By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 21.11.2022
It is said not in vain that one man’s problem is another man’s opportunity. And the military action in Ukraine against Russia, unleashed by the US and NATO, has clearly demonstrated this. Every day there is more and more evidence to show what huge dividends the US tycoons are reaping from the policies that the current President Joe Biden is pursuing for their benefit alone. Suffice it to say that Washington has already made tens of billions of dollars from the military actions it has unleashed in Ukraine. Not to mention the distraction from US domestic issues in financial, economic and politico-racial fields, that the White House is using against this backdrop.
The US instigated this armed conflict, a conclusion that most political analysts are now coming to. Its aim is to force Europe to submit to US sanctions against Russia and stop buying cheap Russian natural gas. Washington can now sell huge quantities of liquefied gas to Europe at its own prices, and there is no price cap on US hydrocarbons, unlike Russian hydrocarbons, and it is unlikely there will be one. Europe’s economy has suffered a blow, and vast wealth has migrated from Europe to the US, allowing US leaders to maintain their dominant position in the EU.
Ensuring control over Europe is a major strategic imperative for the US. Since the EU has a population of 450 million, while the US population is only 330 million, and their economies are comparable in size, the EU is theoretically in a position to break free from the US and assert itself as an equal or greater superpower on the world stage. A truly independent Europe would prefer to make mutually beneficial trade deals with Russia, China and the rest of Eurasia, pushing back the US and ending US imperial domination of the planet.
It is only natural that the US does not want this to happen. By implementing its divide-and-conquer strategy, Washington is preventing Europe from achieving the cohesion and economic strength that would enable it to free itself from the US occupation that has persisted since after the World War II. Inflation in Germany reached double digits in October for the first time since 1990. Italy is also experiencing the highest inflation in 40 years. The rest of the Eurozone is also suffering. The source of the European crisis is the rise in energy prices caused by US sanctions against Russia. Businesses that produce goods and services have to pay more for energy, and they pass the costs on to consumers. Now most of the extra money paid for what has become ultra-expensive energy goes straight into US coffers. This is the main reason why the euro is falling against the dollar. Furthermore, the dollar has historically been strong in times of panic or uncertainty, and the US has a habit of deliberately provoking panic and uncertainty by organizing wars and crises, of which there have been many examples.
The EU is not an ally of the US, but a coalition of vassal states that have been under US military and economic occupation since the end of World War II. The US committed a holocaust against Germany during and immediately after that war, bombing entire cities where only civilians lived, starving millions of German prisoners of war and civilians during the first few years of the occupation. The mainstream media and academia, owned by the Americans and their satellites, fabricated a story of a mythical World War II victor that essentially turned reality upside down and portrayed the US as a generous rebuilder of Germany through the Marshall Plan. But the reality is that the Marshall Plan was only implemented after the Morgenthau Plan to kill millions of Germans had done its bloody work.
The US is far from being a generous ally. Instead, it has always been and remains a selfish occupier of Europe. The current US-induced destruction of Europe, based on depriving EU countries of cheap energy in order to damage them economically and subjugate them politically, could be called the new Morgenthau Plan. Nevertheless, the United States may have to provide aid packages or loans to help the EU escape hunger and frost this winter. If this happens, the motives will not be altruistic. Instead, Washington will seek to prevent Europeans from overthrowing the US occupation and exercising control over their own destiny.
Before the hostilities unleashed by the US in Ukraine, Russia provided the lion’s share of Europe’s cheap energy imports. However, by artificially supporting the armed conflict, which is now in its ninth month, Washington has broken this partnership, and gas is no longer flowing through Nord Stream. Businesses across Europe are not just limiting their energy consumption. They are shrinking or moving to other continents. Europe, according to economists, may well be on the way to de-industrialization. Eurozone industrial activity fell to its lowest since May 2020. The October PMI from S&P Global signaled a looming recession, falling in November and becoming the fourth monthly reading below 50, indicating an economic slowdown. In its latest analysis of the energy crisis in Europe, published on November 3, the IEA said the EU could face a shortfall of up to 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas during the summer of next year to replenish its gas storage capacity.
