British Palestinian surgeon wins legal battle against Germany’s travel ban
MEMO | May 15, 2024
In a significant legal victory, Professor Ghassan Abu Sitta, a renowned British-Palestinian war surgeon, has successfully overturned a Schengen-wide travel ban imposed on him by the German government. Abu Sitta’s legal team — lawyer Alexander Gorski of the International Centre of Justice for Palestine (ICJP), and the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) — challenged the ban, which they argued had deprived the surgeon of his freedom of expression and freedom to travel.
His lawyers described how he had faced hostile media and a travel ban after returning from Gaza, where he worked in hospitals and witnessed war crimes during Israel’s ongoing military offensive. The ban prevented him from entering France, the Netherlands and Germany, where he had been invited to speak about his experiences.
The ban also extended to joining a German conference online, with the German authorities warning Abu Sitta that if he took part it would “constitute a breach of German law” and could result in fines or imprisonment. Most recently, he was prevented from entering the Netherlands, where he was due to speak later this week to civil society organisations and Dutch MPs at the University of Amsterdam.
“These efforts by the German authorities constitute a serious breach of freedom of movement and expression in Europe and now a judge has ruled that the travel ban should be overturned,” said the ICJP. “This is a significant victory for freedom of speech and a significant turning point in challenging the chilling environment that many Palestinian human rights advocates have to operate in.”
ICJP lawyer Gorski emphasised that the victory ensures that Abu Sitta’s freedom of expression and movement are no longer under threat, allowing him to speak out about what he witnessed in Gaza.
Since leaving the Palestinian enclave in late November, Abu Sitta has been raising awareness about the impact of Israel’s war, which has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. During his time in Gaza, he became the unofficial English-language representative of Palestinian doctors and surgeons treating the wounded, accusing Israel’s military of using illegal white phosphorus and deliberately targeting children.
Israeli troops lament return to north Gaza months after ‘dismantling’ Hamas
The Cradle | May 15, 2024
Israeli troops say they are facing significant difficulty in battles with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza’s northern city of Jabalia, an area that Tel Aviv said months ago was “cleared” of Hamas fighters.
“Renewed operations in Jabalia and other parts of northern Gaza, like Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood, point to two lessons learned: that the IDF failed to fully assess the scale of Hamas’ military infrastructure in Gaza [during the first rounds of fighting in the city months earlier],” Haaretz newspaper reported on 14 May.
“When Israeli forces left the area, [Hamas] quickly reestablished itself in the vacuum created by the lack of a ‘day after’ strategy.”
Tel Aviv claimed in early January that all of Hamas’ battalions were dismantled in northern Gaza, including Jabalia. Several Israeli army brigades are now back in the north, with the army’s 98th division operating in Jabalia after being diverted there instead of Rafah, according to Haaretz.
“We are in a learning contest with Hamas. You can see they’ve changed tactics and are now focusing more on setting explosive devices in buildings,” the commander of the Israeli army’s 196th Battalion is cited as saying.
The fighters of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and other groups like the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) Quds Brigades have increasingly used the tactic of booby-trapping and detonating buildings with Israeli forces inside.
Traditional tactics, including RPG attacks on tanks and vehicles, sniping operations, and mortar attacks on troop concentrations, continue to be deployed. The Qassam Brigades released several videos over the past few days showcasing their operations against troops in Jabalia.
The Haaretz report notes that despite wide-scale operations across Jabalia months earlier, the resistance’s military capabilities remain intact. On 14 May, Israeli forces watched a barrage of rockets fly overhead, fired from nearby them in Jabalia northwards to Ashkelon.
“It’s frustrating to see this, seven and a half months after the war began,” a commander of the 196th battalion says.
According to Haaretz, the Israeli soldiers fighting in Jabalia have all used a single word to describe their presence in the city: “Sisyphean.” The word refers to the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who the gods punished by forcing him to roll a giant boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down each time he neared the top.
Reservists are also increasingly frustrated, as they are being deployed to combat areas with no knowledge of when they could return.
“We were told that, in principle, we’re coming for a month, but the bottom line is that we’re here with open-ended orders,” the Israeli outlet cites a reservist as saying, adding that some are not reporting for service.
Harvard agrees to discuss divestment from ‘Israel’ following protests
Al Mayadeen | May 15, 2024
After Harvard agreed to discuss student concerns on the university’s endowment concerning “Israel”, protesters against the Israeli war on Gaza took down their tents in the university yard on May 14.
Harvard oversees the biggest academic endowment in the world, amounting to around $50 billion, and invests part of it in funds and companies, some of which are linked to “Israel”.
In a statement on Instagram, the student protest group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP coalition) said that after surviving beyond the student move-out, the encampment has come to an end, however, “the struggle for Palestinian liberation goes on.”
They added that they built the “Liberated Zone in Harvard Yard as a model of the world we want to see: one that proudly affirms Palestinian liberation rather than elimination.”
The students highlighted how every day they sustained their encampment, their organizing capacity was strengthened, adding that they forced the “question of Palestine on an institution that has historically refused it.”
HOOP: Harvard turned Yard into ‘surveillance state’
HOOP went on to describe how Harvard attempted to quietly “choke” them out from closing its gates to the public, to even turning Harvard Yard into a “surveillance state.”
