BY GLENN DIESEN | JUNE 10, 2024
The organisations operating under the banner of “human rights non-governmental organisations” (NGOs) have become key actors in disseminating war propaganda, intimidating academics, and corrupting civil society. The NGOs act as gatekeepers determining which voices should be elevated and which should be censored and cancelled.
Civil society is imperative to balance the power of the state, yet the state is increasingly seeking to hijack the representation of civil society through NGOs. The NGOs can be problematic on their own as they can enable a loud minority to override a silent majority. Yet, the Reagan doctrine exacerbated the problem as these “human rights NGOs” were financed by the government and staffed by people with ties to intelligence agencies to ensure civil society does not deviate significantly from government policies.
The ability of academics to speak openly and honestly is restricted by these gatekeepers. Case in point, the NGOs limit dissent in academic debates about the great power rivalry in Ukraine. Well-documented and proven facts that are imperative to understanding the conflict are simply not reported in the media, and any efforts to address these facts are confronted with vague accusations of being “controversial” or “pro-Russian”, a transgression that must be punished with intimidation, censorship, and cancellation.
I will outline here first my personal experiences with one of these NGOs, and second how the NGOs are hijacking civil society.
My Encounter with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is one of these “NGOs” financed by the government and the CIA-cutout National Endowment for Democracy (NED). They regularly publish hit pieces about me and rarely miss their weekly tweets that label me a propagandist for Russia. It is always name-calling and smearing rather than anything that can be considered a coherent argument.
The standard formula for cancellation is to shame my university in every article and tweet for allowing academic freedom, with the implicit offer of redemption by terminating my employment as a professor. Peak absurdity occurred with a 7-page article in a newspaper in which it was argued I violated international law by spreading war propaganda. They grudgingly had to admit that I have opposed the war from day one, although for a professor in Russian politics to engage with Russian media allegedly made me complicit in spreading war propaganda.
Every single time I am invited to give a speech at any event, this NGO will appear to publicly shame and pressure the organisers to cancel my invitation. The NGO also openly attempt to incite academics to rally against me to strengthen their case for censorship in a trial of public opinion. Besides whipping up hatred in the media by labelling me a propagandist for Russia, they incite online troll armies such as NAFO to cancel me online and in the real world. After subsequent intimidations through social media, emails, SMS and phone calls, the police advised me to remove my home address and phone number from public access. One of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee recently responded by posting a sale ad for my house, which included photos of my home with my address for their social media followers.
The Norwegian Helsinki Committee also infiltrates and corrupts other institutions. One of the more eager Helsinki Committee employees is also a board member at the Norwegian organisation for non-fictional authors and translators (NFFO) and used his position there to cancel the organisation’s co-hosting of an event as I had been invited to speak. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is also overrepresented in the Nobel Committee to ensure the right candidates are picked.
Why would a humanitarian NGO act like modern Brownshirts by limiting academic freedom? One could similarly ask why a human rights NGO spends more effort to demonise Julian Assange rather than exploring the human rights abuses he exposed.
This “human rights NGO” is devoted primarily to addressing human rights abuses in the East. Subsequently, all great power politics is framed as a competition between good values versus bad values. Constructing stereotypes for the in-group versus the out-groups as a conflict between good and evil is a key component of political propaganda. The complexity of security competition between the great powers is dumbed down and propagandised as a mere struggle between liberal democracy versus authoritarianism. Furthermore, they rest on the source credibility of being “non-governmental” and merely devoted to human rights, which increases the effectiveness of their messaging.
By framing the world as a conflict between good and evil, mutual understanding and compromise are tantamount to appeasement while peace is achieved by defeating enemies. Thus, these “human rights NGOs” call for confrontation and escalation against whoever is the most recent reincarnation of Hitler, while the people calling for diplomacy are denounced and censored as traitors.
