Daily Mail Promotes ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’ Scare that Experts Call “Junk Science”
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | DECEMBER 24, 2022
The Daily Mail recently published a story claiming the world could face a mass extinction of plants and animals within less than 80 years, with more than a quarter of species dying by 2100. It was an eye-catching headline, timed of course to appear at the same time as the UN’s biodiversity conference. But curiously missing from the article, based on a recent science paper, was a note that most of the data underpinning the eco-scare were created by the authors of the report, while assumptions were made that global temperatures would rise by up to 5°C. Given that global temperatures have risen only 1.1°C over the last two centuries, and over the last two decades probably no more than 0.1°C, this looks a tad on the high side.
The report authors give considerable weight to the view that food chains are fragile in nature, and one extinction leads to another. This may be true in some cases, although most animals in the wild are resilient in adapting their diets to changing conditions. But building a media ‘mass death’ headline surely needs a few actual facts. The authors admit: “Apart from the obvious modelling and computational challenges to incorporate interactions among species, the main reason why there are few studies accounting for interactions is that obtaining sufficient data in most communities is intractable.” They add that an important caveat is that “while our virtual species are functionally realistic, they do not have taxonomic or phylogenetic meaning.” According to the Mail, the scientists aimed to build an “ecologically plausible Earth”.
Modelled results were obtained via a supercomputer assuming temperatures suddenly leap by between 4-5°C in just 80 years. The so-called ‘pathways’ feeding in these huge temperature rises are themselves the product of computers. But reality has started to bite in climate model circles with the realisation that their mock-ups are running far too hot. Four decades of wrong forecasts and the knowledge that global warming went off the boil two decades ago has led to a slight lowering of the various projections. But claiming that a quarter of species could disappear within 80 years as temperatures rise five times more than they have done for the last 200 is just fanciful speculation.
The Mail reported that the scientists’ tool can map extinctions everywhere on earth. It is said to confirm “beyond doubt” that the world is in the throes of its sixth mass extinction.
The sixth mass extinction scare is becoming very popular in climate Armageddon circles. Heavily promoted by the World Wildlife Fund, it has a lot going for it on the propaganda front, although some may quibble that it is notably short on actual proof. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 823 animals and plant species (mostly animals) that have gone extinct since 1500. If we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, as the Mail reports, we might have expected to be able to name more than 823 extinct species in 522 years.
Five years ago, the eminent Smithsonian paleontologist Doug Erwin dismissed sixth mass extinction talk as “junk science“. He went on to state that “many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were”.
The Australian science blogger Jo Nova had an interesting take on the latest mass extinction science paper. “So a supercomputer adds up 15,000 webs of low level data on sloths, bark and butterflies, with error bars larger than trends, in systems we don’t understand, and a million lines of code, and extrapolates data up the kazoo – what could possibly go wrong?”
She goes on to quote Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, who has noted that most of the species going extinct, “never existed in the first place”. Moore is another who is underwhelmed by extinction work produced by computers. He is unimpressed by estimates from the biologist Edward Wilson that 50,000 species go extinct every year. This estimate is based on computer models of the number of potential but as yet undiscovered species in the world.
“There’s no scientific basis for saying that 50,000 species are going extinct. The only place you can find them is in Edward O. Wilson’s computer at Harvard University. They’re actually electrons on a hard drive. I want a list of Latin names of actual species,” he wrote.
Finally, let us remember the Bramble Cay melomys, the first animal said to have become extinct due to human-caused climate change. Until recently, this little brown rat lived on a small sandy island off the coast of Australia. How it got there nobody knows, but rats are very resourceful and it probably hopped on a passing branch, said goodbye to a billion of its close relatives, and set sail. It liked its new home since there were plenty of blue turtle and birds eggs to eat. But, alas, its home was only three metres above sea level and the area prone to cyclones (your fault), so one day it got washed away. The Guardian was particularly taken with its sad end since it called for a “moment of silence”, and said it would “continue to fight for the things you believe in” – although presumably not eating blue turtle eggs.
Nobody Knows What is in the Vials
Covid-19 injections are dangerous, non-compliant biological materials. Their production must be stopped until a full investigation can be done.
By Sasha Latypova | Due Diligence and Art | December 22, 2022
Many of us are familiar with the following conundrum: on one hand, highly credentialed scientists and doctors have written numerous research papers explaining the dangerous mechanisms of action underlying mRNA/DNA “platform” technologies. The papers are meticulously researched and depict, correctly in my opinion, many terrifying consequences of the technology that breaches the innate protective mechanisms of human cells. Furthermore, these theoretical papers are validated by the observed outcomes, such as for example, increases in all-cause mortality in high correlation with increases in rates of vaccination in a given territory, unprecedented increases in the adverse events and deaths recorded by various passive reporting (https://openvaers.com/), astonishingly high reports of the adverse events and deaths from the pharmas’ own pharmacovigilance systems, and autopsy findings in vaccinated post-mortem showing the mechanisms of mRNA technology damage in histopathologic evaluations. On the other hand, many who have received the injections report no adverse effects and deem the data points above a “crazy conspiracy”. The question from the uninjured seems to be – why don’t we see MORE deaths if what you say about mRNA products is true? Setting aside ethical limitations of this question, here is a possible answer why:
The mRNA shots do not conform to their label specifications. In practice both “blank” and “lethal” vials and anything in between is produced. Without full compliance, nobody, not even the manufacturers or regulators, know exactly what ends up being produced.
Vials of mRNA injections are not routinely tested by the manufacturers for conformity to the label. The only vial-level tests specified by Pfizer in leaked Chemistry Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) documents are the vial weight at filling, manual inspection for large visible particles, and some tests related to integrity such as vial capping. However, no vial or dose, i.e., “unit-level as dispensed” tests verifying the ingredients are described as routine. How is the public assured that each Pfizer dose contains 30 mcg of mRNA as stated on the label? What level of variability of this key ingredient and other ingredients is acceptable? The ingredient conformity tests described in Pfizer CMC package are based on the bulk product batch testing – an upstream manufacturing process step. It is a regulatory requirement to retain samples of each batch produced, and these samples of vials should exist and be available for examination. Per contracts with the US Government, the product is shipped to the DOD who retains the ownership of the vials until the product is injected into people. These contracts are very detailed and specify manufacturing data to be delivered to the DOD, however, I did not find any descriptions of sampling of the vials for purposes of verification of their contents vs the label. Furthermore, it is expressly forbidden by the international vaccine supply contracts to perform the vial tests for label conformity.
Despite the disturbing prohibition of the independent vial testing, covert random testing of the mRNA vials has been ongoing worldwide. Reported thousands of vials have been obtained and tested by dozens of research groups working independently of each other. The quality of these studies varies and depends on the conditions of the samples acquired, access to the lab equipment and the experience of the investigators. However, the consistent finding among all is that there is yet a single vial to be found in full conformance to the manufacturer’s label. A review of these independent testing efforts has been published recently. Another high-quality report summarizes experiences testing vials from various manufacturers in Germany. These studies use different techniques ranging from optical to electron microscopy, spectroscopy, as well as isolation of genetic and protein components and in some cases sequencing of the RNA.
