to openthebooks.com, and as reported in the New York Post, NIH scientists received royalties totaling $325 million from pharmaceutical companies and foreign entities over more than a decade.
So, what are our friends at NIAID’s recommendations?
For one, they stress the “urgent need for vigilant surveillance of emerging mutations and assessment of the threat of human-to-human transmission.”
Are they advocating for the willy-nilly testing of entire livestock herds, as promoted by Birx, which is sure to create a preponderance of false positives?
Are they calling for the continued mass killing and destruction of millions upon millions of farm animals, whenever a fraction of the animals test positive for the virus?
Instead of PCR-swabbing every cow, chicken, and farm worker on Earth, how about we stop creating new mutant variants of H5N1 in the labs, since that’s where the current problem originated? How about we stop funding such utter madness with our tax dollars, funneled through corrupt government agencies like NIAID?
After all, you don’t save Tokyo by creating Godzilla.
But Marrazzo and Ison make no mention of this common-sense, sane approach.
Instead, they also stress the need for more – you guessed it – vaccines. They write:
we must continue to pursue development and testing of medical countermeasures…Studies have shown the safety and immunogenicity of A(H5N1) vaccines…studies are ongoing to develop messenger RNA–based A(H5N1) vaccines and other novel vaccines that can provide protection against a broad range of influenza viruses, including A(H5N1).”
Aside from attesting to the “safety” of a product where 1 in 200 users die, the use of the word “countermeasures” is extremely telling. It is a military term, not a medical one. We have already seen this game played with Covid. The gain-of-function lab research is done to produce a lab-manipulated, weaponized version of a virus, a version that is transmissible among and toxic to humans – in other words, a bioweapon. The vaccine is the countermeasure to the bioweapon. The vaccine is the intellectual property of those who created the bioweapon, and it is worth a fortune once the weapon has been unleashed. It is as simple as that.
“Pandemic preparedness” is a gigantic, deadly protection racket. I have described it in the past as arsonists running the fire department. That is precisely what happened with Covid, and that is what is being attempted with H5N1 Bird flu.
Moving forward to a new administration that has expressed a commitment to rooting out corruption in the pharmaceutical/medical/public health realm, improving the health of citizens, and restoring trustworthiness in medicine, I recommend the following steps to combat the H5N1 Bird flu, and to end the “pandemic preparedness” racket that threatens to hold the world hostage again and again, as it did during Covid.
- Immediately end and outlaw all gain-of-function and other bioweapons research in and funded by the United States, and apply all possible diplomatic pressure to eradicate it from the Earth.
- Eliminate all special protections from liability for vaccines, including the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and the PREP Act.
- Refocus Infectious Disease research on new therapeutics, rather than power-seeking and profit-driven vaccine development.
- Completely reform the National Institutes of Health, and close the incorrigibly corrupt NIAID altogether.
The fear pornographers must be discredited. We must make realistic and sensible decisions about our food supply.
We must learn the lessons of Covid, and live in knowledge rather than in fear.
We must end the protection rackets, confidence games, and shakedowns that government insiders impose on us like mafiosi.
Happy New Year!
Uncle Sam and Banderite bandits destroy Europe while Euro lackeys hail liberation
Strategic Culture Foundation | January 3, 2025
This new year began with a new era that presages Europe sliding irrevocably into economic darkness and abject suzerainty under U.S. dominance.
Uncle Sam has won a decades-long ambition to dominate Europe entirely, thanks to the help from a NeoNazi regime in Ukraine and the pathetic European politicians who hail the slavery of Europe as some liberation.
The people of Europe are facing a foreboding period of economic hardship. We can confidently say that because the most fundamental of economic inputs – fuel energy – is about to become more expensive and precariously supplied for the European Union.
Russia’s decades-long energy relations with Europe are now severed. It seems an astounding final act of reckless self-harm. The European Union’s economies have been floundering from an energy crisis caused by EU leaders willfully cutting off supplies of Russian gas. Now, with the last major transit route shut down, Europe is heading toward economic, social, and political self-destruction.
