‘The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate and contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.’ – John F. Kennedy
I do not think that anyone can write about Covid without first recognising that the facts, may not actually be ‘the facts.’
My trust in medical research has been gradually draining away for the past forty years or so. I am uncertain how much remains. I do not have a handy ACME ‘trustometer’ to slap on my forehead, but I sense my levels are certainly below fifty per cent – and falling. I shall let you know when they reach zero.
There was certainly a rapid drop during Covid. Accelerated by the emergence of ‘fact checkers.’ If a group of people could be more ironically named, then I would love to hear of them. The idea that someone can be an officially verified ‘checker of the facts’ is so inimical to science that they should have been laughed out of existence the moment they appeared. Sadly not. Soviet Union anyone?
Richard Feynman believed that the very definition of science is the process of questioning, and that scientists must be sceptical. Or, as he once said. ‘Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.’ I have regularly been ‘accused’ of being a professional sceptic. My reply is usually ‘thanks, I consider that a great compliment. You, on the other hand …’
As I delved into medical research papers over the years, one painful reality emerged. Which is that you need to be wary of the findings contained therein. I came to learn that, at least in certain cases, I only needed to look at which institution the research came from and who the authors were, to know which ‘camp’ they were in. At which point I could tell you everything the paper was going to say – to paraphrase. ‘We have found that everything we previously said was absolutely correct.’ No need to read it.
Of course, this only works for areas I have been studying for many years, where the terrain is very familiar. Give me a paper on quantum physics and I would have to read the whole damned thing. Then accept that I have not the slightest idea what they are talking about.
In the world of Covid research, two camps emerged very rapidly. There was ‘establishment’ camp, or the ‘accepted narrative’ camp and the ‘alternative’ camp’. Or, as I initially thought of them, the roundheads and the cavaliers [English civil war analogy – for my overseas readers]. As far I could tell, fact checkers were fully paid-up supporters of the roundheads.
Which meant that you could write an article wildly overestimating the infection fatality rate, and nothing would be said. The fact checkers would rouse themselves momentarily, then airily wave it through. However, dare to suggest the Infection fatality rate was lower than the mainstream view, and all hell would break loose. Or, at the beginning of the Covid sage, dare to suggest that the Sars-Cov-2 emerged from a biolab in Wuhan. ‘Off with his head’.
It didn’t take too long before I decided to rename the two camps the ‘Faucistas’, and the ‘Partisans.’ Although I know there should not be two sides in a scientific discussion. We are not at war. Those who question, and probe, have a vital role to play in science.
They, we, are trying to ensure that the accepted ideas are as robust as possible. If the mainstream facts are correct, they will resist all assaults. If they cannot resist, they should wither and die, to be replaced by something far stronger. Or at least that is how I hope it works.
This is a slightly long-winded way of saying that, when it comes to Covid the first thing you have to do with any ‘fact’ is to ask where it came from. A Faucista, or a partisan. Then apply the ‘Kendrick bias constant’ to determine its validity. A figure that only exists in my head, and even I am not sure what size it is, which way round it goes, or how to use it.
You also need to accept that research is often far from clear cut, and the findings may simply be … wrong. Twenty years ago, John Ioannidis published his seminal paper called: ‘Why most published research findings are false.’ It is one of the most widely read medical research papers, ever.1
‘There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false … Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.’
The prevailing bias. I like that term. Perfectly polite yet still damning.
Was he correct, are most research findings false? Well, he has his own biases, as we all do. I still like to believe that the majority research can be relied on, at least to some extent. Boring, but reliable – yet still boring. However, there are areas where he is right about the influence of prevailing bias. Places where findings are more likely to be false than true.
I believe that Covid became one such area very quickly. Within a matter of weeks, you were a Faucista – the group which certainly had the support of the vast majority. Or you were a partisan. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
I believe the polarisation in this area was so rapid and intense in large part because of the huge amount of money that was getting burned, and the need to justify that cost. The UK spent around four hundred billion pounds (~$500Bn) on Covid measures. Maybe even more – I think it was more. Enough to fund the NHS, in its entirely, for three years. The figure from the US was ‘officially’ four point six trillion. Four …point …six …trillion … gasp, thud.2
In addition to the money, there was the unprecedented disruption of everyday life. Far greater than anything seen outside a full-scale war. There was also the damage to children’s education and everyone’s mental health. The other diseases left undiagnosed and untreated, the massive debt and residual damage to public services, the clampdown on human freedoms … The list is long. More harm than good? That is the question.
A huge amount was at stake. So many reputations, both scientific and political, became bound to the ‘accepted narrative’ camp. If the narrative went down, so did they, with all hands-on deck. Thus, all the measures taken had to be found worthwhile, or at the very at least, excusable. ‘It was all very difficult, no-one knew what was going on. We had to do something …A big boy made me do it.’
Very rapidly, the Faucistas built themselves a mighty citadel, bristling with armaments, and fact checkers. Everyone within that citadel became hair trigger sensitive to the slightest perceived ‘enemy’ touch. Ready to react with ruthless bombardment. Along with personal attacks on whoever stated them.
The Great Barrington Declaration for instance, which proposed focussing protection on the elderly, and allowing the virus to take its course in younger populations. Where the risk of death was exceedingly low. This was universally condemned. Along with its authors. Here is one press release, out of many, many…
20 public health organizations condemn herd immunity scheme for controlling spread of COVID-19.
‘If followed, the recommendations in the Great Barrington Declaration would haphazardly and unnecessarily sacrifice lives. The declaration is not a strategy, it is a political statement… What we do not need is wrong-headed proposals masquerading as science.’3
‘Unnecessarily sacrifice lives… Wrong-headed proposals masquerading as science …’ Who dares pop their head over the parapet after such attacks? Only the brave, or foolhardy. As for debate … you must be joking. I was invited to talk at an anti-lockdown rally in September 2020, in Edinburgh. I gave a talk. The organiser was threatened with five years in jail. Luckily that has all gone very quiet.
Sweden, alone amongst European countries, decided not to lockdown, or perhaps you could call what they did lockdown ‘lite’. Schools, restaurants and bars remained open. People travelled on public transport. This approach, too, was universally condemned. It was stated that Dr Tegnell (chief epidemiologist) and Stefan Löfven (the prime minister), were…
‘… playing Russian roulette with the Swedish population,” Carlsson said. “At least if we’re going to do this as a people … lay the facts on the table so that we understand the reasons. The way I am feeling now is that we are being herded like a flock of sheep towards disaster…
… Leading experts last week were fiercely critical of the Swedish public health authority in an email thread seen by state broadcaster SVT, accusing it of incompetence and lack of medical expertise.’4
But the Swedes held out. Which took some nerve, whilst their own medical experts were screaming blue bloody murder in the background. Things changed. Now the accepted wisdom is that the Swedish people effectively locked themselves down, without being told to. Being such a great public-spirited people. ‘Oh yes, I think that fully explains their figures … ahem, don’t you?’
Why this change in outlook? From outrage to a widely accepted explanation, and a collective shrug. I suspect it may be that, in comparison to other European countries, Sweden ended up with a death rate below that of:
Bulgaria
Hungary
Bosnia Herzegovina
North Macedonia
Croatia
Montenegro
Georgia
Czechia
Slovakia
San Marino
Lithuania
Greece
Latvia
Romania
Slovenia
UK
Italy
Poland
Belgium
Portugal
Russia
They were within touching distance of Spain, Ukraine and France and – just to mention another Nordic country – Finland. Certainly, a long way below the US.
If lockdowns needed to be so harsh, or even instituted at all, why was Sweden not at the very top of this, and every other list? Answer, whisper it … Because lockdowns were ineffective? ‘Off with his head.’
No, don’t be silly, it is because the Swedes locked themselves down. And here is the evidence … [insert non-existent evidence here]. Memo to self. Just saying a thing does not make it true.
