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Eight years since US forces turned Afghanistan hospital into slaughterhouse

By Ajmal Barakzai | Press TV | October 4, 2023

In the pitch darkness of night, on October 3, 2015, a hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) in northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz city came under high-precision, indiscriminate airstrikes, shattering the deafening silence.

Kunduz Trauma Center – including its intensive care unit, emergency rooms, laboratory, x-ray unit, outpatient department, mental health and physiotherapy ward – were all reduced to rubble.

At least 42 people, including patients, staff and caretakers, were killed in the devastating attack carried out by an American gunship, marking one of the deadliest chapters in the 20-year-long American war.

Tuesday marked the eighth anniversary of the tragic incident, and yet another reminder of how the US-led coalition perpetrated horrendous war crimes in the South Asian country following the invasion in 2001 and how the victims of America’s longest war that lasted two decades were denied justice.

The only thing Americans did was “apologize” to MSF – apologize for destroying dozens of lives and families, making more children orphans and filling more graveyards in Afghanistan.

How did the attack unfold?

At the end of September 2015, there was fierce fighting between the government and rebel forces in the north of the country, and the Taliban managed to capture the city of Kunduz.

The Afghan National Army responded to it with a counter-offensive in an attempt to regain control of the city, so they called in the US Air Force for help.

The Kunduz Trauma Centre was located in the city center, operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) since 2011. It catered to the local population in Kunduz.

Although it was in the middle of a rapidly changing frontline, MSF personnel had informed all warring parties of the location of its hospital complex.

Medical facilities are protected under international humanitarian law, so MSF officials and doctors had considered themselves relatively safe until all hell broke loose.

American military officials were also informed, and precise GPS coordinates were sent to them four days before the airstrike, according to multiple reports.

At 2:08 a.m. on October 3, the US Air Force started precise and repeated airstrikes on the Kunduz Trauma Centre complex that lasted for around one hour.

A US AC-130 Hercules gunship fired 211 shells on the main hospital building where patients were sleeping in their beds or being operated on in the operating theatre.

The surrounding buildings were left mostly untouched. During an hour of horror, MSF teams desperately called both Afghan and US military authorities to stop the airstrikes.

In a report at the time, the Washington Post admitted that US AC-130 gunship aircraft circled the hospital in the darkness of night, loaded with 25mm and 40mm cannon as well as a 105mm howitzer.

Every time the aircraft passed, approximately every 15 minutes, it fired and hit the main hospital building “repeatedly and precisely”, MSF said at the time, suggesting that it was not accidental.

US commander in Afghanistan John F Campbell later admitted that the hospital was “mistakenly struck”, without a shred of remorse and without any promise of justice and accountability.

Who were the victims?

Amid the fighting between two warring sides, the MSF staff were overwhelmed with hundreds of wounded patients whose number increased as the fighting intensified.

In the five days leading up to the airstrike, they treated 376 patients in the emergency room.

On the night of the fatal air attack, there were 105 patients in the hospital building, as well as 140 of the MSF staff, of whom 80 were on duty, according to reports.

According to official MSF data, at least 42 people were killed, including 24 patients (among others three children), 14 staff and 4 caretakers. An additional 37 people were seriously injured.

The killed staff were all Afghan nationals, which was a significant loss for a nation that had and continues to have an extremely low doctor-patient ratio.

Their patients burned in their beds, their medical staff were decapitated or lost limbs, and others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.

The US airstrike made the hospital unusable and all surviving critical patients were referred to other providers, and all MSF staff was evacuated from the war-torn Kunduz.

It was the only health facility of its kind in northeastern Afghanistan, according to MSF, which provided free high-level life and limb-saving trauma care, especially during the years of war.

After the attack, MSF demanded an independent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFCC.org) to establish the facts of the devastating attack.

The call was summarily rejected by Washington. A US report concludes that it was not a war crime.

“The investigation concluded that certain personnel failed to comply with the rules of engagement in the law of armed conflict,” Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command, said after the attack.

“However, the investigation did not conclude that these failures amounted to a war crime. The label war crimes is typically reserved for intentional acts — intentional targeting of civilians or intentionally targeting protected objects or locations.”

In response, MSF President Meinie Nicolai said the report amounted to “an admission of an uncontrolled military operation in a densely populated urban area, during which US forces failed to follow the basic laws of war”.

Human rights activists say the demand for an independent investigation was fair but it could have exposed the US military adventures in Afghanistan and that was a reason enough for them to reject it.

How did the US push it under the carpet?

US officials tried hard to downplay their role in the undeniable crime and even pushed it under the rug, changing the story several times and giving contradictory information to the media.

The first official reaction was that they were targeting Taliban positions and that the airstrike may have resulted in “collateral damage” in a nearby hospital, which is a long-standing US euphemism for civilian casualties.

MSF immediately denied US claims of an “accident,” stating that the building was hit precisely and repeatedly, despite giving coordinates to the Pentagon and their desperate calls during the attack.

Multiple examples appeared in the media when the US military did not show humanitarian principles towards doctors, destroying and invading numerous hospitals and even interrupting surgical operations.

As a result, the official story was changed and it was no longer a stray bomb or an accident, but a deliberate airstrike targeting the Taliban fighters at the hospital.

Once again, MSF denied US claims as none of its staff at the hospital heard or saw Taliban fighters engaging US or Afghan forces. MSF has issued this statement:

“Today the US government has admitted that it was their airstrike that hit our hospital in Kunduz and killed 22 patients and MSF staff.

