The US military maintains a string of bases spanning the Sahel region of Africa. Tunde Osazua, coordinator of the US Out of Africa Network — part of the Black Alliance for Peace — said they amounted to a military occupation of the continent.
The US Department of Defense has lied to Congress about its shady activities in Africa — funded by taxpayers. Peace campaigner Tunde Osazua told Sputnik that the US Department of Defense was not coming clean to legislators about its network of bases across the continent.
Osazua explained that General Michael Langley, commander of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), had briefed Congress on the military’s facilities in Africa, including the ‘enduring forward operating sites’ at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and the Cat Hill air base on Ascension Island, the tiny British South Atlantic colony, along with 12 other “posture locations”.
“He claimed that those locations have minimal permanent US presence and low cost facilities and limited supplies for the US forces The soldiers and their personnel are there to perform critical missions and quickly respond to emergencies,” he noted.
“Experts say that he misled Congress, that AFRICOM’s chief basically lied about the size and the scope of the US presence on the African continent,” Osazua said. “Instead of 12 posture locations there are no less than 18 outposts in addition to Camp Lemonnier.”
“This is according to what AFRICOM itself released in its own secret 2022 Theater Posture Plan, which I think might even understate the current footprint of AFRICOM on the continent.” In fact, peace group World Beyond War has listed around 55 US military installations in Africa, he pointed out.
The anti-imperialist campaigner said the Pentagon was “essentially lying to Congress about this.”
“They’re trying to say that they’re doing a lot with very few resources when there’s a lot of funding for… what is military occupation,” Osazua said. “it’s clear that the US military activity on the continent is extensive. A few years ago a report came out that said that there are close to 3,500 missions per year that the AFRICOM takes part in on the continent. That’s close to ten missions a day.”
The commentator noted that the west African state of Niger had become “a particular point of focus” since the recent military takeover, with former colonial power France refusing to evacuate its troops and embassy and some of its compliant governments in the region threatening military intervention.
AFRICOM’s Airbase 201 is also in Niger, featuring a 6,200-foot runway taxiways, hangars, living quarters, roads, utilities, munitions, storage, an aircraft rescue and firefighting station — all within a 25-kilometer security zone.
But Osazua stressed “how the people and the government have responded to US and French military presence on their soil, which again amounts to a basically military occupation.”
September 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Africa, Niger, United States |
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Elizabeth Warren speaks during a Senate Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, April 27, 2023 © AP / Jose Luis Magana
US Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on Congress to investigate Elon Musk over his refusal to enable a Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian naval fleet in Crimea. Despite condemnation in Washington, Musk has defended his decision to cut satellite service to the Ukrainian military.
“The Congress needs to investigate what’s happened here and whether we have adequate tools to make sure foreign policy is conducted by the government and not by one billionaire,” Warren told reporters at the US Capitol on Monday.
Musk and other Big Tech CEOs are due to meet with US lawmakers to discuss artificial intelligence on Wednesday. However, the subject of the hearing has been overshadowed by news that Musk intervened last year to prevent six Ukrainian naval drones from hitting Russian ships at the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
The Ukrainian military had been using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service for communications and guidance since the beginning of the conflict with Russia. When Musk learned that the drones were en route to Sevastopol, he ordered SpaceX engineers to shut down the service within 100km of the Russian peninsula, CNN reported on Thursday, quoting an upcoming biography of the billionaire.
As a result, the drones “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” the report claimed. Ukrainian Digital Transformation Minister Mikhail Fedorov then begged Musk to turn the signal back on via text messages, but Musk refused.
“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” the billionaire explained last week, adding that he never allowed the service to be activated near Crimea in the first place.
Musk’s explanation caused outrage in Kiev, with President Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide accusing the SpaceX CEO of “committing evil.” In the US, CNN anchor Jake Tapper argued on Sunday that Musk had “effectively sabotaged” an American ally, and asked US Secretary of State Antony Blinken if he should face “repercussions” for thwarting the attack.
Blinken refused to condemn Musk, but several members of Congress have spoken out against the billionaire. Musk “cannot have the last word when it comes to national security,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed told reporters on Monday.
At the time of the thwarted attack, Musk was bankrolling Ukraine’s access to the Starlink network. The Pentagon has since stepped in to partly fund the program, and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said on Monday that future contracts between the military and private firms like SpaceX will likely include “assurances” that these technologies can be used for offensive purposes.
September 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Militarism | Ukraine, United States |
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North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is traveling to eastern Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin. Washington threatened to increase sanctions on Pyongyang in response.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, described the meeting as a full-state visit. “There will be talks between the two delegations. And after that, if necessary, the leaders will continue their communication in a one-on-one format,” he said. “We will continue to strengthen our friendship.” The leaders will meet in Vladivostok. South Korea says Kim is currently traveling to Russia by train.
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington plans to respond “aggressively.” “I will remind both countries that any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would be in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions.” He continued, “We, of course, have aggressively enforced our sanctions against entities that fund Russia’s war effort, and we will continue to enforce those sanctions and will not hesitate to impose new sanctions if appropriate.”
It is unclear what new sanctions the US could place on North Korea that would further isolate Pyongyang. The Treasury Department has already placed thousands of penalties against North Korean officials, government offices, and industries on the blacklist.
The New York Times reports that Kim is expected to agree to supply Russia with weapons, including artillery shells. Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokeswoman, demanded the North Korean leader not discuss the issue with his Russian counterpart. “We urge [North Korea] to cease its arms negotiations with Russia and abide by the public commitments that Pyongyang has made to not provide or sell arms to Russia,” she said.
Pyongyang is believed to have significant stockpiles of shells and production capacity. On the Ukrainian battlefield, artillery has become crucial. Western countries have begun to run out of 155mm rounds to send to Ukraine, prompting President Joe Biden to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions to cover the shortage.
