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Which left-wing NGOs does Brussels fund in Hungary with taxpayer money to go after Orbán?

By Liz Heflin | Remix News | February 5, 2025

The European Commission is essentially manipulating NGOs to achieve its own goals in exchange for financial support. A Dutch newspaper has exposed part of this process, writes Magyar Nemzet, which then shows how Brussels does this and who the biggest domestic beneficiaries are.

On Jan. 22, De Telegraaf reported on secret contracts that the European Commission had signed with green NGOs to conduct alleged covert lobbying activities. According to the newspaper, the lobbying organizations, commissioned by Brussels with EU money, were tasked with persuading MEPs and member states to support the commission’s ambitious green policy initiatives.

For example, the European Environment Bureau (EEB), an umbrella organization for green groups, was tasked with providing at least 16 examples of how the European Parliament had tightened green legislation thanks to its lobbying. According to documents reviewed by the newspaper, the EEB was also tasked with supporting the controversial nature restoration bill initiated by former Commissioner Frans Timmermans.

In addition, they could use around €700,000 in support to steer the debate on agricultural activity in a more environmentally friendly direction.

In Hungary, the EU provides funding to certain organizations, which then use their activities to serve Brussels’ political goals. Here are some examples.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee is heavily dependent on international funding. According to their latest available financial report for 2023, more than 61 percent of their annual income came from private foundations, including George Soros’s organization. They received a total of 48.85 million forints from the European Commission, which accounted for 6.1 percent of their income. Helsinki has received funding for various projects serving legal protection purposes, typically for several years.

In recent years, the organization has often criticized the Hungarian government’s immigration policy, especially the measures related to border closures and the operation of transit zones, and has also undertaken the legal representation of migrants, for example, at the European Court of Human Rights.

One of the “results” of Helsinki’s operation is that in June 2024, the European Court of Justice imposed a migration fine of €200 million on Hungary and ordered our country to pay an additional €1 million per day until we change the relevant regulations.

Helsinki has actively contributed to the European Commission’s 2023 Rule of Law Report, which contains a number of criticisms of Hungary, including problems and recommendations in the areas of justice, the fight against corruption, and institutional checks and balances. The Helsinki Committee, together with other NGOs, including Transparency International Hungary, has submitted a nearly 100-page submission to the European Commission, which is withholding billions of euros from Hungary.

Transparency International Hungary (TI Hungary) has regularly attacked the Hungarian government in recent years, primarily on issues related to corruption, lack of transparency, and the management of public funds.

The organization also receives significant foreign funding, including funds from Soros’ Open Society Foundations, but their supporters also include the European Commission, from which they received a total of 13.7 million forints in revenue, according to their 2023 report.

Transparency International produces its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) every year, which is used to calculate which countries are the most and least corrupt in the world. Tamás Lánczi, president of the Office for the Protection of Sovereignty, has already held the organization accountable for the bias experienced in determining the CPI.

All of this is significant because the index serves as a reference point for the withholding of EU funds due to Hungary.

The 2023 report from Amnesty International Hungary shows that the organization is significantly dependent on foreign sources.

Their revenues from the European Union budget, as well as other states and international organizations, exceeded 170 million forints, which represented 42 percent of their total revenue in that year.

They received almost 53 million forints in funding from the European Commission in 2023, which is almost 13 percent of their total annual income. They received the money as the winner of a call for proposals under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Value (CERV) program to promote gender equality. Amnesty has been working against Hungary’s interests on several fronts, as shown below.

The organization reports that it prepared its analysis related to the European Commission’s annual rule of law assessment, which examined, among other things, the Hungarian justice system, corruption, the press, civil society organizations, and the legislature. It says: “The success of our work, which has been carried out for four years, together with our civil society friends, is also demonstrated by the fact that many of our recommendations are reflected in the report published in July.”

In other words, they are explicitly proud of having put Hungary at a disadvantage.

The annual report also mentions that in March 2023, in addition to the European Parliament, 15 EU member states joined the European Commission v. Hungary lawsuit filed on the side of the commission over the child protection law adopted in 2021. Amnesty boasts that the actions of many member states are due to their work.

The Hungarian Digital Media Observatory (Lakmusz–HDMO) was established in January 2023 as the Hungarian center of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), established by the European Commission in 2020. Six organizations work together within the framework of the project: Political Capital, Mérték Médiaelemző Műhely, AFP news agency, Lakmusz, Idea Foundation and Epresspack. According to their own admission, their activities include fact-checking and related research and analysis, and they also provide training for journalists and teachers on the topic of fact-checking and conscious media consumption.

The HDMO Project is being implemented with the partial support of the European Commission, and the consortium forming the HDMO was selected by the Commission through an open tender. Lakmusz, which participated in the project, has also previously attacked the Hungarian government. For example, they have tried to discredit the institution of the national consultation on several occasions. Political Capital, Mérték, and Lakmusz can also be directly or indirectly linked to the foundations of George Soros.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

Did Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan Just Leak?

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | February 4, 2025

A leaked document has given us a first glimpse at President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana, U.S. officials handed the plan to European diplomats who then passed it on to Ukraine.

