Yet more legacy media deception on a vital issue
By Alex Berenson | Unreported Truths | April 29, 2025
I can’t believe I have to call out my old editors at the New York Times for running blatantly dishonest journalism for the second day in a row.1
But I do, so here goes.
Yesterday, just past noon local time, the electric systems in Spain and Portugal failed without warning.
Power remained out across both countries for much of the day and wasn’t fully restored until today. The disruption was profound. Subway riders evacuated stalled trains in darkened tunnels. Cellular service (which, unlike landlines, does not have backup batteries) went down. Elevators were stuck. ATMs and traffic lights went out.
Not across a city, or a state, but two nations that together have almost 60 million people. (Small parts of southern France were also affected.)
The outage attracted worldwide attention — and legacy media headscratching.
The usual explanations for blackouts were nowhere in sight. No earthquakes hit, no hurricanes or forest fires were raging. Even climate change, the usual media bugaboo for all disasters natural and manmade, couldn’t be blamed. It’s April, not July, and the weather was mild across the Iberian peninsula, in the 70s from Lisbon to Barcelona, 700 miles northeast. Nor was demand for power particularly high yesterday.
Just after the outage, Portugal’s electric network operator supposedly blamed “extreme temperature variations” in Spain for “induced atmospheric vibration.” Those led to “oscillations” on high voltage lines, according to several newspapers, including England’s Guardian.
“Millions without power in Spain, Portugal after ‘induced atmospheric vibration’,” a USA Today headline incoherently but confidently explained.
Of course. Induced atmospheric vibration. If that sounds like gobbledygook, it’s because it is. By Tuesday morning, the Guardian had disappeared those words, claiming the Portuguese company “said the statement was falsely attributed to it.”
Oh. Other unlikely explanations included cyber attacks and solar flares, eruptions of radiation from the sun that can disrupt powerlines. But solar flares are hard to miss, and none were a problem on Monday.
But even as the legacy media offered bizarre theories, power industry analysts and energy experts on X proposed a far simpler, more plausible explanation: Spain’s near-total reliance on green energy had left it very vulnerable to cascading blackouts.
For all its magic, electricity is actually relatively easy to understand at the theoretical level; it is the flow of electrons — negatively charged particles — that carry energy. Scientists began to understand this fact in the 1700s. A century later they had realized that swinging magnets along coils of wire would produce usable current. The energy to swing the magnets comes from steam heated in coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear plants, or directly from the flow of water in hydropower dams. (I remember the basics from AP Physics, and Google confirms them.)
After the electricity is produced, grids of wires carry it to homes and businesses, where it makes lights, computers, and motors run.2 Here, the engineering gets complicated. Electric plants produce “alternating” current, because of the way the magnets spin, and most household devices run on it.3 Demand for electricity fluctuates by the second, and supply must exactly match demand to keep the grid functioning properly. Traditional power plants have several different ways to manage this task. Their success in doing so is a key reason that modern, wealthy countries almost never have widespread blackouts.
But solar plants produce direct current, which must be “inverted” into alternating current before it is added to the grid. Wind turbines have their own hurdles adding power. As a result, wind and solar plants cannot manage unexpected changes in frequency nearly as well as older sources.
This risk is not a secret to power companies — or renewable energy suppliers. In 2022, the consortium of companies that runs Europe’s electricity network released a 63-page report on the issue.
It is highly technical and obscure (perhaps deliberately so), but it notes that older plants “have traditionally provided various ‘inherent’ capabilities to the system critical to ensure the stable operation of the power systems…” and that wind and solar power have a “lack of these system capabilities.”
But in the rush last decade to pacify climate change activists and decarbonize the world (except, of course, for India and China), niceties like the realities of physics seem to have been overlooked. European countries have moved quickly away from boring, reliable sources of power generation and towards solar and wind.
No country has moved faster than Spain, which has sol to spare. In mid-April, Spain ran its electricity grid fully on renewable energy on a weekday for the first time.