NGOs Hijacking Civil Society
After the Second World War, American intelligence agencies took on a profound role in manipulating civil society in Europe. The intelligence agencies were embarrassed when they were caught, and the solution was to hide in plain sight.
The Reagan Doctrine entailed setting up NGOs that would openly interfere in the civil society of other states under the guise of supporting human rights. The well-documented objective was to conceal influence operations by US intelligence as work on democracy and human rights. The “non-governmental” aspect of the NGOs is fraudulent as they are almost completely funded by the government and staffed with people connected to the intelligence community. Case in point, during Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” in 2004, an anti-corruption protest was transformed into a pro-NATO/anti-Russian government. The head of the influential NGO Freedom House in Ukraine was the former Director of the CIA.
Reagan himself gave the inauguration speech when he established the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 1983. The Washington Post wrote that NED has been the “sugar daddy of overt operations” and “what used to be called ‘propaganda’ and can now simply be called ‘information'”.[1] Documents released reveal that NED cooperated closely with CIA propaganda initiatives. Allen Weinstein, a cofounder of NED, acknowledged: “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”.[2] Philip Agee, a CIA whistle-blower, explained that NED was established as a “propaganda and inducement program” to subvert foreign nations and style it as a democracy promotion initiative. NED also finances the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
The NGOs enable a loud Western-backed minority to marginalise a silent majority, and then sell it as “democracy”. Protests can therefore legitimise the overthrow of elected governments. The Guardian referred to the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004 as “an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing” for the purpose of “winning other people’s elections”.[3] Another article by the Guardian labelled the Orange Revolution as a “postmodern coup d’état” and a “CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days, adapted to post-Soviet conditions”.[4] A similar regime change operation was repeated in Ukraine in 2014 to mobilise Ukrainian civil society against their government, resulting in overthrowing the democratically elected government against the will of the majority of Ukrainians. The NGOs branded it a “democratic revolution” and was followed by Washington asserting its dominance over key levers of power in Kiev.
Similar NGO operations were also launched against Georgia. The NGOs staged Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” in 2003 which eventually resulted in war with Russia after the new authorities in Georgia attacked South Ossetia. Recently, the Prime Minister of Georgia cautioned that the US was yet again using NGOs in an effort to topple the government to use his country as a second front against Russia.[5] Georgia’s democratically elected parliament passed a law with an overwhelming majority (83 in favour vs 23 against), for greater transparency over the funding of NGOs. Unsurprisingly, the Western NGOs decided that transparency over funding of NGOs was undemocratic, and it was labelled a “Russian law”. The Western public was fed footage of protests for democratic credibility, and they were reassured that the Georgian Prime Minister was merely a Russian puppet. The US and EU subsequently responded by threatening Georgia with sanctions in the name of “supporting” Georgia’s civil society.
Civil Society Corrupted
Society rests on three legs – the government, the market and civil society. Initially, the free market was seen as the main instrument to elevate the freedom of the individual from government. Yet, as immense power concentrated in large industries in the late 19th century, some liberals looked to the government as an ally to limit the power of large businesses. The challenge of our time is that government and corporate interests go increasingly hand-in-hand, which only intensifies with the rise of the tech giants. This makes it much more difficult for civil society to operate independently. The universities should be a bastion of freedom and not policed by fake NGOs.
[1] D. Ignatius, ‘Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups’, Washington Post, 22 September 1991.
[2] Ibid.
[3] I. Traynor, ‘US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev’, The Guardian, 26 November 2004.
[4] J. Steele, ‘Ukraine’s postmodern coup d’état’, The Guardian, 26 November 2004.
[5] L Kelly, ‘Georgian prime minister accuses US of fueling ‘revolution attempts’’, The Hill, 3 May 2024.
BY MERYL NASS | JUNE 14, 2024
Stanford’s Internet Observatory was a surveillance-censorship operation (discussed previously) that spit on the First Amendment, worked closely with fed intelligence agents and trained students to break the law. God only knows what techniques were developed here in the heart of Silicon Valley to mind control the citizenry.
