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Who is delusional?

By Gilbert Doctorow | May 18, 2023

Over the past several months, I have seen the word “delusional” applied to those, like myself, who bring nonconformist, non-mainstream news and views about Russia and the Ukraine war to the reading public. Language is constantly evolving, and the shop-worn label “Putin stooge” has now been replaced by this more generalized but similarly derogatory ad hominem labeling.

Allow me then to ask whether it is not the accusers who are truly “delusional” by insisting on a Washington narrative that is daily being ground into the dirt, as are Germany’s Leopard tanks and America’s Patriot air defense systems in Ukraine by technically superior Russian military hardware.

This military come-uppance is a story in itself. I involuntarily think back over a chance meeting I had four years ago with Russian-Americans during a tourist visit I made to a small and picturesque town in the Schwaebisch region of southern Germany with its typical half-timbered houses on the main square. We struck up a conversation while shopping in a souvenir store and this dentist was glowing with pride for his new Fatherland. Somehow the discussion turned to the newly announced strategic weapons systems that the Kremlin claimed had passed testing and were on their way to serial production. The dentist was beside himself with chuckles, insisting that this was all pure fabrication, pure propaganda and that Russia was incapable of designing and manufacturing any weapon system that could pose a threat to the good old USA.

But that ridicule for things Russian is a subject for another day. I will speak here first about the delusional framing and implementation of U.S. foreign policy today that is costing the United States more dearly in prestige and influence globally than anything that Donald Trump and his ‘diamond in the rough’ Secretary of State Pompeo accomplished during his presidency. And I will direct attention to one face in the vast group portrait of world leaders, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

Tokayev is the president of Kazakhstan and in recent months was being courted by the U.S. State Department in the hope and expectation that Kazakhstan could be induced to split with Russia and join the American team of countries sanctioning Moscow over its ‘war of aggression’ in Ukraine. Indeed, Secretary of State Blinken paid him a visit to woo or threaten him to follow the U.S. lead and this was reported enthusiastically by American mainstream media.

This U.S. policy can only be described as “delusional” insofar as it takes no cognizance of who is Tokayev and what are the realities of the geopolitical environment of Kazakhstan. The policy is based on willful ignorance of the counselors who formulated it, and that in turn is based on the assumption of America’s superior strength and ability to get its way by hook or by crook wherever in the world and whenever it so wishes.

Russian diplomacy is more discerning.

On 9 May, Tokayev was on the Red Square reviewing stand along with all the other presidents of the Central Asian republics. Together with them and with President Vladimir Putin, he then walked to the Alexander Gardens to place a red carnation before the eternal flame monument to the Unknown Soldier. That may have been picked up accidentally by one or another Western television broadcaster. What was not shown in the West was the side trip arranged for Tokayev to the town of Rzhevsk where he could pay tribute to the memory of his uncle, for whom he is named, Kassym Tokayev, who died in the Battle of Rzhev as a Red Army soldier and is buried there. That visit was broadcast on Russian and on Kazakh state television. Tokayev had no choice but to go, and his people had no choice but to see the historical connection with Moscow in the fight against Nazi Germany.

Last night there was another video of Tokayev on Russian television. He was shown descending from his plane in Beijing, where he is joined by all the other heads of state of Central Asia in a group meeting with the Chinese leadership. We were shown his tête-à-tête meeting with a senior official of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, conducted in Mandarin, without translators. As anyone can easily learn from his Wikipedia entry, from 1970 Tokayev studied Chinese in his undergraduate years at the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and in his final year there underwent training courses at the Soviet embassy in China for six months. He then served in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in 1983 continued his language training at the Beijing Language Institute. He was later posted to the Soviet embassy in Beijing and was promoted to successively higher responsibilities there.

My point is that Tokayev knows the map of his region very well. He and his country find themselves between a rock and a hard place.   They do not have much wiggle room.  Somehow these facts of life elude America’s delusional policy makers.

I could go on about how the ignorance and complacency of high officials in the Biden administration result in self-defeating policies elsewhere. One example of what I mean occurred just a couple of days ago when similarly delusional behavior was shown by America’s messenger boy within the European Commission. Josep Borrell succeeded in alienating his hosts in India and humiliating himself by insisting that India curtail its purchases of Russian oil lest the EU ban imports of refined petroleum products, mainly diesel fuel, from India.  The consequence of his ignorant warning that contradicted EU law on the subject was Borrell’s exclusion from the trade talks that the EU delegation was in Delhi to conduct.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

May 18, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Russian ‘Kinzhal’ hypersonic missile destroys Kiev’s US-made ‘Patriot’ air defense system

By Drago Bosnic | May 17, 2023

For most of this month, the mainstream propaganda machine has been parroting the same story over and over again – a Russian 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missile was shot down by a US-made “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) system. The “conclusive” evidence cited by the political West is laughable at best, but it was enough to convince those without specific knowledge of how weapons actually work, which includes most of the population. Moscow didn’t really comment on the claims. Or to be exact, not until the early hours of May 16, when the actual response came in a very “non-rhetorical” form.