The existence of the plan has not been verified, and Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has said “no ‘100-day peace plan’ as reported by the media exists in reality.”

If the plan is real, and if it is being put on the table by the Trump administration as a finished product that, if rejected, will lead to more sanctions on Russia and more weapons for Ukraine (as Trump has threatened), then the war will go on, and Trump’s promise to quickly end the war will vanish in a puff of delusion. But if the plan is real, and if it is put on the table as a starting point for negotiations, then there is hope. And there is suggestion that it is a starting point.

Here is an item by item analysis of what each side may consider acceptable in the supposed plan and what each side may insist on negotiating further.

The process begins with an immediate phone call between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin followed by discussions between Washington and Kiev. That the plan may be intended as a starting point for negotiations is suggested by the fork in the schedule that negotiations will continue if common ground is found or pause if it is not. Further negotiations would lead to an Easter truce along the front line, an end of April peace conference, and a May 9 declaration of an agreement.

Russia has said that the Istanbul agreement could still be “the basis for starting negotiations.” In June 2024, Vladimir Putin set out a peace proposal based on the Istanbul agreement, but adjusted for current territorial realities. Putin’s proposal had four points: Ukraine must abandon plans to join NATO, they must withdraw from the four annexed territories, they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and they must ensure the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

The alleged Trump plan can be evaluated by comparison to Putin’s proposal and to recent statements made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

  1. Ukrainian troops must withdraw from Kursk at the time of the April Truce. This would be acceptable to Russia, who would insist on Ukrainian troops leaving its territory. But for Ukraine, this would be a difficult concession; not because of the withdrawal but because of the timing. Aside from the strategically catastrophic hope that the Kursk invasion would divert Russian troops away from the Donbas, the point of taking Russian territory was to use it to barter for the return of Ukrainian territory. Giving up the bargaining chip before the negotiations begin would nullify Ukraine’s hope of using it to force the return of more of its land.
  2. Ukraine must end martial law and hold presidential elections by the end of August and parliamentary elections by the end of October. This could be a bitter pill for Zelensky. Recent polling has shown that he could well lose that election. Elections would be welcomed by Russia, who see Zelensky’s government as intransigently hostile and anti-Russia. This would legally transfer hope for regime change to Ukrainians.
  3. Ukraine must declare neutrality and promise not to join NATO; NATO must promise not to expand into Ukraine. Ukraine was willing to abandon its NATO hopes in Istanbul. Though accepted by Kiev as inevitable, it would now be a painful concession. In the absence of NATO membership. It would be a hard sell to Ukrainians that the war after the Istanbul talks was worth the devastation. For Russia, this point is key, and there can be no negotiations without it. It would be the key accomplishment to get the two-sided promise that Ukraine will not ask for membership and NATO will not offer it.
  4. Ukraine will become a member of the European Union by 2030. This item is acceptable to both. EU membership will be necessary for Zelensky to present to Ukrainians as something that was worth fighting for. Ukraine is now free to pursue its ambitions to turn west and join Europe. Though Russia had concerns in 2014 with the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine because of its implied integration of Ukraine into the European security and military architecture, Putin has long left EU membership on the table for a postwar Ukraine, and that was specifically agreed to in the Istanbul agreement.
  5. Ukraine will not reduce the size of its armed forces and the United States will continue modernizing the Ukrainian military. While Ukraine will welcome this, it may not be enough. Russia will have a hard time with this one. This is like “the Israeli model” that then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says Putin and Zelensky were both open to in the early days of the war. But, in the absence of NATO, Zelensky has been adamant about American supported security guarantees. And, already by Istanbul, Russia was demanding limits on Ukraine’s armed forces. At the very least, modernized Ukrainian weaponry would have to be defensive and with a cap on firing into Russian territory.
  6. Ukraine refuses military and diplomatic attempts to return the occupied territories, but does not officially recognize Russian sovereignty. This item does not go far enough for Russia and too far for Ukraine. Zelensky has accepted that “De facto, these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We don’t have the strength to bring them back.” So, he will accept not attempting to return the occupied territories militarily. He has also insisted that Ukraine would never officially recognize Russian sovereignty over those lands. But the added clause, that he will not attempt to return them diplomatically, may be going further than Zelensky has been willing to go. In the case of Crimea, he has reserved the right to try to bring territory back diplomatically. For Russia, the de facto recognition of the territory it occupies will likely be enough. In his proposal, Putin insisted on the complete withdrawal from the territories while saying nothing about Ukraine officially recognizing Russian sovereignty over them. However, though Russia may be willing to negotiate over Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, they are less likely to accept only the lands east of the current front without it including all of the Donbas.
  7. Some sanctions on Russia will be lifted, including European Union bans on Russian oil. This item will likely be acceptable to Ukraine, especially since temporary duty on sales of oil will be used to restore Ukraine. It will likely be acceptable, at least as a starting point, for Russia.
  8. Parties that support Russian language and peaceful relations with Russia can participate in Ukraine’s elections. State actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Russian language must cease. Though difficult for Zelensky and some forces in Ukraine to accept, protection of language, religious and cultural rights is the second key Russian demand along with NATO.
  9. The idea of a European peacekeeping force is to be discussed separately. The recognition that security guarantees are both key and difficult for both parties is realistic. Neither side will agree to a European security force: Russia because it goes too far, Ukraine because it goes not far enough.