In a report entitled “Never Too Early to Prepare for Next Winter: Europe’s Gas Balance for 2023-2024” the IEA warns that the safety cushion provided by current storage levels, as well as recent lower gas prices and unusually mild temperatures, should not lead to unduly optimistic conclusions about the future. A look at the IEA report shows that the European Union will face a major challenge in meeting its energy needs in the coming years. Given the high costs of transporting gas over long distances, Russia could still make a significant contribution to solving this problem. With the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, Russia could provide Europe with the energy it desperately needs if it were not for persistent US sanctions. Unlike oil, natural gas is difficult to transport in large volumes and is therefore exported either by pipeline or by conversion into liquefied natural gas (LNG), but this is expensive and requires large investments. Russia does not currently have the infrastructure to export large volumes of LNG to Europe. Given current experience and looking to the future, European governments should clearly see the huge negative impact that sanctions against Russia have had and will have on global energy security. More should therefore be done to help curb US self-serving agendas and negotiate a multipolar world.
By constantly unleashing wars, the United States always reaps huge profits and the military-industrial complex comes first, as one would expect. It is not surprising that the US military budget is equal to that of the rest of the world combined. And this is further clear evidence that Washington does not want to live in a world where all contentious issues are resolved at the negotiating table, but aims only at military actions.
But lately, all of a sudden, the energy complex, whose owners are making exorbitant profits from oil and gas supplies, mostly to Europe, has become the most profitable sector in the United States. It is only natural that many people became interested and it was primarily the military who were concerned and who simply “pressed” Joe Biden. And now the US President has suddenly become “interested” in these huge sums and has decided to “clip the wings” of the oil and gas industry by imposing an additional tax on the profits of the owners of the energy complex. The simple conclusion from this is that unleashing Ukraine on Russia will continue at an accelerated pace, and Europe will be completely deprived of Russian gas. Even the gas coming through NATO member, Turkey.
By starting any military conflict, the US is not aiming to win. Above all, it is to destabilize the region so that it cannot be a US competitor for decades to come.
Today, a large proportion of the world’s elite keep their reserves in the EU. Naturally, the US will not completely destroy it. But if US companies gain a foothold and dominate the European market, it will force Europe to become even more involved in the Ukrainian conflict, to abandon Russian oil and gas completely, and it will be a huge prize for Washington to implement a policy of solving all issues only through war.
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 19, 2022
Former White House Press Secretary Jen Paski’s motion to quash the subpoena to depose her in the lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana was denied. The lawsuit alleges that the Biden administration colluded with social media companies to suppress certain viewpoints on Covid and elections.
When she was the White House Press Secretary, Psaki made statements encouraging social media companies to censor more content. At one time, she said, “We engage with (social media companies) regularly and they certainly understand what our asks are.”
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit want her deposed so that she can say who within the government was engaging with social media companies and what they said.
Psaki filed a motion to quash the subpoena in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. She was allowed to file the motion in a different state because that is where she lives. Her lawyers argued that she had little information to give and that most of the information is available through the emails and other documents that were obtained by the plaintiffs. They also argued that the deposition would be a burden to her.
US Magistrate Ivan Davis was not impressed by the arguments, but did not reject her request. Instead he referred the motion back to Louisiana, where the lawsuit was filed, because the judge there is more familiar with the case. Davis also refused to stay his ruling so that the motion could be appealed in a district court in Alexandria.
Davis said that Psaki had failed to demonstrate how being deposed in her home state qualifies as an undue burden. If indeed she has little information to offer, it should not be a burden, the judge argued.
“How much time does it take to prepare a witness for deposition when she doesn’t really have anything to say?” Davis asked.
By Drago Bosnic | November 21, 2022
On November 18, the Polish foreign ministry stated that it will not allow a Russian delegation to attend the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) summit next month. OSCE is one of the most prominent regional security organizations in the world and its stated goal is to establish a viable security framework that would prevent conflicts in Europe and beyond. However, the reality is a bit different from the organization’s publicly altruistic intentions. The Associated Press asked the Polish foreign ministry if Russia would be denied entry to the OSCE’s December conference and Spokesman Lukasz Jasina responded that it would.