Oh well. Renewable energy was fun while it lasted. Heck, I’ve got panels on my roof (the tax credit didn’t hurt).
But well-defined theoretical risks that are ignored for political reasons have a strange way of coming true. The strong consensus on X is that the lack of simple, reliable, fossil fuel or nuclear-powered baseload generation with high “inertia,” as the engineers say, is a big reason that Spain’s grid failed so fast and took nearly a day to reboot fully.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media keeps scratching its head and staring into the sun for solar flares. “The cause of the outage remained unclear,” the Times’s current headline explains helpfully.
If this were 2021, the Biden Administration would no doubt call blaming renewables “misinformation” and Twitter and Facebook would be censoring articles like this one as Russian propaganda or whatever. At least now the skeptics can call the media out without fear of being banned.
Progress, I suppose.
Though it doesn’t fix the underlying problem. After two decades of putting up solar and wind farms at massive taxpayer expense, Europe has turned electricity from cheap and reliable to the reverse. If the sun shines too brightly, the lights go out.
Congrats, Greta Thunberg!
I know, you can. As cynical as I’ve become, I guess I’m still not cynical enough.
Along the way the voltage – a measure of the “pressure” causing the electrons to move — is raised in order to reduce the energy wasted as the current flows, then lowered so it is safer for household use.
In Europe, alternating current is produced at 50 hertz, or cycles per second. In the United States, it’s produced at 60.
Net Zero Watch warns of growing grid instability
Net Zero Watch | April 29, 2025
With more than 50 million EU electricity consumers suffering blackouts yesterday, campaign group Net Zero Watch has reiterated its warning that the UK power grid is also becoming increasingly unstable.
Grid analysts have suggested a high likelihood that the extent of yesterday’s blackout in Iberia was a result of the Spanish grid operating almost entirely on renewables at the time. The stability of power grids depends on so-called ‘inertia’, a resistance to rapid change that is an inherent feature of large spinning turbines, such as gas-fired power stations, but not of wind and solar farms. Too much renewables capacity on a grid can therefore mean inadequate inertia. As a result, in grids dominated by wind and solar, faults can propagate almost instantaneously across grids, leading to blackouts.
In a recent Net Zero Watch paper, entitled Blackout Risk in the GB Grid, energy system analyst Kathyn Porter pointed out that Britain’s electricity system is also becoming increasingly unstable. Large fluctuations in grid frequency – the first sign of problems – are becoming much more common.
In the past four years, the upper operational [frequency] limit was breached around 500 times in each winter season… the number of such breaches has also been growing steadily, which is consistent with falling grid inertia… and a perception that the grid is becoming less reliable.
In addition, Ms Porter points out that the GB grid experienced a ‘near miss’ at the start of the year.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
For 20 years, every aspect of the grid has been subordinated to the concerns of the eco-warriors. It’s no surprise that our electricity system is now both unaffordable and dangerously unstable. We can no longer afford to have energy policy determined by fantastists.
France using the ‘terrorism’ charge to silence criticism of crimes in Gaza: French lawyer
French political scientist Francois Burgat
MEMO | April 29, 2025
French lawyer Rafik Chekkat said today that the charge of “terrorist propaganda” is being used in France to silence those who speak out about crimes committed by Israel in Gaza.
French political scientist Francois Burgat, known for his work on the Arab world, was detained on 9 July 2024, in Aix-en-Provence on charges of “terrorist propaganda.” His arrest followed a complaint by the European Jewish Organisation (OJE) over social media posts he shared in January 2024 about Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
“The two most commonly used charges to silence those who respond to the crimes committed in Gaza are ‘terrorist propaganda’ and ‘incitement to hatred and discrimination,’” said Chekkat, one of Burgat’s lawyers and a member of the Marseille Bar Association.
“Sometimes you are prosecuted under one charge, sometimes the other, and sometimes even both simultaneously,” he added.
Burgat was released the same day he was arrested and appeared before a judge at the Aix-en-Provence Criminal Court last week.
The prosecution has requested an eight-month suspended prison sentence, a €4,000 (about $4,550) fine, and a six-month ban on posting on X.