Some vials contain RNA as well as high concentrations of DNA and protein impurities in quantities far exceeding allowed limits specified by the manufacturer. When RNA was sequenced, the sequences did not fully match the specified BNT162b2 sequence, and a large quantity of RNA fragments was found. In other instances, vials are found apparently without RNA or DNA in them (evidently absent nitrogen and phosphorus).
These results could depend on the methods used and more thorough testing may be needed. Nevertheless, I was able to confirm that the apparent “blank” vials from at least one researcher came from batches of Pfizer and Moderna that had almost no adverse events reports in VAERS: two batch numbers had 1 report each and one batch number had no reports. This should be contrasted with some batch numbers of Pfizer and Moderna associated with 5000+ adverse event reports in VAERS, and an average of ~1500 adverse event reports including ~700 serious reports and deaths across all CDC verified batch numbers.
Almost all vials examined contain high contamination levels of various metals that are toxic to human body. This finding is consistent across all groups and methodologies, and therefore should be deemed more conclusive. There is no explanation of the origin or purpose of these materials according to the known manufacturing processes. Additional findings include various forms of carbon, including, potentially graphene oxide which is a known toxin. Finally, almost all vials examined contain a variety nano- and micro-particulate contaminants – another conclusive finding with plenty of photo and video documentation. These appear under microscope examinations as shapes and structures of various sizes and include characteristic ribbons, fibers, and crystals. Several published reports by qualified and credentialed microscopy experts have excluded the possibility of environmental dirt on the microscope slides. Sometimes a process of movement and what can be described as “self-assembly” is visible and has been documented in a single take video. The researchers also take steps to maintain the chain of custody, examine unexpired product and keep the vials frozen per manufacturer’s instructions.
Below are some representative images from various manufacturers’ injection vials from many studies:
Dr. David Nixon – Australia, Pfizer
Another Dr. from Australia, Pfizer:
The images above are startling and remain unexplained to date. Some scientists insist these are all “salt and cholesterol”, and nothing to see here folks! I disagree. Images of salt and cholesterol under microscope may match some of these structures, but by far do not explain all of them, and seem especially poor explanations for assembly-disassembly processes that have been observed and video recorded. Sizes of these structures alone are problematic. Dismissing them as “manufacturing junk” is not a great way to instill confidence in anyone.
These contaminants and bizarre objects are not rare, in fact as the last image shows, at least some of the vials are teeming with them. While many speculations can be made, one overwhelming conclusion from all the vial tests by independent investigations is that the products are extremely “dirty”, do not conform to their labels and should thus be deemed adulterated. This is a clear indicator that the manufacture of these products is not compliant with the current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP).
Sloppy manufacturing process may result from numerous factors, including lack of accountability, negligence, incompetence and possibly fraud. Review of the contracts with the manufacturers made by the U.S. Department of Defense, BARDA and HHS shows that the main driver were the gigantic sums of money made available with no real accountability for quality or safety – all resulting from the forced extreme speed (“warp speed”) of the scale up of manufacturing. The U.S. DOD contracted Pfizer in May of 2020 for production of at least 100 million doses by October 31, 2020, and up to 500 million doses later. Pfizer’s initial contract award was for $10 billion, with many additional incentives for delivering more doses faster. Similar contracts were made with numerous other “vaccine” manufacturers, and hundreds of other suppliers, all under the guise of panic buying for covid countermeasures. No real accountability for product quality or consistency or safety was built into those contracts, in fact the manufacturers were explicitly exempt from all possible liability under the PREP Act, which is specified in a separate contract clause. The purchaser is the DOD, the distributor is the DOD (and not the licensed and accountable pharmaceutical distributors), and furthermore, the product is not serialized and hence open to both adulteration and falsification or mislabeling.
To meet the contract obligations, Pfizer’s manufacturing batch size has increased from microgram scale for lab and animal study volumes to commercial batches of ~140 liters at the end of 2020 and ~300 liters by late 2021. In my experience commercializing biotechnologies from academia, failure to scale is one of the leading causes of failures of all new technology ventures. Showering this problem with money rarely accelerates the solution, and very often accelerates the demise of the whole venture. This is common sense. For example, placing an order today for 1,000,000 of a new type of vehicles with Ford Motor Company to be delivered in 6 months will likely fail no matter the dollars spent, since even obtaining the raw materials in time will be problematic. Complex manufacturing requires materials, systems, capacity, experienced staff, established processes, suppliers, and most importantly control systems at the correct scale to be successful and produce high quality consistent product. Now imagine simultaneously asking several direct competitors – Ford, GM and Toyota to produce 1,000,000 new cars each in the next 6 months.
Based on review of available literature on mRNA manufacturing and my discussions with experts who have made mRNA in the lab, it is not clear that mRNA can be manufactured at the scale that is estimated for these injections from known shipment numbers and disclosed manufacturing documentation: 200-300 liters of drug product per average batch, 700+ batches a year in the US alone. This is particularly unlikely if strict cGMP rules are applied to the manufacturing requirements, and we know that cGMP is not followed for production of these injections. Recently FDA found Catalent non-cGMP compliant. Catalent handles large volumes of fill-finish for Moderna, therefore batches processed through Catalent are non-cGMP compliant.
The generation of mRNA by in-vitro transcription (IVT) at large scale and under current good manufacturing practice conditions is challenging. For example, the specialized components of the in-vitro transcription IVT reaction must be acquired from certified suppliers that guarantee that all the material is animal component-free and GMP-grade. Furthermore, the availability of large amounts of these materials is limited and purchasing costs are high. This is true, for example, in the case of the enzymes used for translation and capping. Even the glass vials themselves were reported as a shortage. Additionally, the low yields and batch failure are a known problem. Conceptual process flow of making mRNA drug substance contains several steps:
The process is composed of a 2-step enzymatic reaction in continuous form, followed by enzyme recycling using tangential flow filtration strategies and two multimodal chromatography steps, one in bind-elute mode for the intermediate purification, and a second in flowthrough mode for polishing. Formulation is achieved using a third tangential flow filtration module. This means the mRNA needs to be made by chemical reaction, and then purified, and then capped and purified again. There are many variations of this process, and no standards exist. At the “formulation” step (last box in the picture), there are further multiple steps to create lipid nanoparticles, and get the mRNA encapsulated. Further, there are fill and finish steps that likewise are not problem free and decrease the yield. Finally, transportation and manual dose preparation add an extra variability layer.
