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Russia won’t congratulate CIA on its diamond jubilee

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 

In the Russian journal Natsionalnaya Oborona (National Defence), the chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence Sergey Naryshkin has written a riveting essay on the 75th anniversary of the Central Intelligence Agency, which falls on Sunday. It is an unusual gesture, especially in the middle of the hybrid war in Ukraine. 

Probably, it serves a purpose? Most certainly, it serves to remind the Russian people and foreigners alike that nothing has been forgotten, nothing forgiven. 

The title of the essay — 75 candles on the CIA Cake — is somewhat misleading, as Naryshkin’s concluding remark is that “Anniversary congratulations and wishes there will not be. As there can be no compromise in assessing its (CIA’s) role in history and ‘merits’ to humanity.” 

Naryshkin’s essay will be closely studied by the western intelligence  for any “clues.” Indeed, what is he messaging? Naryshkin and President Vladimir Putin go back some 40 years. Naryshkin had just graduated from one of Moscow’s most prestigious institutions, the Felix Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB and  Putin was already working in the foreign intelligence department of the Leningrad KGB when they bumped into each other in the corridors of the Big House (as KGB’s regional headquarters in Leningrad was known).

Unsurprisingly, Naryshkin writes about the CIA with an easy familiarity. As he put it, “The CIA was created at the beginning of the Cold War era in order to conduct intelligence activities around the world as a tool to counteract the existence and strengthen the role of the USSR in the world, the formation of a bloc of socialist states, and the rise of the national liberation movement in Africa, Asia, and South America.” 

Funnily enough, nonetheless, the CIA began with a colossal intelligence failure when it predicted on 20th September 1949 that the first Soviet atomic bomb would appear in mid-1953, when, actually, 22 days before the publication of that forecast, the Soviet Union had already conducted its first test of a nuclear device.  

The CIA was once again clueless when Putin announced in March 2018 in an address to the Russian Parliament that Russia had developed a new hypersonic missile system, which “will be practically invulnerable.” US officials and analysts were taken aback. The CIA has a history of getting Russia all wrong, including about the collapse of the Soviet Union.  

But the CIA had its successes too — for example,  the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1951 after his move to nationalise Iranian oil fields. By the 1950s, CIA already turned into a “multi-disciplinary monster” when besides traditional intelligence activities, it was also “tasked with tracking and suppressing any political, economic, military processes in all parts of the planet that could threaten the world hegemony of the United States and its allies.” Naryshkin gives credit to Allen Dulles for this metamorphosis. Dulles introduced “aggressiveness and lack of morality into the activities” of the CIA. He was just the man to do so, having been station chief of the OSS (CIA’s predecessor) in Bern in 1942-1945, who had clandestine dealings with the Nazis behind the back of the US’ Soviet ally. 

Naryshkin takes us through the chronicle of CIA’s “coups d’etat, direct military interventions, provocations of all kinds, assassinations of objectionable politicians, terror, sabotage, bribery” and all that cloak and dagger stuff, which prompted President Lyndon Johnson’s famous condemnation of the agency as the “damn murder corporation.” Like in Banquo’s ghost scene at Macbeth’s banquet table in Shakespeare’s play, the victims appear — Patrice Lumumba, Salvador Allende …

There are chilling references to the CIA’s practice of using cancer spreading technology to eliminate “objectionable” Latin American leaders — Argentina’s Kirchner (thyroid cancer), Paraguay’s Lugo (lymphoma), Brazil’s Lula da Silva (laryngeal cancer) and D. Dilma Rousseff (lymphoma) — and, of course, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez (tracheal cancer). According to Naryshkin, “In 1955, the CIA attempted to eliminate Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who was perceived by the Americans as “a maniacal fanatic seeking to take over the world,” but failed miserably. Agents blew up the plane on which Zhou was supposed to fly to a conference of Asian and African leaders in Indonesia.” Thereupon, Dulles developed a plan to poison Zhou but gave up fearing that CIA’s involvement might get exposed!

A US Senate commission in 1975 uncovered and confirmed CIA involvement in contract killings and coup d’état. It counted 8 cases of assassination attempts by CIA agents and mercenaries on Fidel Castro during 1960-1965 alone. Havana later revealed the full tally — from 1959 through 1990, CIA planned 634 assassination attempts on Fidel. To quote Naryshkin, “With maniacal persistence, the CIA officers developed simply exotic ways to eliminate the Comandante. They tried to kill him with the help of suicide pilots, paratrooper agents, recruited agents from the inner circle, shelling cars and yachts from ships, boats and subversive saboteurs, with the help of scuba gear with a tubercle bacillus brought there, poisoned cigars, poisonous pills for food and much more.”

“The CIA used every opportunity to inflict maximum damage on the Soviet Union, including economic damage. CIA director W. Casey personally addressed the king of Saudi Arabia and persuaded him to sharply increase oil production, which caused world prices for the most important export resources for the USSR to fall by almost three times. For the budget of the Soviet Union, this was a huge loss, which seriously influenced further political events in the USSR.” 

Naryshkin throws some riveting insights into the saga of Ukraine in the 1948-1949 period when the CIA “actively used the experience of Hitler’s special services for launching subversive work against the USSR with recruits in the camps of displaced East Europeans who included quarter of a million Ukrainians. “Almost all the leaders and top functionaries of the Ukrainian nationalists were in one way or another bound by cooperation with the Nazis and therefore were completely controlled” by the CIA and British intelligence. In November 1950, the head of the CIA’s Policy Coordination Office, Frank Wisner bragged that CIA was capable of deploying up to 100,000 Ukrainian nationalists in case of a war with the Soviet Union. 

The U2 incident — shooting down the CIA spy plane — in the Urals on May 1, 1960 was a dramatic incident when Washington accused the USSR of destroying a scientific aircraft and a pilot-scientist, but was profoundly embarrassed when Moscow presented not only the wreckage of the aircraft and spy equipment to the media, “but also the living pilot Francis Gary Powers, who frankly told what he was doing in the sky over the USSR and on whose instructions.”

On the other hand, the masterstroke of a South Korean Boeing entering  Soviet airspace and getting shot down in 1983 provided just the “propaganda basis” for President Reagan “to announce another ‘crusade against communism.’ The policy of detente was thrown aside, and a new round of the arms race began.”  

Naryshkin’s final reflection is calm and collected with no trace of hyperbole: “Evaluation of the effectiveness of any special service is always relative. The US Central Intelligence Agency, entering its 76th year of existence, has been and remains a zealous executor of the will of the ruling circles of its country. Despite the significant changes taking place, they continue to imagine themselves as the only hegemon in the unipolar world. The organisation is intelligence, based on its name, but with a sensitive focus on conducting subversive actions against sovereign states.” 