Russia, one of the most important members of the organization, as well as a key player in European security, is being denied entry due to politics. The very fact that this is even possible calls into question the purpose of OSCE or any similar organization dominated by the political West. This year, Poland is chairing the 57-nation organization, with the annual ministerial conference scheduled to be held in the city of Lodz on December 1-2. When asked if Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be attending the conference, Jasina responded, “We are not expecting a visit by minister Lavrov to Lodz.”
“Delegations should be adjusted to the current EU regulations and not include persons that are sanctioned by the European Union,” according to an announcement by the Polish OSCE Chairmanship. “…a number of Russian nationals were added to the list of sanctioned individuals, including Minister Lavrov,” it added.
OSCE should be excluded from EU regulations, as the very purpose of the organization is to be a forum for security dialogue between European and other countries and prevent any escalation or spillover of local conflicts. By denying Russia the opportunity to attend the December 1-2 confidence in Lodz, precisely this security dialogue is being prevented, eliminating the need for OSCE altogether. However, in recent months, certain events have led many to believe the organization is hardly a neutral one, as its actions have often been used to aid one side in a particular conflict.
For instance, the war in Donbass, which has been going on for nearly a decade, and which has taken the lives of around 15,000 local men, women and children by early 2022, pushed the role of OSCE into more of a gray area. Its mission in Donbass, which the organization itself claims to be “arms control, promotion of human rights, early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management” failed back in April. In fact, it has continually been failing for over 8 years, as the Kiev regime’s shelling of the people of Donbass never stopped. Worse yet, it turned out that OSCE didn’t just fail to prevent the conflict, but it might have even done certain things to facilitate it.
In a rather disturbing revelation by war correspondent Alexander Sladkov, the organization was using high-resolution cameras, originally placed to conduct ceasefire monitoring, to relay DNR and LNR positions to the Kiev regime forces which then used the provided data to target or correct their artillery fire. The OSCE mission provided their observation data, captured by cameras and other monitoring equipment they installed over the years. In essence, OSCE was spying and effectively waging war on the side of the Neo-Nazi junta. To make matters worse, the provided monitoring data also included the movement of regular Russian military personnel in the early days of the special military operation.
The report was heavily censored by the mainstream propaganda machine, making it virtually impossible for most people in Europe to see how a supposedly impartial international organization effectively became a party to the conflict which could not only undermine security in Europe, but the world as well. To make matters worse, these issues aren’t only limited to the OSCE, but many other apparently “international” organizations, including the United Nations. Back in February, twelve Russian UN diplomats were ordered to leave the US after being accused of being “intelligence operatives engaged in espionage.” The same pretext could be used to expel virtually anyone deemed a “security challenge” by the US, which would affect entire nations or groups of nations the ability to defend their interests at the UN.
The latest G20 summit held in Bali was also a clear indicator that the world is moving away from Western-led “international” organizations. While most members were trying to focus on actual global issues, the G7 members within the G20 were effectively trying to hijack the summit and make it entirely Ukraine-focused, which failed for the most part. All of this is happening at a time when BRICS is expanding across the world, with approximately a dozen major nations showing direct interest in joining the organization. The BRICS+ framework allows countries to maintain their sovereignty while becoming members of the world’s largest truly international organization.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
By Dr. Peter McCullough & John Leake | Courageous Discourse | November 20, 2022
Yesterday I wrote about the FTX scandal, which involves a thirty-year-old living in the Bahamas, usually clad in shorts and flip-flops, who received billions from people all over the world with the promise he would make them rich by investing it in crypto currency. Nobody understood how exactly he was making billions for himself, and he never tried to elucidate it. In spite of no one having the foggiest notion about what he was doing, he was hailed as “this generation’s JP Morgan.”