Currently, NATO states are producing less artillery than Ukraine is using. With Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalled, the war appears likely to draw on into the foreseeable future.
In July, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to North Korea to meet with Kim. South Korean intelligence claims Moscow offered to allow Pyongyang to participate in trilateral war games with Beijing.
Washington’s sanctions campaigns against several states are becoming counter-effective. The US is currently attempting to smash the governments of Russia, Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria, Nicaragua, Iran, and Venezuela through economic warfare. However, in response, those countries have increasingly engaged in non-dollar trade to bypass American sanctions. Additionally, other countries such as China, India, and Brazil have become willing to ignore the Treasury’s blacklists and trade with sanctioned nations.
September 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Korea, Russia, United States |
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Many observers believe that Russia and North Korea have decided to strengthen their military ties due to shared threats from the West. Reports claim that they’re exploring a swap whereby Russia would share hypersonic, nuclear, satellite, and submarine technology with North Korea in exchange for Soviet-era ammunition and artillery. The first part of this deal would balance the emerging US-South Korean-Japanese triangle while the second would keep Russia’s special operation going into next year.
There’s likely a lot of truth to this assessment since it makes sense for them to help each other against their shared opponents in the New Cold War, but there’s more to it than just that. For starters, the preceding report about their impending swap doesn’t account for Russia’s growing edge in its “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with NATO that’s responsible for defeating Kiev’s counteroffensive. Even without North Korea’s Soviet-era supplies, Russia is still impressively holding its own against all of NATO.
This proves that Russia’s military-industrial complex (MIC) already meets its needs in the present and beyond, thus raising the question of why Russia would countenance a military deal with North Korea in the first place, let alone such a seemingly lopsided one. A cogent explanation is that Russia’s MIC might struggle in that scenario to meet its military-technical obligations to third parties, ergo the need to purchase lower-quality supplies so that production facilities can prioritize higher-quality exports.
Even if that’s the case, then it doesn’t answer the question of why Russia would be willing to share such potentially game-changing military technology with North Korea for these supplies instead of simply paying for them with hard currency, nor why it either can’t or won’t try to get them from China. Likewise, one might also wonder why North Korea can’t receive the aforesaid military technology from China and would have to request it from Russia as part of their reported swap.
The answer to those three questions concerns China’s reluctance to burn all bridges with the West as well as Russia and North Korea’s shared interests in preemptively averting potentially disproportionate dependence on the People’s Republic. Beginning with the first balancing act, while President Xi arguably envisages China leading the creation of alternative global institutions as strongly suggested by his decision to skip last weekend’s G20 Summit in Delhi, he’d prefer for this to be a smooth process.
Any abrupt bifurcation/”decoupling” would destabilize the global economy and therefore sabotage his country’s export-driven growth, but the US might force this scenario in response to China’s large-scale arming of Russia and/or transfer of game-changing military technology to North Korea. For that reason, President Xi likely wouldn’t agree to either of those two deals except if they were urgently required to prevent their defeat by the West, but neither is facing that threat so China won’t risk the consequences.
As for the second part of this balancing act, even if President Xi offered to meet Russia’s and North Korea’s military needs, those two would still probably prefer to rely on one another for them instead of China in order to not become disproportionately dependent on the People’s Republic. Both regard that country as one of the top strategic partners anywhere in the world, but each would feel uncomfortable if they entered into relationship where Beijing plays too big of a role in ensuring their national security.
From Russia’s perspective, it’s a matter of principle to never become disproportionately dependent on any given partner since such ties could curtail the Kremlin’s foreign policy sovereignty even if its counterpart doesn’t have any nefarious intent. In the Chinese context, relations of that nature might make some policymakers less interested in maintaining their country’s balancing act between China and India, thus leading to them subconsciously favoring Beijing and pushing Delhi closer to Washington.
Should that happen, then the global systemic transition to multipolarity would revert back towards bipolarity (or rather bi-multipolarity) as Russia turbocharges China’s superpower trajectory in parallel with India helping the US retain its declining hegemony. The result would be that only those two superpowers would enjoy genuine sovereignty while everyone else’s would be greatly limited by the natural dynamics of their competition. Russia obviously wants to avoid this scenario at all costs.
Unlike Russia’s global interests, North Korea’s are purely national, but they’re still complementary to Moscow’s. Pyongyang had been disproportionately dependent on Beijing since the end of the Old Cold War after the USSR collapsed, but China later leveraged this relationship to expand ties with the West by approving UNSC sanctions against North Korea. Russia did the same for identical reasons, but North Korea wasn’t dependent on Russia so Pyongyang didn’t hold a grudge against Moscow like it did Beijing.
It was this growing distrust of China that inspired Kim Jong Un to seriously explore Trump’s ultimately unsuccessful de-nuclearization proposal in order to rebalance his country’s relations with the People’s Republic. The same motivation was why Myanmar agreed to a rapprochement with the US under Obama that also ultimately failed. Both countries felt that their disproportionate dependence on China was disadvantageous and accordingly sought to rectify it by rebalancing ties with the US.
Since the American dimension of their balancing acts didn’t bear any fruit and is no longer viable, each is now looking towards Russia to play that same role in helping them relieve their disproportionate dependence on China. Russian-Myanmarese relations were explained here while Russian-North Korean ones will now be elaborated on a bit more. From Pyongyang’s perspective, even if Beijing gave it game-changing military technology, this could always be cut off one day if China reached a deal with the US.
In fact, China probably wouldn’t consider giving North Korea such technology anyhow since that could make it more difficult for Beijing to ever leverage its influence over Pyongyang again in pursuit of such a deal with Washington, thus limiting China’s own foreign policy sovereignty. The likelihood of Russia reaching a major deal with the US anytime soon is close to nil after all that’s unfolded over the past 18 months, so North Korea believes that Russia will be a much more reliable long-term military partner.