Their description of the attack keeps changing, from collateral damage to a tragic incident, to now attempting to pass responsibility to the Afghanistan government. The reality is the U.S. dropped those bombs.

The US hit a huge hospital full of wounded patients and MSF staff. The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition.

There can be no justification for this horrible attack. With such constant discrepancies in the US and Afghan accounts of what happened, the need for a full transparent independent investigation is ever more critical.”

The Pentagon’s final report released in April 2016 changed the story again and called the attack an “accident,” arguing it thus did not amount to a war crime.

After the investigation, 16 members of the US military were disciplined in the form of suspension and removal from command, though none were criminally charged.

The victims were offered money as compensation, $6,000 for dead and $3,000 for wounded people, which tells us how much Washington values Afghan life.

A similar compensation of $5,000 was offered by the German government for the victims of the 2009 German airstrike in Kunduz that killed between 100 and 200 Afghan civilians.

For comparison, in 2018 a federal judge in New York set damage awards for 9/11 victims according to the following scale: $12.5 million per spouse, $8.5 million per parent, $8.5 million per child and $4.25 million per sibling.

Ajmal Barakzai is an Afghan activist currently living in Europe.

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

The Real Anthony Fauci – The Movie

Watch at Bitchute

“2022 The Real Anthony Fauci – Everyone Deserves To Know The Truth. Different experts make a stand against today’s putatively criminal and harmful health system, focusing on Anthony Fauci and his role in the shaping of the AIDS and COVID-19 epidemics.”

THE REAL ANTHONY FAUCI: Movie based on the 2021 RFK jr book “The Real Anthony Fauci”.

Written and directed by Kala Mandrake
Production: Jeff Hayes Films

October 5, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Police Detective: 50% of sudden infant deaths happen within 48 hours of vaccination — But no one’s allowed to say it

By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | October 2, 2023

A former police detective claimed that around 50% of the 250 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) cases she investigated over seven years happened within 48 hours after the infant received a vaccine. About 70% happened within one week.

She argued this timing proves vaccines are behind SIDS because the correlation would not be observed if the deaths were occurring randomly.

The detective, who worked in a “major city” of over 300,000 people and identified herself simply as “Jennifer,” shared her story with Steve Kirsch in a video and Substack article published last week.

Kirsch, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist and executive director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, said he contacted the police station where Jennifer worked and verified her identity.

The detective’s information is independently verifiable in the police records “for any health authority who has any doubts,” Kirsch said, adding that he is actively working with the police department to make the statistics public.

Describing her department’s policy to “leave no stone unturned” when investigating sudden infant deaths, Jennifer wrote:

“Standard police policy was to ask about any pharmaceuticals … and ask every single thing that a person was doing in the moments, hours, days and weeks leading up to their death …

“So, with a baby: ‘When was the last time he saw a doc? Was he healthy? Any meds or shots? What has he been eating? What kind of soap do you wash them with?’ …

“The coroner we had to often report to was especially a stickler on everything that went into that kid, food- and drug-wise.”

Dr. Elizabeth Mumper, president and CEO of The Rimland Center For Integrative Medicine, told The Defender, “Many parental reports about a baby dying suddenly start with the phrase, ‘He just was at the pediatrician’s office — they said he was healthy.’”

“If there were no correlations between vaccines and SIDS, then sudden death cases would be evenly distributed throughout the month,” Mumper said.

“Instead, we see clusters of unexpected deaths in the first week after shots are given. Reports from police officers and first responders are supported by this published evidence,” she added.

Vaccines never mentioned in coroner reports

Despite the comprehensive data gathering required by the coroner, Jennifer told Kirsch vaccines were never listed as the cause of death — or even mentioned — in the final reports.

It took a couple of years before she learned why. “It’s because it’s a pharmaceutical that doesn’t carry liability,” she said, referring to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

That the coroner’s report would mention parents “put Johnson & Johnson baby lotion on the baby the day before they died” but never mention vaccines is what got her “triggered,” she said.

“Nobody in my office had an answer,” Jennifer said. “I’m like, ‘Why isn’t the medical examiner putting this on here?’ And they were like, ‘I don’t know.’ … They thought it was as crazy as I did.”

The Defender recently reported on the case of a Maine couple whose 7-week-old child died the day after receiving multiple vaccines. The state medical examiner refused to investigate vaccines as a possible cause, but a later toxicology report confirmed the infant had toxic levels of aluminum in his blood.

The conspiracy of silence does not end with coroner’s offices, according to Jennifer, but extends to law enforcement policy.

Jennifer told Kirsch about her husband attending a conference for police investigators in St. Louis, where the presenters never mentioned vaccines as a possible cause of SIDS.

“There’s always … some sort of symptom of suffocation or brain bleed associated with a SIDS stamp on a death report or an autopsy report,” she said.

However, in side conversations at the conference, detectives would admit the connection. “It’s kind of a common thing for detectives who investigate SIDS deaths to know at least SIDS is a kind of false diagnosis,” she said.

Kirsch shared the story of forensic police detective Helen Grus from Ottawa, Canada, who is being prosecuted for investigating the link between sudden infant death and vaccines.

Grus is facing misconduct hearings for allegedly accessing files of infant death cases in which she was not previously involved.

According to a Rebel News report, Grus was investigating reports that the sudden infant death rate had increased by a factor of two or three after the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccines.