‘Overall, there’s no evidence that Sweden had a “voluntary lockdown”. Mobility changed far less there than in most other Western countries.’ 5
But what was it that drove the lockdowns around the world?
The Covid Infection Fatality Rate?
The accepted narrative around Covid developed very rapidly. It is a highly contagious and deadly disease with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of close to three per cent – you may have forgotten that figure. Perhaps you were unaware it ever existed.
The WHO provided an early estimate that eleven million Americans may die, discussed as part of a masterful essay by Jay Bhattacharya. One of the authors of the Great Barrington declaration, and now director of the National Institutes of Health. Oh, the irony. 6
The worldwide population is approximately eight billion. Using the initial WHO figures we would have seen two hundred and fifty million deaths. Equivalent to the Spanish flu – which is where I suspect the 3% figure was initially plucked from. Hospitals around the world would be overwhelmed. Millions would die if we did not act fast and hard. Something had to be done.
That ‘something’ was lockdowns. It included the widespread use of masks, restriction on travel, closed borders, closed schools, closed entertainment venues and restaurants, workplace closures, social distancing, test and trace, the rush to bring out vaccines, and so on. These actions became unquestionable and inseparable. All of them had to be equally defended.
Trying to get a handle on the Infection fatality rate
The three per cent IFR figure was downgraded rapidly and ended up hovering at around one per cent – or thereabouts. An IFR of one per cent means that, if one hundred people become infected with the SarsCov2 virus, then one will die. Is this … was this, does this remain a fact? At the start of Covid I became obsessed with trying to work out what the Infection Fatality Rate might be. Does it really matter?
I believe it drove everything. The 1% IFR is, to quote from Lord of the Rings: the one ring that finds them, and in the darkness binds them. If the IFR was 1%, then I think everyone can just about manage to assure themselves that all their actions were justifiable.
An IFR of 1% would have meant nearly three million deaths in the US, and well over half a million in the UK. Yes, it might not have been the Spanish flu, but ‘things’ obviously had to be done?
What about half a per cent? At this level the argument begins to look pretty damned shaky. An IFR of half a per cent, or below, would be the iceberg that sank the great lockdown ship Titanic. This, the IFR, is probably the most important fact that we need to establish.
Can we ever know the infection fatality rate of Sars-Cov2?
I know that most people would love a concrete fact here. Confirmation that the IFR of Covid was 0.213, or 0.934, or whatever. But I don’t think that is possible. Concrete facts here are very difficult to find. Or at least, facts that you can rely on. Read journal A you get one figure. Read journal B, and you get another. I can give you a thousand figures.
It also does very much depend on the age you are looking at. In the age group, nought to nineteen, the IFR was 0.00003% – in the first scientific paper that comes up on a Google search. That is three per million.
In the UK there are approximately twelve million in that age group. Which means that Covid may have resulted in thirty-six deaths. If, that is, everyone of that age ended up infected.7 Almost the same number who drown yearly – in that age group.
Moving back to the overall fatality figure rate, Imperial College London (ICL) in late 2022 concluded that it was 1.15%. But we already know which camp Neil Fergusion and the ICL was in. They were the original Faucistas. In this study they found that everything they said previously was absolutely correct. By the authority of … them.8
A well-known, and reasonably reliable worldwide resource is Worldometer, which kept a running count of Covid cases and deaths from every country. It stopped counting in April 2024. The grand totals on Worldometer, now frozen in time, were that there had been seven hundred million coronavirus cases worldwide, with almost exactly seven million deaths. Which represents an IFR of precisely one per cent. 9
My goodness, independent verification that Neil Ferguson and Imperial College were bang on with their modelling. Well, Ferguson did predict an IFR of 0.9% but what’s 0.1% between friends. And if we look at China on Worldometer, it tells us we had almost exactly five hundred thousand cases, with five thousand deaths. Again, an IFR of one per cent, bang on.
Case closed? Hang on, you might wish to probe a little deeper into, for instance, the Chinese figures. According to Worldometer, the population of China is around one point four billion and there were five hundred thousand reported cases of Covid. Which means that one in three hundred people caught Covid [precise figure 0.36%].
In comparison, sixty per cent of the population in Greece caught Covid. Which is two hundred times greater. This seems a remarkably large difference. The sort of difference you may struggle to believe.
What of the death rates? China ended up with four deaths per million of the population. A figure very similar to DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), which had three deaths per million. Strange that.
In Greece, on the other hand, they had four thousand deaths per million. One thousand times higher than China.
As for total deaths.
Greece: with a population of ten million had 37,869 deaths.
China: with a population of one point four billion had 5,272 deaths.
Personally, I find one of these figures to be more believable than the other.
Turning back to the overall figures from Worldometer. There were just over seven hundred million reported cases of Covid in total. Which means that around 9% of the world’s population became infected. Seven hundred million out of eight billion.
This is a very long way off the ninety per cent figure that Neil Ferguson predicted in his model. He predicted 90%, Worldometer says 9%. Once again, a bit of an echoing gap.
If Worldometer is right, and only 9% of the population did become infected, and the IFR was 0.9%, the UK would never have seen five hundred thousand deaths – as predicted by Neil Fergusion in his hugely influential model.
His model was, essentially.
IFR 0.9%, percentage infected 90%. Population of the UK 69m:
69,000,000 x 0.9% x .9 = 558,900
However, if only 9% become infected, this figure falls by a factor of ten:
69,000,000 x 0.9% x .09 = 55,890
This is not a great deal more than a bad flu year.
Returning to the age group nought to nineteen, if only 9% of them became infected we would have seen four deaths instead of a possible thirty-six. Which would have made school closures and the social isolation of children virtually indefensible. Sorry, leave out the word virtually.
As you can gather, the overall rate of infection, and the IFR, are intimately linked when it comes to the overall impact of an infective disease. An issue little discussed. But do you think it might be important? Answer… yes.
Which facts are facts?
At this point I suppose I need to ask. Do you believe that the coronavirus figures collated by Worldometer are ‘facts?’ Or do you believe some of them are, and others are not. In which case, which ones would you like to believe. To quote the late, great, singer songwriter John Martyn. ‘Half the lies you tell me are not true.’
Wherever you look, there is uncertainly, and disagreement. Completely different facts and figures can be found everywhere. When it comes to IFR, John Ioannidis came up with an IFR figure of 0.23% for higher income countries.10
Nature published a figure ranging between 0.79 – 1.82% (for higher income countries). The average between 0.79 and 1.82 is 1.3%.11 As you have worked out for yourself, 1.3% is nearly six times more than 0.23%.
Which IFR is correct? Which is a fact? And why did the Nature study only look at higher income countries? Surely lower income countries should have fared worse – in that they could not afford to lockdown, and did not, and the standard of medical care would have been significantly lower, so more should have died?
I suspect lower income countries were ignored because, on paper, they all had very low death rates. Or very low reported death rates anyway. Just to choose a lower income African country at random … Chad. They reported one hundred and ninety-four covid deaths out of a population of seventeen million. Which is eleven deaths per million. In fact, according to Worldometer, Covid passed Africa by.
How could this be? In most higher income countries people of African origin were significantly more likely to die than the surrounding population. In the UK, Black British had a mortality rate of 273 per 100,000. Whereas those identifying as White, had a rate of 126. Less than half.12 [Figures from the office of national statistics, and as you may have noticed these figures demonstrate and IFR of 0.273% for Black British, and 0.126% for White British].
Given this, it is difficult to argue that Black Africans, in Africa, were genetically protected, in some way. Although, it has to be added that the average age in African countries is significantly lower than in, say, the UK – and that would have had an impact on Covid related deaths – although nothing that could remotely explain the reported figures.
