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The Great Overreaction

Covid-19 Was a Trial Run for Future Government Controls

On Topic with Lori Weintz | December 16, 2022

If there is one thing that people should have learned from the pandemic, it is that the more control government takes over our day-to-day lives, the less we have of everything that makes life worth living.

The list of questions about our dystopian Covid-19 response will be analyzed and investigated for years to come. It’s essential we continue the work of uncovering the lies and manipulation we’ve all experienced, and bring those responsible to account. Some things may never be adequately uncovered or explained, but we can’t get caught up in the many aspects of the pandemic response at the expense of the bigger picture.

The following examines two key realizations about the pandemic on which we need to focus, regardless of what else we discover and what actions are taken:

  1. The Covid-19 pandemic response was not based on sound medicine or science, and was not commensurate with the actual threat of the illness. Even if Covid-19 had proved to be as lethal as it’s falsely claimed to be, violating human rights and depriving individuals of personal autonomy are never the appropriate response to a pandemic. We must never let this happen again.
  2. The Covid-19 pandemic revealed movements, led by globalists and wealthy technocrats, but also supported by many of our government and public leaders, to grasp power in ways that have the potential to destroy the foundations of Western civilization. There is a push toward global governance, in which all citizens are tracked and controlled in every aspect of their lives through digital identification, under the guise of preserving and distributing Earth’s resources in a more “equitable” manner.

Some kind, or naïve, souls will still try to say that our Covid response was a result of the government and public health authorities trying to do the best they could, to handle a brand new virus that no one could predict. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here are 10 facts we knew about Covid-19 in March 2020, which should have informed our pandemic response, but did not:

  1. Data from China and Spain informed us that Covid-19 was a disease that mostly impacted the elderly and those with chronic health problems. An early study from China confirmed that children could contract Covid, but with less severe symptoms than adults. From the petri dish Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, we knew that the virus spread rapidly in close quarters, but that most people who tested positive were either asymptomatic, or not seriously ill.
  2. We knew that SARS-CoV-2 was similar in structure and pathogenicity to the SARS virus of 2002, was likely spread through airborne transmission, and was made up of  29 proteins, of which spike protein was one. We knew that similarities in human and viral proteins could lead to vaccine-induced autoimmunity (when the body attacks itself), and that this had occurred when using spike protein in-vivo to elicit immune response in rodents during the first SARS outbreak. We knew that the spike protein has similarities to human DNA, and that instructing the body to make spike protein could possibly cause autoimmune illnesses or pathogenic priming, which is when the body overreacts to the virus, leading to systemic inflammation. Only one immunogenic (producing an immune response) epitope in SARS-CoV-2 had no homology to human proteins. For this reason it was recommended that the spike protein not be the basis of any vaccine developed to treat SARS-CoV-2.
  3. We still remembered what every medical student was taught: the purpose of a surgical face mask is to prevent dropping saliva or other contaminants into your patient while conducting surgery. (And in fact, studies that had been conducted on the benefit of masking in surgery found no difference in infection outcome, whether the surgery group was masked or not.)
  4. We knew that face masks were not effective at preventing the spread of respiratory diseases. In analyzing the Spanish flu of 1918, doctors and scientists had concluded that, “Masks have not been proved efficient enough to warrant compulsory application for the checking of epidemics.” This was also the conclusion of a meta-analysis of studies from different countries and settings that was published by the CDC in May of 2020. A study of  6,000 people, early in the Covid-19 pandemic in Denmark, found a less than one tenth of one percent difference in contracting Covid between those who wore masks while going about daily activities, and those who were unmasked.
  5. We were aware of six coronaviruses that infect humans, including four that regularly circulate and cause the common cold, and knew the basic pattern and treatment of the symptoms of coronavirus infections. We knew that coronaviruses mutate rapidly, and that all attempts to develop a vaccine for them in the past had failed, partly for that reason. In March 2020 we already knew that.
  6. We knew the mantra “early treatment saves lives.” No one considered it good medical practice to send an ill person home to tough it out, without any treatment other than to go to the ER if breathing was so labored your lips were turning blue.
  7. We knew that chloroquine, an antimalarial medication, was shown in vitro to be effective against SARS in the outbreak of 2002. We knew that hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a slightly altered version of chloroquine, had been in routine use for decades, with so few side effects it was considered safe for pregnant women and children. Other antivirals, including ivermectin, were also being tested by doctors and found to be effective in treating Covid-19. (see Peter McCullough; Pierre Kory – Dept of Homeland Security; Pierre Kory U.S. Senate; Zev Zelenko)
  8. Pandemic planning scenarios prior to March 2020 had unequivocally determined that lockdowns of the general population were not a proper pandemic response because of the extreme damage they would cause the poor, the vulnerable, and the overall structure of society.
  9. We knew that influenza and other respiratory viruses are seasonal, hence the term “flu season,” and that some years are worse than others. For example in the severe 2017-2018 flu season, hospital resources were strained enough that they put patients in hallways, and even erected outdoor tents to make space for more patients, without creating fear and panic in the general population.
  10. It was accepted that hypothesis and experimentation, and the discussion and challenge of different ideas and methods are what lead to advances in science and medicine. If anyone had said in March 2020, “I represent science… Attacks on me are quite frankly attacks on science,” as Dr. Anthony Fauci did in November 2021 (see here and here), they would have been fodder for Saturday Night Live, not the object of sycophantic consideration on every mainstream media platform.

In looking back, March 11, 2020, when  the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, will be remembered as the day we threw our knowledge of science, medicine, good governance, and healthy society right out the window of a speeding train that was carrying democracies toward medical tyranny.

We slapped face masks on toddlers and children. We closed businesses, public schools, universities, and churches. We put little circles on the floor six feet apart, and directional arrows in the grocery store aisles, maintaining that 6-feet of distance that former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said was an arbitrary number without scientific or medical basis. We shut down movie theatres, concert halls, and Broadway. We canceled trips, family gatherings, funerals, weddings, holiday celebrations, commencement exercises, and sporting and community events.