The detective was subjected to a smear campaign casting her “as the problem, rather than the vaccines,” according to Kirsch.

Grus also was suspended without pay for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine and for questioning the usefulness of masks.

AAP trains docs to gaslight parents so they ‘don’t start questioning vaccinations’

When Jennifer and her husband, who also is a police detective, were shopping around for a pediatrician, they were upfront about their concerns regarding the SIDS-vaccine connection.

They eventually found a pediatrician who, after hearing their observations of infant deaths from their investigations, “didn’t even change expression,” Jennifer recalled. “He’s like, ‘I’m not shocked at all.’”

He said, “You have a really valid reason to not want to do this [vaccinations] with your kids. And I support whatever decision you make,” she told Kirsch.

But the pediatrician told them that the American Academy of Pediatrics “actually trained them to talk to parents so that they don’t start questioning vaccinations,” she said.

“He started so many sentences with, ‘According to the AAP, I’m not supposed to say this, but I don’t lie to my patients,’” she recalled.

Kirsch pointed out the difficulty doctors face when they believe vaccinations are necessary to prevent diseases like polio and meningitis.

If doctors admitted to the connection between vaccines and SIDS, he said, “that would destroy the public confidence in the vaccination program. People wouldn’t get vaccinated.”

“So we’ll basically keep our mouth shut about that,” doctors reason to themselves, Kirsch speculated, and “minimize the vaccine hesitancy by telling parents that it wasn’t the vaccine, these things just happen.”

“That’s how they’re trained,” he said.

Dr. Paul Thomas, pediatrician and author of “The Vaccine-Friendly Plan: Dr. Paul’s Safe and Effective Approach to Immunity and Health-from Pregnancy Through Your Child’s Teen Years,” told The Defender, “Pediatricians don’t recognize the link nor would they consider SIDS vaccine-related. They just don’t know what they don’t know.”

AAP, in its treatment of sleep-related infant deaths, does not mention vaccines as a possible cause of SIDS, instead claiming it is best explained by the following “triple risk model”:

“SIDS occurs when an infant with intrinsic vulnerability (often manifested by impaired arousal, cardiorespiratory, and/or autonomic responses) undergoes an exogenous trigger event (e.g., exposure to an unsafe sleeping environment) during a critical developmental period.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a safe sleep environment to reduce the risk of all sleep-related deaths. This includes supine positioning; use of a firm, noninclined sleep surface; room sharing without bed sharing; and avoidance of soft bedding and overheating.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that “studies have found that vaccines do not cause and are not linked to SIDS.”

The Public Health Collaborative, citing Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, states that “the condition’s exact cause is unknown,” but that “numerous studies have shown that vaccines do not cause SIDS.”

‘No other viable explanation’ 

A review of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the medical literature between 1990-2019 analyzing the correlation between vaccines and SIDS, found that “of all cases post-vaccination, 75% occurred within seven days.

Kirsch noted this number is a close match to Jennifer’s estimate of around 70% over her 250 cases.

“This is impossible if the vaccines aren’t causing SIDS,” Kirsch said. “There is simply no other viable explanation for the association,” adding “But of course, you won’t get your paper published if you say that.”

Thomas told The Defender, “The studies showing that most SIDS cases are in the first 3-10 days after a vaccine, make it clear that the vaccines are killing babies.”

Thomas said he did not witness SIDS cases in his pediatric practice, likely because none of his parents were giving their infants the hepatitis B vaccine on day one, and families were not following the CDC vaccine schedule but were spacing out the time between shots or avoiding them altogether.

In another paper, “Deaths Reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, United States, 1997–2013,” the CDC researchers reported, “For child [0-17] death reports, 79.4% received >1 vaccine on the same day; among infants … 86.2% received >1 vaccine.”

Despite this, the authors concluded, “No concerning pattern was noted among death reports submitted to VAERS during 1997–2013.”

Nonetheless, they stated that, because vaccine use is expanding and new vaccines are being added to the childhood schedule, “it is important to continue to monitor death reports to VAERS.”

In a peer-reviewed study published in PubMed, researchers studied infant mortality rates around the world and found a “high statistically significant correlation between increasing numbers of vaccine doses and increasing infant mortality rates.”

The authors reported 33 nations had infant mortality rates lower than the U.S., which has the highest vaccination rate of any country.

Mumper told The Defender, “Evidence of striking temporal correlations between vaccines and SIDS in a series of studies should lead to people in high places to consider vaccines as a cause of SIDS in a subset of babies.”

Kirsch’s article links to additional studies confirming the SIDS-vaccine connection.

‘I’ve seen what happens to people who tell the truth’

Although Jennifer chose to appear fully visible in the video interview, Kirsch asked her why she hadn’t yet disclosed her full identity.

She responded that sharing this kind of information could “shut down an entire industry,” adding, “I’ve seen what happens to people who tell the truth.”

She and her husband discussed the potential impact on their children’s safety in light of her stepping forward to share what she knows.

She paraphrased what she recalled Ice Cube saying during a recent Tucker Carlson interview: “If you go along with the agendas, nobody bothers you, you’re fine. It’s when you tell the truth that you get in trouble.”

Jennifer and Kirsch discussed the blowback to doctors and nurses who’ve been fired over the past several years for telling the truth.

Parents of children injured or killed by vaccines who are passionate activists also “get treated like garbage,” she said.

