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This is How We Should Have Responded to COVID-19

By Dr Alan Mordue and Dr Greta Mushet | The Daily Sceptic | January 24, 2026

Since March 2020 there has been an almost continuous refrain that the UK was not prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic – across the mainstream media, at the UK Covid Inquiry and most recently by Dominic Cummings in a Spectator interview. So much so that it seems to have become an accepted ‘truth’ regardless of the actual facts. Nevertheless there are facts, even in the postmodern dystopian world we now live in.

Firstly, we did have a detailed UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy published in 2011 and it was explicit in saying that it could be adapted to respond to other respiratory virus pandemics, and gave as an example the first Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus (SARS). Secondly, there was further national guidance in 2013 and 2017 to update the strategy. Thirdly, this national guidance helped all four nations and each local health board or authority to develop their own pandemic plans which were regularly reviewed and updated. Fourthly, we had many systematic reviews of the evidence for non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to minimise transmission, one published only a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic started. And finally, the UK scored second in a global assessment of countries’ pandemic preparedness in 2019.

So, the ‘unprepared’ mantra was not the whole truth and arguably we were comparatively well prepared. However, in the event all this preparation did prove to be useless – but only because we decided to abandon it all in March 2020. We binned our pandemic plans and ignored the careful reviews of the evidence and the experience gained responding to previous pandemics. No doubt the UK strategy will be updated, but whatever is produced could be just as easily discarded next time. So what can be done?

Perhaps what we need is something more accessible, something that reflects the ethical and democratic foundations of our country, and, given how important this is for the whole of society, something that is shared widely – well beyond public health departments, the office of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and the NHS. Core principles on how we should respond to a pandemic that are shared, understood and agreed with the public, perhaps through their representatives in Parliament, might give us some scientific, ethical and governance guardrails. They might help to improve and protect accountability and also stand a better chance of surviving beyond a few weeks when the next pandemic hits.

If so, what might such principles contain? Here we offer some suggestions with commentary on how they were applied, or not, during the Covid-19 pandemic, grouped under four headings – epidemiological, medical, ethical, and democratic. Many of these principles don’t appear in the UK Strategy, or those of the four nations or local pandemic plans … and for very understandable reasons. Prior to 2020 they were taken for granted, they were so obvious that they did not need stating, they were the principles and codes that the public health specialty and the medical profession had followed for decades if not centuries, they were the way we conducted ourselves in our liberal democratic society. The Covid-19 pandemic response changed all that – we now clearly need to restate our commitment to core, indeed fundamental, principles.

Epidemiological principles

The first task in epidemiology is to assess the scale and severity of a new disease or health problem, examine how it varies by time, place and person (age, sex, occupation etc.), and compare it with other diseases. This helps to ensure that any response is proportionate and identifies those at greater and lower risk, as well generating hypotheses about potential causes.

In the context of a respiratory viral pandemic, data on case and infection fatality ratios are paramount. These were available early in the COVID-19 pandemic and before the first UK lockdown. Instead of these data being reported accurately, compared to previous pandemic data and carefully explained to the population (for example here), public messaging was alarmist and seemed designed to instil fear not reassure, and made little reference to those at lower risk (see Laura Dodsworth’s 2021 book A State of Fear). In a future pandemic the public should expect such data, the media should demand them, the CMO should have a responsibility to identify and collate them, and government responses should be calibrated based upon them.

Then to ensure accurate monitoring of the developing pandemic within the country and valid comparison to earlier pandemics the standard definitions for confirmed cases, hospitalisations and deaths should be employed. This did not happen in the COVID-19 pandemic with new definitions adopted, definitions that for all three exaggerated the statistics. This was compounded by inappropriate widespread testing using a PCR test insufficiently specific and using inappropriate cycle thresholds.

There was a further concern that arose during the pandemic response on the epidemiological front: the use and impact of modelling studies. Whilst such studies can be helpful they cannot be interpreted without understanding their underlying inputs, assumptions and methods. They are ‘what if’ studies – for example, what if we assume that the number of cases will grow exponentially without any seasonal effect, what if we assume no existing immunity in the population from other coronaviruses, etc. The Imperial College modelling study published in March 2020 seems to have had a significant impact on the push for the first lockdown, but it had not been peer-reviewed and seems to have been insufficiently debated and challenged; of course, it is now widely considered to have been flawed. Modelling studies are not reality, they are not facts, they are not evidence, they are better viewed as ‘what if’ scenarios and their assumptions and results should be rigorously challenged. Their presentation to politicians without critical analysis and careful interpretation amounts to professional negligence.

Medical principles

Science and medicine only develop through open debate and a willingness to consider alternative views, even if they are contrary to the current orthodoxy. This did not happen during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the oft repeated term ‘The Science’ demonstrates. There is no such thing: there is rarely a consensus and science is never settled, we only ever have the current disputed theories which remain until better ones come along. Any pandemic response should be open to challenge and wide debate so that we are not limited to the knowledge and experience of only a few prominent scientific and medical government advisors. The thoughtful and detailed letters addressed to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) from often in excess of 100 doctors and scientists on the merits or otherwise of Covid vaccination of children were a case in point, and were ignored or summarily dismissed. Public health messages to the population certainly need to be clear and if possible consistent to maximise understanding, but this does not preclude an open and vigorous debate within the medical and scientific community, something that is essential if we are to develop an optimal response.

In 1979 Archie Cochrane, widely regarded as the father of evidence-based medicine, made his famous comment that: “It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organised a critical summary, by speciality or subspeciality, adapted periodically, of all relevant randomised controlled trials.” The international Cochrane Collaboration, named after him and designed to address this criticism, produced a series of systematic reviews on the effectiveness of physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses such as school and business closures, social distancing measures and restrictions on large gatherings. Despite the limited evidence for effectiveness and the relatively poor quality of the evidence from these reviews and similar conclusions from a WHO review published in September 2019, almost all these measures were applied to the whole population from March 2020, including a ‘lockdown’ of healthy people.

We copied the response of a totalitarian state despite a lack of evidence and despite the fact that these same systematic reviews drew attention to the widespread harms that would be caused by implementing these measures across the whole population. These harms are beginning to be appreciated across multiple areas – in terms of mortality and physical health particularly of older people, the social development of young children, the mental health and education of young people, businesses across the country as well as jobs, the economy and the benefits system.

An evidence-based approach also required a thorough review of the evidence on the benefits and harms for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in individuals. The limited data on the effectiveness of the novel gene technology ‘vaccines’ (and see Clare Craig’s 2025 book Spiked – A Shot in the Dark) and on their side-effects, with no data at all on long term harms, pointed clearly towards their use only in those at higher risk with full disclosure on what was known and what was not. In the event, of course, they were recommended and pushed on most of the population including those at insignificant risk. Furthermore, ‘safe and effective’ was far from a full disclosure of the evidence on benefits and risks.