Here is a simple heuristic to understand any manufacturing process flow and not get confused by the jargon: each arrow in the flowchart points to places where errors accumulate Each output-input point in a complex manufacturing flow is where the errors can be checked for and rectified or, if unsolved, will amplify and destroy the product quality and consistency. This is especially dangerous at the extreme speed and scale.
In science papers mRNA manufacturing is described with problem-free cartoons, it all works beautifully regardless of whether it is microgram or kilogram output, and not a single paper on this topic dwells much on low yields or process failures. This is because the academia never has to confront reality. However, the pesky reality of manufacturing mRNA (or anything else) at large scale is highly error prone. Each step has a yield of anywhere between 50% and 80%, and sometimes the whole batch fails, and that is especially true at the large scale of production. mRNA reaction fidelity is less than 100%, the caps and tails fall off, mRNA breaks into fragments, lipid nanoparticles do not form perfectly and PEGylation can be inhomogeneous leading to their breakage and subsequent escape and breakage of mRNA. Large mRNA breaks into smaller fragments, and these remain in the substance. At large scale of reaction, the enzymatic process for making mRNA was reported seizing at 37.5 liters of mRNA substance (before encapsulation into LNP and making drug product) according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) documents. It is not clear how this was resolved and transitioned to 100’s of liters scale in a matter of few months, and for all suppliers. mRNA fragments were deemed process related impurities by the EMA who raised a significant concern, but they were dismissed by the FDA as a “theoretical problem” – as leaked emails from EMA have shown. mRNA “fragments” may or may not code for proteins, however micro-RNAs (miRNA) can interfere with endogenous cellular processes to detrimental health effects which is described in many scientific papers and even in a textbook on biological weapons published by the NIH in 2018. Chapter 6 of the book describes gene therapy as a class of biological weapons. Coincidentally, the DOD-pharma contracts for covid-19 shots also explicitly state that the product is being developed for both civilian and military applications.
Returning to mRNA manufacturing, multiplying even an optimistic 80% yield by, for example, 7 process steps results in 20% final yield, and if the in-process failures are larger, final yield is single digit percentage or a failure has occurred. Each step generates large amounts of impurities, which are never fully removed as aggressive purification will break the fragile product. Furthermore, the mRNA substance is never equally distributed in the batch volume as thorough mixing of the product is not possible due to its fragility, and lipids tend to float to the top of the vat as well as stick and congregate together. Dangerous possibly cytotoxic aggregates of broken LNPs and mRNA (mRNA adducts) can result and were reported by Moderna a full year after large scale deployment of their product. As a result, the larger the volume of the batch, the more inhomogeneity at the vial level. These conditions can create over-concentrated, toxic vials and the ones that could be “blanks”, or anything in between. The larger the batch volume the more duds it will produce, which in case of this product is largely good news for the injectees. Avoidance of specifying any product conformity tests at the vial level by the manufacturers seems to be intentional in this context.
Data from Pfizer’s own CMC documentation submitted to EMA at the end of November 2020 shows “failure to scale” beginning at approximately 25% of the current commercial scale of the batch (current scale = 600,000 vials = 3-4 million doses per batch). The graphs below were generated using exact sizes in vials and doses for each Pfizer batch manufactured between August and November 2020 (Figure 1) and all Pfizer shipped doses in the US up to end of April 2022 (Figure 2). I used reported deaths and adverse events in VAERS database associated with those batches as a measure of batch variability. This does not address vial variability but provides directional information especially for the scale of manufacturing. The batches in Figure 1 were the first ones to ship commercially and were likely all used close to 100% since at that time the demand for these injections was insatiable. As the “scale-up” of manufacturing proceeded in 2020, the batches were manufactured in a variety of sizes from 50,000 and up to 300,000 vials (~140 liters of drug product). During this time, several major changes were made to the manufacturing, for example, transition from the pilot facility at Polymun Scientific to Pfizer’s own plants and changing major manufacturing steps to new processes.
Figure 1.
First, the overall data indicate a statistical trend toward increased number of reported deaths with the increase in the batch size – the more this product is used, the more deaths are reported. This is not news for anyone who has been paying attention to the injection related adverse events and deaths. However, the variability batch-to-batch demonstrated by the vertical dispersion of the death reports associated with batches of the same size is already apparent at approximately 150,000 vial batch size (25% of the full commercial scale). Batches of the same size are 4-5 times different from each other in the number of reported deaths.
The “failure to scale” story gets larger at scale, no pun. Recently, the exact sizes of Pfizer lots shipped in the United States became known via a FOIA data release, including all doses with associated lot numbers shipped as of end of April 2022 to various vaccination centers. Figure 2 is the plot of all batches from Pfizer, by their reported size in doses on the x-axis and serious adverse events including deaths reported for those lot numbers on the y-axis. Data from VAERS was downloaded on September 24, 2022.
Figure 2.
This graph includes the “early” scale up batches from Figure 1, as well as what appears smaller shipments possibly for batches that were largely distributed overseas. What is immediately apparent from the data – the staggering inconsistency of the product batch-to-batch and the rapid decline of apparent toxicity measured by the adverse events with increase in batch size. The latter trend is the opposite of what was observed with the early batches. The product is causing fewer adverse events per dose when there are more doses available. This does not make sense, except if these doses are simply sitting on the shelves. Of note is batch FM0173 (only 26,700 doses shipped in the US) that generated the highest rate of serious adverse events (3.3/1000 doses), upper left dot.
The scale of manufacturing strains the credulity. A batch of 12 million doses translates to approximately 900+ liters of mRNA! Given the manufacturing steps involved, impurities generates and the amount of raw materials, and the scale of manufacturing equipment and disposables needed, it should be questioned whether this truly was a single production run.
Figure 3 is the same data as in Figure 2, with outlier batches removed for clarity (includes batch sizes from 100K to 4M doses):
Figure 3:
It is evident that the variability batch-to-batch is highly significant and remains unexplained. It is also strangely declining as the size of the batch is becoming larger. The only reasonable explanation to this is that the usage of this product per batch has plummeted. Most of what is produced later in the time period is sitting on the shelves. At the end of the time period in this graph (end of April 2022), an estimated 100M doses were manufactured but not administered in the United States. At the beginning of this graph, nearly all manufactured doses were administered. That is the only reasonable explanation – and it proves that these injections cause the injuries and deaths reported to VAERS!
Table below lists all batches >4 million doses, including their date of manufacture and the number of serious adverse events and deaths reported for them in VAERS:
Table 1:
The “mega” batches are not entirely benign. They are simply a larger lottery pool. The single death reported for batch FL0007 is for an 8-year-old girl who died in Texas from a multi-system organ failure (VAERS ID 2327226-1) – see Figure 4. While the first batch listed in her report RL0007 appears to be a typo (RL series do not exist for Pfizer), it is evident that she received both doses from the same FL0007 batch and passed away 3 months later.