On Wednesday, New Year’s Day, the Ukrainian regime cut off the last supply route of Russian gas to the European Union. This regime, which glorifies Stepan Bandera and other Nazi-era fascists, is, in effect, holding the entire European Union hostage with its Russophobia and relentless corruption.
The arrogance and audacity are astonishing. The Ukrainian regime does not have an elected leader (Zelensky canceled elections last year), it is not a member of the EU, it has milked European taxpayers of hundreds of billions of Euros, and now has unilaterally shut down the last gas pipeline from Russia to the EU.
Ironically, the pipeline was called the Brotherhood Pipeline. It was conceived in the 1970s and began operating in the 1980s, carrying natural gas from Russia’s Western Siberia to the EU. Ukraine received generous transit fees for the overland route. The decades-long era of transcontinental cooperation was killed on December 31 by a Banderite regime that has the cheek to claim its actions are virtuous to “stop Russian blood money”.
Incredibly, too, various European leaders also hailed the Ukrainian action as a liberation from Russian energy dependence. Some Western media even tried to cast Moscow as the villain that instigated the cut-off. The New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, for example, inverted reality with the headline: “Russia ends exports of natural gas to Europe via Ukraine”.
To his credit, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico seems to be the only sane leader among the EU’s 27 member states. He condemned what he called Ukraine’s “sabotage” of Europe’s energy supply and its economies. Fico warned that the European Union is facing a full-blown economic disaster as a result.
The Ukraine transit route supplied Slovakia, Austria, Italy and the Czech Republic. Now, those countries will have to find alternative supplies from international markets. The Ukrainian route also supplied Moldova, which is facing an immediate energy crisis. Russia claims that the Moldavian government owes outstanding bills for past gas supply.
The Brotherhood Pipeline harks back to an era of friendship and cooperation even though it was conceived during the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union. The 4,500-kilometer pipeline was partly financed by German capital.
Another ambitious Cold War-era supply route was the Yamal Pipeline, which ran over 4,100 km from Siberia to Poland and Germany. Its operation was halted in 2022 by Poland following the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.
The more recently constructed Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that ran 1,200 km under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany were blown up in 2022. That covert act of sabotage was no doubt carried out by the United States under the orders of President Joe Biden, according to the respected investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
The upshot is that all major Russian natural gas supply lines to Europe have now been terminated. The only one remaining is Turk Stream which runs under the Black Sea to Turkey. But it mainly supplies Balkan countries that are not in the EU.
In the space of two years, Russia has gone from being the major supplier of EU gas imports (over 40 percent) to being a minor source. The big winner of the phenomenal market disruption is the United States, whose exports of liquefied natural gas to the EU have tripled. Another winner is Norway, which is not an EU member. Other sources of gas for Europe are Azerbaijan and Algeria.
However, the unprecedented extra costs to Europe for this enormous rearrangement in its energy trade are encumbering the EU economies, industries and households with crippling burdens. New pipelines have to be built, as well as new terminals to receive the shipped gas. U.S. exports cost 30 to 40 percent more than the Russian product.
The slump in the German economy from higher energy costs is directly caused by the cutting off of abundant and affordable Russian gas. And it is going to get even worse. The grim fate of Germany heralds the economic misery that the whole EU is sliding headlong into.
The history of Europe’s economic demise is as obvious as it is blatant.
Of course, it is all about the United States using and abusing its Western “allies” for its own interests. For Western imperialists, there is no such thing as allies, only interests. And the Americans are exacting that maxim to the hilt.
For decades, the U.S. has vehemently opposed the energy trade between the EU and Russia. Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s administration tried its best to block the development of the Brotherhood Pipeline with threats of economic sanctions. The Americans openly said they didn’t want to see Europe and the Soviet Union developing cooperative relations.
At least in earlier times, the European governments appeared to have more independence and backbone. Germany, France, Italy and others rebuffed Washington’s demands to shut down the gas projects.
The long-running strategic aim of the U.S. to displace Russia as an energy supplier to Europe has now been realized. It’s a sign of the desperate times and lawlessness that American military operatives attack European infrastructure.
The blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines and the proxy war in Ukraine have secured the strategic aim of the U.S. and its NATO proxy – keeping the Germans (Europeans) down, the Americans in, and the Russians out.
So much for the free-market capitalism and rules-based order that American and European elites preach. The practice is brute economic competition and dominance down the barrel of a gun. Millions of lives have been destroyed in this “great game” of American imperialist chicanery, and the proxy war in Ukraine is risking the escalation to a nuclear Third World War.
The Banderite regime – an echo of the Nazi past – has enabled the United States to enslave Europe to Washington’s imperialist desires.
Tragically, a coterie of elitist European political leaders are so obsessed with Russophobia and servility to their American overlord that they are crowing with delight at cutting off Russia.
Russia will not suffer. Its vast energy resources are finding alternative lucrative global markets. The victims are the European citizens who are being plunged into wretched economic hardship due to the machinations of American capital, its Banderite tools, and Euro fools.
GMO Tomato Project Funded by Gates Foundation and U.S. Taxpayers Hits Roadblock
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 3, 2025
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding research to genetically engineer tomatoes to be able to disrupt the reproductive cycle of the whitefly, a common insect that damages tomato plants, Jon Fleetwood reported on Substack.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — a division of the U.S. Department of Defense — also funded the research as part of its “Insect Allies” project, according to a study on the tomatoes published last month in BMC Plant Biology.
Whiteflies, or Bemisia tabaci, are a common pest that drinks sap from phloem, the food-conducting tissue in tomato plant stems and leaves, sometimes causing the plant to dry up. The insects also excrete a sticky substance called honeydew, which attracts ants.
Whiteflies can decimate crops. The BMC study estimates the pest causes $2 billion in annual losses in cassava production in Africa alone, which can cause food insecurity in regions that rely on the crop.
The researchers aim to develop a genetic modification (GM) technology that could modify plants to produce proteins that target and destroy whitefly eggs. The authors note that targeting egg viability is a “unique strategy” for transgenic plants, setting it apart from most GM insecticidal plants that target adult insects.
Fleetwood raised concerns about the technology’s potential to harm human health and the environment.
“If commercialized, these ‘[t]ransgenic plants’ — genetically engineered to include genes from other species — could introduce reproductive-disrupting insecticidal compounds into the human food chain,” Fleetwood wrote.
He continued:
“Tomatoes engineered with insecticides to disrupt reproduction may sound like a breakthrough, but they raise critical questions about safety, transparency, and the ethics of modifying food crops to attack life at its reproductive core.
“As these technologies develop, consumers have a right to know: Are these the risks we’re willing to take with our food?”
The DARPA Insect Allies program funds “scalable, readily deployable, and generalizable countermeasures” to natural and engineered threats to the U.S. food supply. The program seeks to provide “targeted therapies” to mature plants within a single growing season.
However, in this case, the researchers encountered major technical problems in their experiments, molecular geneticist Michael Antoniou, Ph.D., told The Defender. That means the product remains far from commercialization, he said.
Study hits ‘major barrier’
Fleetwood summarized the three mechanisms the genetically engineered tomatoes used to target whitefly egg viability:
- Chitinase Production: The tomatoes are engineered to produce an enzyme derived from the fern Tectaria macrodonta that degrades chitin, a key component of insect eggshells. This enzyme is intended to kill the developing embryos inside the eggs.
- Reproductive Hijacking: Using synthetic vitellogenin domains (SynVg), the proteins mimic natural reproductive pathways in whiteflies, ensuring the insecticides are delivered directly into the eggs.
- Enhanced Uptake: Protein transduction domains (PTD) facilitate the transport of these insecticidal compounds from the insect’s gut to its reproductive system.
Antoniou explained that to track how these mechanisms worked, the researchers used a transgene that encodes an easily detectable fluorescent protein, mCherry, which allowed them to easily monitor whether the transgene was expressed.
Using mCherry they targeted plant parts — the the phloem and the apoplast, or space around the plant cells — that the insects will eat.