“Despite being an expert on terrorism-related issues, he is now being prosecuted for ‘terrorist propaganda’,” Chekkat said.
The court is expected to announce the verdict in Burgat’s case on 28 May.
Chekkat argued that Burgat’s case is part of a broader pattern of cracking down on criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The law regarding “terrorist propaganda”, he explained, was originally designed to combat terrorist organisations’ recruitment efforts in online environments but is now “being used to suppress dissenting voices on the issue of Palestine.”
“This is just the visible tip of the oppressive iceberg. That is to say, not only are publicly known figures involved here, but also many lesser-known individuals,” he said.
“Sometimes activists, and sometimes people not affiliated with any group — even ordinary individuals — have been questioned, prosecuted, and some have even been convicted of terrorist propaganda,” he added.
UNRWA details harrowing abuse of Gaza aid workers in Israeli detention
Al Mayadeen | April 29, 2025
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has accused the Israeli military of abusing over 50 of its staff members detained during the war on Gaza.
According to UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini, the detained individuals, including teachers, doctors, and social workers, were subjected to harsh treatment while in Israeli custody. Lazzarini stated on X that the staff reported being beaten, humiliated, and even used as human shields.
“Since the start of the war in October 2023, over 50 UNRWA staff among them teachers, doctors, social workers, have been detained and abused,” Lazzarini wrote. “They have been treated in the most shocking and inhumane way.”
Testimonies reveal torture, forced confessions
Sharing testimony from one of the released workers, Lazzarini highlighted the severity of the mistreatment.
“I wished for death to end this nightmare I was living through,” the staff member reportedly said. According to the accounts collected by UNRWA, detainees faced sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats against themselves and their families, dog attacks, and forced confessions under duress.
Lazzarini described the testimonies as “harrowing and outrageous,” adding to concerns about the treatment of Palestinian detainees during the ongoing Israeli war.
The reported abuse of humanitarian workers further complicates the already dire situation in Gaza, where aid agencies have been struggling to deliver assistance amid ongoing Israeli bombardments and blockades.
International reactions and ICJ proceedings
The broader humanitarian crisis in Gaza is under increased international scrutiny. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently hearing arguments from dozens of nations and organizations regarding “Israel’s” humanitarian obligations to Palestinians.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) began a week-long series of hearings on Monday to examine “Israel’s” humanitarian obligations toward Palestinians, as the Gaza Strip endures over 50 days under a total blockade that has halted the entry of vital aid.
The ICJ hearings on Gaza started with a submission from Palestinian representatives, followed by arguments from 38 countries, including the United States, China, France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
The League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the African Union are also expected to present their positions before the 15-judge panel.
These proceedings stem from a December resolution by the UN General Assembly, led by Norway and passed with broad support, calling on the court to urgently issue an advisory opinion on “Israel’s” legal responsibilities under international law.
The United Nations has asked the court to clarify “Israel’s” obligations to facilitate the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, in coordination with UN agencies, international organizations, and third-party states. This comes as the Gaza humanitarian crisis continues to worsen, with growing concerns over famine risk due to the blockade.
It is worth noting that “Israel” maintains strict control over all international aid entering the Gaza Strip, home to 2.4 million Palestinians. Aid deliveries were fully halted on March 2, just before the ceasefire collapsed, ending a temporary reduction in hostilities after 15 months of conflict.
The ongoing Israeli aid blockade has pushed Gaza to the brink of catastrophe, with supplies rapidly depleting and Palestinian civilians facing severe restrictions on access to essential resources.
Screaming soldiers and open revolt: How one video unmasked Israel’s internal power struggle
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | April 29, 2025
An apparently strange choice was made by a correspondent from Israel’s Channel 12 when, on 22 April, he decided to release one of the most humiliating videos of a relatively large number of Israeli soldiers coming under attack by a single Palestinian fighter. As soldiers screamed and stumbled down the stairs of a building in Khan Yunis chaos erupted: some fell over each other, others hid behind a concrete wall, and some even fired erratically, endangering their own colleagues.
