As Questions Swirl Around Monkeypox Origins and Risk, Vaccine Makers Set Sights on Profits
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 26, 2022
As an unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox spreads throughout the west, questions continue to swirl around the origin of the outbreak, the risk it poses to the public and the measures that may or may not be required to contain the virus.
Some also wondered how unexpected the outbreak was after learning about a March 2021 tabletop simulation of a hypothetical deadly outbreak of monkeypox predicted to occur in May 2022.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Munich Security Conference — entities closely connected to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security — conducted the tabletop exercise.
Some analysts suggested the outbreak may have resulted from gain-of-function research or similar experiments involving the virus, while others floated the theory that malign actors, perhaps related to the conflict in Ukraine, intentionally released the virus.
Meanwhile, politicians and public health officials are delivering mixed and confusing messages to the public about the level of risk, while pharmaceutical companies are preparing to introduce monkeypox vaccines.
WHO responds with emergency meeting — just prior to its World Health Assembly
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it has considered monkeypox a “priority pathogen” for several years. Nevertheless, the new outbreak led the agency on May 20 to hold an emergency meeting of its Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards with Pandemic and Endemic Potential (STAG-IH) to discuss monkeypox.
STAG-IH, comprised of experts and scientists from around the world and chaired by David Heymann, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, advises the WHO on infection risks that could threaten global public health.
STAG-IH does not have the authority to declare a public health emergency of international concern — the WHO’s highest form of alert — which is currently active in relation to COVID-19.
The WHO convened the emergency meeting even though the organization was already set to meet for its World Health Assembly May 22-28 in Geneva, Switzerland — where members discussed proposed amendments to the existing International Health Regulations 2005, and where WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was re-elected without opposition to a second five-year term.
The WEF also held its annual meeting May 22-26 — in Davos, Switzerland, not far from Geneva.
Monkeypox response described as ‘gaslighting’
Health officials and politicians are responding to the sudden spread of monkeypox with mixed messages.
WHO Europe regional director Dr. Hans Kluge recently expressed concerns about transmission at “mass gatherings, festivals, and parties.”
President Biden also shared concerns, stating that “it is something that everybody should be concerned about … it is a concern in the sense that if it were to spread, it’s consequential.”
And the U.K.’s National Health Service issued an advisory recommending people “only eat meat that has been cooked thoroughly.”
However, other public health professionals said the risk to the public is low, as is the likelihood the epidemic will last very long.
In what has been described by scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler as an example of gaslighting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised the public not to be concerned over the spread of monkeypox, contradicting President Biden’s warning.
An article in the Daily Mail delivered its own mixed messages by first warning, in capital letters, about a possible “hypermutated” monkeypox virus, then quoting Dr. Rosamund Lewis, who heads the smallpox secretariat on the WHO’s emergencies program, who said, “Despite suggestions that the virus may have evolved, experts have warned there is no evidence it has done so.”
Despite the fact that the WHO has not declared any kind of public health emergency related to the spread of monkeypox outside of Africa, various countries have begun enacting their own measures in response to the outbreak.
Public health authorities in Belgium announced May 20 that a compulsory 21-day quarantine will be imposed for monkeypox patients, U.K. health authorities urged “high risk” contacts of monkeypox cases to self-isolate and to avoid children for 21 days, and Greece and other countries are considering similar measures.
The Belgian Institute of Tropical Medicine announced it is conducting its own monkeypox PCR tests.
Smallpox outbreak: a new windfall for vaccine manufacturers and Big Pharma?
In response to the monkeypox outbreak, the Biden administration placed a $119 million order for smallpox vaccines from Bavarian Nordic, the manufacturer of JYNNEOS (also known as Imvamune and Imvanex), a smallpox vaccine also licensed to treat monkeypox.
The purchase includes a $180 million option for the purchase of future doses, bringing the combined total of the order to 13 million doses if the option is exercised.
According to Fortune :
“The order will convert existing smallpox vaccines, which are also effective against monkeypox, into freeze-dried versions, which have a longer shelf life. The converted vaccines will be manufactured in 2023 and 2024, the company says.
“Bavarian Nordic has worked with the U.S. government since 2003 to develop, manufacture and supply smallpox vaccines. To date, it says, it has supplied nearly 30 million doses to the Department of Health and Human Services.”
The U.K. ordered more than 20,000 doses of JYNNEOS, while the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reportedly is set to recommend a monkeypox vaccine plan for EU member states.
Existing smallpox vaccines reportedly are up to 85% effective against monkeypox. With the recent outbreak, health authorities in countries such as the U.K. have begun administering the smallpox vaccine to healthcare workers and others who may have been exposed to monkeypox.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019 approved the JYNNEOS smallpox vaccine, which was developed in conjunction with U.S. Army scientists.
After JYNNEOS received FDA approval, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said:
“[A]lthough naturally occurring smallpox disease is no longer a global threat, the intentional release of this highly contagious virus could have a devastating effect.
“Jynneos will be available for those determined to be at high risk of either smallpox or monkeypox infection.
“This vaccine is also part of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), the nation’s largest supply of potentially life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency that is severe enough to cause local supplies to be depleted.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci had a hand in the development of JYNNEOS, with accompanying controversy, as highlighted in 2009:
“Fauci gave about $100 million each to Bavarian Nordic and Acambis for research on a smallpox vaccine in preparation for a BioShield contract to be awarded in 2006.
“Some observers have said that Fauci is ‘overstepping his bounds,’ [The Wall Street] Journal reports.”
A study published in February 2022 in the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal, “initiated and funded by Bavarian Nordic” and co-authored by employees of the company, states:
“The appearance of outbreaks beyond Africa highlights the global relevance of the disease.
“Increased surveillance and detection of monkeypox cases are essential tools for understanding the continuously changing epidemiology of this resurging disease.
“Overall, monkeypox is gradually evolving to become of global relevance.”
Bavarian Nordic isn’t the only drugmaker focused on monkeypox. On May 19, the FDA approved an additional drug, an intravenous version of TPOXX (tecovirimat) for the treatment of monkeypox.
TPOXX is produced by SIGA, described by Bloomberg as “a biological warfare defense firm.”
According to SIGA, “Funding and technical support for this work is provided by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), under the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).”
As reported by The Gateway Pundit :
“TPOXX has been available for use to treat smallpox for several years, but it was only available in pill form.
“The new version of TPOXX will be delivered directly into the bloodstream via injection and also reportedly works for treating monkeypox.”
The previous oral formulation of TPOXX was approved by the FDA in July 2018. That same year, SIGA signed a $629 million contract with BARDA for the inclusion of smallpox drugs in the Strategic National Stockpile.