All this panic for a disease with an infection fatality rate similar to the flu (even lower than the flu, for children) as was established early on by John Ioannidis of Stanford University.

But no one seemed to want to draw on prior knowledge and maintain calm and perspective. Instead, the “dangerous nature” of this new Covid-19 disease was constantly outlined for us by our public health and government leaders. Mainstream media outlets reported case counts and death counts in serious tones of dismay every day, without any context or comparison to standard death rates and the impact of respiratory diseases in years past. Emotional abuse of the public was rampant, with the authorities blaming the natural rise and fall of Covid cases on people not properly complying with the pandemic mandates. Even as the public was driven to a panic, government leaders hypocritically violated the masking and lockdown rules that they imposed on everyone else.

Illogical fear, driven by a hyperactive media, and by cowardly and controlling government leaders and public health authorities ruled the day. One of the most insidious results of our descent into ignorance about medicine, and our discarding of social contracts and human rights, was the rise of self-righteous intolerance for, and censorship of, anyone who questioned what was happening.

The Covid-19 response revealed that there is a movement, being pushed by wealthy ideologues, to control people through medical mandates and digital identification. In January 2019, Bill Gates boasted a 20-to-1 return on vaccine investments in an interview at a World Economic Forum Davos meeting, having turned $10 billion into $200 billion over a 10-year period. Gates, who labeled the 2010’s the “decade of vaccines,” can’t get enough of pandemic simulation games in which every aspect of a future calamity is addressed.

In March 2020, while the rest of us were coming to terms with the idea that there was a pandemic, Gates was already talking about the need for a Covid mRNA vaccine (a product in which Gates had conveniently invested $20 million in 2016). Gates also happily opined that everyone would need digital proof of immunity in order to open the world back up and allow travel between nations. In March 2020, Gates, who had predicted a pandemic in a 2015 TED talk where he said “we’re not ready,” was talking enthusiastically about being better prepared for the next epidemic (having already invested heavily in vaccines, testing, and surveillance).

The requirement to show proof of Covid vaccination in order to participate in public life was brutally adopted in places such as New York City, Austria, and New Zealand, and in varying degrees in many other states and countries. The so-called “vaccine passport” was a trial run for a digital ID for every human being on the planet. Digital ID was already in process in Canada when the peaceful Freedom Convoy protestors, and their supporters, had their bank accounts digitally frozen and their truck licenses and ability to do business in certain provinces revoked. The complete control of citizens through digital ID is already in place in China where protestors recently saw their green Covid pass turn to red overnight, causing them to lose access to public transport and essential services, and removing the right to travel.

Digital identification for the whole world was a topic at the World Economic Forum Davos conference this year. “Our future is digital. If you’re not part of it, you’re out of it,” said a UN representative to the WEF Conference, as the group discussed “digital inclusion.” The UN’s International Telecommunication Union focused on the “world’s digital transformation” at their summit in Bucharest, Romania in September 2022.

The digital ID is touted as a convenient and uniform way for assuring medical “safety” for ourselves and others, but Brett Solomon, an expert on human rights in the digital age, states,”[D]igital ID, writ large, poses one of the gravest risks to human rights of any technology that we have encountered.” Journalist and author Naomi Wolf, who has for years studied the factors that destroy democracies, is adamant that vaccine passports are a foot in the door that leads to fascism. Wolf states, “Vaccine passports sound like a fine thing if you don’t know what those platforms can do. I’m CEO of a tech company; I understand what this platform does… It’s not about the vaccine, it’s not about the virus, it’s about data. And once this rolls out you don’t have a choice about being part of the system. What people have to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that [digital] platform with no problem at all.”

Control of people through digital ID is the goal of the UN, of Bill Gates, the WEF, the WHO, and many government leaders worldwide. Covid-19 was just a vehicle for trying out what they could get away with. Now it’s climate change. In a Project Veritas undercover interview, CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester acknowledged that people were experiencing Covid fatigue, so “once the public would be open to it,” CNN would be focusing on climate change, “constantly showing videos of decline, and ice, and weather warming up, and, like the effects it’s having on the economy.” Chester stated, “There’s a definitive ending to the pandemic, you know it will taper off to a point that it’s not a problem anymore. The climate thing is gonna take years, so they’ll probably be able to milk that for quite a bit,” because, “Fear sells.”

Now in the name of “preserving the planet,” the same technocrats and billionaires who have orchestrated much of the pandemic response are pushing the green agenda at the expense of food and warmth, freedom, and life itself.  While the globalist elites fly around in their private jets telling everyone else how to live and what they need to go without, government lackeys sucked into the globalists’ agenda are closing down farms and limiting the use of fertilizers and fuels, creating food insecurity and misery.

The globalists, oh so concerned about our planet, are coming up with lovely plans for innovations such as The Line, a glass-enclosed 105-mile long building that will house 9 million residents, rectifying the problem of “dysfunctional and polluted cities that ignore nature.” (Walk it in 20 minutes! No need for a car! Everything you need in one spot!) They’ve also designed the 15-minute-city, another “innovation” designed to corral and control the peoples of the world. (Check out the movie In Time if you want a feel for the concept of the 15-minute-city.)

Whether foisting Covid restrictions on humanity, or overturning our lives for the green agenda, the end goal is the same. Klaus Schwab’s right-hand man, Yuval Noah Harari, said at the ironically named Athens Democracy Forum in September 2020 that, “Covid is critical because this is what convinces people, to accept, to legitimize total biometric surveillance.” Harari said, “We want to stop this epidemic? We need not just to monitor people; we need to monitor what is happening under their skin… And Covid is important because Covid legitimizes some of the crucial steps [toward biometric surveillance] even in democratic countries.”

The marriage of Big Pharma and government in the pursuit of the Covid-19 vaccines was one of the most dangerous of all developments during the pandemic. A vaccine development process that normally takes 5-10 years was shortened to 9 months. As explained by Dr. Tess Lawrie of The World Council for Health, the randomized control trials shortened Phase I, merged Phase II and III together, and then the control group was given the vaccine, meaning there is no control group to follow long-term. A Pfizer spokesperson acknowledged that they did not test the vaccines for preventing transmission, yet multiple health and government officials continuously claimed they were 95% effective. No pregnant women were included in the trials, but our health officials recommended that pregnant women take the Covid shot.