Namely, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) launched a SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) mission over Kiev, with the operation including two “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles, which were used to neutralize at least one battery of the “Patriot” SAM system. While neither side commented on the variant of the destroyed US-made air defense system, video evidence shows that it was most likely one of the latest iterations, the PAC-3 MSE (Missile Segment Enhancement upgrade) that also includes the much-touted CRI (Cost Reduction Initiative) interceptors. The cost of a single CRI missile currently stands at close to $5,300,000, meaning that the 32 interceptors fired by the Kiev regime forces amounted to nearly $170,000,000.

Such a massive quantity of interceptors was still nowhere near enough to stop the Russian hypersonic weapons, although the Neo-Nazi junta announced that it shot down most of the missiles fired by the VKS, including the claim that it allegedly neutralized six “Kinzhals”, despite the fact that the Russian military used only two during this attack. Although Moscow didn’t publicly reveal this, the information is based on the comments from the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu himself. In response to the Kiev regime’s reverie, Shoigu stated laconically:

“The figures given by the Ukrainians about the interception of Russian missiles are [usually] three times higher than the amount [of weapons] we actually use.”

Several military experts estimate that the VKS used a lot of decoys of various types to bait the air defenses in and around Kiev, which would explain the claims of the local authorities that the Russian strike was “exceptional in density”. The Neo-Nazi junta officials stated that the attack also included cruise missiles and drones. Local air defense forces allegedly shot down 18 missiles and nine drones, including six “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles. The claims are widely ridiculed by military experts and numerous Telegram channels, with dozens of memes and practical jokes being posted by users and commenters.

Serhiy Popko, the head of the capital city’s military administration, stated: “The barrage was exceptional in its density, with the maximum number of missiles in the shortest time possible, but the vast majority of enemy targets in Kiev airspace were detected and destroyed.”

CNN, the flagship of the mainstream propaganda machine, immediately resorted to damage control to save the “Patriot’s” reputation, as it only arrived late last month and just recently entered service, claiming that “a US-made ‘Patriot’ air defense system was likely damaged, but not destroyed, as the result of a Russian missile barrage in and around Kiev early Tuesday morning local time”, citing a US official as its source. The report further claims that “the US is still assessing to what degree the system was damaged”, adding that “this will determine whether the system needs to be pulled back entirely or simply repaired on the spot by Ukrainian forces”. It also noted that “a US National Security Council spokesperson referred CNN to the Ukrainian government for comment”.

Such advice by the US government can only be interpreted by the fact that even Washington DC simply wants to avoid having to do anything with the Neo-Nazi junta’s ridiculous claims. The issue obviously lies in the fact that such laughable propaganda is not only completely unsubstantiated, but also makes the US itself look like a laughingstock of the world. This is particularly noticeable when looking at somewhat less propagandistic US media, such as The National Interest. Geoff LaMear, the author of one of the analyses recently published by the TNI, stated that “Patriot missiles won’t save Ukraine“, with the following assessment:

“‘Patriot’ systems are limited to pinpoint defense of major assets and are designed to operate in tandem with air defenses engaging targets at higher and lower altitudes. Without these additions, ‘Patriot’ will have too many threats to engage and the result will either be porous coverage that doesn’t protect its defended assets, or coverage that quickly subsides when ‘Patriot’ runs out of interceptors. Moreover, ‘Patriot’ systems are themselves vulnerable. Operating a ‘Patriot’ radar system gives away its location, making it an open target for Russian attacks. This means that ‘Patriot’ is not a one-stop-shop for defending Ukraine’s military assets or its people.”

Indeed, the “Patriot” is simply one segment of the US air defense/ABM (anti-ballistic missile) doctrine that also includes several other types of longer-range systems and interceptors. However, considering how lucrative air defense contracts are, the political West will surely continue suppressing any information about the destruction of its much-touted systems, while also parroting the ludicrous claims that Russian hypersonic weapons are being shot down by these same SAM systems. Such assertions come despite the fact that even top US officials repeatedly reiterated that there’s no viable defense against maneuvering hypersonic targets. This includes President Joe Biden himself, who stated last year that the “Kinzhal” cannot be intercepted.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

May 17, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Neighboring countries ready to pay Zelensky to stop conflict – Seymour Hersh

RT | May 17, 2023

Poland is leading a group of European nations that are secretly urging Vladimir Zelensky to find a way to settle the conflict with Russia, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh has reported, citing a “knowledgeable” American official.

According to US intelligence, other EU countries that want to see an end to the fighting include Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Hersh wrote in an article published on his Substack page on Wednesday.

“Hungary is a big player in this and so are Poland and Germany, and they are working to get Zelensky to come around,” the unnamed official claimed. Those countries have made it clear that “Zelensky can keep what he’s got if he works up a peace deal even if he’s got to be paid off, if it’s the only way to get a deal.”

By “keep what he’s got,” the source was referring to the Ukrainian president’s villa in Italy and interests in an offshore bank, Hersh clarified.

However, Zelensky has so far rejected the proposal, while other major European players – France and the UK – “are too beholden” to the Biden administration, which is continuing to back the Ukrainian leader, the official said.