Figure 4:
Here is my educated guess on what is going on with the batch variability: Pfizer’s (and other manufacturers’) contracts were for delivery of DOSES. Millions of them and fast. Contract scope is simply a “demonstration of large-scale manufacturing” and billion-dollar bonuses attached for shipping millions of doses by certain dates. No accountability, no checks, no liability, just ship the doses on time! The batches of 5 million+ doses should be questioned in this context. These appear largely benign from the adverse event perspective but, since the demand for these shots has plummeted coinciding with production of mega-batches, it is hard to say what the real driver of “safety” is – over-dilution of the product or refusal of the customers to be injected. I hope it is the latter.
Here is as close as I can get to answering the question “why aren’t MORE people dying?”: Too many people have died and have been injured by these injections, and plenty more will ultimately have their lives cut short. The manufacturers are making both – lethal shots and highly diluted “blanks” in a sloppy, uncontrolled, unaccountable, and ultimately fraudulent manner.
To know the truth, these products must be tested at the vial and dose levels, in a random sampling by independent 3rd party laboratories. In the meantime, the products must be recalled, and a proper investigation initiated.
The FBI won’t name other social media companies it pays
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | December 25, 2022
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has refused to indicate the exact social networks it has paid. This follows recent revelations verifying that the bureau paid Twitter at least $3.5 million.
Representatives for the FBI already spoke to Fox News and said that the substantial Twitter payment was a “reimbursement” for expenses and costs of its requests. The representatives indicated that the payment was to compensate the social media platform for acting in accordance with legal “requests.”
The FBI stated that the group had compensated social media platforms beyond Twitter as well. The news network requested the names of other companies that the FBI had paid for these purposes. The federal agency, however, was not willing to provide further information regarding the matter. The representatives did say, though, that the FBI has to offer reimbursement for any and all reasonable expenses that tie in with the acquisition of information that is essential for legal processes.
“While we are not able to speak to specific payments, the government is required to provide reimbursement for reasonable expenses directly related to searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing the information responsive to the legal process. This requirement is set by federal law and the courts are the final arbiters of what is reasonable compensation,” the FBI officials said.
As usual, defense bill gives millions of dollars to Israel, but no one tells Americans
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | December 23, 2022
Unlike U.S. media, Israeli media announce that the new spending bill contains many millions of dollars for Israel, which is a tiny foreign country known for its human rights abuses and spying on the U.S.
Israel National News reports that the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act signed into law today “includes significant pro-Israel provisions, and the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC commended Congress for the approval.” The report specified:
The bipartisan defense measure authorizes $500 million in FY 2023 for US-Israel missile defense cooperation. This includes funds for Israeli procurement of Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow and for bilateral [sic] research, development, test, and evaluation.
Other important provisions include, as noted in the AIPAC statement:
- The DEFEND Act, which specifically authorizes the US to cooperate with allies & partners in the Middle East–including those who signed the Abraham Accords–to develop & implement an air & missile defense architecture to defend against Iran.
- Increases in the authorization for the US-Israel Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) program from $25 to $40 million per year.
- The Iran Nuclear Weapons Capability Monitoring Act, which establishes a joint task force led by the U.S. Department of State to monitor and regularly report to the appropriate congressional committees on Iran’s nuclear weapons and missile activities.
The US has continuously provided Israel with defense aid, including in the 2016 memorandum of understanding signed during the Obama administration that guarantees Israel $38 billion in security assistance over 10 years, protecting the assistance from the whims of any current or future president.
This past March, the US Senate approved by a majority of 68 to 31 an omnibus spending package which includes defense aid for Israel. The legislation includes more than $4.8 million in aid for Israel and $1 billion in additional funding for Iron Dome.
Related articles:
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the cost of Israel to Americans.
Various U.S. bills provide a combined annual total of U.S. tax money to – and on behalf of – Israel of over $7 billion per year, or approximately $20 million per day.
On top of that are the continuing costs to Americans of the Iraq War (at least $2 trillion), which was promoted by Israel and embedded Israel advocates on behalf of Israel.
A German-China-Russia triangle on Ukraine
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | DECEMBER 24, 2022
The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken probably thought that in his self-appointed role as the world’s policeman, it was his prerogative to check out what is going on between Germany, China and Russia that he wasn’t privy to. Certainly, Blinken’s call to Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday turned out to be a fiasco.
Most certainly, his intention was to gather details on two high-level exchanges that Chinese President Xi Jinping had on successive days last week — with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the Chairman of the United Russia Party and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev respectively.
Blinken made an intelligent guess that Steinmeier’s phone call to Xi on Tuesday and Medvedev’s surprise visit to Beijing and his meeting with Xi on Wednesday might not have been coincidental. Medvedev’s mission would have been to transmit some highly sensitive message from Putin to Xi Jinping. Only last week, reports said Moscow and Beijing were working on a meeting between Putin and Xi Jinping later this month.
Steinmeier is an experienced diplomat who held the post of foreign minister from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, as well as of Vice Chancellor of Germany from 2007 to 2009 — and all of it during the period Angela Merkel was the German chancellor (2005- 2021). Merkel left a legacy of surge in Germany’s relations with both Russia and China.
Steinmeier is a senior politician belonging to the Social Democratic Party — same as present chancellor Olaf Scholz. It is certain that Steinmeier’s call with Xi was in consultation with Scholz. This is one thing.
Most importantly, Steinmeier had played a seminal role in negotiating the two Minsk Agreements (2014 and 2015), which provided for a package of measures to stop the fighting in Donbass in the downstream of the US-sponsored coup in Kiev.
When the Minsk agreements began unravelling by 2016, Steinmeier stepped in with an ingenious idea that later came to be known as the Steinmeier Formula spelling out the sequencing of events spelt out in the agreements.
Specifically, the Steinmeier formula called for elections to be held in the separatist-held territories of Donbass under Ukrainian legislation and the supervision of the OSCE. It proposed that if the OSCE judged the balloting to be free and fair, then a special self-governing status for the territories would be initiated.
Of course, all that is history today. Merkel “confessed” recently in an interview with Zeit newspaper that in reality, the Minsk agreement was a western attempt to buy “invaluable time” for Kiev to rearm itself.
Given this complex backdrop, Blinken would have sensed something was amiss when Steinmeier had a call with Xi Jinping out of the blue, and Medvedev made a sudden appearance in Beijing the next day and was received by the Chinese president. Notably, Beijing’s readouts were rather upbeat on China’s relationship with Germany and Russia.
Xi Jinping put forward a three-point proposal to Steinmeier on the development of China-Germany relations and stated that “China and Germany have always been partners of dialogue, development, and cooperation as well as partners for addressing global challenges.”
Similarly, in the meeting with Medvedev, he underscored that “China is ready to work with Russia to constantly push forward China-Russia relations in the new era and make global governance more just and equitable.”
Both readouts mentioned Ukraine as a topic of discussion, with Xi stressing that “China stays committed to promoting peace talks” (to Steinmeier) and “actively promoted peace talks” (to Medvedev).