The vaccines were proclaimed “safe and effective” ad nauseam, and the vaccination of millions began. The CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) accumulated thousands of reports of injuries and deaths associated with the Covid shots – more for the Covid shots than for all other vaccines combined in the previous 30 years – but the mantra of “safe and effective” was just proclaimed louder. On December 13, 2022 a documentary about people who have been injured by the Covid shots was released. Within 24 hours, YouTube took it down, labeling it “medical misinformation” because, “YouTube doesn’t allow claims about Covid-19 vaccinations that contradict expert consensus from local health authorities or the World Health Organization.” I guess if you’re injured by the Covid shots you have to call the WHO to confirm it happened? You can view the documentary here: “Anecdotals.”

The Covid-19 bivalent booster was tested on eight mice, and zero humans, but the FDA and CDC deemed these shots safe for everyone age 6 months and up as well. When the FDA gave full approval for Pfizer’s Comirnaty on August 23, 2021, two main points were made: Comirnaty and the Pfizer/BioNTech emergency authorized vaccine are the same formula, and can be used interchangeably, but are “legally distinct.” As in, you can’t sue a drug company for vaccine harms resulting from an EUA-only vaccine, but you can sue if you’re injured by a vaccine that has full FDA approval. Interestingly, Pfizer has not distributed Comirnaty to be used by the public, and has stated that it won’t. To date, all the available Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and boosters for Covid are only authorized for emergency use.

Every person who has received a Covid shot is participating in the largest long-term clinical trial in the history of the world. We will not know the full impact for years, but what we’ve seen so far is alarming and heartbreaking. How long will people ignore the evidence all around them of vaccine injury?

From dozens of performers dropping on the stage, or cancelling shows “due to illness” or the sudden death of a band mate, to people developing sudden chronic illnesses and cancers, to menstrual problems and an increase in miscarriages and stillborn babies, to athletes dropping dead on the field and young people dying in their sleep, to children having heart attacks, journalists keeling over mid broadcast, to the emergence of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, the evidence is all around us. What we’re seeing is not normal, and the attempt of authorities to explain it all away as being caused by “stress,” or “dehydration,” or “just one of those unfortunate medical events,” is not going to be able to cover the vaccine damage forever.

The world was played during the pandemic. The pharmaceutical industry saw the rise of multiple new billionaires; government leaders flexed their emergency-powers muscles; the mainstream media promulgated lies; and people took their government-funded hush money and did what they were told.

Meanwhile fundamental human rights were taken from us, and dangerous precedents were set. Every freedom-loving person needs to step up, become informed, and be ready to speak out and push back, because the people who gained power and money during the pandemic want to keep the gravy train rolling.

A repeat of the medical tyranny we were subjected to during the pandemic, and the fulfillment of a vision of a “digital transformation of the world,” will only happen if we comply.

December 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

The Myth of Pandemic Preparedness

The entire effort is based on the false assumption that pandemic preparedness would actually work. In fact, all it has done is create new pandemics.

1.     The most recent WHO-declared Public Health Emergencies of International Concern (PHEICs) for SARS-CoV-2 and Monkeypox were both caused by lab-created viruses, based on many careful analyses of their genomes.

2.     There is no evidence that pandemic preparedness ever benefited anyone but the preparedness industry, and substantial evidence that it led to the creation of the COVID pandemic.

3.     The Democrat majority staff report, “Preparing for and preventing the next public health emergency.” echoes the WHO Amendments.

4.     The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board has also geared up to push the identical program as the WHO: surveillance, One Health, and investment — “all topics that the GPMB has long recognised are crucial for the advancement of resilient pandemic preparedness mechanisms.”

5.     The G20 nations agreed last April to a $50 Billion dollars a year price tag for gloval pandemic preparedness.

6.     The Globalist agenda is out in the open for all to see.

The pandemic preparedness concept is based on fantasy; it is a dangerous money grab for a new biodefense industry. It brought:

·      Many more high-containment BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs,

·      15,000 new scientists trained to research biowarfare pathogens,

·      Poorly tested drugs and vaccines for which the manufacturers had no liability

·      More corruption and pork for politicians to distribute.

·      Nathan Wolfe’s company:  biolabs in Ukraine, squire to Ghislaine Maxwell, funding by Hunter Biden’s investment group

·      Peter Daszak’s ‘nonprofit’ that collected dangerous viruses from over 30 countries to bring to the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DOD’s DTRA) for further investigation

·      Extremely dangerous anthrax, smallpox and COVID vaccines

·      The COVID drug paxlovid, which led to relapses of COVID in President Biden, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and NIAID Director and Presidential COVID adviser Anthony Fauci and millions of Americans, presumably prolonging their infectiousness and causing more cases of COVID

·      Expensive new federal agencies (ASPR, BARDA in DHHS, and subagencies within DHS and within DOD) and new funding streams to the NIH

·      An excuse to censor alternate medical/scientific views

December 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Fauci says not pushing back against online “misinformation” would be a blow to society

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | December 17, 2022

President ’s outgoing chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci dismissed criticism from  owner , adding that the platform has become a “cesspool of misinformation.”

“I don’t pay attention to that,” Fauci said in an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “I mean, yeah, he has a big megaphone, but, I mean, the Twittersphere as it is has really gone berserk lately. It’s kind of become almost a cesspool of misinformation.”

Last Sunday, Musk criticized Fauci and called for his prosecution for lying to the American public and funding research that might have been the origin of the virus.

“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” Musk wrote.

He later shared a meme showing Fauci telling Biden, “Just one more lockdown, my king.”

In another interview on David Axelrod’s podcast, Fauci also dismissed criticism from Musk.

“I don’t respond to him,” Fauci said. “I don’t pay any attention to him because that’s merely a distraction,” he said. “And if you get drawn into that, and I have to be honest, that cesspool of interaction … there’s no value added to that, David. It doesn’t help anything.”