SIGA reached a similar agreement with Canadian authorities in December 2021, less than a month after Bill Gates warned of the risk of a bioterror attack.
In June 2019, SIGA signed an international promotion agreement with Meridian Medical Technologies, a company owned by Pfizer.
Recent developments sent the stocks of SIGA and Bavarian Nordic soaring. SIGA’s stock, which previously peaked in November 2021, rose soon after Gates’ pronouncements regarding the possibility of an intentional release of smallpox.
In a recent article, investigative journalist Whitney Webb highlighted the potentially troubling track record of SIGA and another smallpox vaccine manufacturer, Emergent Biosolutions, including:
- Close ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the Democratic Party.
- “Outrageous” no-bid federal contracts to SIGA for the procurement of smallpox drugs.
- “Troubling ties” to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
- “Serious deficiencies” at a manufacturing plant of a smallpox vaccine producer, Emergent Biosolutions, that also produced COVID-19 vaccines.
Webb also discovered a direct link between Emergent Biosolutions, the Strategic National Stockpile, the anthrax attacks of 2001, the Dark Winter simulation and Bavarian Nordic — via Robert Kadlec, who served as the top bioterror advisor to the Pentagon in the weeks leading up to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Kadlec participated in the June 2001 Dark Winter simulation of an anthrax attack, helped establish the Strategic National Stockpile, and has directly advised Emergent Biosolutions and Bavarian Nordic.
New players also are jostling for position in light of the monkeypox outbreak, including a familiar face: COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna, which recently announced it is testing potential monkeypox vaccines.
Confusion over who — or what — to blame for the monkeypox outbreak
Analyst Paul Craig Roberts recently wrote, “No one has explained why and how monkeypox, a problem in a small area of Africa, suddenly appeared all at once all over the Western world,” asking if we are about to experience another fear campaign, or something even worse.
The questions posited by Roberts point to the broader confusion, at least from what is evident through publicly available information, as to the origin of the monkeypox outbreak and how it is spreading.
Many scientists reportedly are “baffled” by the “unprecedented” spread of monkeypox outside of Africa and find its spread in North America and Europe to be “perplexing.”
This may remind some of the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which was said to have emerged in Botswana and South Africa without, apparently, heavily impacting those countries.
Oyewale Tomori, a virologist and former president of the Nigerian Academy of Science who currently serves on various WHO advisory committees, was quoted as saying:
“I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected … [t]his is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West.”
Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO’s Europe director, characterized the situation as “atypical.”
“We’ve never seen anything like what’s happening in Europe,” said Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases.
Happi also suggested the cessation of smallpox vaccination campaigns in 1980, when the disease was declared eradicated, may be contributing to the spread of monkeypox, as no immunity against smallpox or monkeypox would exist in the population.
This view was mirrored recently in an analysis by Jason Gale of Bloomberg, and picked up by the Washington Post. Gale argued that the eradication of smallpox “led to the end of a global vaccination program that provided protection against other poxviruses [including] monkeypox.”
Others argued the low level of incidence of smallpox makes vaccination against it more of a risk than a benefit.
Debates appear to be ongoing in the scientific community as to whether monkeypox is now being sexually transmitted.
Tomori noted sexual transmission has not been observed in Nigeria, but also that viruses not previously known to transmit via sexual contact, such as Ebola, were later proven to do so.
Alessio D’Amato, health commissioner of the Lazio region in Italy, said it was too early to say if monkeypox has morphed into a sexually transmitted disease, while Stuart Neil, professor of virology at King’s College London, said, “The idea that there’s some sort of sexual transmission in this, I think, is a little bit of a stretch.”
Neil Mabbott, personal chair of immunopathology at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, argued the spread of monkeypox among sexual partners is likely due to close physical proximity rather than sexual contact per se.
However, David Heymann, an infectious disease specialist at the WHO who led the organization’s recent emergency meeting on monkeypox, suggested the virus entered the population as a “sexual form, as a genital form, and is being spread as are sexually transmitted infections.”
This appears to be aligned with the WHO’s current official view that sexual contact is responsible for the spread of monkeypox, not as a sexually transmitted disease but by virtue of close physical contact.
Is the current monkeypox outbreak related to gain-of-function research?
The term “gain-of-function” (GoF) research over the past two years entered mainstream discourse following speculation the SARS-CoV-2 virus was engineered, and subsequently escaped from, the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.
GoF refers to medical research in which an organism is genetically altered, either for military purposes or medical research, in such a way that the biological functions of gene products are enhanced.
The National Pulse reported that in February 2022, Virologica Sinica, a prominent journal of virology, published a peer-reviewed study pertaining to a monkeypox-related GoF research project performed by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in August 2021.
In this study, according to The National Pulse :
“The Wuhan Institute of Virology assembled a monkeypox virus genome, allowing the virus to be identified through PCR tests, using a method researchers flagged for potentially creating a ‘contagious pathogen.’
“The paper … also follows the wide-scale use of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to identify COVID-19-positive individuals.
“Researchers appeared to identify a portion of the monkeypox virus genome, enabling PCR tests to identify the virus.”
Canadian researcher Polly St. George in a recent investigative report said there is an association between monkeypox and GoF research.
And in a recent interview, international law scholar Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapon Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, said the bioware industry uses monkeypox as a simulant for smallpox.
Along these lines, geopolitical analyst Michael Whitney in a recent article remarked on the sudden rapid spread of monkeypox and posed the following question:
“I wonder if that ‘rapidly spreading’ part has something to do with the way that researchers have been tweaking the gain-of-function of these unique pathogens in order to make them more contagious and more lethal? Is that what’s going on?”
Similarly, James Lyons-Weiler pointed out monkeypox first officially appeared in 1958, “about the time scientists were injecting African subjects with blood products from monkeys to see which viruses might be transmissible. Zikavirus came into our species about the same time.”
Uncertainty breeds speculation, and such is the case with some who suggested a possible link between the monkeypox outbreak and a January 2022 incident involving a truck transporting 100 laboratory monkeys that collided with a dump truck and overturned in Pennsylvania, leading to the escape of at least three monkeys.
The monkeys reportedly were later caught and euthanized, though no reason was given as to why they were killed.
An eyewitness who handled escaped monkeys developed pink eye and a cough, received treatment and was monitored by the CDC.
Others also tried to draw a connection between monkeypox and the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which utilizes a chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector.
However, no such link has been reported, and it’s important to note that chimpanzees are distinct from monkeys.