The sudden fall of Sam Bankman-Fried coincided with the sentencing of former Theranos CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, who was ordered to serve 11 years in prison for defrauding investors of billions. Like Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes—who dropped out of Stanford in 2004 and styled herself after Steve Jobs with the same signature black turtleneck—was hailed as a Wunderkind who’d boldly entered a new frontier in her field.
As was the case with Bankman-Fried’s cryptic crypto exchange, no one understood how Holmes’s blood testing machine worked. She claimed that with just a small pinprick of blood from the finger (instead of the standard 3 ml drawn from a vein on the inside of the elbow) her machine could rapidly and accurately run a large panel of diagnostic tests. The machine was literally and figuratively a black box—purportedly containing proprietary technology that only Theranos engineers were authorized to examine.
To people who’d long worked in the field of blood testing for companies like Siemans, Abbott, and Roche, Holmes’s claims seemed incredible. How could her machine accurately run so many tests on such a tiny quantity of blood? The proposition sounded like magic.
The fact that no one knew anything about the machine didn’t stop investors from pumping billions into the fledgling company, and by 2014, the then thirty-year-old Holmes’s 50% stake was worth $4.5 billion. Were these investors simply naive, or was there something apart from the magic black box that gave them confidence?
Perhaps the most notable thing about Theranos was the attention it drew from the Department of Defense and retired US government eminences including George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, Bill Clinton, and Sam Nunn. All were old Washington hands, and they understood that the US government was considering Holmes’s little black box to be (potentially) a strategic asset with military and civilian applications.
These guys knew from experience that if Uncle Sam gets out his checkbook for what appears to be new product of strategic value, the sums transferred can be astronomical. And why not? Such a market does not consist of picky and finicky consumers, but unaccountable bureaucrats spending taxpayer money with reckless abandon.
In 2015, Holmes’s company became the subject of a Wall Street Journal investigation, and soon her fraudulent empire began to crumble. Three years later (in 2018) she was charged for committing massive acts of fraud.
Facing off against Elizabeth Holmes was the young and heroic whistleblower, Tyler Shultz—grandson of George Shultz—who was a key witness in exposing the fraud. For his principled action, he was shunned by his grandfather and subjected to an intimidation campaign by Theranos officers and their heavy-hitting attorneys. The Wall Street Journal’s report on this component of the story reads like a cinematic thriller.
Just two years after Holmes was charged for fraud, SARS-CoV-2 arrived. At this time, two biotech startups with no history of licensed products—Moderna of Cambridge, Massachusetts and BioNTech of Mainz, Germany—claimed that their experimental mRNA platform could rapidly produce a safe and effective vaccine by simply plugging the SARS-CoV-2 gene sequence into their formula. No long and laborious process of culturing viruses in eggs like conventional flu vaccines—real Star Trek Next Generation stuff.
As was the case with Theranos’s black box, the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines are largely veiled in secrecy. Even the FDA, which is supposed to be an impartial evaluator and adjudicator of product safety, requested 55 years in order to complete a FOIA request for information on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
In other words, We the People were obliged to pay for the mRNA vaccine program (transferring billions of taxpayer money to pharmaceutical executives) and many of us have been forced to receive the injections, but information about the precise nature of these products is not for us to know.
By Norman Fenton | November 13, 2022
Following on from our latest report highlighting multiple anomalies in the most recent ONS covid vaccine mortality surveillance report we have written the following self-explanatory letter to the Statistics Regulator (regulation@statistics.gov.uk):
Dear Sir/Madam,
Since the ONS began producing its covid vaccine mortality surveillance reports in 2021, we have been highlighting various anomalies in their datasets. This includes strong evidence that many of those dying shortly after vaccination were being misclassified as unvaccinated (https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12472.42248) and systematic undercounting of deaths occurring within first two weeks of vaccination (http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12472.42248).
We are especially concerned about the latest ONS dataset (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsbyvaccinationstatusengland) and have produced a detailed analysis which highlights the multiple glaring anomalies in it.