To Indians, CIA has become a benign creature, no longer feared. Having links with the CIA carries no stigma among Indian elites. They regard “CIA phobia”  as a legacy of the Indira Gandhi era. And they thrive as mainstream columnists, think tankers and opinion makers. Naryshkin’s essay is a sobering reminder that history has not ended — and it never will. 

The essay (in Russian) is here. 

September 17, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The first German district blackout simulation: 400 dead in 96 hours

Free West Media | September 14, 2022

Germany’s municipalities are getting serious and preparing for the concrete consequences of a widespread power blackout. The Hessian Rheingau-Taunus district is the first of 401 German districts and urban districts to have a specialist company in Berlin examine and simulate what threatens in the event of a blackout in order to be prepared for the increasingly likely eventuality.

According to this, 400 deaths could be expected within 96 hours. After 24 hours, livestock would die, substations would fail, and water tanks would run dry. Then there would be looting, fires and economic damage in the hundreds of millions. Unlike Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, district fire inspector Christian Rossel currently considers the risk of a blackout to be much more likely than a lack of gas, which would not have such dramatic consequences, even if one were not preparing for it.

Authorities admit danger is real

The blackout, a widespread power failure, is sadly no longer a horror fairy tale of sinister conspiracy theorists as authorities now consider the danger to be real (but conceal the fact that it is home-made and a consequence of their own catastrophic policies).

The German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB) sounded the alarm and warned of a possible overload of the German power grid. Even worse: cities and municipalities are not remotely prepared for such a scenario.

“There is a risk of a blackout,” said DStGB chief executive Gerd Landsberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag that realistic scenarios are both hacker attacks and “an overload of the power grid – for example, if the 650 000 fan heaters sold this year are connected to the grid if the gas supply fails”. In this case, Landsberg expressly does not want to rule out widespread power failures.

The head of the DStGB is even clearer: the federal government has recognized the situation, but is not responding as it should. Every citizen must be aware of what happens when there is no electricity: “Then there is no water, you can’t fill up, after two days you can’t charge your cell phone. We are in no way prepared for such a scenario!”.

The “blackout” would only be a particularly drastic scenario. Less drastic scenarios such as electricity or gas shortages have long been casting their shadows. An umbrella organization for independent welfare in Germany based in Berlin, the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband recently warned that, as a result of the exploding energy costs, “the livelihoods of social institutions and services are threatened to an unprecedented extent”.

Retirement and nursing homes, for example, are coming under pressure due to the rapidly increasing costs. The Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services (BPA) predicted that “this crisis will cost some providers their existence because the burdens from rising energy costs, general inflation and the omnipresent shortage of skilled workers can no longer be borne”. And all this is just the beginning, according to Bloomberg. The federal government’s €65 billion financial aid package will not be able to prevent the impending recession.

Commerzbank economist Jörg Krämer meanwhile warned that the announced steps only “create the illusion that large parts of the population can be protected from the consequences of rising energy prices”.

What happens if the lights go out?

In the event of a widespread power failure, nothing works anymore. Internet, landline telephony and heating systems would fail first, followed closely by mobile communications and digital radio. Gas stations would run out of petrol, electronic money and payment systems would fail, food could no longer be cooled. Clinics, care facilities and water suppliers and disposal companies depend on their respective equipment to outlast the blackout. Rossel made it clear that the district could not ensure the power supply. Like Landsberg, he advised citizens to stock up on food and drinking water for 14 days.

The district will ensure that administration and civil protection work so that emergency aid can be coordinated. For this, the “equipment security” has to ensure electricity for servers and satellite-supported communication systems for the crisis management teams. The current emergency generator can run continuously for 16 hours. However, since the police, fire brigades and rescue workers would also need several 10 000 liters per day, negotiations are being held with heating oil suppliers.

All of these scenarios show a country that is on the brink of complete collapse in an emergency due to ideology-driven politics and decades of neglect of important infrastructure. … Full article

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Ukraine sliding into a real war

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | SEPTEMBER 14, 2022 

A recurring feature of the Cold War was that the United States almost always placed great store on the optics of a Soviet-American affair while Moscow chose to concentrate on the end result. The Cuban Missile Crisis is the best known example where the denouement was about the publicised abandonment of the planned Soviet deployment of missiles in Cuba and a US public declaration and agreement not to invade Cuba again. But it later came to be known that there was also  an unpublicised part, namely, the dismantling of all of the Jupiter ballistic missiles that had been deployed to Turkey.  

The behavioural pattern remains the same in Ukraine. Per the western narrative, Russia is staring at the abyss of defeat amidst the “rout” in the Kharkov Region. Interestingly, though, at the responsible levels in the Beltway, there is noticeable reticence about beating the drums presumably because of their awareness that the Ukrainian forces simply re-entered the Balakleysko-Izyum direction to occupy areas that Russians had planned to vacate. 

Moscow is once again leaving the optics almost entirely to the American journalists while Moscow concentrates on the end result, which has had three dimensions: one, complete the ongoing evacuation from the Balakleysko-Izyum direction without loss of lives; two, exploit the Ukrainian troop movements to target the forces that came out into the open from well-fortified positions in the Kharkov Region; and, three, concentrate on the campaign in Donetsk. 

The last part is becoming very sensitive for Moscow, as a significant section of Russian “war correspondents” carried sensational reports that it is apocalypse now. Even senior politicians such as Gennady Zyuganov, General Secretary of the Communist Party, and a powerful voice in the State Duma, feels agitated. 

Zyuganov said at the first plenary meeting of the Russian State Duma’s fall session on Tuesday that the “special operation”  has grown into a full-fledged war and the situation on the front has “changed drastically” in the past couple of months.  

A fragment of the speech, posted in the Communist Party’s website also quoted Zyuganov as saying that “every war requires a response. First and foremost, it requires maximum mobilisation of forces and resources. It demands social cohesion and clear prioritisation.”

Although intended as constructive criticism, Zyuganov’s advice will almost certainly be passed over by the Kremlin. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has responded with alacrity, saying, “At this moment — no, it (full or partial mobilisation) is not on the agenda.” 

President Putin’s support base remains as strong as ever. The recent Russian regional and local elections partly turned into a “referendum” on the Ukraine situation. And the fact that the ruling party received one of the best results in its history by winning about 80 percent of the mandates in regional and local parliaments shows a resounding vote of confidence in Putin’s  leadership. 