According to the students, a pre-condition of the decamping is that the administration would take back student suspensions, adding that it has also offered them meetings regarding disclosure and divestment with members of the Harvard Management Company, alongside talks about the launch of a Center for Palestine Studies at Harvard.
HOOP emphasized that they are “under no illusions,” as they know that these meetings are not divestment wins but are rather attempts to “pacify” them from full disclosure and divestment, however, that will not work.
They ended their statement by saying “Harvard beware: the Liberated Zone is everywhere.”
Harvard University Interim President Alan Garber agreed to meet with the students and answer their questions.
Protests in support of Gaza are ongoing
The director of Al Mayadeen‘s office in Geneva reported that student protests at Swiss universities are still taking place in support of Gaza and condemnation of Israeli crimes.
In addition, Herald Square in New York City has witnessed a massive demonstration in support of Palestine.
Harvard Law student gov. urged university to divest from ‘Israel’
The Harvard Law School (HLS) Student Government passed a resolution on March 29 urging the university to completely divest from any organization that supports the Israeli war on Gaza.
The measure urged the Harvard Management Company (HMC), which manages the school’s $50 billion endowment, “to divest completely from weapons manufacturers, firms, academic programs, corporations, and all other institutions that aid the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the genocide of Palestinians.”
The HLS Student Government alludes to Harvard’s commitment of nearly $200 million in businesses linked to the Israeli occupation military and illegal settlements in Palestine, similar to HMC’s prior divestment from South African apartheid and the tobacco industry in 1990.
The resolution’s author, Swap Agrawal, expressed that some Palestinian students at the school have “lost dozens of family members in the ongoing genocide,” noting that students reported feeling strongly that it was “necessary to put pressure on things to change.”
He added that students are deeply concerned that money held in trust may be funding this genocide, emphasizing that the resolution was affected by the International Court of Justice’s statement in January, which found it “plausible” that “Israel” had violated the Genocide Convention.
After the resolution vote, which had 12 supporters, four opponents, and three abstentions, two board members resigned, stating that they did so because they “strongly disagree” with it.
Orbán: We have enough warmongers in the EU parliament, don’t send more
BY DÉNES ALBERT | REMIX NEWS | MAY 15, 2024
The campaign for the European parliament is in full swing in Hungary, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on a nationwide tour to make the case for Hungarians to vote for his brand of anti-war, anti-immigration politics
“Sending a pro-war MEP to Brussels is like throwing water into the Danube: It is possible, but unnecessary. There is enough of that there,” he said at a campaign stop in Tiszaladány.
Orbán further suggested that “instead of pro-war leftists who are bought by the kilo, let’s send pro-peace people to Brussels! Let’s show George Soros that there is no worse investment than a Hungarian pro-war politician.”
Orbán’s stance against mass immigration and war is particularly popular in Hungary, which may account for the historic popularity of his party and his ability to win absolute majorities in national elections. However, his stance is also becoming more popular throughout Europe, with polling showing that the vast majority of Europeans want an end to the war and mass immigration.
Most recently, Orbán visited the Hungarian cities of Szentendre, Pomaz, Solymar and Esztergom, which came on top of his recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Budapest — a visit that received considerable international coverage.
Currently, the ruling Fidesz party has 13 MEPs out of Hungary’s quota of 21. Orbán, who is the longest-serving European head of state currently still in power, is looking to maintain his large bloc of Fidesz MEPs and may potentially join an EU parliamentary group following the elections.
Ukraine Prepares Total Mobilization in 5 Controlled Cities – Russian Official
Sputnik – 15.05.2024
SIMFEROPOL – Kiev is preparing full-scale mobilization in five Ukrainian-controlled cities in the coming days, Vladimir Rogov, a senior official of the Russia-appointed Zaporozhye regional administration, told Sputnik on Wednesday.
“According to the received operational information, [the cities of] Kostyantynovka, Slovyansk, Pavlograd, Zaporozhye, Kharkov should be subjected to total mobilization in the coming days. We are talking about the complete blocking of roads in the cities with checkpoints, filtration measures, apartment and house-to-house rounds. Everything is expected to start on May 17-18,” Rogov said.
He added that hundreds of employees of the Ukrainian military recruitment centers were coming in the cities to collect people, with reinforcements from the Ukrainian National Guard and the Ukrainian Security Service.
On April 11, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a bill on mobilization aimed at replenishing Ukrainian forces depleted by two years of armed conflict with Russia. On April 16, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed it into law. The document will take effect on May 18.
Martial law was introduced in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The next day, Zelensky signed a decree on general mobilization. The martial law and mobilization have been continuously extended since then. On May 9, Zelensky signed bills to extend mobilization and martial law in the country for another 90 days. Under martial law, men aged from 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving Ukraine.
Ukraine desperate to receive more Western aid
By Lucas Leiroz | May 15, 2024
The Kiev regime still appears not to have understood its proxy role in the war with Russia. The country’s officials continue to demand constant assistance from the West, as if supporting Ukraine were an “obligation” of Western states. Now, the Ukrainians even want “unrestricted aid”, demanding from their partners that the costs of the war be included in the permanent expenses of NATO countries.