We show that, in addition to further definitive evidence of the misclassification and missing deaths, there is: a) gross underestimation of the population proportion unvaccinated, and b) mortality rates that are both nonsensical in various categories and completely incompatible with historical rates.
We believe that there are multiple violations of your code of practice (https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Code-of-Practice-for-Statistics-REVISED.pdf). In particular, the dataset breaches the Quality and Value criteria numbered: Q 1.1, Q1.4 – 1.7, Q 2.4, Q 2.5, Q 3.2 – 3.5, V 1.1, V 3.2 – 3.3.
All of the anomalies in the dataset introduce bias in favour of analyses supporting vaccine ‘safety and efficacy’. The fact that these data are being used as continued justification for the efficacy and safety of the covid vaccines is therefore now a matter of national concern and scandal. We believe that an investigation into how and why the ONS dataset is so flawed and corrupted is required. In the meantime, we call for
1. the public withdrawal of the ONS dataset and
2. the retraction of any claims made by others that are based upon it.
Yours
Norman Fenton, Martin Neil, Clare Craig and Scott McLachlan
A slightly updated version of our report (with more detailed reference citations than the version on ResearchGate) is here.
Awkward Git’s Newsletter provides e-mail exchanges with the ONS about their vaccine safety u-turn:
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | November 19, 2022
Covid rates are dropping but you want to cling on to these new emergency powers – what to do? If Covid isn’t around, citizens won’t allow these powers to be extended will they?
Well Colorado have shown us the answer.
Governor Jared Polis signed a new Executive Order on 11 November which amended the emergency Covid rules to include Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), influenza and other respiratory illnesses.
The Order says that “Colorado has seen a sharp increase in pediatric RSV infections and hospitalizations, in addition to patients with influenza and COVID-19, over the last two months”.
It then goes on to list the number of hospitalisations and the intensive care capacity. Therefore “if cases continue to increase, we may continue to see bed shortages across all hospital beds in Colorado as our state experiences a rise in COVID, influenza and RSV hospitalizations simultaneously”.
Due to staffing shortages facing hospitals related to COVID-19, RSV, influenza, and other respiratory illness hospitalizations and an associated decrease in capacity, including pediatric intensive care unit capacity, and to allow clinical staff to focus on patient care by reducing staff time associated with completing utilization reviews, I direct the Colorado Division of Insurance, pursuant to authority in C.R.S. §§ 10-1-108(7) and -109, to promulgate emergency regulations to reduce the administrative burdens associated with discharging, transferring, and caring for patients by temporarily suspending those utilization review requirements necessary to protect insured patients, including any or all prior authorization and preauthorization requirements.
And that is how you create a perpetual state of emergency. Add all types of respiratory viruses that you are on the lookout for because every winter hospitals will be full of people with some type of respiratory virus.
I wonder why they waited until after the elections to sign this Order? Strange. Let’s see how quickly other states amend their emergency orders as well. Maybe they should add in rain for the spring and sun for the summer (climate change) just to make sure the emergency lasts all year.
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | November 20, 2022
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) is urging Congress to pass a bill he introduced last year that would ban the use of vaccine passports for future use.
The bill is aimed at protecting Americans from the federal government’s overreach under the guise of responding to the pandemic.
We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.
The bill, called the Vaccine Passport Prevention Act, would, with a few exceptions, prevent the federal, state, and local governments, as well as private entities, from forcing Americans to provide proof of vaccination to access goods and services, and to continue working.
If passed, the legislation would allow people to sue their employers and governments for requiring proof of vaccination against the coronavirus.
The bill would only allow exemptions for schools, medical facilities, and enlisted service members. However, schools would be required to allow vaccination exemptions for medical, religious, and conscience reasons. Medical reasons would include naturally acquired immunity.
“The point of this bill is simple,” said Davidson during the bill’s introduction. “I’m committed to defending freedom. Freedom surrendered is rarely reclaimed, so now is the time to act. Americans have a right to keep their medical decisions private.