This begs a serious question: given the Israeli media’s frequent adherence to strict, often unreasonable, military censorship, what prompted the decision to release such a damaging portrayal of its own soldiers?
The answer lies in the open war between the Israeli political institution, represented by the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the one hand, and the rest of the country on the other. The “rest of the country” may seem to be an elusive concept, but it is not. Currently, Netanyahu is at war with the military institution, the internal intelligence agency Shin Bet, the judiciary, much of the media and the majority of Israelis who want the war to end and Israeli captives to be released.
This explains the unprecedented and open criticism by former top Israeli officials who are accusing Netanyahu of being a threat, not only to the Israeli military and Israeli society, but also to the future of Israel itself.
On 21 April, the head of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, breached every protocol when he presented Israel’s Supreme Court with two documents, one of which was revealed to the public. According to Israeli media, in the unclassified affidavit, Bar stated that he was fired by the prime minister “because of his refusal to meet those expectations of loyalty,” particularly “regarding investigations into the prime minister’s aides” and for “his refusal to help Netanyahu avoid testifying in his criminal trial.”
Bar’s comments represented a fundamental historical shift in how Israel’s power players treat extremely sensitive security matters.
They were also, essentially, a call for the overthrow of Netanyahu.
A former head of Shin Bet, Nadav Argaman, has been equally vocal, although he was the first to speak about Netanyahu’s transgressions, suggesting clear coordination between the various elements of Israel’s notorious and powerful intelligence agencies. “If the prime minister acts unlawfully, I will say everything I know,” he told Channel 12 last month.
The coordination runs deeper, with former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who, along with Netanyahu, is wanted by the International Criminal Court, going on his own rampage on 23 April. Aside from the direct attacks on Netanyahu, calling his policy a “moral disgrace”, Gallant seems to have disparaged the Israeli military itself by revealing that, last August, Israel faked pictures of an alleged Hamas tunnel in order to block a ceasefire agreement.
The Israeli government used this specific episode as its rationale for maintaining control over the Philadelphi Corridor in southern Gaza, a justification that emerged around the same time as the deeply embarrassing video of Israeli soldiers running in terror from a lone Palestinian combatant. The layers of humiliation continued to accumulate.
While Gallant’s actions may discredit the military and his own leadership, his primary aim appears to be to have an impact on Netanyahu, who many Israelis believe is prolonging the Gaza war for personal political gain.
Israel’s actual war losses are another key point. One of the occupation state’s historically best-kept secrets is its losses in fighting against Arab armies or resistance groups.
Its casualties in the current war on Gaza were also supposed to be a well-kept secret, except that they aren’t.
Although the Israeli army has tried to minimise its death toll since the start of the war on 7 October, 2023, it has faced many leaks, some initiated by the military itself. The aim? To put pressure on Netanyahu to end the war, especially in light of new information that at least half of Israel’s military reserves are refusing to return to the battlefield.
Interestingly, it was Eyal Zamir — Netanyahu’s hand-picked replacement for Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi — who surprised everyone in a speech shortly after his appointment in February. Zamir revealed that 5,942 Israeli families had “joined the list of bereaved families” in 2024. He had already committed 2025 to be “a year of war”, but now seems less inclined to escalate the war beyond Israel’s ability to sustain it.
The war between Israel’s political, military and intelligence elites has never been so ugly, let alone open, as if both sides have reached the conclusion that their survival — and the survival of Israel itself — is dependent on defeating the other camps.
After some reluctance and a relatively careful choice of words, Gallant has now joined the chorus of a powerful group of ex-officials who want to see Netanyahu out of power by any means necessary, including civil disobedience.
This internal conflict among Israel’s elite marks a departure from its long-cultivated image. For decades, Israel has presented itself as a beacon of democracy and civilisation amidst what it portrayed as its less cultured neighbours. However, the Gaza genocide has shattered this false narrative.