But Blinken went about his mission clumsily by bringing to the fore the contentious US-China issues, especially “the current COVID-19 situation” in China and “the importance of transparency for the international community.” It comes as no surprise that Wang Yi gave a stern lecturing to Blinken not to “engage in dialogue and containment at the same time”, or to “talk cooperation, but stab China simultaneously”.
Wang Yi said, “This is not reasonable competition, but irrational suppression. It is not meant to properly manage disputes, but to intensify conflicts. In fact, it is still the old practice of unilateral bullying. This did not work for China in the past, nor will it work in the future.”
Specifically, on Ukraine, Wang Yi said, “China has always stood on the side of peace, of the purposes of the UN Charter, and of the international society to promote peace and talks. China will continue to play a constructive role in resolving the crisis in China’s own way.” From the US state department readout, Blinken failed to engage Wang Yi in a meaningful conversation on Ukraine.
Indeed, Germany’s recent overtures to Beijing in quick succession — Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s high-profile visit to China last month with a delegation of top German CEOs and Steinmeier’s phone call last week — have not gone down well in the Beltway.
The Biden Administration expects Germany to coordinate with Washington first instead of taking own initiatives toward China. (Interestingly, Xi Jinping underscored the importance of Germany preserving its strategic autonomy.)
The current pro-American foreign minister of Germany Annalena Baerbock distanced herself from Chancellor Scholz’s China visit. Evidently, Steinmeier’s phone call to Xi confirms that Scholz is moving according to a plan to pursue a path of constructive engagement with China, as Merkel did, no matter the state of play in the US’ tense relationship with China.
That said, discussing peacemaking in Ukraine with China is a daring move on the part of the German leadership at the present juncture when the Biden Administration is deeply engaged in a proxy war with Russia and has every intention to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”
But there is another side to it. Germany has been internalising its anger and humiliation during the past several months. Germany cannot but feel that it has been played in the countdown to the Ukraine conflict — something particularly galling for a country that is genuinely Atlanticist in its foreign-policy orientation.
German ministers have expressed displeasure publicly that American oil companies are brazenly exploiting the ensuing energy crisis to make windfall profits by selling gas at three to four times the domestic price in the US. Germany also fears that Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act building on foundational climate and clean energy investments may lead to the migration of German industry to America.
The unkindest cut of all has been the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline. Germany must be having a fairly good idea as to the forces that were behind that terrorist act, but it cannot even call them out and must suppress its sense of humiliation and indignation. The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines makes a revival of German-Russian relationship an extremely tortuous affair. For any nation with a proud history, it is a bit too much to accept being pushed around like a pawn.
Scholz and Steinmeier are seasoned politicians and would know when to dig in and hunker down. In any case, China is a crucially important partner for Germany’s economic recovery. Germany can ill afford to let the US destroy its partnership with China also, and reduce it to a vassal state.
When it comes to the Ukraine war, Germany becomes a frontline state but it is Washington that determines the western tactic and strategy. Germany estimates that China is uniquely placed to be a peacemaker in Ukraine. The signs are that Beijing is warming up to that idea too.
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FBI Infiltration of Big Tech put US on fast track to Neofascist Technocratic Autocracy
By Ekaterina Blinova – Samizdat – 24.12.2022
The recently released sixth and seventh batches of the Twitter Files shed light on the FBI’s instructions to censor specific tweets and accounts for “violating” the company’s terms of service.
The internal documents also lifted the veil of secrecy on how the bureau launched an apparent damage control operation prior to the publication of the New York Post’s bombshell concerning Hunter Biden’s laptop.
On top of that, an email by Twitter’s former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker revealed that the platform collected a staggering $3 million from the bureau at least on one occasion.
“My opinion – based on the evidence available – is the FBI did this because the FBI is fundamentally corrupt,” Jason Goodman, a US investigative journalist and founder of Crowdsource the Truth, told Sputnik. “Failure to investigate Hunter Biden based on the evidence on the laptop is bad enough. Evidence being revealed now by Twitter’s new management suggests the FBI actively worked to protect Hunter Biden from public scrutiny and hide their own lack of enforcement action. Broad knowledge of the evidence on Hunter Biden’s laptop would certainly have led to public outcry at least for further investigation. We have never witnessed such a brazen criminal act by a US government agency so nakedly exposed. For the past two years, any individual who even debates these facts online loses access to the major social media platforms.”
The Twitter Files exposure apparently hit the FBI’s raw nerve as the bureau issued an official statement claiming that “the men and women of the FBI” were doing their job, while “conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”
While commenting on the bureau’s statement, one prominent legal expert remarked that it is not clear “what is more chilling: the menacing role played by the FBI in Twitter’s censorship program or its mendacious response to the disclosure of that role.”
How It All Began
Make no mistake, this started long ago, noted Goodman: in fact, the groundwork was laid after September 11, 2001, with the passage of the Patriot Act.
“Prior to that, Americans were protected from undue search and seizure by the fourth amendment of the constitution,” the journalist explained. “In the newfound ‘war on terror’ the Patriot Act was sold to the American public as increased security. But it introduced several unconstitutional new laws and new law enforcement tools that removed our constitutional protection. One such tool was the National Security Letter (NSL).”
Goodman has drawn attention to the fact that prior to the advent of NSLs, investigators needed to get a warrant from a judge and had to have probable cause supported by some kind of evidence before they could lawfully investigate a person or their property, including electronic accounts, like email or Twitter.
However, with the Patriot Act, the FBI could simply write up an NSL under the suspicion that an individual was a national security threat and launch a probe into them, according to the journalist. “No warrant or evidence was required,” Goodman added. Moreover, the bureau could also reject the requests of those asking for proof on the basis that the evidence would risk revealing sources and methods and was also a national security threat, according to the journalist.
“These newfound powers were quickly and consistently abused,” Goodman continued. “Former FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni was admonished by both the House and the Senate for gross abuses of NSLs and other unconstitutional acts.”
However, it appears that the US Congress’ attempts to rein in the bureau have not borne any fruit and the FBI has only grown more brazen in the years since.
“By alleging that the FBI was engaged in a counterintelligence investigation, they no longer had to adhere to the same rules or obey the constitutional protections that existed previously,” said Goodman. “This is exactly how the FBI began their shambolic investigation into the so-called Russian collusion with Trump.”
Hunter’s and Hillary’s Emails & APT28
Meanwhile, the story of the FBI’s attempts to shield Hunter Biden evokes strong memories of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) leak amid the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. The disclosure of Hunter’s bombshell emails was downplayed and smeared as a “hack” and “disinformation” by “Russian APT28” just as the 2016 DNC email leak was.