“Neither businesses nor governments should compel access to confidential information as a condition of restoring our way of life. Discrimination that separates healthy people from other healthy people based on vaccine status is unconstitutional. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen states deny Americans a republican form of government in the name of public health. Now that the pandemic is over, they are trying to maintain power. Banning vaccine passports has become sadly necessary to thwart these naked power grabs seeking to enable even more control for big government and big business over the lives of individual Americans.”
Related:
How vaccine passports are crushing freedom, privacy, and civil liberties
RT | November 20, 2022
US Vice President Kamala Harris has traveled to the Philippines for a visit designed to demonstrate Washington’s support for Manila and other Southeast Asian allies in their territorial disputes with China.
Harris arrived on Sunday evening to a red-carpet welcome in Manila after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum in Thailand. She’s scheduled to meet with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday for talks on strengthening security and economic ties, then fly on Tuesday to the Palawan island chain, which lies adjacent to disputed waters of the South China Sea.
Harris will become the highest-ranking US official to ever visit Palawan. Her trip marks the latest effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to push back against Beijing’s territorial claims in the Spratly region, where China has dredged the seafloor to create artificial islands featuring airstrips and missile launchers.
Parts of the Spratlys are claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. Washington has also sought to enforce freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which is home to an estimated $5 trillion worth of annual shipping traffic, as well as rich oil and natural gas deposits.
“This visit demonstrates the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to stand with our Philippine ally in upholding the rules-based international maritime order in the South China Sea, supporting maritime livelihoods, and countering illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing,” a senior White House official told reporters in previewing the VP’s trip last week. “The message is that you can count on the United States. We are, we are a friend and a partner.”
Asked what message the administration intended to send to Beijing, the unidentified official said, “China can take the message it wants. The message to the region is that the United States is a member of the Indo-Pacific, we are engaged, we’re committed to the security of our allies in the region.”
Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez agreed, telling the Associated Press : “The message they’re trying to impart to the Chinese is that ‘we support our allies like the Philippines on these disputed islands.’ This visit is a significant step in showing how serious the United States views this situation now.”
Beijing has claimed sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and surrounding waters as falling within its “nine-dash line.” During a visit to Southeast Asia last year, Harris accused China of “coercion” and “intimidation.”
By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 20.11.2022
From reading the previous article, one could get the impression that, against the background of North Korea’s unprecedented missile activity and the likelihood of a seventh nuclear test by Pyongyang, there are growing calls in the US for an end to Pyongyang through sanctions, a pre-emptive strike or the deployment of nuclear weapons on the peninsula. However, the author points to a different trend: voices calling for recognition of the DPRK’s nuclear power status and a review of the policy of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Here are some examples.
On October 26, 2022, ROK Minister of Defense Lee Jong-sup said the focus of efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue should shift from deterring their development to deterring the use of nuclear weapons. “We have put our focus on trying to prevent North Korea from conducting additional nuclear tests and advancing its nuclear capabilities, but it’s time to change our strategy.” Now “the priority should be on deterring the use of nuclear weapons,” giving the North Koreans an understanding that if the DPRK attempts to use nuclear weapons, it will result in the termination of the North Korean regime.
In a similar vein, ruling party chief Chung Jin-suk said, “We have entered a completely new phase in North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. We need to reexamine our entire response system to the North’s nuclear threats… We should also have an overpowering defense system so local provocations do not evolve into a full scale war.” Conservative MP Han Ki-ho, who heads the DPRK Threat Response Committee, also noted that “denuclearization policies we have pushed for until now have failed.”
Although South Korean conservatives speak not of negotiation but of a forceful response to force, such deterrence is also a form of control. But far more important is the opinion of US officials. At the 2022 Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington, US Deputy Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Bonnie Jenkins said that if Pyongyang is willing to return to engagement, an arms control treaty could eventually be worked on. Jenkins added that the US and North Korea may have different interpretations of “arms control” and “nuclear disarmament,” which have complicated related discussions and proved to be serious obstacles during the Trump era engagement, but “building a foundation by defining a goal” would be the starting point of any potential negotiations, which she said would take time.