That said, the “angry patriots” pose a headache. That is why the latest situation around Bakhmut in Donetsk assumes particular significance. Bakhmut is undoubtedly the lynchpin of the entire fortification that Kiev erected in Donbass in the past 8 years. It is a strategic communication junction with roads in many directions —  Lysychansk, Horlivka, Kostiantynivka, and Kramatorsk — and control of the city is vital for establishing full supremacy over the Donetsk Region.

The Russian troops and allied militia groups have been trying since August 3 to break into the Ukrainian defences in the Bakhmut-Soledar direction but with patchy success. Now come reports that the Russians have entered Bakhmut city and taken control of the industrial zone in the northeastern parts. 

Some reports say the Russian military contractors known as the Wagner Group have been deployed in Bakhmut. These are highly trained ex-military personnel. 

The stakes are exceedingly high. For Kiev, the entire logistics of the operations in Donetsk can unravel if it loses control of Bakhmut. As for the Russians, the breakthrough in the Bakhmut-Soledar direction will clear the main hurdle for the crucial offensive toward the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk axis to the west, the last conglomeration of Ukrainian forces in Donetsk. Bakhmut is only 50 kms from Slavyansk-Kramatorsk. 

Speaking about the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” last weekend to National Public Radio, General Mark Milley, US chairman, Chiefs of Staff, had made some interesting points:  

  • Ukraine has amassed a good amount of combat power. How they use that will now be the determining factor. Things will clarify “in the coming days and weeks.”
  • The Ukrainian military so far fought extraordinarily well in defence. Defence has always been the stronger form of war. 
  • Ukraine is now moving into offensive operations where it is critical to integrate fire power into their maneuver in order to achieve superiority. 
  • Therefore, “it remains to be seen” what is happening in the next few weeks. “It is a very, very difficult task that the Ukrainians are undertaking” — combining their offence with maneuver.

The Ukrainian offensive in Kharkov was planned as a flank attack to encircle and destroy the Russian groupings in the area of Balakleya, Kupyansk and Izyum. But the Russian command anticipated such an attempt, as its frontline had thinned out lately. The Ukrainian forces outnumbered the Russians by almost 4-5 times. 

Interestingly, in anticipation of a Ukrainian offensive, civilians who agreed to leave the region for Russia were evacuated from the threatened settlements in military convoys. Using mobile defence tactics under the cover of specially organised units, Russians finally succeeded in withdrawing their forces. 

In effect, the Ukrainian/US/NATO plan to manoeuvre a flank attack and encircle the Russian troops was thwarted with minimal losses. On the other hand, Ukrainians also admit that Russians inflicted significant losses of manpower on their opponents (who included a big chunk of fighters from NATO countries.)   

But the Russian military also made mistakes. Thus, their forward positions were not mined — inexplicably enough; frontline intelligence gathering was deficient; and, the residual Russian troops (drawn down to one-third of full strength) were not even equipped with anti-tank weapons. 

The single biggest outcome of the past week’s happenings is that the conflict has assumed the nature of a full-fledged war. Zyuganov was not off the mark when he said in his Russian state Duma speech: “The military-political operation… has escalated into a full-fledged war, which has been declared against us by the Americans, NATO members, and a unified Europe. 

“A war is fundamentally different from a special operation. A special operation is something you announce — and something you can choose to put an end to. A war is something you can’t stop even if you want to. You have to fight to the end. War has two possible outcomes: victory or defeat.” 

Putin has a big decision to make now. For, while the good part for the Russian military may be that the frontline has been straightened and large Russian reserves are being transferred to the battlefields, de facto, a state of war exists now between Russia and NATO. 

The recent phone calls to Putin in quick succession by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after an interlude of months, signals that an exigency may have arisen to re-engage the Kremlin leader. 

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO membership will harm Swedish international image and cause economic losses

The country may see a decrease in its exports if confirmed its adhesion to NATO

By Lucas Leiroz | September 16, 2022

Having military strength is an important issue for any country in the world. However, some states benefit from the image of “peaceful countries” and “neutral nations”. This is precisely the Swedish case. Decades ago, Sweden began to invest in a security policy based on absolute neutrality. Its image before international partners is seen as that of a country that does not get involved in conflicts and cares abut peace. Therefore, changing this stance with a possible NATO membership could have a strong impact on Swedish foreign policy.

One of the direct and immediate impacts would be on the economic issue. The Scandinavian country may suffer losses in its exports due to the possible NATO membership. Some countries that currently import products from – or export to – Sweden would certainly consider it problematic after the accession to the alliance, which would lead them to seek other trading partners. The Swedes would begin to deal with a reality that is common to every country that invests in becoming a military power: facing boycotts and restrictions in negotiations with countries with different interests.

In this sense, Per Högselius, professor of history of technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), comments that the Swedish state is very sensitive to world changes and depends on a stable scenario to keep its economic and industrial structure solid and strong. One of the points that most benefits the country allowing it to remain free of problems concerning the international scenario is precisely its image of a small and unarmed state – which will surely change now.

“Swedish industry has often benefited from the fact that Sweden has enjoyed an image abroad as a small, harmless country with good relations with in principle all other countries (…) Sweden is extremely sensitive to events in the outside world, and much more so today than in the 1970s”, Högselius said.

In fact, many problems for the national industry may arise after the confirmation of Sweden’s entry into NATO. The country’s main exports are focused on machinery, transport equipment and chemical products. Interestingly, these three sectors account for the majority of Swedish exports to China. In a scenario with increasing tensions between China and NATO, with the alliance considering the Asian country one of its main threats, it is possible to predict that Beijing, despite being quite pragmatic, may try to seek other partners to obtain some of the products it currently imports from Sweden.

When we analyze the European scenario, many things can get worse too. In a future eventual situation of pacification of the conflict in Ukraine and normalization of relations with Russia, Sweden will be unable to reverse the path that is being taken now, if its entry into NATO is really consolidated. The Scandinavian country will be viewed with suspicion by the Russians, who will place limits on bilateral cooperation – which will take Sweden off an important trade route for iron, steel, fertilizers, among other essential products. In other words, decisions taken against Russia now could seriously affect business in the future.

Furthermore, Swedish diplomacy itself would be destabilized by joining NATO. This entry would be the immediate reversal of decades of work built by Swedish strategists to transform the country into a militarily neutral and economically developed pole. Foreign policy focused on neutrality and peace would be replaced by a program of military objectives unilaterally instituted by the alliance. In practice, all countries that currently see Sweden as a non-ideological and geopolitically harmless partner would act more cautiously during negotiations with the Swedes as they would also be negotiating with a new representative of the largest military alliance on the planet.