Russia and North Korea’s complementary balancing acts at the global and national levels vis-a-vis China coupled with China’s reluctance to burn all bridges with the West as it begins building alternative global institutions are the real driving forces behind the first two’s reported military deal. This grand strategic insight enables one to better understand the true state of relations between these countries and therefore helps objective observers produce more accurate analyses about them going forward.
September 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | China, Korea, Russia, United States |
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Video link
Review: Seven, AE911Truth’s new documentary about groundbreaking new study on WTC7
The new film Seven (trailer above), directed by Dylan Avery, examines the story of the scientific study of World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7) recently published by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The study was led by structural engineering professor J. Leroy Hulsey and took nearly five years to complete. It evaluated the possibilities for destruction of WTC 7 using two versions of high-tech computer software that simulated the structural components of the building and the forces that acted upon it on September 11th.
After inputting worst case conditions, and painstakingly eliminating what didn’t happen, Hulsey and his team of engineers came to the following conclusions.
“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that studied the collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.”
These peer-reviewed conclusions directly contradict the findings of the U.S. government’s final investigation into WTC 7 as reported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Seven documents the journey of Professor Hulsey and his team from their introduction to the subject and the related evidence to the final publication of their report in March of this year. It is an interesting story and important for several reasons. First, it shows what an objective group of engineering science professionals will find if they look closely at the destruction of WTC 7. Additionally, it provides a great example of what one concerned citizen can do to make a great difference in shedding light on the truth of the events of September 11, 2001.
The concerned citizen, who was barely mentioned in the film, is John Thiel, a nurse anesthetist from Alaska. In 2010, Thiel began a 3-year process of looking for an engineer to conduct an honest scientific investigation into the destruction of WTC 7. Thiel was not a structural engineer, but he knew that the official reports on the destruction of that building were false and he wanted to do something about it. Ten years later, after contacting 150 engineers, finally finding and gaining Hulsey’s commitment to do it, and persuading Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth to get involved, Thiel’s persistence paid off.
Seven also features comments from some brave engineers who have spoken out in the past about WTC 7. This includes fire protection engineer Scott Grainger, structural engineer Kamal Obeid, civil engineer and AE911Truth board director Roland Angle, and mechanical engineer Tony Szamboti. All these men make powerful statements in the film about NIST’s failures and omission of evidence.
The film reviews much of the evidence and how it was treated by the initial ASCE/FEMA building performance study and by NIST. It discusses circumstantial evidence including the suspicious tenants of WTC 7 (e.g. the CIA, the Secret Service, the DOD, and the SEC) and foreknowledge about the collapse of the building. It reviews the inexplicable “predictions” of WTC 7’s collapse by media giants CNN and BBC, both of which reported the collapse before it actually happened.
However, the strength of the film is in exposing the viewer to scientific facts and evidence as described by credible experts like Hulsey, Angle, Grainger, Obeid, and Szamboti. This includes the samples of steel exhibiting intergranular melting and sulfidation that the New York Times originally called “the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation” but that were ignored in the NIST reports. It includes the fact that no tall building had ever collapse primarily from fire and that the fires in WTC 7 were ordinary and were fed by only 20-minutes of fire load in any given area. The film also highlights concerns about the lack of scientific integrity in NIST’s manipulation of model parameters like the coefficient of expansion of steel and the omission of shear studs on the WTC 7 floor assemblies.
The film is only 45 minutes long and focuses largely on the evidence related to Hulsey’s study. It does not include some facts and evidence about WTC 7 that have been pointed out in the past. For example, it does not detail NIST’s history of failed hypotheses, like the diesel fuel tank hypothesis or the claim that the design of the building contributed to the collapse. It also doesn’t mention that the new WTC 7 was completed in 2006, when NIST was stating it had no idea what happened to the first one.
In the film, Professor Hulsey comes across as very credible and driven by the desire for an objective approach that gives the public an understanding of what happened to WTC 7. His comments about building his study on a clear palate, using pure science, ring true. Avery tells Hulsey’s story simply, without engulfing the viewer in unanswered questions.
Overall, Seven is an excellent presentation for people with a scientific mindset. As John Thiel wrote to me, “Any engineer or scientist with a basic understanding of physics, who does not suffer from cognitive dissonance, should easily be convinced of the truth after watching this video.” I agree.
If people want to help reveal the truth about WTC 7, and therefore about 9/11, they should share this film with every scientist and engineer they know. It is available on multiple streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play, and Microsoft. As a society, our understanding of the crimes of 9/11 continues to be crucial to our understanding of what is going on today.
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Seven is directed by Dylan Avery, released by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and available to rent and buy from various platforms, here.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | 9/11, United States |
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It’s unacceptable that officials haven’t had to substantiate the biggest mass casualty event in New York’s history. Until they do, I’m not buying this all-cause death curve.
See this? It’s INSANE.
It’s 37,469 New Yorkers dying in two and a half months — a mortality increase equivalent to almost more than eight 9/11 events. A ridiculous 20,000 deaths list COVID-19 as underlying cause, including a suspiciously high number of younger adults who died in hospitals.
Unlike 9/11, we don’t know who all died. Investigative journalism and public burial records for Hart Island (where unclaimed decedents and city burials go) have aggregated less than 10% of names of New Yorkers who are purported to have passed away in spring 2020.
Unlike with the city’s historical archives for 1855-1949, we cannot review digitized proof of death for each decedent.
Unlike Chicago & Milwaukee, New York has no public database that shows individual deaths processed by the medical examiner’s office.
Unlike in Massachusetts & Minnesota, death certificates are not subject to FOI request and have not been obtained under public records disclosure laws.
Unlike in Ohio, the release of death certificate data is not being litigated.