And they were so brazen! The spooks pretended they were academics doing “research.” But where are their advanced degrees? Where are their courses? Why isn’t Renee DiResta listed in the faculty directory?
The Observatory’s main figurehead, Renee DiResta, “ex” CIA asset, just published a book about her wondrous exploits saving the world from TRUTH.
And Stanford itself was so brazen, it filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court to complain about how it was unjustly cited for its criminal collusion with the USG to censor political, intellectual, scientific, medical etc. opponents in the Missouri v Biden censorship case. It was just “research.”
Finally, Stanford could not stand the heat, and is getting out of the kitchen. Bye-bye.
By Emily Kopp | U.S. Right To Know | June 11, 2024
For nearly nine years Anthony Fauci’s institute concealed plans to engineer a pandemic capable mpox virus with a case fatality rate of up to 15 percent, congressional investigators revealed in a new report Tuesday.
In June 2015, a scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases received formal approval from the National Institutes of Health’s Institutional Review Board for experiments expected to engineer an mpox virus with high transmissibility and moderate mortality.
NIAID — the institute Fauci oversaw for nearly four decades and which underwrites most federally funded gain-of-function research — concealed the project’s approval from investigators with the House Committee on Energy and Commerce over the course of a 17 month-long investigation.
A new interim report describes the obstruction and secrecy around the mpox proposal as a case study in how the institute “oversees and accounts for the monitoring of potentially dangerous gain-of-function research of concern.”
The revelations land amid global concerns about whether coronavirus gain-of-function research — research that might generate pathogens with increased pathogenicity or transmissibility — may have contributed to the worst pandemic in a century.
The committee, in conjunction with the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, is also investigating coronavirus gain-of-function research underwritten by NIAID at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and faces similar stonewalling in that investigation, a committee aide said.
NIAID’s lack of transparency surrounding the proposed mpox experiment for nearly a decade undermines Fauci’s assurances at a congressional hearing last week that any biosecurity breach at the Wuhan lab could not have any connection to his former institute. Investigators continue to pursue documentation from EcoHealth Alliance, an NIAID contractor whose funding was recently suspended for failing to properly oversee coronavirus experiments exported to Wuhan.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, caused a public health emergency in the U.S. from August 2022 to February 2023. It is endemic in Africa. The more deadly clade circulates in Central Africa (clade I) while the more transmissible clade circulates in West Africa (clade II). Mpox has infected more than 20,000 people and caused more than 1,000 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where clade I predominates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — though some experts believe that is an undercount of true cases. A strain of the clade II virus drove the American outbreak.
The mpox experiment first came to light in a September 2022 article in Science.
The gain-of-function project proposed by NIAID virologist Bernard Moss would splice genes conferring high pathogenicity from the clade I virus into the more transmissible clade II virus. The new “chimeric” (combined) virus could have retained up to a 15 percent fatality rate and a 2.4 reproductive number, a measure of transmissibility indicating every sick person could infect up to 2.4 people on average, giving it pandemic potential.
The committee’s attempts to learn more about the experiment were met with stonewalling.
NIAID maintains the experiment was never conducted, but has never provided any contemporaneous documents to support that claim such as emails or lab notebooks, according to the committee’s report.
The lack of engagement from NIAID, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services does not comport with the idea the experiment was never conducted and that there is nothing to hide, according to the committee.
HHS and NIH misled congressional investigators for nearly a year and a half, falsely denying that Moss had obtained formal approval for this gain-of-function experiment.
The committee launched its investigation in October 2022 but was only permitted to view key documents in camera in March 2024, which confirmed NIH’s formal approval of the experiment.
The committee lays blame with officials at NIAID, who fund most federally underwritten gain-of-function research, have the subject matter expertise, and may have misled their bosses at HHS and NIH.