Mumper wrote such parents must feel like “modern-day Cassandras” because their observation of the obvious connection between the administration of vaccines and the deterioration of their children’s health within one or two days was most often received as unwelcome news if not outright disbelieved.

Not all parents make the connection, however, or necessarily want to. Jennifer said she recognized the difficult position her testimony puts some parents in.

She said:

“I see parents on both sides of it with vaccine-injured children. Some of them hold on to the lie so strong, because admitting that this was true means that they had a hand in their child’s death or their child’s injury. And I understand that. I understand how hard it is to come to grips with that.”

The current medical consensus on SIDS may also leave parents with the impression they contributed to their child’s death.

John-Michael Dumais is a news editor for The Defender. He has been a writer and community organizer on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, war, health freedom and all things related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Why are we so afraid of 1918?

What really happened that created this phantom behemoth?

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | October 4, 2023

Every time someone tries to whip up a frenzy about a new bug the 1918 influenza pandemic will be referenced. People will say there were a huge number of deaths including of the young and therefore you must be terrified. But what if this whole story was not what it seems?

The novel virus lie

1918 influenza did not spread like a tsunami as if everyone was susceptible. It came in 3 waves affecting 11% of the population each time. The deaths were spread over two years.

Similarly, seasonal influenza infect 5-15% of the population with each wave as does SARS-CoV-2.

The huge number of deaths

Kate Bingham trotted out the line that 50 million people died of the 1918 flu. (She also threw in that 20 million had died of COVID for good measure when the official figure is 6 million).

But 50 million is a lie.

Wellcome Trust would claim it was too low. In fact they claim the total was a stratospheric 100 million.

There were 1.8 billion people, of whom 600 million were infected. If 100 million really did die, that would mean an infection fatality rate of 1 in 6! If 50 million died, it would be an infection fatality rate of 1 in 12. Both are ludicrous claims that do not match with reality.

The consensus from every reasonable measure is that 1-3% of the infected died. This figure was based on extrapolating backwards from hospital fatality rates – people a hundred years ago were already very good at recording deaths and statistics.

Based on a mortality rate of 1-3% the deaths would have amounted to 6-18 million, still bad, but a fraction of the claim.

Estimates at the time were in that range. The US estimated 675,000 deaths from a population of 103 million. That means 0.65% of the population died.

The estimates for global mortality were exaggerated right from the start. China and Japan did not have the same problem as the West. However, when calculating global mortality it was assumed such places had fared as badly or worse than the USA and Europe. Consequently, modelling from 1920 already exaggerated deaths to 20 million globally.

Deaths in the young

Importantly there was more than one way to die in 1918. Some developed a viral pneumonia and then a bacterial pneumonia and then died. But there were unusual deaths in the young – unlike other pneumonias.

The second way to die was to develop a blue tinge – “heliotrope cyanosis” and then to die quite rapidly with haemorrhagic wet lungs. This is not the typical picture for a viral death.

Some have suggested other causes e.g. war related chemical exposure. There were huge movements of poorly nourished troops living in unsanitary conditions and thinking this was not a factor is surely naive. At the time there was a belief that influenza was a bacterial disease and a variety of bacterial based “vaccines” were concocted and injected during the second two waves. Whether that contributed to the harm is uncertain, other vaccines result in a temporary immune deficit to fight off infection, but it certainly couldn’t have helped. But aspirin toxicity is the most compelling argument.

Aspirin was new and was presented as the saviour drug. It was widely given in toxic doses of 8 to 31 grams per day, far beyond today’s maximum recommended dose of around 4 grams. It is now known that high doses can lead to lung damage, fever, seizures and death. The more fever the more aspirin would be given.

This story epitomises the problem:

1918 was a story of iatrogenic harm (harm caused by medics). And yet it is being used to promote yet more iatrogenic harm. Do not be scared of 1918. It did not happen the way it was presented.

When looking at the bigger picture, 1918 does stand out as a bad year for deaths – as bad as 20 years before but better than almost every year preceding that.

The people exaggerating the claims about it all have something to gain from doing so. That’s how the deaths rose from 20 million (which assumed higher mortality in China and Japan than USA!) to 50-100 million. Stop believing them!

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

FDA ties with Gates Foundation

Maryanne Demasi, reports | October 4, 2023

In 2017, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Under the MOU, the two entities agreed to share information to “facilitate the development of innovative products, including medical countermeasures,” such as diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics to combat disease transmission during a pandemic.

The FDA has MOUs with many academic and non-profit organisations, but few have as much to gain as Bill Gates, who has invested billions into pandemic countermeasures.

Experts are concerned the Gates Foundation could have undue influence over the FDA’s regulatory decisions of these countermeasures.

David Gortler, an ex-senior adviser to the FDA commissioner between 2019 and 2021, says he is “suspicious” of the MOU.

“If the Gates Foundation establishes an MOU with a regulator on a product they want to develop, it seems like it would be a conflict of interest.  What if every other drug company did the exact same thing as the Gates Foundation?” he says.

David Gortler, former senior advisor to FDA commissioner 2019-2021

Gortler, now a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington DC, explained that normally, meetings between developers and regulators are supposed to be an official part of the public record and subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

“However, an MOU such as this can circumvent the usual requirements for the transparency of official communications,” says Gortler. “This way their communications can be kept secret.”

David Bell, a former medical officer for the World Health Organisation (WHO) who now works as a public health physician and biotech consultant, agrees that the MOU has potential to corrupt the regulatory process.