By contrast, the use of re-purposed drugs such as ivermectin with known anti-viral and anti-inflammatory effects, extensive evidence on effectiveness and a well-documented safety profile, was actively discouraged.

In all these areas, doctors should be acting as advocates for their patients, informing them as best they can and helping them to make decisions on their treatment and care, as required by the General Medical Council’s guidance ‘Good Medical Practice.’ However, as already discussed, the informing was cursory and partial, and the contact often non-existent or via leaflet or video-call.

If they are to regain public trust the medical profession and public health authorities must do better next time, and patients and the public must demand better information and better discussion and engagement with medical staff to help them make decisions.

Ethical principles – informed consent for individuals

The Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates developed his Oath around 400 BC. It urged doctors to act with beneficence – that is, to help their patients and prevent harm – and non-maleficence – that is to do no harm themselves or primum non nocere. The term appropriateness brings these two concepts together – an appropriate treatment is one that has been chosen because its benefits outweigh its harms in the particular patient.

As outlined above, evidence-based medicine involves the careful assessment of the evidence, ideally from randomised controlled trials, to quantify these benefits and harms. Whilst the patient advocacy role of doctors involves them in informing and supporting their patients to make informed decisions on their treatment and care.

Although this process sounds simple and straightforward, it is not. It seems to be taken more seriously in surgical practice, after notable legal cases, but less so in medical practice with the prescribing of drugs and vaccines. Certainly in the pandemic consenting practices for vaccination were cursory, to the point of being non-existent – public information heralding the ‘safe and effective’ vaccines was at best partial, and coercion was widespread via national advertising that deliberately sought to shame and manipulate, via vaccine mandates, and via bans from venues without proof of vaccination (or negative Covid antigen tests).

Large relative risk reductions of 70% for the Astra Zeneca ‘vaccine’ and 95% for the Pfizer ‘vaccine’ were trumpeted, but not the smaller, less convincing absolute risk reductions of around 1-2%. And there was no attempt to directly compare benefits and risks and harms, the key information a patient needs to give fully informed consent.

The wholesale abandonment of standard codes of practice for informed consent during the pandemic was truly shocking. To regain public trust the medical profession needs to take this key responsibility more seriously and particularly improve practice in relation to long term medications and vaccinations.

Democratic principles

The UK Strategy of 2011 did emphasise the importance of accurate and timely information to the public, and stressed that uncertainty and any alarmist reporting in the media could create additional pressures on health services. Despite this, the early epidemiological data on the scale and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, a comparison with previous pandemics and clear identification of those at higher and lower risk were not shared with the public and carefully explained. The data that were given were far vaguer and the messages seemed designed to raise anxiety rather than contain it and modulate it to appropriate levels. Government advisors seem to have entirely lost sight of these crucial epidemiological data that are so essential to enable the government to calibrate its response and ensure it was proportionate. Data reflecting reality seem to have been overshadowed by modelling data reflecting potential future scenarios – fiction rather than fact influenced key decisions.

Whatever national response is being contemplated to a pandemic, there needs to be a clear separation of the medical and scientific evidence on the benefits and risks of specific interventions on the one hand, and the political value judgements and decisions on the other. Governmental advisors must present options and their benefits, risks, harms and likely costs to ministers, and in a democracy it is for ministers to decide as they are accountable to the electorate. This relationship is akin to the doctor-patient relationship – the doctor informs the patient and supports him or her to make his or her own decision but does not lead or coerce. This line may have been blurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, government advisors seemed reluctant to identify, and where possible quantify, the risks, harms and costs that might flow from the options they put to ministers despite some, like lockdowns, being unprecedented in their severity and scope.

In turn ministers and politicians more generally have a responsibility to ensure that their advisors present them with the epidemiological data and the data on the benefits, risks and costs of recommended options. Ministers also have a responsibility to ensure that differences of opinion on how best to respond within the medical and scientific community are fully aired and discussed. This is crucial to arrive at an optimal response and to avoid groupthink. Only if ministers do these things can they take decisions on behalf of their population and give fully informed consent.

Crucially ministers have a particular responsibility to protect the basic freedoms we enjoy in a democratic society – freedom of speech, association and movement and individual bodily autonomy when it comes to medical treatments. Any infringement of such basic freedoms demands a clear, unambiguous and overwhelming justification, must be subject to challenge in Cabinet and Parliament, and must be the least restrictive as is possible to achieve the aim – in extent, impact and time. This is such a fundamental issue that we perhaps need to develop a framework to guide and constrain actions: defining the types of evidence and high thresholds that are required; limiting powers in terms of their impact, duration and the number of people affected; and outlining checks and balances, with perhaps an automatic independent review afterwards. We have such a clear and rigorous framework for compulsory detention under the Mental Health Acts when one individual is affected: we need at least as rigorous a framework when the freedom of millions is at stake.

There has also been considerable criticism of how the usual democratic governance systems were subverted and avoided during the pandemic, including the use of emergency legislation by the executive without appropriate challenge within Parliament. These governance systems are essential to enable questioning and challenge by MPs and select committees with the aim of improving decision making, and to ensure a clear justification for measures taken and transparency to facilitate accountability. This did not happen during the COVID-19 pandemic as clearly outlined in The Accountability Deficit by Kingsley, Skinner and Kingsley (2023).

In all of these four areas – epidemiological, medical, ethical and democratic – principles were violated during the COVID-19 pandemic with dire consequences for health, basic freedoms, quality of life, education, business and the economy, and for democracy and society itself. Before 2020 it would have seemed unnecessary to state such core principles. Now, having set a precedent when we abandoned them, it seems absolutely essential not only to restate them but to discuss them widely and if possible to reaffirm our commitment to uphold them before another pandemic hits.

Dr Alan Mordue is a retired consultant in public health medicine and Dr Greta Mushet is a retired consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist.

January 30, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

European Union Sanctions Russian Journalists and Artists

teleSUR | January 29, 2026

On Thursday, the European Union adopted sanctions against six Russian citizens working in journalism, acting or dance, arguing that they contributed to amplifying “Russian propaganda” about the special military operation in Ukraine.

The new restrictive measures for what the EU described as Russia’s “destabilizing activities” were approved at a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

Those sanctioned include Ekaterina Andreeva, a news anchor for Russian state television, and Dmitry Guberniev, a television host and adviser to the director of the Rossiya television channel and to the Russian Federation’s sports minister.

Also sanctioned were Maria Sittel, another Russian state television presenter, and Pavel Zarubin, who has what the EU described as “exclusive access” to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agenda.

Finally, the list includes Roman Chumakov, a Russian actor and singer, and Sergey Polunin, a Russian ballet star born in Ukraine and former rector of the Sevastopol Academy of Choreography.