According to Shellenberger, the bureau took Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” from Mac Isaac, a Delaware repair shop owner, on December 9, 2019. By August 2020, Isaac still had not heard back from the FBI, even though he had found alleged evidence of criminal activity on the device. So Isaac contacted lawyer Rudy Giuliani, “who was under FBI surveillance at the time,” and provided him with a copy of the laptop’s hard disk. In early October, Guiliani gave the disk to the New York Post.
On October 13, 2020, a day before the Post planned to release its bombshell, “FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sent ten documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity Yoel Roth through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter,” Shellinberger revealed citing internal Twitter documents. On October 14, 2020, the bombshell article saw the light of day but soon was banned and suppressed by major Silicon Valley giants, including Twitter.
But that is not all. According to Yoel Roth’s testimony, during all of 2020, the FBI warned him about the forthcoming Russian “hack and leak” operation “involving Hunter Biden” prior to the 2020 election. The bureau particularly referred to APT28, claiming that it’s a group of Russian hackers linked to Moscow’s intelligence services. In one of his recent interviews, Roth said that when Hunter’s emails finally emerged “it set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack-and-leap campaign alarm bells.”
The “laptop from hell” posed a challenge to Hunter’s father, the Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, as the bombshell suggested that the latter not only knew but also participated in his son’s murky financial schemes.
Similarly, the 2016 DNC leak threatened the Clinton campaign, demonstrating, in particular, that the party’s primaries were rigged in favor of Hillary. It was Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann who requested cyber security firm CrowdStrike’s help in investigating the alleged DNC hack.
CrowdStrike “detected” and “attributed” the alleged breach of DNC servers to Russia during the 2016 election cycle. The company claimed that the perpetrators were “two Russian espionage groups”: Cozy Bear (APT29) and Fancy Bear (APT28), suggesting with a “low” to “medium”-level of confidence that they may be affiliated with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and Main Intelligence Department (GRU), respectively. Moscow denied the claim as absurd.
For its part, the FBI relied on CrowdStrike’s conclusions, although the bureau has never physically examined the DNC servers and has only been provided with their “digital copies” instead.
According to Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a group of former US intelligence officers working within the CIA, the FBI and the NSA, there had been no hack: it was an inside job. Moreover, CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry admitted under oath in 2017 that the company does not have “concrete evidence” that the alleged “Russian hackers” exfiltrated any data from the servers.
The story of the DNC “hack” played a big role in smearing Russia and linking Donald Trump to Moscow. The Dems claimed that Moscow “hacked” the emails to help Trump win the 2016 elections. In summer 2016, the FBI launched Operation Crossfire Hurricane on the pretext of alleged “collusion” between Trump and the Kremlin. However, Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigation found no evidence to back the allegations, which were rubbished by Moscow from the very start as nonsensical.
“The true origin of the Russiagate hoax has not yet been revealed but it is becoming increasingly clear that top executives in the FBI have been involved in an ongoing coverup for a very long time,” said Goodman. “APT28 is likely a concoction of Dmitri Alperovitch’s Crowdstrike, which itself is an obvious FBI cutout. Crowdstrike co-founder Shawn Henry left the FBI to create the company, then shortly thereafter received $150 million from Google. Sounds fair enough but think about that for a moment. Google cannot easily hand $150 million to the FBI, but they can invest whatever they want in a startup tech company.”
It is not clear if the US public understands the legal games the FBI can play, according to the journalist.
“The FBI’s infiltration of Twitter is the tippy top of tip of the upper edge of the tip of the iceberg,” Goodman remarked. “We need to understand just how many private companies and non-profit organizations are secretly working with or for the incredibly dangerous and subversive US ‘Intelligence’ community. This hidden-in-plain-sight network of government agencies, non-profit organizations, and private industry is what is spoken of as the ‘Deep State’.”
Operation Mockingbird and Church Committee
The FBI’s attempts to control and infiltrate the work of social media giants resembles nothing so much as the US intelligence Operation Mockingbird which was first mentioned by CIA Director William Colby during his briefing to the Justice Department on December 31, 1974.
Later, the issue was touched upon by Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein in Rolling Stone in 1977. Bernstein revealed how numerous journalists, including Pulitzer-prize winners, wrote fake stories and disseminated propaganda at the CIA’s behest during the Cold War. The scale of the CIA’s huge international media network was described by one CIA official as ranging from Radio Free Europe to a third‐string guy in Quito who could get something in the local paper. According to the US mainstream press, the program has never been officially discontinued.
“It is essentially an extension of Operation Mockingbird,” Goodman said about the US intelligence community’s collusion with Big Tech. “The revelations of the Church Committee showed us the CIA’s intention. There is no reason to believe they would change. We see these ‘retired’ intelligence people on the news all the time. It should be obvious to anyone looking at the evidence if the FBI or any law enforcement or intelligence agency is doing anything other than tracking dangerous criminals on Twitter, they should not be doing it.”
The Church Committee was a US Senate select committee that investigated abuses by the CIA, NSA, FBI, and IRS in 1975.
Presently, it’s not a matter of the FBI getting away with what it has done (they already have), this is “an inflection point like none other in American history,” according to the journalist.
“We are in a dangerous moment,” Goodman warned. “The United States has become a neofascist technocratic autocracy. The new Congress must take bold steps to shut this down immediately and begin the journey back to the constitutional republic that was established in 1776 or it will only get worse (…) Another thing the Patriot Act created that most people are not aware of is the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force. It is an interagency intelligence-sharing operation overseen by the FBI. Critics say it eliminates the compartmentalization that is in place to prevent the types of abuses that are commonplace today. Without oversight, who knows what these interagency operations are capable of.”
The pharma inquisitors are coming
start the busses and warm up your throwing arms
by el gato malo – bad cattitude – december 23, 2022
long time readers will know of my past predictions on the pfizer phuture of governments turning upon the big pharma co’s that pushed the covid vaccines and declaring fraud in order to use “we wuz lied to!” as the low energy climbdown out of the eye of public rage that will land upon them should anyone ever figure out what a full blown disaster this has been.
the movement appears to be starting in earnest. first a drop, then a trickle, until one day it’s a dam burst and a torrent.
well, here comes the rain:
DeSantis’ Grand Jury Impaneled to Investigate mRNA Vaccine Manufacturers
as astonishing as it may sound after the last 3 years, it is still, in fact, illegal to sell and market products (especially drugs) based on false claims. even in america, phraud is still a phelony. (it also pierces the EUA liability waiver)
The statewide grand jury will be allowed to investigate groups involved in the design, development, clinical testing, marketing, and distribution of vaccines said to prevent COVID-19 infection, symptoms, and transmission. It will be impaneled for one year.
DeSantis’ petition argued that there was widespread belief that the COVID-19 vaccine prevented the disease from spreading, which led to vaccine mandates on citizens, health care workers, and military members.
“It is impossible to imagine that so many influential individuals came to this view on their own. Rather, it is likely that individuals and companies with an incentive to do so created these perceptions for financial gain,” the petition said.