One of the main reasons why Poland and the others want the conflict to end is because the burden of accommodating Ukrainian refugees has become too much for them, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist wrote.

The problem for those countries “is how to get the US to stop supporting Zelensky,” Hersh’s source suggested.

He claimed that US intelligence is well aware that “Ukraine is running out of money and… that the next four or months are critical. And Eastern Europeans are talking about a deal.”

However, he added that “it’s not clear to the intelligence community what the president and his foreign policy aides in the White House know of the reality.”

The US is “still training Ukrainians how to fly our F-16s that will be shot down by Russia as soon as they get into the war zone. The mainstream press is dedicated to Biden and the war, and Biden is still talking about the Great Satan in Moscow while the Russian economy is doing great,” the official explained.

Russia has repeatedly stated that it’s ready to resolve the conflict at the negotiating table. However, it did not receive any proposals from Ukraine and its Western backers that it could consider reasonable.

Zelensky has been promoting his ten-point peace plan, which calls for Russian forces to withdraw to borders claimed by Ukraine, to pay reparations, and to submit to war-crime tribunals.

Moscow has rejected the plan as “unacceptable,” saying it ignores the reality on the ground and is actually a sign of Kiev’s unwillingness to solve the crisis through diplomatic means.

May 17, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran claims successes in its air defense

By Alexandr Svaranc – New Eastern Outlook – 16.05.2023

Despite decades of sanctions imposed by foreign powers, the Islamic Republic of Iran has garnered tremendous experience surviving and thriving in isolation. Given Tehran’s political system, which is not so much a theocratic form of government as an independent course, is under attack by Iran’s adversaries, the Iranian authorities have prioritized the strengthening of their army and navy. In order to do this, a lot of attention is put on the development of key technologies, mainly in the defense industry, as well as the advancement of education and research.

For many foreign experts it was a revelation that it turns out that Iran has achieved a major breakthrough in the development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles. At the same time, the spoils of the Iranian UAVs on some “hot conflict” fields have allowed experts to also discover advanced Western technology. The Iranian capabilities, meantime, created a stir in a number of international newspapers, raising the question of how the Persians acquired these outlawed and sanctioned technologies from the West or Israel.

Some believe that the Iranians simply ordered products through the AliExpress channel to fictitious addresses, disassembled them, and had local engineers create new inventions (such as joining a water line to a gas line in the hopes of creating carbonated water). Others argue that Iranian replicas of Western technologies are the result of successful scientific, technological, and industrial espionage by Iranian foreign intelligence agencies, specifically the Ministry of Information, IRGC intelligence units, and the Ministry of Defense.

How can one, however, recognize such enemy intelligence triumphs when it also indicates counterintelligence support failures for sanctioned technology and products from NATO nations and their partner Israel? At the same time, their opponents cannot admit (whether out of envy or for other reasons) that Iran simply had to spend a lot of money over the years to build its own education and research, rather than encouraging corruption, as is the situation in other post-Soviet countries. However, the real condition of the arms of the Iranian army should be accepted as a fact.

The commander of the Iranian Army’s Air Defense Force, Brigadier General Alireza Sabahi-Fard recently stated in an interview with Al-Alam News Network, an Arabic news channel, that Iran now has absolute power in the region due to significant technological progress in the production of military equipment, particularly air defense weapons. Moreover, Iran relies 100 percent on its own high-tech production. Tehran now has more opportunities to export domestically produced weapons therefore.

Any army and every war place a high priority on an effective air defense. By assuming control of aerial combat, the army is able to conduct effective defensive and offensive operations during combat operations.

Iranian air defense forces are structurally a combination of the army and IRGC air defense units. Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarter of General Staff of Armed Forces is in charge of coordinating joint military operations within the Iranian forces. It should be mentioned that the Iranians build their own air defense systems and have previously tested several of them in live combat.

Iran’s air defense system includes: Radar systems (Nazir, Fath-14, the Matla ul-Fajr and Kashef, Meraj-4, etc.); medium-range SAMS (100-240 km) Bavar-373, Khordad-15, Talash, 3rd Khordad, Mersad-16 and short-range SAMS (up to 100 km) Ya Zahra-3 and Herz-9. In fact, the Bavar-373 is an enhanced version of the Russian S-300PMU-2 Favorit. Iran makes a variety of combat and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including the Karrar, Ababil, and Mojaher as well as upgraded ballistic Shahab, Sajil, and the Meskat medium-range cruise missiles.

In addition to using outdated but still functional U.S. systems left over from the Shah regime, trophy French equipment from the experience of the war with Iraq, Iran still has to combine its own production of air defense equipment with imports of relevant military equipment from Russia, China, and India. Some of Iran’s most recent innovations in this field involve modifying the equipment bought from China and Russia.

Air defense facilities cover the sky, administrative and political centers, troop concentrations, and critical facilities such as defense-industry enterprises, Natanz nuclear facility and the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant.