If this possible plan is a final draft whose rejection means negotiations end, then the war will not end. But if Donald Trump’s plan is intended as a starting point to negotiations—the most difficult of which may be the security guarantees — then there is hope.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pulling the Money Chain: The NGO Network in Ukraine and the Global War on Terror

By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | February 5, 2025

Detritus from Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t just amount to the obvious—inflation and deficit spending, regulations and wars. There’s also been a more subtle shift off of these failures, affecting who has power in our country and how they’ll use it in the future.

Nowhere is the shift less noticed or more definite than in the world of humanitarianism, which has been enriched these past three years by the previous administration’s proxy wars. Since 2022—when the Biden White House responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by neither escalating nor defusing but prolonging—a network of humanitarian non-profits has grown up around the conflict. This network has fed off the deaths of Ukrainians and the piling on of debt for future Americans through its operators’ deep contacts with the United States government and its outgrowths.

This network is worth investigating on its own. But with the advent of the second Trump Administration which is looking to wind down the war, its players appear to be pivoting from Ukraine to the Middle East: from ginning up funds for an endless proxy war to ginning them up for a repeat of the Global War on Terror.

The most obvious entry point into this network is Ukraine NGO Coordination Network (UNCN), which has a small staff but a wide reach: forty-two organizations are members. Many of them are some version of globalist: “Cross Border Civilians,” “Aviation without Borders,” “Global Outreach Doctors,” “Medical Teams Worldwide.” And many of these have the institutional links one might expect. Cross Border Civilians recruits from the World Economic Forum while Global Outreach Doctors traffics in Black Lives Matter. But even UNCN non-profits with close connections to Ukraine are much more tied into Washington DC-backed institutions than they first appear.

Listed first of all these organizations is Razom, a Ukrainian-American non-profit active since 2014. Its president, Dora Chomiak, is a Princeton and Columbia graduate who served in the 1990s as a Director of Regional Media Programs for George Soros’ newly-founded Open Society Institute. Under Chomiak’s leadership, Razom has a spot at the World Economic Forum, a regular Soros haunt. It also has a strong presence at Bard College, a major accepter of Ukrainian refugees which recently received a $500 million endowment pledge from Soros, whose second wife directs the Bard Graduate Center.

Razom also has government and university contacts. Samantha Power, the outgoing director of USAID, the government agency responsible for foreign aid, has been a featured speaker at Razom-hosted events, and so has the U.S. State Department’s Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery, Penny Pritzker. Columbia University, which has received extensive donations from Soros as well as tax exemptions from Washington, hosts regular pro-Ukrainian events at its Harriman Institute, where Chomiak serves on the board.

Another prominent member of UNCN’s network is Help Ukraine, founded by Brian Mefford, who also founded Wooden Horse Strategies, which by its own description is “a Kyiv-based consulting firm focusing on USAID and EU project development and evaluation, risk analysis, due diligence, political strategy and strategic communications” that “provides clients with both Ukraine and regional insight that achieves results for their projects, businesses and policy objectives.” In 2023, Wooden Horse Strategies was listed by Russian officials as under contract with Ukraine’s Science and Technology Center to help carry out “the United States’ military biological programs in Ukraine.”

This claim isn’t verifiable, but it is verifiable that Ukraine’s Science and Technology Center contracted with Wooden Horse Strategies to combat “disinformation” about the Ukrainian war effort. Mefford was also reliably identified as an attendee at a 2022 Washington summit on the conduct of the war sponsored by “private sector cyber security and intelligence operators and CIA venture capital firm In-Q-Tel,” which, according to its CEO, has seen over thirty of its portfolio companies “deplo[y]” their technologies “as part of Western efforts to support Ukraine.

These players, in other words, are not the Salvation Army. They’re highly plugged into government-funded universities and intelligence agencies as well as the U.S. Department of State. This positions them to be indirect or direct recipients not just of defense and university grants but of staggering amounts of formal humanitarian aid. “Since February 2022,” according to a Congressional Research report released on January 6, 2025, “Congress has appropriated more than $46 billion in emergency funds for accounts solely or partially managed by USAID to address the war in Ukraine” including for “humanitarian assistance.” This is on top of $65.9 billion in direct military assistance in the same period.

It’s not clear, as this report notes, where funds raised and spent this fast actually went. But almost surely some of them percolated directly or indirectly to the organizations which help make up the UNCN. Now, with the Trump administration opposed to further involvement in Ukraine, at least one of UNCN’s players appear to be mobilizing to get funding for a different foreign cause.

This player is Sarah Adams, Chief of Operations for UNCN from January 2022 to January 2024 and an institutional operator par excellence. At the start of her career, Adams worked for a pharmaceutical company with links to Pfizer and in the 2010s she was a CIA analyst abroad, including in Libya. She serves as a Program Analyst for the United States Department of the Air Force in Tampa.