Individuals and entities targeted by the restrictive measures are subject to an asset freeze and will be barred from entering or transiting through European Union territory.

Separately, EU foreign ministers on Thursday continued preparations for a 20th package of sanctions against Moscow since the start of the Ukrainian war, with the aim of having it ready in February, when the war will enter its fourth year.

The 20th package — for which the European Commission still must present a proposal — will include additional measures aimed at hitting the Russian economy, including provisions targeting the so-called “Shadow Fleet” that helps Moscow circumvent restrictions on its oil exports, as well as other economic actors.

The debate over the shadow fleet is not limited to which additional vessels should be added to the blacklist, but also to how to address the phenomenon in a much broader way.

In particular, officials are examining how to use national rules and regulations on boarding ships and contacts with the countries under whose flags the vessels are registered.

January 29, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Fānpán – Is China Turning the Tables on the ‘Democratic’ West?

By Mats Nilsson | 21st Century Wire | January 29, 2026

As a European born analyst with a realist mindset, I was, if not surprised, at least slightly intrigued when I read that China feels freer than Germany in the Era of Xi Jinping’s reforms.

In a world where narratives about freedom and authoritarianism are often painted in stark black and white, the words of Ai Weiwei, one of China’s, in the West most prominent dissident artists, have sent shockwaves through the European cultural scene, hurting our self-image. Ai, known for his bold critiques of the Chinese government, his iconic installations like the “Sunflower Seeds” at Tate Modern, and his 81-day detention in 2011, has long been a symbol of resistance against perceived oppression in his homeland. Yet, after a decade in exile, living primarily in Germany, Ai’s recent return visit to China has led him to a startling conclusion: Beijing now feels “more humane” than Berlin, and Germany, once renown for its liberalism, comes across as “insecure and unfree.” This perspective, shared in a candid interview with the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung following his trip, challenges entrenched stereotypes and invites a deeper examination of how societal freedoms are experienced in daily life, in Europe of today.

Ai’s statements are not mere embellishment; they stem from personal encounters that highlight bureaucratic inefficiencies, social isolation, and institutional irrationality in the West, contrasted with the efficiency and warmth he rediscovered in China. But what underpins this shift? A closer look reveals that Ai’s observations align closely with the sweeping reforms outlined by Chinese President Xi Jinping in his seminal works, particularly the multi-volume series Xi Jinping: The Governance of China. These books, which compile Xi’s speeches, writings, and policy directives, emphasize streamlining governance, enhancing people’s livelihoods, and fostering a “people-centered” development model. Under Xi’s leadership since 2012, China has undergone transformations that prioritize efficiency, anti-corruption, and social harmony; elements that Ai implicitly praises through his anecdotes.

When I read about Ai’s new insights, and tying them to Xi’s reforms, I can suddenly argue that in practical terms, China may indeed offer a form of freedom that eludes many in the West today.

Weiwei’s story is one of displacement. Born in 1957, he grew up amid the tumult of the Cultural Revolution, with his father, the poet Ai Qing, exiled to a labor camp. Ai himself rose to global fame through art that critiqued power structures, such as his investigation into the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which exposed local government negligence in school collapses. His activism led to clashes with Chinese authorities, culminating in his 2011 arrest on charges of tax evasion, a move in the West widely seen as politically motivated.

Released but stripped of his passport until 2015, Ai fled to Germany, where he was granted asylum and continued his work from Berlin and later Portugal. For ten years, Ai immersed himself in European life, producing art that often lambasted both Chinese and Western hypocrisies. Yet, his return visit to China in late 2025 marked a pivotal moment.

In the Berliner Zeitung interview, Ai describes Beijing not as the oppressive dystopia of Western media portrayals but as “a broken jade being perfectly reassembled.” He reports feeling no fear upon arrival, a stark contrast to his past experiences. Instead, he encountered a society that felt vibrant and accessible. “Perfectly ordinary people from at least five different professions lined up, hoping to meet me,” Ai recounts, highlighting a social openness that he found lacking in Germany.

This warmth, Ai suggests, extends to everyday interactions. In Germany, he laments, “almost no one has ever invited me to their home. Neighbors from above or below exchange at most a brief nod.” Such isolation, he argues, contributes to a sense of precariousness in Western societies. In China, by contrast, the immediate eagerness of strangers to connect reflects a cultural and social fabric that prioritizes community over individualism; a theme echoed in Xi’s reforms.

This also touches on the issue of bureaucracy and freedom. At the heart of Ai’s critique is the suffocating bureaucracy he encountered in Europe, which he claims makes daily life “at least ten times” more difficult than in China. A poignant example is his experience with banking. Upon returning to China, Ai reactivated a dormant bank account in mere minutes, discovering it still held “a considerable sum of money.” This seamless process stands in sharp relief to his ordeals in the West: “In Germany, my bank accounts were closed twice. And not just mine, but my girlfriend’s as well. In Switzerland, I was refused an account at the country’s largest bank, and another bank later closed my account there as well.”

Ai describes these incidents as “extraordinarily complicated and often irrational,” hinting at possible political motivations or overzealous compliance with anti-money laundering regulations that disproportionately affect outspoken figures like himself, and just recently struck US analyst and author Scott Ritter.

This disparity underscores a broader point about freedom: while Western democracies trumpet abstract rights like free speech, the practical exercise of freedom is often hampered by bureaucratic hindrances. In Germany, a country renowned for its efficiency in engineering, the administrative state can feel labyrinthine. Opening a bank account, registering a residence, or navigating healthcare requires layers of documentation, appointments, and verifications that can take weeks or months. Ai’s account stems from “de-risking” practices, where banks sever ties with high-profile clients to avoid regulatory government scrutiny; practices that have over the last four years intensified in Europe amid geopolitical tensions.

In contrast, China’s banking system under Xi has embraced digital innovation to enhance accessibility. Xi’s The Governance of China (Volume I, 2014) outlines reforms to modernize financial services, emphasizing “inclusive finance” to ensure even remote or dormant accounts remain functional. Through initiatives like the widespread adoption of mobile payment platforms such as WeChat Pay China has reduced bureaucratic hurdles, allowing transactions and account management to occur instantaneously via smartphones. Ai’s quick reactivation exemplifies this: no endless forms, no interrogations; just efficiency. This aligns with Xi’s push for “streamlining administration and delegating power,” a key reform pillar aimed at cutting red tape and boosting economic vitality.

Xi’s books repeatedly stress that true freedom emerges from governance that serves the people. In The Governance of China (Volume II, 2017), he discusses anti-corruption campaigns that have purged inefficiencies and graft from institutions, including banks. Since 2012, over 1.5 million officials have been disciplined, fostering a cleaner, more responsive system. This has translated into practical freedoms: the ability to access services without fear of arbitrary denial. Ai’s experience suggests that in China, freedom is not just rhetorical but operational, free from the “cold, rational, and deeply bureaucratic” constraints he felt in Germany.

