Indigenous Rebellion Continues as Post-Coup Peruvian Government Flounders
BY W. T. WHITNEY | COUNTERPUNCH | MARCH 10, 2023
Revived democratic struggle in Peru is well along into a second act. There was the parliamentary coup December 7 that removed democratically elected President Pedro Castillo and the “First Taking of Lima” in mid-January, embittered and excluded Peruvians occupied Lima and faced violent repression. Then on March 1 protests renewed as the indigenous inhabitants of Peru’s extreme southern regions prepared once more to demonstrate in Lima and would shortly be protesting in their own regions. The resistance’s make-up was fully on display.
Protesters throughout Peru were rejecting a replacement president and an elite-dominated congress and calling for early elections and a new constitution. They belonged for the most part belonged to Aymara communities in districts south of Lima extending from Lake Titicaca both west and northeast, into the Andes region.
Their complaints centered on wealth inequities, rule by a Lima-based elite, inadequate means for decent lives, and non-recognition of their cultural autonomy. Their support and that of other rural Peruvians had brought about the surprise election to Peru’s presidency in 2021 of the inexperienced Pedro Castillo. He had defeated Keiko Fujimori, daughter of a now imprisoned dictator and favorite of Peru’s neo-liberal enablers.
By March 1, residents of provinces close to the city of Puno were arriving in Lima to carry out the so-called “Second Wave of the Taking of Lima.” Demanding the de facto President Dina Boluarte resign, as of March 4 protesters had not been able to break through police lines surrounding key government buildings. The main action, however, was going on in the epicenter of police and military repression ever since Boluarte had taken office on December 7.
That would be the Puno area where most of the 60 deaths caused by violent repression have occurred, with 19 protesters having been killed on January 9 in Juliaca, a town 27 miles north of Puno city.
On March 5, violence was again playing out in Juli, a town 58 miles south of Puno, also on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Demonstrations along with roadblocks were in progress throughout the extended region, all in sympathy with the concurrent protests in Lima. Involved were indigenous groups, small farmer organizations, and social movements.
In Juli the demonstrators, confronted by military units and police in civilian dress, set fire to judicial office buildings and the police headquarters. The troops fired, shots came from open windows, and tear gas was released from a helicopter; 18 demonstrators were wounded.
Demonstrators blocking a bridge over a river prevented the entry of troops into the nearby town of Llave. Rains had caused flooding and in the process of swimming across the river, one of them drowned and five others disappeared.
Protesters captured 12 soldiers; community leader Nilo Colque indicated they were released after they admitted to trying to break the “strikes” but that they too opposed the military’s actions. Coolque predicted that soon 30,000 Aymaras would be descending on Juli and nearby population centers.
Aymara activists in Ilave announced a strike of indefinite duration. A “Committee of struggle” in Cusco announced the beginning as of March 7 of an indefinite strike in 10 provinces. The president of the national “Rondas Campesinas” (peasant patrols), said to represent two million Peruvians in all, announced a big march on Lima from all regions set for March 13.
Meanwhile Peru’s chief prosecutor has embarked upon an investigation of President Boluarte and other officials for crimes of “genocide, homicide resulting from circumstances, and causing serious injury,” that allegedly took place mostly in southern regions in the weeks immediately after her taking office.
There are these other developments:
* Peru’s Supreme Court on March 3 heard a proposal that the “preventive imprisonment of ex-President Castillo be extended from 18 to 36 months. Another court had previously denied his appeal for habeas corpus.
* The Congress as of March 6 looked to be on the verge of, for the fourth time, refusing to advance new presidential elections from April 2024 to sometime in 2013.
* The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has released a preliminary report accusing the new Peruvian government of excessive use of force against protesters.
* Polling results currently go one way: 77% of Peruvian reject the Dina Boluarte government, 70% say she should resign, 90% denounce Peru’s Congress. 69% favor moving general elections ahead to 2023, and 58% support the demonstrations. Most of those making up these majorities live in rural areas, according to the report.
The opposed sides in the Peruvian conflict are stalemated. Powerbrokers presently lack a government capable – willing though it may be – of providing structure and organization adequate for protecting their political and economic interests. Marginalized Peruvians are without an historical experience from which revolutionary leadership and strategies might have developed, such that now they might have direction and focus. The people’s movement there is not as lucky as counterparts were in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
Now the U.S. government meddles with this state of precarious balance in Peru. And not surprisingly: it has long intervened militarily and is competing with China economically.
Speaking on March 1, State Department Ned Price did insist that in Peru, “our diplomats do not take sides in political disputes … They recognize that these are sovereign decisions.” He added that the United States backs “Peru’s constitution, and Peru’s constitutional processes.”
Even so, there is active interest hinting at more to come. Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols on February 28 urged Peru’s Congress to expedite early elections and Peru’s president to promptly “end the crisis caused by ex-President Castillo’s self-coup.”