The most interesting thing is to note how the possible accession, in addition to such economic losses, will bring few real strategic benefits to Sweden. As established by the regulations, the country will commit to militarily assist any other member state of the alliance in the event of an attack. But in exchange for such a commitment, little is offered to the Swedes. In fact, Sweden will remain a militarily weak country, but with many more international enemies than it has today.

Unfortunately, however, the Western-supported anti-Russian paranoia seems to have overcome the strategic sense of Swedish decision-makers, in addition to scaring the local population. Currently, almost all parties are support joining NATO, as do 58% of the population. It is very likely that the process will be completed at some point in the near future and the country will take this extremely negative step for its own interests.

Considering that Sweden is already going through an internal political crisis, with PM Magdalena Andersson having announced that she will resign after the defeat of her supporters in the parliamentary elections, the near future will be tense for the country. The next Swedish government will deal with strong popular and parliamentary pressure, in addition to excessive obligations in NATO, while the country will continue to be militarily weak, but it will lose its neutrality status, bringing impacts in all areas of its foreign policy.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

India unlikely to be coerced by G7 to enforce price cap on Russian oil

Ursula von der Leyen says anti-Russia sanctions “are here to stay” despite European crisis

By Ahmed Adel | September 16, 2022

G7 countries are hoping to secure India’s support to enforce a price cap on Russian oil. Decisionmakers in New Delhi are unlikely to be coerced though as Moscow is willing to provide petroleum at even lower rates than before.

“In principle, the ask in return is that India should not support the G7 proposal. A decision on this issue will be taken later following talks with all the partners,” the The Business Standard quoted a foreign ministry official as saying.

Comprising of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, the G7 excludes India despite the South Asian country now having the fifth largest economy, larger than the UK, France, Italy and Canada. The Western bloc, with the exception being Japan, are looking to choke Russia’s crude oil revenue streams, but countries like India are prioritising their economy and citizen wellbeing instead of serving Washington’s agenda.

India depends on imports to meet 85% of its petroleum needs, and with Russia offering good deals to friendly countries, it became the second-largest crude oil supplier to the country after Iraq. Although Russia’s share in India’s imports rose to only 1% in February, before the war in Ukraine began, it skyrocketed to 18% by June. 

Russian oil was $16 cheaper in May than the average barrel of crude oil ($110) imported to India. It is for this reason that India took advantage of many countries ending their trade with Russia. Russia has so far reduced $30 on every barrel of oil it sells to India, forcing Iraq to cut its rate to $9 lower than a Russian barrel of oil. At the same time, according to Business Standard, Russian crude oil in August cost $6 less than India’s average imported barrel.

The G7 is hoping to enforce price caps on Russian crude oil and refined petroleum products. While the one on crude oil comes into effect on December 5, the other will be enacted on February 5, 2023. This is when the European Union bans Russian oil products. Although India has said it will consider all aspects before making a decision, it is unlikely that New Delhi will decide on the same self-destructive policies as the European Union.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on September 14 and delivered her State of the Union address, said: “It is the Kremlin that has put Russia’s economy on the path to oblivion. This is the price for Putin’s trail of death and destruction. And I want to make it very clear, the sanctions are here to stay. This is the time for us to show resolve, not appeasement.”

However, it is the economies of European Union member states that are suffering much worse than Russia now. In fact, their economies will only continue to decline as winter approaches. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on September 7 that he will stop oil and gas supply to countries that introduce price caps.

Putin told the Eastern Economic Forum that such a move “would be an absolutely stupid decision”.

“We will not supply anything at all if it is contrary to our interests, in this case economic (interests),” he said. “No gas, no oil, no coal, no fuel oil, nothing.”

Putin said that Russia would supply nothing outside of existing contracts.

The Munich-based Ifo think-tank warned that the recent surge in electricity and gas prices was “wreaking havoc” on the German economy and that the main cause was the expected “decline in private consumer spending” triggered by energy suppliers “markedly adjusting their electricity and gas prices in the light of high procurement costs, especially at the beginning of 2023.”

For their part, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy slashed its forecast for the German GDP next year by 4% points to minus 0.7%, warning: “With the high import prices for energy, an economic avalanche is rolling towards Germany.” Meanwhile, German deputy finance minister Florian Toncar warned of an “increasing risk of stagflation” in the country, telling the VVW insurance sector publication: “We are experiencing supply-chain problems, production bottlenecks and price increases the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades.”

Germany, as the industrial and economic centre of the European Union, will be experiencing a crisis that it has not seen since the end of World War II. The rest of the European Union will also end up in the same position, if not worse than Germany. As for India, it is this exact situation it wants to avoid, hence why it has increased its imports of Russian energy at good prices. For this reason, it is unlikely that New Delhi will be coerced by the G7 to implement a price cap on Russian oil.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Germany’s Decision on Rosneft Means Complete Loss of Assets – Company

Samizdat – 16.09.2022

The German government’s decision to transfer Rosneft’s subsidiaries under the control of the Federal Network Agency means a complete loss of assets for the Russian company, Rosneft said on Friday, adding that it will make efforts to protect those assets.

Earlier in the day, the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action said that Berlin had transferred Rosneft’s subsidiaries — Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing — under the control of the Federal Network Agency.

“The decision of the German Federal Government to transfer the company’s German assets to the federal grid agency for external management, unfortunately, is not unexpected for us and is in line with the US-imposed algorithm of actions in relation to Russian enterprises in Germany. This decision is illegal and, in fact, is an expropriation of shareholding as a result of a situation deliberately created by the relevant EU sanctions and the actions of German and Polish regulators, the purpose of which was to seize assets,” Rosneft said in a statement.

The Russian company added that Berlin’s decision is a violation of the principles of a market economy.

“The company understands that the decision taken by the Federal Government of Germany is not temporary, and, in fact, means the irretrievable loss of assets. Rosneft will work out all possible measures to protect shareholders, including going to court,” Rosneft said, adding that it is ready to negotiate a new contract if “there are guarantees of payment for supplied raw materials and protection of investments.”

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Iran Needs Lifting of Sanctions, Guarantees From US to Revive Nuclear Deal, Raisi Says

Samizdat – September 16, 2022

Tehran needs the removal of sanctions and guarantees from Washington to restore the nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said.

“Removal of sanctions should be accompanied with the resolution of safeguards. There are some political and baseless accusations against Islamic Republic of Iran when it comes to safeguard issues,” Raisi told the Al Jazeera broadcaster on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.

The president noted that it is necessary to finalize these safeguard issues but it is not yet time to have face-to-face talks with the United States as Washington’s sincerity is questionable, according to Al Jazeera.