Consequently, the current infighting among the architects of this Israeli fantasy now offers an unprecedented opportunity to uncover deeper truths, not only about the ongoing war in Gaza, but also about Israel’s history, from its establishment on the land of historic Palestine to the ongoing genocide, nearly eight decades later.
Ukrainian MP issues post-war terror threat
RT | April 28, 2025
Ukrainian intelligence services plan to continue to assassinate Russian officials and public figures for decades to come, MP Roman Kostenko, the secretary of the Verkhovna Rada’s Defense Committee, has said.
Speaking to the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda on Sunday, the senior lawmaker welcomed the assassination last week of the deputy chief of operations of Russia’s General Staff, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, and said that Kiev was behind it.
Prior to pursuing a political career, Kostenko served with the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), taking part in the early stages of the conflict in Donbass.
“I am pleased. This is good work by our special services,” Kostenko stated when asked about his take on the assassination of the Russian general. The MP also threatened a continuous campaign of killings inside Russia for decades to come.
“Even if we manage to get to the point when the war is put on hold, the work of the special services will only just begin,” he said, adding that attacks on Russian officials and public figures will remain a priority “for the next 10, 20, and possibly even 30 years.”
The remarks were swiftly condemned by Moscow, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova charging that Ukraine has already turned into a full-fledged terrorist state.
“The Kiev regime has become a true terrorist cell that receives international support with weapons and money,” she stated.
Moskalik was killed by a car bomb outside his residence in the suburban Moscow town of Balashikha early on Friday. Shortly after the explosion, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) detained a suspect, identified as 42-year-old Ignat Kuzin.
The suspect has confessed to acting under orders from Ukrainian security services and was allegedly promised a payment of $18,000 for the attack. According to Russian investigators, Kuzin was originally recruited by the SBU in 2023, later moving to Russia to await “specific instructions from a Ukrainian handler.”
Last December, a bomb that Russian authorities similarly linked to Ukrainian special services killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who served as the commander of the Russian Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces. He was assassinated alongside an aide as they were exiting a building in Moscow, using an explosive device concealed inside an electric scooter. The scene was monitored by the perpetrators through a camera placed inside a parked car, and the bomb was detonated remotely.
“The masters of the universe are Jews,” former US Senator declares in Israel
By Wyatt Reed – The Grayzone – April 28, 2025
Ex-GOP Senator and Republican Jewish Coalition chair Norm Coleman proclaimed with a straight face that Jews control the world during a Jerusalem conference featuring a speech by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Former US Senator Norm Coleman has raised eyebrows by declaring that “the masters of the universe are Jews” at a major Zionist lobby event in Jerusalem. In an address to a summit hosted by the Adelson-funded Jewish News Syndicate on April 27, Coleman pointed to various major technology firms founded by Jews, suggesting the shared religion of the companies’ creators should translate into a greater zeal for censoring criticism of Israel.
“And when you think about it, the Masters of the Universe are Jews! We’ve got Altman at OpenAI, we’ve got [Facebook founder Mark] Zuckerberg, we’ve got [Google founder] Sergey Brin, we’ve got a group across the board. Jan Koum, y’know, founded WhatsApp. It’s us.”
The remarks came as Coleman lamented that pro-Israel propagandists are “losing the digital war” in battle for the hearts and minds of younger generations, and called for more stringent censorship of pro-Palestinian speech.
“A majority or Gen Z have an unfavorable impression of Israel. And, my friends, I think the reason for that is that we’re losing the digital war. They’re getting their information from TikTok, and… and we’re losing that war.”
As numerous polls show young Americans are increasingly skeptical of Israel – with a recent survey showing 71% of Democrats and 50% of Republicans under age 49 now hold an unfavorable view of Israel – establishment politicians have consistently blamed TikTok’s algorithm for the decline in enthusiasm for genocide. In February, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, Mark Warner, revealed that the bill forcing China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok was motivated by the visibility of pro-Palestine content on the app.