Dr. Fauci was asked by MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell if society was becoming “anti-science,” referring to the rise of what she called “disinformation and misinformation” spreading online.

“The answer is yes,” Fauci responded. “The short answer to your question, Andrea. But the other thing is that there is so much misinformation that we were experiencing the normalization of untruths. Where there is so much disinformation that spreads predominately through social media that people just get so used to the untruths that it becomes normalized which is really bad because then you don’t push back against it. You say, well, that’s just the way it is. That would be a terrible blow to society. And I believe to our democracy if all of a sudden people say, well, what’s the use?

“There’s so much untruth out there we might as well not even push back on it. It’s hopeless. We’ve got to not accept the normalization of untruths.”

Dr. Fauci is currently facing a lawsuit for allegedly working with social media platforms to suppress speech.

December 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Two-Thirds of Voters Believe Social Media Engaged in Politically-Motivated Censorship and Demand Congressional Action

By Jonathan Turley | December 17, 2022

The December Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll is out this week and Mark Penn and his colleagues have some interesting results to share. Despite the refusal of many in the media to cover the Twitter files, nearly two-thirds of voters believe Twitter shadow-banned users and engaged in political censorship during the 2020 election. Seventy percent of voters want new national laws protecting users from corporate censorship.

This week, the media continued to fulfill that common view of a de facto state media by ignoring new evidence of FBI coordination in censorship targets with Twitter in the latest news blackout.

On Friday, Twitter released additional information showing that the FBI and CIA actively pushed for censorship, supplying lists of accounts to be suspended or banned.

Journalist Matt Taibbi described Twitter as acting as a “subsidiary” of the FBI and wrote that “between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”

The evidence continues to establish a system of censorship by surrogate or proxy.  While the First Amendment applies to the government and not private corporations generally, it does apply to agents or surrogates of the government. Twitter now admits that such a relationship existed between its former officials and the government.

Once again, however, the major networks and newspapers have largely ignored the story. There has been a full mobilization of media, political, and business interests against Elon Musk and Twitter to oppose the restoration of free speech protections at the company. The media is heavily invested in suppressing this story after years of denials of any problems of censorship. Previously, they denied censorship was occurring. When such censorship became obvious, they denied that there was any involvement of the FBI and the government. Now that such involvement is confirmed, they are simply not covering the story.

Instead, the media is “all-in” on the doxxing suspensions (which Musk has now lifted).  I have been critical of Musk’s response to the doxxing controversy.  In part this is due to the scope of the suspensions and the fact that they occurred only 24 hours after the new policy was implemented. I would have preferred warnings and further clarity on the issue, particularly in what constituted doxxing in some of these tweets from journalists.

Despite the overwhelming coverage, there is little explanation of the media’s approach to the underlying doxxing question. Some have said that this is a “grey area” or may be below the threshold.

For years, the media has supported suspensions due to doxxing. In this case, the location of Musk’s plane may have been used by an individual to threaten his family. Most reports omit any discussion of whether the sending of such live locations information is doxxing. If it is, it has long been banned by most sites and journalists are not exempt.

Previously, figures connected with mainstream media from CNN to the Washington Post have been accused of doxxing. Liberal groups were accused of doxxing conservative justices and others, including dangerously posting information on the children of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It does not seem to matter when the targets are conservative, Republican, or libertarian.

Writers who have long advocated the banning of others with opposing views are some of the loudest objecting in the wake of the doxxing controversy. The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz expressed fear that she could be next. It may not be a groundless fear since Lorenz has been previously accused of doxxing others and described the reintroduction of free speech protections for others as the opening of “the gates of hell.”

Jack Sweeney, the creator of this site (using publicly available information), has expressed shock at being sued and suspended. However, these articles continue to tellingly omit one of the critical issues. Is it doxxing to supply people with the minute-by-minute movement of the plane used by Musk and his family? That would seem relevant to weighing the merits of these suspensions.

Such slanted coverage is clearly losing its hold on the public or its view of Twitter. Indeed, the media continues to write off a large percentage of readers and viewers with openly biased coverage. The public is not buying it. It is buying Twitter. Not only are users signing up in record numbers, but a recent poll shows a majority of Americans “support Elon Musk’s ongoing efforts to change Twitter to a more free and transparent platform.”

In the wake of the latest release, the FBI issued a statement that said that there was nothing to see here and that “the FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities.”

The statement is notable for what it does not contain: any recognition of the seriousness of the allegations or pledge to conduct its own investigation in whether this relationship crossed over to de facto government censorship. According to some reports, as many as 80 FBI agents may have been tasked to assist in the censorship efforts. Yet, the FBI has offered little more than a shrug in the face of credible constitutional concerns.

According to the Harvard/Harris poll, the public believes that such censorship occurred and warrants action. The denials of the FBI and the dismissal of the mainstream media will only serve to magnify such calls for action.

December 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Croatian MPs reject EU training mission for Ukraine

RT | December 18, 2022

Croatian lawmakers have failed to pass a motion for the Balkan country to join an EU program to train Ukrainian military personnel to fight against Russia.

During a vote on Friday in the national parliament, the Sabor, 97 MPs out of 151 supported the idea of training some 100 Ukrainian troops. The proposal required the backing of two thirds of lawmakers, and fell short by several votes.

Before the session, opponents of the European Union Military Assistance Mission argued that it could make Croatia a “target” for Russia.

The program, which the bloc considers its “widest” military mission to date, is expected to prepare 15,000 Ukrainian servicemen on the territory of some 20 member states. It will cost European taxpayers around €100 million (around $106 million). EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in early December that 1,100 Kiev troops had already begun their training in various camps.

However, in Croatia, which is a member of both the EU and NATO, the program led to a major rift in the leadership.

President Zoran Milanovic, who is commander-in-chief of the Croatian armed forces, has strongly resisted involvement in the scheme. He argued that such a move “would mean bringing the war into Croatia.”