The petition specifically points out Moderna and Pfizer’s claims about preventing the COVID-19 disease with “94.1% efficacy” and “91.3% vaccine efficacy.”
now, many, especially in the hyper-partisan tribalism of the US may try to write this off as a political stunt, and while i suspect it may also be quite politically effective, i doubt that is the primary purpose. there are just too many facts here that don’t add up and this is the path to start getting to the bottom of it.
it’s really not yet clear to me how effective this can or will be. pfizer is a canny company and managed much of their apparent malfeasance in locales like argentina that are notoriously difficult jurisdictions from which to compel the production of documents and witnesses.
on the other hand, the onus lies up the claimant to prove the claims they made are valid and there are entire armories of smoky looking guns lying around in the dodgy looking data.
it will be an interesting wrestling match.
but it is FAR from the only potential bout on the card.
the european commission has been trying to get pfizer CEO albert bourla in to have a few words about the deeply unusual manner in which the EU contracts were signed and EC president ursula von der lyin’ (that was probably a typo or something) sure seems to have lost all her records on the matter.
more dogs are eating more homework as israeli interest in this matters is piqued as well.
and then come the germans who also seem to have some pointy questions of their own.
pfizer and moderna may not be quite running out of friends yet, but they certainly seem to have no shortage of new inquisitors who are starting to take far more than passing interests in the l’affaires covidienne.
this is how the tail gets caught in the ringer and the rest of the beast inexorably follows.
once the questions start in earnest and from all sides, the game can really change…
Will Korea send its shells to Ukraine, and more importantly, which Korea?
By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 23.12.2022
Over the past few days, the author has come across several fake news reports on Korean arms supplies to Ukraine. Both from the North and the South.
On the one hand, there is ongoing speculation in the West that the DPRK is allegedly supplying or intends to supply Russia with munitions for use in Ukraine, although such speculation is only true if the DPRK has secretly already built a teleportation machine. Well, or this is a case of “bold assumptions.”
However, Pentagon Press Secretary Pat Ryder reiterated on November 15 that the United States is working with its allies and partners to monitor North Korea’s supply of artillery shells to Russia. The general declined to comment on whether the US had tried to prevent this.
On November 24, during an exclusive interview with the Yonhap News Agency, First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Oleksandr Kornienko said that military cooperation between North Korea and Russia cannot be ruled out.
In a webinar hosted by the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies on December 2, 2022, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Eliot Kahn not only claimed that Moscow was doing little to enforce Security Council resolutions on North Korea, but specifically noted that Russia allegedly continues to allow numerous North Korean workers to earn income in its jurisdiction in defiance of the UN Security Council resolution and is in the process of acquiring prohibited munitions from the North to support the invasion of Ukraine. As always, no evidence was presented.
In addition to fake news about shells, Western propaganda floods the media with overwhelming amounts of all kinds of disinformation. First, it is “information” about the alleged recruitment of North Korean workers: in the summer and fall, the South Korean Daily NK reported several times that the DPRK was actively recruiting more and more workers to send to eastern Ukraine.
Another fake story was launched by Radio Free Asia, which, citing unnamed sources in North Korea, claimed that three Pyongyang factories were sewing uniforms for the Russian military engaged in the special military operation in Ukraine using Russian fabric. “Journalists” even had the audacity to send a comment to the Russian Embassy, after which, on November 12, the diplomatic mission’s social media page advised the journalist to choose a career as a science fiction writer.
On December 7, Spokesperson for the US Department of State Ned Price again told that Russia continues to seek weapons from North Korea and Iran for use in its war against Ukraine. And again – with no evidence. Against this backdrop, the National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby seems a paragon of honesty: “We know that the Russians continue to express interest in obtaining North Korean artillery…. (but) I don’t believe we can say today that we’ve seen definite indications that that transaction has been consummated.”
However, there is much more interest in the information from the other side. It tells the story that South rather than North Korean weapons may appear in the conflict zone.
In September 2022, the Czech publication iDNES claimed that the US was preparing a new scheme to supply Ukraine with weapons: allegedly, a certain Czech arms company would soon receive for transfer to Ukraine South Korean Shingung missile systems (KP-SAM) manufactured by LIG Nex1, designed to counter Russian drones and attack aircraft. The $2.9 billion deal is paid for from the US budget, but has yet to be implemented due to the South Korean government’s official policy of non-interference. On October 2, 2022, the ROK media also wrote about this, although claiming that it is not true: the Czech Republic allegedly has South Korean weapons, but acquired a long time ago, the US started to re-buy them to send them from the Czech Republic to Ukraine already in its own name.
In this context, speaking at a plenary session of the Valdai international discussion club on October 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the decision to supply arms and ammunition to Ukraine “will destroy our relations”. And this can refer to both direct and indirect supplies, when South Korean weapons are sent via third countries or go as replacements for those supplied to Ukraine. Vladimir Putin said that Russia was aware of the Republic of Korea’s plans to supply arms and ammunition to Ukraine, referring to indirect supplies via Poland.
The next day, on October 28, ROK President Yoon Suk-yeol reiterated that the country had never provided lethal weapons to Ukraine; although aid is a matter of “South Korean sovereignty,” Seoul tries to maintain peaceful and good relations with all countries, including Russia.
However, on November 11, the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed US officials, reported that the US was planning to purchase 100,000 155mm artillery shells from the ROK for subsequent transfer to Ukraine, while previously the US military contingent in South Korea (USFK) had already handed over some of its ammunition in the ROK to Kiev (https://newsis.com/view/?id=NISX20221111_0002082163).
On the same day, the ROK Ministry of Defense confirmed that Seoul and Washington were discussing supplies of shells to make up for shortages in US arsenals, and the issue was discussed during talks between the defense ministers of the two countries in early November. But the talks are based on the assumption that the ammunition will be used by the US Army.
The latest fake story, that the US is planning to buy 100,000 shells for 155mm artillery pieces from the ROK for supply to Ukraine, was reported by CNN in late November, citing an unnamed Pentagon official. The CNN news comes amid reports that the US is running out of weapons to send to Kiev, and one of the problems is the 155mm artillery ammunition currently being used on the battlefields in Ukraine. As the ROK media wrote, compared to the US, South Korea’s weapons stockpile is quite large, given that South and North Korea are technically still at war, which helps South Korean manufacturers to continue producing ammunition. In addition, Yoon Suk-yeol sees arms exports as one way out of the emerging economic crisis. He said the ROK will aim to become the world’s fourth largest arms exporter by 2027, taking at least 5% of the industry market.
Commenting on the announcement, Col. Moon Hong-sik of the ROK Ministry of Defense reiterated on November 28 that the US is the end user of South Korean-made artillery shells. Similar reports are citing unnamed officials, but in this case more precise information is needed.