Pakistan’s Fascist Post-Modern Coup Regime Risks Replicating The East Pakistan Tragedy
By Andrew Korybko | March 15, 2023
The fascist authorities who were installed in Pakistan following last April’s US-orchestrated but superficially “democratic” post-modern coup against former Prime Minister Imran Khan risk replicating the East Pakistan tragedy if they don’t immediately stop shooting at their own people. The ousted leader’s supporters are rallying around his residence to prevent the local police from serving him an arrest warrant on a trumped-up graft charge that was concocted against him as “lawfare”.
Instead of reconsidering the wisdom of clashing with unarmed and purely peaceful civilians, the fascist authorities ordered their goons to assault them all with tear gas, rubber bullets, and reportedly even live ammunition that was shot into the air according to some accounts. This de facto declaration of war by the fascist post-modern coup regime on its own people could dangerously place the country’s political-security trajectory on the irreversible path towards civil war.
Former Prime Minister Khan warned as much in a tweet on Wednesday that he shared alongside a photo of himself sitting down in front of a pile of tear gas canisters that were shot at his home the other day. He wrote that “My house has been under heavy attack since yesterday afternoon. Latest attack by Rangers, pitting the largest pol party against the army. This is what PDM and the enemies of Pakistan want. No lessons learnt from the East Pakistan tragedy.”
The military-intelligence establishment must urgently rescind their de facto declaration of war on the Pakistani people, do whatever’s required behind the scenes to have the fascist post-modern coup’s leading figures resign as the first step towards national reconciliation, and then hold early elections. It’s only through this three-step process that the worst-case scenario of replicating the East Pakistan tragedy can potentially be avoided since anything less than that makes this more likely by the hour.
One of the most populous countries in the world is being pushed towards civil conflict by those conspirators who illegally usurped power with the US’ help last April and subsequently crashed the economy. This factual framing of Pakistan’s latest political-security dynamics proves that the increasingly violent clashes provoked by the fascist post-modern coup regime against its own people could lead to a global crisis in the event that they soon spiral even further out of control.
If the military-intelligence establishment continues waging war on the Pakistani people, then their victims should consider publicly calling on their iron brothers in China to urgently rein them in as a last resort to avert the worst-case scenario that former Prime Minister Khan just warned about. China’s diplomatic miracle in brokering the Iranian–Saudi rapprochement last week proves that it has the political capabilities to peacefully resolve the Pakistani Crisis if the people request for it to do so.
After all, the People’s Republic also stands to geostrategically lose if that neighboring nation descends into civil war. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is the flagship project of Beijing’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) that’s aimed at creating a Community of Common Destiny for Mankind, would practically become inoperable should that happen. Not only could that block off China’s shortcut to the Indian Ocean, but it would deal an immense blow to its soft power and BRI’s reputation as well.
Without intending to come off as “conspiratorial”, observers can’t preclude the possibility that the fascist post-modern coup regime’s US backers encouraged them to provoke a civil war partially for the purpose of advancing America’s anti-Chinese “containment” strategy via unconventional means. At the very least, its military-intelligence establishment wouldn’t so publicly violate its people’s human rights and possibly even countenance war crimes against them without the US’ advance approval.
This means that the latest escalation of the nearly year-long Pakistani Crisis is connected to the US just like its origin is, thus extending credence to the preceding concerns that the events which Washington set into motion last April are actually part of its larger Hybrid War on China. This South Asian state was knocked out of the geostrategic game at the most sensitive moment in the global systemic transition shortly after this process accelerated following the start of Russia’s special operation.
That outcome hasn’t just proven disastrous for the Pakistani people who’ve suffered as a result of the crippling economic crisis that followed, but it also unexpectedly offset a key pillar of China’s grand strategy related to its reliance on CPEC as a non-US-controlled shortcut to the Indian Ocean. Furthermore, both the political and especially economic dimensions of the US-provoked Pakistani Crisis also raised serious doubts about CPEC’s future as well as that of BRI more broadly.
Nobody can therefore deny that the US’ regime change in Pakistan last year had very serious consequences for China that are becoming worse by the hour as that country’s fascist post-modern regime risks pushing it into civil war after de facto declaring war on its own people. China might already be working behind the scenes to try and de-escalate the latest and thus far most dangerous phase of this nearly year-long crisis on its borders, but it would still help a lot if Pakistanis publicly requested this.
That’s because this could compel China into taking urgent action behind close doors if it hasn’t already done so, not to mention creating the optics of Pakistan’s US-backed fascist post-modern coup regime literally shooting at Chinese-friendly peaceful protesters, which would force China to get involved. No other party apart from the US has the influence to peacefully resolve this crisis, and seeing as how Washington’s interests are perversely advanced by exacerbating it, the onus thus falls on Beijing.
Practically speaking, China has a credible chance of brokering peace and thus averting another Pakistani Civil War, but this best-case scenario can only happen if the fascist post-modern coup regime has the political will to save their country from this US-engineered collapse. If they do, then China can simply propose the previously suggested three-step peace plan related to immediately ceasing fire against unarmed peaceful protesters, creating a caretake government, and holding early elections.