Is monkeypox outbreak a tool of intentional warfare?
Some officials speculated monkeypox was weaponized and intentionally released as an act of biological warfare, perhaps in relation to the conflict in Ukraine.
There are at least three such strands of speculation currently circulating:
- Claims by independent investigator Dr. Benjamin Braddock that an unnamed source at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said, “Preliminary analysis of the monkeypox strain currently doing the rounds found the virus came from a lab and may be related to the U.S.’s biological research in Ukraine,” implying that it may have been intentionally released, perhaps by Russia.
- Theories circulating in China and reported by Chinese state media that the U.S. intentionally released the virus, as part of “a plan by the U.S. to leak bioengineered monkeypox virus.”
- Statements by Irina Yarovaya, co-chair of Russia’s parliamentary commission on investigation of U.S. biological laboratories in Ukraine, and reported by Russia’s TASS news agency, that “the U.S. researched Ebola and smallpox viruses in Ukraine,” perhaps implying this resulted in the monkeypox outbreak.
These scenarios remain within the realm of speculation for the time being, but bear a close resemblance to the Wuhan lab leak scenarios under investigation in relation to the outbreak of COVID-19.
However, even if none of these scenarios hold water, they possess evident value as tools of information warfare, especially in relation to the ongoing schism between Russia and the West vis-à-vis the conflict in Ukraine.
Are monkeypox symptoms similar to COVID vaccine side effects?
Despite the current scare, monkeypox symptoms for most individuals who have been infected are mild, particularly in countries with adequate health systems.
However, they also resemble known adverse effects of the COVID-19 vaccines and symptoms of ailments such as shingles.
According to the WHO, monkeypox symptoms are characterized by “a person of any age presenting in a monkeypox non-endemic country with an unexplained acute rash,” with one or more of the following symptoms (updated March 15, 2022):
- Headache
- Acute onset of fever (>38.5oC)
- Lymphadenopathy (swollen lymph nodes)
- Myalgia (muscle and body aches)
- Back pain
- Asthenia (profound weakness)
Notably, many of these symptoms appear in the list of adverse effects of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. These adverse effects include lymphadenopathy, myalgia, asthenia, back pain and headache.
Others noted the similarity between monkeypox and shingles. Indeed, an image published by TheHealthSite.com of rashes said to be caused by smallpox is identical to an image published by Australia’s Queensland government displaying shingles rashes.
The CDC states, “The rash may be hard to distinguish from syphilis, herpes simplex virus infection, shingles and other more common infections.”
Moreover, according to Andrew Preston, professor of microbial pathogenicity at the University of Bath, “Some people say the rash is a bit like shingles.”
In recent years, certain countries, such as the U.K., have introduced a comprehensive shingles vaccination campaign for individuals age 70 and over.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.
Swiss Daily: Wind Park Destruction Of 1000-Year Old Untouched German Forest Exposes “Absurdity Of Green Energies”
Unsustainability in the name of “sustainability”
By P Gosselin – No Tricks Zone – 28. May 2022
Lately we’ve been reporting on what many people are calling one of the greatest environmental felonies in Europe: the deforestation of the 1000-year old Reinhardswald, known as the “fairy tale forest”, in order to make way for largescale industrial wind parks to produce “green” energy. Proponents claim the wind parks will save our environment and climate. Clearing the forests has already commenced.
We reported on this environmental crime here, here and here.
Only wind parks count
At the Swiss NZZ daily, Christian Saehrendt writes on the “absurdity” of clearing one of Europe’s last remaining intact forests to make way for monster wind parks.
In the Reinhardswald, which covers an area of around 200 square kilometers, there are centuries-old oak trees, a highly developed natural biodiversity that is home for example to rare wild cats and populations of white red deer – a balance which has taken 1000 years to establish. But now it’s all being industrially raped, gangbang-style, by crony, greedy bastards under the guise of environmental virtue. It’s a grand swindle that in normal times would have everyone enraged.
But these are not normal sane times. The NZZ reports: ” Yesterday, trees were planted as climate savers; today, only plastic rotor blades count.”
“To free Germany from Russian energy imports”
The Swiss daily adds: “This spring, the authorities in northern Hesse approved the construction of a wind farm with at least eighteen 240-meter-high wind turbines in the middle of this forest area, causing widespread consternation.”
The densely wooded and rural region around Kassel, where the Documenta world art exhibition is being held again this year, has actually traditionally relied on tourist marketing as “fairy tale country” and is served by the “German Fairy Tale Route,” In the past, this has also gone down well with overseas tourists, especially Asians,” writes the NZZ. ”
Wind park proponents defend the deforestation of one of Europe’s remaining virgin forests by claiming that only sick areas of the forest are being cleared away and that the turbines will “free Germany from the clinging grip of Russian energy imports”….and save our climate for generations to come.
“The Federal German Ministry of the Environment recently permitted the construction of wind turbines in natural reserve areas. In addition, species protection is to be weakened,” the NZZ accurately reports. “The initiative ‘Windpark-Reinhardswald-dagegen’ declared: ‘The so-called treasure house of European forests – is ruined for decades. We are horrified.’”
Not to worry… let them go to fake forests
“While the real, historically grown fairytale forest outside the city is being cut down, artificial substitutes are being created within the city. For example, Kassel’s civic society has been fighting for months over the redesign of the Brothers Grimm Square, which is conceived in the form of a “fairy tale forest” of pine trees and shrubbery – whereby at best a light miniature forest on a traffic island can emerge.”
The NZZ adds: “In Kassel’s Grimm Museum – the ‘Grimmwelt’ – which will again be a Documenta site in the summer, an artificial forest has already been built in, its thorn hedge atmosphere created by those green and vertically arranged brushes familiar from car washes. Even in these local events, a mega-trend of our time becomes visible: the desensualization and media filtering of our experience. Nature is increasingly staged and unreal. City groves instead of primeval forests, artificial worlds instead of nature, while the landscape outside becomes more and more inhospitable and loses its face.”
Trudeau wants “new tools” to tackle online “misinformation”
No details given
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | May 28, 2022
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the government is investing in new tools for security agencies to fight extremism and online “misinformation.”
“We need new tools to fight all of these pending threats, and that’s why we’ve turned to all of our security agencies to look at new ways of ensuring peoples’ safety,” Trudeau said in a press briefing in Vancouver, without specifying the tools he was referring to.
“Because, as we know, what happens in the virtual world has impact in the real world. It doesn’t stay on the internet.”
Trudeau added that the tools were necessary to fight “new threats weighing in on our society and country,” mentioning the spike in disinformation and misinformation and foreign adversaries and domestic extremists weaponizing social media.