Iran, despite its reliance on domestic production, cannot yet match the world leaders in the development and production of air defense systems, particularly Russia and the United States. Nonetheless, the Iranian military-industrial complex’s success is becoming noticeable in the Middle East. According to Russian experts such as Ruslan Pukhov, developing air defense systems is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. The process of testing one type of equipment at army ranges to placing it on combat duty in the troops can often take up to ten years.

However, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has had to deal with improving its own defense industry for more than four decades. We only possess a portion of the information available in public, since no one discloses all of their accomplishments and technological characteristics.

Furthermore, the current political and military environment and tensions with Israel, the NATO bloc, and the United States encourage Iran to accelerate its military development. For Iranian topography, the east, south, and west have always had a high level of military escalation. On Iran’s northern borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia, a new hotbed of military conflict developed in the post-Soviet era. Of course, this is about the unresolved Karabakh issue, the two conflicts that took place there from 1991 to 1994, 2016, and 2020, as well as the ongoing provocations across the line of contact.

Given the accomplishments of the domestic military-industrial complex, Iranian air defenses undoubtedly have a certain advantage over some nations in the region, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Qatar, the KSA, and even Turkey, which is a NATO member. Nonetheless Iranian missile and air defense systems are unlikely to be more advanced than those of Israel, let alone the United States, in terms of technology.

Turkey started paying more attention to import substitution and modernizing the country’s military-industrial complex throughout the years of President Recep Erdoğan’s rule. Ankara was able to supply the army and navy’s weaponry with 80% of its own manufacturing thanks to this strategy for boosting the country’s independence. The development and manufacture of Turkey’s Baykar Bayraktar Kızılelma reconnaissance and combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Hisar surface-to-air missile and SIPER air defense missile, TCG Anadolu with unmanned combat aerial vehicles on board, Altay tank, BMC Kirpi, etc. are all being observed around the world.

The Turkish government holds regular events practically every day to showcase the aforementioned and additional products of the military-industrial complex, especially during current election campaigning days. Some of the military equipment on display in Turkey might still be purely for show, and it will take some time before testing and real breakthrough is made. Even so, Turkey is making an effort to keep up with Iran and its neighbors in terms of the military-industrial complex.

There is always hope for the army because of the generals’ faith in their own air defense systems and airspace control forces. However, public statements frequently don’t match reality (or don’t match it completely), which can further the goals of misleading the direct and potential enemy or fostering diplomacy during the negotiation process.

Anyway, Iran is expanding its military-technical cooperation with Russia, China, and India to produce air defense systems in all circumstances, keeping up with new advancements, and testing them not only on army ranges but also in combat theaters, where it takes part in varying degrees.

May 16, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

West is a ‘partner’ in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, rights group says

MEMO | May 15, 2023

The UK-based Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR UK) has accused Western countries of being “partners” in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and demanded the United Nations General Assembly adopt the “United for Peace” resolution forcing all countries to prevent the supply of lethal weapons to Israel.

In a statement issued yesterday, the AOHR said the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip which lasted five days resulted in the killing of 33 people, including six children and three women, and wounded 147 others. Infrastructure in the besieged enclave was also badly damaged in the strikes.

The organisation said the human and material losses caused during this short period of aggression show that the Israeli occupation uses lethal and internationally prohibited weapons against civilian targets, without any regard for the rules of war, deliberately inflicting the greatest losses on civilians.

According to the statement, most of the weapons used by Israel against the Palestinian civilians are manufactured in Western countries such as the United States, Canada, Britain and European countries, led by Germany, which is the second largest exporter of weapons to Israel after the United States.

“These countries continued to export weapons to the occupation despite the strong international condemnations of exporting weapons to the occupation,” AOHR UK said in the statement.

Such immoral policies that violate the rules of international humanitarian law cannot be tolerated anymore, especially with the overwhelming evidence that confirms the occupation’s continuous use of these weapons to kill the Palestinians without any deterrence.

It stressed that countries that supply the Israeli occupation with these weapons are partners in the crimes committed against the Palestinians, and that time has come to hold them accountable.

May 15, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | Leave a comment

FDA Grants ‘Investigational’ Approval for Pork Products Made From Gene-Edited Pigs

‘Just Like Regular Pork’

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 10, 2023

Describing it as the “future of how we need to feed people,” a group of scientists and researchers from Washington State University (WSU) enjoyed some “smoky, and mildly salty” pork sausage earlier this month — derived from gene-edited pigs.

The WSU research team recently received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow pork meat from gene-edited pigs into the human food supply — resulting in the celebratory barbecue featuring sausage with “a good snap to the casings … just like regular pork.”

The FDA approval, which does not appear on the agency’s website, is investigational and limited to the specific pigs raised by the research team for this purpose. It is touted as evidence that “gene-editing livestock to quickly produce desirable traits for improved food production is a viable strategy for helping feed the planet’s growing population.”

However, some scientists and food safety advocates question the safety of the gene-editing technology — CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) — used by the WSU researchers and backed by investors like Bill Gates, and wonder if the products produced by the technology are really safe for human consumption.

‘Gene-edited meats could be mass produced for human consumption in 10 years’

CRISPR acts as a “precise pair of molecular scissors that can cut a target DNA sequence, directed by a customizable guide.”