I also lean towards Ioannidis because I believe him to be a well-established objective seeker of the truth. He has long been a thorn in the side of what I shall call, politely, ‘official narratives.’ Other researchers, and journals, have a strong tendency towards those twin curses of human thought. Confirmation bias and groupthink. As for the fact checkers, which figures do you think they prefer? The higher, the better.
Which leads us inevitably to the question who, or what facts, do you choose to believe … or not believe. In later articles I will tell you what I believe to be the most probable IFR for Covid. And I will tell you why this figure is reasonably accurate.
Before we reach that point, I want to highlight some more of the many issues that make it difficult to be certain about anything. There are so many of them. Just to list a few important ones:
PCR testing – how accurate is it/was it?
False positive, false negatives. Did they raise, or lower, the IFR?
How do you determine if someone died of Covid – or simply died with Covid?
How many times were people infected – and how much would this affect the IFR?
Could you be exposed to Covid, and brush it aside, without becoming ‘infected’ or raising detectable antibodies?
The impact of continuing to count Covid deaths for more than three years – over the lifespan of many different variants – did this create an artificially high IFR?
What protection did vaccination provide?
Financial benefits of diagnosing Covid, did this lead to overdiagnosis?
Could aggressive treatment have been damaging, and possibly fatal?
How many people reported they had Covid, when they did not?
Which countries may have been economical with the truth about their Covid statistics?
Does the Sarv-Cov2 virus exist?
Each of these issues represents a minefield, with conflicting ‘facts’ stretching to the far horizon. Each of them capable of shifting the IFR significantly – downwards.
Does this mean we can never really know what happened with Covid? Even to answer such a superficially straightforward a question as how many died is tricky. Indeed, most facts about Covid tend to crumble when you apply a little pressure. But I think we can navigate a course, or sorts.
Next. Starting with an easy one. Does the Sars-Cov-2 virus exist? Easy …?
The Israeli authorities are preventing the wife of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, Nael Barghouti, and the family of prisoner Khalil Abu Al-Rub from travelling to Egypt to welcome their relatives, who are scheduled to be released on Saturday, according to reports by the Prisoners’ Media Office on Friday.
The office revealed in a statement: “The occupation intelligence is preventing the wife of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, Nael Barghouti (Abu Al-Nour), from travelling, as she was heading to Egypt to greet her husband who will be released tomorrow in the Al-Aqsa Flood deal.”
The statement added: “The occupation intelligence is preventing the family of prisoner Ashraf Khalil Hussein Abu Al-Rub from travelling to greet their son who is being deported to Egypt.”
Prisoners Barghouti and Abu Al-Rub are among the prisoners who are being deported and exiled from Palestine while their families reside in the occupied West Bank. They are scheduled to be released on Saturday as part of the seventh batch released as part of the prisoner exchange deal.
Earlier on Friday, the Prisoners’ Information Office in the Gaza Strip announced that Israel would release 602 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday, including 50 sentenced to life and 60 serving long sentences.
On January 25th, prominent Palestinian-American journalist and activist Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website, was violently arrested by undercover operatives in Switzerland, en route to a speaking event.
He proceeded to spend three days and two nights in jail completely cut off from the outside world, during which he was interrogated by local defense ministry intelligence apparatchiks without access to a lawyer or even being informed why he was being imprisoned.
Abunimah was then deported in the manner of a dangerous, violent criminal.
Abunimah’s ordeal caused widespread outcry, not least due to Switzerland being the oldest ‘neutral’ state in the world. Such is Bern’s apparently indomitable commitment to this principle, that it initially refused to join the UN lest its neutrality be compromised, only becoming a member in September 2022, following a public referendum.
Moreover, the country routinely scores highly – if not highest – in Western human rights rankings, and has provided a safe haven for foreign journalists and human rights activists fleeing repression.
Abunimah’s flagrantly political persecution and ruthless treatment, undoubtedly motivated by his indefatigable solidarity with Palestine, stands at total odds with Swiss neutrality.
So too Bern’s secret, little-known involvement in Operation Gladio. Under the auspices of this monstrous Cold War connivance, the CIA and MI6 constructed underground shadow armies of fascist paramilitaries that wreaked havoc across Europe, carrying out false flag terror attacks, robberies, and assassinations to discredit the left, install right-wing governments, and justify crackdowns on dissent.
Switzerland’s Gladio unit was known as Projekt-26, the numerals referring to the country’s separate cantons. Its existence was uncovered in November 1990, as a result of an unrelated Swiss parliamentary investigation triggered months earlier.
This probe was launched after it was revealed local security services had kept detailed secret files on 900,000 citizens, almost one-seventh of the country’s total population, throughout the Cold War.
The inquiry found during the same period, P-26 operated “outside political control”, and specifically targeted “domestic subversion”. Its membership ran to around 400, with “most” being “experts” in “weapons, telecommunications and psychological warfare.”
The unit moreover “maintained a network of mostly underground installations throughout Switzerland,” and was commanded by “a private citizen who could mobilize the force without consulting [the] army or government.”
Parliamentarians also concluded that P-26 “cooperated with an unidentified NATO country.”
It was some time before that “NATO country” was confirmed to be Britain. Subsequent investigations shed significant light on London’s mephitic relationship with P-26, and the unit’s role within the wider Operation Gladio conspiracy.
Much remains unknown about the extent of its activities, and will most certainly never emerge. But while P-26 was officially disbanded after its public exposure, the recent persecution of Abunimah strongly suggests MI6 continues to exert unseen influence over Switzerland’s politics, intelligence, military and security apparatus today.
‘A Scandal’
Discovery of P-26 prompted a dedicated inquiry into Switzerland’s “stay behind” network, overseen by local judge Pierre Cornu. It was not until April 2018 that a truncated version of his 100-page-long report was released, in French.
No English translation has emerged since, and a dedicated multi-page section on P-26’s relationship with US and British intelligence is wholly redacted.
Still, the report acknowledged the unit’s operatives were trained in Britain – Gladio’s secret “headquarters” – and remained in regular, covert contact with London’s embassy in Bern.
Oddly, a 13-page summary of Cornu’s report, published in September 1991, was far more revealing. It noted that British intelligence “collaborated closely” with P-26, “regularly” tutoring its militants in “combat, communications, and sabotage” on its home soil. British advisers – likely SAS fighters – also visited secret military sites in Switzerland.
Numerous formal agreements were signed between the clandestine organization and London, the last being inked in 1987. These covered training, and supply of weapons and other equipment.
Describing collaboration between British intelligence and P-26 as “intense”, the summary was deeply scathing of this cloak-and-dagger bond, describing it as wholly lacking “political or legal legitimacy” or oversight, and thus “intolerable” from a democratic perspective.
Until P-26’s November 1990 exposure, elected Swiss officials were purportedly completely unaware of the unit’s existence, let alone its operations. “It is alarming [MI6] knew more about P-26 than the Swiss government did,” the summary appraised.
P-26 was moreover backed by P-27, a private foreign-sponsored spying agency, partly funded by an elite Swiss army intelligence unit. The latter was responsible for monitoring and building up files on “suspect persons” within the country, including; “leftists”; “bill stickers”, Jehovah’s Witnesses, citizens with “abnormal tendencies”; and anti-nuclear demonstrators.
To what purpose this information was put isn’t clear. Many documents detailing the activities of both P-26 and P-27 and the pair’s coordination with British intelligence, apparently couldn’t be located while Cornu conducted his investigation.
Obfuscating the picture even further, in February 2018 it was confirmed 27 separate folders and dossiers amassed during Cornu’s probe had since mysteriously vanished.
Local suspicions this trove was deliberately misplaced or outright destroyed to prevent embarrassing disclosures about “neutral” Switzerland’s relationship with US and British intelligence, and NATO, emerging abound to this day.