In a recent statement, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andrey Yermak, one of the officials closest to Vladimir Zelensky, demanded from all Western countries, in addition to increased financial aid, unlimited access to their war arsenals and frozen Russian funds. His words were spoken during the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, where pro-Ukrainian organizations, led by the NGO “Alliance of Democracies”, met to discuss cooperation projects with Kiev.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen himself, former secretary general of NATO, participated in the event, supporting Yermak’s demands. Both officials signed a joint document at the summit endorsing the systematic increase in support for Kiev. Other relevant former authorities also participated in the event, such as Boris Johson, Sanna Marin and Hillary Clinton. The massive attendance of former officers shows that current Western politicians are not paying too much attention to the event, which is a consequence of the growing lack of interest in continuing to support Ukraine after so many military losses.
Yermak also commented on what he expects Western aid to look like from now on. According to him, at least 0.25% of the GDP of each NATO country must be sent to Kiev. Some countries have already spent much more than this percentage of their GDP on Ukraine, but what Yermak wants is for these expenses to become permanent, creating a kind of “obligation” on the part of Western countries towards Kiev. Latvia, for example, has already promised to continue spending more than 0.25% of its GDP on the war for at least the next three years. Yermak praises this initiative and calls on other European countries to act in the same way.
Furthermore, he emphasized the need for Kiev to receive at least 300 million dollars from Russian assets frozen in the West. According to Yermak, investing in the Ukrainian military is the correct way to use this money as it would be possible to try to reverse the damage caused by the so-called “Russian invasion”. The request reveals how Ukraine and the West are jointly desperate to establish new military assistance plans. Unable to spend more of their own funds, Western countries have frozen Russian assets so they have something to send to Ukraine – and, for its part, Kiev is in a rush to receive those funds as soon as possible, fearing that its “partners” will use the money for other priorities in their countries and abandon Ukraine.
Yermak and Rasmussen particularly emphasized the “need” to lift any restrictions on arms shipments to Ukraine. For them, it is unacceptable that some NATO countries continue to limit what can be sent to the Ukrainian battlefield. Furthermore, they called for restrictions on arms use to be revoked as well – which, in practice, means public authorization for the Ukrainian armed forces to kill civilians with NATO weapons.
The warmongers who attended the summit also called on NATO authorities to organize a conference in Washington with Ukrainian participation. The objective would be to establish a “clear timeline” for Kiev’s accession to the alliance, as well as new assistance goals in the current war. As a result, the summit’s participants tried in vain to put pressure for the neo-Nazi regime to enter the bloc, even though NATO had already indicated its intention to keep Ukraine as a mere proxy.
In fact, all the requests made at the summit seem impossible to fulfill. Yermak practically called for Ukraine to become a permanent state concern for Western countries. This may work in countries engaged in anti-Russian paranoia, such as the Baltics, but it is absolutely unfeasible for the military alliance as a whole. Western countries are simply exhausting their resources, leaving them unable to maintain constant support, which is why it will not be possible, even if there is a desire, to maintain a significant portion of the national GDP restricted to the war.
The summit seems to have brought together the most desperate sectors among Western and Ukrainian warmongers. Faced with the inevitable decline in support for Kiev, pro-war activists want to reestablish the anti-Russian agenda and prevent any possibility of peace.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
Meta’s Oversight Board Adopts International “Norms” Instead of US Free Speech Principles
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 14, 2024
In a world where international law (a set of ratified documents) is being rapidly replaced with narratives about a “rules-based system,” it is no wonder that US tech giants like Meta choose to set their free speech “baseline” not on their country’s Constitution, but on “international human rights norms.”
The less clarity there is, the more space for abuse and biased interpretation, critics might say. But Meta Oversight Board member Kenji Yoshino is satisfied that this is the right approach, and even spelled it out.
“Our baseline here is not the US Constitution and free speech, but rather international human rights norms,” Yoshino recently told the National Constitution Center, a private nonprofit.
Such bold statements require bold justification, and so this Oversight Board member noted that in terms of free speech “values” the US is “an outlier,” while Meta’s global reach means it must adjust its policies accordingly.
There are plenty of openly authoritarian regimes out there, with their own “free speech values,” but when Yoshino – from the William J. Brennan Center for Justice – spoke about “striking a balance” between US law and international “norms” – he chose to mention the palatable to his audience example of Europe.
What’s striking in this context, however, is that in many, if not all European countries, “hate speech” is criminalized, unlike in the US. It isn’t clear from Yoshino’s statements how a balance between such different approaches to speech can even be achieved in a social platform’s guidelines, particularly around elections.
But, that is the explanation for why the giant chooses not to make the First Amendment its “baseline.”
And if the baseline is international human rights norms, Yoshino admitted, “often times that calculus comes out differently than it would if the baseline were First Amendment norms.”
Such statements will do little to reassure those in the US already wary of Meta’s handling of content, censorship, and free speech, especially ahead of yet another high-stakes election coming up.
The fact that after a brief “pause” the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are now officially back in the business of “communicating” (opponents of the policy would say, “colluding”) with social media platforms, doesn’t help matters.
If anything, it raises fears of a concerted censorship push, driven both from the outside by government pressure, and from within Meta itself.