Put differently, this technology allows scientists to edit sections of DNA by “snipping” specific portions of it and replacing them with new segments. Gene editing is not a new concept, but CRISPR technology is viewed as being cheaper and more accurate than other gene-editing technologies.

The WSU research team, led by Jon Oatley, Ph.D., associate dean for research for the College of Veterinary Medicine and tenured professor in the School of Molecular Biosciences, used CRISPR “to improve genetic traits in livestock.”

According to Nextgov, Oatley sought “to demonstrate that food made from the [gene-edited] animals is safe to eat and that it is possible for an academic institution to achieve this type of FDA authorization.”

“Gene-editing can make changes in an organism’s DNA that could occur in nature or through selective breeding but would take much longer without a tool like CRISPR,” Nextgov writes.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that WSU “is also studying CRISPR gene editing on cattle and sheep,” and wrapped up a goat study last year. “If all goes as planned … gene-edited meats could be mass produced for human consumption in 10 years.”

FDA’s investigational authorization is limited to five pigs. A WSU announcement described the work by Oatley and his team as “essentially a high-tech form of selective breeding,” adding that the pigs were originally gene-edited in a way that “would enable researchers to use them to sire offspring with traits from another male pig.”

According to WSU:

“Known as surrogate sires, this technology first gene-edits male animals to be sterile by knocking out a gene called NANOS2 that is specific to male fertility. These animals can then be implanted with another male’s stem cells that create sperm with that male’s desired traits to be passed on to the next generation.”

The research “has the potential to not just improve meat quality but the health and resilience of livestock in the face of changing environmental conditions, a critical goal for increasing protein sources in developing nations,” WSU said.

According to the university’s announcement, Oatley said:

“It’s important for a university to set the precedent by working with federal regulators to get these animals introduced into the food supply. … If we don’t go through that process, all of the research we’re doing is for naught because it will never make it out into the public.”

“The original intent in making these animals was to try to improve the way that we feed people,” Oatley said. “And we can’t do that unless we can work with the FDA system to get these animals actually into the food chain.”

WSU’s announcement did not mention Oatley’s membership on the Gene Editing in Agriculture Task Force, a collaboration of the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities created in June 2020.

According to the June 2021 report by the task force:

“The next frontier in devising strategies to effectively feed a growing global human population will be defined by genetic enhancement; gene editing technologies are a key component in this endeavor.”

The task force also suggested the same June 2021 report be distributed “to interested organizations,” including the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to WSU, “The surrogate sires’ progeny, which are themselves not gene-edited, have not yet been reviewed by the FDA for possible inclusion in the food chain.” However, the original pigs “were processed at the WSU Meat Lab, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspected the meat as it does with all meat products.”

The meat “will be used in catering services that raise travel funds for the student members of the WSU Meat Judging team,” WSU said.

CRISPR: ‘It’s not precise and it’s not breeding’

The public often holds “many misconceptions about gene-editing,” Oatley said, adding:

“There’s a trust that comes with university-based research. … At WSU, we’re all about the science. We just want to make sure the research is valid, and the animals we produce are healthy.”

However, other experts have previously raised questions about the potential safety risks of inserting gene-edited and lab-grown meat into the human food supply and using tools such as CRISPR for this purpose.

In October 2022 interviews with The Defender, Michael Antoniou, Ph.D., head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King’s College London, and Claire Robinson, managing editor of GMWatch, explained why they believe the risks of developing gene-edited meats and using CRISPR in this process outweighs the benefits.

Though CRISPR is often described as a “precision” gene-editing technology, Antoniou told The Defender, “It is not precise and it’s not breeding.”

Robinson told The Defender :

“These were also risks with the old-style GMOs [genetically modified organisms], and they are still risks with these gene-edited GM plants and animals.

“The risks, if you’re gene editing them … are that there will be knock-on effects on the animals, welfare or health that we can’t anticipate, such as deformities or changes in the function of certain genes in the animal.”

Antoniou warned that there may be unintended or unforeseen effects arising from this process. He said:

“Innately, gene editing also can bring about unintended DNA damage … even at the site of your intended edit or elsewhere in the DNA of your target cells, with unknown downstream consequences.

“None of these products … have been tested properly.”

A report published in the Journal of Genetics and Genomics in 2020 found that CRISPR gene-editing in rice resulted in numerous unintended and undesirable on-target and off-target mutations.

However, major investors like Gates see significant potential in foods created via gene editing and CRISPR.

According toBusiness Insider, Gates has said, “Researchers are studying ways to modify the genes of livestock animals … to make them produce milk more like dairy cows” and “make dairy cattle more resilient in hot weather.”

Gates and other proponents of CRISPR also claim that such tools — and the development and production of gene-edited meats — can serve as a solution to increased food demand due to a growing global population.

Robinson, in her October 2022 remarks, disputed such claims. She said:

“There’s no shortage of food in the world. Even in those countries where there are terrible hunger problems, they are producing food and it is available for those to buy if you have money.