“Whether it’s extremist ideology and right-wing terrorism on the rise in Canada, or whether it’s examples like the illegal [Freedom Convoy] protests we saw in the winter, there are a whole new set of challenges that we need to be responding to,” Trudeau said.
The prime minister paid the usual lip service that politicians do when they bring in limits to speech, saying that the new tools would be deployed in a way that protects free speech and the right to protest.
Trudeau specified that the government was “working closely with organizations like the Canadian Security Establishment [CSE] around communications.”
The mention of communications suggest tools that would collect and analyze data from social media to identify potential threats.
Poland Wants Billions From Brussels to Support Ukrainian Refugees
Samizdat – 28.05.2022
Over 3.6 million Ukrainians, equivalent to nearly 10 percent of Ukraine’s population, have fled to Poland in recent months, with millions more making their way to Russia, Romania, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, the Czech Republic, and other nations to escape the crisis in their home country.
Poland will need billions of additional euros from the European Union to help support the millions of Ukrainian refugees in the country, Deputy Minister of the Interior Pawel Szefernaker has indicated.
“From the very start we said that the aid we provide costs in the billions, not millions of euros. The European Union’s aid for countries which help refugees should also be counted in the billions – just as it was in the case of Turkey or Greece between 2015-2016”, Szefernaker said, speaking to the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on Saturday.
The official, who is tasked with coordinating Poland’s response to the refugee crisis, complained that the European Commission has yet to transfer any funds to assist the Polish government via its Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU) programme. The fund was topped up with 3.4 billion euros to help members absorb Ukrainian refugees in April by the European Parliament, and is expected to be allocated to EU countries bordering Ukraine, as well as those whose refugee intake is greater than one percent of their total population.
PAP says Warsaw is expected to receive a 144.6 million euro payout from a 400 million euro tranche of funding allocated to five countries, including Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic for refugee assistance. However, even that money has not yet been delivered, with an EC spokesperson saying the European Commission will discuss subsidy agreements with Warsaw “in the coming weeks.”
Szefernaker suggested a separate, new fund needs to be established by the EU to deal with the financial burden. “The measures referred to by the European Commission are not additional measures. These are resources shifted from various other funds that were already in the European Union’s budget”, he said.
The official noted that 95 percent of the remaining funds given to Poland by Brussels were committed to various other investments, and could not be redirected to help refugees.
Over 42 billion euros were earmarked for Poland from the bloc’s REACT cash pile last year, but was frozen over the Polish government’s intransigence on “LGBT-free” zones – municipalities where LGBT “propaganda” marches and other events are banned.
Poland has long been a net beneficiary when it comes to contributions to the EU budget, getting billions more euros than it pays into the bloc, which is funded mainly by Germany, France, Italy, and, until 2020, Britain.
Poland spent years battling Brussels in the mid-late 2010s over EU demands that the country take in refugees from Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and other countries turned into failed states by US and NATO interventions, with the European Commission finally dropping its “refugee quotas” initiative in 2020 amid Polish, Hungarian, and Czech intransigence.
When the Ukraine crisis exploded in February, Warsaw rushed to accept millions of Ukrainians with open arms, on top of millions more already working and living in the country. Since the 2014 Euromaidan coup, over two million Ukrainians have taken up roles in sectors of the Polish economy, ranging from construction and agriculture to logistics and housework, with Polish businessmen valuing them as a source of cheap but skilled labour.
Ex-Louvre director charged in Egyptian artifacts trafficking case
Press TV – May 28, 2022
The former president of the Louvre museum in Paris has been charged with fraud in acquisition of archaeological treasures that may have been taken out of Egypt during the Arab Spring uprisings.
Jean-Luc Martinez who ran the Paris Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, from 2013-21 was charged this week after he was taken in by police for questioning, a French judicial source told Agence France-Presse.
Martinez, who now serves as an ambassador for international cooperation in the field of heritage, stepped down as the Louvre’s president last year.
He was charged with fraud and “concealing the origin of criminally obtained works by false endorsement,” according to a French judicial source.
Martinez, who has denied any wrongdoing, is also accused of neglecting fake certificates of origin for the pieces.
The case, which threatens to embarrass the French culture ministry and ministry for foreign affairs, was opened in July 2018, two years after the Louvre Abu Dhabi bought a rare pink granite stele depicting the pharaoh Tutankhamun and four other ancient works for €8m (£6.8m).
French investigators suspect that hundreds of artifacts were pillaged during the public uprising in Middle-East that engulfed several Middle Eastern countries in the early 2010s.
These were then believed to have been sold to galleries and museums that did not ask too many questions about previous ownership, nor look closely enough at potential incoherence in the works’ certificates of origin.
Several countries are thought to have been affected by artifacts being pillaged, including Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria.
Another prized Egyptian work, the gilded coffin of the priest Nedjemankh, which was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2017, was at the center of a separate inquiry by New York prosecutors.
The Met, however, said it had been the victim of false statements and fake documentation, and that the coffin would be returned to Egypt.
Climate madness: British startup releases masks for cows
British startup ZELP has developed a mask for cows that filters methane. They received a climate protection award for this – Prince Charles is thrilled about the project.
Free West Media | May 28, 2022
It sounds like a belated April Fool’s joke: On May 24, 2022, the online portal Agrarheute reported that the British startup ZELP (Zero Emissions Livestock Project) had developed masks for cows. In this case, however, not to protect them from Corona, but to filter methane.
ZELP is currently testing various prototypes of the cattle masks, according to Agrarheute. These are already able to filter around 30 percent of the methane emitted by ruminants. In the future, this value should be increased to around 60 percent.
The highlight: ZELP was awarded the climate protection prize “Climate Design Award” for the “revolutionary” idea, which was created by WEF figurehead Prince Charles and designer Sir Jony Ive. The cattle mask was one of four winners and received a cash prize of the equivalent of 58 000 euros. Prince Charles supports face masks for cows to fight climate change.
The British monarch is one of the architects of the Great Reset, the name of the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held in June 2020. It brought together high-profile business and political leaders, convened by Prince Charles. At the launch event for the Great Reset, he listed key areas for action, similar to those listed in his Sustainable Markets Initiative. These included draconian measures for net zero emissions globally as well as the introduction of carbon pricing.
To prove that this report was not a joke, the portal linked a video in its article that showed the enthusiastic heir to the throne presenting the project.
The 100-gram rubber masks with solar-powered fans are designed to direct the animals’ exhalations into a small chamber and then use chemical processes to convert methane into carbon dioxide, Agrarheute explained. But first farmers have to be convinced to actually use the masks.