At the time, Josef Lang, a left-leaning former Swiss lawmaker and historian, who had long called for the Cornu report to be released in unredacted form, declared:
“There are three possibilities: the papers were shredded, hidden, or lost, in that order of likelihood. But even if the most innocent option is the case, that’s also a scandal.”
‘Clandestine Networks’
The unsolved murder of Herbert Alboth amply reinforces the conclusion that shadowy elements within and without Switzerland were sure that certain facts about the country’s involvement with Operation Gladio would never be known.
A senior intelligence operative who commanded the “stay behind” unit during the early 1970s, in March 1990 Alboth secretly wrote to then-Defence Minister Kaspar Villiger, promising that “as an insider” he could reveal “the whole truth” about P-26. This was right when Swiss parliamentarians began investigating the secret maintenance of files on “subversives”.
Alboth never had an opportunity to testify. A month later, he was found dead in his Bern apartment, having been repeatedly stabbed in the stomach with his own military bayonet.
Contemporary media reports noted a series of indecipherable characters were scrawled on his chest in felt pen, leaving police “puzzled”.
Strewn around his home were photographs of senior P-26 members, “stay behind” training course documents, “exercise plans of a conspiratorial character,” and the names and addresses of fellow Swiss spies.
On November 22nd, 1990, one day after P-26 was formally dissolved, the European Parliament passed a resolution on Operation Gladio.
It called for the then-European Community, and all its member states, to conduct official investigations “into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the countries concerned,” their involvement in “serious cases of terrorism and crime,” and “collusion” with Western spying agencies.
The resolution warned:
“These organizations operated and continue to operate completely outside the law since they are not subject to any parliamentary control and frequently those holding the highest government and constitutional posts are kept in the dark as to these matters… For over 40 years [Operation Gladio] has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO… Such clandestine networks may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of member states or may still do so.”
Yet, outside formal inquiries in Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, nothing of substance subsequently materialized. Today, we are left to ponder whether Gladio’s constellation of European “stay behind” armies was ever truly demobilized, and if British intelligence still directs the activities of foreign security and spying agencies under the noses of elected governments.
Given London’s intimate, active complicity in the Gaza genocide and ever-ratcheting war on Palestine solidarity at home, Abunimah is an obvious target for the MI6 spy agency.
So too Richard Medhurst, a British-born, Vienna-residing independent journalist arrested upon arrival at London’s Heathrow airport in August 2024 on uncertain “counter-terror” charges.
On February 3rd, Austrian police and intelligence operatives ransacked his home and studio, confiscating many of his possessions, including all his journalistic materials and tools, before detaining and questioning him for hours.
Believing this to be no coincidence, Medhurst asked the officers if London had ordered the raid. An officer replied, “No, Britain doesn’t talk to us.”
Coincidentally, Austria is another ostensibly “neutral” country in which MI6 was embroiled in Operation Gladio. Following World War II, British intelligence armed and trained a local “stay behind” cell comprised of thousands of former SS personnel and Neo-Nazis.
Innocently named the Austrian Association of Hiking, Sports and Society, like its Swiss counterpart, the unit operated with such secrecy that “only very, very highly positioned politicians” were aware.
For his part, Medhurst is absolutely convinced London is behind his persecution:
“Some of these Austrian accusations are very similar to the British ones… I think it’s being coordinated with Britain… British police seized a Graphene OS device from me and [it’s] very unlikely they’d be able to crack it… I suppose that’s why Britain asked the Austrians to raid me, grab anything they could find and go on this massive fishing expedition,” he said.
“The warrant even mentions my arrest in London to try and bolster their case.”
The Canada Files spoke to Canadian lawyer and journalist Dimitri Lascaris, about the Montreal police’s persecution of author Yves Engler, in retaliation for Engler repeatedly criticizing Canadian Zionist fanatic Dahlia Kurtz.
Police in Canada have arrested a Canadian activist and author for criticizing Israel and its genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Yves Engler, a vocal critic of Israel and the Canadian military complex, was arrested on Thursday after Dahlia Kurtz, a Zionist influencer, accused him of harassment.
“Tomorrow the Montreal police will arrest me for posting to social media against Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Engler said in an article on Wednesday after Montreal Police reached out to him about their plans to arrest him because of Kurtz’s complaint.
Pointing out that he had “responded to Kurtz’s racist, violent, anti-Palestinian posts on X”, Engler said he had not harassed the influencer, who “supports killing Palestinian children” and “openly calls for state violence against those challenging Canadian complicity in genocide.”
“I’ve never met Kurtz. Nor have I messaged or emailed her. Nor have I threatened her. I don’t even follow her on X (Twitter’s algorithm puts her posts in my feed).”
The father of two was taken into custody on Thursday morning and appeared before a judge later in the day. He spent the night in jail, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday.
After he publicized his scheduled arrest, police pledged new charges of “harassing” police and “obstructing” their work against Engler… Full article
With one stroke of his pen, President Trump accomplished what we have been fighting for over the last 4 years – an end to college and university Covid-19 vaccine mandates. He signed an executive order to halt federal funding to all schools, including colleges and universities, that still impose Covid-19 vaccine mandates on students. While there are only 15 colleges and universities left mandating these shots, the magnitude of his message to higher education leaders should not be underestimated.
Covid-19 vaccine mandates on healthy young adults were never based on scientific data or sound reasoning, but they were harshly implemented nonetheless. These policies coerced a captive population of students to choose between abandonment of their college programs and dreams for the future or complying with decisions over bodily autonomy made by the “experts.”
Beginning in the spring of 2021, colleges and universities mandated students to take shots that never protected against infection or transmission of Covid-19. These mandates were imposed with the mantra that injections were the best way to “protect our community” from severe illness and death – a claim that proved false by the summer of 2021 just prior to mandated compliance for fall 2021 enrollment.
In fact, colleges that never had Covid-19 vaccine mandates had less infections and have no recorded history of severe illnesses or death among their campus communities as compared to colleges that did. It was easy to analyze these data using the colleges’ own Covid infection and vaccination rate dashboards until most of them scrubbed the dashboards from their college websites.
Over 1,000 colleges announced Covid vaccine mandates by the summer of 2021. After a concerted campaign by No College Mandates and other advocacy groups, by the spring of 2022, colleges had slowly begun dropping them. By the summer of 2023, very few colleges imposed the mandates on faculty and staff, but students were still required to comply.
Until this executive order, which tasked our new Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to develop a plan to end these coercive policies, our nation’s entire academic apparatus seemed perfectly fine with the continued application of these mandates on students. For example, at CSU Dominguez Hills and CSU Cal Poly Humboldt, only residential students are required to show proof of Covid vaccination prior to enrollment. At Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges only students are required to take Covid vaccines. No other members of the college community must comply.
Coercive and mandatory policies such as these alerted many of us to the fact that student health was not at the forefront of administrators’ concerns. Somehow, they perpetuated the draconian notion that only students were to blame for spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus and that only students must comply to put an end to the pandemic. College leaders knew such strategies were incoherent and illogical, yet they persisted almost entirely unchallenged.
From the very start, many of us lost trust in the hypocrisy of such inconsistencies. It was downright crazy for students to have to put up with such nonsense and risk injury from taking novel and needless medical treatments in the name of “protecting the community.” This is why we refused to stop shining a light on the injustice of it all.
It is with deep gratitude to President Trump and his team for keeping his promise and ending all federal funding to colleges and universities that continue these unnecessary and dangerous Covid-19 vaccine policies. There was zero science or reasoning to support them, and this new executive order might just prevent similar dictates from ever happening again.
But our work is far from done.
Healthcare students are still being forced to choose between their dreams and their autonomy to access hospitals and clinical facilities. To graduate, healthcare students must complete their clinical rotations, and hospitals and clinical facilities have required that these students take updated Covid vaccines even when faculty and staff no longer must comply. There is zero rationale for this patently retaliatory discrepancy.