It should be noted that this is not the last US government official to speak out, but the basic official position is still the same. In response to a question about Jenkins’ remarks on October 31, US Department of State Spokesman Ned Price said that “there has been no change to US policy. Our DPRK policy remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The United States does not and will not recognize North Korea as a nuclear state: “That is not our policy. I do not foresee that ever becoming a policy”.
The US and South Korean experts and retirees are more outspoken. As former Minister of Unification under the Moon Jae-in administration Jong Se-hyun told The Korea Times, “after the midterm elections, the US will have no options but to start arms control talks with North Korea based on the North’s commitment to the non-proliferation of its nuclear weapons”.
As former US special envoy for talks with North Korea Joseph DeTrani points out, North Korea has no intention of getting rid of its nuclear weapons in exchange for economic incentives or normalization of diplomatic relations, so offering Pyongyang such “carrots” in exchange for disarmament will not work. According to DeTrani, North Korea wants to be accepted as a nuclear state like Pakistan, while stressing that its nuclear program is for deterrence and will not be used for offensive purposes. The US, on the other hand, has openly said that it does not accept the DPRK as a nuclear state, as this would lead to a nuclear arms race in the region and create opportunities for nuclear proliferation, fissile material falling into the hands of a rogue state or terrorist groups.
Robert Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National University, also believes that persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear program will not be easy, while Seoul has no options. The only thing that can be achieved is arms control: “we might get some constraints, maybe we’ll get some inspectors to get the North Koreans to cap it at like 200 strategic missiles and warheads or something like that, but they’re never going to go to zero.”
Soo Kim, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, thinks the US, like South Korea, is running out of options “because there just aren’t that many creative ideas to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table, and to actually convince Kim Jong-un to give up some aspect of his nuclear program.”
Kim Jong-dae, a former South Korean defense official and visiting professor at Yonsei University, also thinks that complete denuclearization of the North is something that cannot be achieved at all and developing discussions with North Korea in terms of arms control is a very realistic idea.
A recent Bloomberg article states that the policy of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, pursued in recent decades, has failed. The US and its allies must accept the DPRK’s status as a nuclear power and learn to operate in the new environment. Criticism has also been levelled at anti-North Korean sanctions, which have had no effect other than to create food shortages for millions of North Koreans.
Earlier, Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear non-proliferation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, spoke of the need to recognize North Korea’s nuclear status in the interest of easing tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Journalist Donald Kirk, who specializes in East Asia, also wrote that hopes of talks with Kim Jong-un on the nuclear issue were a fantasy. He called for a focus on strengthening defense capabilities, describing the North’s adoption of a nuclear doctrine at the legislative level as a real threat.
Statements of this kind are based not only on an assessment of the DPRK’s military capabilities, but also on public opinion: the proportion of those who consider the DPRK’s threat serious is declining in the US, while the number of supporters of a constructive solution is rising.
In August-September 2022, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs conducted an opinion poll on how important certain foreign policy issues seem to the average American. It was found that only 52% of Americans believe that North Korea’s nuclear program poses a “serious threat” to the United States (compared to 75% in 2017 and 59% in 2021). There is a split on “what should be done to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons,” with 46% of respondents believing that the US should establish formal diplomatic relations with the DPRK, while 31% are of the opinion that the US should use military force under favorable conditions.
Commenting on the poll results, experts from the Chicago Council noted that the DPRK issue is currently overshadowed in American consciousness by events in Ukraine, as well as economic problems. As a result, North Korean issues have been put on the backburner in Biden’s policy.
On September 22, the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University released the results of a poll showing that 92.5% of respondents are convinced that North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons, which is the highest score ever. 55.5% were in favor of Seoul possessing its own nuclear weapons, the highest score on record as well. Compared to last year, there was a 10% increase.
It should be noted that the “arms control treaty” is what Pyongyang has demanded in past years. However, negotiating arms control is not an easy process for the US, as it would mean recognizing the North as a nuclear state and thus fundamentally changing US policy towards the DPRK, because Washington has always maintained that North Korea’s nuclear program is illegal and subject to United Nations sanctions.