So we’re left with numbers in reports and Excel spreadsheets, records sent to the feds and protected in CDC WONDER, and no real proof that this number of people died on the days they are alleged to have died.
Sorry, but I’m not buying what this ⬆️ is trying to sell.
The steepness of the daily death curve simply doesn’t work.
Viruses aren’t bombs – including pathogens with the infection fatality ratio of influenza at most. A “spreading” risk-additive pathogen doesn’t show up in mortality data overnight.
There would be signs and signals. Yet, we see none and are asked to believe that government officials were prescient enough to catch the virus “just in time”.
Elsewhere, I’ve spelled out many of the deadly iatrogenic policies implemented all at once. But the scale of deaths in hospitals plagues me. Whether we’re talking ED visits or inpatient admissions at “epicenter” and high-death hospitals, the city simply did not have the patient intake to make the numbers make sense. Consider: peak census for COVID-positive inpatients is reportedly ~15,000. The number of inpatient deaths that cite COVID as underlying cause in that time is… ~15,000. 🤔 [CORRECTION, 9/11/23: I misread the state’s presentation of the census. Peak COVID inpatient census was 12,184, which makes the 14,704 inpatient deaths in the spring that attribute underlying cause to COVID even MORE ridiculous.]
How do you lose [more than] the peak COVID census equivalent in 11 weeks with record-low intake???
The only way that starts to work is if a whole lotta people who were already in the hospital as of March 1 were tested for COVID and died, with their deaths attributed to the “novel virus,” and the public made to believe it was spread that killed those people.
Since third-party witnesses were banned from healthcare settings, and the public hasn’t compelled proof of what went on inside those settings, officials can apparently claim whatever they want and get away with it.
I, for one, want certainty that the deaths actually happened on the days they are claimed to have happened. It seems silly to dissect what caused the deaths if the deaths haven’t truly been substantiated.
Could there be fraud?
People ask me about the “F” word – fraud – and I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion that YES, we could be looking at a fraudulent all-cause death curve.
Based on everything I’ve obtained & reviewed in the past 15 months – including some things I haven’t yet written or spoken about publicly (but will) – I’m concerned that one or more of the following could have occurred in/with New York City:
- Deaths that actually occurred before mid-March were pushed forward into the excess death period – anywhere from several weeks before several months or more.
- Deaths that occurred in later April 2020 and/or thereafter in 2020 were “pulled back” into the excess death period.
- Some deaths that occurred in one place of death (at home, in nursing home facilities) were double-counted as hospital deaths.
- A portion of deaths that occurred in hospice facilities at some point are in the hospital inpatient death numbers, thanks to the March 23, 2020 executive order that afforded dual-certification to hospice beds as hospital inpatient beds.
- Fabricated death certificates are in the data. This is less likely, but a potential scenario would involve sudden “dumps” of certificates and/or records that list only U07.1 as underlying cause with nothing else listed (i.e., incomplete death certificates).
Any of these could have involved holding death certificates for later processing and part of what was behind thousands of “probable” COVID deaths the city added between April 14 and June 1, 2020.
If fraud isn’t in the mix – and the deaths legitimate in every way – then officials should have no problem releasing the records to back up their assertions.
We’ve been lied to about everything in this mess.
I want proof.
Memorialized in March 2021, but without disclosure of names.
This data was obtained from NYC DOHMH and differs somewhat from federal data. I wrote about the differences here.
Spread of mass-testing does.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, New York City, United States |
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The first victim of what became known as Covid-19 was ‘Patient Zero’, whose case was recorded on December 26, 2019, in Wuhan, China. He was admitted to hospital with respiratory symptoms including fever, dizziness and a cough. Patient Zero was relatively young and without significant health problems, yet he was subjected to a battery of tests, including genetic sequencing of fluid from his airways. We are told this led to the discovery of a new coronavirus subsequently dubbed SARS-CoV-2. As described in the seminal paper in Nature from February 3, 2020, the clinical features of the illness of the alleged Patient Zero, from whom the genome of the ‘novel virus’ was said to have been sequenced, are quite typical of regular bacterial pneumonia. Given that he showed no unusual symptoms, clearly this was not a routine medical response to what looks like a typical respiratory infection.
This is not all that is odd about the narrative. Have you ever read much discussion of pneumonia vaccines? Researchers have found that a purported preventive of one of the major causes of bacterial pneumonia, the pneumococcal vaccine, is sometimes given to the elderly and vulnerable. Researchers who have looked at the interaction between bacterial pneumonia and SARS-CoV-2 have found that bacterial pneumonia vaccination reduced the risk of Covid-19 by a statistically significant margin.Buthow can a vaccine for a bacterium reduce the risk from a virus?
Research into the etiology of community-acquired pneumonia concludes that it is often observed that viral species colonise the nasopharynx of patients after they have contracted bacterial pneumonia, suggesting that sequential pneumonia infection followed by viral infection, or parallel infection, where the infections occur together, are both possible. However, the default operating assumption in the medical literature and in practice is the opposite: viral followed by bacterial infection, and since 2020 with SARS-CoV-2 identified as the ‘novel’ root cause.
These research results suggest that the actual burden of risk to patients is not SARS-CoV-2 at all but bacterial pneumonia and that SARS-Cov-2 is secondary to bacterial pneumonia, or it masks bacterial pneumonia, not the other way around. Given this, might it be the case that bacterial pneumonia is acquired in the community rather than in hospital, and that the signal of viral infection follows bacterial pneumonia infection? And if so why was the focus on a virus and not on the perennial risk of bacterial pneumonia?
Many of the frightening images circulated in the media in spring 2020 were from ICUs showing patients being treated on ventilators. It was claimed that people were dying of acute respiratory distress caused by SARS-CoV-2 while being ventilated. Ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) is a well-known condition in which ventilated patients have a significantly higher chance of dying after contracting ‘secondary’ pneumonia during ventilation. Many patients dying of VAP in spring 2020 were recorded as having died from SARS-CoV-2.