This led Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, whose cabinet backed the mission, to accuse Milanovic of harboring “pro-Russian views.” The government put the issue before parliament in an attempt to break the deadlock.

December 18, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Soaring energy prices cost EU $1 trillion – Bloomberg

RT | December 18, 2022

EU member states have spent roughly a trillion dollars (€940 billion) in the face of the bloc’s worst energy crisis in decades, Bloomberg is reporting on Sunday, citing calculations based on market data.

Soaring energy prices have sent its economies plunging into recession as most member states opted to stop importing gas from Russia, facing the necessity to turn to more expensive supplies.

The agency highlighted that the total estimated losses marks just the beginning of a full-scale crisis, as a period of high prices for energy could last years, while aid is already becoming unaffordable.

The security of energy supply is expected to remain an issue beyond next winter after the filled gas storage facilities across the region are emptied. The nations of the EU will have to refill their gas reserves for the next cold season with no deliveries from Russia, which also heats up competition for tankers.

Even with more import terminals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) coming online, the crisis will reportedly loosen its grip only in 2026, when additional production capacity from the US or Qatar becomes available. At the same time, prices should remain high to attract LNG away from other buyers from energy-hungry Asian buyers.

A state of emergency could linger for years, according to Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, as quoted by Bloomberg.

“Once you add everything up –bailouts, subsidies– it is a ridiculously large amount of money,” Martin Devenish, a director at consultancy S-RM, told the agency. “It’s going to be a lot harder for governments to manage this crisis next year.”

A rush to fill storage during summer, despite all-time high prices, has softened the supply squeeze so far. However, freezing weather is expected to give the region’s energy system the real test this winter.

Last month, Germany’s energy regulator, the Federal Network Agency, warned that German households and small businesses have failed their first gas-saving tests. The regulator noted that a reduction in consumption of at least 20% was required to avoid a gas shortage in the coming months.

December 18, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

DYSTOPIAN FUTURE: THE CITIES OF TOMORROW

Computing Forever | December 13, 2022

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December 18, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Opposition to Childhood Vaccine Mandates on the Rise, More Parents Say They Want the Right to Choose

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. – The Defender – December 16, 2022

A growing number of parents oppose vaccine mandates as a precondition for public school attendance, and interest among adults in receiving COVID-19 booster shots is waning, according to a national poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).

The results of the latest KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor survey, released today, show more than one-third (35%) of parents now believe they should be the ones to decide whether their children receive a slate of childhood vaccines.

The poll encompassed a nationally representative sample of 1,259 adults who were interviewed between Nov. 29 and Dec. 8. According to The New York Times, the KFF is a “nonpartisan health care research organization.”

“It’s unfortunate that it took a wave of injuries and deaths from vaccines that never should have been released into the market — much less mandated — to draw long-overdue attention to the issue of vaccine safety,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman and chief litigation counsel for Children’s Health Defense.

Kennedy told The Defender :

“This latest poll is encouraging for those parents, physicians and scientists who for decades have been calling for an investigation into the relentless promotion by FDA, CDC and Big Pharma of inferior medical products without rigorous safety testing.

“As more parents begin to question the forced, routine administration of vaccines on healthy children, perhaps we will move closer to protecting children and holding vaccine makers and government agencies accountable for the harm these products cause.”

26% of parents today: ‘Risks of childhood vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella outweigh the benefits’

According to the KFF poll, 65% of parents of children under age 18 “think healthy children should be required to be vaccinated to attend public schools.”

This represents an 11% decline from an October 2019 Pew Research Center poll showing 76% of parents supported public school vaccine mandates.

More than one-third of parents surveyed (35%) “now believe parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children, up from 23% in 2019.”

The poll also revealed declines in support for specific vaccines. For instance, 71% of respondents said “healthy children should be required to get vaccinated for MMR in order to attend public schools” compared with 82% who supported the MMR vaccine mandate for healthy children in 2019.

Nearly 3 in 10 parents (28%) said parents should be able to choose whether their children receive the MMR vaccine, compared with 16% in the 2019 poll.

A similar percentage (26%) responded that the “risks of childhood vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella outweigh the benefits.”

A smaller decline was noted in the percentage of adults (85%) who felt the benefits of childhood MMR vaccination outweigh the risk. This represented a three-percentage-point decline from the 2019 Pew Research Center poll (88%).

These declines were driven by increased vaccine “skepticism” and a growing movement toward parental choice, on the part of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents — 44% of whom responded that parents should have a choice about whether or not their children receive the MMR vaccine, up from 20% in 2019.

Only 11% of Democrats provided the same response.

Moreover, only 56% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said “healthy children should be required to be vaccinated to attend public schools,” a decline of 23 percentage points compared to 2019.

A similar divide was apparent among respondents in reference to their COVID-19 vaccination status. While 83% of vaccinated respondents said healthy children should be required to be vaccinated in order to attend public schools, 63% of unvaccinated parents said parents should instead decide.

‘Tepid’ interest in COVID ‘boosters’ and flu vaccine

Interest in the updated COVID-19 booster is “tepid,” according to the KFF poll, which showed only 1 in 5 adults (22%) surveyed said they have received the updated bivalent booster and an additional 16% said they plan to receive it “as soon as possible.”

However, 12% of respondents said they would “wait and see” before deciding whether to get the new booster, 13% said they would get it only if required and 9% said they would “definitely not” get it.

An additional 27% were unvaccinated or only “partially” vaccinated, which means they are not eligible to get the booster.

Interest in the bivalent booster was highest among adults 65 and older (39%) and Democrat voters (38%), though both figures fall significantly short of a majority. Conversely, only 12% of Republicans and 11% of young adults under 30 said they had received a dose of the updated booster.

Also, 36% of “fully vaccinated” adults 65 and older said they don’t think they need the updated booster, while a “similar percentage,” according to KFF, said they did not think the benefit of the updated booster was worth it.

Overall, fewer than half of parents of children under 18 said their child has received the updated booster or is likely to do so.