Xi’s people-centered approach finds confirmation in Ai’s assertion that Beijing’s political climate feels “more natural and humane” than Germany’s. This in my humble view, points toward a deeper cultural and policy shift. Ai portrays Germany as a place where individuals feel “confined and precarious,” struggling under the weight of historical guilt and future uncertainties. This resonates with critiques of Western societies, where economic inequality, rising populism, and social fragmentation have eroded communal bonds. In Europe, the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with energy crises and migration debates, has heightened a sense of insecurity. Ai’s social isolation in Germany, minimal neighborly interactions, mirrors surveys showing increasing loneliness in Western nations.

China, under Xi, has pursued a different path. Xi’s reforms, as detailed in The Governance of China (Volume III, 2020), prioritize “building a community with a shared future for mankind,” emphasizing social harmony and collective well-being. This includes massive poverty alleviation efforts, lifting nearly 100 million people out of extreme poverty by 2021: a feat Xi describes as ensuring “no one is left behind.”

Such policies foster a society where, as Ai observed in his interview, ordinary people eagerly engage with others, creating a humane environment. Moreover, Xi’s focus on cultural confidence has revitalized community ties. In Volume IV (2023), he advocates for “socialist core values” like civility and harmony, which manifest in everyday life through neighborhood committees, volunteer networks, and cultural events. Ai’s warm reception upon return; people from various professions seeking him out, reflects this. It’s a far cry from the European atomized individualism, where privacy norms can border on alienation.

Critics might argue that China’s harmony comes at the cost of dissent, pointing to tightened controls on expression under Xi. Yet, Ai’s lack of fear during his visit suggests a nuance: while political criticism remains sensitive, daily freedoms, economic mobility, social interaction, access to services, have expanded. Xi’s reforms include “rule of law” initiatives, with over 300 laws revised since 2012 to protect individual rights in non-political spheres. This “selective freedom” may feel more liberating in practice than the West’s more abstract liberties of today.

One must also consider China’s economic transformations in this aspect. Xi’s books outline the “Chinese Dream” of national rejuvenation through innovation-driven growth. Reforms like the Belt and Road Initiative and dual circulation strategy have bolstered domestic resilience, reducing reliance on Western systems that Ai found unreliable. Xi critiques European protectionism in his writings, advocating for open economies. Ironically, Ai, once a Western darling, now embodies the pitfalls of this approach, his accounts closed perhaps due to his Chinese ties, highlighting how geopolitical insecurities undermine personal freedoms. In China, Xi’s anti-corruption drive has stabilized institutions, ensuring accounts like Ai’s remain intact despite dormancy. This stability contributes to the “unfree” feeling Ai ascribes to Germany, which he says, “plays the role of an insecure and unfree country, struggling to find its position between history and future.”

Xi’s reforms, by contrast, position China as forward-looking, with policies like the 14th Five-Year Plan emphasizing high-quality development and environmental sustainability, creating a sense of progress and security.

So, in conclusion, Weiwei’s reflections serve as a mirror—forcing the West to confront its own contradictions. Germany, with its history of division and reunification, symbolizes the democratic triumph, and yet, Ai’s experiences reveal cracks: overregulation, social coldness, and institutional paranoia.

This isn’t unique to Germany or the EU; similar issues plague the U.S. and U.K., where bureaucratic hurdles in immigration, healthcare, and finance frustrate citizens. Xi’s governance model offers an alternative: efficiency through centralization, humaneness through collectivism. While not without flaws, critics note surveillance and censorship, and so Ai’s endorsement suggests that for many, China’s system delivers tangible freedoms. His words directly challenge the binary of “free West vs. authoritarian East,” urging a reevaluation based on lived realities. Ai Weiwei’s declaration that China feels more humane and freer than Germany isn’t a reversal of his principles, but an evolution based on experience. It underscores the success of Xi Jinping’s reforms in creating a society where bureaucracy recedes, community thrives, and daily life flows unencumbered. As the world grapples with uncertainty, perhaps the West can learn from China’s jade-like reassembly, piecing together a more practical freedom for all?

Author Mats Nilsson LL.M is political analyst and legal historian based in Sweden. See more of his work at The Dissident Club on Substack.

January 29, 2026 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Austrian lawmakers propose to revoke citizenship of former foreign minister

By Lucas Leiroz | January 29, 2026

Anti-Russian persecution in Europe continues to grow significantly, affecting even public figures and state officials. Recently, Austrian politicians proposed in parliament that the country’s former foreign minister, Karin Kneissl, have her citizenship revoked due to alleged “ties” with Russia. This only shows how no one in Europe is truly immune to the current Russophobic wave.

The proposal was made by the Liberal Forum and New Austria (NEOS) parties. Both organizations accuse Kneissl of damaging her country’s international image due to her activities in the Russian media and academic community. Apparently, any kind of collaboration with Moscow is considered a crime in Europe and is sufficient argument to legitimize the revocation of a European citizenship.

In fact, the former minister’s “ties” to Russia are not at all obscure, but public and transparent. Kneissl is known worldwide for her critical stance towards the EU and for having chosen to live in Russia, having moved to the country in 2023. In Moscow, Kneissl participates in academic projects with local think tanks and frequently appears on Russian state television giving opinions as an expert – which is natural, considering her political experience and analytical capacity as an insider in the European institutional scenario.

For Austrian politicians, Kneissl’s attitude of simply living a normal life in Russia as a political analyst and TV commentator is unacceptable. The head of the NEOS parliamentary group, Yannick Shetty, accused Kneissl of spreading negative opinions about Austria abroad, portraying her own country as a “hell” supposedly at the direct behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin. As expected, no evidence of such allegations was presented.

“In [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s service… at the Russian Economic Institute or as a columnist on RT, a channel banned in Austria, Kneissl is symbolically spreading only one message: Austria is the antechamber to hell, Putin’s Russia is the Garden of Eden. Anyone who believes that these appearances are voluntary and done out of pure altruism also believes in Father Frost,” Shetty said.

Austrian citizenship law does allow citizens to lose their citizenship if they “significantly damage the interests or reputation of the Republic.” In theory, Kneissl should not be affected by this rule, considering that she does not attempt to attack the interests or reputation of her own state, but only criticizes the foreign policy of automatic alignment with the EU – which violates even Austria’s own classic principles of neutrality and peace. Unfortunately, many politicians are willing to use the law against the former minister, interpreting her actions as an anti-Austrian attitude instead of a constructive and respectable critique of the country’s administration.