High rates of ventilator-induced pneumonia are acknowledged by the authorities but their use continues to be defended as necessary. Even Anthony Fauci admitted that ventilation was overused. This overuse of ventilation was accompanied by changes in protocols, delays in admission and changes to medication and testing. Given that most people suffering death by ‘Covid-19 with respiratory symptoms’ died in ICUs, blaming these deaths on SARS-CoV-2 seems unscrupulous. The observational data is heavily confounded, and these deaths are just as likely to have involved, inter alia, bacterial infection and changes in treatment protocols as by detected or undetected pathogens.
In a 2008 article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (on the Spanish Flu pandemic), Anthony Fauci concluded: ‘Prevention, diagnosis, prophylaxis, and treatment of secondary bacterial pneumonia, as well as stockpiling of antibiotics and bacterial vaccines, should also be high priorities for pandemic planning.’
Regardless of whether such stockpiles of antibiotics were created, community antibiotic prescriptions were reduced dramatically in spring 2020. Recall that in spring 2020 people were told to self-isolate if they suffered Covid symptoms. This would therefore buy time for pathogens to multiply and for a more severe condition to develop, which might subsequently be harder to manage. Many people would have presented late to ICU, with incipient or lingering pneumonia (perhaps from the previous normal flu season), disguised as Covid-19, and may have been left untreated with antibiotics until their condition deteriorated further.
A reluctance to perform bacteriological investigations in ICUs (and expose staff to a supposedly deadly pathogen) may have been a further contributory factor. Patients would therefore have suffered higher levels of respiratory distress than would have been seen historically. The lateness of presentation to ICU, and the very late administration of antibiotics, may have failed to save them from a (detected or undetected) bacterial pneumonia infection.
Conflating pneumonia and Covid-19 repeats an official longstanding tactic of conflating the attribution of influenza and pneumonia. There is evidence to suggest that a reduction in the public’s perceived threat of flu may have prompted the pharmaceutical industry to attempt a rebranding of the threat along with a new suite of marketable products to respond to that threat.
In contrast to the evidence presented above, physicians in Toledo, Spain, administered antibiotics to Covid-19 patients during spring 2020, contrary to official guidance. This resulted in zero hospitalisations or deaths in their care homes after they started routine administration. The resulting mortality over spring 2020 was approximately 7 per cent versus 28 per cent in other comparable care homes (and the 7 per cent died before they started routine antibiotic use).
A (pneumonia) hypothesis, that a proportion of Covid-19 deaths in 2020, specifically those with associated respiratory symptoms, were caused by bacterial pneumonia, and that bacterial pneumonia may have been the primary, not the secondary, infection, starts to look rather strong. It matters because it challenges received wisdom about the true causative agent of the deaths resulting from the ‘pandemic’ – a bacterium or a virus, both or neither? It also brings into question how the agent was spread and, most significantly, it challenges how and if the illness was appropriately treated.
Further confirmation that bacterial pneumonia, not Covid, is the real danger has come from two groups of doctors who have had 100 per cent success using antibiotics to treat ‘Covid’.
In allegorical terms it is akin to a scene from an Agatha Christie novel: SARS-CoV-2, a bystander used as a decoy, is found guilty of the crime with ventilation as his accomplice, but the actual criminal, who has got off scot-free, is in fact bacterial pneumonia (undetected until the denouement). In other words, SARS-CoV-2 has been framed.
This article is based on Whodunnit? (unabridged) by Professor Martin Neil, Jonathan Engler, Dr Jessica Hockett and Professor Norman Fenton.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19 |
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As a university academic, and former pharmacist, whose speciality is misinformation, disinformation and fake news, I have been very active of late in collecting (and writing) papers appearing in medical journals that provide evidence and arguments against the COVID-19 vaccines. Below is a summary of some of the recent papers I find to be most concerning.
Vaccine effectiveness and safety exaggerated
An article appearing in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, including BMJ Editor Peter Doshi amongst its authors, discusses several biases that, if not accounted for, indicate that the effectiveness of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in observational studies is being heavily exaggerated. The most important appears to be one many of us have worried about from the beginning, the dubious ‘case-counting window bias’, which concerns the seven days, 14 days or even 21 days after the jab where we are meant to overlook jab-related issues, particularly poor effectiveness, as “the vaccine has not had sufficient time to stimulate the immune system”. In an example using some data from Pfizer’s clinical trial, the authors show that thanks to this bias, a vaccine with effectiveness of 0%, which is confirmed in the hypothetical clinical trial, could be seen in observational studies as having effectiveness of 48%.
In a follow-up article in the same journal I revealed ways in which the situation may even be worse. The aforementioned ‘case-counting window bias’ is often accompanied by a ‘definitional bias’, whereby the Covid cases in the vaccinated are not just ignored, but shifted over to the unvaccinated. So building on the above example, a vaccine with 0% effectiveness can actually be perceived as having 65% effectiveness. My article also shows, touching on the intriguing (horrifying?) issue of negative effectiveness, “a vaccine with minus-100% effectiveness, meaning that it makes symptomatic COVID-19 infection twice as likely, can be perceived as being 47% effective”. Furthermore, “Repeated calculations will show that moderate vaccine effectiveness is still perceived even with actual vaccine effectiveness figures of minus-1,000% and lower”. I also explained that this exaggeration could equally apply to studies on vaccine safety, which would be important when comparing the overall health of the vaccinated and unvaccinated, as may be appropriate when looking into the mysterious rise in non-Covid excess deaths post-pandemic.