Combined with children who have not been vaccinated and who are therefore ineligible for the booster, 58% of parents of 12- to 17-year-olds and 70% of parents of 5- to 11-year-olds responded in this manner.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, even if vaccinated, expressed skepticism toward the updated booster, with 64% stating they do not think they need it, and 61% saying they did not believe the benefit was worth it.

Even among Democrats, a majority (51%) said they were too busy or hadn’t had the time to get the updated booster, indicating it was not a high priority for them.

Even in the face of a so-called “tripledemic” of COVID-19, flu and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) this fall and winter, and despite the majority of parents saying they are worried their children will get sick from RSV (56%, and 73% of parents of children under the age of 5), only 34% of parents said their child has gotten a flu shot this season.

Parents’ rights movement growing in prominence

According to The Times, “The shift in positions appears to be less about rejecting the shots than a growing endorsement of the so-called parents’ rights movement.”

Dr. Sean O’Leary, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases told The Times :

“The talking point that has been circulated is the concept of taking away parents’ rights. And when you frame it that simply, it’s very appealing to a certain segment of the population.”

O’Leary said he worried that the parental rights movement might slow down compliance with state-mandated childhood immunization schedules, telling The Times “We do have a global dip in vaccine coverage. So this is not a time to be considering a rollback of these laws.”

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

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.

December 17, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Advocating a Risky Experiment Generates A Motive to Conceal Its Failure

Dr. Paul Alexander asks some tough questions about Grant Wahl’s death

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | December 16, 2022

My first true crime book—about the Austrian author, journalist, and international serial killer, Jack Unterweger—recounted a strange dilemma suffered by Austria’s intelligentsia after evidence emerged that Jack had murdered several women. The trouble for them was, they had, just a few years earlier, vehemently advocated (through letters and a petition to the Justice Ministry) Jack’s early release from his life sentence in prison for a brutal murder he’d committed in his youth. Their passionate desire to liberate him arose after he published an “autobiographical novel” titled Purgatory. They (a Who’s Who of Austrian writers, artists, journalists, and scientists) found his book so moving, and so apparently expressive of his mature self-awareness, that they asserted it was evidence of his rehabilitation.

About 18 months after he was released from prison with great fanfare, an Austrian daily newspaper reported that a warrant had been issued for his arrest for murdering 7 women in three Austrian cities. Shortly thereafter he also fell under suspicion for murdering three women in Los Angeles and one in Prague, for a total of eleven women.

The lead police investigator, Ernst Geiger, discovered that many Austrian journalists and public commentators were extremely reluctant to acknowledge the extensive circumstantial evidence that Jack was the killer. Especially embarrassing for the Austrian National Broadcasting Corporation was the strange fact that Jack had gotten an assignment to produce a major radio story on the mysterious killer who was stalking Vienna’s red light district, much like “Jack the Ripper” had done in London a century earlier.

Those who’d advocated the extremely risky social experiment did not want to face up to the fact that their gamble had gone the wrong way, resulting in the terrible deaths of eleven young women. Many even seemed to prefer that the arrest warrant be rescinded and the investigation suspended.

This afternoon I was reminded of my first book when I read Dr. Paul Alexander’s reflections on the sudden death of celebrity soccer commentator, Grant Wahl, in the press box at the World Cup in Qatar. Mr. Wahl’s wife, Dr. Celine Gounder, was a member of President Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board and a vehement advocate for mass vaccination using the mRNA gene transfer shots developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Dr. Gounder’s high profile endorsement of “The Great Gamble of COVID-19 Vaccine Development” (as Dr. McCullough characterized this massive experiment) raises the concern that she will be reluctant to examine the distinct possibility that these products caused or contributed to her fit young husband’s death.

Dr. Alexander’s fascinating and provocative essay is well worth reading in full.

December 17, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Pandemic Preparedness: The New Parasite

By David Bell | Brownstone Institute | DECEMBER 17, 2022

The frequency and impact of pandemic-prone pathogens are increasing. Modest investments in PPR capacities can prevent and contain disease outbreaks, thereby drastically reducing the cost of response”

So begins a recent joint paper from the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), written for the 2022 meeting of the G20. The paper is seeking to justify a request for unprecedented international public health funding directed to the burgeoning pandemic preparedness and response (PPR) industry. The modest investments they refer to includes $10 billion in new funding; three times the WHO’s current annual budget.

In the century prior to the Covid debacle pandemics were not increasing and their impact was steadily diminishing, as noted in WHO’s 2019 pandemic guidelines. The cost of the Covid response would also have been far lower if these abandoned but evidence-based 2019 guidelines were followed. The WHO guidelines note that the approaches that comprised Covid lockdowns would be costly, especially to lower-income people.

However, the joint statement is not intended to reflect reality; rather it is intended to paint a picture through which the public will perceive a false reality. By triggering fear and deference, the wealth-concentrating response used against Covid can be normalized and then repeated. False assertions stated as accepted fact have proven very effective in increasing the industry’s share of the global financial cake. International agencies have no advertising standards to comply with.

When an industry absorbs material value to produce mostly unquantifiable products, perceptions are vital. Growth in the public health industry can only occur in two ways. Firstly, the industry and the public can jointly identify mutually beneficent areas of work that the public considers worth funding. Secondly, the industry can mislead, coerce or force the public, with the assistance of cooperative governments, to provide support that is not in the public’s interest. The latter is what parasites do.

As a disclaimer, I have spent the bulk of my working life employed by governments or on aid budgets, living off money taken from taxpayers so that I could have it. It can be a great lifestyle, as global health salaries and benefits are generally very attractive, offer travel to exotic locations, and commonly offer generous health and education benefits. It can still work for the public if the relationship is symbiotic, increasing their general health and well-being and improving the functioning of a moral decent society. Sometimes that outcome can occur.

For public health to work for the public, the public must remain in control of this relationship. Oxpeckers, the birds that hitch a ride on rhinoceroses, have a useful symbiotic relationship with their host. They remove skin parasites from awkward crevices, providing the rhinoceros with a healthier skin and fewer irritating itches. If they pecked out the eyes of the host, they would cease to be of benefit, and become a marauding parasite.