What is being done against Kneissl is in fact a serious violation of European historical values. Freedom of expression and opinion no longer seem to be on the agenda of Austria or the EU. Considering the Austrian state’s historical commitment to neutrality and peace, the violation becomes even more particularly serious. This shows how there are no longer any limits to European Russophobia. In practice, any European citizen who wants to live and work in Russia is subject to the same threats that Kneissl is now suffering.

This type of authoritarian and oppressive practice has the sole objective of spreading fear and preventing other politicians and state officials from making the same decision as Kneissl to openly criticize the EU and its irrational foreign policy of sanctions against Russia. European bureaucrats and their liberal supporters know that EU measures are unpopular, and that criticism of the bloc tends to spread easily in public opinion. Therefore, fearing a crisis of legitimacy, European governments react simply by banning any form of dissenting opinion – severely punishing anyone who thinks independently, even respected public figures.

It is not yet certain that Kneissl will actually lose her citizenship. The legal process for loss of citizenship is long and complex. The accusing parties will have to present evidence that Kneissl is indeed plotting against the interests of the country. However, considering the high level of corruption, liberal ideological fanaticism, and Russophobia within the judicial system of European countries, it is possible that she will indeed lose her citizenship. As a result, she will have no alternative but to simply continue living in Russia, no longer by personal choice, but as a political asylee, since her own country is persecuting her.

This is the natural tendency for all Europeans who dare to think differently from the Russophobic madness of the EU: to emigrate and seek asylum in Russia or anywhere else where freedom of expression is still respected.

Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.

January 29, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

UN experts alarmed by prosecution of students protesting ETH Zurich’s Israel-linked research ties

Al Mayadeen | January 27, 2026

UN human rights experts have condemned Switzerland for penalizing students who participated in peaceful pro-Palestine protests at ETH Zurich, one of the country’s top universities.

The experts said the convictions threaten students’ rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, particularly in the context of ever-growing global concern over the Israeli war on Gaza.

In a statement issued Tuesday, UN experts confirmed they had sent a formal communication to the Swiss government expressing concern after several ETH Zurich students were convicted of trespassing for holding a sit-in demonstration in May 2024.

The students were protesting ETH Zurich’s reported academic partnerships with Israeli institutions during the height of the war on Gaza. The peaceful protest was dispersed by police shortly after it began.

“Peaceful student activism, on and off campus, is part of students’ rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and must not be criminalised,” the UN experts said.

Legal consequences could have long-term impact

Five students have already been convicted of trespassing, receiving suspended fines up to 2,700 Swiss francs ($3,516) along with legal fees exceeding 2,000 Swiss francs. The convictions will remain on their criminal records, potentially discouraging future employers, the UN experts added.

Ten additional students who appealed their sentences are awaiting judgment, while two students were acquitted.

A spokesperson for the Swiss Foreign Ministry confirmed it had received the UN’s message and would respond in due course. ETH Zurich has yet to issue a statement on the matter.

The incident comes amid a wave of student activism related to the Israeli war on Gaza, with similar protests taking place on campuses across Europe and the United States. UN officials warned that penalizing students for non-violent activism undermines the democratic values of academic institutions.

January 27, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Exposed – How the UAE Became Central to Gaza’s Concentration Camp Plot

By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | January 27, 2026

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a key player in the current Gaza Ceasefire and, as Israel’s primary Gulf partner, is proposing major investments in the besieged coastal territory. While the Emiratis portray their role as purely humanitarian, it being the top aid donor since the beginning of the genocide, a much more insidious plot is in fact afoot.

Emirati influence in the Gaza Strip did not begin following October 7, 2023, and has not been limited to humanitarian aid missions. As the leading Arab member nation of the US’s “Abraham Accords”, the UAE exercises considerable power on the political, intelligence, economic, and military levels.

Often, the UAE-Gaza relationship is portrayed as purely humanitarian; the evidence used to suggest this is the $1.8 billion in aid spent on the territory in just over two years. While all the donated humanitarian supplies have certainly been crucial to the population’s survival, a famine was still declared, and the most vulnerable segments of society began to both fall ill and die as a result of the lack of assistance. This was due to Israel’s total blockade for three months, during which flights—both commercial and reportedly military—continued between the UAE and Israel.

While the lack of aid cannot be blamed directly on the UAE, it is largely underreported that, by proxy, Abu Dhabi does share guilt in the suffering of the civilian population in Gaza and seeks to further involve itself in plots designed to torment the Palestinian people.

In May of 2024, after the Israeli military invaded Rafah, closing off the crossing between Egypt and Gaza, the occupying military began forming a group of ISIS-linked gangsters and hardline Salafists, working with them to loot aid entering the Gaza Strip. The first of the groups, led by the now deceased Yasser Abu Shabab, was for months used by Israel to steal humanitarian aid and drip-feed it onto the black market, making it so that the population began to starve.

Later that same year, the Yasser Abu Shabab aid-looting gangs, who worked under Israeli protection and the watch of the occupying military, underwent a facelift and were disingenuously portrayed in the Western corporate media as a grassroots anti-Hamas force. Following the ceasefire that began in January of 2025 and was later violated by Israel in March, these ISIS-linked aid-looting militants returned to the scene in Israeli-supplied tactical gear and began calling themselves the “Popular Forces”.

Then came what was called the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF) privatized aid scheme, which is where the UAE comes into the picture. The GHF transformed into a catastrophe, as Private Military Contractors (PMCs) lured starving Palestinians to aid sites to be gunned down en masse. Well over 2,000 civilians were killed by what they would label a “death trap”.

What many are unaware of is that part of the GHF conspiracy was to use this aid mechanism as a means of mass displacing at least 600,000 Palestinians into a gated concentration camp facility built on the ruins of Rafah. Not only would the GHF’s trigger-happy PMCs be used to support this project, but the ISIS-linked “Popular Forces” death squad, now transformed into an Israeli proxy against Hamas, would police this concentration camp.

Before the GHF’s emergence on the scene, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had reportedly instructed his military to begin the construction of the proposed concentration camp, designed to transfer around 600,000 civilians then living in the Mawasi area.

The United Arab Emirates, under the guise of its “Operation Gallant Knight 3” (al-Faris al-Shahm), which is sold as a purely humanitarian mission, just so happened to coincidentally have been building water desalination facilities in Egypt’s al-Arish, right along the Gaza border.

Emirati state-owned media reported as early as January 2024 that the UAE had built six such water facilities on the Egyptian border, capable of supplying around 600,000 people in Gaza. A real coincidence, considering that the Emiratis just so happened to have prepared the infrastructure for such a concentration camp well before Israel had even publicly proposed it.

When Israel began openly proposing the new concentration camp in Rafah in 2025, before the ceasefire, the UAE openly pledged to help provide water to the new planned “community” in southern Gaza.

