EU’s financial support for Ukraine now just shy of €50bn

By Jerome Hughes | Press TV | January 24, 2023
Brussels – Ukrainian officials took part in a meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers on Monday via video link. An additional €500m military aid package for Kiev was confirmed, but the EU is at pains to point out that’s just a drop in the ocean compared to what the bloc has already provided since last March.
Just a few days ago in the European Parliament, the strategy was condemned.
Workers have taken to the streets of Brussels to demand peace negotiations.
EU foreign ministers adopted a fresh round of sanctions against Iran on Monday over alleged human rights abuses. The grounds for such sanctions are vehemently rejected by Tehran. Critics say the West’s policy towards Russia and Iran is being driven by Washington.
Analysts say the EU’s access to markets in these countries is being hampered due to influence from the United States, and ultimately it is ordinary citizens who are paying the price.
Also on Monday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh updated EU foreign ministers on the appalling situation in the occupied territories. There was absolutely no discussion on the EU side regarding possible sanctions against Israel.
Corruption thriller: Zelensky’s deputy minister arrested
Free West Media | January 22, 2023
Just 14 days after the President of the Ukrainian National Bank (who is said to have embezzled 5,42 million euros) applied for asylum in Austria, Deputy Minister Wassyl Losynsky was arrested.
Those who are familiar with the EU Court of Auditors’ report on Ukraine from autumn 2021 will not be particularly surprised by the current events in Kiev: Deputy Minister Wassyl Losynsky has been arrested for accepting a six-figure bribe.
“The National Anti-Corruption Bureau searched the home of Deputy Minister for Municipal, Territory and Infrastructure Development Vasyl Losynsky and arrested him,” Ukrayinska Pravda reported.
The ministry has already responded to the report and fired the top official. Losynsky is accused of having received a bribe of 400 000 euros when buying electricity generators. The investigations have been ongoing since September, the government employee apparently wanted to enrich himself by the fact that his compatriots were facing an electricity crisis.
Warrant issued for the Ukrainian bank boss
The latest chapter in the corruption thriller was exposed just 14 days after Austrian daily the eXXpress reported on the President of the Ukrainian National Bank who had fled to Austria. Kyrylo Shevchenko (50) is currently hiding in Vienna because the government in Kiev has accused him of having embezzled 5,42 million euros. In the Ukraine, an arrest warrant has been issued for the bank manager.
As reported, Shevchenko has now applied for asylum in Austria.
The Ukrainian bank boss, who managed the national bank of the warring country until October 4, has excellent international connections: Shevchenko was invited by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on April 21 of the previous year to Washington, right after the start of the Russian operation.
He is not the only Ukrainian fleeing justice: President Zelensky suspended the Constitutional Court’s chairperson Oleksandr Tupytsky in 2020 in an effort to overturn the court’s October decision on corruption.
In December 2020, the Ukrainian parliament reauthorised the government’s decision, ignoring the court. Tupytsky, the former President of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court and declared opponent of the Ukrainian leader, currently also lives undisturbed in Vienna.
Allegations against the Ukrainian Minister of Defense
According to official information, the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov is suspected of overpriced food purchases for the army, the daily newspaper Die Welt reported. Resnikov has been summoned to appear before parliament, Vice-Chair of the Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Reconnaissance Marjana Besugla told national broadcaster Suspilne Media on Saturday.
In addition, the Court of Auditors announced a special audit in the Ministry of Defense.
Earlier, media reports in Kiev caused a stir that the Defense Ministry was buying food to feed its soldiers at prices up to three times higher than retail prices in stores. The contract for 13 billion hryvnia – 300 million euros – is not about feeding the soldiers at the front, but enriching kleptocrats in the rear.
Ukraine was granted EU candidate status in June, four months after the war began. The requirements for accession include the rule of law and progress in the fight against corruption, where Ukraine, despite numerous efforts in recent years, still ranks among the lowest in the world.
Press spokesman also fired
Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych was forced to resign after stating that the recent strike on an apartment building in Dnepropetrovsk was caused by a Ukrainian SAM missile, not a targeted Russian attack. He quickly became another casualty of Kiev’s information war.
On the evening of January 14, Arestovich said the partial destruction of a residential building in the city was the result of a projectile shot down by Ukrainian air defenses which fell on it. Following this, he was sharply criticized by government supporters and put on the infamous Ukrainian Myrotvorets kill list.