In principle, Antoniou said, the pest would ingest any insecticidal protein expressed in these parts of the plant. However, when the researchers fed whiteflies the mCherry-expressing GM tomatoes, they did not detect the fluorescent protein in the insects, including in their eggs, as intended.
While the authors couldn’t explain why the transgene was absent in the flies that ate the tomatoes, they said an innate protein-degrading defense mechanism in the eggs may have caused the issue, Antoniou said.
“The authors acknowledge that this natural defence mechanism constitutes a major barrier to taking this technology forward.”
He also noted that because the researchers were initially having problems detecting the transgene in the engineered tomatoes, they had to use suckers — plants that grow from the roots of the host plant.
“Problems of transgene expression silencing and, more strikingly, major deformities were observed in these sucker plant clones,” Antoniou said. “This is not unexpected, given the known tendency for transgene silencing and the highly mutagenic nature of the GM transformation process as a whole, which can lead to major DNA damage and disruptions in gene expression patterns.”
How would the technology affect humans?
Fleetwood warned that embedding pest control into food crops represents a “seismic shift in agriculture.” Proponents argue it reduces chemical pesticide use, but critics point to concerns about the unintended consequences of such technologies.
He criticized the study for failing to address “the risks of disrupting reproduction in target species, harming non-target organisms, and exposing humans to novel proteins.”
Although the researchers experimented with an ornamental tomato variety, applying this technology to food crops for human consumption raises health concerns, Antoniou said.
He explained:
“A crucial missing piece of information is whether the transgenes are expressed in mature tomato fruits. If they are, then the consumer would be ingesting insecticidal proteins, with unknown health consequences.
“Although this would not result in direct reproductive concerns in the case of the chitinase (because humans, including human eggs, don’t contain chitin), there could be toxic or allergic reactions.”
GM Watch Editor Claire Robinson said that because the GM technology used in the study focuses on the production of chitinase, an enzyme that breaks down chitin, it won’t directly affect human fertility. “Chitin is only present in insects/insect eggs and fungi, and not in mammals, including humans.”
However, that doesn’t mean it’s harmless to humans, she said. “Ingesting this GMO-produced insecticide may have adverse health effects on humans, which are unpredictable. It may also harm non-target and beneficial insects, whose exoskeletons and eggs contain chitin.”
Robinson added:
“Having said all that, judging by the paper published in the journal, this technology doesn’t seem to be working well and Gates and DARPA need to face the reality that they will need to pump large amounts of funds into a project that may never succeed.
“Insects can rapidly adapt to technologies and products intended to kill them and it’s likely that even if this technology is developed to a point where it initially seems to work, it could have a limited window of effectiveness.”
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.
German MP calls for NordStream to be reactivated
RT | January 3, 2025
Germany should respond to the rising energy prices caused by Ukraine’s halting of Russian gas transit by repairing and reactivating the Nord Stream pipelines, leftist German MP Sevim Dagdelen has said.
Ukraine refused to extend its transit contract with Russia’s Gazprom beyond the end of 2024, effectively cutting off the flow of natural gas to some EU countries as of Wednesday. Under the old contract, Ukraine moved gas through its own pipeline network and into Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, and then on to Austria and Italy.
Ukraine’s decision caused EU gas prices to spike to €50 per megawatt hour, a figure unseen since October 2023.
“Ukraine drives the energy price up further by stopping the transit of Russian gas in Europe,” Dagdelen wrote on X on Thursday, complaining that “the German government and the EU are happily watching the destruction of European industry due to high energy prices.”
Energy costs soared in Germany after the government renounced Russian oil and gas imports in 2022. Whereas the country once relied on Russia for around 55% of its natural gas supply, it has struggled to make up the shortfall, and its leading manufacturers – including Volkswagen, Bosch, and BASF – have all announced layoffs and plant closures.
Prior to the start of the Ukraine conflict, Germany received gas from Russia via the Nord Stream 1 pipelines, while Nord Stream 2 was due to come online in 2022. Berlin revoked the certification for Nord Stream 2 several days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began, and both sets of lines were destroyed in an act of sabotage in September of that year.