This project quickly began to collapse; then came the ceasefire and the dissolution of the infamous GHF. However, the Israelis didn’t give up on their ISIS-linked proxies and instead began creating even more groups, now reaching a total of five separate anti-Hamas militias. It wasn’t long before information started leaking regarding a UAE role in aiding these ISIS-linked groups, which now exist behind Gaza’s so-called “Yellow Line” in the territory that the Israeli military currently controls.

On January 21 of this year, Drop Site News revealed that leaked documents it had seen detailed a plot to construct a new “Planned Community” in Rafah, presented as what the article labeled an “Israeli Panopticon”. On January 23, The Guardian then released a new bombshell piece of information on this “planned community”—set to be built in Israeli-occupied territory as part of the alleged “reconstruction” component of the Gaza ceasefire—the United Arab Emirates is planning to bankroll it.

The likelihood of such a concentration camp facility successfully being constructed on the ruins of Rafah, capable of housing 600,000 people, is still in question—especially given the fact that the attempt to construct a similar model failed before the latest ceasefire. Yet, the mere fact that the Israelis and Emiratis can demonstrably be shown to have been preparing to supply such a community with water, only months into the genocide, is striking.

In addition to its role in backing ISIS-linked death squads in Gaza and supporting the construction of a concentration camp “community” in Rafah, the UAE also provided an economic and logistical lifeline to Israel during its genocide.

Abu Dhabi’s trade ties with Tel Aviv during the genocide escalated, despite occasional Emirati statements of condemnation against Israeli war crimes. A 21% surge in trade occurred in 2025, for example, an increase on the record $3.2 billion in bilateral trade of 2024, during which the Israelis inflicted a man-made famine in Gaza.

Amid mass international airline cancellations and carriers refusing to fly to Israel, the Emiratis continued flights regardless and played a key role as a transit route for Israelis. Dubai even became the top holiday destination for Israelis last year, including for countless Israeli soldiers who were deployed in Gaza.

The key regional diplomatic lifeline for Israel throughout the genocide has been the UAE. In addition to this, the trade corridor created by the Emiratis to aid the Israelis enabled them to survive and partially circumvent the damage caused by the siege imposed on the Red Sea by Yemen’s Ansarallah.

Abu Dhabi also collaborates with the Israelis on their broader foreign policy objectives, including in the construction of an airbase in Somaliland, in Yemen’s Socotra Island, and beyond. The UAE-Israeli alliance is present in the Horn of Africa, across West Asia and North Africa, interfering in the internal affairs of countless nations. They also collaborate on projects to isolate and attack the Muslim Brotherhood, in addition to funding joint anti-Islam propaganda projects.

Then there is the UAE’s role in using the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s former Preventive Security Force head, Mohammed Dahlan, to not only command various initiatives across multiple continents but to push specific agendas in the Gaza Strip, and even the West Bank to a lesser degree.

The High Representative for Gaza in Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” (BoP) is none other than Nickolay Mladenov, who resides in the UAE and in 2021 became the director-general of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi. Mladenov is also a Segal Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)—often described as the think tank arm of the Israel Lobby in the US.

Hiding behind the cover of being Gaza’s “top humanitarian aid donor,” the UAE has managed to work hand in hand with Israel in its projects to destroy the Palestinian people and their cause for statehood.

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.

January 27, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

WEF Calls for ‘Cultural Revolution’ to Promote Lab-Grown Meat

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 26, 2026

Participants at last week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) called for a “cultural revolution” to increase acceptance of lab-grown meat — despite the public’s “terrible” resistance to the products, The Blaze reported.

The meeting, held in Davos, Switzerland, brought together leading global political and business leaders.

During the “Food @ the Edge,” panelist Sam Kass, a senior policy adviser for nutrition during the Obama administration, asked about the growth of “replacements” for “core foods.” The former chef said he doesn’t want to see a future “where we’re starting to drink coffee from a factory as opposed to from a tree.”

Andrea Illy, chairman of the Italian coffee giant illycaffè, countered that “there is a terrible cultural resistance from consumers to accept tech foods” but that he believes such foods “represent the way forward.”

Illy, affiliated with the WEF for over a decade, said reducing meat consumption yields environmental and health benefits. He said that “70% of the ecological footprint of agriculture is due to animal proteins.”

Illy claimed “excessive consumption” of real meat products is the leading cause of noncommunicable diseases — the “number one health problem” in the West. He called for the reduction of real meat consumption to a “healthy” level and for a decades-long “cultural revolution” to get people to consume lab-grown meat.

Experts tout benefits of real meat, question safety of lab-grown alternatives

Internist Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, hit back at Illy’s claims. Since health officials started recommending less meat — which they blamed for certain health conditions — “we had child obesity rise from 4% to 20%,” Nass said. “Childhood Type 2 diabetes doubled. Adult diabetes and prediabetes skyrocketed.” Nass blamed high carbohydrate consumption for the increase.

“Meat is extremely healthy, especially when animals graze on grasses as they were meant to and when they are not fed antibiotics, hormones and contaminated feed,” Nass said. She said the animal feed used in industrial meat production is typically “drenched with glyphosate or grown on sewage sludge.”

Biologist Heidi Wichmann, Ph.D., a member of Make Europe Healthy Again’s advisory committee, said the primary driver of non-communicable diseases is not meat, “but the way food is produced, treated and disconnected from natural biological cycles.”

“Excessive consumption of biologically degraded, highly processed products is problematic, regardless of whether they are of animal or plant origin,” she said.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense, said that while animal agriculture is “an ample source of disease variants,” questions remain about the safety of lab-grown meat.

“Lab-grown meat has all the unknowns of any new technology,” Jablonowski said. “In theory, lab-grown food can be healthy. In practice, only if consumers demand it.”

According to Sayer Ji, chairman of the Global Wellness Forum and founder of GreenMedInfo, these unknowns associated with lab-grown meat include “novel risks” that are not fully studied.

“Many products rely on immortalized cell lines, which by definition evade normal cellular aging and death mechanisms — raising legitimate concerns about oncogenic potential and long-term biological effects,” Ji said.

Technologies like this “centralize food production into highly patented, proprietary systems that displace decentralized, local and farmer-based food networks — a shift away from food sovereignty and toward industrial dependency,” Ji said.

WEF calls development of lab-grown meat from stem cells ‘revolutionary’

The WEF last week released a video promoting lab-grown meat produced from animal stem cells, describing the technology as “revolutionary.”

The video featured Singapore-based Shiok Meats, which grows “meat” and “seafood” from animal stem cells. The WEF said Shiok’s technologyoffers “a promising solution to the environmental and ethical concerns associated with conventional animal agriculture.”