Thus, South Korea does not deny supplying weapons to the US or other countries, while a number of the author’s local respondents, following the South Korean President, emphasize that there will be no direct supplies to Ukraine, the US is the end user, and the deal with Poland even provides for a ban on transferring these weapons to Ukraine.
Of course, the author does not know whether the contract between Poland and the ROK restricts the supply or transfer of arms to third parties. But the whole situation does not bode well.
Although the ROK has been placed on Russia’s list of unfriendly countries, it remains the friendliest of the unfriendly. Without wishing to zero out economic cooperation, Seoul says it is “together with the international community” on the Ukrainian issue, but is not particularly keen to jump ahead. Moreover, some South Korean companies are not only reluctant to leave the Russian market, but are buying up the property of those firms that have actually left.
Such defiance is certainly not to the liking of Washington, which would like relations between Moscow and Seoul to be as messy as those with other US allies. There is a sense that the US is deliberately pushing the ROK and Russia towards a bigger rift, and the fake about “arms deal” in the US media, citing secret sources and without confirmation, was intended to drive an additional wedge into relations between Seoul and Moscow.
Moreover, knowing Moscow’s concerns about the possibility of South Korean arms supplies to Ukraine, Washington is in a position to stage a provocation, realizing that Moscow might be furious and not particularly concerned about whether Seoul knew where the US weapons were going or whether it was “set up.” After all, such a move would be perceived by Moscow as crossing red lines and would be a reason for retaliation.
The possibility of this, incidentally, is also recognized by South Korean experts. On November 11, Jeh Sung-hoon, head of the Russian Studies Department at the University of Foreign Studies, told RIA Novosti that Washington is seeking artillery supplies from the ROK not for military assistance to Ukraine but to chill relations between Seoul and Moscow and make South Korea even more deeply involved in the anti-Russian front.
Park Byung-hwan, a former Consul Ambassador at the South Korean Embassy in Moscow and now director of the South Korean Institute for Eurasian Strategic Studies, also told RIA Novosti that in the current circumstances there is a possibility of “hidden” supplies of South Korean arms to Ukraine, unless there are direct instructions in the contract from Seoul not to send weapons there.
Shin Jong-woo, a senior researcher at the Korea Defense and Security Forum, believes that “if the US purchases the artillery shells from us based on an agreement that the US will be the end user, but it changes its mind later in order to transfer them to Ukraine, we cannot take issue with the decision after selling them.” It is absurd to be interested in who the end user will be as “… exporting countries have few options even if end users do something illegal with their exports.”
On the contrary, Victor Cha, a well-known hawk, who is in charge of Korean affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, writes directly that “the Yoon government should consider arming Ukraine in earnest. Russia has already sanctioned South Korea for joining multilateral sanctions against it, and now, it is already accusing Seoul of doing so. Thus, the Yoon government should go ahead and provide such support to the besieged country as requested by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in his speech to the South Korean National Assembly in April 2022.”
Thus so far, despite the media fuss, none of the fakes about Korean weapons in Ukraine has been confirmed with regard to either the North or the South. Here’s hoping that such propaganda will never become a reality.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Sweden Confirms ‘Baltic Titanic’ Was Used for Secret Military Transports
Samizdat – 23.12.2022
The Estonia’s sinking in 1994 killed 852 people and is seen as the second-worst peacetime maritime disaster, ranking only behind the Titanic. With decades having gone by, questions about the tragedy abound, despite survivors’ numerous calls for justice.
In a sensational confession, the Swedish Armed Forces have admitted that the Estonia passenger ferry, whose demise in 1994 is seen as one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century, was used for secret military transports.
Ever since the Estonia sank on September 28, 1994, there have been rumors that the ferry had military cargo on board on the night of the accident. The accident commission appointed shortly afterwards dismissed the rumors as unsubstantiated fantasies. However, in 2004 Swedish media revealed that at least on two occasions, two weeks and one week before the accident, cars loaded with military gear were transported to Sweden.
In a new document, “a handful” of military transports from the Baltic countries with the Swedish Armed Forces as recipients were finally confirmed, yet without exact dates. However, the document features “electronic equipment without any connection to weapons systems” transported in civilian vehicles.
The Armed Forces’ written response also cited “Project Baltic Support”, a Swedish military aid program run in 1993-2003. Among others, the project included “equipment transferred to the Baltics” as well as “comprehensive training programs.”
The somewhat belated and mostly involuntary admission comes in response to an ongoing re-investigation of the Estonia shipwreck following a groundbreaking documentary that revealed a previously unknown hole in the ship’s hull and sowed skepticism in the official version. As part of their work, the investigators queried the Armed Forces about the military transports.
“At the beginning of the 90s, the Baltic states were newly independent and the Soviet Union had fallen, so there was certainly a great interest, among others, within the Swedish Armed Forces in getting military equipment from there,” Jonas Backstrand, chairman of the Estonia investigation at the State Accident Commission told Swedish media, citing interviews with both current and former employees of the Armed Forces.
Previous investigations hinted that the Armed Forces may have organized the transports in collaboration with officials from Ericsson Group. The Swedish Customs had promised the military not to check the cars’ loads, something it itself later confirmed.
Questions Remain
The passenger ferry Estonia sank on the night of September 28, 1994, about halfway between Tallinn and Stockholm. 852 people died in the disaster, which is now sometimes referred to as the “Baltic Titanic”. 28 years later, it remains largely a mystery despite survivors’ numerous calls for justice.
While a subsequent investigation formally placed the blame on a faulty bow visor that allowed thousands of tons of water to gush in, an abundance of alternative theories have flourished over the decades, including the Estonia being sunk by submarine. These theories, while officially dismissed as conspiracies, were nevertheless fueled by the Swedish government’s hasty decision to drop thousands of tons of pebbles on the site and thereby turn the wreck into a sea grave. Furthermore, the so-called Estonia Act was quickly railroaded through, establishing the sanctity of the site and prohibiting citizens from the signatory counties from even approaching the wreck.
Recently, 17 Estonia survivors penned an opinion piece in Swedish media, urging to add more resources and review the accident in its entirety. They stress that it took 27 years before they were allowed to testify and that the final report from 1997 didn’t fully agree with their experiences.
“If during the 90s it was sensitive to investigate because of security policy issues and Sweden’s need to assert its non-alignment, perhaps it can be seen differently now?”, the survivors wrote, alluding to Sweden’s vaunted vestiges of neutrality that went down in flames earlier this year as the Nordic country filed an application to join NATO.
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From the Archives
Why Saudi Ties to 9/11 Mean U.S. Ties to 9/11
By Kevin Ryan | Dig Within | September 27, 2015
Media interest in Saudi Arabian connections to the crimes of 9/11 has centered on calls for the release of the 28 missing pages from the Joint Congressional Inquiry’s report. However, those calls focus on the question of hijacker financing and omit the most interesting links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi Arabia—links that implicate powerful people in the United States. Here are twenty examples. … continue
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