Doshi, joined by one of his earlier co-authors, decided to produce another article in the same journal, a follow-up to my follow-up, shifting the focus from observational studies to the clinical trials. They found that case counting “only began once participants were seven days (Pfizer) or 14 days (Moderna) post Dose 2, or approximately four to six weeks after Dose 1”. The obvious implication:
Decisions on when to initiate the case counting window affected calculations of vaccine efficacy. Because cases occurring in the four to six weeks between Dose 1 and the case counting window were excluded, reported vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 (the primary endpoint) at the time of Emergency Use Authorisation was higher than what would have been calculated had all COVID-19 cases after Dose 1 been included, as in a conventional Intent-to-Treat analysis.
They also found that “different case counting windows” were used at different times, ‘coincidentally’ yielding better results.
Not yet published, though under peer review, is my intended fourth and final article in this unofficial ‘series’. Firstly, I justify my earlier concern of exaggerated safety in observational studies, or studies built on observational data and models rather than data from controlled trials, by discussing a recently published paper in another journal, noting how the authors only count vaccine adverse effects from 14 days after the second dose (or seven days after the latest booster shot), and stopping the count at around four to five months. As if to highlight the potential magnitude of safety exaggeration with so many adverse effects being overlooked, the study, flawed as it is, showed only a very slight net benefit to vaccination. A more complete view of adverse effects (as well as cases in the ‘partially vaccinated’) could easily lead to the conclusion that the risks of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the benefits. I also explain that there are issues with the adverse effect counting windows in the clinical trials in relation to their short length. The safety monitoring ends mere months after vaccination, though adverse effects can manifest clinically years later.
Vaccine-induced myocarditis and young males
In the latter article, and in a rapid response published by BMJ Open, I also discuss recent evidence and journal articles on myocarditis, with one finding a “Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis incidence rate of around one in 100,000, and around one in 19,000 for males between the ages of 12 and 17 years”. These authors also found that a significant number of people with Covid vaccine-induced myocarditis end up dead soon afterwards. Go ahead and contrast this with the U.K. Government’s determination of numbers needed to vaccinate to prevent a severe Covid hospitalisation being in the hundreds of thousands for young ‘no risk’ groups.
In research I hope to be published soon, I show how Pfizer estimates an even greater incidence of myocarditis in young males, and it also estimates that one million vaccinated will result in zero to one saved lives. Yes, zero is included as a real possibility. By Pfizer. It would appear that, at least for certain groups, this one adverse effect alone undoes the claim that the ‘risks outweigh the benefits’. The risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis may indeed be very small, but the risk of serious Covid in the young and healthy is smaller still. If you’re a young male and if you’ve received one of these novel COVID-19 vaccines, it may be worthwhile testing for preclinical myocarditis.
Negative effectiveness
I couldn’t leave you hanging after dangling this juicy but horrifying morsel in front of you earlier. I managed to get another rapid response published, in the BMJ proper this time, on the topic of negative effectiveness. While rapid waning of effectiveness and exaggeration of effectiveness is concerning enough, particularly as we learn more about the adverse effects, the phenomenon of COVID-19 vaccine negative effectiveness could completely end the discussion as to whether the COVID-19 vaccines are net useful or not. There is increasing evidence for this phenomenon (in relation to infections, hospitalisations and deaths), with one study revealing a dose-dependent relationship. The more COVID-19 jabs, the more the risk of COVID-19. If that sounds concerning to you, well, quite. My rapid response effectively refuted an article in the BMJ trying – and failing horribly – to explain this phenomenon away. If negative effectiveness is occurring, there is no such thing as ‘risks vs benefits’. There is only ‘risks plus risks’. We need explanations from the manufacturers and regulators, as a matter of urgency.
Dr. Raphael Lataster is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Sydney, specialised in misinformation, and a former pharmacist. This summary is adapted from several entries originally appearing in Lataster’s Substack newsletter, Okay Then News. Read more on his research and legal actions, including his recent win against the healthcare vaccine mandate in New South Wales.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, UK |
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There are “no significant radiological consequences” to the use of depleted uranium ammunition, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi has declared. Russia insists that Grossi is “not telling the whole story.”
“From a nuclear safety point of view there are no significant radiological consequences” to the use of this ammunition, Grossi told reporters during a briefing on Monday.
“Maybe in some very specific cases, people near a place that was hit with this kind of ammunition, there could be contamination,” he continued, adding that “this is more of a health issue of a normal nature than a potential radiological crisis.”
Depleted uranium is used to make the hardened cores of certain armor-piercing tank and autocannon rounds. Although it is not highly radioactive, uranium is still a toxic metal, and this metal is turned into a potentially hazardous aerosol when a depleted uranium round strikes its target.
US forces utilized depleted uranium tank shells during the 1991 Gulf War, reportedly causing a spike in birth defects, autoimmune disorders, and cancer cases in Iraq over the following decades. NATO also used depleted uranium in its 1999 air campaign against Yugoslavia. Earlier this year, Serbian Health Minister Danica Grujicic described the carcinogenic consequences of this ammunition on the Serb population a “horrible and inhumane experiment.”
The UK began supplying Ukraine with depleted uranium tank shells in March, while the US announced last week that it would send depleted uranium ammunition for its M1 Abrams tanks, which are expected to arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks.
By focusing on the issue from a nuclear safety point of view, Grossi was being deliberately disingenuous, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram on Monday.
“Mr. Grossi is, of course, right in saying that there are no significant radiological consequences from the standpoint of ‘nuclear safety,” she wrote. “It’s likewise obvious, though, that he is not telling the whole story.”
Zakharova pointed out that depleted uranium releases “extremely toxic aerosols” when ignited and vaporized. “Perhaps this is beyond Mr. Grossi’s expertise as head of the IAEA,” she concluded. “This question should be addressed to chemists, who will tell us about the harmful effects of heavy metal accumulation on the environment and human health.”