Singapore, which approved the sale of lab-grown meat in 2020, is a global leader in promoting alternatives to conventional meat. In 2024, Singapore approved 16 insects for human consumption.

Several experts suggested that the global elite are pushing to reduce meat consumption by suggesting tactics such as making people allergic to red meat, or convincing wealthy countries to switch to “100% synthetic beef.”

“Narratives had to be created by the globalists to demonize meat,” Nass said. “The push for lab-grown meat comes from the desire to control food by central authorities,” who “want food to only come from outside authorities, who can withhold it if you do not comply — or who make it too expensive and control you that way.”

Seamus Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute, suggested that what “ties all of this together” is “an obsession by what I call the ‘Controligarchs’ — a small, self-appointed elite that believes every aspect of human life must be managed, optimized and ultimately owned by them.”

Seven states, including Florida, Texas and Montana, have banned lab-grown meats. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released new dietary guidelines favoring the consumption of protein, dairy, healthy fats, vegetables and fruit and deemphasizing grains.

Consumers have increasingly rejected alternative meat products. For instance, the stock price of synthetic meat producer Beyond Meat cratered last year, dropping from an all-time high of $240 to less than $1 amid low consumer demand in the U.S.

Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, said, “There is near-zero market demand for this ‘frankenfood’ born of the same intellectual class and lab technicians who have given us poison food and medicine.”

Tucker said producers of synthetic meats “rely on government regulations and restrictions to throttle genuine health and good lives while deprecating what we know is both good for us and delicious.”

WEF: phasing out artificial additives placing ‘stress’ on food industry

Other WEF panelists criticized efforts by the HHS to phase out synthetic dyes and artificial additives in food products.

According to Slay News, Jasmin Hume, founder and CEO of Shiru, an AI-powered “protein discovery company,” said HHS’ recommendations are placing the food industry “under an unprecedented amount of stress.”

Hume claimed removing synthetic ingredients from foods would require significant changes by food manufacturers and would have a negative effect on consumers and the planet.

Nass noted that approximately 10,000 artificial food additives have been approved in the U.S. compared with only about 400 in the European Union. “Companies already know how to produce food without most such additives,” she said.

Slay News reported that Hume’s remarks came as the Trump administration “ramps up its Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) crackdown on ultra-processed junk, synthetic additives, and added sugars,” leaving WEF members “scrambling to defend” synthetic food that faces growing public and political resistance.

Mass vaccinations or culls of livestock linked to lab-grown meat agenda

Politico Europe reported Jan. 16 that authorities in Greece are responding to a nationwide sheep pox outbreak with mass culls of sheep flocks — but are facing increasing pressure to engage in mass vaccination of sheep instead.

According to Politico Europe, many Greek farmers are “begging for vaccines to save their flocks.” Mass vaccination was among the demands of farmers who recently protested against Greek government policies by blocking highways throughout the country.

“Sheep pox is so infectious that global farming regulations require whole herds to be slaughtered immediately after even a single case is detected,” Politico Europe reported. The outbreak has resulted in over 470,000 sheep and goats being culled, and the closure of over 2,500 farms in Greece.

The European Union’s Animal Welfare Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi told Greek authorities last year that vaccination is the only new measure that can stop new sheep pox outbreaks.

The Greek government and its advisers have “repeatedly rejected this option, citing the steep financial consequences and damage to exports” and the fact that no sheep pox vaccine has been approved in Greece or the EU, Politico Europe reported.

Regenerative farmer Howard Vlieger, a member of the board of advisers of GMO/Toxin Free USA, said choosing between mass culling and mass vaccination ignores a tried-and-true method in which farmers “let the ones die that are going to die” and use the surviving animals as the “genetic base for building your seed stock.”

“Vaccine-induced immunity does not replicate the breadth, durability, or ecological integration of naturally acquired immunity, which is what inspired the creation of vaccination but has never been effectively replaced by it,” Ji said.

Bruner, author of “Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, Their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life,” said lab-grown meat and mass culling or vaccination of livestock are part of the “Controligarch worldview.” This includes “centralized control over natural systems in the name of efficiency, safety and sustainability.”

“They seek to replace organic, decentralized life with systems that can be surveilled, patented and governed from the top down,” he said.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

January 27, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

The Board For Peace – Whitewashing Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide

DOC MALIK | January 26, 2026

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January 27, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

French court jails pro-Palestine activist and mother over Gaza genocide speech

Press TV – January 25, 2026

A criminal court in Nice has sentenced pro-Palestine activist and mother Amira Zaiter to 15 months in prison for social media posts denouncing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, as part of a broader effort to suppress anti-genocide speech and silence voices supporting Palestine.

The ruling, delivered on Friday by the Nice criminal court, stands among the harshest penalties imposed in France in recent years for online political expression.

Human rights advocates warn that the sentence reflects a dangerous shift toward criminalizing dissent when it challenges Israeli policies.

Zaiter appeared before the court on January 23 after spending nearly two months in pretrial detention, a period during which authorities separated her from her young daughter and severely limited her contact with the outside world.

Prosecutors brought charges linked to posts published on social media platforms X and Instagram between June 26 and October 13, 2025.

The case centered on her republication of anti-Zionist material, her description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocidal, and her expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas amid Israel’s ongoing aggression.

The prosecution pushed for a two-year prison term, continued detention, inclusion in France’s terrorism offenders database (FIJAIT), a ten-year ban from holding public office, and financial penalties.

Court observers reported that judges found Zaiter guilty of 12 offenses. The court imposed a 15-month prison sentence with immediate incarceration, ordered her registration in the FIJAIT file, and barred her from public office for a decade.

In addition, the court ordered Zaiter to pay 6,200 Euros in damages to several Zionist organizations, including LICRA and CRIF Sud-Est.

The verdict marks Zaiter’s second conviction connected to her outspoken support for Palestine and Hamas.

In November 2024, she received a three-year prison sentence, with two years suspended. That ruling was later reduced by the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal to 18 months, including 12 months suspended and probation.

Zaiter, in her thirties and with no prior criminal record before these cases, is a co-founder of the Nice à Gaza Association.

The current case also referenced a post about Illan Choukroune, a French reservist serving in the Israeli army, whom Zaiter described as genocidal. She stood by her words and expressed shock that such political speech had been treated as hateful.

Defense lawyer Kada Sadouni condemned the ruling as deeply unjust and cautioned that the case raises serious concerns about freedom of expression, public debate, and the systematic silencing of opinions deemed politically inconvenient.

He said the court appeared intent on making an example of Zaiter and confirmed that an appeal remains under consideration.

January 25, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | 1 Comment

U.S. Funds Continue to Flow to Ecuadorian Groups Despite Trump-Era Suspension

teleSUR | January 25, 2026

Ecuadorian foundations, governmental entities, media outlets, private companies, and other organizations continue to receive U.S. financial support according to Foreign Assistance, despite a temporary funding suspension for international aid programs announced by the Trump administration in January 2025.