For a while, the oxpecker may gain more for themselves, feasting on the rhino’s softer parts. Eventually their host will succumb as a blind rhinoceros, unless confined to a zoo, cannot sustain its being. But the oxpecker, if overcome by greed, may not have thought that far ahead.

To remain in charge and manage public health for mutual benefit, the public must be told the truth. But in a problem-solving industry where solved problems no longer require work, truth-telling risks job security.

This is where the symbiotic relationship of public health is prone to become parasitic. If one is paid to address a particular health issue, and the issue is resolved through good management or a changing risk environment, there is a clear and urgent need to justify continuation of salary.

On a larger scale, whole public health bureaucracies have an incentive to find more issues that ‘must’ be addressed, make new rules that must then be enforced, and identify more risks to investigate. New international public health bodies keep emerging and growing, but they don’t close down. People rarely choose redundancy and unemployment.

This is where the public health industry has a real advantage. In nature, parasites usually must concentrate on just one host to survive, adapting to maximize their gains. A hookworm is designed specifically to survive in its host’s gut. The host, however, has a whole variety of parasites, illnesses, and other pressing concerns to deal with. A host must therefore ignore the hookworm as long as it does not pose an obvious immediate threat. The worm needs to milk the host of blood whilst seeming relatively innocuous.

A really smart hookworm would find a way to trick the host into thinking it beneficial – perhaps by promoting the benefits of Medieval practices such as bloodletting, as we have seen with masks and curfews through the recent Covid response. The global health industry can use this approach by building a story that will benefit them, plausible enough to the public to pass rudimentary scrutiny. If it sounds sufficiently specialized, it will dissuade deeper examination.

In the current rendering of this ploy, the public faces an ever-growing threat of pandemics that will devastate society if we in the public health industry are not given more money. They are given a story of urgency, and shielded from the historical and scientific realities that would undermine it.

International public health organizations solely concentrated on addressing pandemics already exist, such as CEPI, inaugurated by the Gates Foundation, Norway and Wellcome Trust at the World Economic Forum in 2017, and the new Financial Intermediary Fund for pandemics of the World Bank. Others such as Gavi, and increasingly the WHO and Unicef, focus heavily on this area. Many of their sponsors, including large pharmaceutical companies and their investors, stand to gain very large profits off the back of this gravy train.

The average taxpayer, dealing with inflation, family life, jobs and myriad other priorities can hardly be expected to delve into the veracity of what ‘experts’ say in some far distant place. They must trust that a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship is still in place. They hope that the public health industry will do the right thing; that it is still on their side. Sadly, it is not.

White papers on pandemic preparedness don’t have detailed cost-benefit analyses, just as these were not provided for Covid lockdowns, school closures or mass vaccination. Cursory calculations suggest poor overall benefit, so they have been avoided. We now see this playing out through declining economies, rising poverty and inequality. Diverting billions of dollars annually to hypothetical pandemics will add to this burden. Yet this is being done, and the public is acquiescing to this use of their increasingly hard-earned taxes.

A dead rhinoceros will not support many oxpeckers, and a hookworm will not survive bleeding its host to death. A public health industry that impoverishes its funding base and harms society through ill-advised policies will eventually be caught up in the outcome. But the short-term gains from parasitism are attractive and humans don’t seem to have the instincts (or intelligence) that keep the oxpecker in healthy symbiosis.

Thus, the public health industry will probably continue its current trajectory, increasing inequality and poverty, comfortably on the receiving end of the wealth redistribution it promotes. The money requested for pandemic preparedness will be paid, because the people deciding whether to use your taxes are essentially the same people asking for them.

They run the international financial and health sector and they all meet at their private club called the World Economic Forum. Their sponsors now have more than enough spare cash swirling around to keep needy politicians and media on board.

Those working within the industry know what they are doing – at least those who pause long enough to think. This abuse will continue until the host, the parasitized, realizes that the symbiotic relationship they had been banking on is a fallacy, and they have been duped.

There are ways to deal with parasites that are not good for the parasite. A really smart public health industry would adopt a more measured approach and ensure their policies benefit the public more than themselves. But that would also require a moral code and some courage.

David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.

December 17, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Damage to Ukrainian civilian infrastructure self-inflicted – Russia

RT | December 17, 2022

Mistakes made by the Ukrainian forces in their attempt to repel a Russian missile strike on Friday led to damage to civilian infrastructure, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Earlier, Kiev had blamed the Russian forces for hitting residential apartments in the strike and killing four people, including a toddler.

“Unprofessional actions of the Ukrainian air defense units resulted in damage to civilian infrastructure on the ground,” the ministry said, without providing any further details.

Earlier, the governor of the Ukrainian Dnepropetrovsk Region, Valentin Reznichenko, said that four civilians had died in Krivoy Rog in Friday’s strike, including a one-year-old boy. A total of 13 people were injured, including four children, he added. According to Reznichenko, it was a Russian missile that supposedly had hit a residential building, leading to four deaths.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the “high-precision weapon strike” was targeting the Ukrainian military command and administration system as well as the military industrial complex and relevant power-supply networks. The strike had in particular “disrupted foreign weapons and munition transportation” and had “blocked the advancement of the Ukrainian reserves,” the ministry said. The operation of some military industrial facilities was stopped as well, it added.

“The strike’s goal was reached. All the designated targets were hit,” the Russian ministry said. The Ukrainian General Staff said on Saturday that Russia had launched a total of 98 missiles at Ukraine during the massive strike on Friday. It did not elaborate on how many of them were shot down.

On Friday, Ukraine’s state-owned energy giant Ukrenergo declared a state of emergency following the reports of the Russian strikes hitting critical infrastructure. The operator called the situation a “system breakdown,” adding that it had registered a fall in nationwide electricity consumption by more than 50%.

In recent weeks, Russia has ramped up its airstrikes against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, through missile and drone barrages across the country. This followed Kiev’s launch of several sabotage operations against civilian infrastructure in Russia, including the Crimean Bridge truck-bomb attack.