Currently, though, on conservative podcasts like Shawn Ryan’s and Tudor Dixon’s on which she appears, Adams presents herself as a former CIA agent and whistleblower cut from MAGA’s mold: an ex-soldier sounding the alert on jihadi infiltrations. She makes the case for a unified global movement of pre-planned Al Qaeda “wave” attacks which represent a clear and present danger to the United States. Not surprisingly, in the wake of the January 1 terrorist attack in New Orleans, Adams’s supporters claimed validation for her—despite the fact that the attacker was an American-born resident of Texas and a Deloitte employee radicalized online.

Adams claims to be going up against Pentagon pushback when she makes her warnings, despite the fact that she’s employed by the Air Force, which is run from the Pentagon. But the Pentagon’s history of firing employees who dissent, among them decorated Space Force Colonel Matthew Lohmeier, renders this claim extremely dubious. Journalist Max Blumenthal has pointed out other inconsistencies as well. Not only are “Adams’ sources [for her claims] unnamed,” they’re also uncited outside of her constant references to “we.” In only the first fifteen minutes of her appearance on The Shawn Ryan Show, Adams cites “open source” information, i.e. information from publicly available sources or that she got “on the ground”; doesn’t link to those sources (outside of a terrorist training video); and then makes broad claims. One is that Al Qaeda activities in Europe are a planned operation for revenge against America for its interfering in the Middle East. Another is connecting threatened Al Qaeda attacks on America to the October 7 attack against Israel, implying that combating one means combating the other.

The way Adams phrases her warnings reinforces the confusion. She sounds either like she’s not confident in her own material, or that she’s patronizing her audience by talking down. “But it’s just, um, al Qaeda has all these waves of attacks planned, okay” is her way of describing a clear and present threat to Americans. About terrorist trainees: “Remember their life is they train all the time so if that’s all you’re doing all day long, I mean, you’re gonna get really competent at it and then they have different emotions behind it too and, you know, different beliefs, and the religion behind it too, which makes you more devout.” She calls a Pentagon communication to her a “nastygram.” She says (jokingly? not?) that Shawn Ryan’s head of production looks like a terrorist and that she “could have [his address] by the end of the day if I really wanted it.” This doesn’t sound like an experienced veteran delivering a serious warning. It sounds like a self-promoter with a strange side.

When it comes to questions about her analysis or sources, Adams is not tolerant. When I pushed back on X with “total respect” about whether the issue of the Taliban targeting a French Afghani in France was relevant, as Adams claimed, to “all of us,” she responded before blocking me:

One reason Adams may take this attitude is that engaging with American conservatives isn’t really what she wants to be doing; it’s a means to an end. One of her supporters explained to me on X: “Sarah’s focusing on raising attention with ‘the right’ (even though they typically lack nuance) because they’re still national security focused, while Left leaning westerners tend not to [be].” This ally, James Griffin, runs a website titled “Analytica Camillus.” It pairs broad sloganeering (“Morality in Ruthlessness”; “You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you”) with intricately plotted maps of counteroffensives in Ukraine.

All of this raises a question: if Muslim terror tactics have been such clear threats and created such humanitarian calamities, why did self-identified experts in war and humanitarianism like Adams and Griffin spend years focusing on Ukraine and only pivot to Islamism as a new Donald Trump presidency loomed? One answer is that these pivots—from the Russia threat to Muslim terror, from Kosovo to Iraq—have been happening for three decades, executed by the same connected institutional operators in the name of the same general principles applied to different situations based on which administration is in the White House.

These general principles are security and humanitarianism, a double rhetorical punch that has justified the foreign interventions that have created unprecedented non-and-for-profit boondoggles since the 1990s. Tellingly, Adams describes herself as 10% warlord, 90% humanitarian, or a warrior in the name of humanitarian ideals, and neither her pairing of war and human rights nor the profits that accrue from that pairing are new. An early beneficiary was George Soros, whose Open Society Foundations picked up in the Balkans where NATO left off, and who has been heavily invested in Ukrainian companies. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were also a boondoggle for non-profits as well as for business ventures to “build up” the region America had decimated by players like the Pritzker Family; one of whose members, Thomas Pritzker, set up North America Western Asia Holdings in partnership with a former undersecretary of Defense in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administration to pursue those opportunities in 2011.

A humanitarian-crusader thru-line also runs through the careers of government officials responsible for these crusades. Biden USAID director Samantha Power made her name in the 1990s with a Pulitzer Prize winning book urging American intervention in the name of human rights and later stage-managed the intervention in Libya, where Sarah Adams served as a CIA analyst. Biden’s Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, a key backer of humanitarianism up to his last days in the State Department, had a father, another humanitarian, who was a key supporter of the NATO expansion off of our 1990s Balkans interventions which began our long cool down with Russia. Both Power and Blinken also  advanced their career off of or in support of the Iraq War. This was the ultimate in humanitarian-security politics gone wrong. It was justified by links between Muslims (Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda) that later proved conflationary and that are uncomfortably similar to the links Sarah Adams is currently making between different Muslim groups.

In between stints in government, both Power and Blinken subsisted off Ivy League research perches with links to nonprofits and security contractors. Almost surely, both will lend their support to policies already being bandied around in Washington, and reinforced by testimony from people like Sarah Adams that empower those institutions. These policies include re-authorizing government surveillance on American citizens and expanding the power of the Department of Homeland Security in the name of combating Muslim terror.