The coup regime might agree to this in exchange for a Chinese bailout that could replace the IMF’s continually delayed one that’s full of strings and has thus far been withheld by that body’s US leader for the purpose of keeping its proxies in check in case they consider “defecting”. That last-mentioned observation is precisely what China would be tempting them to do, basically “defect” from the US in exchange for much-needed aid and thus averting the seemingly impending civil war.
The latest and thus far most dangerous phase of the nearly year-long Pakistani Crisis is rife with unpredictability since everything is moving so rapidly right now so it’s difficult to predict what might come next. In any case, it would greatly help the cause of peace and preventing a replication of the East Pakistani tragedy that former Prime Minister Khan just warned about if his unarmed peaceful protesters publicly called on China to diplomatically intervene and prevent this from becoming a global crisis.
I Read Richard Haass’ New Book (So You Don’t Have To!)
Corbett • 03/13/2023
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Have you ever thought that the Bill of Rights was a bit lacking? Did you ever wish there was a list of obligations detailing those things we owe to the government for the privilege of being born into a certain political jurisdiction? Then, boy, do I have the perfect book for you! Join James for today’s dissection of The Bill of Obligations, the latest turgid tome of trash from Richard Haass, the outgoing president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee / Rokfin / Rumble / Substack / Download the mp4
For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.
For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).
DOCUMENTATION
| Episode 188 – Listening to the Enemy | |
| Time Reference: | 00:30 |
| Episode 225 – Still Listening to the Enemy | |
| Time Reference: | 00:36 |
| Episode 412 – I Read The Great Narrative (So You Don’t Have To!) | |
| Time Reference: | 00:41 |
| Episode 418 – I Read Bill Gates’ New Book (So You Don’t Have To!) | |
| Time Reference: | 00:48 |
| The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens | |
| Time Reference: | 01:06 |
| Richard Haass: “No,” CFR members are not New World Order architects (Feb 11, 2021) | |
| Time Reference: | 01:21 |
| Richard Haass on ‘The Bill of Obligations’ | |
| Time Reference: | 04:23 |
| Wall Street and FDR by Antony Sutton | |
| Time Reference: | 07:48 |
| FLASHBACK: You Are Being Programmed to Accept Global ID | |
| Time Reference: | 08:15 |
| Corbett Report Radio 050 – Deconstructing Pearl Harbor with Robert Stinnett | |
| Time Reference: | 08:22 |
| What Is The Average Global Temperature? | |
| Time Reference: | 17:24 |
| Episode 430 – The Media Are the Terrorists | |
| Time Reference: | 27:30 |
| Episode 382 – Your Body, Their Choice | |
| Time Reference: | 32:06 |
| Jacobsen v. Massachussetts | |
| Time Reference: | 32:20 |
| Buck v. Bell | |
| Time Reference: | 32:26 |
| How & Why Big Oil Conquered the World | |
| Time Reference: | 32:30 |
US House Passes Bill Prohibiting Government Workers From Censoring Speech in Official Role
Sputnik – 10.03.2023
WASHINGTON – The US House of Representatives passed a bill to prevent federal government employees from censoring speech in their official capacity, amid hearings by congressional committees on the collusion between tech companies and the government to “moderate” content online.
House lawmakers passed the Protecting Speech From Government Interference Act along partisan lines on Thursday in a vote of 219-206.
The bill prohibits employees of executive agencies or those otherwise in the competitive service from using their official authority to influence or advocate for a third party, including private entities, to censor speech.
“Government agencies such as the FBI and the State Department have been working behind-the-scenes with Big Tech to silence American citizens expressing conservative views online,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a statement on the bill. “Americans have the right to express themselves lawfully online without the government controlling the narrative.”
Earlier on Thursday, a House select subcommittee held a hearing with authors of the so-called Twitter Files to hear testimony on the collusion between Big Tech, government agencies and private organizations – dubbed the Censorship-Industrial Complex – to moderate, suppress and censor online content.
The Twitter Files have revealed how the US government collaborated with Big Tech companies such as Twitter to suppress information related to COVID-19 and the Hunter Biden laptop story, among others.
Aspen Institute’s Censorship Commission
Katie Couric, Prince Harry, et al. recommended restrictions on free speech
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | March 10, 2023
Matt Taibbi continues his Twitter reporting on what he calls the CENSORSHIP-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. His report yesterday on the Aspen Institute’s activities caught my eye. As he put it:
14. The Woodstock of the Censorship-Industrial Complex came when the Aspen Institute – which receives millions a year from both the State Department and USAID – held a star-studded confab in Aspen in August 2021 to release its final report on “Information Disorder.”
15. The report was co-authored by Katie Couric and Chris Krebs, the founder of the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Yoel Roth of Twitter and Nathaniel Gleicher of Facebook were technical advisors. Prince Harry joined Couric as a Commissioner.