The Russian Defense Ministry had previously said the Russian forces only target military sites in Ukraine. In October, the Russian military started targeting energy facilities that the Defense Ministry believes to be crucial for Ukraine’s military capability. As a result, the Ukrainian energy system has been significantly degraded.

December 17, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Modi ignores West’s sanctions on Russia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | DECEMBER 17, 2022

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday marks a new stage in the bilateral relationship between the two time-tested friends, both contextually and from a long-term perspective.

The media may find it alluring to link Modi’s call to Ukraine developments despite the Indian and Russian readouts (here and here) making it clear that Russian-Indian bilateral relations dominated the conversation. 

Nonetheless, it is very significant that Modi was not deterred by the fact that although this is not an era for wars, the Ukraine conflict in all probability will only escalate, and there is a greater likelihood than ever before that Russia may be compelled to seek a total military victory, as the US is leaving it with no option by doggedly blocking all avenues for a realistic settlement and is furtively climbing the escalation ladder. 

Without doubt, the Biden Administration’s reported decision to deploy Patriot missile in Ukraine is a major escalation. Moscow has warned of “consequences.” Again, Moscow has confirmed that the US planned, masterminded and equipped Ukraine with the military capability to attack deep inside Russian territory — hundreds of kilometres, in fact — including against the base at Engels where Russia’s nuclear-capable strategic bombers are stationed. The two superpowers never before targeted each other’s nuclear assets. 

So, there is no question that Modi’s initiative at this point in time to discuss “the high level of bilateral cooperation that has been developing on the basis of the Russian-Indian privileged strategic partnership,” including in key areas of energy, trade and investments, defence & security cooperation, conveys a huge message in itself.

It quietly underscores a medium and long term perspective on the Russian-Indian relationship that goes far beyond the vicissitudes of the Ukraine conflict. Put differently, India will not allow its long-standing ties with Russia to be held hostage to Western sanctions. 

For India, the reorientation of Russian economic diplomacy toward the Asian region presents huge business opportunities. Who would have thought nine months ago that Russia was going to be the largest supplier of oil to India, leapfrogging Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the US? According to Reuters, India purchased about 40% of all export volumes of Russian Urals grade oil transported by sea in November, when European countries accounted for 25%, Turkey 15% and China 5%.

The figures speak for themselves: in November, while Russia supplied 909,000.4 barrels of crude oil to India per day, the corresponding figures were for Iraq (861,000.4), Saudi Arabia (570,000.9), and the US (405,000.5) Suffice it to say that when Modi upfront listed energy as his talking point with Putin, it reconfirms that India is giving a wide berth to the G7’s hare-brained scheme to impose a price cap on Russian oil exports. 

But all good things have a flip side. As the volume of India-Russia trade shoots up — with Russia emerging as India’s seventh largest trading partner, rising from 25th place — the imbalance in the bilateral trade is also widening, as Moscow prioritises India (and China) as preferred trading partners. 

EAM Jaishankar’s recent Moscow visit focused on a list of 500 items that Russia would be keen to source from India. Importantly, this is also about a supply chain for the Russian industry / economy. Jaishankar reportedly gave an interim reply of India’s readiness to start supplying spare parts necessary for airplanes, cars and trains.

Some Russian experts have talked about India as a potentially significant “trans-shipment” state for Russia’s “parallel imports” — that is, Russia can buy not only Indian goods from India but also products from third countries.

Meanwhile, turning away from the European market, Russia also seeks business opportunities for its export basket that includes mineral products, precious metals and products made from them, aluminium and other non-ferrous metals, electric machines, vehicles, pharmaceutical, chemical, rubber products, etc. 

Clearly, there are systemic issues to be addressed such as transportation logistics; payment mechanism, collateral sanctions. However, for the near term, all eyes are on the Russian oil exports to India in the time of the G7 price cap. 

The Russian government daily Rossyiskaya Gazeta reported on Tuesday, “It is expected that Russia, in response to the price ceiling, will adopt an official ban on selling oil under contracts where the “ceiling” will be mentioned or the marginal price for our oil will be indicated.” That is, Moscow will insist on an embargo on supplies basically restricted to the G7 and Australia. 

China and India are not affected, as they haven’t joined the price cap. The following excerpts from the Moscow daily outlines the state of play:

“There are no real mechanisms that could enforce these [G7] restrictions… already, about a third of Russian oil exports leave Russian ports without indicating the final destination. That is, a so-called “grey trade zone” is growing before our eyes, which allows traders to purchase Russian raw materials without the risk of falling under secondary sanctions… discount [ie., fair prices] allows the Asia-Pacific countries, primarily China and India, to increase purchases of Russian raw materials.” 

The fascinating part is that not only is the so-called “grey zone” expanding steadily but alongside, other suppliers have begun to adjust to the prices of Russian oil in the Asia-Pacific region — that is, to the real equilibrium prices or discounted prices. Curiously, even Western countries are in a position to receive relatively inexpensive Russian oil through third parties.

The bottom line is that the Biden administration’s goal was not to limit the volume of Russian oil exports but focused on the revenues of the Russian budget from oil production and the world oil market. Rissyiskaya Gazeta concludes: “In fact, so far what is happening does not contradict either our aspirations or the desires of the United States.” [See my article Race for Russian oil begins, The Tribune, Nov. 28, 2022]

This new-found pragmatism in the US calculus about the limits to sanctions took a curious turn on Thursday when the US blacklisted the Russian billionaire-oligarch Vladimir Potanin but exempted two of his biggest assets from the purview of sanctions — MMC Norilsk Nickel and Tinkoff Bank — on the specious ground that his holdings are less than 50% in these two companies [but are only 35%!]   

Why so? Because, MMC’s share in the world market of high-grade nickel is 17%, palladium 38%, platinum 10%, rhodium 7%, copper and cobalt 2% each; and, sanctioning the Russian company could sharply aggravate the world market for non-ferrous metals and can hurt US manufacturers. 

Clearly, the law of diminishing returns is at work in the continued weaponisation of sanctions against Russia. Indian business and industry should pay close attention to Modi’s far-sighted initiative on Friday.

December 17, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

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