Russian forces claim to have destroyed at least one warehouse in Ukraine containing British depleted uranium shells. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned last week that the West will ultimately be responsible when this ammunition “inevitably” contaminates Ukrainian land.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Environmentalism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | IAEA, Iraq, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Wouldn’t you think that if the Government wanted to “make the U.K. a world-leader in 5G” that its ministers would know some basics about how the regulatory organisation they follow, the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), arrived at its recommendations for safe exposure?
Recently I wrote to my MP, Rishi Sunak, to alert him to my situation in needing to avoid radio-frequency radiation (RFR) or electromagnetic fields (EMF), due to health damage I sustained 20 years ago when I lived 15 metres from a mobile phone mast. Before, dear reader, you tell me that my conclusion is pure speculation, let me tell you that this likely explanation only occurred to me after the death of a second neighbour from motor neurone disease and after months of my suffering with flu-like symptoms and heavily swollen neck glands, followed by health problems, with which I will not bore you.
Anyway, Mr. Sunak, very diligently, put my concerns to two ministerial colleagues, while telling me in the meantime that he proposed to blanket the U.K. with the fastest wireless coverage available. My reply to the latter remark was as follows:
1.The Government purportedly stands by the results of the Stewart Report 2000 and states here “adults should be able to make their own choices about reducing their exposure should they so wish, but be able to do this from an informed position”. How will this be possible if the country if blanketed? Smart devices, phone masts and WiFi are now everywhere where there are people. Will you inform people where coverage is lightest, if they wish to reduce exposure? Will you make sure that non-smart transactions are always possible? Will you ensure that some areas will always have landlines and are smart meter and smart camera free? And so on.
2. If the country is blanketed, what happens to the rights of those disabled by electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) in terms of section 6 of the Equality Act? A case has already been won in the U.K., where a local authority has been mandated to provide RFR/EMF free education for a child with EHS.
Be that as it may, when the ministerial replies arrived, I was genuinely shocked by the level of ignorance they betrayed.
Steve Barclay, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care wrote: “The ICNIRP guidelines apply to the whole population, including children and people of varying health status, which may include particularly susceptible groups or individuals.”
This is simply wrong. What ICNIRP actually says is:
Some exposure scenarios are defined as outside the scope of these guidelines. Medical procedures may utilise EMFs, and metallic implants may alter or perturb EMFs in the body, which in turn can affect the body both directly and indirectly… As medical procedures rely on medical expertise to weigh potential harm against intended benefits, ICNIRP considers such exposure managed by qualified medical practitioners, as beyond the scope of these guidelines. (emphasis mine)
In other words, these guidelines do not apply to anyone with a metal implant or anyone undergoing a medical procedure utilising EMFs. That is a large population group. It is left to doctors to advise on this, but, in fact, in the U.K. doctors are not trained in the health effects of non-ionising radiation. And the implication of this statement is that ICNIRP has no medical expertise. Indeed on examining the profiles of ICNIRP members, I have not found anyone with a medical qualification.
But even more alarming is this statement by Sir John Whittingdale OBE, the Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure:
The ICNIRP… guidelines… are based upon a large amount of research carried out over many years.
This is nonsense, I am afraid. The guidelines are based on behavioural studies of eight rats and five monkeys, which were irradiated for up to an hour and also by measuring heating effects on a plastic model of a man’s head. Criticisms of the methodology used for deciding the guidelines have been made by the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) in a recent article and by James Lin, a highly qualified ex-member of ICNIRP, who laid out his objections in the IEEE Microwave magazine.
In actual fact, far from being the basis of the guidelines, the opposite is true. Studies on the biological health effects of EMFs are largely dismissed by ICNIRP with the comment “more research needs to be done”.
Sir John went on to state:
Reviews carried out by the independent Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation (AGNIR) found no convincing evidence that radiofrequency field exposures below guideline levels cause health effects.
He did not mention that this review was carried out back in 2012 and was discredited by Dr. Sarah Starkey who found that the report omitted and distorted scientific evidence leading to wrong and misleading conclusions. She also pointed out how many personnel had dual roles and conflicts of interests by being in more than one of these regulatory bodies at the same time.
And indeed, since that time, there have been two very large animal studies (the NTP study and the Ramazzini study) showing a link between RFR and cancer as well as a large epidemiological review In 2019 by an international expert team led by Canada’s most senior cancer epidemiologist Professor Tony Miller, reporting human epidemiological evidence linking human breast and brain tumours, male reproductive outcomes and child neurodevelopmental conditions to RFR exposures. It also found compelling evidence of carcinogenesis, especially in the brain and acoustic nerve, as well as the breast, from strong RFR exposures to previous generations of mobile phone transmissions.
AGNIR was disbanded in 2017 and its remit adopted by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE). Unfortunately COMARE has never produced a report on the health effects of non-ionising (radio-frequency) radiation, because our Government has never asked it to do so, according to an email sent to me by its secretariat.
What a contrast to the U.S. New Hampshire Commission, which gathered a large group of experts together and conducted a thorough investigation into the health effects of RFR a couple of years ago.
In June this year, at a conference at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, its findings were described with great clarity by Professor Kent Chamberlain, the Professor Emeritus of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Hampshire. His talk included a discussion of the methods used to set the ICNIRP safety exposure guidelines, a review of the peer-reviewed literature on adverse health effects of RFR and the highlighting of key findings, such as the increased risk of cancer if you live within 1,000 metres of a mast.
The Royal Society of Medicine conference was organised by the International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE-EMF) and was based around an important paper, examining the 14 false assumptions of those creating the ICNIRP safety guidelines. I introduced the expert speakers in a previous DS article and they include Dr. Erica Mallery-Blythe, Professor Kent Chamberlain, Professor James Lin and Professor John Frank in an event ably introduced by David Gee, who co-authored Late Lessons, Early Warnings for the European Environmental Agency.