On January 16, Ukrainian legislator Alexey Goncharenko reported that a petition was launched to fire him.
Notably, Arestovych has slammed the political war the Ukrainian leader has waged on Ukraine’s Russian speaking population and Orthodox Church: “Zelensky has declared war on Christianity. This is when [the Ukrainian secret service, the SBU] entered…the Ukrainian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate…”
Investigation: At least 54 high-profile media personalities are connected to Soros-funded organizations
RT | January 20, 2023
Billionaire George Soros has links to dozens of prominent media figures in the US and beyond via organizations he funded, a conservative US watchdog claims.
In the last report of a three-part investigation, published on Tuesday, MRC Business examined the ties of the Budapest-born liberal mogul, coming to the conclusion that he “cemented himself as one of the most powerful influencers in global politics through his incredible influence in the media.”
MRC Business said that it had uncovered at least “54 major figures in journalism and activist media who are connected to Soros-funded organizations.” The list includes CNN’s chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour, NBC News anchor Lester Holt, and Cesar Conde, the NBCUniversal News Group chairman, who oversees the outlets NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC.
Many of the 54 individuals play prominent roles in institutions funded by Soros. For instance, Amanpour is a senior adviser at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which received $2.75 million from the mogul between 2018 and 2020, while Holt is listed as a board member in the same organization. Conde is a trustee at the Aspen Institute, which received over $1 million from the billionaire between 2016 and 2020.
According to MRC, in total Soros has funneled over $32 billion into his organizations in a bid “to spread his radical ‘open society’ agenda on abortion, Marxist economics, anti-Americanism, defunding the police, environmental extremism and LGBT fanaticism.” These efforts have paid off, allowing him to “help indoctrinate millions with his views on a day-to-day basis”, the group claims.
MRC has previously claimed that Soros has financial ties to at least 253 media organizations globally, funding them through his non-profit groups and enabling him to reach viewers and listeners in virtually every corner of the world.
Commenting on the report, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted on Thursday that such revelations could be compared to a “nuclear bombshell.” Should it be proven that the leading US media outlets “received money for adjusting their coverage, all US democracy could be wrapped up in their Constitution and thrown out into the garbage heap of history,” she said.
US ‘poised’ to transfer seized Russian assets to Kiev – DOJ
RT | January 20, 2023
The US will soon send the first batch of funds from confiscated Russian property to Ukraine, the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) special sanctions task force, Andrew Adams, revealed on Thursday. Adams said the move should inspire US allies to do the same, and insisted the unprecedented practice is not just possible and permissible under international law, but “imperative” given the current conflict.
“We’re also poised to begin the transfer of forfeited assets for the benefit of Ukraine,” Adams said at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute, a DC think-tank.
“It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s something that nevertheless makes me hopeful,” Adams said, adding that the relatively minor sums are important as “a model to our foreign partners” and to establish a legal precedent going forward.
US President Joe Biden proposed the scheme last April, and Adams hinted it was in the works in September, but said Congress needed to amend several laws to make it work. On Thursday, he revealed those changes were indeed inserted in the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill, passed by Congress in the final days of 2022.
The new laws give the DOJ power to “direct forfeited funds to the State Department for the purpose of providing aid to Ukraine,” said Adams.
Previously a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Adams was appointed head of Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency sanctions enforcement outfit created in March. KleptoCapture is part of the US-led Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force, which has frozen “hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian state assets and tens of billions of dollars belonging to Kremlin-linked elites,” according to the Hudson Institute.
Asset forfeiture is a controversial practice in US law. Proponents have defended it as a “key tool” for weakening organized crime and funding law enforcement, while critics accused it of being “policing for profit” and “egregiously at odds with our due process rights.” Adams insisted that taking Russian assets seized without trial “possible and permissible under fundamental norms of due process” and international law.
The freezing of Russian assets and finances by the US and its allies is “a completely illegitimate measure, violating commonly acceptable standards of commercial and international law,” and proof to the rest of the world “that they are thieves,” Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said last week. She warned that any attempt to confiscate those funds and redirect them to Ukraine would be a violation of property rights and met with an “appropriate” countermove from Moscow.
The content of AIPAC’s recent Political Leadership Forum was largely concealed from the public

By Kathryn Shihadah | If Americans Knew | January 19, 2023
The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) brought together last week 1,000 top political leaders to discuss the new political reality the pro-Israel lobby faces following the swearing-in of Israel’s new, extremist government, and to “strategize for the 2024 election cycle.”