“But the problem with hunger is, of course, poverty. The failure of infrastructure, the fact that you cannot get food to the hungry people. But mostly it’s inequality, things like wars and conflicts that are going on in some countries that mean that supply chains are disrupted. So really, there is no shortage of food and there isn’t ever likely to be.”

Instead, Robinson said that major corporate interests lie behind the use of CRISPR for the development of gene-edited food products.

“What we want to avoid,” said Robinson, “is a situation where the food supply ends up entirely patented, owned by big corporations … The patents on CRISPR are mostly owned by Corteva. Another patent owner used to be Monsanto, now owned by Bayer.”

Robinson added:

“The technology is patented; the products are patented. Therefore, it is all about increasing corporate control of the food supply.”

Corteva Agriscience, a conglomerate formed via the merger of Dow AgroSciences and DuPont/Pioneer, owns many CRISPR patents.

More FDA approvals of gene-edited meats likely coming soon

The FDA has approved only one other organization’s gene-edited animal for entering the food supply, according to WSU. The company, Acceligen, produces “slick-haired cattle,” which are gene-edited to grow coats that increase their resilience to higher temperatures.

The FDA’s March 7, 2022, announcement about the approval stated that “the intentional genomic alteration (IGA) does not raise any safety concerns” and that this was the agency’s “first low-risk determination for enforcement discretion for an IGA in an animal for food use.”

“We expect that our decision will encourage other developers to bring animal biotechnology products forward for the FDA’s risk determination in this rapidly developing field, paving the way for animals containing low-risk IGAs to more efficiently reach the marketplace,” said Dr. Steven M. Solomon, director of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

In recent years, the FDA also approved — or is close to granting full approval to — other gene-edited meat products for human consumption.

On Dec. 14, 2020, the FDA approved “a first-of-its-kind intentional genomic alteration (IGA) in a line of domestic pigs, referred to as GalSafe pigs, which may be used for food or human therapeutics. This is the first IGA in an animal that the FDA approved for both human food consumption and as a source for potential therapeutic uses.”

According to the FDA, the IGA in GalSafe pigs is intended to eliminate alpha-gal sugar on the surface of the pigs’ cells. “People with Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) may have mild to severe allergic reactions to alpha-gal sugar found in red meat,” the FDA said, adding that the potential environmental impact “is no greater than from conventional pigs.”

The FDA also said it noted “no animal safety concerns” for GalSafe pigs “beyond those that would be expected in well-managed, commercial swine operations,” and “the microbial food safety risk is low and is mitigated by the low number of GalSafe pigs entering the food supply and the ongoing surveillance for antimicrobial resistance, among other factors.”

And in November 2022, the FDA declared lab-grown chicken meat developed by Upside Foods, a California-based firm, safe for human consumption, as part of its completion of a pre-market consultation that will likely lead to full FDA approval.

The FDA’s Nov. 16, 2022, announcement described this development as “a food revolution” that enables “food developers to use animal cells obtained from livestock, poultry, and seafood in the production of food, with these products expected to be ready for the U.S. market in the near future.”

The lab-grown chicken appears to have been developed using a process involving CRISPR. In 2019, it was reported that Memphis Meats — the former name of Upside Foods prior to a 2021 rebrand — was employing CRISPR as part of its process for curating lab-grown meat, and even received a patent for this purpose.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

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.

May 14, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Iran to receive 1st batch of Russian-made SU-35 jets next week

Press TV – May 12, 2023

Iran will receive the first batch of Russian SU-35 fighter jets next week, according to a report.

Tehran and Moscow have embarked on deepening cooperation amid massive Western sanctions. Iran and Russia have signed major deals in recent months to boost economic, trade, energy and military cooperation.

The news was broken by Iran’s Persian-language media, which did not elaborate on the details of the shipment. The SU-35 is a fourth-generation fighter jet designed primarily for air superiority roles.

Over the past months, there have been media reports of Iran receiving the SU-35 planes from Russia.

Iran’s permanent mission at the United Nations confirmed in March that the country had finalized a deal to purchase the aircraft. Iranian media reports at the time said 24 units of the plane were to be supplied to Iran.

Shahriar Heidari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, told Tasnim news agency in January that the jets were to arrive in the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 21.

Heidari said Iran will also receive air defense systems, missile systems and helicopters from Russia in the near future.

Iran has not acquired any new fighter aircraft in recent years, excluding a few Russian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters it bought in the 1990s.

Besides the MiG-29, IRIAF mainly uses locally modified F-4 Phantom II, F-14 Tomcat, and F-5E/F Tiger II planes from the 1970s that the toppled US-backed Pahlavi regime received before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

May 13, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

Iranian oil tanker retaken in joint operation by IRGC Navy, Intel Ministry after 5 years

Press TV – May 12, 2023

An Iranian oil tanker, which was illegally seized by a foreign company five years ago, has been retaken in a joint operation by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy and Iran’s Intelligence Ministry.

Mojtaba Qahremani, head of the Justice Department of Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan, was cited by Tasnim news agency as saying on Friday that the 10,000-ton oil tanker Purity had returned to the country’s territorial waters following a judicial order and a joint operation carried out by the IRGC Navy and Intelligence Ministry.