One obstacle could be the rather high price: The use costs 45 dollars per cow and year, the equivalent of 41 euros. In addition, the masks would not bring any advantage for the farmer from an economic point of view.
In the comments below the article, readers legitimately wondered whether this message was some kind of joke. Agrarheute immediately confirmed that this was unfortunately not the case.
The claims about methane have been debunked
One reader commented: “Madness or stupidity? Every thinking person understands what nonsense the story about cow’s methane is. A cow is not a perpetual motion machine and it does not create energy out of thin air. The cow lives in the earth’s natural carbon cycle and is not ‘climate-damaging’ (if such a thing exists). Even the climate heroes at Climate Facts know that, although some people don’t like it. They are just producing a lot of garbage, trying to get more money out of the farmers’ pockets, end of the story.”
The three main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, all impact the environment differently. Methane is known as a “flow gas”, removed from the atmosphere at a rapid pace. Methane’s lifespan in the atmosphere is approximately 10 years, but flow gases will stay stagnant as they are destroyed at the same rate of emission.
Thus the initial method for calculating greenhouse emissions misrepresents the impact of short-lived flow gases, like methane, on future warming.
The hypocrisy of the global elite
The global elite pushing the Great Reset this week emitted thousands of units of carbon dioxide with an estimated lifespan in the atmosphere of 1000 years, meaning carbon dioxide emitted from the year 2022 will still be in the atmosphere in 3022. Meeting via Zoom for example, would have been a much better choice, given their “concerns” about climate change.
Traveling in private jets to the Davos Summit in Switzerland to foist their climate agenda on the rest of the world to “limit global temperature rise and stave off disaster” as stated on its website, “10 private one-way flights departed various European cities on Wednesday evening and landed in St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport, the closest airstrip to Davos, emitting approximately 43 440 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere”.
For the WEF annual meeting in 2019 in Davos, according to an analysis from Air Charter Service, The Guardian reported at the time that around 1 500 private jets flew to and from airports near the Swiss town.
Is This the Worst Excuse for Vaccine Failure Yet?
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | May 26, 2022
Well, the COVID jab pushers have had to resort to all sorts of obfuscation to hide the fact that the injections don’t work, and now they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel of excuses. According to a recent Reuters report,1 “Increased contact among vaccinated people can give the false impression that COVID-19 vaccines are not working.”
This irrational explanation has been levied in response to studies showing COVID-jabbed individuals are getting infected at higher rates than the unjabbed, and there are many such studies.
“These studies are likely to involve statistical errors, particularly if they did not account for different contact patterns among vaccinated versus unvaccinated people,” Korryn Bodner, a research associate in infectious disease modeling in Toronto, told Reuters. Bodner is the first author of a preprint study2 posted on medRxiv at the end of April 2022.
Are the Jabbed More Carefree Than the Unvaxxed?
Bodner’s claim is that those who got the jab may be more likely to throw caution to the wind and mingle with others, hence getting infected more frequently, while the unjabbed may be more cautious because they know they’re vulnerable. This rationale is dubious at best, considering:
a)The unvaccinated have continuously been accused of not taking COVID seriously and going about their lives as normal
b)Those who have taken the jab are, by and large, a far more fearful lot; they tend to listen to the “authorities” and take all of their advice to heart, which would include avoiding large gatherings and close one-on-one interactions without wearing a face mask
Check out the following story, reported by Anchorage Daily News :3
“Arianne Bennett recalled her husband, Scott Bennett, saying, ‘But I’m vaxxed. But I’m vaxxed,’ from the Washington hospital bed where he struggled to fight off COVID-19 this winter … Bennett went to get his booster in early December after returning to Washington from a lodge he owned in the Poconos, where he and his wife hunkered down for fall.
Just a few days after his shot, Bennett began experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, meaning he was probably exposed before the extra dose of immunity could kick in. His wife suspects he was infected at a dinner where he and his server were unmasked at times …
‘He was absolutely shocked. He did not expect to be sick. He really thought he was safe,’ Arianne Bennett recalled. ‘And I’m like, ‘But baby, you’ve got to wear the mask all the time. All the time. Up over your nose.'”
Within days of his third dose, he got a serious case of COVID. Yet they blame it on hypothetical exposure to an apparently healthy food server. This kind of irrational reasoning is prevalent among those who got the jabs and who keep going back for more as they are part of the 30% of the population that have been completely brainwashed.
To reiterate what I’ve explained since 2020, asymptomatic spread is likely to be so rare as to be nonexistent.4 It was a lie perpetuated to drive up fear and prop up rising “case” rates that didn’t really exist. It’s basic virology that you cannot transmit a virus unless you have a “hot” infection, and if you have an active, transmissible infection, you have symptoms. The symptoms are a sign that your body’s defenses are kicking in to rid itself of the live virus.
No symptoms, no transmission. So, unless the server was feeling sick and went to work anyway, the simplest explanation for Bennett’s demise was the shot itself. And if the server was sick, the fact that Bennett got so ill suggests the shot is ineffective, even at two doses.
The pro-pharma shills want you to believe there are so many confounding variables, we can’t possibly draw any conclusions from data showing the shots don’t work. Yet looking at data from a wide spectrum of sources, all show the same alarming trends. What “confounding factor” could possibly account for ALL of them being misinterpreted?
An Unproven Hypothesis
Reuters 5 does note that Bodner’s simulations “do not prove that this type of bias affected studies of vaccine effectiveness versus the Omicron variant.” What it does show, according to Bodner, is that “even if vaccines work, increased contact among vaccinated persons can lead to the appearance of the vaccine not working.”
In other words, this is a hypothesis that has yet to be proven. Her modeling suggests it COULD make the jabs appear ineffective IF those who got the jab actually behave very differently from the unjabbed.
But again, it’s highly unlikely that the unvaccinated are avoiding exposure by steering clear of close contacts and crowds to a greater degree than those who got the jab. It’s far more reasonable to suspect that the shots don’t work.
On a side note, Bodner’s study was funded by the Canada COVID-19 Immunity Task Force.6 This task force is housed at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and McGill University is a long-term recipient of grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.7,8,9,10
What Do the Data Say About COVID Jab Effectiveness?
Based on data from around the world, it seems clear that the COVID gene transfer injections are not working. In fact, they’re having the opposite effect of what you’d expect from a real vaccine. According to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal data,11 in September 2021, when Delta was most prominent, 23% of those who died from COVID in the U.S. had received the jab.