The conference was closed to journalists, and only excerpts of some speeches have been released. Speakers included Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (via video call) on Monday, and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (in person) on Tuesday. Below is a partial summary of their remarks.
Normalization
PM Netanyahu addressed, among other topics, his hope to see the Trump-era Abraham Accords expand to include more Arab nations (read about the Abraham Accords here). According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, he is optimistic because many Arab leaders have changed their perception of Israel and now see it as a partner rather than an enemy.”
Secretary Austin likewise stated his eagerness to “deepen and broaden the Abraham Accords and to forge other normalization agreements.”
Both men overlooked the fact that in a recent UN meeting, all of the Abraham Accords signatories (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco) – as well as every other Arab country – had voted against Israel on a resolution calling for the International Court of Justice to weigh in on the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Iran
The Israeli Prime Minister made reference to Iran, which is under worldwide scrutiny at the moment for its brutal suppression of human rights protest. Netanyahu labeled Iran “a terrible regime, depressive and terroristic.”
The US Secretary of Defense similarly stressed Iran’s oppression: “The regime has killed, and beaten, and jailed its own citizens for daring to speak out against its repressive rule,” adding, “we’re working closely with Israel and our allies and partners to impose coordinated pressure on the Iranian regime.”
Neither of the speakers acknowledged Israel’s own brutal suppression of Palestinian protesters and resistors (for examples, go here). United Nations data shows that in 2022, Israeli troops killed over 150 Palestinians in the West Bank alone (almost 50 in Gaza) – more than any other year since the UN started keeping track.
So far in 2023, at least 14 Palestinians have been killed already. Thousands more are held in prison or administrative detention without charge or trial – and many prisoners are tortured.
“Democracy”
AIPAC issued a statement in late December, immediately after the new Israeli government had been formed, congratulating the state and its new prime minister, adding, “Once again, the Jewish state has demonstrated that it is a robust democracy with the freedoms that Americans also cherish.”
Within a few days after forming the new government in December, PM Netanyahu tweeted the coalition’s intentions – which exclude any language about democracy:
“These are the basic guidelines of the national government headed by me: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel – in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria.”
(Note: “the Galilee” is part of the current state of Israel, but less than half of the population is Jewish; “the Golan Heights” and “Judea and Samaria” refer to lands belonging to Syria and Palestine, respectively; the internationally recognized name of “Judea and Samaria” is Occupied Palestinian Territory. 20% of the citizens of Israel and roughly 50% of the population over which Israel exercises control are Palestinian Arabs, largely Muslim and Christian.)
Rather than responding to Netanyahu’s blunt assertion, US Secretary of Defense Austin quoted a statement the Prime Minister had made back in November:”[We] will work for the benefit of all residents of the state of Israel, without exception” – a promise that preceded the formation of a government coalition that included some of the most extremist members in recent memory.
Notably, Israel has defied international law and the demands of the global community since the country’s inception – including its constant drive to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land and transfer Jewish Israeli citizens to that land.
American money for Israel
Austin went on to list the financial perks that the US is providing to Israel, including $3.8 billion annually in military aid (“the highest it’s ever been”). (Note: Congress spends another $3 billion a year on projects that benefit Israel, for a total of about $7 billion a year – $20 million a day.)
While some Congress members have pressed to block aid to Israel while it is in defiance of international (and US) law, the effort has gained little traction.
Republicans deepen investigation into Democratic money laundering with Ukraine
By Ahmed Adel | January 17, 2023
The Republicans plan to investigate where the money that Washington allocates to Kiev really goes. The conservative political party suspects that the Biden administration and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky are involved in money laundering and the sale of NATO weapons on the darknet, using the Russian special military operation as an excuse.
“Whether you support Ukrainian funding or not, the fundamental question is, we deserve, and the American people deserve to know how their money is being spent, especially when we’re talking about $120 billion dollars of it,” Freshman Republican Senator JD Vance said on January 11 on the show Tucker Carlson Tonight.
The Republicans currently occupy most key positions in the committees on Capitol Hill. At the moment, one of their most important decisions is launching an investigation into the financing of Kiev by the Biden administration.
After winning the elections for the House of Representatives in November 2022, the Republicans decided to launch an investigation. Congress has formed a committee to investigate how the financial resources of American taxpayers are spent in Ukraine. One of the major questions is whether weapons sent as military aid to Kiev actually ended up in the hands of terrorist and various other organisations.