“The narrative is that philanthropic foundations can only be good, because they’re making vaccines and saving thousands of lives, so we need to cut the red-tape and help the FDA get stuff done quickly otherwise children will die,” says Bell. “But in reality, it has potential to corrupt the whole system.”

David Bell, physician and biotech consultant

Bell adds, “Speaking generally, close relationships between regulators and developers raise inevitable risks that shortcuts and favours will break down the rigorousness of the product review, putting the public at risk.”

Revolving door

The FDA has been roundly criticised for its “revolving door.” Ten of the past 11 FDA commissioners left the agency and secured roles with pharmaceutical companies they once regulated.

Similarly, the Gates Foundation hired high-ranking members of the FDA, who bring with them intimate knowledge of the regulatory process.

For example, Murray Lumpkin had a 24-year career at the FDA, serving as senior advisor to the FDA commissioner and representative for global issues. Now, he is deputy director of regulatory affairs at the Gates Foundation, and signatory on the MOU.

And Margaret Hamburg, who served as FDA commissioner between 2009 and 2015, is now on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Gates Foundation.

Murray Lumpkin, deputy director regulatory affairs, Gates Foundation; Margaret Hamburg, scientific advisory board, Gates Foundation

Bell has no doubt that these appointments were strategic to “game the system” saying, “If I worked at the Gates Foundation, I would certainly hire somebody like Murray Lumpkin.”

The only way to fix the revolving door problem Bell says, is to have a ‘non-compete clause’ in their contracts.

“It might be that FDA employees cannot work for the people they’ve regulated for at least 10 years. There are places that have those rules – private companies have agreements that you can’t work for a rival,” said Bell.

The FDA dismissed questions about the potential for conflicts of interest, or the lack of transparency over its communications with the Gates Foundation. In a statement, the FDA said:

FDA regulatory decision making is science-based. Former FDA officials do not impact regulatory decisions. FDA only collaborates with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the MOU as described.

Gates has billions at stake

Gates boasted about receiving a 20-to-1 return on his $10 billion investment into the “financing and delivery” of medicines and vaccines.

“It’s the best investment I’ve ever made,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “Decades ago, these investments weren’t sure bets, but today, they almost always pay off in a big way.”

In Sept 2019, just prior to the pandemic, SEC filings showed the foundation purchased over 1 million shares for $18.10/share. By Nov 2021, the foundation dumped most of the stock for an average of $300/share.

Investigative journalist Jordan Schachtel reported the foundation pocketed approximately $260 million in profit – more than 15 times its original investment – most of it untaxed because it was invested through the foundation.

In his recent book, “How to Prevent the Next Pandemic,” Gates warns that future pandemics are the biggest threat to humankind and that survival depends on global pandemic preparedness strategies, firmly positioning himself at the centre of shaping the agenda.

In October 2019, the Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum hosted Event 201, which gathered government agencies, social media companies and national security organisations to war game a “fictional” global pandemic.

October 2019, Gates and WEF fund Event 201 to simulate a global pandemic response

The key recommendations from the event were that such a crisis would require the deployment of new vaccines, surveillance and control of information and human behaviours, by orchestrating the co-operation and co-ordination of key industries, national governments, and international institutions.

Several weeks later when the covid-19 pandemic emerged, many aspects of this ‘hypothetical scenario’ became a chilling reality.

The Gates Foundation, which holds shares in a range of drug companies including Merck, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, is now credited with wielding significant influence over the direction of the global response to the pandemic, saying its goal is to “vaccinate the entire world” with a covid-19 vaccine.

Global dominance

The Gates Foundation has poured millions into funding NGOs, media, and international agencies, earning Gates significant political clout.

Financial contributions to the media have garnered Gates favourable news coverage, boasting on the foundation’s website it committed almost $3.5 million to The Guardian in 2020 – 2023.

The UK medicines regulator – the MHRA – disclosed it took approximately $3 million in funding from the Gates Foundation in 2022, which would span across several financial years.

Presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr labelled Gates “the most powerful man in public health” because he managed to steer the WHO’s pandemic strategy to focus primarily on vaccination.

Kennedy said in an interview that the WHO “begs and rolls over” for Gates’ funding, which now makes up over 88% of the total amount of the WHO’s donations by philanthropic foundations.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, Presidential Candidate

“I think [Gates] believes that he is somehow ordained divinely to bring salvation to the world through technology,” said Kenney. “He believes the only path to good health is inside a syringe.”

The Gates Foundation’s CEO Mark Suzman responded to concerns that the foundation has “disproportionate sway in setting national and global agendas, without any formal accountability to voters or international bodies.”

“It’s true that between our dollars, voice, and convening power, we have access and influence that many others do not,” admitted Suzman in his 2023 annual letter .

“But make no mistake – where there’s a solution that can improve livelihoods and save lives, we’ll advocate persistently for it. We won’t stop using our influence, along with our monetary commitments, to find solutions,” he wrote.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Corruption | , , | Leave a comment

Unfreezing $13.6Bln of Funding for Hungary Not Connected to EU Budget Changes

Sputnik – 04.10.2023

BUDAPEST – Brussels owes Hungary 13 billion euros ($13.6 billion) from the European Union’s funds and has to unfreeze the funding without taking into account planned changes to the bloc’s budget, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Wednesday.

A British newspaper has reported that the European Commission was considering unblocking 13 billion euros for Hungary to receive Budapest’s support for a new increased common budget, which includes support for Ukraine.