Other prominent supporters of these policies like Aayan Hirsi Ali, operating out of non-profits inside government-funded universities, want Americans to take the same broad-brush approach to national security as Sarah Adams does. But they expand the threats even further, broadcasting a new humanitarian and security crusade against Marxism, Islamism, the Chinese Communist Party, and Vladimir Putin. Tellingly, Hirsi’s husband, Niall Ferguson, an institutionally-connected booster of American interventionism and humanitarianism since a dozen years before the Iraq War, has recently become a Trump supporter, self-professedly dancing at Mar-a-Lago not too long ago.

He, along with longtime interventionist Bret Stephens and Stephens’ protégé, Free Press founder Bari Weiss, have increasingly identified with conservatives while pushing very different focuses. As of January 28, The Free Press’ last twenty international stories have included five on the Western hemisphere or China; the other fifteen have been on Europe and the Middle East. And this doesn’t even mention The Free Press’ separate section on Israel and antisemitism. Whatever one’s views of these issues, these players’ focus is far away from the focus of constitutional conservatives or the Trump White House.

Arguably, these humanitarian-military crusades—the ones which fund people like Sarah Adams, Brian Mefford, and Dora Chomiak, and which open investment opportunities for the Pritzkers and George Soros—are the most durable beneficiaries of America’s post-Cold War deep state apparatus. Quietly since 1995 and loudly since 2001, there has literally not been a year when we weren’t engaged in one of these missions, empowering contractors and non-profits abroad while encouraging surveillance at home.

Today’s latest sales pitch for a new crusade by Ukraine War pushers is something believers in small government and individual liberties should push back against. Profits in the name of war-linked humanitarianism are suspect to begin with. But when they threaten our liberties and our finances, they’re anathema to American interests.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow welcomes Trump’s stance on Kiev’s NATO bid

RT | February 5, 2025

Russia welcomes the statements made by US President Donald Trump regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership ambitions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Trump is the first Western leader to admit that it was wrong to support Kiev’s plans to join the military bloc, the diplomat said on Wednesday.

Trump stated last month that he understands the Russian stance that Ukraine should not be part of NATO. Speaking to reporters in Florida, the US president said Moscow’s position had long been “written in stone,” but that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had ignored it, which contributed to the current conflict.

“Somewhere along the line, Biden said, ‘[Ukraine], they should be able to join NATO.’ Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I can understand their feelings about that,” Trump added.

Speaking at an ambassadors’ roundtable on Ukraine, Lavrov said Trump’s comments suggest Washington may finally be ready to address issues linked to Ukraine’s NATO bid and the bloc’s eastward expansion.

“President Trump bluntly said that one of the main mistakes was drawing Ukraine into NATO, and that if he had been in power the past four years, the conflict would not have happened,” Lavrov noted.

“For the first time, a Western leader… the leader of the entire Western world, uttered these words, which we welcome because for the first time the problem of NATO was identified as something that the US is ready to discuss seriously,” he added. Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s stance that Ukraine’s NATO aspirations were a root cause of the current conflict, saying that warnings not to encourage these aspirations either fell on deaf ears or were met with “duplicity” and “hypocrisy” by Western politicians.

“The root cause is the conscious, long-term desire and… practical steps of the West to create direct military threats to Russia on our borders, on the territory of Ukraine, and drawing it into NATO. We have raised this issue repeatedly, demanding NATO honor its pledge not to expand eastward, but all was in vain,” Lavrov said. He suggested Trump’s remarks could signal a shift in US policy, which he called crucial as “Washington is the one who will ultimately make the decisions” regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership.

Moscow has long opposed Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, insisting any settlement of the ongoing conflict must include Kiev’s neutrality and demilitarization. Ukraine, however, considers its membership a strategic foreign and security policy objective, and has recently claimed that it sees its admission to the US-led military bloc as a security guarantee to agree to a ceasefire with Moscow. While NATO last year declared that Ukraine was on an “irreversible” path to joining the bloc, its members warned that Kiev would have to meet certain conditions first, such as resolving the conflict with Moscow.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Zelensky a ‘maniac’ to demand NATO nuclear weapons – Moscow

RT | February 5, 2025

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s statements on obtaining nuclear weapons are cause for serious concern, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. In a social media post on Wednesday, she branded Zelensky a “maniac [gripped by] sick delusions” who could seek a ‘dirty bomb’.

Zelensky reiterated his nuclear aspirations in an interview with British television host Piers Morgan on Tuesday, in which he lamented that Kiev traded Soviet-era deterrence “for nothing” in the 1990s.

“Will we be given nuclear weapons? Then let them give us nuclear weapons,” Zelensky told Morgan. “What missiles can stop Russia’s nuclear missiles? That is a rhetorical question.”

He called on NATO to deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a stopgap measure while Kiev awaits accession to the US-led military bloc.