For months NIAID and Moss had reported to the committee that the mpox experiment had not moved forward and that Moss had simply been spitballing with the Science reporter in 2022 without serious intention.
However amid the committee’s investigation in May 2023 an approval from the Federal Select Agent Program for a chimera involving both clade I and clade II of the mpox virus was revoked.
NIAID also misled Science and STAT News in saying the gain-of-function mpox experiment was never approved, according to the committee.
Committee aides say they will continue to press for full accountability and transparency, and hope for a culture change at NIAID away from secrecy under new leadership.
Fauci retired after 38 years as the head of NIAID in December 2022; Jeanne M. Marrazzo now serves as director of the institute. Former NIH Director Francis Collins retired in December 2021; Monica Bertagnolli now serves as director of the NIH.
The revelations also come amid a debate about the future of gain-of-function research regulation.
New policy unveiled last month by the White House Office and Science and Technology Policy maintains a largely self-regulatory framework, vesting the responsibility for initiating increased regulation with the researchers and funding agencies such as NIAID.
The vast majority of gain-of-function research that could generate epidemic and pandemic capable viruses is likely to be exempted from more rigorous scrutiny under the new protocols, according to the committee.
Many of the world’s most public virologists have dismissed the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted from a lab accident as a conspiracy theory and have chafed at the idea that the work should be regulated by an outside agency, subject to public input or not pursued at all.
That culture extends to NIAID, too, according to the committee’s investigators, who have also uncovered that top administrators may have illegally evaded federal record retention and transparency law.
Concerns were raised by a committee aide that NIAID exerted undue influence at OSTP to preserve the laissez-faire status quo.
“The new OSTP policy continues to give funding agencies, like NIAID, primary responsibility for oversight of GOFROC and DURC experiments involving potentially dangerous pathogens,” the committee’s report reads. “In almost any other scientific field or industry, this arrangement would be immediately recognized as a conflict of interest, necessitating independent review and oversight.”
Policy improvements suggested by the committee’s report include codifying public input through a community oversight board, which already exist for high-containment biosafety level four laboratories, as well as moving final approval for gain-of-function research out of NIAID.
According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the number of labs capable of growing orthopoxviruses like mpox and smallpox from scratch currently stands at less than 100, but could increase significantly as DNA synthesis and engineering techniques improve and become cheaper.
By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | June 5, 2024
A New York jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with buying the silence of a porn star. He is the first American president to become a felon. The verdict is not unexpected from the deep blue Democratic enclave of Manhattan; the larger question is if lawfare will defeat Trump on November 5.
The jury found Trump faked records (hiding hush payments as “legal expenses”) to conceal the purpose of money given to the onetime attorney Michael Cohen. Trump was actually reimbursing Cohen for a $130,000 hush-money deal struck with porn star Stormy Daniels, to silence her account of an affair with Trump. The affair was in 2006, a decade before Trump was elected president. The falsification of business records took place in 2017, after Trump was already in the White House and thus could not have influenced the election. He was found guilty nonetheless.
For the jury to reach its unanimous decision of guilt on all 34 charges, the key was believing two witnesses over Trump.
There are only two people on earth who know if an affair actually took place between Stormy and Trump. Trump said no, Stormy said yes and the jury agreed with her, fully absent of any further actual evidence. Daniels benefitted greatly from her claims to having the affair, and violated a nondisclosure agreement she voluntarily signed and accepted money for, to achieve her goals. “Proving” the affair was the base upon which the rest of the case to find Trump guilty was made.
It is important to understand that having an affair and paying off someone to remain quiet about it are not crimes, even for a presidential candidate. Nonetheless, the prosecutor claimed in closing arguments Trump “hoodwinked the American voter” with a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election. In addition to those who may have benefitted from the plan, “all roads lead to the man who benefited the most: Donald Trump,” Joshua Steinglass told the jury.