For Coleman, though, it appears this wasn’t enough. “We have to figure out a way to win the digital battle,” he told summit attendees. “We’ve got to get our digital sneakers on, so that the truth can prevail over the lies. And when we do that, the future of Israel will be stronger because a majority of all Americans will support Israel. We’ll make that happen, we have to make it happen. Thank you, Baruch hashem.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage directly after Coleman’s speech, highlighting Tel Aviv’s interest in the event, which was billed as the “Inaugural JNS Policy Summit to address Israel’s pressing strategic issues.”
An archetypal neoconservative, Coleman started off as an anti-war activist who once worked as a roadie for Jethro Tull, and was suspended from Hofstra University for leading a sit-in. “I went to Woodstock, and I inhaled!” he boasted at the JNS summit. After first taking office as a member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, Coleman wound up narrowly losing his Senate seat to Al Franken in 2008 as a Republican.
In addition to serving as the national chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition and founder of the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC, Coleman now works as a top lobbyist for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
West ‘delirious with nuclear apocalypse scenarios’ – Putin aide
RT | April 29, 2025
European NATO members are risking nuclear war by escalating military tensions with Russia, according to Nikolay Patrushev, national security adviser to President Vladimir Putin.
Patrushev accused Western powers of “deploying their military machine against Russia and becoming delirious with nuclear apocalypse scenarios.” The destabilization is originating from Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London, the senior official told TASS in an interview published on Tuesday.
”For a second consecutive year, NATO is conducting exercises at our borders at a scale unseen in decades,” Patrushev said. “They are training for conducting a broad offensive from Vilnius to Odessa, seizing [the Russian exclave] Kaliningrad Region, imposing a naval blockade in the Baltic and the Black Seas, and executing preventive strikes on the staging locations of Russian nuclear deterrence forces.”
Patrushev, who formerly served as secretary of Russia’s Security Council, described the world as teetering on the brink, facing either a “new bloodbath” reminiscent of World War II or the emergence of “a fair world order where every nation enjoys sovereignty and security.” He attributed the actions of Western politicians to their refusal to accept the decline of a system centered around their nations.
The EU intends to borrow hundreds of billions of euros to fund a substantial militarization of its member states, justifying the move with claims of impending Russian aggression within the coming years.
Moscow has denied having any aggressive intentions towards the US-led military bloc, and has accused it of encroaching on Russian borders in violation of promises made to the USSR. Russian officials view the Ukraine conflict as a NATO proxy war aimed at undermining their nation’s development.
Moderna in Trouble in UK for Offering Kids Money and Teddy Bears to Participate in COVID Vaccine Trials
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 28, 2025
Pharma giant Moderna faces suspension or expulsion from a U.K. trade group for breaking several industry rules, including offering children teddy bears and large payments to participate in COVID-19 trials, The Telegraph reported.
The vaccine maker is facing an audit by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), an independent, self-regulatory body established by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, which it joined in 2023.
In a ruling expected to be made public in the coming days, the company was found to have committed several violations of industry rules, including misleading the regulator about when it became aware that financial incentives were being offered to children.
If sanctioned, Moderna will be only the tenth company in 40 years to be suspended from the PMCPA, according to The Telegraph.
The PMCPA said the company’s practices were “unacceptable” and damaged the industry’s reputation.
In October 2024, the regulator fined Moderna 14,000 pounds ($18,788) after the Children’s Covid Vaccine Advisory Council submitted a complaint about “inappropriate financial inducement” offered to children and their parents to participate in the vaccine maker’s clinical trial for COVID-19 vaccines.
The complaint criticized Moderna for initially offering children’s families 1,505 pounds ($2,020) to participate in its NextCOVE clinical trial, testing Moderna’s mRNA vaccine in children ages 12 and up.
The council cited concerns raised by the research ethics committee that approved the clinical study, which said the payment offered, “placed the children at risk of coercion.” The organization required that Moderna reduce the offer before recruitment could begin.
Moderna reduced the amount to 185 pounds ($248), yet at least one clinical trial site continued to offer the high payments.