In January and February 2022, when Omicron started dominating, that percentage jumped to 42%. In December 2021 and January 2022, just under half of all the COVID patients in intensive care at Kaiser Permanente’s hospital system in Northern California had also received one or more shots.12
Many argue that Omicron was more contagious than Delta, hence the higher death toll. But Omicron was also far milder than Delta, so why would the jabbed die at a higher rate from a less lethal variant than a more lethal one?
One attempt at an explanation is that the fatalities are now occurring primarily among the elderly. Nearly two-thirds of those who died from COVID during the Omicron wave were 75 and older. During the Delta wave, 75-year-olds and older accounted for just one-third of the deaths.13
But that was the case from the beginning, and it still doesn’t answer the question: Why would old people be more likely to die from a milder virus than a more serious one? To answer that question, the injection pushers revert back to the argument of waning potency. Two-thirds of those who died in January and February 2022 did not have a booster shot. According to Anchorage Daily News :14
“Experts say the rising number of vaccinated people dying should not cause panic in those who got shots, the vast majority of whom will survive infections. Instead, they say, these deaths serve as a reminder that vaccines are not foolproof and that those in high-risk groups should consider getting boosted and taking extra precautions during surges.”
So, in other words, the jab only works for a handful of months, and then you have to take another. And another. And another. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,15 the first two doses wear off after five months, necessitating a third dose, and the third dose wears off in just four months, at which time you’re supposed to get dose No. 4.
Israeli data16 show the effectiveness of shot No. 4 in preventing severe disease declines by 56% in just seven weeks. So, it appears the protection you get from the shots keeps getting shorter with each dose. Meanwhile, data show the shots can render you increasingly susceptible to all manner of infection and disease, through a wide variety of mechanisms.
Moderna Trial Data Reveal Repeated Infections Are Likely
Among such data is a preprint study17 posted on medRxiv April 19, 2022, which found adult participants in Moderna’s COVID jab trial who got the real injection, and later got a breakthrough infection, did not generate antibodies against the nucleocapsid — a key component of the virus — as frequently as did those in the placebo arm.
Curiously, placebo recipients produced anti-nucleocapsid antibodies twice as often as those who got the Moderna shot, and their anti-nucleocapsid response was larger regardless of the viral load. As a result of this reduced antibody response, those who got the jab may be more prone to repeated COVID infections. As reported by The Defender :18
“[T]he authors found that using the presence of anti-nucleocapsid (anti-N) antibodies to determine whether a person was exposed to SARS-CoV-2 will miss some infections. Thus, the sensitivity of this kind of test, when applied to vaccinated individuals, is not ideal.
However, there are more important implications19,20 of these findings … Specifically, the study implies that the reduced ability of a vaccinated individual to produce antibodies to other portions of the virus may lead to a greater risk of future infections in the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated.
It is important to note that this is not just another argument for the superiority of natural immunity. Rather, this is evidence suggesting that even after a vaccinated person has a breakthrough infection, that individual still does not acquire the same level of protection against subsequent exposures that an unvaccinated person acquires.
This is a troubling finding, and something investigators conducting the Moderna vaccine trial likely knew in 2020.”
UK Data Confirm Results
These findings are corroborated by data from the U.K. Health Security Agency. It publishes weekly COVID-19 vaccine surveillance data, including anti-nucleocapsid antibody levels. The report21 for Week 13, issued March 31, 2022, shows that COVID-jabbed individuals with breakthrough infections have lower levels of these antibodies — a finding they attributed to the protective benefit of the shot:
“These lower anti N responses in individuals with breakthrough infections (post-vaccination) compared to primary infections likely reflect the shorter and milder infections in these patients.”
However, this interpretation is likely flawed, because less severe infection is associated with lower viral load, and as the study above demonstrated, the “vaccinated” have lower anti-nucleocapsid antibody levels than the unvaccinated at all viral load levels, but especially so at the lowest viral loads. As noted by The Defender :22
“This is one of the most significant findings of the study because it overturns the heretofore unchallenged idea that decreased seroconversion in the vaccinated is due to less severe infection in this population — which is a benefit provided by the vaccine.
However, this new study shows that even at low viral loads, the unvaccinated are more likely to seroconvert than those who are vaccinated. In fact, the difference in seroconversion rates is the greatest at lowest viral loads. The decrease in conversion rates is not a result of a benefit from the vaccine. It is a consequence of it.”
Boosted Now Have Three to Four Times Higher Case Rates
The Defender also reviews other U.K. data showing the COVID case rate is three to four times higher among those who have received a booster shot, compared to the unvaccinated. This is true for all age groups with the exception of children under 18:23
“What could explain such a large increase in infection rates among the boosted? Interestingly, the authors … warn that the unvaccinated may have contracted COVID-19 prior to the observation period — in other words, they may have acquired natural immunity previously, giving them added protection …
But their own data tells the opposite story. The boosted are more likely to contract the disease — by a factor of 3 to 4. How do we know whether the larger infection rates in the boosted are due to more robust immunity in the unvaccinated because of prior infection or due to an immune deficiency in the boosted?
The question can be definitively answered by examining the trend of infection rates [using] … the equivalent table from two months earlier. There is still a greater infection rate among the boosted, but it is only two to three times higher. If the authors’ hypothesis was correct, the more recent data should have shown less of a difference, not more.
If anything, their data support the finding that the decreased seroconversion rates in the vaccinated may be causing a greater risk of repeated infections.”
Walgreens’ Data
Data from the pharmacy chain Walgreens in the U.S. also reveal the same trend — COVID-jabbed individuals are testing positive for COVID at higher rates than the unjabbed, and those who got their last shot five months or more ago have the highest risk.
As you can see in the screenshot from Walgreens’ COVID-19 tracker24 below, during the week of May 9 through 15, 2022, 21.4% of unvaccinated individuals who got tested for COVID got a positive result. Of those who had gotten just one COVID shot, the positivity rate was 26.3%.
Of those who received two doses five months or more ago, 31.3% tested positive, and of those who received a third dose five months or more ago, the positive rate was 32.7%. So, after the first booster shot (the third dose), people are at greatest risk of testing positive for COVID.
Risk-Benefit Analyses
We also have the benefit of more than one risk-benefit analysis, and all show that, with very few exceptions, the COVID jabs do more harm than good. A risk-benefit analysis27 by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and independent researcher Kathy Dopp, published in mid-February 2022, concluded that the COVID jab is deadlier than COVID-19 itself for anyone under the age of 80.
Another analysis,28 which relied on data in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), concluded that in those under age 18, the shots only increase the risk of death from COVID, and there’s no point at which the shot can prevent a single COVID death, no matter how many are vaccinated.