RFK Jr. Files Lawsuit Against Meta, Alleging Censorship of Presidential Campaign Video
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 14, 2024
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent candidate in the upcoming US presidential election, has announced that he filed a lawsuit against Meta (Facebook and Instagram) in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
Kennedy alleges that the two platforms censored a video, the documentary “Who is Bobby Kennedy,” that is part of his presidential campaign.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
The filing, submitted by Kennedy and his political action committee (PAC), accuses Meta of using its platforms to prevent users from watching, sharing, or posting links to the video, a short time after it was first released.
The platforms are accused of suppressing a video about the presidential candidate’s career and his criticism of vaccines as a result of the US government’s repeated demands that tech companies do so.
To bolster this argument, the filing refers to Murthy v. Missouri, currently in the Supreme Court, where the allegation is that the White House pressured and colluded with social media powerhouses to censor content it disfavors, including around vaccines.
Meta first blocked the documentary on May 3 – two days later formally reversing this decision, describing it as “a mistake” – but Kennedy maintains that the film is still demoted and shadow-banned, and otherwise sabotaged in terms of visibility.
He also made a point that the case is not only about free speech suppression, i.e., a First Amendment issue, but also, interference in the democratic process.
“Meta is censoring a biographical film about a major candidate in an election year,” Kennedy stressed – and one might add, this is happening on some of the major and most influential platforms.
This is not the politician and activist’s “first rodeo” trying to take Big Tech to task for, in his view, unjustifiably censoring his content.
A lawsuit he brought against Google (YouTube) for removing his videos critical of Covid vaccines’ efficacy is now being considered in a court of appeals. In that case, Kennedy also accused Google of making the decision to block his content in collusion with the current government.
Woman Injured by AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine During Clinical Trial Sues for Breach of Contract
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 14, 2024
A woman injured by the AstraZeneca vaccine she received in 2020 during a U.S. clinical trial is suing the vaccine maker in the first case of its kind challenging the legal liability shield for COVID-19 vaccine makers.
Brianne Dressen, who since 2021 has advocated on behalf of vaccine injury victims, filed suit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah seeking compensation for injuries and disability she alleges resulted from the vaccine.
Under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act), AstraZeneca and other COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers cannot be held liable for injuries related to the vaccines.
However, Dressen’s lawsuit — which also names the Salt Lake City-based clinical trial site consolidator Velocity Clinical Research — contends AstraZeneca can be sued for breach of contract.
According to the lawsuit, the company agreed to cover the medical costs for any vaccine-related injuries under a contract between AstraZeneca and clinical trial participants.
Dressen alleges that in her case, the cost of her injuries and disability amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Dressen, who was 39 when she was vaccinated, was previously a preschool teacher but is now unable to work.
Within hours of getting her first dose, Dressen experienced tingling in her right arm — a neurological condition known as paresthesia — and blurred vision and vomiting.
In the weeks that followed, her condition worsened, with the paresthesia spreading to her legs, resulting in disability and a diagnosis in 2021 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of post-vaccine neuropathy.
The lawsuit seeks “all available damages, both economic and non-economic.”
Attorney Michael Connett of law firm Siri & Glimstad LLP, who is representing Dressen in her lawsuit, told The Defender, “As far as we know, this is the first case in the U.S. where a pharmaceutical company is being held financially responsible for the harms caused by the COVID vaccine.”
Dressen told The Defender that her breach of contract claim “is another first for the United States, as PREP Act protections have been completely impenetrable.”
Dressen, founder of React19, a nonprofit advocating for vaccine injury victims, said she hopes the lawsuit will provide “accountability for my individual case but also bolsters a pathway forward for my injured colleagues both in the U.S. and abroad — namely, each and every plaintiff in the U.K. seeking restitution from AstraZeneca.”
Dressen cited an ongoing class-action lawsuit in the U.K. against AstraZeneca by people alleging they were injured by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and by the relatives of 12 people who died after getting the shot.
In documents AstraZeneca submitted to the U.K. High Court last month as part of that case, the company admitted that its COVID-19 vaccine “can, in very rare cases, cause TTS” — vaccine-induced thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, which causes the body to produce life-threatening blood clots.
Dressen’s lawsuit comes just days after AstraZeneca announced the withdrawal of its COVID-19 vaccine globally — though the company said it based its decision on the “surplus of available updated vaccines,” leading to reduced demand for its vaccine.
The U.S. never granted emergency use authorization for the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, citing safety concerns.
However, the vaccine generated over $5.8 billion in sales globally, with the help of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which funded and promoted the vaccine in other countries. Several countries later stopped administering the AstraZeneca vaccine due to safety concerns.
Connett said AstraZeneca’s decision to withdraw the vaccine “really doesn’t have a bearing” on Dressen’s lawsuit.
Ray Flores, a health freedom rights attorney unconnected to the lawsuit, agreed because “the complaint is not based on product liability.”
Flores said:
“Around the country, COVID-19 vaccine injury cases that alleged negligence, battery of a minor, fraud or emotional distress have all been unsuccessful due to the PREP Act — while cases that allege negligence not involving a countermeasure have generally been successful.