But the witness whose testimony was fully believed by the jury, and whose testimony will see Trump receive a criminal penalty when he is sentenced on July 11 (four days before the Republican National Convention!) is Michael Cohen. In the total absence of physical evidence and in the face of Trump’s claims to the contrary, Cohen served as connective tissue for many disparate elements. It was Cohen who claimed Trump masterminded the plan to hide the payments to Stormy. It was Cohen who said the 34 checks and invoices, only nine of which were signed by Trump himself, were not for legal expenses as they were labeled but were to reimburse Cohen for paying off Stormy. Stormy’s name appeared on none of the 34 documents, a fact which instead of exonerating Trump became under Michael Cohen’s testimony the linchpin of the conspiracy to falsify business records. Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Trump, told jurors the case hinged on the testimony of Michael Cohen, whom he called “the greatest liar of all time.”
Nearly incredibly (Trump’s defense team called Cohen a “walking reasonable doubt”) the jury believed Cohen based on nothing but his good word. This is despite Cohen having gone to jail for perjury, been caught lying to Congress, being disbarred, and actually telling a lie during his testimony at the instant trial. It remains difficult to understand how a jury could objectively grant so much credence to Cohen in the face of his record of lying to his own advantage. Every critical element of the case came down to whether his word could be trusted. That is what convicted Trump. You might have thought Robert De Niro was leading the deliberations.
There’s more. For jurors to have found Trump guilty of all 34 counts, they must have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt not only that Trump falsified or caused the falsification of business records “with intent to defraud” but also that he did so with the intent to commit or conceal another crime. That second element — the intent to commit or conceal another crime — elevates the charges to felonies and got around the statue of limitations that usually governs misdemeanors such as false business records. To reach this conclusion the jury had to also believe Cohen that Trump’s primary intent in all this was election influence and not, as Trump claimed, to hide the affair from his family.
There are many questions surrounding the jury’s verdict, and the fact pattern of the case itself, all of which should come out in Trump’s inevitable appeal. With that in mind, the actual legal conclusion of this case is far into the future, almost certainly after the November 5 election. But that begs the more important question: does any of this matter to voters? This is lawfare, not justice, after all. “The real verdict is going to be November 5, by the people,” said Trump.
CNN, for example, concluded “Donald Trump, who built a mystique as the brash epitome of power, has never been more powerless to dictate his own fate. His reputation, future, and even perhaps the White House’s destiny, [was] placed in the hands of 12 citizens of his native New York City, proving that not even once-and-possibly future commanders in chief are above the law.”
So a victory for Democratic lawfare? Maybe not. Trump remains eligible to campaign for the presidency and serve if elected. None of the other lawfare shots is likely to conclude before November.
So does it matter? A majority of registered voters said a guilty verdict in Trump’s trial would make no difference in their vote in the 2024 presidential election. Across all registered voters, 67 percent said a guilty verdict would have no effect on their vote, while 17 percent say they would be less likely to vote for him and 15 percent say they would be more likely, according to the NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll released before the verdict. An ABC News poll earlier this month showed 80 percent of Trump’s supporters say they would stick with him even if he’s convicted of a felony in this case. Some say they would either reconsider their support (16 percent) or withdraw it (four percent.) Similar polls followed Trump’s defeat in New York courts over supposed real estate fraud.
And Biden knows it. A Biden campaign spokesman said Trump’s conviction showed “There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”
As in other Third World countries where the judiciary is used to smite political opponents, let us hope the people can see the truth, as they still hold the final card to be played. The Deep State has tried from day one to destroy Donald Trump — Russian collusion and dossier hoax, pee tape accusation, Mueller hearing and report, Emoluments Clause, various calls for extra-legal interventions and coups, Alfa Bank hoax, Impeachment I, Impeachment II, demands Mike Pence invoke the 25th Amendment, MSM blackout of Hunter Biden laptop story, Twitter purge of conservative accounts, FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, Letitia James prosecution “show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime” with no victims, no monetary loss but an effort to bankrupt Trump with civil judgment, Colorado attempt to remove Trump from state ballots over the 14th Amendment, and false statements Trump will “take revenge,” “demand retribution,” ensure a “bloodbath,” and “end democracy” (America’s last election if he wins.)