“We are entitled to money from EU funds. This fact has nothing to do with changes in the budget. It has nothing to do with whether the EU wants to change the budget now or not. This is a completely different issue and should be discussed according to completely different criteria. The payment of the money we are entitled to does not depend on anything, it should be paid to us,” Szijjarto told a briefing.

This comes days after Gergely Gulyas, the Hungarian prime minister’s chief of staff, hinted that Hungary might veto further EU funding for Ukraine unless Brussels unfreezes budget money it was withholding from Budapest over alleged noncompliance with EU values.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has proposed topping up the 2024-2027 EU budget with an additional 66 billion euros, most of which will be used to support Ukraine over the next four years.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine Fatigue Is Worrying NATO Elites – and So They Should Be

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 4, 2023

On both sides of the Atlantic, there is now discernible fatigue and anger among citizens over the bottomless money pit that is NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.

The only wonder is that it has taken so long for the Western public to get wise to the scam.

The disgraceful adulation of a Nazi war criminal by the whole Canadian parliament in a perverse show of solidarity with Ukraine against Russia has helped focus public attention on the obscenity of the NATO proxy war.

All told, since the NATO-induced conflict blew up in February last year, the American and European establishments have thrown up to €200 billion into Ukraine to prop up an odious Nazi-infested regime.

All that largesse that is billed to U.S. and European taxpayers has resulted in a slaughter in Europe not seen since the Second World War – and a failed Ukrainian state. And of course huge profits for the NATO military-industrial complex that bankrolls the elite politicians.

Times are changing though. In the United States, the financially conservative Republicans have had enough of the blank checks to the Kiev regime. The U.S. Congress finally showed a modicum of sanity to prevent a government financial shutdown – by dropping military aid to Ukraine. That shows how twisted Washington’s priorities have become when national self-interest has to wrestle with funding for a Nazi regime.

And then following the Congressional vote to temporarily end funding for Ukraine, the Kiev regime’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba dared to reprimand American lawmakers: “We are now working with both sides of Congress to make sure that it does not (get) repeated under any circumstances.”

Meanwhile in Europe, Slovakian citizens have voted for a new government to end the military fueling of war in Ukraine. The Smer-SD party led by Robert Fico won the parliamentary elections primarily on the vow to shut off any further weapons supply to the Kiev regime.

This week also saw massive protests in Germany against Olaf Scholz’s coalition government over the latter’s abject pro-war policies in Ukraine. German Unity Day on October 3 prompted a mass rally in Berlin denouncing the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and calling for peace negotiations to end the conflict.

There were also unprecedented protests across Poland in Warsaw, Lodz and other cities against the PiS government’s slavish implementation of the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine. Faced with millions of Ukrainian refugees and neglect of social needs for Poles, the PiS ruling party has recently threatened to end weapons supply to Kiev – a move less about principle and more about trying to buy votes in the forthcoming election on October 15. Nevertheless, the belated move by the Polish government illustrates the concern among European leaders about growing public disdain over the seemingly endless financial aid allocated to Ukraine.

Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, says it is a “worrying” sign that Washington for the first time closed the coffers for Ukraine.

The EU foreign ministers held a summit in Kiev on Monday. It was the first time that their summit was convened in a non-EU country. The agenda was a little too self-conscious, slated as a show of “solidarity” with Ukraine.

Borrell and the other EU diplomats said the summit was a warning to Russia to not count on “weariness” among Europeans over support for Ukraine. Who is he trying to convince? Russia or Europeans?

The unelected European elites described the war in Ukraine as an “existential crisis” which requires never-ending support for the Nazi regime against Russia.

Such melodrama needs serious qualification. The conflict is only “existential” for certain people: the NATO ideologues, the elitist leaders, the military-industrial complex, and the corrupt Nazi regime in Kiev. But it’s not existential for most other people who want to end this insane slaughter, grotesque wasting of public finances, and perilous flirting with nuclear war.

Significantly, the contrived EU summit in Kiev was not attended by Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto. In highly critical comments on the EU’s misplaced priorities, he said that other countries do not understand why Europe “has made this conflict global” and why people living in Asia, Africa and Latin America have to pay for it due to growing inflation, energy prices and unstable food supplies.

The Hungarian diplomat slammed the EU leaders for their double standards and hypocrisy, adding: “I can say that the world outside Europe is already really looking forward to the end of this war because they do not understand many things. They do not understand, for example, how it can be that when a war is not in Europe, the European Union, looking down with fantastic moral superiority, calls on the parties to peace, advocates negotiations and an immediate end to violence. However, when there is a war in Europe, the European Union incites the conflict and supplies weapons, and anyone who talks about peace is immediately stigmatized.”

At least two members of the EU and the NATO alliance – Hungary and Slovakia’s new government – are opposed to the absurd military and financial support fueling the war in Ukraine. Both countries want peace negotiations with Russia to be prioritized. There is an unavoidable sense that this common sense dissent will grow into a domino effect because it is the truth and has an unassailable moral force.