In Florida, it is against the law for any “a business entity [to] require any person to provide any documentation certifying vaccination…or postinfection recovery from COVID-19, or require a COVID-19 test, to gain access to, entry upon, or service from the business operations in this state or as a condition of contracting, hiring, promotion, or continued employment with the business entity.”
When I called the University of Florida Nursing Program a few weeks ago, however, I was told students are required to receive updated Covid vaccines to complete clinical programs with some providers. Making matters worse, some colleges smugly refuse to disclose these requirements to prospective or even enrolled students, often leaving them to learn about them in the final year of their program.
Ironically, but perhaps not unexpectedly, UF Nursing posted on X just last week that there is a nationwide nursing shortage including in the State of Florida. It blows my mind that those who determine policies affecting the training of our nation’s nurses were somehow unaware that their coercive and nonsensical policies would likely lead to such shortages. After No College Mandates drew attention to this on X, UF Nursing deleted the post.
In Montana, there is a similar problem. Montana law prohibits discrimination based on Covid vaccine status yet the Emergency Medical Technician program at Helena College still requires students to take Covid vaccines to enroll.
I have reached out to representatives in both states to report the college programs that are not following state law because if there is anything I have learned over the past several years, colleges and universities will get away with these discriminatory and punitive policies for as long as they can until someone steps in to put an end to them.
It is uncertain what will happen to healthcare majors whose colleges and universities no longer require injections to enroll but whose clinical partner assignments are still requiring them to complete clinical rotations to graduate. So, while President Trump took a huge step forward to end federal funding to colleges and universities that perpetuate unscientific and unreasonable Covid vaccination, it is not nearly enough to end the coercive policies at partner facilities when the unreasonable and unconstitutional mandates remain for many healthcare students who need to complete clinical rotations at those facilities.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention that there are legislative efforts in at least 9 states* to completely ban mRNA shots. Such efforts promise to stop remaining Covid vaccine mandates dead in their tracks. Until we see those efforts make more progress, we will keep pressuring healthcare programs to end partnerships with hospitals and clinics when those facilities require students to receive Covid injections, and we will keep working with state representatives to hold clinical partners accountable for refusing to follow state law.
It is long overdue that our nation’s healthcare academies leave our healthcare students alone to make their own private decisions over what medical measures to take so they can pursue their dreams and help heal our very sick nation.
*On February 15, 2024, the Idaho Senate blocked the vote to ban mRNA vaccines so as of right now Bill S1036 is dead, and Idaho should no longer be on the map of 9 states.
Lucia Sinatra is a recovering corporate securities attorney. After becoming a mother, Lucia turned her attention to fighting inequities in public schools in California for students with learning disabilities. She co-founded NoCollegeMandates.com to help fight college vaccine mandates.
The BBC has faced significant criticism after removing a documentary about Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip from its iPlayer platform.
The documentary, titled, “Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone,” came under intense scrutiny after it was revealed that one of the featured children, 13-year-old Abdullah Alyazouri, was the son of Dr. Ayman Alyazouri, a deputy minister in the government in the coastal territory.
The territory is ruled by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which has historically defended it in the face of deadly Israeli atrocities, including the regime’s recent 15-month-plus-long war of genocide that has claimed the lives of more than 48,300 Palestinians, mostly women and minors.
The BBC’s decision to pull the documentary followed mounting pressure from pro-Israeli advocates, including the Israeli ambassador to the UK, and statements from British government officials, including Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, who had indicated she would be engaging in discussions with the BBC over the matter.
While the BBC stated it was conducting “further due diligence” on the production, the decision has sparked a fierce debate over media impartiality and the portrayal of Palestinians in the United Kingdom and its various apparatuses.
The British broadcaster said the film “features important stories” about the experiences of children in Gaza, which had to be told, but added that the documentary would not be available on iPlayer while the so-called review was ongoing.
The uproar intensified when it was revealed that the documentary’s minor narrator, Abdullah Alyazouri, was the Palestinian official.
According to reports, Dr. Ayman Alyazouri, deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza, had an academic and professional background that included working with the United Arab Emirates’ government and studying at British universities.
The information prompted a group of 45 Jewish journalists, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, to send a letter demanding the removal of the documentary, labeling Alyazouri as a “terrorist leader.”
Many, however, have come to the defense of the documentary.
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), expressed regret over the BBC’s decision, calling it “a shame” that the documentary was removed under pressure from anti-Palestinian activists who, he argued, had shown little empathy for the suffering of Palestinians in the coastal sliver.
Doyle emphasized that the film offered “valuable insights into what life is like in this horrific warzone” and praised its high-quality production, urging the broadcaster to reinstate the documentary as soon as possible.
The controversy also raised alarms about the BBC’s editorial independence.
Prominent film-maker and journalist Richard Sanders, who has worked on documentaries about Gaza for Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network, called the move a “cowardly decision.”
He warned that if the BBC caved in to pressure from pro-Israeli lobbyists, it would set a “dangerous precedent” for how Palestinian stories were covered in the media.
The film, which depicts the realities that are faced by Palestinian children living under the constant threat of Israeli bombardments, has been described as a means of “humanizing” the plight of the youngest victims of Israeli aggression.
The controversy comes as Gaza continues to endure a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by the Israeli regime’s incessant violations of ceasefire agreement that is supposed to end the genocidal war and a stifling siege imposed by Tel Aviv.
Since the beginning of the siege, thousands of Palestinian civilians, including children, have lost their lives, while many others suffer from severe shortages of food, water, and medical supplies, prompting international human rights organizations to describe the situation there as among the worst in the world.
As part of an ongoing campaign to silence Palestinian voices and diminish international sympathy, pro-Israeli figures, however, have often targeted media coverage that potentially portrays Palestinians in a humanizing light, including in the context of Gaza’s children.
These efforts are seen by many as part of a broader strategy to shield the regime from scrutiny over its barbaric violations across the Palestinian territories.
Apple has effectively told the UK government to get lost when it comes to inserting a worldwide surveillance backdoor into its iCloud encryption. Instead of playing along with Britain’s ever-expanding digital police state, the tech giant has chosen to pull its most secure data protection feature — Advanced Data Protection (ADP) — for users in the UK. Because nothing says “we respect your privacy” like stripping away the very feature designed to protect it.
The whole mess started when the British government, wielding the notoriously invasive Investigatory Powers Act (a law that might as well be named the “We Own Your Data Act”), demanded that Apple sabotage its own encryption. The UK’s authorities wanted a golden key to every citizen’s iCloud storage, under the guise of “public safety.” But here’s the wider issue: the directive wouldn’t only affect Brits — it would have compromised Apple’s encryption system worldwide.
This was an attempt to strong-arm one of the world’s most powerful tech companies into submission, setting a precedent that could crack open user privacy like an egg.
Rather than comply, Apple responded with a very diplomatic version of hell no. Instead of weakening encryption for everyone, the company opted to remove ADP from the UK entirely. In a statement that practically oozed frustration, Apple declared:
“We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by Advanced Data Protection will not be available to our customers in the United Kingdom, given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy.”
They continued, insisting that they remain committed to offering users “the highest level of security” and expressing “hope” that they’ll be able to restore ADP in the UK at some point in the future. That’s corporate-speak for, maybe when your current government stops acting like the digital arm of Big Brother.
Apple’s Advanced Data Protection settings, explaining the use of end-to-end encryption for iCloud data.
The UK government’s demand is just the latest chapter in the global war on encryption. Law enforcement agencies love to claim they need backdoors to stop criminals and terrorists. But here’s the problem: a backdoor for the “good guys” is a backdoor for everyone. Hackers, foreign spies, rogue governments — once you build the skeleton key, you can’t control who picks it up.
So, who benefits from Apple kneecapping its own encryption? Certainly not the average British citizen, who now has weaker privacy protections. Certainly not journalists, activists, or anyone who has ever dared to challenge authority. The only real winners are intelligence agencies and bureaucrats who believe the solution to crime is universal surveillance.