What makes this case unique is that it alleges a breach of a written contract. For a court to allow liability protection here would really stretch the extent of the law. But on the other hand, it would unequivocally etch the stench of the PREP Act in Americans’ minds — but my ‘money’ in this case is on the plaintiff.”
AstraZeneca induced people to join trials by promising to pay for injuries
According to Connett, AstraZeneca induced people to join its clinical trial by promising to pay the medical expenses for any injuries that resulted from its COVID-19 vaccine.
“This inducement, this promise, became a contractual obligation the moment study subjects rolled up their sleeve and let the company inject the experimental vaccine into their arm,” he said.
Just because a company is making the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t give that company a license “to make false promises to induce people to enter its clinical trial,” he said. “The bonanza of immunity that the PREP Act provides does not go so far as to shield a vaccine maker from its own contractual obligations.”
Flores said that if AstraZeneca “never intended to honor its promise to insure Dressen … it would not only be a breach of contract but would rise to the level of fraud.”
“When a vaccine injury lawsuit highlights a defendant’s inhumanity, it is always highly persuasive,” Flores said. “In this case, an absurd $1,243.30 settlement offer after reneging on its written promise to insure when there are evidently millions of dollars in damages and unspeakable suffering is just that.”
Connett said any other individual injured by the AstraZeneca vaccine “has the legal right to recover the full costs of the injury,” but advised that “The time to take legal action, however, may be limited, so acting expeditiously will be important.”
‘Completely hollowed-out version of who I once was’
The lawsuit described the timeline of Dressen’s symptoms following vaccination, with paresthesia spreading to her right shoulder and left arm and later to her legs. Within weeks, she lost 20 pounds as a result of frequent vomiting, while she also developed light sensitivity and became “acutely sensitive to sound.”
Dressen said her heart rate also would randomly spike, leading to shortness of breath and feelings of fainting. She described her experience in the lawsuit as feeling like a “completely hollowed-out version of who I once was.”
Before her Nov. 4, 2020, vaccination, Dressen filled out consent forms stating the company would “cover the costs” — including, but not limited to, medical bills — if she experienced a “research injury.”
Those forms, Dressen said, claimed the study doctor would provide treatment or referral in the event of injury, noting that the study sponsor had the necessary insurance.
“Sponsor will pay the costs of medical treatment for research injuries, provided that the costs are reasonable, and you did not cause the injury yourself,” the contract stated, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit notes that two days after Dressen signed the consent form, AstraZeneca amended the form to state that its vaccine may cause “neurological disorders” such as “demyelinating disease,” which could “cause substantial disability” or death “if not treated promptly.”
Dressen received multiple diagnoses indicating her symptoms were related to her vaccination. Her husband eventually reached out to the NIH, which invited her to visit its Bethesda, Maryland, campus “for extensive testing and treatment,” as part of a study the agency was conducting at the time involving people injured by COVID-19 vaccines.
As a result of those tests, NIH neurologists concluded that Dressen had sustained post-vaccine neuropathy, which had caused “dysautonomia” and “chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy.”
“The limited safety data that AstraZeneca has released to the public shows that other clinical trial participants who received the company’s COVID vaccine suffered a higher incidence of nervous system disorders, including various types of demyelinating diseases, where the myelin sheaths that protect the nerve cells are stripped away,” Connett said.
AstraZeneca ‘were nowhere to be found’
According to the lawsuit, Dressen’s medical costs are prohibitive. One medication alone costs $432,000 a year, “although her insurance company has been able to negotiate this down (at least for now) to $119,000 per year,” she said.
But despite these high costs and Dressen’s ongoing disability, which makes her “unable to drive more than a few blocks at a time” and limits her parenting ability, the lawsuit states that AstraZeneca offered her only $1,243.30 in total compensation.
“When they needed me, I was there, I cooperated. When I needed them, they were nowhere to be found,” Dressen said in the lawsuit. “I called the test clinic early on with tears running down my face, begging them to help me. They said the drug company would call back any day now. Nightmarish days turned into weeks, and those nightmarish weeks turned into months, and now years. That call never came.”
In July 2021, Dressen’s injuries led her to contact Dr. Anthony Fauci directly to request help, according to documents recently obtained by Children’s Health Defense in a lawsuit against the NIH.
In that email, Dressen said she had been contacting federal health agencies for months with “No substantiative [sic] response.”
Dressen said Fauci never responded to her message.
Calling her lawsuit a “David v. Goliath type case,” Dressen told The Defender her “heart has and always will be with the injured community.” She said, “Every single American injured by a pharmaceutical product deserves their day in court.”
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.
Strategic setbacks for US, Israel as the Resistance Axis gains ground in Syria
Recent resistance operations in eastern Syria have established new rules of engagement that constrain both Washington and Tel Aviv
By Khalil Nasrallah | The Cradle | May 14, 2024
For several years, the presence of the region’s Axis of Resistance forces in Syria has remained vulnerable to US and Israeli attacks across the country, from east to west. The US has persistently attempted to disrupt the communication routes along the Tehran–Beirut axis, through which Damascus plays an important link.