“Regarding the guarantees, if we have the trustworthy guarantees, and we have the lasting removal of the sanctions, not temporary removal of sanctions, and if there is a lasting solution for the safeguard issues, for sure it is possible to reach agreement,” Raisi added.

The JCPOA deal was sealed in 2015 by China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union. Former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.

Talks between Iran and the global powers to revive the deal and end US sanctions on Iranian oil exports have gained momentum recently. On August 31, Borrell said that an agreement to revive the 2015 nuclear deal will hopefully be reached in the next few days.

On September 2, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that Tehran sent a “constructive” response to Washington’s proposals on the revival of the JCPOA, while a State Department spokesperson said the US had received Tehran’s response but described it as “not constructive.”

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Germany to send more weapons to Ukraine despite Russia’s objection

Press TV – September 15, 2022

Germany has vowed to deliver two more rocket launchers to Ukraine despite Russia’s warning against sending weapons to Kiev.

Since Moscow launched a special military operation in eastern Ukraine in February, western countries have provided an abundance of weapons to Kiev, with Germany being a main supplier of arms.

“We have decided to deliver two more MARS II multiple rocket launchers including 200 rockets to Ukraine,” Germany’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Thursday.

Berlin also aims to send Kiev heavily armored military MRAP infantry mobility vehicles, Lambrecht said at a Bundeswehr (armed forces) conference.

“On top of this, we will send 50 Dingo armored personnel carriers to Ukraine.”

Furthermore, Berlin would send 40 Marder IFVs to Greece in exchange for Athens delivery of 40 of its Soviet-built BMP-1 IFVs to Ukraine.

Alongside Germany, the United States and other NATO members have been sending weapons to Ukraine.

Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s former Defense Minister, who is currently the President of the European Commission, insisted later on Thursday that European capitals should also provide the Kiev forces with battle tanks so they can better fight the Russian forces aiming to demilitarize the Donbas region of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia on Thursday warned that if the United States and its allies supply Ukraine with longer-range missiles, it will cross a “red line”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia reserves the right to defend its territory and if Washington decides to supply longer-range missiles to Kiev, then it will be crossing a red line.

Russia began its operation on February 24 in Ukraine’ Donbas region which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk self-proclaimed republics.

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

The Green New Deal in Europe is quickly turning into a House of Horrors

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | September 16, 2022

One excellent site with all the late latest energy crisis developments in Germany and Europe is Blackout News. Here are some of the more notable headlines of the past week:

Europe’s largest aluminum plant cuts production by 22% due to energy costs

Deindustrialization

Europe’s largest aluminum smelter, Aluminum Dunkerque Industries France, will cut production by 22% due to rising electricity prices, thus putting the industry’s existence at risk and increasing Europe’s dependency on foreign suppliers.

High energy prices: Municipal utilities running into payment difficulties

Struggling utilities

German municipal utilities, who supply gas and power to their communities, are running into liquidity problems as suppliers of electricity and gas demand large sums as security guarantees before deliveries. Around 200 of the 900 German municipal utilities are affected.

The municipal utilities also “have to reckon with payment defaults by their customers on an unprecedented scale. Consumers have to cope with price increases of over 50% in some cases, which many will not be able to cope with”

Eight to 15% of consumers are expected to not to be able to pay.

It’s a serious danger signal because if they get into trouble, an economic crisis is usually not far away.

Exploding energy costs: economists sound the alarm

Hostile business environment in Germany

The German economy is reeling from exploding energy costs as insolvencies escalate and even once robust companies collapse. A number of industrial companies have imposed production stops or drastically reduced production – because of the skyrocketing energy costs. BDI industry association president Siegfried Russwurm warns that the spiraling  energy prices are driving companies away.

In the latest BDI survey, 90% of all companies are severely challenged by the sharp rise in energy and raw material prices. In February 2022, the figure was just 23%.

France plans rolling blackouts this coming winter

Extreme power shortages in France

France normally generates a good 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants but its power supply is massively at risk as 24 of the 56 reactors are off the grid due to repairs and maintenance.  The country is now planning rolling blackouts should there be corresponding supply problems.

French utility RTE reports “it is clear that the country will not be able to produce enough electricity during the winter months unless consumers drastically reduce their power consumption.” As a result, the utility expects there may be rolling blackouts during the winter.

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If this keeps up, Europe might quickly turn into a continent of starving and freezing beggars. Watch for Europe to be looking at a new Enabling Act.

Willkommen and bienvenue! Welcome to the Green New Deal!

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

Rockefeller Foundation, Nonprofits Spending Millions on Behavioral Psychology Research to ‘Nudge’ More People to Get COVID Vaccines

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 13, 2022

The Rockefeller Foundation, the National Science Foundation (an “independent” agency of the U.S. government) and other nonprofits are pouring millions of dollars into a research initiative “to increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and other recommended public health measures by countering mis- and disinformation.”

In conjunction with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the Rockefeller Foundation last month announced $7.2 million in funding for the Mercury Project,  initially launched in November 2021, under the slogan, “Together, we can build a healthier information environment.”

The funds will support 12 teams of researchers in 17 countries who will conduct studies on “ambitious, applied social and behavioral science to combat the growing global threat posed by low COVID-19 vaccination rates and public health mis- and disinformation,” the Rockefeller Foundation said.

The Rockefeller Foundation and the SSRC claim the aim of the Mercury Project, whose name is derived from the ancient Roman god of messages and communication, is to bolster public health and safety.

However, some critics described the project as one based on “propaganda” aimed at “nudging” the unvaccinated to get vaccinated.

Creating ‘behavioral change’ by targeting schoolchildren and specific socio-economic groups

Behavioral change lies at the heart of the Mercury Project, which will issue three-year research grants to estimate “the causal impacts of mis- and disinformation on online and offline outcomes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic,” including “differential impacts across socio-demographic groups.”

The research will include “interventions that target the producers or the consumers of mis- and disinformation, or that increase confidence in reliable information.”

Some of the “interventions” proffered by the Rockefeller Foundation include “literacy training for secondary school students” to “help students identify COVID-19 vaccine misinformation,” “equipping trusted messengers with communication strategies to increase COVID-19 vaccination demand” and “using social networks to share tailored, community-developed messaging to increase COVID-19 vaccination demand.”

This information will, according to the Rockefeller Foundation, “provide evidence about what works — and doesn’t — in specific places and for specific groups to increase COVID-19 vaccination take-up.”

But according to ZeroHedge, the research groups funded by the Mercury Project “are operating with the intent to tailor vaccination narratives to fit different ethnic and political backgrounds, looking for the key to the gates of each cultural kingdom and convincing them to take the jab.”