Moderna claimed it took action as soon as it was notified about the continued high cash offer in January 2024. However, new evidence shows that the U.K. children’s health advocacy group UsForThem informed senior executives of the issue in August 2023, but Moderna took no action.
In February of this year, the company was ordered to pay nearly 44,000 pounds ($59,049) after 12-year-olds were offered a teddy bear to join the same trials. Advertisements aimed at children told them, “All our junior volunteers get a lovely certificate and a ‘be part of the research’ teddy bear.” At least two online articles also directly target children.
The U.K.’s Medicines for Human Use Regulations prohibit offering financial or other incentives to children and families to participate in clinical trials.
In a separate charge against the company, a senior employee co-authored three articles promoting Moderna’s COVID-19 shot and posted tweets promoting the shot without disclosing that he worked for the company.
The employee co-authored one of the articles with Nadhim Zahawi, who was serving as the U.K.’s “vaccines minister.”
PMCPA said the article and tweets were advertising the vaccine and said the failure to inform readers that he worked for Moderna was “unacceptable,” according to The Telegraph.
The vaccine incentives and vaccine advertising amounted to 10 new breaches of industry code, requiring an audit to examine Moderna’s culture, governance and framework, PMCPA said.
When the audit concludes, the Appeal Board will consider whether the actions merit further sanctions.
Molly Kingsley, UsForThem founder, told The Telegraph :
“Many of the previous judgments against Moderna have revealed how readily it put profit ahead of the health and safety of children. Now it has also laid bare just how little regard it has had for the regulatory system that was supposed to keep it honest.
“Never before has a company so new to the pharmaceutical industry been rebuked in this way.”
Critics argue that the small fines aren’t enough to change the company’s behavior.
Esther McVey, a former member of the all-party parliamentary group on COVID-19 vaccine damage, told The Telegraph :
“The news that the PMCPA is taking the highly unusual step of ordering an audit of Moderna’s culture, governance and compliance framework is reputationally damaging, but it is incredible that the regulator has no real power to impose appropriate fines or other meaningful penalties which might make pharmaceutical companies think twice before breaking the rules.
“They know they can get away with it, and so they do; time and time again. It’s hardly surprising that public trust in the pharmaceutical industry and its regulators is through the floor.”
Moderna did not respond by deadline to The Defender’s request for comment.
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.
New investigation reveals UK firm supplying engines for Israeli drones
Al Mayadeen | April 28, 2025
A report published by Declassified UK on Monday revealed that a British company is supplying engines for “Israel’s” newest line of military drones, raising fresh concerns about UK complicity in the Gaza genocide.
RCV Engines, a Dorset-based engineering firm specializing in multi-fuel internal combustion engines, has been identified as the manufacturer of the propulsion system for the APUS 25 drone, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), an Israeli government-owned weapons manufacturer. The APUS 25 is marketed as a “revolutionary long-endurance TactiQuad” and designed to “redefine tactical drone operations for ground and maritime forces worldwide,” according to IAI.
The drone’s advanced design enables it to perform “offensive operations,” including deploying weapons systems, thereby offering “a new dimension to tactical air support in combat scenarios,” the company notes. IAI promotional materials reveal the drone’s engine bearing the RCV Engines logo, confirming the British firm’s involvement. Until now, RCV’s ties to the Israeli defense sector had not been made public.
Drone Complicity
The revelation that UK-made components are being integrated into weaponized drones comes amid heightened scrutiny over British arms sales to “Israel.” Footage emerging from Gaza in recent months shows Israeli quadcopters dropping bombs and firing on civilians. Retired surgeon Nizam Mamode recounted before British MPs in November: “The drones would come down and pick off civilians – children.” He added, “We [were] operating on children who would say: ‘I was lying on the ground after a bomb had dropped and this quadcopter came down and hovered over me and shot me.'”
Moreover, Israeli drones have reportedly been used to broadcast the sound of crying babies to lure Palestinians into open spaces, where they were then targeted.