“The seized 10,000-ton oil tanker Purity had been illegally leased to a foreigner by falsifying documents since 2018 and its Iranian owners were deprived of the benefits of the oil tanker,” Qahremani said.

The head of the Justice Department of Hormozgan Province added that it was discovered after investigations by security organizations that the foreign company used the vessel for fuel trafficking.

Stressing that the prosecutor of the provincial capital Bandar Abbas ordered the seizure of the oil vessel last February, Qahremani said, “Following a judicial order and close cooperation between the IRGC Navy and Intelligence Ministry, the oil tanker was finally identified and confiscated in the Persian Gulf waters earlier this month.”

The vessel was reported to be at Iran’s Assaluyeh Port on the westernmost coast of the Persian Gulf in order for its fuel consignments to be unloaded.

Forces from the first naval zone of the IRGC late in October seized a foreign tanker ship carrying 11 million liters of smuggled fuel in the Persian Gulf.

The Islamic Republic has vowed that the Persian Gulf would never be a safe place for smugglers. The IRGC’s Navy has also foiled several attacks on Iranian and foreign tankers alike.

May 13, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

Turkish Foreign Minister Says Ankara Won’t Wait for US F-35 Jets, Wants $1.4Bln Back

Sputnik – 13.05.2023

ANKARA – Turkiye has no plans to wait until it is brought back to the US F-35 multirole fighter program, from which it was officially removed two years ago, and seeks a refund of $1.4 billion paid for the jets, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Saturday.

“We want out money now. We want the money we paid there to be returned. Our friends from the ministry came together and reviewed the steps we will take from now on. We are now taking care of ourselves,” Cavusoglu told media, adding that Ankara does not want the situation to “turn into a snake story like with the Patriot defense system.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan previously said that the country had paid $1.4 billion for the jets.

In April 2021, the US excluded Turkiye from the F-35 program after Ankara purchased Russia’s S-400 air defense systems. Washington annulled the joint memorandum on the F-35 fighters with the country, while signing the document with seven other project partners — the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Canada and Norway. Erdogan said later that year that Turkiye had received a US offer to buy F-16 jets instead, one generation behind the F-35s. The US Congress has been debating whether to include restrictions on the sale of jets in its annual defense spending bill for fiscal 2023, while the US State Department has been trying to convince lawmakers that the deal was aligned with Washington’s interests.

May 13, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

China won’t forget NATO’s ‘barbaric’ actions in Yugoslavia

RT | May 8, 2023

Beijing has neither forgotten nor forgiven the May 1999 bombing of its embassy in Belgrade, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Monday. Wang condemned the US-led bloc for creating conflict while posing as a defensive alliance, urging it to “seriously reflect” on its crimes.

Wang noted that May 7 was the anniversary of the embassy attack, in which three Chinese journalists were killed and 20 diplomatic staff members were injured. “The Chinese people will never forget what they sacrificed to uphold the truth, fairness and justice. Nor will we ever forget this barbaric atrocity committed by US-led NATO,” he told reporters.

While claiming to be a regional defense bloc, NATO has “repeatedly lit the fuse and brought conflicts to places all over the world,” Wang noted, “from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Kosovo, from Iraq to Afghanistan, and from Libya to Syria.”

Having participated in wars that have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced tens of millions, NATO is now “making forays eastward into the Asia-Pacific, instigating bloc confrontation and undermining peace and stability in the region,” the spokesman added. “The US-led NATO needs to seriously reflect on the crimes they’ve committed, abandon the outdated Cold War mentality, stop inciting tensions in the region, and stop sowing division and instability.”

The embassy strike happened six weeks into the NATO air war against Yugoslavia, waged on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. Five bombs struck the compound, killing Shao Yunhuan, Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying. Beijing condemned the bombing as a “barbaric act.”

The US claimed it had struck the embassy by accident, using an “old map” of the Serbian capital. The real target, Washington said, had been the Yugoslav government agency for military procurement, which was almost 500 meters (1,640 feet) away. The strike was carried out by a B-2 stealth bomber, using JDAM bombs that are accurate to within 14 meters (46 feet) of the target. It was the first and only mission during the 78-day campaign that had been planned by the CIA, the agency’s director George Tenet later testified before the US Congress. One CIA agent was reportedly fired and six were reprimanded over the incident.

US President Bill Clinton offered a public apology. Washington later paid a compensation of $28 million to the Chinese government and $4.5 million to the families of the victims.

The NATO-backed war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia cited this, as well as the CIA disciplinary measures, among the reasons for not opening an investigation into the bombing, much less pressing charges.

May 8, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Assassination Bid on Putin to Provoke Furious Escalation… for Whom?

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | May 7, 2023

Just as the Western public is growing increasingly skeptical of the U.S.-led proxy war against Russia and the insane military and financial aid being pumped to prop up the corrupt Kiev regime, we then see a daring assassination drone attack on the Kremlin.

Russia called it an act of terrorism to kill President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has also pointed  the finger at Washington for authoring the assassination bid as well as the Kiev regime for having a hand in it.