The project uses “ambiguous language and mission statements” to at least partially conceal the project’s main purpose of “using behavioral psychology and mass psychology elements to understand the global resistance to the recent COVID compliance efforts,” ZeroHedge reported.

‘Fabricating effective COVID propaganda’ a ‘money train’ for behavioral researchers and psychologists

In November 2021, the Mercury Project received an initial $7.5 million in seed funding from entities including the Rockefeller Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to apply “the principles of large-scale, team-based science to the problem of vaccination demand” over a three-year period.

As of August 2022, these entities have funded the Mercury Project to the tune of $10.25 million.

In June, the project received $20 million from the National Science Foundation to study “interventions to increase COVID-19 vaccination demand and other positive health behaviors.”

The SSRC’s latest call for proposals, under the aegis of the Mercury Project, received nearly 200 submissions.

The accepted proposals come from researchers in countries including the U.S., Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, England, France, Ghana, Haiti, Kenya, India, Malawi, Mexico, Sierra Leone, Spain, Rwanda and Tanzania.

U.S.-based researchers represent institutions including Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Duke, Harvard, MIT, New York University, Rutgers, St. Augustine University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, University of Southern California, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, Vanderbilt and Yale.

The titles of some of the projects most recently funded by the Mercury Project include:

  • “A tough call: Impacts of mobile technology on Covid-19 (mis)information and protective behavior decision-making.”
  • “Boosting boosters at scale: A megastudy to increase vaccination at scale.”
  • “Building a better toolkit (for fighting misinformation): Large collaborative project to compare misinformation interventions.”
  • “Harnessing influencers to counter misinformation: Scalable solutions in the Global South.”
  • “Targeting health misinformation networks: Network-transforming interventions for reducing the spread of health misinformation online.”

Arguing in favor of the importance of the project’s research, Anna Harvey, president of the SSRC, stated:

“With COVID-19 prevalent and rapidly evolving everywhere, there is a pressing need to identify interventions with the potential to increase vaccination take-up.

“Vaccines are only effective if they become vaccinations; vaccines are a scientific marvel but their potential is unfulfilled if they are left on the shelf.”

Describing the Mercury Project’s grantees, Dr. Bruce Gellin, the Rockefeller Foundation’s chief of global public health strategy, said:

“This initial cohort’s ideas exemplify the creativity and vision behind the Mercury Project. They go far beyond quick fixes, with the goal of identifying robust, cost-effective, and meaningful solutions that can be widely adopted and scaled.

“We hope that more, better, and science-based knowledge about what we need to do will lead to increased uptake of reliable information — and serve as a powerful counter to the effects of misinformation and disinformation on vaccine demand.”

Heather Lanthorn, the Mercury Project’s program director, highlighted the importance of leveraging communication toward achieving public health objectives:

“The viral, vaccine, and information environments are all rapidly evolving–but that doesn’t mean it is impossible to make progress towards more effective and equitable responses.

“By funding projects on the ground around the world, this work will help us understand what works where, and why, and identify new ways to harness the power of connection and communication to advance public health goals.”

ZeroHedge, however, countered that behind all the rhetoric, the focus of the Mercury Project, is “propaganda, propaganda and propaganda,” and “the very basis of the existence of the Mercury Project presupposes that individuals cannot be trusted to make up their own minds about the information they are exposed to.”

The expectation is that individuals “must be molded to accept the mainstream narrative,” ZeroHedge said, while presupposing that “mainstream or establishment information is always trustworthy and unbiased.”

“Fabricating effective COVID propaganda is becoming a money train for the small groups of behavioral researchers and psychologists that jump onboard,” ZeroHedge added.

GAVI: 200 global ‘nudge units’ specialize in applying behavioral science to everyday life

The field of behavioral science — and a concept known as “nudging” — figured prominently during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic and were heavily utilized by governments and public health officials throughout the world to justify often stringent restrictions and countermeasures.

Nudging was defined in a bestselling 2008 book by economist Richard H. Thaler and legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein — “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” — as something that “alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives.”

Thaler and Sunstein presented nudging as a technocratic solution for tricky policy issues involving a perceived need to encourage, in a “voluntary manner,” policies or measures that would otherwise be unpopular.

Their work drew from a 1974 paper by two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, which, as explained by an article published by GAVI-The Vaccine Alliance, “pioneered the study of mental shortcuts that humans rely on to make decisions, known as heuristics.”

As previously reported by The Defender, the Rockefeller Foundation is also a partner and board member and donor to GAVI, alongside the WEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which hosted Event 201, which simulated the spread of a coronavirus just prior to the actual COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2010, the U.K. government established the Behavioural Insights Team, initially within the government’s Cabinet Office, before it was spun off as a private company in 2014. A year later, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order to promote the utilization of behavioral science in federal policymaking.

According to GAVI, “globally, there are now more than 200 teams, or nudge units, that specialize in applying behavioral science to everyday life.”

COVID-19, and the response to it, was no exception. HRW Healthcare’s Tony Jiang described nudges as “a set of policy tools which utilize psychological insights to attempt to motivate people to adopt certain desired actions/behaviours, without having to enforce strict laws, bans, or punishments,” and as a means to “motivate people into making responsible decisions, while preserving individual liberty.”

According to Jiang, “at the beginning of the pandemic, to encourage COVID-safe behaviours, behavioural nudges were the preferred policy by governments in the UK, USA, and Australia.”

According to Jay Van Bavel, associate professor of psychology at New York University, “as COVID-19 infections grew exponentially in 2020, behavioral scientists wanted to help. Nudges presented a possible route to controlling the virus, particularly in the absence of vaccines and evidence-based treatments.”

Van Bavel, along with Sunstein and 40 other researchers, in 2020 published a paper in Nature presenting ways in which behavioral science and nudging could contribute to efforts to combat COVID-19, including through fostering increased trust in government and fighting “conspiracy theories.”

As explained by GAVI, “as scientists learned more about how the coronavirus spread … governments knew what they wanted their citizens to do, but they still had to think carefully about how to encourage people to change their behavior. That’s where nudges could help.”

This was evidenced, for instance, in a March 14, 2020, U.K. government document published approximately two weeks before the U.K. government imposed a nationwide lockdown.

The document presented the role that would be played by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies in advising the U.K. government’s response.

The document referenced the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic and the advice the advisory group received at the time from a subgroup known as the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour and Communications. This group was reconvened on Feb. 13, 2020, with an exclusive focus on behavioral psychology.

According to the document, the group was “asked to provide advice aimed at anticipating and helping people adhere to interventions that are recommended by medical or epidemiological experts,” concluding that the U.K. government should “provide clear and transparent reasons for the different strategies that might be taken.”