In 2025, U.S. financial allocations to Ecuador reached USD 59.96 million, representing a 38.06% reduction compared to the USD 96.8 million delivered in 2024.

Despite the decrease, the resources remain significant and primarily come from two sources: the Department of State, with USD 9.19 million, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with USD 35.52 million.

USAID has long been subject of criticism in several countries, including Ecuador, where previous governments have accused it of interference in internal affairs.

Main Beneficiaries

A Radio Pichincha report shows that the Andean Foundation for Media Observation and Study (Fundamedios, in Spanish) received USD 80,701 in 2025 for the “Fostering Accountability through Investigative Reporting (FAIR)” project. This figure is 44% lower than the USD 145,000 it obtained in 2024 from USAID for “Ecuador Verifies,” a coalition that brings together media, civil society organizations, and universities with the goal of underseeing political discourse.

The Pachamama Foundation, dedicated to the conservation of the Amazon rainforest and the “good living” concept in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon, recorded an inverse trend: it went from receiving USD 279,020 in 2024 to USD 1,570,207 in 2025.

This organization was shut down in December 2013 during the administration of President Rafael Correa, following a report by the Ministry of the Interior that determined it was carrying out “actions not included in its statutory purposes and objectives.”

According to a statement from the Ministry of the Environment that year, “with the collaboration of the Ministry of the Interior, it was determined that the NGO was engaging in actions that interfered with public policies, undermining, as stipulated by the Regulations for Social Organizations, the internal security of the state and public peace.”

Its legal status was restored in 2017 under the presidency of Lenin Moreno.

Despite the continuity of funding, several organizations remain on edge over the possibility that the U.S. may decide to suspend or modify its economic assistance in the future, which could force them to cut projects and lead to staff layoffs.

The uncertainty persists even though, between 2019 and 2025, total disbursements reached USD 824 million, with a notable increase since 2022 under the administration of Guillermo Lasso. Between 2022 and 2023 alone, aid exceeded USD 500 million, and between 2024 and 2025, during the government of Daniel Noboa, it surpassed USD 157 million.

January 25, 2026 Posted by | Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Six injured in stabbing spree at Kurdish rally in Antwerp, victims stabbed ‘indiscriminately’

By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | January 23, 2026

Six people were injured, two of them seriously, in a knife attack during a Kurdish demonstration in Antwerp on Thursday evening, Belgian police said.

Four suspects have been arrested, and an investigation into attempted murder has been opened. A second demonstration planned for Friday has been cancelled out of respect for the victims.

The attack took place shortly after 7 p.m. on Operaplein, outside the Antwerp Opera House, where around 300 people had gathered for a demonstration in support of Kurds in northeastern Syria. According to police cited by De Standaard, the protest had been peaceful and was already dispersing when the violence broke out.

“All six victims suffered stab wounds,” Antwerp police spokesman Wouter Bruyns said, as reported by RTL. Four of the injured were found on Operaplein, while two others were located near Rooseveltplaats and Sint-Elisabethstraat. “Two of them are in critical condition,” he added. All victims were taken to the hospital.

Emergency services arrived with several medical teams, and police officers who were already present at the demonstration were able to intervene quickly and provide first aid. Four suspects were arrested at the scene. Bruyns said investigators were still working to determine the exact number of attackers and their motives and were reviewing CCTV footage.

NavBel, the council of Kurdish communities in Belgium, said in a statement that the demonstration had taken place “peacefully and without incident,” with families, women, young people, and children present. “As the gathering was dispersing, the Kurdish demonstrators were attacked by a group of men,” the organization said. “These men had infiltrated the demonstration and suddenly pulled out knives,” stabbing protesters “indiscriminately.”

“People were running in every direction; it was pure chaos,” one eyewitness told Gazet van Antwerpen. Another witness said a group passing by suddenly pulled out knives and began stabbing people who were sitting on the steps of the opera house.

NavBel said that three of the injured were Kurds and announced that a further demonstration scheduled for Friday in Antwerp had been cancelled “out of respect for the victims and in order to preserve serenity.”

The demonstration had been organized to draw attention to the situation in northeastern Syria, where the Islamist government army has moved against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the autonomous region of Rojava. Orhan Kilic, a spokesperson for NavBel, said fears of new human rights violations against Kurds were high, citing the background of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Kilic described the Antwerp stabbing as a “terrorist attack” and urged police to treat it as such. “There were flags, emblems, and so on,” he said. “It clearly involved Kurds who support the SDF.”

Current Syrian President Al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani (al-Julani), was the former leader of the Sunni Islamist militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Protesters say he is responsible for massacres and the displacement of civilians during the civil war

Protesters have also stated that minorities, including Kurds, Alevis, Alawites, and Christians, remain under acute threat in Syria.

January 24, 2026 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Ireland Moves to Legalize Spyware Use by Police

The bill turns state hacking from a covert act into an accepted instrument of law

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | January 23, 2026

Irish police could soon be granted the legal authority to infiltrate phones and encrypted messaging services under new government legislation that would formally approve the use of spyware.

The proposal, contained in the forthcoming Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill, has provoked concern among civil rights groups who say the plan risks eroding basic digital privacy.

Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan has said the new powers are “long overdue,” arguing that they are necessary to deal with organised crime and national security threats that rely on encrypted communications.

The plan would, for the first time, provide An Garda Síochána (the main law enforcement and security agency in the state) with a legal basis for using what the government calls “covert surveillance software” to monitor devices.

This could include collecting information from phones or laptops, recording communications, or interfering with computer networks thought to be used for unlawful purposes.

Officials have indicated that similar powers exist in other countries, though reports suggest the technology under consideration resembles Pegasus, the Israeli-made spyware that was unlawfully used by police to monitor citizens and foreign nationals.

The Department of Justice has said any use of such spyware would be subject to strict judicial authorization.

Under the Bill, investigators could access both the content of communications and the associated “metadata,” which records who contacted whom, when, and from where.

Agencies would also have to declare whether any privileged material, such as communications involving journalists or lawyers, might be affected by their applications.

Officials continue to present the legislation as a practical response to modern crime. Yet this framing ignores what is actually at stake: a quiet authorization for state hacking of private devices.

For years, Ireland has criticized other nations for digital overreach, from the misuse of facial recognition abroad to the abuse of spyware uncovered in Europe.

Now, its own government is preparing to legalize similar tools under the banner of security. The right to communicate privately is one of the last real protections citizens have from constant scrutiny.

If this Bill passes in its current form, that protection could quietly disappear, not through scandal or crisis, but through a line in legislation that makes surveillance a normal feature of everyday life.

January 24, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

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