Trump meanwhile has characterized this trial, and the others, as unjust, rigged, lawfare pure and simple. He has kept the voters’ eyes not on who he is (his personal life has been baked-in to the vote long ago) but on what he represents to the electorate. As such, it is hard to see this guilty conviction, however unfair, as mattering too much come November.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | June 6, 2024
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | June 6, 2024
The WHO’s Pandemic Treaty missed its deadline, but their amendments to the International Health Regulations have passed enshrining new pandemic rules for the legally binding contract for 196 countries.
Press TV – June 6, 2024
Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations has firmly rejected allegations by the IAEA against the Islamic Republic’s peaceful nuclear program.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the UN Security Council Joonkook Hwang on Thursday, Amir Saeed Iravani said Tehran’s decision to take remedial measures is in full compliance with its inherent right under Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The resolution was issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors on Wednesday.
The Iranian diplomat also lambasted Britain, France and Germany – known as the E3 – for spearheading the anti-Iran resolution at the UN’s nuclear agency.
Tehran, he said, “rejects all the allegations” in the E3’s letter and “reiterates its position concerning its peaceful nuclear program and the JCPOA.”
Iravani said the E3 continues to level unfounded allegations against Iran for non-compliance with JCPOA commitments.
“Iran’s decision to take remedial measures was in full accordance with its inherent right under paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, in reaction to the United States’ unlawful unilateral withdrawal from the agreement on 8 May 2018, and the subsequent failure of the E3 to uphold their commitments. The objective behind Iran’s decision, which was made a full year after the US’s unlawful withdrawal and the E3/EU’s failure to fulfill their sanctions-lifting obligations, was crystal clear: to restore a balance in reciprocal commitments and benefits under the JCPOA,” Iran’s ambassador to the UN said.
“The claim that the E3 has consistently upheld its JCPOA commitments is simply untrue. On the contrary, the E3 has constantly failed to honor its obligations under paragraph 20 of Annex V of the JCPOA. This significant non-compliance is still ongoing. The E3’s failure to implement its sanctions-lifting commitments specified in paragraph 20 of Annex V of the JCPOA on Transition Day (18 October 2023) as an unjustifiable unilateral is a clear example of substantial non-performance of their obligations, thereby violating both the JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231 (2015),” Iravani stated.
He said Tehran has persistently complied with its obligations under the Comprehensive Safeguard Agreements (CSA), including through maximum cooperation with the UN nuclear agency to implement its verification activities in Iran, emphasizing that Iran has so far been under the most “robust verification and monitoring activities” of the IAEA.
“Iran’s decision to enrich uranium in Fordow was a remedial measure in response to non-compliance of the United States and E3/EU with their legally binding obligations under Resolution 2231 (2025) and their significant non-performance under the JCPOA commitments. That decision was also made in exercising Iran’s rights expressly stated in paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA and in full accordance with its inherent rights under the NPT and the commitment under CSA. However, all such activities have been and continue to be under the supervision of the IAEA,” Iravani further wrote in the letter.
Iran’s UN envoy also stated that Iran’s commitment to its obligations under the NPT remains steadfast.
“States parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) shall not be prevented from exercising their inalienable rights under the Treaty to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in full conformity with articles I and II of the Treaty. Any allegation to the contrary is baseless and categorically rejected. The claim that Iran’s nuclear program has reached a critical and irreversible point, coupled with assertions that Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities pose a threat to international peace and security, are entirely false and unfounded,” he said.
In conclusion, Iravani said Iran “reaffirms its unwavering commitment to diplomacy. It has repeatedly shown its willingness to resume talks with the aim of full implementation of the JCPOA by all participants. The JCPOA is a hard-won multilateral diplomatic achievement that remains the best option with no alternatives. It exemplified successful dialogue and diplomacy, effectively averting an undue crisis. Its revival is indeed in the interest of all participants.”