Numerous media outlets have reported the fact that the weapons supplied to Ukraine do not always reach the front lines. There is even information that these weapons appeared on the darknet – an illegal internet network.
In addition, numerous publications reported that money was laundered through an office that dealt with cryptocurrencies. In other words, the money that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received as military aid was poured into this company, which was used to buy cryptocurrencies.
Senator Vance said in his interview with Tucker Carlson that those opposed to an audit “don’t want to be forced to acknowledge a lot of the money we’ve sent to Ukraine hasn’t been well spent.”
“There are a lot of corrupt people probably getting rich off of it,” he added.
More importantly than the allegation of corruption, the Republicans want to investigate the role of Hunter Biden – the son of US President Joe Biden, who has deep ties with Ukraine’s energy sector.
After the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, they promised in their first press conference to investigate Hunter. Back in 2014, Hunter joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. This was at a time when Joe Biden was Vice President and the war in Donbass was on the cusp. Hunter earned more than $50,000 a month over a five-year period as a board member of Burisma.
The Republicans claim that his appointment may have posed a conflict of interest. In 2022, more than 30 Republicans called for a prosecutor to be given special counsel authority to carry out an investigation into alleged “tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign-lobbying violations”. The conservative party has been studying messages and financial transactions found on a laptop that belonged to Hunter.
With the Republicans having gained the majority in the House of Representatives, they now have the power to issue congressional subpoenas to foreign entities that did business with him. It seemingly appears that the money that the US has sent to Ukraine since the war began is lining the pockets of Ukrainian and American officials.
Most likely, Biden’s son, and even his inner circle, were involved in money laundering and corrupt actions. As for the investigation itself, the Republicans will drag it out until it is clear who the Democrats will run in the 2024 elections. Evidence of such corruption can destroy any Democratic candidate and therefore prevent Biden from running for a second term. Ultimately, weakening the Democratic Party in view of the next presidential election is the aim of the Republicans.
The US Senate has demanded that a Congress report indicate how much money the US authorities sent to Ukraine. According to Senator JD Vance, the $114 billion that the US sent was “impacted by the situation in Ukraine” and does not even include several additional transfers previously requested by the Biden administration.
None-the-less, the senator stressed to Tucker Carlson that the Biden Administration, by law, “is supposed to tell us exactly how that money is being spent. We are putting down a marker…”
He then demanded a response by February 7. And it is until then that we wait for the latest development in the Democratic Party’s alleged corruption and money laundering with Ukraine.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
‘Escort agencies booked solid for Davos forum’

RT | January 16, 2023
The Swiss escort agencies near Davos are already fully booked ahead of this year’s World Economic Forum, the elite gathering that brings together heads of state, corporate executives, and influential non-profiteers, Austrian outlet Exxpress reported on Sunday, citing a missive purportedly sent from one such agency.
In a message to unnamed hospitality staff and published by Express, escort agency Sensuallounge Escort urges readers to book their “fine selection of ladies and gentlemen” ahead of time to ensure “the best possible care and company during the World Economic Forum.”
Sensuallounge reportedly offers “services for all sexual orientations,” and the outlet claims one night with one of their employees costs €2,350 (just over $2,500). The service does not appear to accept cash as payment, offering clients the option of paying with a major credit card or via PayPal.
Explaining that the WEF’s annual get-together is high season for Swiss prostitutes, Exxpress revealed the agencies set up dedicated websites for the conference. Their roster seemingly fully booked, Sensuallounge’s site had already disappeared as of Monday.
While the WEF invited about 2,500 people as accredited delegates this year, over 30,000 more are expected to descend upon the ski resort for the dinners, parties, and, according to a growing body of journalism documenting the “dark side of Davos,” sex for pay that occurs outside the forum.
Sex workers also lurk in hotels and bars frequented by guests, according to a 2020 report from the Times UK, and women – even if they are accredited WEF attendees – are “routinely harassed” by the men who dominate the conclave. Indeed, the event began warning women that year not to go out alone after dark, “because if something happens with some big CEO, who is going to be believed? You or them?”
Prostitution at Davos has caused controversy in years past, though the bigger concern appears to be keeping the working class under control. The Swiss Army has been authorized to deploy as many as 5,000 troops if needed to provide security to the billionaires.