The group advised the U.K. government that “in order to increase confidence in, and adherence to, the interventions should provide clear and transparent reasons for the strategies that have and have not been selected … and conduct rapid research into how best to help people adhere to the recommendations” whilst suggesting “behaviours that reduce risk.”

Other studies in the 2020-2021 period also highlighted the potential role nudging and behavioral psychology could play in relation to COVID-19.

For instance, a 2021 study showed that sending text messages to patients before scheduled primary care visits increased flu vaccinations by 5%, while another 2021 study found that the same strategy boosted COVID-19 vaccination appointments by 6% and actual vaccinations by 3.6%.

Still another 2021 study, also published in Nature, found that “behavioural nudges increase COVID-19 vaccinations,” arguing that “overcoming vaccine hesitancy … requires effective communication strategies” and finding that “inducing feelings of ownership over vaccines” can help bring about an increase in vaccine uptake.

The National Science Foundation offered grants of $200,000 for research in this field, while the SSRC also issued a call for proposals, receiving 1,300 applications even though it had sufficient funding for only 62.

However, as the pandemic progressed and as vaccination figures eventually plateaued, the strategy of nudging began to be called into question.

Dena Gromet, executive director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, said nudging is effective only if individuals are already inclined to perform the action that they are being reminded or encouraged to perform.

Nudging, as a result, was supplanted by vaccine mandates.

Indeed, such “sterner measures” were advocated by Richard Thaler, one of the creators of the concept of nudging. In an August 2021 New York Times op-ed, Thaler called for stricter measures for the unvaccinated, including vaccine passports and isolation — measures which he described as “pushes and shoves” instead of nudges.

Two studies performed by researchers at King’s College London also cast doubt on the effectiveness of nudging to change behaviors and attitudes in relation to COVID-19.

Notably, the dedicated COVID-19 page on the website of the Behavioral Insights Team, which had played such a key role in advising the U.K. government on its COVID-19-related countermeasures early in the pandemic, has not featured a new posting since April 28, 2021.

However, some believe there still remains a role for nudging as the world enters a “new phase” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tony Jiang argued that “as mandates relax, a greater reliance on individual compliance is required if we are to prevent mass-outbreaks in the future.”

“This makes the role of nudges and behavioural science ever more crucial,” he said, suggesting that going forward, nudges can be utilized to encourage mask-wearing, vaccinations and boosters.

Jiang proffered suggestions such as personalized masks that “can be more fashionable,” and for vaccinations, the potential role of “defaults,” where “people are automatically enrolled to receive a booster and must deliberately cancel the scheduled appointment if they do not wish to receive it.”

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.

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.

September 15, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

The Naked Absurdity of Global Public Health

BY DAVID BELL | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | SEPTEMBER 14, 2022

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities.” ~ Voltaire.

Something is fundamentally wrong with global public health. More accurately, something is fundamentally wrong with the mindset of global health professionals, particularly those in positions of leadership. It has become normal to speak, repeat, and defend complete absurdity, as if illusions and fantasies are real. There are no sanctions for operating in this way – indeed it is proving highly successful. Statements of demonstrable stupidity are becoming prerequisites for career advancement and the approval of peers. It is like living within a fantasy, except those it kills are real.

The world at large struggles to understand that they could be fed falsehoods on this level. Most people still consider the experts quoted in the media to be credible, serious people. They believe that those leading the health professions would not habitually lie. For professionals to act like this, they would have to be deeply troubled, insecure people, or they would have to be quite malevolent. This does not fit the popular image of global health experts.

Beyond individuals, we now have entire institutions mocking reality. They lie to each other and the public, repeat these lies, and applaud each other for doing so. They can state obvious stupidity with impunity as a once critical media now sees its role as backing them unquestioningly, disseminating their pronouncements and suppressing any information to the contrary for a perceived public good. The emperor’s obvious nakedness has become proof that he is clothed. Acknowledging the evidence of one’s eyes as he parades his wares is tantamount to the crime of Galileo and must be treated accordingly.

The Opportunity of COVID-19

Over the last two years, the world’s premier health institutions pretended that humans were unlikely to develop effective clinical immunity in response to coronavirus infections, despite experience with the four common seasonal coronaviruses and the SARS-1 confirming that we do. Despite established understanding of mucosal immunity and T-cell function, the public were asked to believe that antibody titers against a single highly-variable pharmaceutically-induced protein were the only valid measure of effective immunity. The leaders and staff within these health organizations knew this was frankly silly, and that the evidence on COVID-19 was showing otherwise.

All these institutions knew that, in time, the relative effectiveness of post-infection immunity would become obvious to all. But this did not stop them from stating that vaccines were ‘the only way out of the pandemic,’ as if established fact, denigrating those who thought differently and ignoring the natural resolution of prior pandemics. Despite accumulating evidence that the obvious is indeed obvious, this position of fallacy still drives the COVAX global vaccination program. Current evidence that post-infection immunity is more effective than vaccination is of no value– truth simply does not matter to these people anymore.

In 2019, the term ‘genetic medicines’ referred to pharmaceuticals based on introduction of genetic material into a body for therapeutic purposes. It is standard industry terminology for mRNA formulations such as those that induce SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) spike protein production. In 2020, institutions that previously used this term for COVID-19 vaccines decided that continuing to do so would equate to promoting a ‘conspiracy theory’ – a particularly severe transgression. These mRNA medicines work by inserting synthetic genes into a person’s cells, using the host’s intracellular machinery to translate the genetic sequence into a foreign protein that is expressed by the cell. These cells are then recognized as foreign by the host’s immune system and killed. While this change to the definition of vaccine can be justified by the end result (an immune response), mRNA vaccines are indeed, as the pharmaceutical industry notes, genetic medicines.

It was considered necessary that the public consider such medicines to be indistinguishable from conventional vaccines that present proteins or other antigens to the immune system through an entirely different mechanism. The fallacy was formed to support the claim that if one type of vaccine was safe and effective, then the other must be.

The entire pharmaceutical industry knows this is an absurdity; mRNA injections may well be safe and effective, or they may not, but they are no more like injecting a protein or attenuated virus than riding a bicycle is to riding a train. If the department of transport told us that railways prove that bicycles are safe and effective, we would laugh. Except we wouldn’t anymore.

We would, apparently, signal our agreement because to identify differences between bicycles and trains would be evidence of incorrect thinking (misinformation, or a conspiracy theory). Similarly ‘incorrect’ thinking regarding COVID-19 has been characterized in the Journal of the American Medical Association, with a nod to Nazism, as a neurodegenerative disorder.