Short written highlights, presentation slides and videos of the event are now available to view on an ICBE-EMF webpage and I’d say that these are essential viewing and reading for anyone interested in this subject and particularly for our Government ministers and their researchers.
Just when will our Government do its due diligence? And how certain do we need to be about causation before exercising caution and catering for those who already know they are affected by RFR exposure?
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | UK |
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Instagram has taken action against Chloe Cole, a 19-year-old who identifies herself as a “former trans kid” and had undergone a double mastectomy at the tender age of 15. The platform has restricted her profile, deeming its content to be “violent.”
Chloe Cole shared the news with her followers, saying, “Facebook has notified me that my Instagram bio is too ‘violent.’ If you think reading it is violent, imagine actually living through all that!” Cole’s bio explicitly states, “19, female (XX), former trans kid, started T & Blockers at 13, Double Mastectomy at 15, detransed at 16.”
The decision has led to her content being less accessible, with Instagram notifying her that her account “can’t be shown to non-followers,” and that her “account and content won’t appear in places like Explore, Search, Suggested Users, Reels, and Feed Recommendations.”
In a detailed response to The Post Millennial, Cole remarked, “Facebook is absolutely correct in stating that my bio describes something violent-that is, my own life experiences.”
She believes that by sharing her journey, she is raising awareness and urging compassion for others. Cole commented on the platform’s decision, stating, “It is upsetting that they can claim I am promoting violence and using this narrative to hide my content from parents, children, and those who need to hear my message the most.”
Beyond her digital platforms, Cole has taken legal steps, suing her healthcare providers for alleged malpractice, claiming that they misled her and her family regarding the treatments she received.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance | United States |
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The BBC’s Marianna Spring specializes in branding average citizens as conspiracy theorists and potential terrorists for questioning official claims. When caught lying about her own professional record to advance her ambitions, she says she thought her deceit “wouldn’t be a big deal.”
On September 6th, The New European reported that BBC’s “specialist disinformation correspondent” Marianna Spring lied on her résumé in a failed attempt to bag work with Coda Story back in 2018.
While posing as an independent outlet, Coda Story is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, the US government’s regime change arm, as well as the European Union.
Spring had submitted an application to Coda Story editor-in-chief Natalia Antelava containing a CV in which she claimed to have worked alongside BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford on the British state broadcaster’s reporting on that year’s World Cup in Russia.
An entry read: “June 2018: Reported on International News during the World Cup, specifically the perception of Russia, with BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.”
This claim was the textbook definition of “disinformation.” In truth, Spring had met Rainsford in a handful of social settings, and they never worked together. Antelava easily ascertained Spring was lying, and admonished her for the fabrication. The future BBC apparatchik responded with a grovelling apology, expressing contrition for her “awful misjudgment”, while somewhat amazingly still professing to be a “brilliant reporter”:
“I’ve only bumped into Sarah whilst she’s working and chatted to her at various points, but nothing more. Everything else on my CV is entirely true. There’s absolutely no excuse at all, and I’m really sorry again. The only explanation at all is my desperation to report out in Moscow, and thinking that it wouldn’t be a big deal, which was totally naive and stupid of me. I’m really sorry again for this awful misjudgment on my part.”
Antelava did not respond well, rejecting Spring’s application outright, and remarking, “telling me you are a brilliant reporter who exercises integrity and honesty when you have literally demonstrated the opposite was a terrible idea.”
Spring’s fabrication may have also been illegal. In Britain, her country of birth, lying on one’s résumé is a serious criminal offense under the 2006 Fraud Act. If an individual exaggerates their qualifications with the intention of gaining employment, they can face hefty fines, and a possible jail sentence of up to 10 years.
Why it took so long for Spring’s deceit to be publicly exposed is unclear. In the years since she attempted to lie her way into a flashy reporting job, her career has soared meteorically, placing her in the spotlight of mainstream British media.
Not long after her CV falsification, Spring joined the flagship BBC political program Newsnight, and was then promoted as the broadcaster’s “specialist disinformation correspondent” in March 2020. Coincidentally, the British government had just passed its Coronavirus Act, placing the country’s population under lockdown, and psychologically bludgeoning it into compliance with pandemic restrictions.
As The Grayzone has documented, Spring was at the forefront of an aggressive effort to frame critics of lockdowns, pandemic restrictions, mask and vaccine mandates, and vaccine passports as a vast, fascistic, potentially violent fifth column infesting both on and offline spaces – and who deserved to be crushed with a repressive state response. She frequently relied on the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a NATO state-funded information warfare operation, to reinforce her dubious reporting.
Spring’s connection to a constellation of state-backed propaganda outfits wound her up on the invite list for a secret May 2022 summit aimed at destroying The Grayzone. A Foreign Office-funded intelligence operative named Amil Khan suggested she be invited to the gathering.
The disclosures about Spring come mere days after The Guardian published a fawning profile of Spring and her crusading work “battling cranks, extremists – and Elon Musk,” while campaigning for integrity and honesty on social networks and in alternative media. While for the most part an unctuous hagiography, it ended on a surprisingly critical note, asking its subject why she was solely focused on purported “disinformation” spread by citizens and independent journalists, rather than governments or powerful organizations.
This query led Spring to reportedly lose her patience, in a quintessentially British way. She admonished her interviewer:
“I constantly get, ‘Marianna, why have you not BBC-verified this?’ Every single thing. It’s like, I’ve become the complaints person. I think they think I’m Superwoman. I can’t do everything. We all have to think about how ecosystems work – I deal with the extreme stuff.”
It is certainly true Spring “can’t do everything.” When applying for a job, she could not even tell the truth about her own record. Instead, Spring may have committed a criminal offense by lying on her CV in an admittedly “desperate” bid to climb the NATO-state sponsored media ladder.
September 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | BBC |
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A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