What the conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated clearly to the Western public is just how morally bankrupt their governments and media have become. American and European elitist leaders may kid themselves a little longer by pretending there is no weariness and fatigue over their proxy war against Russia. The more they pretend the greater the eventual crash and downfall from public anger.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Defense Stocks Fall As Paralyzed House With No Speaker Puts US Ukraine Aid At Risk

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | October 4, 2023

On Tuesday evening, Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, was voted out (216-to-210 vote) as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Hardline Republicans were angered by McCarthy’s willingness to fund Ukraine’s war while arguing that the money could have been better spent to protect the southern border and restore law and order in imploding major US cities. The historic ouster of the speaker has weighed on defense stocks as traders anticipate challenges for the new speaker in securing further funding for Ukraine.

“The conservative revolt that ousted McCarthy has left the chamber in a state of paralysis until a new speaker is found. That raises the chances of a US government shutdown next month and a delay in further Ukraine assistance,” Bloomberg said.

In a note to clients, Goldman’s Alec Phillips said:

All other things equal, the leadership change raises the odds of a government shutdown in November, though with several weeks left until the deadline, many outcomes are possible. With many policy disputes remaining and a $120bn difference between the parties on the preferred spending level for FY2024, it is difficult to see how Congress can pass the 12 necessary full-year spending bills before funding expires Nov. 17. The next speaker is likely to be under even more pressure to avoid passing another temporary extension—or additional funding for Ukraine—than former Speaker McCarthy had been.

On Wednesday morning, European defense stocks, such as Rheinmetall, Saab, BAE Systems, and Leonardo, slid in the cash market. Bloomberg said this was because of the oustering of McCarthy.

German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall dropped as much as 4.8%.

Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab fell 3%.

British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company BAE Systems slid 3.5%

And Italian defense contractor Leonardo was down 2%.

In the US, uncertainty over funding will likely weigh on defense stocks. The S&P 500 Aerospace & Defense Index has been running into resistance for much of this year.

Washington’s endless stream of taxpayer funds to Ukraine has benefited the military-industrial complex. Now, it appears that the pipeline of easy money is in question due to the ouster of McCarthy.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Netherlands sued for stopping ship deliveries to Russia

RT | October 4, 2023

The largest Dutch shipbuilder is seeking compensation from the government for damage caused by the sanctions on Russia, which have prevented it from honoring a number of contracts.

The ongoing legal battle, which started in May with a suit filed by Damen Shipyards Group at the district court in Rotterdam, was revealed by Bloomberg on Tuesday. Company spokesman Rick van de Weg later confirmed the pending proceedings to other media outlets.

Damen is a 90-year-old Gorinchem-based family-owned business which builds various types of vessels, from warships to luxury yachts. Days before the hostilities in Ukraine erupted in February last year, the company delivered a dredger to Russia for duty in the Arctic, according to Bloomberg.

Sanctions banning most business transactions with Russia, which the EU imposed in retaliation for the conflict, have prevented Damen from fulfilling its obligations under several contracts. It has also suspended its engineering branch in the country.

The Western sanctions supposed to cripple the Russian economy and force Moscow to concede defeat in Ukraine have not been as efficient as their architects had hoped.

The G7 oil price cap, a mechanism intended to force Russia to sell crude at or below $60 per barrel, does not appear to be working, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted last week. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak stated on Tuesday that the impossibility of enforcing the price cap was apparent to Moscow from the start.

The EU’s decision to decouple from cheap Russian gas undermined the competitiveness of its heavy industries, in some cases forcing energy-intensive manufacturing to shut down.

Nevertheless, Germany is likely still consuming natural gas originating in Russia, Uniper CEO Michael Lewis said last week. The German wholesaler buys liquified natural gas in the open market and cannot be certain about where it comes from, he explained.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Batteries Will Not Solve Renewable Energy Storage Problem, Says Royal Society

BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 3, 2023

The penny is finally starting to drop. Current batteries cannot possibly store more than a fraction of the energy needed to keep the lights on when the wind stops blowing and the sun doesn’t shine. The learned U.K. Royal Society has recently analysed 37 years of wind patterns across Britain and concluded there is a serious underestimate of the amount of storage required. Around 50 academics and specialists led by Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of Oxford University state clearly that batteries are not the answer to the vast storage required. But like many learned people, wedded to the idea that it is possible to remove the fossil fuel source supplying 80% of the world needs in less than 30 years, they fall down at the practical level. Having lost batteries, the study goes for hydrogen, an idea only slightly less dumb than digging up the planet to produce vast quantities of limited-life batteries.

The Royal Society report envisages dissolving huge salt caverns capable of storing ‘green’ hydrogen. To keep the electricity grid functioning when renewables go off line, around two to three million tons of hydrogen would need to be stored for decades at a time. Wind not only stops for days during periods of intense cold in winter, but the Royal Society found recent periods when speeds were low for a number of years. Salt caverns are only available in a limited number of places in Britain, so a huge network of specialist pipelines would be needed to move the gas to turbines on constant standby. Over a period of time, hydrogen would leak from porous salt caverns.

The report, lacking a practical answer to wind and solar intermittency, seems to have been ignored by mainstream media. The news that batteries cannot play any significant part in the collectivist Net Zero project is unwelcome to those who have been betting the ranch on this solution for many years. Francis Menton of the Manhattan Contrarian sees the report as an “enormous improvement” on every other effort on the subject of large scale energy storage systems. But in the end, the authors’ “quasi-religious commitment” to a fossil-free future leads them to minimise and divert attention away from critical cost and feasibility issues. “As a result, the report, despite containing much valuable information, is actually useless for any public policy purpose,” he concludes.