While German investigators have reportedly settled on the theory that the pipelines were destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs, American journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that they were blown up by the CIA and US Navy. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has blamed “professional saboteurs from the Anglo-American special services,” referring to the US and UK.
In her post, Dagdelen called for the pipelines to “finally be put into operation,” and for the German government to “stop giving money to Kiev!”
Dagdelen is a member of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a leftist political faction that supports rapprochement with Russia and shares the right-wing Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) anti-immigration stance. The party’s leader, Sahra Wagenknecht, recently blamed the Ukraine conflict on the failure of the US to acknowledge Russia’s “red lines.”
Back in September, Wagenknecht declared that “if Ukraine is responsible for the terrorist act against the German energy supply, the arms deliveries must end immediately and the question of compensation must be put on the table.”
Dagdelen is not the first German MP to demand that Nord Stream be reopened. In September, AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla called the undersea pipes “a lifeline of German industry,” and declared that “Nord Stream must be repaired, opened, and secured.”
What US mediation? 1000 Israeli violations in Lebanon go unchecked
The Cradle | January 2, 2025
Under the supervision of US special envoy and former Israeli soldier Amos Hochstein, Beirut and Tel Aviv reached a ceasefire agreement on 27 November after almost 14 months of intense conflict against the backdrop of the war on Gaza.
The Israeli military pledged to withdraw from Lebanese territory within 60 days of the agreement’s enactment.
To ensure compliance, a monitoring committee led by US General Jasper Jeffers was established, focusing on enforcing the cessation of hostilities and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
Rampant Israeli violations
But Israel immediately undermined the truce, committing nearly 1,000 violations within the first month alone – one of many cases of the occupation state’s disregard for international agreements.
Additionally, occupation forces have continually obstructed the Lebanese army’s deployment at key points in southern Lebanon, and have leaked plans that Tel Aviv intends to maintain control over strategic areas in the country. Reports suggest there is an Israeli effort underway to establish a security buffer zone spanning from Abbad to the villages of Odaisseh and Kfar Kila.
Map showing areas of Israeli military presence (in yellow) south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, following the declared ceasefire. (Updated December 2024)
Meanwhile, from the onset of the ceasefire, Hezbollah assured the Lebanese government that it would not retaliate during the 60-day truce period, adhering strictly to the agreement terms and allowing the government and army to address Israel’s daily provocations.
The ceasefire followed intense internal and international pressure on the resistance movement to halt its battle with Israel, especially as the latter began to dangerously expand its bombing targets across the country. Simultaneously, the Israelis – having failed to achieve their stated war objectives and taken daily troops losses in their ground invasion – were pushing hard for a truce, citing the need to prevent an escalation that could extend to Beirut, risking mass civilian casualties.
This agreement may not be ideal for either party, but it is feasible to implement. Israel achieved tangible successes but failed to crush Hezbollah or eliminate it as an organization. For Hezbollah, the priority was ending the war to halt the destruction, despite the damages it sustained.
Consequently, both sides reached an agreement that Hezbollah described as a reiteration of the 1701 Resolution. It was not a deal of humiliation or defeat, contrary to how the group’s adversaries are eager to portray it.
It is important to note that Hezbollah chose a middle path between Hamas’ call to ignite a broader conflict under the banner of “Al-Aqsa Flood” and a policy of non-intervention, given that the Palestinian movement’s leadership did not involve Hezbollah in its decision to go to war.
Ethically, Hezbollah opted to open a limited support front, clearly defining its objectives: to exhaust the Israeli military and pressure it into halting the assault on Gaza. However, this calculation later proved to be flawed.
When the support front escalated into a full-fledged war, Hezbollah declared that its aim was to stop the conflict. When Israel requested a cessation of hostilities, Hezbollah agreed under acceptable conditions.
Ultimately, after over a year of conflict sparked by the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Hezbollah and Israel reached a 13-point agreement mediated by the US and France. While Tel Aviv agreed to withdraw from Lebanese territory within 60 days, its actions during the ceasefire depict a relentless drive to achieve militarily what it could not during the war.