Responding on Wednesday, Zakharova wrote: “Zelensky’s latest statements that he wants to possess a nuclear capability expose him as a maniac, who considers the planet as an object for his sick delusions. They also prove that for him nuclear power stations are not a source of peaceful energy, but a dirty weapon that the Kiev regime needs for blackmail.”

Ukrainian nuclear rhetoric predates the outbreak of hostilities with Russia. Zelensky suggested that Kiev could build atomic weapons in a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022, days before the escalation of the conflict.

Russian officials have expressed concern over Ukraine potentially developing a dirty bomb amid its battlefield setbacks. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has reported no diversion of declared radioactive materials in the country.

Ukraine inherited a well-developed civilian nuclear industry from the USSR, and currently operates three nuclear power plants and two research reactors.

Contrary to Zelensky’s assertion, independent Ukraine lacked a true nuclear deterrent as it did not possess the unilateral capability to launch Soviet weapons deployed on its soil in response to an attack. The disarmament of Ukraine, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, was part of a broader nuclear reduction initiative in the 1990s. Western nations incentivized the host nations with aid programs.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

Kremlin comments on talks with ‘illegitimate’ Zelensky

RT | February 5, 2025

Moscow is ready for talks with Kiev even though Vladimir Zelensky currently has no legal right to lead Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

On Tuesday, Zelensky told British journalist Piers Morgan that he could hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The comments marked a significant shift from Zelensky’s stance adopted in the autumn of 2022, when he signed a decree banning any negotiations with the Russian leadership.

“If that is the only setup in which we can bring peace to the citizens of Ukraine and not lose people, definitely we will go for this setup, for this meeting,” Zelensky told Morgan.

Asked to comment on Zelensky’s remarks on Wednesday, Peskov said there is “no place for emotions” when it comes to the settlement of the Ukraine conflict. “What is needed here is legal analysis and absolute pragmatism… Zelensky has significant de jure legitimacy issues within his own country,” the spokesman pointed out.

Peskov referred to the Ukrainian leader’s refusal to hold a presidential election and the fact that his term expired last May. Moscow maintains that the legitimate power in Ukraine now lies with the parliament and its speaker.

“Despite this, the Russian side remains open to negotiations,” Peskov stressed, arguing that Moscow’s successes on the battlefield “clearly suggest that Kiev should be the one to demonstrate openness and interest in such negotiations.”

Peskov also weighed in on Zelensky’s suggestion that the West could give Ukraine nuclear weapons as a substitute for NATO membership to guarantee its protection.

“In general, such statements are borderline madness. There is a nuclear non-proliferation regime,” the spokesman said. Peskov suggested that EU politicians, despite their flaws, should understand the “absurdity and potential danger of discussing such a topic.”

Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US, and the UK as part of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine has repeatedly accused Moscow of violating the deal after Crimea voted to join Russia following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Russia has argued that the deal was fundamentally undermined by NATO’s expansion towards its borders.

Putin has said that Russia would not allow Kiev to create or obtain nuclear weapons “under any circumstances.”

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US pulls out of UN human rights council, cancels funding to UNRWA

Press TV – February 4, 2025

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing Washington from the UN Human Rights Council and UNRWA, the refugee agency that works primarily with the Palestinians being oppressed by the Israeli regime.

Trump signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday ahead of his meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who had carried out a 15-month genocidal war against the people of Palestine in Gaza in which more than 47,300 people were killed, mostly women and children.

The ceasefire between the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and Israel was reached after the regime failed to realize any of its wartime objectives, including freeing the captives, “eliminating” the Gazan resistance, and causing forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population to neighboring Egypt.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians began returning to the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Trump’s aide introduced the measures, saying, “Next up, in light of numerous actions taken by a number of bodies of the United Nations which exhibited deep anti-American bias, we have an executive order prepared for your attention that would withdraw the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council.”

“I would withdraw the United States from the UNRWA, which is a refugee organization, and would also review American involvement in UNESCO, which also exhibited anti-American bias,” he added.

“More generally, the executive order calls for a review of American involvement and funding in the UN in light of the wild disparities in levels of funding among different countries that, as you’ve expressed previously, is deeply unfair to the United States,” the aide concluded before giving the order to Trump to sign.

Following the signing of the executive order, Trump said, “So I’ve always felt that the UN has tremendous potential. It’s not living up to that potential right now. It really isn’t and has been for a long time. It has– there are great hopes for it, but it’s not being well run, to be honest, and not doing the job. A lot of these conflicts that we’re working on should be settled, or at least we should have some help in settling them.”

“But we never seem to get help. That should be the primary purpose of the UN and the United Nations. And again, it’s got great potential. And based on the potential, we’ll continue to go along with it. But they’ve got to get their act together,” he added.

“What would they need to do to get their act together?” a reporter asked Trump.

“Well, they’ve got to be fair to countries that deserve fairness. They have some countries, as you know, that are outliers that are very bad, and they’re being almost preferred as countries to those that do their job and are doing a good job. And they have to really they’re going to end up losing a lot of countries and end up losing their credibility like other organizations,” Trump replied.

Trump also said Palestinians would “love” to leave their embattled homeland in Gaza and live elsewhere if given an option.

They would “love to leave Gaza,” he told reporters at the White House. “I would think that they would be thrilled.”