If you’re under 18, you’re a shocking 51 times more likely to die from the jab than you are to die from COVID if not vaccinated. In the 18 to 29 age range, the shot will kill 16 for every person it saves from dying from COVID, and in the 30 to 39 age range, the expected number of vaccine fatalities to prevent a single COVID death is 15. Only when you get into the 60 and older categories do the risks between the jab and COVID infection even out.
A third risk-benefit analysis by researchers in Germany and The Netherlands was published in June 2021, in the journal Vaccines.29 The paper caused such an uproar, part of the editorial board resigned in protest.30 The journal retracted the paper, but after a thorough re-review, it was republished in the August 2021 issue of Science, Public Health Policy and the Law.31
These researchers concluded that, “as we vaccinate 100 000 persons, we might save five lives but risk two to four deaths.”32 A fourth, still preliminary, analysis — based on more than 1,700 death reports collected by Steve Kirsch — shows the shots do more harm than good in anyone under age 60. Kirsch writes:33
“Figure 1 below is an analysis of survey data I collected. The analysis shows that the vaccines are harmful to those under 60. The red dots higher than the error bar means more vaccinated people observed dead than expected based on the population of vaccinated to all people.
In other words, if we vaccinated 60% of people (middle of the grey bar) and 70% (red dot) of the deaths are vaccinated, we have a serious problem. The precautionary principle of medicine suggests if you are under 60 and thinking of taking a vaccine, you shouldn’t. These preliminary results are both statistically significant …
The conclusion is very clear: nobody under 60 years old should get the vaccine because there is no evidence of a benefit. In fact, if you are between 40-60, it’s clear that vaccination makes it more likely you’ll die, not less likely.”
Figure 1. Red dot below error bar = vax works. Red dot above error bar = vax likely causes harm. Red dot inside the error bar = Insufficient evidence to justify taking a new, unproven vaccine. Conclusion: Vaccine shouldn’t be considered unless there is a clear benefit. 60 and older seems to justify use based on the data we have so far. Limitations: we are waiting for others to confirm / challenge the analysis. See text34 for more info. Joel Smalley did the analysis.
While some analyses present a direr picture than others, taken together, it’s clear that there appears to be no long term benefits to the COVID jabs. We’re consistently ending up with a higher cost than can conceivably be considered reasonable. The pro-pharma side will likely continue to lob flimsy excuses at the data, but at some point, the truth will be so clear that even the blind will see it. Until that day, continue to inform yourself and share what you find.
Sources and References
- 1, 5 Medscape May 13, 2022
- 2 medRxiv April 29, 2022 DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.25.22274266
- 3, 11, 12, 13, 14 Anchorage Daily News April 29, 2022
- 4 Nature Communications November 20, 2020; 11 Article number 5917
- 6 medRxiv April 29, 2022 DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.25.22274266, See funding statement
- 7 Gates Foundation Grant to McGill University September 2020
- 8 Gates Foundation Grant to McGill University April 2020
- 9 McGill International Funding Sources
- 10 McGill newsroom December 17, 2015
- 15 CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shots
- 16 The Defender April 7, 2022
- 17 medRxiv April 19, 2022 DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.18.22271936
- 18, 22, 23 The Defender May 4, 2022
- 19 Igor’s Newsletter April 26, 2022
- 20 Bad Cattitude Substack April 27, 2022
- 21 UK Health Security Agency COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report Week 13
- 24 Walgreens COVID-19 Index
- 25 Twitter TexasLindsay April 23, 2022
- 26 Twitter TexasLindsay April 25, 2022
- 27 COVID-19 and All-Cause Mortality Data Analysis by Kathy Dopp and Stephanie Seneff (PDF)
- 28 COVID Vaccination and Age-Stratified All-Cause Mortality Risk (PDF)
- 29 Vaccines 2021; 9(7): 693
- 30 Science, Public Health Policy and the Law August 2021; 3: 81-86, page 82
- 31 Science, Public Health Policy and the Law August 2021; 3: 87-89
- 32 Clinical and Translational Discovery February 25, 2022; 2(1): e35
- 33, 34 Steve Kirsch Substack May 17, 2022
ICC urged to end Israel’s ‘devastating impunity’, as war crimes probe includes Abu Akleh
MEMO | May 27, 2022
Palestinian journalists are being systematically targeted by Israel because of the “gift of impunity” granted to the Apartheid State, a press conference in London was told today in the wake of the killing of Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh.
Convened by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), lawyers working on an existing case filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the targeting of Palestinian journalists by Israel announced that they will add the killing of Abu Akleh to the complaint issued in April.
Lawyers from Doughty Street Chambers and Bindmans LLP, along with representatives from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, and the ICJP, spoke about Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists and the ongoing legal battle to bring prosecution against the Occupation State.
The same group of lawyers and unions submitted a formal complaint to the ICC accusing Israel of systematically targeting journalists working in Palestine and failing to properly investigate killings of media workers, which amount to war crimes. The ICC recognised, in a February 2021 ruling, that it has jurisdiction over the situation in occupied Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem. This has paved the way for legal prosecution to be brought against Israel over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The complaint details the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists on behalf of four named victims – Ahmed Abu Hussein, Yaser Murtaja, Muath Amarneh and Nedal Eshtayeh – who were killed or maimed by Israeli snipers while covering demonstrations in Gaza. All were wearing clearly marked PRESS vests at the time they were shot.
The complaint also highlights the targeting of media and bombing of the Al-Shorouk and Al-Jawhara Towers in Gaza City in May 2021, including the cases of Alam News, Al Hayat Newspapers, Mayadeen Media, Al Bawaba 24 and others. Complaints have also formally been submitted to the UN Special Rapporteurs (UNSR) setting out how the systematic targeting of journalists working in Palestine, as well as the failure to properly investigate killings of media workers.
“We are awaiting confirmation from the ICC’s Prosecutor’s Office about the action they intend to take, but the killing of Shireen and the shooting of Ali Al-Samoudi bring to sharp focus the need for urgent action by the ICC”, Bindmans LLP, the firm hosting the event, said before the press conference. “We will seek to add these cases to the complaint that is already before the ICC.”
Director of the ICJP, Tayeb Ali, and the solicitor in the case said. “The targeting of journalists in conflict zones anywhere in the world is unacceptable and must bring severe consequences for those who try to hide their crimes and violations by killing or maiming journalists.” Ali described how “Israel has enjoyed a devastating impunity” and that the “gift of impunity” granted to the Apartheid State by international community has endangered the lives of Palestinian journalists. He stressed that “evidence is not the problem … holding Israel to account is.” Ali citied the large pool of documented evidence which he claims proves Israel is targeting journalists.