16. Their taxpayer-backed conclusions: the state should have total access to data to make searching speech easier, speech offenders should be put in a “holding area,” and government should probably restrict disinformation, “even if it means losing some freedom.”
In other words, a group of extremely wealthy, privileged, half-educated, self-important people assemble in North America’s swankiest mountain retreat, at an institution heavily financed by taxpayer money, to discuss censoring and correcting the plebs’ “information disorder.” A naive outsider might wonder if this sort of activity was conceived as an intentional insult of the middle class, taxpaying citizenry.
The mental habits of the participants are perhaps best expressed by their choice of Prince Harry—a descendent of King George III, who once publicly characterized the U.S. First Amendment protection of free speech as “bonkers”—as a Commissioner. How strange that a young man who seems unable to manage his personal and family affairs was commissioned with making recommendations to U.S. policymakers about governing the American people.
Matt Taibbi’s Twitter reporting on censorship is very interesting and illuminating.
‘An Injustice & A Disgrace’: Outrage Surges Over ‘Shameful’ Corsican Language Ban on French Island
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 11.03.2023
The French island of Corsica has for many years been trying to achieve autonomy, seeking legislative powers in economic and social fields, as well as recognition of the Corsican language as the official lingua franca.
Public outrage has been triggered by a “shameful” court decision in France’s Corsica to ban use of the Corsican language in its local parliament, according to reports from the capital, Ajaccio.
A verdict issued on 9 March in the Corsican city of Bastia ruled that French is the only language allowed to be used in official communications on the Mediterranean’s fourth-largest island which is a “territorial collectivity” of France. Furthermore, use of the Corsican language in debates – something that had been commonly practiced by the Assembly (unicameral legislative body of Corsica) – was pronounced as being against the French constitution.
Referred to as Corsu, or Lingua Corsa, the Corsican language is closely related to the type of Italian spoken in Tuscany. The language is spoken and written not only on the French island of Corsica, but also in northern Sardinia – an Italian island. The language has been classified as “definitely endangered” by UNESCO.
Also deemed a violation of the constitution by the court were local rules in support of “the existence of a Corsican people”.
The present ruling has come in the wake of a lawsuit introduced by Amaury de Saint-Quentin, the prefect of Corsica, according to reports. De Saint-Quentin is the highest-ranking official on the island and is appointed by the central French government.
The court ruling prompted an immediate backlash from pro-autonomy politicians on Corsica, with the pro-Corsican independence party Core in Fronte going on Twitter to lambaste the “shameful” verdict.
“This decision amounts to stripping Corsican parliament members of the right to speak their language during debates. Accepting this state of affairs is unthinkable for us,” a joint statement by the island’s executive council president Gilles Simeoni, and Corsican Assembly president Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis said.
Emphasizing that the Corsican language needed to be granted official status alongside French if it were to have any chance to “survive and develop”, they vowed to lodge an appeal against the verdict.
Jean-Christophe Angelini, leader of the Party of the Corsican Nation, tweeted to say the court ruling was “an injustice and a disgrace”, and “sounds to us like an insult”.
Corsica has for years been seeking autonomy from France, and – as well as a whole slew of issues – recognition of the Corsican language as official has always been top of the agenda.
In February 2018, during his first visit to the island, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke out against granting Corsica special status or recognizing its language as official, insisting that Corsica was an integral part of the French Republic.
However, this February Macron reportedly told members of parliament that he had neither red lines nor a predetermined decision regarding Corsica when it comes to the draft constitutional reform, which he hopes to carry out after the summer and put up for debates in 2023-24. However, the option for Corsica to secede from France is off the table, according to the report.
Ukrainian Opposition Leader: Zelensky Regime Won’t Be Able to Destroy Orthodox Faith
By Viktor Medvedchuk – Sputnik – 11.03.2023
The Zelensky regime has once again demonstrated that it holds nothing sacred, this time in the literal sense. Today, the authorities have begun a gangster-style takeover of the main shrine of Orthodoxy – the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
On March 10, the leadership of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine received an ultimatum, being informed that the National Preserve is breaking its lease agreement for the Lower Lavra of the Holy Assumption Monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and requiring monks to vacate the territory before March 29, 2023.
We remember from history that even during the Nazi occupation, the parishes of the canonical Orthodox Church were not closed by the Nazis. But today, their ideological heirs are taking away from the people of Ukraine that which gives them their spiritual core, strengthens them in trying times, consoles them in their grief and unites them in the joy of Easter.
The Ukrainian people have been robbed of their tongue, both Russian and Ukrainian. Russian, native to millions of Ukrainians, was declared the language of invaders and traitors. Ukrainian has been perverted to such an extent that it has lost its roots, musicality and meaning.