Iran asserts that it runs one of the most transparent peaceful nuclear energy programs among the IAEA’s members.
The Islamic Republic has also repeatedly voiced its readiness to resolve differences with the IAEA within a framework of constructive and mutual interaction and technical cooperation.
Net Zero Watch | June 4, 2024
The Guardian has been forced to withdraw an advertorial, paid for by National Grid, that purported to debunk ‘myths’ about clean energy.
Energy writer David Turver, who had formulated a detailed rebuttal,[1] submitted complaints to both the Guardian and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The Guardian’s response said that they did not think that there was any need to correct the article. However, the ASA appear to have taken more jaundiced view, and the article has now been removed from the Guardian website. As they told Mr Turver:
We have decided to resolve your complaint through the provision of advice to the advertiser. Therefore, we have explained the concerns raised to the advertiser and provided them with guidance on how to ensure that their advertising complies with the Codes both now and in future.
Mr Turver, who has written extensively on the relative costs of renewables and other forms of electricity generation,[2] said:
The Guardian piece was a mess of untruths and half-truths and attempted to paint the picture that renewables are cheap. Although the ASA seems to have avoided giving a ruling, the disappearance of the article suggests that they think any such claims are misleading.
Notes
[1] https://davidturver.substack.com/p/national-grid-propaganda
[2] https://davidturver.substack.com/p/debunking-cheap-renewables-myth
Press TV – June 5, 2024
In a long-running social media campaign, Israel has been trying to influence legislators of the United States to support the occupying entity’s actions in its genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip, according to a report by the New York Times.
Citing unnamed officials and documents, The NY Times reported on Wednesday Israel’s so-called Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has paid at least $2 million for the covert campaign of convincing American lawmakers to back the regime’s atrocities in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
The report said the Israeli ministry has hired the Israeli-based firm STOIC, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry out the campaign.
The firm has for months been generating anti-Hamas and pro-Israel content across the Internet.
According to the report, the influence campaign, which started in October and is still ongoing on X (formerly known as Twitter), has used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments.
The accounts, the report added, targeted US lawmakers, particularly those who are Black and Democrat, “such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia”, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel’s military.
“ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles,” said the Times, which verified the influence operation with four current and former members of the so-called Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.
“The secretive campaign signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza,” it further said.
Citing Meta and OpenAI, the report said the influence campaign has failed to generate a widespread impact.
Furthermore, according to FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, the fake accounts accumulated more than 40,000 followers across X, Facebook and Instagram, but as Meta said, many of those followers may have been bots and did not generate a large audience.
Israel’s bloody war machine has killed over 36,500 Palestinians since October 7, 2023. The vast majority of the fatalities are women and children.
The savage campaign was launched after Hamas carried out its historic Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities.
Israel has additionally enforced a comprehensive blockade on the coastal sliver, severing the supply of fuel, electricity, sustenance and water to the population of over two million Palestinians residing there.
Net Zero Watch | May 31, 2024
The Labour Party is saying that its energy policies – a rapid decarbonisation of the electricity system – will save consumers money. The claim is apparently based on an October 2023 report by Ember,[1] which says that a decarbonised electricity system can reduce bills by £300 per household.
However, the report also says[2] that the authors are assuming that windfarms in the future will secure ‘the same price as [Contracts for Difference] auction round 4’. The prices achieved in Round 4 (£37.50) are around half the price (£73/MWh) currently on offer to offshore windfarms in Round 6 [3]. And industry insiders are suggesting that even the latter figure may be inadequate.[4]
In other words, Labour’s claimed savings rely on assuming that wind power costs half of what it actually does.