The White House denies any American role in the air raid as does Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Western media are reporting claims that Russia may have carried out a false-flag terror attack on itself to justify ramping up military force in Ukraine. Those claims echo those put out earlier by the West about Russia blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea last September. In both cases, the notion of Russian false-flag attacks seems absurd.

Would Russia really risk making itself look incompetent by staging an audacious aerial raid on the seat of political power in its capital?

Two small unmanned aerial vehicles were apparently brought down over the Kremlin in the early hours of Wednesday. The lightweight devices could hardly have posed a serious threat to kill Putin in his official residence. So, it can be dismissed as a realistic attempt at assassination. The Kremlin said Putin was not even in the building at the time.

Nevertheless, the mere fact of explosive drones breaching the iconic walls of the Kremlin and targeting the Senate Palace is certainly an outrageous provocation. One may aver that this provocative act per se was the main aim.

Moscow’s initial response was that it would retaliate accordingly at a time of its choosing. There are many voices calling for Russia to kill Zelensky. A furious reaction by Russia is understandable, but is it prudent?

It seems highly pertinent that there is growing skepticism and even disgust among the Western public about the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine. Polls are showing increasing numbers of Americans critical of the “blank checks” that Washington is throwing like a drunken sailor at the Kiev regime. Across Europe too people are angered by the unlimited money showering a corrupt cabal and the reckless danger of inciting an all-out war between NATO and Russia that could spiral into nuclear armageddon. This while Western workers are being drummed into poverty and social misery.

Skimming hundreds of millions of dollars by Zelensky and his cronies in Kiev is undermining Western public tolerance of this completely unnecessary conflict. The war is increasingly seen as a racket for the American military-industrial complex, a racket in which Zelensky and his ilk are indulged with their embezzlement and thievery of Western tax payers’ money.

The Ukraine conflict is blatantly being fueled indefinitely. There is brazen repudiation by Washington and its European minions of any diplomatic solution. A diplomatic solution was obviated from the very beginning when Russia’s reasonable security concerns and offer of dialogue in December 2021 about NATO and Ukraine were arrogantly brushed aside by the Joe Biden administration.

The war racket is too lucrative for the Pentagon industry and its ancillary European weapons firms.

But the Western propaganda narrative of “defending Ukraine for as long as it takes” is wearing thin for public consumption. The Kiev regime is burning down churches, ruthlessly repressing opposition political and media voices, glorifying Nazis and beating its own citizens on the streets in forced conscription for the military.

Vladimir Zelensky is seen as a wheedling character whose begging bowl for more weapons and funds is a black hole.

Without public support (or ignorance) in the West, the whole U.S.-led proxy war against Russia comes unstuck. The American presidential elections are approaching and the Ukrainian debacle could become a decisive factor for voters.

In order to salvage the shaky situation, therefore, what better than for Russia to launch an attack to kill Zelensky? Such an event would be spun to death by the pliant Western media as “evidence of Russian barbarism”, thereby giving the NATO proxy war in Ukraine a new lease on life and most importantly for the weapons racket to find a new throttle.

The American deep state, the CIA and Pentagon corporate oligarchy would be the most plausible agency to author the drone attack on the Kremlin. Just as this faction did with the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines. Technically and militarily, this faction has the capability. Just like the Nord Stream diversionary media stories about Ukrainian military agents being responsible for that sabotage, it is doubtful that the Kiev regime could have carried out the Kremlin attack – alone.

The timing of the Kremlin attack points to a big calculation to incite a wild reaction from Russia. It comes days before the annual May 9 Victory Day parade in Red Square commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. The last time the Kremlin was attacked in an air raid was reportedly in 1942 during Hitler’s invasion. Throw into that incitement that President Putin was targeted.

Arguably, Russia should push to defeat the NATO-backed Kiev regime. The longer that regime survives, the worse the danger persists for Russia from uncontrolled instability on its border. But taking out the contemptible Zelensky and his cronies in a bloody assassination? Such a reaction might be just what his American puppet masters want.

May 8, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

America’s Obesity Epidemic Thins Out Pool of Potential US Army Recruits

Sputnik – 03.05.2023

In one of its worst years ever, the US Army’s official figures showed that it failed to reach last year’s goal of 60,000 new recruits, falling short by about 15,000.

It looks as if the US Army won’t be able to live up to its recruitment expectations this year, since a considerable number of prospects simply cannot cut the mustard.

Speaking at a congressional hearing this week, US Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said they are not going to “make” the projected goal of 65,000 new soldiers.

“We are doing everything we can to get as close to it as possible; we are going to fall short,” she noted.

According to local press reports, the US Army had also missed its recruitment target of 60,000 last year, falling short by about 15,000 “active-duty recruits.”

This trend is due to the considerable number of prospective recruits turning out to be unfit for service, or either failing the entrance exam meant to gauge their intelligence or “being too overweight to serve,” one US media outlet revealed.

Only about 23% of Americans aged 17 to 24 can meet the Army’s expectations, the media outlet notes, citing Pentagon figures.

May 3, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

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