British Apple users who activated Advanced Data Protection (ADP) are now being shoved into an ultimatum straight out of a dystopian novel.
Apple, for its part, has played the game with a stiff upper lip, carefully avoiding any public mention of the UK Home Office’s directive. That’s not because they’re being coy — it’s because acknowledging the order is literally a crime under British law. That’s right: even saying “Hey, the government told us to do this” could land Apple in legal hot water.
But Apple saw this coming. The company had warned Parliament in advance that this exact scenario was likely to unfold. And now that it has, Apple isn’t bending.
“As we have said many times before, we have never built a back door or master key to any of our products or services, and we never will,” the company reiterated in a statement Friday.
That’s as close as you’ll get to a tech giant saying, “Get lost.”
Naturally, the UK government has nothing meaningful to say about all this. When asked about the order, a Home Office spokesperson gave the standard, sterile response:
“We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”
Apple has a long track record of resisting government attempts to weaken encryption, and this move lets it sidestep the demand without technically breaking the law. It’s a clever, if imperfect, workaround. Apple hasn’t outright complied with the UK order, but it also hasn’t directly defied it.
The UK government is, of course, justifying its demands with the usual talking points: criminals, terrorists, child abusers—all the greatest hits. And sure, no one’s arguing that law enforcement shouldn’t go after criminals. The problem is that this strategy treats everyone like a suspect. Remember, this is the same government that plans to spy on everyone’s bank accounts.
The United Kingdom’s latest assault on digital privacy is a national crisis — but it’s also a flashing red warning sign for the rest of the world. By forcing Apple to disable its strongest encryption feature, the UK government has cracked open the door for every surveillance-hungry state on the planet.
And let’s be clear: if Britain, a country that still pretends to value democracy, can do this, then every other government with authoritarian tendencies is taking notes.
A Playbook for Mass Surveillance
This isn’t just about Apple or the UK. This is about setting a precedent. Britain has handed world governments a blueprint for coercing tech companies into submission—secret legal directives, gag orders, and the threat of criminal penalties for even acknowledging government interference.
It’s a dream scenario for regimes that see encryption as an obstacle to control. Once Apple caves in the UK, what’s stopping other countries from making the same demands? The moment a company demonstrates that it will roll back security for one government, it becomes open season for every other government to demand the same—or worse.
The Investigatory Powers Act, lovingly known as the “Snooper’s Charter,” was already one of the most extreme surveillance laws in the Western world. But British lawmakers didn’t stop there. They wanted more power, more access, more control—because in the minds of surveillance bureaucrats, there’s no such thing as too much spying.
By forcing Apple to kneecap Advanced Data Protection, they’ve ensured that British citizens—regular, law-abiding people—are now more vulnerable than ever to cyber criminals, rogue states, and corporate data exploitation. Their personal lives, once protected by some of the strongest encryption available, are now open to abuse.
The real tragedy here isn’t only the immediate impact on Apple users — it’s what this signals for the future. The UK is laying the groundwork for a world where privacy isn’t a right, but a privilege granted at the discretion of the overreaching state.
And that’s the endgame of every surveillance regime. Once you normalize backdoors, once you force companies into secret compliance, once you criminalize even discussing government interference — you’re no longer living in a democracy. You’re living in a managed information state where privacy exists only when the government allows it.
For now, Apple has resisted the worst-case scenario. They didn’t build a backdoor, and they didn’t weaken global encryption — as far as we know. But the moment they concede ground to any government, they’ve set the precedent that encryption is negotiable.
And if encryption is negotiable, privacy itself is negotiable.
The UK’s decision will embolden others. And unless users—especially those in so-called democratic nations—start demanding better, this is only the beginning. Because once you let governments dictate who deserves privacy, the answer will always be the same:
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance sharpened his criticism of America’s European allies while issuing a strong warning against censorship. His speech, which kicked off the three-day gathering, echoed the assertive stance he took at the Munich Security Conference last week.
Vance took aim at one of America’s closest international partners, highlighting growing ideological rifts over free speech. He criticized restrictive online censorship laws in the European Union, arguing that such measures could drive a wedge between the US and its allies under President Trump’s leadership.
“We’re going to continue to have important alliances with Europe, but I really do think the strength of those alliances is going to depend on whether we take our societies in the right direction,” Vance stated.
“You have to allow free speech to debate this stuff,” Vance declared, emphasizing the importance of open discussion on controversial issues, particularly immigration. “You have to stop doing things to the populations of the world. You’ve gotta give the populations of the world the opportunity to speak up and say, no more of this BS.”
The Vice President did not hold back in his criticism of the previous US administration, stating, “The Biden administration did more to destroy free speech, not just in the United States, but also in Europe, than any administration in American history.”
Vance also took direct aim at Germany, highlighting the contradiction of American taxpayers funding the country’s defense while its government cracks down on free expression. “Germany’s entire defense is subsidized by the American taxpayer,” he said. “Do you think the American taxpayer is gonna stand for that if you get thrown in jail in Germany for posting a mean tweet? Of course, they’re not.”
The Vice President framed his argument in terms of shared values, asserting that true alliances are built on a foundation of democratic freedoms. “You do not have shared values if you’re jailing people for saying we should close down our border,” he warned. “You don’t have shared values if you cancel elections because you don’t like the result. You do not have shared values if you’re so afraid of your own people that you silence them and shut them up.”
His message resonated with conservative leaders attending CPAC’s international summit, where discussions focused on resisting censorship and preserving national sovereignty.
Vance closed with a call for unity among Western nations based on principles of democracy and free speech. “Let’s have shared values. Let’s defend democracy. Let’s have free expression, not just in the United States, but all over the Western world. That is the path to strong alliances in Europe.” His words were met with enthusiastic applause from the CPAC audience.
Ali Abunimah, the director of the Electronic Intifada, an independent pro-Palestine news website, was recently arrested in Switzerland and later deported.
One man was identified as the proximate cause – the Zurich security minister, Mario Fehr. It was also revealed that Fehr is a fanatical Zionist.
As the Grayzone website reported at a “rally in solidarity with Israel” on Oct. 10, 2023, Fehr openly stated that “the fate of Israel and its inhabitants is close to my heart.”
He also stated that the Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran have always called for the “destruction of Israel and the Jews.”
“Anyone who rapes women, kills old people, kidnaps children, dehumanizes the dead, takes countless peaceful people hostage is not a negotiating partner – he is a rapist, a murderer, a terrorist,” Fehr was quoted as saying.
“Golda Meir was right: ‘You cannot negotiate peace with somebody who has come to kill you.’ Peace will not be possible with Hamas and its accomplices!”
But, is the influence of Zionism in Switzerland greater than just one corrupt official?
Let’s have a deeper look.
The Zionist movement is led by the World Zionist Organisation based in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds along with three key allied bodies collectively called the “Israeli national institutions.”
In every country where the Zionist movement is organized, there are local branches of these four groups.
Switzerland is no different.
The Swiss Zionist Federation is the local branch of the WZO, which brings together all Swiss Zionist identifying groups.
In addition, there is a branch of the so-called “Jewish National Fund” which is the pre-eminent land theft agency of the Zionist movement.
It has been called a “colonialist agency of ethnic cleansing” by noted Israeli scholar and historian Ilan Pappe. The Swiss branch is called the KKL-JNF Switzerland and it states that it “works closely with the head office in Israel.”
There is also a department of the Jewish Agency the Zionist regime-controlled institution that recruits settlers to come and live on the land stolen by the JNF.
Lastly, there is a branch of the Keren Hayesod known as the Foundation Fund since it raises money to pay for the illegal settlers and their settlements.