Starting in 2017, after eliminating ISIS from this key border crossing, Axis forces have safeguarded passage of vehicles through the vital Al-Qaim–Al-Bukamal road and effectively established rules of engagement in eastern Syria, gradually limiting Washington’s tactical flexibility and dominance. This was a strategically important development – maintaining a foothold west of the Euphrates River to the far southeast of Syria continues to be essential for both state and non-state actors in the resistance.
A shift in tactical approach
Since the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood last October, many new shifts have emerged on the ground in eastern Syria. With an uptick in Iraqi resistance activities targeting US bases in both Syria and Iraq, a sort of tentative peace emerged in early February, coinciding with Kataib Hezbollah’s temporary suspension of operations.
During this period, the resistance forces secured new advancements that solidified their position, primarily because Washington had to grudgingly acknowledge the new ground realities – a fait accompli, if you will.
Although the US continued to carry out “retaliatory” strikes targeting the Iraqi resistance, which, to many, seemed to restore some level of peace, this came with significant compromises.
According to information obtained by The Cradle, the resistance groups have not only established a more pronounced military and political stance during this period of relative calm but have also forced the US to accept crucial losses in the field.
In short, not only has Washington retreated from its provocative operations against regional resistance forces, but Tel Aviv has likewise shown reluctance to launch further raids – so far – in eastern Syria to assassinate fighters affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Israeli retreat is not a unilateral decision but a result of US recalibration of these risks. The occupation army cannot launch operations without the American green light and intelligence data, and Washington is currently reluctant to cover Israeli actions that will draw the US deeper into the morass in Syria and Iraq. It also seeks to avoid further resistance attacks on US bases and occupied Syrian oil fields, especially now that it has experienced direct blows from targeted munitions.
It is also not insignificant that the Iraqi resistance has directly targeted key Israeli ports. Tel Aviv cannot afford opening up further military fronts eight months into a conflict in which it is incapable of winning on a single front, in Gaza.
Rules of engagement in Eastern Syria
The rules of engagement in eastern Syria are distinct from those governing interactions in the western and central regions of the country, which primarily involve the Israeli entity and Resistance Axis forces alongside Damascus.
In the east, the main opposition to the resistance forces is the illegal US military occupation and its Kurdish allies.
This region, stretching across the Euphrates River to Albu Kamal, which abuts Iraq’s Al-Qaim crossing, represents a strategic foothold for the Resistance Axis established in 2017. This was achieved during the “Great Dawn” operations, a series of offensives in three stages led by resistance forces, the Syrian army, and their Russian allies.
These operations enabled the Syrian and Iraqi resistance forces to reach and secure the Al-Qaim crossing, effectively reconnecting the two countries for the first time since 2011, which offered the Axis a world of new tactical advantages.
The establishment of this route, known as the Tehran–Beirut road, was perceived by the US and Israelis as a strategic geopolitical setback to their goal of severing relations and routes between Iran and the Mediterranean. In response, Washington intensified its efforts to destabilize this area through raids and pressures and by supporting attacks by ISIS cells and other militant groups, aiming to prevent the resistance forces from cementing their positions and achieving stability.
These tensions would escalate significantly towards the end of 2019 and into early 2020, following US claims that its forces in Kirkuk were targeted in a rocket attack attributed to the Iraqi resistance.
Washington responded provocatively by launching heavy strikes against an Iraqi resistance faction in Al-Qaim, killing at least fifty fighters in an operation closely followed by the targeted assassinations of Iranian Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani and Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) Deputy Head Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
One key goal of this unprovoked US escalation was to prevent the resistance connectivity project, specifically cutting off the roads of communication between Tehran–Baghdad–Damascus–Beirut, which is seen as threatening both the US presence and Israel’s security.
Following the strike on the Ain al-Assad airbase earlier this year, resistance forces moved to intensify their targeting of US military bases using missiles and drones, conducted multiple operations in the Syrian Desert to safeguard transit routes against Washington-backed terror groups, and established protective measures around the US occupation base in Al-Tanf, located near the Syrian–Jordanian–Iraqi border intersection.
Through these coordinated efforts, the Axis of Resistance imposed new rules of engagement, effectively balancing the scales by linking their actions at Albu Kamal and Al-Qaim with significant retaliatory strikes against US bases.
This approach led to a noticeable reduction in direct US military engagements – which, interestingly and unsurprisingly, coincided with a spike in ISIS cells attempting infiltrations in both Syria and Iraq.
This state of affairs persisted until the Iraqi resistance increased its operations against US troops in both Syria and Iraq, partly in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip.
West Asia’s new reality
Between the rules of engagement that preceded the events of 7 October and those that followed the targeting of US bases, significant changes have occurred, especially after Iraqi resistance operations showcased the vulnerabilities of the American deterrence strategy.
The illegal US bases have been exposed as unsafe, not only in Syria and Iraq but also extending to Jordan. The results of the resistance operations can be summarized as follows:
The Axis has successfully established and strengthened its ground presence in areas Washington once viewed as its own stomping ground and has achieved a de facto truce that benefits long-term resistance goals across military, economic, and political domains.
Consequently, resistance troops are now more effectively pursuing the remnants of US-backed ISIS cells within the depths of the Syrian Desert. These terror cells, though engaged in continuous disruptive operations, are no longer seen as posing a strategic threat.