Nevertheless, Russian experts, such as Aleksandr Zhebin, have repeatedly stressed that the West should accept reality and move on from talks on denuclearization to talks on arms control, given that the DPRK positions itself as a responsible state that adheres to the doctrine of nuclear non-proliferation. All attempts to find evidence of nuclear smuggling and/or technology (which was actively sought for the sake of the new stranglehold) were unsuccessful.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, is a leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences.
By Eric Striker | The Main Street Tribune | November 19, 2022
Portland Prosecutors, the Anti-Defamation League and the Anarchist Violent Extremist organization Rose City Antifa colluded to indict an innocent white man of murder, recently leaked grand jury documents show.
On July 29th, a white man named Jascha Manny was working as a doorman at Mary’s Club, a strip club in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood.
During his shift, he witnessed a group of black men threatening a couple of homeless people. The aggressors were also shining a high-powered strobe light into the eyes of the random indigent citizens.
As the encounter escalated, Manny rushed to confront the bullies in hopes that they would leave the people alone.
It was then that 19-year-old Lauren Teyshawn Abbott Jr pulled out a firearm and began shooting at Manny. The bouncer responded by returning fire, killing Abott and injuring his associate, 23-year-old Kolby Ross.
The entire incident was caught on video from multiple angles and witnesses supported Manny’s testimony, but thanks in part to the ADL’s intervention, left-wing District Attorney Mike Schmidt called a grand jury in August in an attempt to indict him for murder and assault.
During the proceedings, prosecutors centered their argument for criminal charges on prejudicial information secretly provided to them by the ADL’s “Center on Extremism,” which asserted that Manny had pro-white political beliefs.
The Jewish group, which works closely with local law enforcement and the FBI, had laundered this specious information from Rose City Antifa, a domestic extremist group that openly avows violence and was actively involved in organizing Portland’s brutal 2020 riots.
There was never any evidence that Manny was motivated by race when he decided to return fire against the blacks shooting at him. The goal of the ADL’s intervention in this case appears to have been to offend the assumed political sensibilities of jurors into indicting an innocent man.
According to local news reports, the grand jury was shown images and writings demonstrating Manny’s alleged political ideology, but after seeing mounds of exculpatory evidence, they declined to indict.
This vindication did not change the minds of left-wing activists. In response to DA Schmidt’s statement that his hands are tied, various anarchist, Jewish and liberal groups have joined forces to organize a pressure campaign to have Manny charged with hate crimes, not for his actions, but for his beliefs.
Samizdat – 20.11.2022
Ukrainian troops subjected the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (NPP) to massive artillery shelling, damaging strategic facilities, an adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, told Sputnik on Sunday.
“The Ukrainian military launched a massive strike directly at the station. Twelve rockets were fired. It is known that six of them hit the cooling system of reactors, two — hit the dry cask storage [of radioactive waste]. The consequences of the shelling cannot be determined yet since the risk of repeated attacks remains,” Renat Karchaa said.
None of the Zaporozhye NPP personnel were injured, according to Karchaa.
Located on the left bank of the Dnieper River, the Zaporozhye NPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe by number of units and output. During the military operation in Ukraine, launched by Russia on February 24, the nuclear plant and surrounding area went under the control of Russian forces and have since been shelled many times. Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the attacks.
An international mission led by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi visited the plant from August 31 to September 5. IAEA observers have since been staying at the plant on a rotational basis. Following the visit by the mission, the IAEA published a report in which it confirmed the shelling of the ZNPP.
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
This is what happens when you demand speedy production in an era of politicized regulation
By Meryl Nass, MD | February 12, 2022
All these tragedies have been due to failures of testing or failures in manufacturing processes. Most occurred before vaccine manufacturers were given virtually complete protection from liability in 1987.
With the duration of patent exclusivity determining how much new products earn, products are rushed to market as quickly as possible, most using a shortened path for FDA review. Recalls and market removals of approved products are much more common than they used to be. We can only expect more of these disasters in the future, especially if the products are mandated for everyone. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