What are the problems with hydrogen? Where to start. It is a highly explosive and flammable gas that needs careful handing. Its molecules are small and it has a low density. This means it escapes easily, while three times the volume of hydrogen is required to produce the same energy as natural gas. Kathryn Porter is an energy consultant and an associate member  of the All-Party Parliamentary Group. She recently wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph about the gas and its possible role in Net Zero.

Hydrogen is also hard to move around. To get the gas to move through pipes, it has to be compressed and pushed along using compressors. This process requires energy: the losses in moving hydrogen through pipes are ten times greater for hydrogen than for methane; up to 30%. In other words you need to use up almost a third of your gas just moving it from A to B. …

The infrastructure for hydrogen does not exist, neither for the most part do the production facilities and they will cost billions to build. Then the underlying cost of storing hydrogen is probably at least four times that of storing methane. Huge amounts of energy are lost in each stage of the process due to the fundamental properties of hydrogen.

As a solution to storing renewable power, Porter is of the view that “hydrogen is one of the worst substances you could choose for this purpose”. But, she adds, because you can burn it in air without creating carbon dioxide, “it has been hailed as the answer to Net Zero dreams”. Both carbon capture and hydrogen are “square pegs” which people are desperately trying to force into round holes. It might be noted, in the light of this last comment from Porter, that the Royal Society traces its roots back to 1660, and published Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Its politicised track record on Net Zero has yet to live up to the highlights of its glorious past.

Lead author Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith notes that the need for long-term energy storage in a renewable electricity system has been seriously underestimated, and work on constructing storage caverns needs to be started immediately if the Government is to have any chance of meeting its Net Zero targets. Construction of a large green hydrogen production and storage facility would appear to be a “no-regrets” option, he claims.

Someone regretting the option might be the consumer. Francis Menton observes that the Royal Society’s hydrogen plans suggest a cost “to the grid” of around £120 per MWh, a figure described as high but not stratospheric. But this is the wholesale cost, not the one charged to the consumer. In addition, Menton wants to know how much a nationwide set of new pipes will cost, plus the entire new fleet of standby turbines capable of burning 100% hydrogen and providing all the power to the grid when renewables stop working. In addition, Menton notes a “low” rate of interest for capital costs of 5%.

“The whole thing just cries out for a demonstration project to prove feasibility and cost. I’m betting that will never occur before the whole Net Zero thing falls apart from the disastrous skyrocketing electricity prices,” concludes Menton.

Menton sees some honesty in the Royal Society report. But as regular readers will probably agree, the top award for an honest Net Zero commentary goes to the U.K. Government-funded U.K. FIRES project. In looking at a 2050 Net Zero world, this group of academics ignore as speculative all non-scalable suggestions around carbon capture and hydrogen, along with all the green inventions yet to be made. They point to a future with barely a quarter of our current energy supply. There is nothing more honest than telling people that this will entail no flying or shipping, drastic cuts in home heating, limited transport, no meat, few modern building materials and houses made of “impacted” earth. Worryingly, though, there’s no indication the authors see this as a reason not to go full steam ahead.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

We’ll all pay the price of soaring EV insurance

By David Craig | TCW Defending Freedom | October 3, 2023

Something strange happened last week: the Guardian published an article which was worth reading. It concerned the massive insurance costs owners of electric vehicles (EVs) are facing.

Here’s how the article started: ‘Driving an electric car should be a win-win, saving money and the planet. So David was shocked when the insurance on his Tesla Model Y came up for renewal, and Aviva refused to cover him again, while several other brands turned him away. When David did secure a new deal, the annual cost rocketed from £1,200 to more than £5,000.’

It went on: ‘A recent cost of living bulletin from the Office for National Statistics revealed that the price of car insurance – which for many Britons is one of their biggest household bills – is up by 52.9 per cent in the last 12 months. However, this average masks bigger increases for electric car owners, according to Confused.com. Its figures, derived from quotes, show that insurance premiums for electric vehicles are 72 per cent – or £402 – higher than this time last year, at a typical £959. Meanwhile, for petrol and diesel car drivers, the increase is 29 per cent, or £192, taking the figure to £848.’

Moreover, several insurance companies are simply refusing to insure EVs.

The problem seems to be the fragility of EV batteries and the enormous cost of replacing them if you have even just a small bump. As one reader explained:‘If I kerb bump my £4,000 diesel Renault Megane at 4mph it’s a £50 wheel re-alignment at the next service. If a £50,000 EV does the same, it’s potentially a slightly damaged battery and 100 per cent write off. They’re rubbish’.

You might think: ‘Why should I care since I don’t drive an EV?’ Well, when the politicians see that high insurance costs are putting people off buying the EV which they are determined to push on us, they’ll yet again attack petrol and diesel car owners.

A few years ago the EU insisted that young male drivers could not be charged higher car insurance premiums than young female drivers, notwithstanding the major difference in risk. The European Court of Justice ruled that taking gender into account when calculating car insurance premiums violated EU gender equality legislation. Regulations banning the practice came into effect in December 2012 and remain in force in the UK although we’ve since left the EU.

I predict that charging EV drivers more than ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) drivers, will also be outlawed. So there will be a massive rise in motor insurance costs for drivers of ICE cars. Maybe our rulers will even decide that, as EV drivers are dutifully (and expensively) saving the planet while ICE drivers are supposedly intent on destroying it, perhaps EV drivers may be relieved of paying more than a small nominal charge for insurance and therefore must be subsidised almost entirely by ICE drivers. I’m not betting against it.

October 4, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

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