The Ukrainian people had their rights and freedoms taken from them, with deceitful, thieving and criminal authorities placed above all laws, with the people given over into the hands of demented Nazi bandits, spawning informers and extremists. Today, a Ukrainian not only has no right to have an opinion that differs from that of the authorities, but is obliged to support this government at any opportunity, since even silence is considered a crime.
The Ukrainian people have been robbed of peace and prosperity, since the Zelensky government does not want to admit its mistakes and its lies to voters. They preferred to lead their people to the slaughter, receiving unlimited finances and NATO weaponry. The current government does not hide that it is going to fight a long and bloody conflict. It is not interested in the lives of ordinary Ukrainians.
Today, the people are being robbed of the last thing they’ve got – their faith. Orthodoxy is the basis of the culture and spiritual life of the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has called the people to peace, unity and conscientiousness. But peaceful, God-fearing and conscientious people have been declared enemies by the Zelensky government.
Ukrainians are being robbed of their souls, their language, their hearts, their minds and their conscience. The Ukrainian state has turned into a man-made Frankenstein, a monster that hates everything living and natural, that wants to destroy peace in the world. But the authorities in Kiev will not succeed in turning Ukraine into a corpse, a dangerous zombie. Ukrainians are a living, spiritual, righteous people.
Ukrainians aren’t zombies. There is Another Ukraine – the genuine, true, Slavic, Orthodox one, which will not allow Satanism and lawlessness to be imposed upon it. And today the traitors of the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian faith hear our voice, and understand that their sinister, black core is becoming more and more obvious each day. Everyone will receive their just deserts. The attempt to destroy the true Orthodox faith only strengthens the people. The Orthodox faith, like the people, cannot be destroyed!
Viktor Medvedchuk is a former Ukrainian opposition leader.
Now is the Time to Oppose the WHO’s Globalist Pandemic Treaty
BY ADAM CROSS | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | MARCH 10, 2023
On February 1st this year, the World Health Organisation released the first draft of its much heralded pandemic response treaty. The draft treaty, snappily titled the ‘Convention or Agreement on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response’, is proposed as a solution to what the WHO calls the “catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity” during the “coronavirus pandemic”.
A supposed lack of solidarity amongst national governments will not be the “catastrophic failure” uppermost of many readers’ minds when thinking back on Government health policy over the last three years. Despite this, the WHO’s draft treaty proposes preventing a recurrence of this alleged failure by substantially enhancing the powers of the WHO relative to those of national health authorities.
It does this despite initially affirming “the principle of sovereignty of States Parties in addressing public health matters” in its opening recital, and despite recognising the principle of state sovereignty as one of the guiding principles of the treaty in article 4. Yet notwithstanding these reassuring nods to the notion of state sovereignty, the WHO’s real attitude towards state autonomy can be gauged by a quick glance at the rest of the recitals and provisions in the agreement.
In setting out the WHO’s interpretation of the factual background to this draft agreement, many of the other recitals focus on the purported practical inability of individual sovereign states to respond adequately to the unique health challenges of the modern world. Hence other recitals note that “a pandemic situation is extraordinary in nature, requiring States Parties to prioritise effective and enhanced cooperation”; that “the international spread of disease is a global threat with serious consequences… that calls for the widest possible international cooperation”; and that “the threat of pandemics is a reality and that pandemics have catastrophic health, social, economic and political consequences”. These recitals strongly imply that state sovereignty can be of limited importance in the face of such extraordinarily grave threats.
Similarly, while recognition of state sovereignty is given as one of the guiding principles of the agreement, it is somewhat overshadowed by the raft of other guiding principles, which include abstract things like “equity”, “solidarity” and the “right to health”. Indeed, article 4 goes on to ominously assert that “previous pandemics have demonstrated that no one is safe until everyone is safe”, strongly suggesting that adherence to the principle of national sovereignty during a pandemic is not just an outdated approach to take, but a positively selfish one.
The draft agreement therefore goes on to assign considerable power to the WHO to influence and shape the responses of national health authorities to any future pandemic. The breadth of ambition of the agreement is made clear in article 5, which applies the agreement in a far-reaching way to “pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and health systems recovery at national, regional and international levels”.
Subsequent articles go on to prescribe the policies to be followed by States Parties to the agreement in each of these areas. As examples of what is intended, articles 6 and 7 set out steps to be followed to improve logistics and the workings of the global supply chain for quicker dispersal of what are euphemistically termed “pandemic-related products” (read pharmaceuticals), after which article 8 of the agreement addresses “regulatory strengthening”. Sadly, the regulatory strengthening envisaged in this agreement is not the strengthening of the accountability of national health regulators to the public, but rather the strengthening of those regulators’ accountability to the inter-governmental blob. Article 8 therefore requires signatory states to “strengthen the capacity and performance of national regulatory authorities and increase the harmonisation of regulatory requirements at the international and regional level”. In layman’s terms, more funding and powers for the regulators, yet concurrently less independent decision-making from them as well.