The Axis’ efforts can also now more effectively concentrate on the main front, against Israel, in support of the Palestinian resistance there. The rules of engagement with the US have been reinforced and are poised for further development in future stages, with plans to pose a more formidable challenge to the US presence across West Asia.
Vulcan Program’s Delay Shows US Can’t Even Copy, Much Less Replace, Russia’s Rocket Engine Know-How
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 14.05.2024
A senior US Air Force official has sent defense contractors a strongly worded letter over delays to the Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift launch vehicle program – initiated to replace the workhorse Atlas V, which uses Russian-made RD-180 engines. The delay signals the US’s inability even to copy Russian-made equipment, a leading space researcher says.
US Air Force Assistant Secretary Frank Calvelli has sent the heads of Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s United Launch Alliance space divisions an “unusually blunt” appeal highlighting Pentagon concerns over the years-long delays to the Vulcan rocket project.
“I am growing concerned with ULA’s ability to scale manufacturing of its Vulcan rocket and scale its launch cadence to meet our needs. Currently there is military satellite capability sitting on the ground due to Vulcan delays,” Calvelli complained.
“As the owners of ULA, and given the manufacturing prowess of Boeing and Lockheed Martin corporations, I recommend that you work together over the next 90 days to complete an independent review of ULA’s ability to scale its launch cadence to meet” contract requirements, the official urged.
Calvelli expressed concerns about the ULA’s poor flight record to date, pointing out that to meet its contract obligations, it would have to launch 25 missions for the Pentagon by the end of 2027. The alliance, separately bound to launch 38 rockets for Amazon’s Kuiper internet satellite constellation, launched only three missions through 2023.
“Launch is critical to our ability to transform our space architecture. We are counting on Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the ULA team to be successful in getting critical capabilities into space for our warfighters,” the assistant secretary wrote.
The United Launch Alliance kicked off the Vulcan’s development a decade ago amid a push by Washington to phase out the purchase of Russian-made RD-180 engines used on the Vulcan’s predecessor, the Atlas V, to put satellites into orbit. The Vulcan has a stated launch capacity of 27.2 tons, and an estimated expected cost of $100-$200 million per launch, compared to 8.2-18.85 tons and $1090 million per launch for the Atlas V, depending on variant.
Initially projected to start flying in 2019, the Vulcan program has faced half a decade of delays, owing partly to major issues with the rocket’s BE-4 engines, developed by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company. The first Vulcan rocket successfully launched in January of this year, but quickly ran into new problems, including delays to the development of the Air Force’s Soviet-inspired Dream Chaser spaceplane.
The program will require a second flight before it can be certified by the Pentagon for use for national security and intelligence collection-related missions, with ULA expecting the program’s second launch to take place sometime later this year.
Calvelli did not elaborate on the nature of his concerns with the Vulcan program, instead shifting the discussion to national security and the US’s strategic competition with Beijing.
“The United States continues to face an unprecedented strategic competitor in China, and our space environment continues to become more contested, congested and competitive. We have seen exponential growth of in-space activity, including counterspace threats, and our adversaries would seek to deny us the advantage we get from space during a potential conflict,” he wrote.
ULA assures that it’s on track to ramping up its rocket production capabilities, with CEO Tony Bruno telling media that the Vulcan “is much less expensive” than the Atlas V with its Russian-made RD-180s, and that future plans to reuse the new, American-made engines will result in “economies of scale” that will make it “cheaper over time.”
Boeing responded to Calvelli’s letter by promising to get “on more of a wartime footing to stay ahead of the threat,” and agreed with the senior Air Force officer’s sense that “a quicker and more reliable launch cadence is critical to meeting that need.”
Rocket Science
The problems surrounding the Vulcan rocket and its engines signal major issues for US space rocket engineering, with the ULA delay demonstrating that American rocket scientists currently can’t even effectively copy Russian engines, much less create safe, reliable engines of their own, says Dr. Natan Eismont, a leading researcher at the Russian Academy of Scientists’ Space Research Institute, told Sputnik.
“There have been attempts to copy RD-180 engines from the moment they were sold to the Americans,” Eismont recalled. From the early 2000s onward, “launches were carried out using the Atlas III, and then a lot using the Atlas V, [which] provided for nearly half of all American launches. This is significant…There were attempts to copy the RD-180 from the start, and to this day they remain just that – attempts. The Americans haven’t been able to create an engine with characteristics close to matching the RD-180.”
Created in the 1990s, the RD-180 is a derivative of the legendary RD-170/171 series of rocket engines, developed in the 1980s by Energomash for the super-heavy Energiya launch vehicle, which was designed to shuttle up to 100 tons of useful cargo into Low Earth Orbit, to launch the Buran space shuttle, and deploy the next generation of space station components, and pieces of large, Moon and Mars-faring spacecraft of the future.
With the Soviet space program curtailed dramatically after the USSR’s collapse, budding cooperation with the US in the 1990s instead led to the development of the RD-180, and the export of over 120 of these engines to the US between 2000 and 2021.
The question of why the Americans have not been able to develop an engine with characteristics comparable to the RD-180, or even copy the Russian-made engine, stems from a problem which has plagued the US going back almost to the start of the space age, Eismont says.