Gesellschaft Schweiz-Israel (GIS) [Switzerland-Israel Society] is an organization that aims to strengthen relations between the Israeli regime and Switzerland. Founded in 1957, with ten local branches throughout the country, the GSI has called on the Federal Council to outlaw Hamas. Its president, ambitious Swiss politician Corina Eichenberger-Walther, is also president of the European Alliance for Israel, formed in 2015. In May 2024 GSI’s partner organization in the occupied Palestinian territories, the Swiss-Israel Society, sent an email to its roughly 2,000 members calling on them to spy on “opponents of Israel.” In the email, Walter L. Blum, the central secretary of the society, called for “opposing actors to be systematically monitored.”
European Council of Jewish Communities was founded in 1968. It forms a network consisting of over 50 Jewish communities, institutions and organizations from more than 30 countries in Europe including Switzerland.
Foundation for Contemporary Jewish History is an ostensibly academic repository on Jewish history which has, however, been penetrated by Zionist groups such as the SIG.
Interreligious Dialogue is an interfaith initiative to normalize Zionism. As they themselves admit it is “an effective and sustainable response to insecurity, tensions and, specifically, antisemitism.”
A new group called NAIN (Never Again Is Now) was created in the past year. It claims to “defend Israel against anti-Zionist agendas.” It spread lies about Abunimah’s arrest, reposting a statement calling him “an Islamist Jew-hater”.
No wonder Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist who has been a vocal advocate of the Palestinian cause and a fierce critic of the Zionist regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, was arrested in Switzerland.
Switzerland has also had a long and close historical relationship with the Zionist movement.
The first-ever conference of the Zionist Organisation was held in Basel, Switzerland in August 1897.
In fact, no city outside occupied Palestine has hosted the World Zionist Congress so often. Ten of the gatherings of a total of 22 up until 1946 were held in Basel.
The World Zionist Organisation returned to Basel in 2022 for what it called the ‘most significant Zionist gathering of the decade’. It was celebrating the 125th anniversary of the inaugural Zionist Congress.
There are also other connections between Zionism and Switzerland.
In August 1936, the founding plenary of the World Jewish Congress was held in Geneva. The WJC today is led by Ronald S Lauder, the heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune.
He led the Jewish National Fund from 1997 to 2007 and has been its board chair ever since. The World Jewish Congress elected Lauder as its president in 2007, a position he continues to occupy.
He was named seventh amongst the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post in 2024. Lauder is an extreme Zionist, supporter of the racist Birthright programme.
As Alan McLeod has written, Lauder is a “close confidant and supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu, who was appointed a negotiator for Israel with the government of Syria in 1998.
His presence at a One Jerusalem rally in front of religious extremists in 2001 led to a boycott of the Estée Lauder brand across the Muslim world.”
In 1982, the Lubavitcher Rebbe sent an emissary to Zurich which is home to a significant ultra-orthodox Jewish community. Today the genocidal cult that is Chabad-Lubavitch has nine separate branches in Switzerland.
In recent years there have been efforts to proscribe Hamas as a terrorist group and to cut funding to UNRWA. Amongst other groups, the pressure has been applied by NGO Monitor which attempted to undermine pro-Palestine groups and by the Geneva-based UN Watch which poses as independent but is actually a front group for the American Jewish Committee as was reported by Press TV’s Palestine Declassified show in 2024.
In late 2023 the Members of the Israel-Switzerland Parliamentary Friendship Group conducted an official visit to Bern. The visitors were two members of the Knesset, MK Yosef Taieb and MK Hamad Amar, belonging to the extremist Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu parties respectively.
It is no surprise then to learn that the Federal Council of Switzerland adopted the IHRA working definition in June 2021 and added it to the existing armory for weaponizing antisemitism in the country.
The Zionist movement in Switzerland makes sure to keep up the pressure to maintain the fake definition of antisemitism by inventing a supposed epidemic of racism against the Jews.
There are several groups doing this including Intercommunity Coordination against Anti-Semitism and Defamation (CICAD) which is run by a lifelong Zionist Johanne Gurfinkiel.
In addition, the main Israel lobby group the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities co-published a report in 2023 claiming that antisemitism “nearly tripled” after the launch of al Aqsa Flood.
Scandalously the lobby groups are financially supported by the Swiss governmental body, the Service for Combatting Racism.
Like many other European countries, the Zionists are firmly embedded in Swiss society.
Uprooting them and consigning Zionism to the dustbin of history will not be easy, but it is a necessary task wherever the racist ideology is found.
David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – an incorporated agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – earmarked $2.6 million to fund a “war on misinformation” contract in 2023, according to data on the usaspending.gov website.
The blanket purchase agreement note lists “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation analysis” as the subjects of the order, with $1.2 million spent, and as much currently listed as the obligated amount.
Screenshot of a USAspending.gov contract summary detailing a completed Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) Call awarded by the DHS to Guidehouse Inc., located in McLean, VA.
As noticed by Foundation For Freedom Online, the recipient is the consultancy firm Guildehouse, a government contractor owned by Bain Capital. A post on the company’s website that has since been deleted spoke about Guildehouse engaging with social media platforms to report misinformation (including flagging posts for removal).
Guildehouse also “maintained a proprietary internal database” to track content designated as “misinformation,” and a list of “higher risks” sites that might have published such content.
The case looks like another piece in the puzzle that has been the Big Government-Big Tech collusion to suppress speech in the US, unfolding over the last four years.
“$ Award Amounts” chart shows $1.2 million as the outlayed amount, $1.2 million as the obligated amount, and $1.2 million as the current award amount, with a potential award amount of $2.6 million.
This one features some recurring, and some new “characters” – but also, sheds more light on what appears to be the former authorities’ painstaking efforts to obfuscate the ties that bound those actors together.
For example, FEMA is not one of the usual entities brought up in Congressional investigations and lawsuits delving deep into that collusion; but it is a sub-agency of the DHS, notorious for things like the failed attempt to set up the Disinformation Governance Board, and even work, in roundabout ways, with the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP).
In 2023, the House Committee on Homeland Security referred to the practice of “delegating” what’s unconstitutional censorship of speech to third parties as, “censorship laundering.”
A group that does often crop up in these probes is the UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a pro-censorship group of the “Kill Musk’s Twitter” infamy, which in 2024 organized what reports say was an “exclusive, invite-only” gala.
One of those invited was Erica Mindel – a former member of the Israeli military, a contractor to the US State Department’s envoy monitoring and combating antisemitism – but also, one of Guildehouse’s senior consultants.
You can’t make this up. Initially the Montreal police accused me of harassing an anti-Palestinian media personality because I posted about Israel’s genocide. Now they are charging me for harassing the police for writing about the charges levelled against me.
At 9:30 AM tomorrow the Montreal police are set to arrest me. Today an officer told me they will detain me overnight or until I’m brought before a judge.
On Tuesday police investigator Crivello said they were charging me at the behest of anti-Palestinian activist Dahlia Kurtz. The police officer said I had described Kurtz as a “genocide” supporter and “fascist” on Twitter, which is true.
I promptly wrote about the charges and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute organized an email letter campaign, which saw 2,500 outraged people call on the cops to drop the Kurtz-sponsored charges. Angry at receiving emails and my article — the police were seeking release conditions barring me from discussing the charges levelled against me — the police are now claiming I’m victimizing them. Today a new investigator called to say investigator Crivello feels threatened by my writing about the charges levelled against me. The Montreal police will be charging me with intimidation, harassment, harassing communication and “entrave” (interference) towards Crivello.
The police investigator also announced that they will be holding me overnight out of fear that I may “recidive” (relapse). In other words, I might once again write about the absurd charges levelled against me. Guilty as charged.
Over the past 24 hours I’ve received multiple messages about frivolous cases brought against others for opposing genocide. The abuse of police and legal system to target opponents of genocide is a greater problem than I realized.