Subsequent articles further limit the discretion of national health authorities in responding to future WHO designated pandemics. Article 11 requires signatory states to “adopt policies and strategies… consistent with… the International Health Regulations” (themselves the target of amendment by the WHO), while article 15 stresses “the need to coordinate, collaborate and cooperate, in the spirit of international solidarity” with the various bodies active in the international healthcare space in the formulation of policies and guidelines. There are references to “establishing appropriate governance arrangements”, presumably well away from potentially meddlesome interference by elected representatives. These governance arrangements are to be complete with “mechanisms that ensure global, regional and national policy decisions are science and evidence-based”. Think blanket mask and vaccine mandates.
Signatory states will also have to take part in “multi-country or regional tabletop exercises every two years” to prepare them for the next pandemic, presumably to ensure that all health authorities remain fully briefed on the acceptable line to take in the event of any such new pandemic being declared, and to deter any of the signatory states from being tempted to go off-script as Sweden did in 2020.
Last but not least, a plethora of comfortable sinecures will be created for the international administrative class, by way of the creation of a governing body for the agreement under article 20, a consultative body for input into decision making by amorphous inter-governmental stakeholders under article 21, and a secretariat under article 24.
Conspicuously lacking in the agreement is any reference to democracy, elected legislatures, or the necessity of regulators and health authorities being accountable to national electorates. Instead, the treaty represents a brazen attempt to further move health policy away from regional or national governments and into the hands of a rarefied class of globalist administrators.
It should be stressed that the current text is only a draft, and that it may be subject to amendments following discussion between the WHO and member states. Further, even if the U.K. does sign this agreement, it will likely require ratification by Parliament under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and will also require implementation via domestic legislation before it will have any domestic legal effect in the U.K. Sustained pressure now on ministers and MPs might just influence any U.K. Government proposals to amend the treaty at draft stage, or alternatively such pressure might conceivably prevent the U.K. Government from signing an unacceptably worded agreement in the first place. Either way, now is the time for action to prevent the crystallisation at international level of the very policies and approaches many of us have railed against at national level for the last three years.
Adam Cross (a pseudonym) is a U.K. qualified barrister specialising in international trade law, with both public and private sector experience.
Georgia ‘lost chance for sovereignty’ – Moscow
RT | March 10, 2023
The US opposed Georgia’s “foreign agents” bill because Washington does not want the country to have political sovereignty, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, said on Friday.
He argued that the legislation, which was withdrawn after protests and clashes with police in Tbilisi, was aimed at limiting Washington’s ability to meddle in Georgia’s affairs.
“Washington has used the tools of soft power to lead people to the streets. The Georgian authorities were forced to submit – not to the will of the people, but to the United States,” Volodin claimed in a post in his Telegram channel.
The politician said the bill was “unacceptable for the US” because it would have “restricted Washington’s influence on the country’s internal political affairs.”
“With its withdrawal by the parliament, Georgia has lost the chance for sovereignty,” Volodin said.
On Friday, Georgian Dream and People’s Power, two of the country’s ruling parties, withdrew the Transparency of Foreign Influence Bill, also dubbed the ‘Foreign Agents Law.’ They said the bill had led to “divisions in society” and that its intent and purpose has been distorted by “a machine of lies.”
The proposed law would have required individuals, NGOs and media outlets that receive 20% or more of their funding from abroad to register as “an agent of foreign influence” with the Georgian Justice Ministry, according to Reuters. Offenders would have faced fines and up to five years in prison for failing to comply.
The bill was condemned by Washington, the EU and NATO. US State Department spokesman Ned Price voiced concerns about “the potential implications of this law for freedom of speech and democracy in Georgia” and warned that its adoption “could potentially undermine Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration.”
Price later welcomed the decision to withdraw the draft law and urged MPs to “officially retract this bill and not to further this type of legislation.”
Proponents of the bill argued that it resembled the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a 1938 law that requires individuals and organizations to register as “foreign agents.” Opponents, however, claimed that the bill was inspired by a similar law in Russia that was passed in 2012.
Twitter Files expose ‘censorship-industrial complex’ – journalist
RT | March 9, 2023
Social media platforms colluded with non-governmental organizations and the US government to suppress information they did not like in the name of fighting “disinformation,” journalist Matt Taibbi testified at a congressional hearing on Thursday.
Taibbi appeared alongside Michael Shellenberger, another journalist who has covered the “Twitter Files” for the past several months, before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio.
Taibbi described what he called the “censorship-industrial complex,” calling it “a bureaucracy willing to sacrifice factual truth in service of broader narrative objectives,” and the exact opposite of a free press envisioned in the US Constitution.
Right before his testimony, Taibbi also published a lengthy thread on Twitter, laying out the evidence he entered into the congressional record.
According to Taibbi, Twitter acted “more like a partner” to the government, censoring based on requests it received from federal agencies as well as taxpayer-backed NGOs. Intelligence agencies, dubious “disinformation researchers” and corporate executives effectively worked as a team, he argued.