Tedros Perfects the Art

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the World Health Organization (WHO) he leads have perfected the art of mainstreaming the ridiculous through COVAX. With a budget several times higher than any prior international health program, it aims to vaccinate billions of already-immune people in age groups barely affected by COVID-19. WHO is aware that the vaccines do not significantly reduce spread, that post-infection immunity is effective, and that vaccinating people with post-infection immunity will provide minimal additional clinical benefit.

WHO promotes COVAX under the banner “No one is safe until all are safe.” WHO thus wants the public to believe that vaccinating an individual does not protect them until everyone else is vaccinated, whilst simultaneously believing, as WHO insists, that vaccination against COVID-19 is highly protective for all those who are vaccinated.

The complete incompatibility of these claims, together with the absurdity of claiming that a vaccine that does not stop transmission could protect others and ‘end the pandemic,’ does not matter. The writers and designers of WHO’s speeches and brochures know these opposing claims cannot simultaneously be true. They have found that stating absurdities is rewarded, and that if a young boy points to the emperor’s nakedness he can simply be denigrated and excluded, while the emperor swaggers on.

A Pox On Us All 

Tedros recently proclaimed monkeypox, a virus that had then killed 5 people globally, to be a public health emergency of international concern. His organization’s last such pronouncement contributed to an increase of about 45,000 added malaria child deaths in 2020, over 200,000 additional dead children in South Asia in the same year, rising tuberculosis, millions of girls forced into child marriage and sexual slavery, and the decimation of global education that will entrench future poverty for billions. Yet this man managed to concentrate the world on monkeypox, an outbreak of such tiny impact that annual mortality from bungee-jumping will likely be higher.

Whole countries followed his lead, global media ran headlines on how many people had this chicken pox-like disease, and the world pretended the emergency was real. Once this man would have been laughed out of office, but the world of 2022 considered this blatant absurdity normal and acceptable. It no longer expects or requires rational discourse from people in authority. Stupidity is expected and its dictates adopted.

The purpose of pointing out the above is not to single out the WHO. WHO’s fantasy statements are repeated and supported by its peer health organizations. Gavi (the vaccine alliance), CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), UNICEF (the UN agency that once concentrated on vaccinating children but now leads mass vaccination against a disease targeting the elderly) all apparently agree that ‘No one is safe until everyone is safe.’

This needs to be understood as an entire industrial culture – global health is a business and its primary role is to support itself. Its members know their pronouncements are false or illogical, but dishonesty has become an important tool to achieve their goals. It fuels income and expansion, and therefore must be good. Many private corporations would act similarly if advertising standards were not enforced. These international health agencies operate outside of national jurisdictions, and so have no enforceable standards. The media, once a check on such malfeasance and misgovernance, has ceased to value truth.

The COVID-19 event has opened the gate to a new era in public health, and the absurdity of the monkeypox ‘emergency’ is an example of what is coming. A pandemic industry that has formed around these agencies, now with the weight of the World Bank behind it, is asking us to believe that pandemics are becoming more frequent, and that the world’s diminishing wildlife poses an ever-increasing threat.

WHO’s own publications may tell us that pandemics have occurred just 5 times in 100 years, with overall reducing mortality, but this is of no consequence. Fantasy, when repeated sufficiently in a matter-of-fact manner, can displace objective reality as a driver of policy. The removal of employment, disruption of supply lines, increase in mass poverty and the economic wreckage of the COVID-19 response is used to justify a call for repetition of the same, more easily and more often, by the same people who orchestrated it.

Killing by Killing Truth

Most health professionals, given a few minutes to sit down and think this through, can see that something is wrong. However, it is hard to hold onto this reality if the lie opposing it is repeated widely and frequently, echoed by all one’s peers. People who understand infection control can still put on a mask at a restaurant door to remove it at a table just meters away. Humans are fully capable of living a lie, of embracing absurdity in life and work, just to get along. We now have an entire international industry fully reliant on acceptance of such absurdity for its survival. Despite the risks, it works.

COVID-19 showed us how willing many people are to join the harming and denigration of others to defend positions they know are illogical and untrue. To see one’s own profession indulging in such behavior is difficult to reconcile, when that profession is in some ways entrusted with the welfare of others. But we should not be surprised, we are all human and this promotion of global harm will continue as long as it reaps local rewards. People do not easily tire of wrong – they get accustomed to it.

This institutional self-delusion would be of little consequence, even humorous, if it only involved an emperor walking the streets of a children’s tale. But many of the children in this tale are now dead from malaria and malnutrition, millions of girls are enduring nightly rape and tens of millions denied education will spend their lives in poverty. They did not ask these people in Geneva, Washington, or Brussels to remove their food security, education and healthcare to ostensibly protect elderly elsewhere from COVID-19.

They are not asking for a growing pandemic bureaucracy to gorge itself whilst entrenching further inequality. Our response to this level of institutional dishonesty and absurdity must not be one of amusement but rather of disgust, and concern for what could happen next.

David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is the former Program Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland.

September 15, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran given roadmap for joining Russia and China in major bloc

Samizdat | September 15, 2022

Iran has signed a memorandum paving the way to transition from its current observer status to full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The Middle-Eastern nation, which the US has long sought to undermine with diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions, made a formal step on Thursday to become the ninth member of the organization. Among the SCO’s heavyweights are Russia and China, two major powers that are on Washington’s list of geopolitical opponents.

The SCO was created in 2001 as an intragovernmental forum aimed at fostering trust and developing economic and humanitarian ties in Asia.

It currently has eight permanent members: China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The last is currently hosting the annual summit of the leaders of the member states in the city of Samarkand.

Iran has been an SCO observer since 2005. Its delegation to the summit is headed by President Ebrahim Raisi, who met with senior Uzbek officials on Wednesday.

The memorandum, which spells the commitments that Tehran will undertake to become an SCO member, was signed by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and SCO Secretary-General Zhang Ming, the host country’s foreign ministry reported.

Yury Ushakov, a foreign affairs advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said earlier this week that Iran could qualify for being upgraded to full membership before next year’s SCO summit in India.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev touted this year’s event as a turning point for the organization. He cited the rapidly growing interest of nations in closer involvement with the SCO and said that it served as an example of how a “deep crisis of trust at the global level” can be overcome by parties willing to do so. He also stressed the scale of the group, which accounts for roughly half of the world’s population and a quarter of global GDP.

Belarus, also an SCO observer, is set to start the formal process for full membership this year. Egypt and Qatar formally joined the organization as dialogue partners on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia is scheduled to do the same, while Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Myanmar, and the Maldives are expected to begin their respective paths to receiving the same status.

September 15, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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