I’m trying to make sense of Kurtz’s bizarre bid not to block me on X but claim I am harassing her. Perhaps she is trying to monetize her status as a victim of hate. On her site Kurtz writes: “If you want to help save Canada from hate and extremism please donate by e-transfer to: [email]. After years of working for media outlets, I am now independent, so I can say the truth. This also means my personal security is under constant threat. You can make a difference. My work is funded solely by your support.”
A lawyer is looking into pursuing legal action against Kurtz. But it’s the police that really need to be held accountable. The initial charges were an abuse of state authority and adding new charges for criticizing them is beyond absurd.
The Montreal police apparently have no qualms about acting in service of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza. More than 100,000 have been killed and almost everyone has been displaced. About 70% of buildings are destroyed and most agricultural land damaged.
The police targeting opposition to Israel’s crimes is an embarrassment. The particular charges are ridiculous. The notion that someone can publicly attack Palestinians, repeatedly call Canada’s prime minister an antisemite and a supporter of terror, engage a Conservative Party candidate as a lawyer to convince police to lay charges and authorities go along with it — simply incredible. Then for the police to claim they are being victimized by emails critical of the ridiculous charges — I’m at a loss for words. What parallel universe have we slipped into?
Please email the Montreal police chief and mayor to demand they drop the charges against Yves Engler.
Video streaming platform Rumble and Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, have filed a lawsuit against controversial Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, accusing him of unconstitutional censorship that violates US law.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida, claims that Moraes has engaged in “ultra vires” (beyond his legal authority) actions to silence political dissent and force American companies to comply with extraterritorial gag orders.
At the center of the case are alleged secret directives from Moraes, ordering Rumble to suspend accounts belonging to a US-based Brazilian political dissident, identified in the lawsuit as “Political Dissident A.” Moraes’ orders also prohibit Rumble from allowing the dissident to create new accounts and impose strict penalties for noncompliance, including daily fines and a potential shutdown of the platform in Brazil.
According to the complaint, the orders are an attempt to enforce Brazilian speech restrictions on American soil. “Justice Moraes has issued sweeping orders to suspend multiple US-based accounts… ensuring no person in the United States can see [Political Dissident A’s] content,” the plaintiffs state.
The lawsuit further argues that these orders “censor legitimate political discourse in the United States, undermining fundamental constitutional protections enshrined in the First Amendment.”
Impact on American Free Speech
Rumble, a Florida-based video platform, and Truth Social argue that complying with the gag orders would set a dangerous precedent for foreign censorship influencing American platforms.
“Allowing Justice Moraes to muzzle a vocal user on an American digital outlet would jeopardize our country’s bedrock commitment to open and robust debate,” the lawsuit states.
The companies also allege that Moraes has ignored international legal frameworks, such as the US-Brazil Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), which provides a formal process for cross-border legal actions. Instead, they argue, he has resorted to coercive tactics.
“Rather than submitting a formal request through proper channels, Justice Moraes issued orders compelling Rumble, a US-based company with no presence or operations in Brazil, to appoint local attorneys solely for the purpose of accepting service of his censorship mandates,” the complaint states.
Broader Concerns Over Free Speech
Moraes, who has been at the forefront of Brazil’s controversial “Fake News Inquiry,” has drawn international criticism for his aggressive measures against political speech. The lawsuit cites reports that he has ordered the suspension of nearly 150 accounts belonging to journalists, legislators, and other critics of Brazil’s government.
The complaint also references comments made by US Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, where he denounced global trends of judicial censorship. “We know very well in America that you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail,” Vance stated. The plaintiffs argue that Moraes’s actions are an example of such overreach.
Rumble and TMTG are asking the court to declare Moraes’s orders unenforceable in the United States, citing violations of the First Amendment and the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The lawsuit argues that enforcing the Brazilian orders would “compel the suspension of accounts and block entire categories of political speech,” in direct conflict with US laws protecting online platforms from liability for user-generated content.
They are also seeking an injunction to prevent companies like Google and Apple from removing the Rumble app due to the Brazilian orders. The complaint warns that if tech giants comply with Moraes’s demands, “the shutdown could intensify, depriving American service providers like Rumble and platforms like Truth Social of lawful expression and shutting off millions of US users from robust political debate.”
The case raises significant questions about the ability of foreign governments to impose censorship rules on US-based platforms. If successful, the lawsuit could set a legal precedent reaffirming the limits of international judicial overreach.
Moraes has not publicly responded to the lawsuit, and it remains unclear whether the Brazilian government will intervene. However, the plaintiffs argue that this case is about more than just one dissident—it is about safeguarding American free speech from foreign interference.
As the complaint puts it: “Only American law—rooted in the First Amendment—should regulate and govern these US-based companies and their American operations.”
Justice Alexandre de Moraes has become a central figure in Brazil’s escalating crackdown on political dissent, leveraging his position on the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) to implement sweeping censorship measures. Since assuming his post in 2017, following the death of Justice Teori Zavascki, Moraes has increasingly used his judicial power to suppress speech he deems “anti-democratic” or “misinformation.”
His aggressive stance on censorship gained global attention in 2019 when he spearheaded Brazil’s controversial Fake News Inquiry, an unprecedented investigation that allowed the STF to unilaterally open cases, bypassing the Public Prosecutor’s Office. This move drew widespread criticism, with legal scholars and human rights organizations warning that the STF was acting as both judge and prosecutor, effectively eroding due process and the separation of powers.
Under Moraes’s watch, censorship in Brazil has reached alarming new heights. He has issued secret takedown orders against journalists, conservative politicians, and social media influencers, forcing platforms like X, YouTube, and Facebook to remove accounts critical of the Brazilian government. In a 2020 purge, he mandated the removal of 16 X accounts and 12 Facebook accounts linked to supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, using vague claims of “disinformation” as justification. By 2022, his censorship efforts had expanded to include nearly 150 targeted account suspensions, effectively silencing opposition voices. Moraes has even gone beyond digital suppression—he has ordered asset freezes, passport revocations, and arrests of individuals accused of spreading so-called “fake news.”
Over the past year, a significant conflict has unfolded between Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, and Justice Moraes. The dispute began when X refused to comply with Brazilian court orders to block accounts accused of disseminating misinformation and hate speech, many of which were supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Moraes responded by imposing substantial daily fines and, in August 2024, ordered the suspension of X’s operations in Brazil. Musk publicly criticized Moraes, labeling him an “evil dictator” and accusing him of undermining democracy.
Despite initial resistance, X eventually complied with the court’s demands, including removing specified accounts and paying accumulated fines totaling approximately $4 million. In October 2024, Justice de Moraes lifted the suspension, allowing X to resume operations in Brazil.
Living through five or six major wars has hardened me to what I thought were the extremes of inhuman cruelty and brutality.
Two things made those extremes almost bearable: the brutality always revealed – at least according to the media coverage – the viciousness of the enemy. It was therefore quite understandable when our “brave men and women” pulverized the enemy.
Films of Japanese torturing captive Americans somehow justified holding Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II; and only a small percentage of Americans found the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unreasonably vengeful at best, at worst, depraved.
The media giants in America portrayed the North Koreans as barbaric beasts with their captives, quite unlike their southern counterpoints – our allies during the Korean War. No one ever felt the need to explain how the South Koreans were a civilized breed while the North Koreans were absolute savages, at least according to the official line.
In Vietnam, our warriors justifiably (or so the media made us believe) dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese who had the gall to hide in villages and tunnels to ravage our invaders. At least it was accepted practice until some rogue photojournalist filmed a young girl screaming down a Vietnamese road in flames. … continue
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On Tuesday police investigator Crivello said they were charging me at the behest of anti-Palestinian activist Dahlia Kurtz. The police officer said I had described Kurtz as a “genocide” supporter and “fascist” on Twitter, which is true.
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