Taibbi’s thread described an “incestuous self-appointed truth squad moving from law enforcement/intelligence to the private sector and back,” with the same agencies inviting the same “experts” funded by the same foundations and covered by the same reporters to every panel and every conference.
He identified the key players in the censorship-industrial complex as the National Endowment for Democracy, the Atlantic Council’s DFR Lab, and the Alliance for Securing Democracy, authors of the infamous Hamilton 68 dashboard. Many of the NGOs involved received funding from the US government, while legacy media outlets acted as their proxies, demanding censorship.
Taibbi described the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) and its “Election Integrity Partnership” – renamed the Virality Project after the 2020 election – as “perhaps the ultimate example of the absolute fusion of state, corporate, and civil society organizations.” By its own admission, it labeled 22 million tweets during the 2020 election campaign, and was then given access to Twitter’s JIRA ticketing system, which is able to tackle 50 million tweets a day.
SIO is run by Renee DiResta, who helped design Hamilton68 and worked at New Knowledge – a group caught creating fake “Russian bots” to help Democrats in the 2017 Alabama special election for the US Senate. That did not stop them from advising the Senate Intelligence Committee on “Russian interference” in US elections, and the US legacy media from not questioning any of their conclusions.
“Packaged as a bulwark against lies and falsehood, [the CIC] is itself often a major source of disinformation, with American taxpayers funding their own estrangement from reality,” Taibbi wrote. “Without real oversight mechanisms, there is nothing to prevent these super-empowered information vanguards from bending the truth for their own ends.”
During the hearing, multiple Democrats tried to pressure Taibbi into revealing his sources, insinuating Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, was behind the disclosures.
The US military plans to use deep fakes and take over appliances for propaganda
By Rachel Marsden | RT | March 9, 2023
Can you create cutting edge “deep fake” videos, spy on people using household appliances, and make massive data dragnets? If so, the Pentagon wants to hear from you so it can amp up its manipulation efforts.
US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) has issued proposal requests for a whole host of dodgy services, according to new documents obtained by The Intercept.
Specifically, the Pentagon is looking for “next generation capability to ‘takeover’ Internet of Things (IoT) devices in order to collect data and information from local populaces to enable a breakdown of what messaging might be popular and accepted through sifting of data once received.”
For what purpose? “This would enable MISO [Military Information Support Operations] to craft and promote messages that may be more readily received by the local populace in relevant peer/near peer environments,” according to the document.
Despite publicly obsessing over others’ foreign interference and propaganda, Washington is now openly admitting that it is actively seeking these new technologies for its own “influence operations, digital deception, communication disruption, and disinformation campaigns at the tactical edge and operational levels.” You know, exactly the same kind of thing, over which it drums up fear as a threat to freedom and democracy among the general public.
Earlier this year, a Washington-based advisory firm OODA published a report warning that Chinese-made household items could not only be spying on you, but basically fronting for the Chinese government. The report’s author called for the British government to act on claims that Chinese-made Internet of Things appliances, and even car components, can collect and transmit data through cellular 5G networks to Chinese companies, which could then be ordered to pass it on to the government. The story was hysterically splashed across British media.
OODA describes itself as a “global strategic advisory firm with deep DNA in global security, technology and intelligence issues.” The genetics run deep, indeed: straight to the Pentagon and Western intelligence communities where its executives, experts and advisers have past or current working relationships.
So now it looks like calls to ban Chinese household appliances for their spying potential have turned into Washington wanting to get in on the action by obtaining the best possible front row seat as you stand in front of your refrigerator at midnight, chugging chocolate milk straight from the carton.
The Pentagon also wants to be able to create “deep fake” videos that can realistically portray fake events as real, in an attempt to manipulate the target viewer(s). Or, as the Pentagon puts it, to “generate messages and influence operations via non-traditional channels in relevant peer/near peer environments.” It’s hard to imagine a more glaring example of actual fake news, yet the Pentagon wants to produce it in the way that Netflix makes movies and TV shows.
Finally, the Pentagon says that they want to get their hands on “a next generation capability to collect disparate data through public and open source information streams such as social media, local media, etc. to enable MISO to craft and direct influence operations and messages in relevant peer/near peer environments.”
Some might be tempted to just shrug this off as conventional practice because, when the military is tracking down bad guys, they’re obviously going to want to use every possible tool available at their disposal – and constantly seek to expand that tool box. But recent evidence suggests that military-grade collection and subversion tools targeting online and conventional information platforms have largely been turned on the average citizen for the purpose of protecting the establishment and its various narratives from dissent rather than for reasons of national security.