Last week, Trump suggested cleaning out the Palestinian land and relocating the war-stricken people there to neighboring Arab countries, namely Egypt and Jordan.

“You’re talking about probably a million and half people … I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” he said. “[W]e just clean out that whole thing,” he said.

In the meantime, the Palestinian leaders and people in Gaza condemned any attempt to relocate them, saying such a move is reminiscent of a dark page in Palestine’s modern history known as the “Nakba” or catastrophe – when millions of Palestinians were forcibly displaced to create room for Israel’s illegal creation.

Member of Hamas’s political bureau, Bassem Naim, said that Palestinians would “foil such projects” as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades.”

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Seek them out and destroy them where they live”

Remembering Merck’s Australian doctor hit list

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | February 3, 2025

This evening I pondered the news of Caroline Kennedy’s hit letter against her cousin, RFK, Jr., and the fact that she was the Biden Administration’s Ambassador to Australia, and the fact that she has served as a powerful ambassador for Merck’s Gardasil vaccine.

The association of Australia and Merck reminded me of the company’s “seek out and destroy” campaign against Australian doctors who expressed concern that the company’s blockbuster Vioxx seemed to be causing heart attacks and strokes. As was reported by CBS in May 2009:

Merck made a “hit list” of doctors who criticized Vioxx, according to testimony in a Vioxx class action case in Australia. The list, emailed between Merck employees, contained doctors’ names with the labels “neutralise,” “neutralised” or “discredit” next to them.

According to The Australian, Merck emails from 1999 showed company execs complaining about doctors who disliked using Vioxx. One email said:

“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live …”

During this same period in the United States, Merck was accused of concealing negative results of clinical Vioxx trials from the FDA and paying reputable doctors to put their names on research they did not conduct or write up. The company also published a fake journal, paying Elsevier to create a phony publication to serve as a marketing tool titled the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine.

Ultimately the company was found guilty of knowingly concealing data about the elevated risk of stroke and heart attack from Vioxx and agreed to pay a class action settlement to stroke and heart attack victims totaling $4.85 billion.

I wonder if the nice folks at Merck would ever yield to the temptation to overstate the benefits of the HPV vaccine and downplay its risks, as some plaintiffs have alleged. I also wonder if the company’s PR department might yield to the temptation to smear RFK, Jr. during his Senate confirmation process.

Or am I just being cynical?

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

RFK Jr. Wins Crucial Vote, Moves One Step Closer to Top HHS Post

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 4, 2025

The Senate Finance Committee today narrowly advanced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.

The 14-13 vote along party lines came after Kennedy secured the vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that oversees HHS. Cassidy was the lone Republican considered to be a possible hold-out.

The Senate is expected to vote on Kennedy’s confirmation later this week or early next week, ABC News reported. The nomination “is likely to succeed absent any last-minute vote switches,” The Associated Press reported.

Kennedy, founder and former chairman of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), can be confirmed even if up to three Republican senators and all Democrats vote against him in the full Senate.

If confirmed, Kennedy will oversee a $1.7 trillion budget and 90,000 employees. HHS oversees 13 public health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

During today’s committee meeting, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, “It is time to put a disruptor” like Kennedy at the helm of the HHS. “I hope he goes wild,” Tillis said.

Shares of vaccine manufacturers and packaged food companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Novavax, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Mondelez and Hershey, dropped after today’s vote, Reuters reported.

CHD CEO Mary Holland welcomed today’s outcome. She said:

“CHD is delighted that the Finance Committee is sending RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate. Given the 2024 presidential results, this seems only fitting. ‘Make America Healthy Again’ has become a worldwide rallying cry, and CHD is proud to be a foundational part of this movement.”

In a statement, Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, also welcomed today’s vote. He said:

“Americans demand a frank conversation about the state of our government healthcare agencies, and we’re very grateful for the Senators who responded by voting to move RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate.

“RFK Jr. has been asking the tough questions, and he’s been unmoved in the face of big-corporate money campaigns against him.”

In a statement before the vote, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), chair of the committee, said that if confirmed, Kennedy “will have the opportunity to deliver much-needed change to our nation’s healthcare system.”

Cassidy, Kennedy agree to ‘unprecedently close collaborative relationship’

During last week’s hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, Cassidy said he was “struggling” with some of Kennedy’s positions regarding vaccines.

“I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning,” Cassidy posted on X earlier today. “I want to thank VP JD [Vance] specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”

Following today’s vote, Cassidy delivered remarks on the Senate floor, revealing the content of those discussions and the agreement he made with Kennedy to secure his vote.

He said Kennedy committed to a strong public health role for Congress and to meeting or speaking with Cassidy multiple times per month. They also agreed that Cassidy will participate in the hiring process for HHS and the public health agencies it oversees.

“He and I will have an unprecedently close collaborative relationship,” Cassidy said, noting that the hiring decisions that will follow “will allow us to represent all sides of those folks who have contacted me over this past weekend.”

Kennedy also agreed to maintain statements on the CDC website that vaccines do not cause autism and to maintain the recommendations of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Cassidy said he would also reject any attempt to remove the public’s access to “life-saving vaccines” without “iron-clad, causational scientific evidence” indicating otherwise. He also said he would carefully monitor any attempt to “wrongfully sow public confusion” about vaccines.