“Efficiency is measured by specific thrust [the ratio of net thrust/total intake airflow, ed.], which for the RD-180 is 400 tons from the Earth’s surface, and 430 tons in a vacuum. These characteristics are generally achievable. But there’s also the specific impulse [a measure of how efficiently the engine generates thrust, ed.] and here, no rocket apart from ours has been able to achieve comparable parameters. Because to obtain characteristics comparable to those achieved by the RD-180, one must use a fairly high level of pressure in the combustion chamber – more than 200 atmospheres,” which can be dangerous if done improperly, the academic explained.
“At the same time, high-frequency oscillations arise,” Eismont added. “The secret lies in determining the moment during testing after which these fluctuations become possible, and immediately turning off the engine at that precise moment. How to do that – what parameters are necessary here, what parameters are acceptable, and how issues can be overcome – it appears that no one apart from our specialists knows this. Simply handing over the engine with all its documentation is not enough. Because there are subtleties in the manufacture of the engine which are difficult to convey using documentation.”
That’s not to say that American rocket scientists will not be able to ever overcome these difficulties, the observer emphasized. They can and will, but doing so “requires a lot of money and time,” and knowledge enough to pinpoint when testing enters the danger zone to prevent the destruction of “very expensive” test equipment.
Solving this issue will be “critical” for the Americans, Eismont believes.
“Here, [the ULA] can turn to [Space X CEO Elon] Musk, where, in general, the same tasks were set, and the company has its own rocket engine. For Musk too, everything didn’t work out straight away or to the end. Here, in general, we can say that Musk has not achieved the required level of reliability. SpaceX’s engine is in fact also an attempt to copy the RD-180… They are probably further along than say Boeing or others involved [in the Vulcan program, ed.]. But nevertheless, he had to come to terms with the fact that he could not manage without accidents. That is, the process turned out to be slower and more expensive than planned,” the academic explained.
Besides documentation, what US rocket scientists are really lacking is specialists, who can’t be replaced by imported engines, technical or even testing documentation.
“What you need are people involved in the project. Who will give the Americans these people? No one,” Eismont said.
This isn’t anything new, the academic recalled, pointing out that the US has had problems with its rocketry programs going back to the Apollo program and the days of the Saturn 5 rocket. “If you look at the technical characteristics of these American engines, they were strikingly worse than those that the USSR had at the time,” he said.
“It’s difficult to say why this was, but the Americans lagged behind here from the start. As for Soviet and Russian engines, they display an exceptional level of reliability. From the time that the Americans purchased these particular engines from us, they have not had any accidents. That is, the entire program was developed and carried out in accordance with the experience accumulated by that time by Energomash. Here, they really are ahead of everyone else.”
Ivan Moiseev, the head of the Russian Institute of Space Policy, echoed Eismont’s assessment regarding the RD-180, telling Sputnik that this is an “excellent” engine, with “not a single failure in over 100 launches.”
“The contract was concluded in 1996 and completed in 2021 – three years ago. Accordingly, the Americans still have some engines, they can still launch the Atlas V,” Moiseev said.
After that, it will be anyone’s guess how the Pentagon plans to get its payloads into orbit, unless ULA get its act together, or Washington pulls the plug on the whole thing and puts all its spacefaring eggs in Musk’s SpaceX basket.
Featured Video
Why the U.S. Should Pull Back From the First Island Chain
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Only 19.7% of Americans agree with US State Dept on Israeli settlements
… Most American adults of voting age don’t appear willing to reject the applicability of international law to Israel’s ongoing colonization of occupied territories in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Golan Heights. … Full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Albania on fire: who’s behind the riots?
- Egypt’s Civil Democratic Movement rejects involvement in regional war
- Egypt collaborates with Israel to build ‘Green Rafah’ project over erased Palestinian city
- Rising fuel prices and shortages have helped drive ongoing protests and rioting in France
- Tokyo protests demand Takaichi’s resignation over support for ‘Israel’
- Jennifer Kavanagh: Why the U.S. Should Pull Back From the First Island Chain
- Yemen denounces international community’s silence on Saudi aggression, siege
- UAE and Saudi Arabia move toward renewed coordination against Sanaa
- How Iran’s two-week retaliatory strikes exposed cracks in US military architecture in Persian Gulf
- The mother of all propaganda: Why the hype over US MOAB strike against Iran is nothing but theater
- If Americans Knew
- What the UK Is Doing to Pro-Palestine Novelist Sally Rooney Is an Act of Orwellian Villainy
- ‘We will build palaces for Jews in Gaza’: Right-wing activists establish new outpost near border
- ‘You see us burning, you stay silent’: Family’s agony over mother and sons burned to death in Gaza tent
- Israel keeps Palestinian journalist Bushra al-Tawil in isolation for 46 days
- US-Israel integration plan puts US military tech in Israel’s hands
- Israeli Strike Burns Gaza Mother Alive in Front of Toddler, ‘Without Generating Any Headlines’
- ‘The Israel Experience with Mike Huckabee’: The Ambassador’s Family Sells Trips to Israel
- As Gazans carry out mass burial, food insecurity is getting worse – Daily Update
- Israeli rabbi permits occupiers to steal Palestinian olive harvest in West Bank
- Netanyahu’s spin on latest settler attack is laughable – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Proifessor 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
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