Last December, for example, Twitter CEO Elon Musk worked with a journalist to reveal the collusion between US government authorities and the social media platform to manipulate and censor public debate over the Covid-19 pandemic. According to internal Twitter documents, one of the first meetings that the Biden Administration requested with Twitter executives was on the topic of Covid vaccines and specific high-profile accounts that deviated from the official narrative. According to the journalist, David Zweig, “Twitter did suppress views – many from doctors and scientific experts – that conflicted with the official positions of the White House. As a result, legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate went missing.” He added that, “With Covid, this bias bent heavily toward establishment dogmas,” and cited examples of various experts, including prominent epidemiologists, whose views were censored as a result of being qualified by the Twitter staff as Covid “misinformation.”
Earlier this year, a British whistleblower also revealed that critics of Covid-19-related lockdowns and vaccine mandates – including prominent journalists and politicians – were monitored by the UK army’s information warfare brigade. The 77th Brigade, created in 2015 and described by the media at the time as composed of “warriors who don’t just carry weapons, but who are also skilled in using social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and the dark arts of ‘psyops’”.
The Canadian military was also caught using propaganda techniques honed on the battlefield in Afghanistan to shape the Covid debate by boosting the government’s narrative and attempting to head off any civil unrest over the harsh mandates.
The Pentagon’s latest wish list raises concerns that these tools will also be deployed on average Americans or Westerners for purposes of control and manipulation. Last September, the Pentagon vowed to review its secret psyops, but only after public outrage when a group of researchers suggested collusion between US government entities and American online platforms like Twitter and Facebook to control online narratives with fake accounts. Was the lesson learned to stop deploying psyops on average citizens? Or was it just to do a better job of keeping it secret?
Not that there’s any shortage of Western establishment cheerleaders demanding even more psychological manipulation efforts by the US government, if only to counter “disinformation” from foreign adversaries.
It seems that we’ve now come to the point where sticking it to Russia and China means actively cheerleading the increasingly militarized efforts by our self-styled defenders of freedom and democracy to brainwash their own people.
Featured Video
The Destruction of Libya in 2011
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Review
On Herd Mentality
By Jeb Smith | April 14, 2026
I no longer trust “we the people,” because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires.
In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.
Media’s purpose is to conform people’s thought to a preferred goal, which is why Republican and Democratic voters both firmly hold their parties’ general stances, reciting the same talking points. The people do not originate ideas; their thoughts are fed to them by the media so they can consume, digest, and parrot back whatever they are served. When it comes to politics, we rarely think for ourselves. We are told what to think.
Watch PBS, MSNBC and read your local newspaper for six months, and you will receive a particular view and understanding of the world. Then listen to The Mike Church Show, The Blaze, and The Daily Wire, and you will get not just another perspective but a whole different world of facts and events. The world people believe they live in can be entirely different depending on their news sources.
We enjoy seeing the enemy humiliated, which describes why those engulfed in politics love their preferred media sources; they keep returning for more like a drug addict. Networks ensure their “experts” align with the worldview they and their audience desire. The people who watch PBS, BBC, and so forth expect a specific perspective to be presented. Fox News watchers demand the same. In doing this, we both encourage and assure we are misled.
In their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, professors Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels argue, based on substantial research, that voters do not decide the party platform and agenda. Instead, the parties control the “ideologies” of the voters. When the party the voter identifies with changes its position, the individuals also change theirs. They discovered the individual would quickly adopt the views of their group; they will ignore or change their own opinions over time to fit in with the collective they identify with. Achen and Bartels wrote “group memberships largely drove policy views, not vice versa.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The new assault of the Zionist lobby in Brazil
- Italy suspends defense deal with ‘Israel’ over war on Iran, Lebanon
- Indonesia Agrees to Receive Oil, Gas Supplies From Russia – Indonesian Energy Ministry
- Saudi Arabia Urges US Back to Iran Talks as Other Oil Routes Face Risk
- Iran demands reparations from Arab states
- Tankers transit Strait of Hormuz amid US attempt to impose blockade, data shows
- US Strikes Kill Five in Alleged Pacific Anti-drug Campaign
- EU Defense Agency head says compulsory military service could be necessary
- France To Vote On Bill That Would Criminalize Criticism Of Israel
- There are No Ceasefires with Israel, Only Opportunities for Later Attacks
- If Americans Knew
- ‘Not Acceptable’: President of Iran Condemns Trump For His ‘Desecration of Jesus, the Prophet of Peace’
- We Are the Barbarians
- Netanyahu Says the Trump Administration Gives Him Reports on Iran Talks Every Day
- Second Contractor Steps Forward to Blow the Whistle on Israeli Attacks at Gaza Aid Site
- Mighty Israel wants all of its neighbors to be defenseless – Daily Update
- Emergency waivers move arms for Israel, UAE to speed lane
- Caitlin Johnstone: Nobody’s “Obsessed” With Israel — It’s Just A Uniquely Horrible Country
- Israel’s Ben Gvir says he feels like the ‘owner’ of Al-Aqsa Mosque
- History of flotilla campaigns to end Israel’s siege of Gaza
- Humanitarian Scorecard: Six Months In, Gaza Ceasefire is Failing
- No Tricks Zone
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
Aletho News 