The theme for 2023’s conference, which runs from January 16-20, is “Cooperation in a Fragmented World.” Protesters were already onsite ahead of the event’s official start on Monday, denouncing attendees’ use of private jets to deliver climate-change platitudes.
Israel occupation forces bulldoze Greek Orthodox land in occupied Jerusalem
MEMO | January 16, 2023
The Israeli occupation authorities yesterday started to bulldoze a 5,000 square metre plot of land owned by the Greek Orthodox Church in occupied Jerusalem’s Silwan neighbourhood, the Wadi Hilweh Information Centre has reported. The operators of the bulldozers were protected by a large number of Israeli occupation security forces and police.
According to the centre, the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority as well as settler organisations commissioned the bulldozers to uproot fruit-bearing trees and level the land. Illegal settlers and police seized the land on 22 December. The Jewish settlers fenced it off and installed surveillance cameras under police protection.
When Silwan residents rushed to the scene to stop the land theft, they were assaulted by security forces, said the centre, which monitors Israeli violations in the area. The land is owned by the Greek Orthodox Monastery in Silwan, which is part of the city’s Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.
Silwan is home to more than 60,000 Palestinians and is located strategically to the south of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The area has been the target of Israeli settler expansion for years, with hundreds of Palestinian families facing the threat of expulsion, either through lawsuits by powerful settler groups or administrative eviction orders by the Israeli-run Jerusalem municipality.
Middle East Eye has reported that the Greek Orthodox Church has been criticised heavily by Palestinian groups for its dealings with settlers and allegations of bribery and fraud. In 1951, church-owned land in West Jerusalem was rented to the Jewish National Fund for a period of 99 years. Today, the land houses most Israeli state institutions, including Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
The Lancet has become a laughing stock

By Norman Fenton and Martin Neil | Where are the numbers? | January 14, 2023
In summary:
- On 6 May 2021 The Lancet published a blatantly flawed study of the effectiveness of the Pfizer covid vaccine on the population of Israel, claiming it was 95% effective.
- On 17 May 2021 we submitted a rapid response 250 word letter explaining why the study was flawed.
- After an initial response saying they would ask the authors for a response to our letter we heard nothing until 20 months later.
- On 8 January 2023 we got an email out of the blue from The Lancet Senior Editor Josefine Gibson apologising for never having got back to us about the letter, saying that they had asked the lead author Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis (SA-P) to respond to our letter but, because she did not provide any formal response, they have decided not to publish our letter.
- We tweeted The Lancet’s response and within 24 hours it got over one million impressions. We also published a substack article highlighting the fact we were now aware of additional problems with the paper relating to SA-P’s relationship with Pfizer.
- On 10 January 2023 we got an unsolicited email from Josefine Gibson (which we can only assume was a result of the reputation hit they got from our tweet) saying “Thank you for bringing your letter from May 2021 back to our attention. We are looking into next steps and will get back to you as soon as we can.”
- On 11 January 2023 (at 10:58) we sent an email to The Lancet’s Editor-in-Chief Richard Horton directing him to our substack article (which highlighted these new problems relating to SA-P’s relationship with Pfizer) stating that The Lancet was clearly taking a credibility hit surrounding the publication of the Israel-Pfizer study and its response to criticisms of it.
- On 11 January 2023 (at 11:21) we got an email from Josefine Gibson apologising for the ‘sub standard experience’ we had with The Lancet. She said that, after discussing it with Horton, they were now inviting us to publish the original letter or an update to it, suggesting the update ‘reflect more current experience with the vaccine’.
- On 12 January 2023 we submitted our updated letter (of an agreed 350 words).
- On 13 January 2023 we got a response from Josefine Gibson saying they had decided against publishing the letter.
Here is the full narrative and January 2023 correspondence in date order (personal details redacted)… continue
Who designed global guidelines for puberty blockers?
Free West Media | January 13, 2023
Clinics around the world follow guidelines from the Netherlands for gender treatments in children. The basis for this is, among other things, a much-criticized study sponsored by a German hormone manufacturer.
More and more children and young people believe they have to question their gender identity. Some 60 minors were treated in the Netherlands in 2010, but the number has increased to around 1,600 last year. Another 1,800 people under the age of 18 were on the waiting list because gender clinics in the country are full.
Institutions around the world use a standard procedure developed in Amsterdam in the 1990s when it comes to the drug treatment of supposedly transsexual children.