Updating the press conference over the April complaint issued to the ICC and the next step to prosecuting Israel, Jennifer Robinson, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, also spoke of Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists.
Robinson mentioned the findings of the 2019 Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 protests in Gaza. The Commission paid special attention to the protection of civilians and to groups warranting protection under international law, including children, women, health workers, journalists and persons with disabilities. Citing several individual cases including journalists that were shot in the abdomen, the Commission concluded that it had “found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot journalists intentionally, despite seeing that they were clearly marked as such”. The killing of Abu Akleh, said Robinson, is not one off. There exists a “pattern of targeting Palestinian journalists” she stressed, urging the ICC “to take action.”
Jim Boumelha, the former president of IFJ, a federation of some six thousand journalists world-wide, including Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, warned against the culture of impunity enjoyed by Israel. “Risk-free killing has become a norm” he said speaking about Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists. The killing of Abu Akleh is a message to countless others that they could be next, Boumelha claimed. IFJ alone has documented 877 violations by Israel against media and journalists. Appealing to the ICC to do its job, Boumelha said that “Israel may be the only country in the world that refuses to accept Palestinian journalists as journalists.”
A video message by Nasser Abu Bakr, President of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, urged new ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan to hold Israel to account. 50 journalists have been killed since 2000 alone said Abu Bakr. 7,000 crimes against Palestinian journalists have been documented.
A detailed account of Abu Akleh’s killing was given by her colleague, Walid Al-Omari. “Why would they target Shireen?” asked Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief. He suggested that Israel was seeking to inflict a direct and powerful blow to Al Jazeera. By killing Abu Akleh, the Occupation State hoped to silence one of the most powerful voices in Arab media, Al Omari claimed.
Al Jazeera has called Abu Akleh’s killing a “blatant murder” that violates “international laws and norms”. In its statement on Thursday, the network said, according to Article 8 of the ICC Charter, “targeting war correspondents, or journalists working in war zones or occupied territories by killing or physically assaulting them, is a war crime”.
Iran says US foreign policy ‘taken hostage’ by Israel
MEMO | May 26, 2022
Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, Thursday, Tehran is committed to reaching a deal during the Vienna nuclear talks, adding that US interests and foreign policy have been “taken hostage” by Israel, Anadolu News Agency reports.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he accused the Biden administration of being “indecisive” in talks to salvage the landmark 2015 nuclear deal following the previous administration’s maximum pressure policy against Iran.
The annual event brings together over 2,000 representatives of governments, business organisations, civil society and media leaders to discuss global challenges.
In a session moderated by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Iran’s top diplomat said Tehran has put forward a number of initiatives to Washington to salvage the nuclear deal, but the Biden administration has been dragging its feet over them.
The marathon talks in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), are currently stalled due to key disagreements between Tehran and Washington.
Amir-Abdollahian said the pause in the talks has been due to “lack of economic guarantees” from the US, and due to the fact that the new administration has followed the Donald Trump administration’s policy against Iran.
He said Iran must enjoy “full economic benefits” of the deal, and the agreement must facilitate the country’s economic and trade activity with the world.
The top diplomat, referring to one of the key sticking points in the talks — de-listing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from foreign terrorist organisations (FTO) — said the issue has been magnified by Israel.
He said the “main factor” is the full economic benefits of the deal for Iran and its people, while adding that the Biden administration must “show goodwill” in de-listing IRGC.
Amir-Abdollahian added that Iran has endured sanctions for 40 years and has “other different options” on the table if the talks in Vienna do not lead to a “good and lasting agreement”.
He also spoke about tension-easing talks with regional arch-foe, Saudi Arabia, saying the two sides have made small but significant progress and have agreed to hold talks at the level of foreign ministers in the near future.
The talks between Tehran and Riyadh have been under way since April last year, brokered by the Iraqi government. Despite pauses and tensions, both sides have noted progress.
Amir-Abdollahian said Iran has “always kept its door open” for Saudi Arabia and is ready for normalisation of ties with the Gulf neighbour, adding that it will contribute to stability in the region.
His remarks came a day after Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, told the Davos forum that progress had been made in talks with Iran, adding that “hands remain stretched” to Tehran.
Commenting on Russia’s war in Ukraine, Amir-Abdollahian said Iran condemns the war, as well as conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, without mentioning or condemning close ally, Moscow. He said Tehran is willing to mediate between the two warring countries.
On Yemen, the top Iranian diplomat said all Yemeni parties “should play a role” in determining the future of their country. He also denounced what he called “US support for terrorists” in the war-ravaged Arab country.
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From the Archives
British Intel Tried to Make N Irish Gang ‘Shoot Up’ School, Documentary Claims
Sputnik – 23.02.2019
A new documentary, based on an interview with a self-confessed member of the Glennane Gang, gives some insights into allegations that British military intelligence was behind a shocking murder plot to cause the situation in Northern Ireland to “spiral out of control”.
In a documentary, Unquiet Graves: The Story of the Glennane Gang, John Weir, a former officer from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), alleges that British intelligence tried to persuade paramilitary group Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) to attack a Catholic primary school at Belleeks in County Armagh.
Weir claimed that the UVF was urged to kill children and teachers in retaliation for the 1976 Kingsmill massacre, in which gunmen stopped a minibus carrying twelve workmen and shot them; only one person survived despite having been shot 18 times.
“The plan that was decided on was to shoot up a school in Belleeks”, he said, adding that the British intelligence plot was to make the situation in Northern Ireland “spiral out of control”. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Nima R. Alkhorshid: U.S. Military Bombs Multiple Targets on Iran’s Qeshm Island
- Iran-Linked Ships Spotted Hovering over Subsea Cables: Report
- New attack on Iran could devastate ‘Israel’, IOF general warns
- Nuclear deterrence: The US-Israeli military aggression against Iran made the unthinkable legitimate
- U.S. Midterms – a Referendum on Israel and Zionist Power
- Twice as many Canadian Jews serve in Israeli military as Canada’s armed forces: Report
- Thousands of Syrian troops set to join Saudi war on Yemen
- Jared Kushner’s Diplomacy for Hire
- Russia backs Tehran’s conditions in talks with US, Iran’s envoy says
- Irish ‘fake news’ expert exposed as fake
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- Zonal Asymmetry of Temperature Change in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current
- New Study: The Net Fossil Fuel Contribution To Rising Atmospheric CO2 Has Been Zero For 500 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