A second problem Labour’s putative savings figure is that Ember’s report compares bills in their hypothetical decarbonised electricity system against bills in the third quarter of 2023, which were still inflated by the Ukraine war.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
Labour’s claim of a reduction in household bills is based on figures that are entirely divorced from today’s reality.
And Mr Montford continued by calling for a new reality-based debate on Net Zero.
When it comes to energy policy, the political establishment is operating in a fact-free void. For the sake of the country, they need to start asking very hard questions about what they are being told by civil servants and environmental activists like Ember.
Notes
2. Page 20.
3. All values are in 2012 prices, as is standard practice when discussing CfDs. In current prices, AR4 is worth £47/MWh, and AR6 is offering around £102/MWh.
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 02.06.2024
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is attempting to prevent the release of the audio of the infamous “memory interview” between US President Joe Biden and special counsel Robert Hur, arguing that “deepfakes” may appear as a result.
Hur was investigating Biden’s handling of classified documents he obtained as a senator and vice president. While Hur wrote in his report that Biden likely violated the law intentionally, he declined to press charges because he thought Biden would appear to the jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” It also noted that Biden had trouble remembering when he was vice president and which year his son Beau died.
The DOJ issued a filing on Friday that argued “The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and ‘deep fake’ technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files. If the audio recording is released here, it is easy to foresee that it could be improperly altered, and that the altered file could be passed off as an authentic recording and widely distributed.”
While the DOJ admits that there is plenty of “other raw material to create a deepfake of President Biden’s voice” available to unscrupulous actors, it argues that if the public became aware that the legitimate recording was released, they would be more apt to believe a fake recording is legitimate.
The filing was first obtained by Politico.
It is not known how the court will respond to the strange reasoning. If a legitimate copy of the recording were released, it stands to reason it would become easier –not more difficult– to disprove fake versions.
As the DOJ admits in its filing as part of its argument that the release of the audio recording is unnecessary, the full transcript of the interview has already been released. It would be trivial for someone with AI experience to use the “raw material” already available of Biden to create a deepfake version of the interview and say it was leaked. A legitimate version being released would make that much easier for other internet users and the media to definitively debunk.
The filing also comes after Biden used his executive privilege to stop the release of the tape to House Republicans who had sought to obtain it as part of their investigation into the Biden family. The latest filing was in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The DOJ also argues that the release of the audio would be a violation of Biden’s privacy. However, since we already know what he said thanks to the transcript– and we have no reason to believe that the transcript is incorrect, the only thing that would be revealed is everything between those words. How long did Biden pause before answering? How many times did he stumble on his words? Did he sound confused or angry during the interview?
These are the questions that could be revealed through the release of the audio and according to the filing, the DOJ doesn’t think it is in the “public interest” to reveal the answers, so much so that they are willing to resort to absurd fear-mongering over a new technology in hopes that the judge will be cowed into blocking its release.
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National Archives of Australia
World War I
During World War I, for security reasons the Australian Government pursued a comprehensive internment policy against enemy aliens living in Australia.
Initially only those born in countries at war with Australia were classed as enemy aliens, but later this was expanded to include people of enemy nations who were naturalised British subjects, Australian-born descendants of migrants born in enemy nations and others who were thought to pose a threat to Australia’s security.
Australia interned almost 7,000 people during World War I, of whom about 4,500 were enemy aliens and British nationals of German ancestry already resident in Australia.
Records of World War I internment camps
World War II
During World War II, Australian authorities established internment camps for three reasons – to prevent residents from assisting Australia’s enemies, to appease public opinion and to house overseas internees sent to Australia for the duration of the war.
Unlike World War I, the initial aim of internment during the later conflict was to identify and intern those who posed a particular threat to the safety or defence of the country. As the war progressed, however, this policy changed and Japanese residents were interned en masse. In the later years of the war, Germans and Italians were also interned on the basis of nationality, particularly those living in the north of Australia. In all, just over 20 per cent of all Italians resident in Australia were interned. … continue
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