Cassidy conceded that “many mothers do need reassurance that the vaccine their child is receiving is necessary, effective, and most of all, safe” and expressed his support for Kennedy’s positions on toxic foods and reforming the NIH.

“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to Make America Healthy Again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy said, noting that institutions like NIH and FDA require “reform.”

During last week’s confirmation hearings, Kennedy emphasized his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and said he would work to tackle the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S.

Kennedy also said he would implement “radical transparency” in HHS. He also voiced support for vaccines — if backed by “good science.”

Related articles in The Defender

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.

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption | , , , , , | 8 Comments

Trump says US will ‘take over’ Gaza Strip

RT | February 5, 2025

US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will assume control over the Gaza Strip, vowing to rebuild the war-torn enclave and create economic opportunities for its future residents. When asked whether US troops would be deployed to Gaza, Trump vowed to “do what is necessary.”

Trump made the remarks on Tuesday following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. The US president reiterated his view that Palestinians should be permanently resettled elsewhere, adding that the US would “take over” Gaza and lead efforts to clear the destruction left by 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip. And we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site,” Trump said, promising to “level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.”

Asked to clarify what exactly he meant by a “takeover,” the US leader said he envisions a “long-term ownership position” that would supposedly bring “great stability” to the entire Middle East. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing it, and creating thousands of jobs,” Trump claimed.

Trump also said he is not ruling out deploying US troops to support his Gaza development plan. “We’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that. We’re going to take over that place,” he said.

Approximately 92% of homes in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or severely damaged, and around 1.9 million people – more than 90% of Gaza’s population – have been displaced since the war broke out in October 2023, according to the UN. Trump, a former real estate mogul, has repeatedly referred to Gaza as a “demolition site” in recent weeks.

When asked who would populate Gaza once the US “takes over” and redevelops it, and whether the Palestinian people would be able to return, Trump responded:

“I envision… the world’s people living there. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable. And I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world, will be there and they’ll live there… Palestinians also,” he said. “I don’t want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East – this could be so magnificent.”

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 3 Comments

Hamas says Israel ‘blocking humanitarian protocol’ as talks begin for phase two of Gaza ceasefire

The Cradle | February 4, 2025

Hamas announced in a statement on 4 February that talks for the second phase of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip have begun, accusing Israel of “obstructing the humanitarian protocol” that comes as part of the deal.

“The contacts and negotiations [with mediators] for the second phase have begun, and we are concerned and interested in the current phase in sheltering, relief, and reconstruction for our people in the Gaza Strip. The occupation is obstructing the humanitarian protocol in the ceasefire agreement and is evading and procrastinating in implementing it,” said spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou on Tuesday.

“Shelter and relief for our people is an urgent humanitarian issue that cannot tolerate evasion or procrastination by the occupation. Rebuilding hospitals, repairing roads and water wells will restore life to Gaza after the massive destruction there,” he added.

Israel said it would send a team to the Qatari capital, Doha, in the coming days for discussions.

According to the terms of the ceasefire agreement, negotiations regarding the implementation of the second phase of the deal were supposed to begin on 3 February – the 16th day since the truce began.

The deal is made up of an initial 42-day stage in which 33 Israeli captives are supposed to be released in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners. Two more 42-day stages are expected, in which the remainder of the Israeli captives are supposed to be released in exchange for a much larger, undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners.

Over a dozen Israeli captives have been released so far in exchange for over 580 Palestinians who were detained in Israeli prisons.

However, Israel has continued to bar the entry of essentials such as reconstruction materials, equipment to help recover thousands of bodies still trapped under rubble, and tents urgently needed by displaced civilians returning to their destroyed cities – as required in the ceasefire deal.

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

Israel withdraws from al-Muallaqa town in Syria hours after infiltration

Al Mayadeen | February 4, 2025

Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the al-Muallaqa town in Quneitra, Syria, hours after infiltrating the town, field sources told Al Mayadeen.

During their invasion, the IOF searched civilian houses in the area.

Israeli occupation forces are reinforcing their positions on strategic hills on the outskirts of Kodana, South of the Quneitra countryside.

“Israel” has been preparing for the long haul as it takes over Syrian territories. Satellite images reviewed by The Washington Post revealed buildings and vehicles within a fortified Israeli base and another base toward the South.

The two bases are connected through newly dug dirt roads that lead to the Golan Heights.

Satellite images also show two forward observation bases being built by occupation forces; one in Jubata al-Khassab and another one toward the South.

Another Israeli force invaded 2 kilometers east of the al-Salam town in Quneitra and patrolled in front of the Syrian General Security Headquarters.

Last month, Israeli Air Forces targeted a military convoy between Dara’a and Quneitra in Southern Syria, killing 3 people.

“Israel” took advantage of the collapse of the Assad regime and occupied the demilitarized buffer zone between the Golan Heights and Syria. It also targeted the former Syrian army’s arms and vehicles with violent airstrikes over days, destroying most of the capabilities.

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

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