The destruction of Lebanese homes and towns during the first month of the truce already far exceeds that caused during the conflict, with villages such as Bani Hayyan, Markaba, Shama, Al-Bayada, and Wadi al-Hujayr suffering devastating damage.
Israel’s brazen violations are not just restricted to border towns. Its truce violations include the prohibited operation of war drones over Beirut and its southern suburbs, and substantial military strikes in villages across the eastern Bekaa Valley.
The US looks the other way
The ceasefire monitoring committee, led by Tel Aviv’s staunchest allies, has faced significant challenges, largely due to Israel’s unwillingness to comply with the terms of the truce.
Sources reveal to The Cradle that so far, two meetings have been held at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) headquarters in Naqoura, southern Lebanon, with Israeli officers present, followed by a third meeting attended by Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati – without the Israelis present.
The sources added that the first meeting lasted just 40 minutes, limited to introductory discussions on core topics. The second session, however, was marked by discord, as the Israeli side failed to uphold previously agreed-upon terms.
During that meeting, it became apparent to all that while the Lebanese army had finalized and approved a deployment plan for the western, central, and eastern axes, the Israelis refused to present any withdrawal strategy. Instead, they shifted blame to the Lebanese army for what they called “slow deployment,” further suggesting that the 60-day truce deadline was merely symbolic, not binding for the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and intended only for the withdrawal of Hezbollah troops from south of the Litani River.
Israeli representatives went further, baselessly claiming that the Lebanese army had no intention of implementing the agreement’s provisions to withdraw Hezbollah from south of the Litani.
During the discussions, Lebanese General Edgar Lowndes is said to have stormed out of the meeting after heated exchanges with the Israeli side, which downplayed its repeated attacks in Lebanon as insignificant and refused to classify them as breaches of the agreement. The Israeli delegation specifically argued that their use of drones in Lebanese airspace was not a violation of the truce, suggesting that the air breaches would continue unchecked.
The lead US official – a general – brought Lowndes back to the meeting and tried to keep the proceedings more formal thereafter. Following the session, high-level contacts took place between various committee members, with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati gathering French and American officers and the UNIFIL Commander to emphasize the need for Israel to respect the signed agreement that the Israeli army would withdraw from Lebanese territory within the agreed upon deadline.
In this context, the US general confirmed that envoy Hochstein would participate in the next committee meeting on 6 January to confirm the ambiguous issues, and agreed with his Lebanese counterparts that Israel is violating the ceasefire through its actions.
Patience amid provocation
While Hezbollah has exercised restraint and refrained from delivering any significant response beyond a single retaliation at the “Ruwaisat al-Alam site belonging to the Israeli enemy army in the occupied Lebanese Kfar Shuba Hills,” Israeli provocations have continued to test the limits of the ceasefire on a daily basis. As a source close to Hezbollah informs The Cradle :
“We will be patient until the 60-day period expires and diplomatic opportunities are exhausted, and after that there is no solution but resistance.”
International mediators now face growing pressure to enforce the agreement, with Lebanese Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri emphasizing the importance of French involvement in the monitoring process, given US partiality toward Israel.
The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs filed a formal complaint with the UN Security Council, citing 816 violations between 27 November and 22 December. Prime Minister Mikati has called for the swift and complete implementation of Resolution 1701, cautioning that delays could destabilize the region further.
Beirut also called for “enhanced support for UNIFIL and the Lebanese army to guarantee the protection of its sovereignty and to create the necessary security conditions for restoring stability and normalcy in the south of the country.”
It is evident that Israel is leveraging its perceived upper hand to manipulate the ceasefire agreement, interpreting its terms to align with its strategic objectives. By acting as if the balance of power has irreversibly shifted in its favor, the occupation state not only challenges the Lebanese side but openly flouts the agreement with actions such as air violations, justified under the guise of self-defense.
These provocations, coupled with threats to reignite hostilities and forcibly expel Hezbollah, reveal a calculated effort to establish new facts on the ground that were never part of the original accord.
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By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
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