Despite recent announcements by UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspending around 30 arms export licences to “Israel,” it appears that engines produced by RCV Engines may have evaded these restrictions. In 2022, RCV stated that it had been granted an export licence exemption for global shipments, meaning its drone engines were “removed from the export control list” in Britain. On its LinkedIn page, the company credited this exemption with enabling faster shipping, fewer bureaucratic hurdles, and increased global sales.
The political support RCV received was also acknowledged publicly. The company thanked local Conservative MP Sir Christopher Chope for his role in lobbying for the licence exemption. RCV said, “The success that we have seen since 2022, which is directly linked to the export control status, has meant RCV has been steadily growing.”
Export Loophole
Emily Apple from the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) criticized the situation, saying: “Labour urgently needs to reverse this decision and close this loophole. It’s beyond time it ended its complicity in genocide and prioritised Palestinian lives over the profits of the arms industry.” She added, “Removing RCV Engines from export licence controls is utterly outrageous. This makes a mockery of Labour’s already flimsy decision to suspend just 30 export licences to Israel and appears to create a massive loophole in the export licensing regulations.”
When contacted, the Department for Business and Trade declined to comment on individual companies, and RCV Engines also did not respond.
Meanwhile, IAI continues to develop more advanced models, such as the APUS 60, aiming for greater endurance and payload capacity, although it remains unclear if RCV will continue supplying engines for future versions.
Read more: Britain helping ‘Israel’s’ nuclear force: Declassified UK
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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Aletho News- How Policies From The Bi-Parisian Foreign Policy Establishment Led To Trump’s Venezuela War
- No More Ukraine Proxy War? You’re a Traitor!
- Sexual Blackmail Makes the World Go ‘Round
- Powerful Israeli Strikes on South Lebanon and Bekaa
- UAE-backed militia in Yemen reaches out to Israel for alliance against ‘common foes’: Report
- The UAE’s reverse trajectory: From riches to rags
- Chris Minns Defends NSW “Hate Speech” Laws Linking Censorship to Terror Prevention
- Majority of Belgians oppose theft of Russian assets – poll
- Czech–Slovak alignment signals growing dissatisfaction with Brussels’ authoritarianism
- Colonel Jacques Baud & Nathalie Yamb Sanctioned: EU Goes Soviet
- If Americans Knew
- Amnesty: ‘Utterly preventable’ Gaza flood tragedy must mobilize global action to end Israel’s genocide
- Israel Propagandists Are Uniformly Spouting The Exact Same Line About The Bondi Beach Shooting
- Ha’aretz: Free the Palestinian Activist Who Dared to Document Israel’s Crimes in the West Bank
- Garbage Is Poisoning Gaza
- Palestinian journalist recounts rape and torture in Israeli prison
- Gaza is crumbling, but its people persevere – Not a Ceasefire Day 69
- Pro-Israel billionaire Miriam Adelson green-lights a Trump 3rd term
- Australians Being Massacred Shouldn’t Bother Us More Than Palestinians Being Massacred
- Garbage, stench, sewage, and rats plague Gaza – Not a Ceasefire Day 68
- The Zionist Billionaire Circle Hiding in Plain Sight
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: 8000 Years Ago Relative Sea Level Was 30 Meters Higher Than Today Across East Antarctica
- The Wind Energy Paradox: “Why More Wind Turbines Don’t Always Mean More Power”
- New Study Reopens Questions About Our Ability To Meaningfully Assess Global Mean Temperature
- Dialing Back The Panic: German Physics Prof Sees No Evidence Of Climate Tipping Points!
- Astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon Challenges The Climate Consensus … It’s The Sun, Not CO2
- Regional Cooling Since The 1980s Has Driven Glacier Advance In The Karakoram Mountains
- Greenland Petermann Glacier Has Grown 30 Kilometers Since 2012!
- New Study: Temperature-Driven CO2 Outgassing Explains 83 Percent Of CO2 Rise Since 1959
- Climate Extremists Ordered By Hamburg Court To Pay €400,000 In Damages
- More Evidence NE China Is Not Cooperating With The Alarmist Global Warming Narrative
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