A report by the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad has meanwhile cast doubt on the directive and the independence of gender research at the Amsterdam UMC hospital. As strict as the conditions for treatment may appear, several complications have been overlooked: The terrible side effects of the heavy drug has been brushed off by doctors as being the lesser evil.
Hormone manufacturer sponsored ‘puberty blocker’ study
The approach with puberty inhibitors has since been known internationally as the “Dutch protocol”. The protocol has become the basis for the “gender-affirming standard of care” used throughout the world. Tens of thousands of children are affected worldwide, and in the Netherlands certainly several hundreds, although no precise figures are available.
Scientists investigated whether hormone treatment in transsexuals is more successful if their puberty was initially suppressed with medication. The sponsor of the study was the German hormone manufacturer.
Ferring Pharmaceuticals, the company that markets the drug Triptorelin as a puberty inhibitor had a strong commercial interest in the outcome. Primarily, treatment relies on administering hormones from the opposite sex: men are given oestrogen to become more feminine, women testosterone to become more masculine. But teenagers are additionally administered puberty inhibitors, which prevent boys from developing a low voice and beard growth and girls from developing breasts and other feminine shapes.
There are many criticisms of the study. Questionnaires were inconsistent, there was no control group at all, and the researchers used random samples from the 196 treated children for the results.
Several countries are moving away from ‘puberty blockers’
In the meantime, there is objection in more and more countries to the treatment of children with “puberty blockers”. Not only are they said to impair the physical sexual development of minors, but they can also cause osteoporosis, anorgasmia and infertility. According to the NRC, the drug is said to sometimes even impair the ability to make rational decisions.
Worldwide, there is increasing criticism of the scientific content and non-existent empirical basis of the Dutch protocol developed at the gender clinic of the Free University of Amsterdam. In several countries, health authorities have already decided to treat children mainly psychologically and prescribe puberty inhibitors only exceptionally. In Sweden, they concluded that “the risks currently outweigh the possible benefits” and spoke of possibly the country’s “worst medical scandal”.
In the UK, criticism of the Dutch protocol was so serious that the Tavistock gender clinic, the largest in the world, was closed by the authorities.
Sweden, Finland and Great Britain only want to prescribe the drug in rare, particularly severe cases. Instead, they are increasingly relying on psychological support for patients.
Since February last year, Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare has followed the Karolinska Institute’s policy regarding hormonal interventions for gender-dysphoric minors. Karolinska’s pediatric gender services at Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital (ALB) has ended the practice of prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to gender-dysphoric patients under the age of 18.
Marketing redundant drugs for the wrong condition
In the US, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been investigating two pharmaceutical companies for advertising puberty blockers to children. This is a condition they are not approved to treat.
In December, Paxton announced investigations under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act into Endo Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie Inc., the two companies that sell puberty blockers. The drugs were approved to treat precocious puberty and forms of prostate cancer but were being marketed and prescribed off-label to treat gender dysphoria.
“These drugs were approved for very different purposes and can have detrimental and even irreversible side effects,” Paxton said. “I will not allow pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of Texas children.”
Republicans Preparing to Move Forward With Ukraine Aid Audit, US Congresswoman Greene Says

Samizdat -13.01.2023
WASHINGTON – US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Friday that she and other House Republican lawmakers are preparing to move forward with an audit of US aid to Ukraine, an idea first proposed late last year before the House Republican majority took effect.
“We don’t even have committees filled yet but [Congressman Michael McCaul] and I are already preparing to move forward with the audit of Ukraine. No more blank checks to Ukraine,” Greene said via Twitter.
House Republicans are committed to transparency for US taxpayers, Greene added.
In November, Greene and several other House Republicans introduced a resolution to initiate an audit of funds appropriated by Congress to Ukraine. The measure failed during the “lame duck” session of the 117th Congress, but Greene vowed to reintroduce the idea in the new 118th Congress.
House Republicans now hold a majority in the lower chamber, with Speaker Kevin McCarthy having started the party’s mantra of ending “blank checks” from the US to Ukraine. McCarthy also backed the initial Ukraine aid audit proposal.
On Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder said that the Defense Department is responsive to oversight by Congress, adding that he looks forward to further bipartisan support for Ukraine.
However, defense budget cuts proposed by the new House Republican majority could force hard questions about funding for foreign operations related to Ukraine and NATO, former Pentagon analyst and retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.
Greene has also called for Ukraine to begin negotiations toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict, characterizing it as a “proxy war” between the United States and Russia.


If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .