In 2000, experts said snow was a thing of the past.
“According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.”
But the reality is that September-March snowfall has been increasing for 50 years, and climate academics and journalists are science fiction writers with no connection to reality.
FBI crime statistics debunk the media’s narrative that white people represent the biggest violent crime threat to Asians, with figures showing whites significantly underrepresented in crime stats compared to their per capita population.
Since the killing of six Asian women who worked in massage parlors in Atlanta, the media has amplified the false narrative that “white supremacy” is to blame.
They hyped this explanation despite the fact that the attack had nothing whatsoever to do with race and despite two white women also being killed during the shooting.
Despite admitting the attack had no racial motive, CNN still blamed it on “white nationalism and domestic extremism” in an article titled ‘White supremacy and hate are haunting Asian Americans’.
However, official crime stats show that white people are significantly underrepresented in terms of the violent crime threat they pose to Asians.
As the Washington Examiner highlights, citing FBI statistics, whereas whites comprise 62% of the population, they committed 24% of crimes against Asians in 2018.
In comparison, blacks, who comprise 13% of the population, committed 27.5% of all violent crimes against Asian Americans in 2018.
So clearly, white people do not represent the biggest crime threat to Asian Americans.
The figures once again underscore how the media has contrived another hysterical moral panic in order to bolster what can no longer be seen as anything other than institutional racism and hatred towards white people.
The corporate media this week are hyping claims that Ghana is experiencing a climate crisis that is decimating crop production, driving farmers off their lands, and forcing them to become migrants to find food. United Nations articles are promoting such a narrative, corporate media outlets are publishing related stories, and Google News is featuring those articles among the top search results this week for “climate change.” However, objective and irrefutable data show Ghana is enjoying a long-term increase in crop yields as the climate warms, with new records being set on a regular basis. Far from a climate crisis, Ghana is experiencing a truth crisis in the media’s reporting on global warming.
The United Nations, for example, has published an article titled, “From the Field: Adapting to survive and thrive in Ghana.” The subhead reads, “In the West African country of Ghana, many people from farming backgrounds are forced to find new ways to survive, as droughts, floods, and erratic weather patterns upend age-old practices.” The article blames climate change for the asserted increase in erratic weather and more difficult farming conditions.
The corporate media are making similar claims. Google News, for example, is currently promoting an article titled, “How climate change is affecting agrarian migrants in Ghana.” The article claims, “in many African countries, access to food and water is deeply influenced by climate change.” The article reports that rural migrant farmers in Ghana report worsening rainfall and soil conditions, which are making farming more difficult.
Neither the United Nations article nor the related media articles cite actual data showing a decline in crop yields. That is rather odd, considering the United Nations itself meticulously collects and reports crop data for each country.
So, what do the UN crop data show?
According to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) data reported by The Global Economy, the 10 years with the highest yields per acre in Ghana are the 10 most recent years on record. As shown in the Global Economy chart below, Ghana crop yields are up nearly 40 percent compared to just a decade ago, and crop yields have doubled since 1990.
Ghana cereal crop production, kilograms per hectar. Source, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), reported by The Global Economy.
When it comes to Ghana crop production and climate change, believe the objective crop data, not the alarmist hype.
James Taylor is the President of the Heartland Institute. Taylor is also director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy.
NBC News’ national security reporter and long-time de facto CIA spokesman Ken Dilanian purporting to “independently confirm” a false CNN story, Dec. 8, 2017
There were so many false reports circulated by the dominant corporate wing of the U.S. media as part of the five-year-long Russiagate hysteria that in January, 2019, I compiled what I called “The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump-Russia Story.” The only difficult part of that article was choosing which among the many dozens of retractions, corrections and still-uncorrected factual falsehoods merited inclusion in the worst-ten list. So stiff was the competition that I was forced to omit many huge media Russiagate humiliations, and thus, to be fair to those who missed the cut, had to append a large “Dishonorable Mention” category at the end (note: the Intercept’s site seems to be down for the moment, rendering that first link inoperable).
That the entire Russiagate storyline itself was a fraud and a farce is conclusively demonstrated by one decisive fact that can never be memory-holed: namely, the impetus for the scandal and subsequent investigation was the conspiracy theory that the Trump campaign had secretly and criminally conspired with the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election, primarily hacking into the email inboxes of the DNC and Clinton campaign chief John Podesta. And a grand total of zero Americans were accused (let alone convicted) of participating in that animating conspiracy.
The New York Times’ May, 2017 announcement of Robert Mueller as special counsel stated explicitly that his task was “to oversee the investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials” and specifically “investigate ‘any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.’”
The related secondary media-created conspiracy theory was that the Kremlin clandestinely controlled U.S. political institutions by virtue of sexual and financial blackmail held over President Trump, which they used to compel him to obediently obey their dictates. “I don’t know what the Russians have on the president, politically, personally, or financially” was the dark innuendo which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her media allies most loved to spout. “Prestige news” outlets created their own Q-Anon-level series of art designed to implant in Americans’ minds a slew of McCarthyite imagery showing the Kremlin (or an iconic Moscow cathedral they mistook for the Kremlin) having fully infiltrated Washington’s key institutions.
Cover story of The New Yorker, Feb. 24, 2017
But that all came crashing down on their heads in April, 2019, when Mueller announced that he was closing his investigation without charging even a single American with the criminal conspiracy that launched the entire spectacle: criminally conspiring with the Russian government to interfere in the election. Again: while Mueller — like so many Washington special counsels before him — ended up snaring some operatives in alleged process crimes committed after the investigation commenced (lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice) or unrelated crimes (Manafort’s financial sleaze), the 18-month aggressive, sprawling investigation resulted in exactly zero criminal charges on the core claim that Trump officials had criminally conspired with Russia.
If that were not sufficient to make every person who drowned the country in this crazed conspiracy theory feel enormous shame (and it should have been), the former FBI Director’s final Report explicitly stated that “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election.” In many cases, the Report went even further than this “did not establish” formulation to state that there was no evidence of any kind found for many of the key media conspiracies (“The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation”; the “evidence does not establish that one campaign official’s efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican platform was undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia”; “the investigation did not establish that [Carter] Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election”). The Report also barely even dignified let alone confirmed the long-standing, utterly deranged Democratic/media conspiracy theory that the Kremlin had taken over U.S. policy through blackmail.
The Advocate, Mar. 10, 2017
For a few weeks following the issuance of the Mueller report, Democrats and media figures gamely attempted to deny that it obliterated the conspiracy theories to which they had relentlessly subjected the country for the prior four years. How could they do otherwise? They staked their entire reputations and the trust of their audience on having this be true. To avoid their day of reckoning, they would hype ancillary events such as Paul Manafort’s conviction on unrelated financial crimes or Michael Flynn’s guilty plea for a minor and dubious charge (for which even Mueller recommended no prison time) or Roger Stone’s various process charges to insist that there was still a grain of truth to their multifaceted geopolitical fairy tale seemingly lifted straight from a Tom Clancy Cold War thriller about the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
But even they knew this was just a temporary survival strategy and that it was unsustainable for the long term. That the crux of the scandal all along was that key Trump allies if not the President himself would be indicted and imprisoned for having conspired with the Russians was too glaring to make people forget about it.
That was why former CIA Director John Brennan assured the MSNBC audience in March — just weeks before Mueller closed his investigation with no conspiracy crimes alleged — that it was impossible that the investigation could close without first indicting Trump’s children and other key White House aides on what Brennan correctly said was the whole point of the scandal from the start: “criminal conspiracy involving the Russians . . . . whether or not U.S. persons were actively collaborating, colluding, cooperating, involved in a conspiracy with them or not.” Brennan strongly insinuated that among those likely to be indicted for criminally conspiring with the Russians were those “from the Trump family.”
As we all know, literally none of that happened. Not only were Trump family members not indicted by Mueller on charges of “criminal conspiracy involving the Russians,” no Americans were. Brennan believed there was no way that the Mueller investigation could end without that happening because that was the whole point of the scandal from the start. To explain why it had not happened up to that point after eighteen months of investigation by Mueller’s subpoena-armed and very zealous team of prosecutors, Brennan invented a theory that they were waiting to do that as the final act because they knew they would be fired by Trump once it happened. But it never happened because Mueller found no evidence to prove that it did.
In other words, the conspiracy theory that the media pushed on Americans since before Trump’s inauguration — to the point where it drowned out most of U.S. politics and policy for years — proved to have no evidentiary foundation. And that is one reason I say that the sectors of the media pretending to be most distraught at the spread of “disinformation” by anonymous citizens on Facebook and 4Chan are, in fact, the most aggressive, prolific and destructive disseminators of that disinformation by far (nor was it uncredentialed YouTube hosts, Patreon podcasters or Substack writers who convinced Americans to believe that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons and was in an alliance with Al Qaeda but rather the editor-heavy prestige outlets such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, NBC News and The Atlantic).
With the crux of the Russiagate conspiracy theory collapsed, U.S. media outlets began acknowledging — because they had to — that none of it was vindicated by Mueller’s report. To do so, they abruptly nullified a rule that had been in place since Mueller’s appointment: one may not speak ill of the former FBI Director because he is a patriotic man of the highest integrity and to malign him is to undermine the Brave Men and Women of the FBI Who Keep Us Safe. The only self-preservation tactic they could find to salvage their credibility was to turn on Mueller, quite viciously. Overnight, the storyline emerged: the conspiracy theory we pushed on you was correct all along, but Mueller was a coward and failed in his patriotic duty to say so.
While the hypocrisy of watching a media that for months demanded reverence for Mueller turn on a dime to accuse him of being a borderline-senile, unpatriotic coward was quite amazing, it was at least some progress toward acknowledging the undeniable reality that the media had collectively failed. Their dark conspiracies and predictions of doom were pipe dreams. They flooded the country with disinformation for years about all of this. And while they characteristically engaged in exactly zero self-reflection or self-critique — preferring to heap all the blame on Mueller instead for failing to find the evidence that is still out there of their cognitive derangements — it at least consecrated the fact that this scandal ended in humiliation for them.
When I created my top ten list of media Russiagate debacles, choosing the top ten was difficult but choosing the top spot was not. It is worth briefly revisiting that particular journalistic humiliation because of what it reveals about ongoing media behavior.
On the morning of December 8, 2017, CNN went on the air with one of the most cataclysmic and breathless scoops of the entire Russiagate saga. The network hauled out all of its most melodramatic graphics, music and host voice-tones to signify that this was it : the smoking gun, the ultimate bombshell, the final nail in the coffin, inescapable proof for their conspiracy theory. The big huge scoop notably came from its Congressional reporter Manu Raju (one of the favorite dumping grounds for false leaks by leading House Democrat Russiagate fanatics such as Rep. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell (D-CA)).
According to this historic CNN revelation, a stunning and incriminating email had been obtained by “congressional investigators,” and “multiple sources” conveyed its contents to CNN. This email proved, said CNN, that Donald Trump Jr. was given advanced access to the archive of DNC and Podesta emails ultimately published by WikiLeaks on September 14, 2016. This earth-shattering email to Trump, Jr. was dated September 4 — ten days before WikiLeaks began publishing — and this, in the minds of CNN, proved somehow that the Trump campaign was in on the plot from the start.
Now, even if Trump had been shown the archive in advance by WikiLeaks or someone else, it would not have remotely proven that the Trump campaign was a participant in the plot, but let us not get detained on that hypothetical. The CNN story was treated by the entire liberal sector of the press as the most devastating and incriminating evidence yet produced to prove the truth of the Russiagate conspiracy theory, with one particularly loyal Democratic partisan-writer using an image of a nuclear explosion to convey its significance:
As it turns out, there was one small problem with the CNN story: it was completely and utterly false. The email to Trump, Jr. on which the entire bombshell was based was sent after WikiLeaks began publishing the archive, not before. And it was sent not by some super-secret inside source with the Kremlin or WikiLeaks, but by a random member of the public who, having read about the WikiLeaks publications in the newspaper, emailed Trump, Jr. to encourage him to take a look.
How “multiple sources” all got the date on the email wrong — mis-reading it as September 4 rather than the real date of the email: September 14 — was never explained by CNN. That is because corporate media outlets believe they owe the public no explanation or accountability for the massive errors they commit.
But what was most notable about this episode is that it was not just CNN which reported this fraudulent story. An hour or so after the network shook the political world with its graphics-and-music-shaped bombshell, other news networks — including MSNBC and CBS News — claimed that they had obtained what they called “independent confirmation” that the story was true.
All of these media outlets, reading Orwell as if it is an instruction manual, have now scrubbed most of the humiliating videos where they did this from the internet. But one can still watch here as NBC News’ national security reporter and long-time de facto CIA spokesman Ken Dilanian breathlessly tells an MSNBC host, who herself can barely maintain her composure, that he has spoken with “sources” who have provided independent confirmation of the CNN story, thus adding NBC News’ imprimatur to it. Shortly thereafter, CBS News did the same.
All of this prompted the obvious question: how could MSNBC and CBS News have both purported to “independently confirm” a CNN bombshell that was completely false? The reason this matters is because the term “independently confirm” significantly bolsters the credibility of the initial report because it makes it appear that other credible-to-some news organizations have conducted their own investigation and found more evidence that proves it is true. That is the purpose of the exercise: to bolster the credibility of the story in the minds of the public.
But what actually happens is as deceitful as it is obvious. When a news outlet such as NBC News claims to have “independently corroborated” a report from another corporate outlet, they often do not mean that they searched for and acquired corroborating evidence for it. What they mean is much more tawdry: they called, or were called by, the same anonymous sources that fed CNN the false story in the first place, and were fed the same false story. And just as CNN did — repeated what they were told (almost certainly by Democratic Congressional members and/or their staff) without independently investigating it, because they knew any anti-Trump story would please their partisan audience — NBC News pretended they had obtained “independent confirmation” when all they had done was speak to the same sources that fed CNN.
This episode is so worth recalling not only because it is one of the most stunning and pathetic media humiliations of the Trump era — though it is that — but also because the shoddy tactic that drove it is still in full use by the same media outlets. We just saw proof of that again with a major Washington Post “correction” — which should be called a retraction — of one of the most-discussed news stories of the last six months: the Post’s claims about what Trump said when he called a Georgia election official while he was still contesting the 2020 election results.
On January 9, The Washington Postpublished a story reporting that an anonymous source claimed that on December 23, Trump spoke by phone with Frances Watson, the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, and directed her that she must “find the fraud” and promised her she would be “a national hero” if she did so. The paper insisted that those were actual quotes of what Trump said. This time, it was CNN purporting to independently confirm thePost’s reporting, affirming that Trump said these words “according to a source with knowledge of the call.”
But late last week, The Wall Street Journalobtained a recording of that call, and those quotes attributed to Trump do not appear. As a result, The Washington Post — two months after its original story that predictably spread like wildfire throughout the entire media ecosystem — has appended a correction at the top of its original story. Politico’s Alex Thompson correctly pronounced these errors “real bad” because of how widely they spread and were endorsed by other major media outlets.
This is a different species of journalistic malpractice than mere journalistic falsehoods. As I detailed in February and again two weeks ago, the U.S. public was inundated for weeks with an utterly false yet horrifying story — that a barbaric pro-Trump mob had savagely murdered Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick by bashing his skull in with a fire extinguisher. That false tale about the only person said to have been killed at the January 6 riot other than pro-Trump supporters emanated from a New York Times report based on the claims of “two anonymous law enforcement officials.”
As it turns out, Sicknick’s autopsy revealed that he suffered no blunt trauma, and two men arrested this week were charged not with murder but assault and conspiracy to injure an officer: for using an unidentified gas. In reporting those arrests, even The New York Timesacknowledged that “prosecutors stopped short of linking the attack to Officer Sicknick’s death the next day” because “both officers and rioters deployed spray, mace and other irritants during the attack” and “it remains unclear whether Officer Sicknick died because of his exposure to the spray.”
Many liberals defenders of these corporate media outlets insist that these major factual errors do not matter because the basic narrative — Trump and his supporters at the Capitol are bad people who did bad things — is still true. But these errors are enormous. That Trump, Jr. received that email from a random member of the public after WikiLeaks began publicly publishing documents transforms the story from smoking gun to irrelevant. That Trump did not utter the extremely incriminating quotes attributed to him in that call at least permits debate about whether he did anything wrong there and what his intent was (encouraging the official to find the fraud he genuinely believed was there or pressuring her to manufacture claims with threats and promises of reward). And there is, manifestly, a fundamental difference in both intent and morality between deliberately murdering someone by repeatedly bashing their skull in with a fire extinguisher and using a non-lethal crowd-control spray frequently used at protests even if it is ultimately proven that the spray is what caused Officer Sicknick’s death (which is why those two acts would carry vastly different punishments under the law).
But all of this highlights the real crisis in journalism, the reason public faith and trust in media institutions is in free fall. With liberal media outlets deliberately embracing a profit model of speaking overwhelmingly to partisan Democrats who use them as their primary source of news, there is zero cost to publishing false claims about people and groups hated by that liberal audience.
That audience does not care if these media outlets publish false stories as long as it is done for the Greater Good of harming their political enemies, and this ethos has contaminated newsrooms as well. Given human fallibility, reporting errors are normal and inevitable, but when they are all geared toward advancing one political agenda or faction and undermining the other, they cease to be errors and become a deliberate strategy or, at best, systemic recklessness.
But whatever else is true, it is vital to understand what news outlets mean when they claim they have “independently verified” the uncorroborated reports of other similar outlets. It means nothing of consequence. In many if not most cases — enough to make this formulation totally unreliable — it signifies nothing more than their willingness to serve as stenographers for the same anonymous political operatives who fed their competitors similar propaganda.
New documents raise serious questions about how well-deserved British state broadcaster BBC’s ‘unimpeachable’ reputation is, and also what impact its relationship with the UK government has on its supposedly ‘impartial’ output.
Within a tranche of secret UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) papers, recently leaked by hacktivist collective Anonymous, are files indicating that BBC Media Action (BBCMA) – the outlets ‘charitable’ arm – plays a central role in Whitehall-funded and directed psyops initiatives targeted at Russia.
American journalist Max Blumenthal has comprehensively exposed how, at the FCDO’s behest, BBCMA covertly cultivated Russian journalists, established influence networks within and outside Russia, and promoted pro-Whitehall, anti-Moscow propaganda in Russian-speaking areas.
However, the newly released files reveal BBCMA also offered to lead a dedicated FCDO program, named ‘Independent Media in Eastern Partnership Countries’ and targeted at Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. This endeavor forms part of a wider £100 million ($138.9 million) effort waged by London to demonize, destabilize and isolate Russia, at home and abroad.
A Whitehall tender indicates that under the auspices of the project, set to cost a staggering £9 million ($12.5 million) from 2018 to 2021, participating contractors are charged with crafting “innovative… media interventions” targeting individuals throughout the region, via “radio, independent social media channels, and traditional outlets.”
Further detail was offered by FCDO Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD) chief Andy Pryce at a June 2018 meeting with prospective suppliers.
He made it clear that the effort’s ultimate goal was to “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” via the co-option of journalists and media organizations in target countries via funding, training, and surreptitious production of anti-Russian, pro-Western content. “Girls on HBO… but in Ukraine” was, bizarrely, one suggested example of such activity.
In response, BBCMA submitted extensive proposals, in conjunction with Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), the global newswire’s “non-profit” wing, and since-collapsed veteran FCDO contractor Aktis Strategy.
The project was to be managed and coordinated directly by BBCMA from BBC Broadcasting House headquarters in London, with local support provided by Reuters newswire offices in Kiev and Tbilisi, and Ukraine’s Independent Association of Broadcasters.
A dedicated board, comprised of representatives of the contractors involved, the FCDO’s CDMD program, and British embassies in the target countries, would also meet privately every quarter to discuss the operation’s progress. Publicly, Whitehall’s funding and direction of the vast project was intended to be completely hidden.
The consortium boasted of having an existing “strong profile” in Eastern Partnership countries, and conducting “broad consultations” with a number of major news outlets, media organizations and journalists in the region in advance of its pitch.
For example, the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC) had been approached and offered “essential support,” aimed at “improving its existing programs” and “developing new and innovative formats for factual and non-news programs.”
BBCMA was moreover said to be “already” working on building the capacity of Kiev-based Hromadske TV, and wished to use the FCDO program to extend this assistance to “co-productions” and “building support to Hromadske Radio.”
Launched with initial funding from the American and Dutch embassies in Ukraine, Hromadske began broadcasting in November 2013 on the very day Viktor Yanukovich’s administration suspended preparations for the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, and went on to extensively cover the resultant Euromaidan protests, which eventually unseated the government the next year.
It subsequently received support from Pierre Omidyar, billionaire founder of The Intercept, who bankrolled a number of opposition groups in the country prior to the coup. In July 2014, Hromadske anchor Danylo Yanevsky abruptly terminated an interview with a Human Rights Watch representative after she consistently refused to blame Russia for civilian casualties in the Donbas conflict, despite his repeated demands.
Beyond dedicated news platforms, the consortium also pledged to enlist “local” and “hyperlocal” media outlets, as well as “freelancer journalists,” bloggers and “vloggers” for its information warfare efforts.
BBCMA argued “journalism education” locally would be a “long-term investment” – in other words, the identification, cultivation, and grooming of a network of reporters in the countries who could be relied upon to take the Whitehall line in future.
As such, the organization sought to establish a journalism training center in Gagauzia, Moldova in collaboration with NGO Media birlii – Uniunia. The autonomous region, bordered by Ukraine’s Odessa Oblast, was said to be home to “six TV companies, four radio stations, six newspapers and five web portals” potentially ripe for influence and infiltration by BBCMA – and in turn, the FCDO.
In Georgia, BBCMA visited the offices of Adjara TV “to discuss training priorities and possible co-productions.” The station was reportedly interested in developing “youth programming,” which represented “a gap in the market” in the country.
In June 2020, Georgia’s Coalition for Media Advocacy slammed Adjara for its “persecution” of “outspoken journalists expressing dissenting opinions,” after it fired newsroom chief Shorena Glonti.
Strikingly, the Coalition is funded by US regime-change agency, the National Endowment for Democracy, which supports numerous anti-Moscow initiatives worldwide. Perhaps Glonti had been too well-trained in “weakening the Russian state” for the broadcaster’s liking.
Estonia’s Digital Communications Network – financed by the US State Department – would be central to these efforts, offering lessons in “building online audiences, innovative business models and reaching out to breakaway regions susceptible to Kremlin narratives.”
The importance of “target audiences in breakaway regions” is outlined in another file, which explicitly states that the consortium would work closely with “independent outlets in proximity of non-government-controlled areas of Donbas in Ukraine, Transnistria in Moldova and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.”
This undertaking aimed to counter the output of “separatist” media, and thus manipulate “hard-to-reach audiences,” which was “critical to achieving the project’s objectives.”
Any and all support covertly provided under the program was to be thoroughly intimate indeed, with “mentors” from the consortium “embedded” in target organizations, in order to provide “bespoke support across editorial, production and wider management systems and processes as well as on the co-production of content.”
These “mentors” include current and former BBC journalists.
“Our ability to recruit talented and experienced BBC staff is a great asset which will be harnessed for this initiative,” BBCMA promised.
These individuals may have been central to program efforts, if BBCMA’s pitch to the FCDO was accepted. For instance, UA:PBC was said to be “very interested” in receiving help from BBCMA to develop a “new debate show” and “discussion programming” to “enable audiences to think critically about the process and choices,” “counter disinformation” and “dispel rumors.”
Lofty objectives indeed, although commitments to nurturing analytical skills, thinking and debunking propaganda ring rather hollow when one considers the station’s output was perceived to be so overwhelmingly biased in favor of the government, opposition candidate Volodymyr Zelensky boycotted the channel’s official election debate during the 2019 presidential election.
BBCMA also proposed to establish an “independent” news platform in Ukraine, “timed for the run up to the 2019 election,” which would publish “vetted news content” freely syndicated to local and national media.
If the approach in Kiev was “successful,” the consortium would replicate the exercise in Georgia for the country’s 2020 election. Strikingly, the proposal brags of TRF’s experience establishing such platforms elsewhere, for example “the award-winning Aswat Masriya” in Egypt.
Other leaked files indicate the endeavor, founded after the 2011 revolution in Cairo, was secretly funded by the FCDO to the tune of £2 million ($2.8 million) over six years, and run out of Reuters’ Egyptian offices.
Over its lifespan, Aswat Masriya “became Egypt’s leading independent local media organization” and one of the most-visited websites in the country, providing news in English and Arabic, which was syndicated widely the world over. Its true, clandestine purpose seems to have been granting London a degree of narrative control over news coverage as events unfolded in the country, during its difficult and ultimately ill-fated transition to democracy.
That BBCMA likewise intended to use news coverage to influence politics in Eastern Partnership countries is amply underlined in the newly leaked files, with the organization pledging to “encourage” local news outlets to meet with “local stakeholders,” including lawmakers and community leaders, in order to “cement the media as a key governance actor.”
The organization furthermore sought to “foster a debate” in target nations, by producing wide-ranging analysis of the media environment therein. Its “long track record” of comparable efforts in “diverse” countries, including those “experiencing Arab uprisings,” had allegedly “shifted government policy.”
One objective of these lobbying efforts was achieving “a more enabling operating environment” for “independent” media in the target countries – i.e. ensuring regulations in the region were suitably conducive to and protective of the FCDO’s secret army of information warfare agents, to allow them to prosper for the duration of the consortium’s three-year offensive, and “post intervention.”
It’s not yet clear if BBCMA was successful in its pitch, and if so, which BBC journalists contributed to the program and as a result are implicated directly in cloak-and-dagger attempts to shape politics and perceptions in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine for London’s benefit.
It’s also unknown whether their commitment to fulfilling the FCDO’s objective of undermining Moscow, and furthering Whitehall’s interests, truly ends when they return to their day jobs as “objective,” “neutral” purveyors of news.
As BBCMA boasts in its pitch, the BBC is “well-known and highly regarded” in the Eastern Partnership countries, and provides “millions of viewers, listeners and online users in the region with world-class news on a daily basis.” At the very least, the leaked files make clear that neither the British state broadcaster, nor its FCDO paymasters, has any qualms about exploiting that standing and perceived credibility for malign ends.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.
Last week the Guardian proclaimed Butterfly Numbers Plummeting in US West as Climate Crisis Takes Toll. Numerous media outlets flooded the internet with similar versions in response to the research article Fewer Butterflies Seen by Community Scientists Across the Warming and Drying Landscapes of The American West by lead author Dr. Matt Forister. For the factors examined, their research found climate change had the greatest statistical effect associated with changing butterfly populations. Warmer summer temperatures however had a positive effect, while warmer autumn temperatures had a negative effect. Of course, in an age where chicken little catastrophes sell, only warming fall temperatures and butterfly extinctions could promote a profitable climate crisis. Worse, the public was misled to assume “all” western butterflies were declining.
For example, a University of Arizona press release (home of Forister’s co-author) stated, “Western butterfly populations are declining at an estimated rate of 1.6% per year,… The report looks at more than 450 butterfly species.” However, the researchers only stated their databases “encompassed more than 450 species”. In reality their analyses addressed just 290 species of which only 182 or 40% of the 450 species exhibited declining populations. Another 106 species were stable or increasing, and 251 lacked sufficient data for analysis.
It’s expected that during any given decade various populations of a butterfly species will randomly increase in one area but decrease in another, but with no overall declines as recently reported for USA insects. So correctly, Forister et al. asked if a species’ population trend was restricted to a local area or widespread. To answer that they examined 3 independent datasets. The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) supplied their once‑a‑year butterfly counts, typically held around July 4th, of which only 72 different sites had the required 10+ years of data (average was 21 years) with which to determine a species’ abundance trend. A second data set came from Dr. Art Shapiro’s northern California bi-weekly surveys but covered only 10 sites from the San Francisco Bay area to the Sierra Nevada crest at Donner Pass. A third database used iNaturalist’s citizen science data that only provided flashy optics suggesting widespread coverage. Although iNaturalist is a great application that easily connects laypeople with experts for accurate identifications and determines the presence of a species in a given locale, it doesn’t provide trustworthy trend data.
To argue for widespread declines, a species had to be declining in at least two of their three datasets. Comparing trends in the NABA & Shapiro datasets, only 104 species exhibited declines in both. In other words, only 23% of the ballyhooed 450 species showed a possible widespread decline. However, when interviewed by the Washington Post for the article Butterflies Are Vanishing Out West. Scientists Say Climate Change is to Blame, Forister contrarily stated, “The influence of climate change is driving those declines, which makes sense because they’re so widespread”
Despite the real number of examined species, National Geographic still trumpeted 450 Butterfly Species Rapidly Declining Due to Warmer Autumns In The Western U.S. while shamefully ignoring the positive summer warming. Indeed Forister had reported, “locations that have been warming in the fall months have seen fewer butterflies over time”, adding an unsupported hypothesis that “fall warming likely induces physiological stress on active and diapausing stages, reduces host plant vigor, or extends activity periods for natural enemies.” But most butterfly species are no longer flying or laying eggs or feeding during the autumn. Instead, they have snuggled into relative safety from environmental changes to overwinter until the next flush of new springtime vegetation.
The larvae (caterpillars) of some declining species feed on grasses (i.e. Eufala Skipper and Sachem skipper), or herbs (i.e. Cabbage White or Sara Orange-Tip). But most grasses and herbs are dead or dormant by the end of summer. Other larvae of declining species feed on the young leaves or needles produced by trees in the spring (like Propertius duskywing or Western pine elfin). Autumn warmth has no effect on the “vigor” of dead or dormant food plants. Autumn temperatures are simply not critically important. Natural enemies like parasitic wasps typically evolved similar sensitivities to the same environmental cues as their caterpillar hosts and insect eating birds begin migrating south in August. Claiming global warming somehow selectively hurts butterflies but helps their enemies is a totally unsupported claim hurled far too often by those fabricating a climate crisis.
Disturbingly, Forister et al. simultaneously downplayed known benefits of summer warming, suggesting it only increased ‘butterfly visibility’ stating, “warming in the summer influences adult activity times directly and hence increases the probability of detection”. But to power their flight, butterflies sunbathe to raise their body temperature above ambient air temperature. Increased activity is needed for mating and finding host plants. Greater summer warmth also enables faster larval growth, which in some species enables an increased number of generations each year enabling larger summer populations (i.e. Monarchs). In other species like Edith’s checkerspot the caterpillars seek hotter surfaces to grow fast enough each summer and reach a required size allowing overwinter survival. Warmer summers benefit many species in many ways.
To my knowledge not one media outlet reported the summer benefits or the most telling conclusion of Forister et al. “Although our analyses point to warming fall temperatures as an important factor in insect declines, we acknowledge the multifaceted nature of the problem and how much remains to be understood about climate change interacting with habitat loss and degradation.”
If Forister et al. were truly trying to decipher the causes for observed butterfly declines, they should have at least adhered to the most basic scientific principle of controlling for known confounding factors. To blame climate change, confounding effects must be removed. But they were not. Thus, declining trends could be completely caused by insecticides and land use. And Forister was well aware of such important factors.
In a 2010 paper co-authored with Dr. Shapiro he found, “most severe reductions at the lowest elevations, where habitat destruction is greatest.” In a 2014 paper Forister concluded “Patterns of land use contributed to declines in species richness, but the net effect of a changing climate on butterfly richness was more difficult to discern.” In his 2016 paper he modelled negative effects of neonicotinoid insecticides. Listed as Forister’s 37th most declining species, the media highlighted the recent 99% decline of western Monarch butterflies. Yet the Monarch’s big killers are also land use change and herbicides, not climate change.
In the 1970s scientists discovered virtually all monarchs breeding east of the Rocky Mountains migrate to extremely small patches of high mountain forests in central Mexico. When that critical wintering habitat was logged, it opened the forest canopies removing its insulating effects. In January 2002, a storm brought cold rains followed by clear skies. Without the clouds’ greenhouse effect, or an insulating forest canopy, temperatures plummeted to 23°F (- 4°C). Millions of damp butterflies froze in place. Many millions more fell creating an eerie carpet of dead and dying butterflies several inches deep. Distraught researchers calculated 500 million butterflies died that winter, wiping out 80% of the entire eastern population. Similar cold events happened in 2004, 2010 and 2016.
In contrast, monarchs breeding west of the Rockies winter along the California coast to Baja where the ocean moderates temperatures and prevents freezing. Nonetheless those wintering populations also plummeted by 81% by 2014. Interestingly, tagging studies and genetics suggest California and Mexican wintering populations intermingle. Although it’s not clear if one wintering population contributes to the other, their abundance has fluctuated very similarly. In addition, a 1991 statewide study implicated land use as 38 overwintering sites in California were destroyed.
Herbicides severely reduced the monarch’s food plants, milkweeds. Adapted to colonizing open disturbed landscapes, milkweed species began invading the fertilized ground between rows of crops. As 1900s monarch populations boomed, farmers’ crops suffered. Milkweed competition reduced harvests of wheat and sorghum by 20% and most states declared milkweed a noxious weed. Attempts to eradicate milkweed by tilling only stimulated underground roots promoting more milkweed. The 1970s discovery that the herbicide glyphosate (i.e. Roundup) killed the whole plant, turned the tide against milkweed. When genetically modified herbicide‑resistant soybean and corn crops were developed in 1996, herbicide use dramatically increased, furthering the milkweeds rapid decline. That loss of milkweed now hinders monarch recovery. For monarch lovers, our best safeguard is planting more milkweed in our gardens. Likewise, we can plant butterfly friendly gardens for all species. On the bright side of climate change, warming could allow an added monarch generation.
On February 21, 2021, South Korean media outlets reported that four North Korean defectors plan to sue Unification Minister Lee In-young for defamation over his recent remarks casting doubt over what defectors say about the North’s human rights situation. The matter is that on February 3, Lee said during a press conference with foreign media reporters that human rights-related testimonies of North Korean defectors “lack a process of checking and verifying” their validity.
The four defectors affirmed that Lee deemed their testimonies as “untrustworthy lies”, while their stories represented just the tip of the iceberg of the horrible plight happening in North Korea. “Speaking to the foreign press as if their testimonies are lies is an act threatening the defectors who fled (to the South) for freedom”.
In addition, the complainants believe that Lee was unable, or is unwilling, to protect North Korean defectors and improve the human rights situation in North Korea, although this is a key responsibility borne by the Ministry of Unification. The fact is that South Korea for two consecutive years opted out of co-sponsoring a North Korean human rights resolution at the UN. Seoul sponsored the bill from 2008 to 2018, but decided not to do so in 2019 or 2020, drawing heavy backlash from the country’s conservative lawmakers as well as professional “fighters against the North Korean regime”.
At a February 22 press conference, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Unification “sweetened the pill” just in case, declaring that the testimony given by North Korean refugees was “valuable material” to help shed light on the human rights situation in that closed country. He added that their words are constantly being heeded in Seoul to create an “accurate picture” of the situation occurring in the North. In addition, it was reported that while the complainants assert that Lee In-young considered their testimony to be “untrustworthy lies,” in fact the minister simply stated that their statements could not be verified. That is no wonder, because according to South Korean law, libel can be punishable by up to two years in prison, or a fine of up to 5 million won (4,520 USD). Moreover, the laws do not speak about libel, but about defamation of character, when a person can be incarcerated for the truth if that causes reputational or moral damage.
But for the author, the fuss over the lawsuit raises the issue about to what extent the testimony given by the DPRK defectors represents a valid source, especially when it comes to heartbreaking stories of human rights violations.
The problems with defectors’ testimony can be broken down into two groups. The first has to do with the testimony of witnesses in general, and these difficulties are well comprehended by specialists.
First, not a single witness can remember a situation with complete accuracy. When people remember an event after a long time has passed, they deliberately or unwittingly distort the details involved. Second, the witness may misunderstand what is perceived. The most striking example is the statement made by one Russian journalist that there is no central heating in the DPRK because he did not see any radiators anywhere. However, in both the North and South of Korea, the traditional heating system is a “warm floor”, where the space heating system runs underneath it. Third, knowing the consequences of their actions, witnesses often engage in self-justification, or position themselves as having guessed everything from the very beginning, which makes the events in their recitals look more predictable and “orderly” than they are in reality. Fourth, people who have experienced traumatic experiences have a need to speak out and try to purge themselves of certain experiences.
That is why reconstructing events according to testimony that is given is usually done by comparing the testimony from several people. If the story told by one person may be inaccurate or biased, then describing an event from the hearsay given by numerous witnesses makes that picture more complete.
However, in regard to defectors, the issue of counterchecking their testimony runs up against certain difficulties: these people fled during different periods of time, from different places, and therefore it could be difficult to find two opinions about the same event.
And this is important, because while stories that buck against a certain trend usually elicit a desire to cross-check them (with the hope of refuting them), when a person who is a personal witness to something says things that fit well into the procrustean bed of underlying expectations, nobody counterchecks something “that is common knowledge”. Everyone already knows the recipe for the main course, and a specific story will only differ in the proportion of spices used, or where the side dish is located on the plate.
Now let’s focus on the idiosyncrasies that directly have to do with defectors from the DPRK, for whom storytelling is often an important way to improve their social status and financial situation.
First, it is important who is interviewing the defector. Son Ji-young, who has interviewed refugees for over 20 years, notes how much everything depends on how well the researcher is acquainted with a person’s context: it is easier to “pull the wool over white foreigners’ eyes”, since they do not understand the context in the same way that a Korean does.
Second, people interviewing defectors often perceive them as victims rather than witnesses. Generally speaking, they arouse sympathy in the interviewers, by virtue of which interviewers are less critical of what they hear, and therefore they do not have the desire to expose the narrator stating lies, or look for inconsistencies in the testimony.
Third, defectors try to make sure that interviews are held with them regularly and constantly, since for most defectors the fees they charge are a major increase in their income. This means that the defector can adapt to their interlocutors, and tell them things that they would like to hear. And if a fairly inexperienced interviewer gives tips about desirable responses with questions, such as “have you witnessed mass rapes at the stadium?” then the other party in the conversation may take this question as a cue to talk about that, regardless of whether he or she even saw it, heard some rumors about it, or simply thought it all up.
Some defectors embellish, exaggerate or trade their stories for money, she and other defectors said. Finally, it must be understood that the life of defectors in the South is closely controlled by the National Intelligence Service, which closely monitors the activity of defectors, and if something like “singing the praises of North Korea” is observed then they could face penalties under the National Security Act, and then the reputation of being a North Korean spy. Someone that has escaped from a totalitarian hell must expose the regime, not defend it.
These factors lead to the fact that within a set of defectors a subset of those forms that can be called “career defectors”. The most typical example is Shin Dong-hyuk. Back in 2014, his testimony was considered valid, and the basis of that the well-known UN Report on Human Rights in North Korea was drafted, drawing a direct comparison between the DPRK and Nazi Germany. However, already by early 2015 even its official co-author Blaine Harden “was forced to make an announcement that Shin admitted to making up most of his heartbreaking stories, which he fabricated to heighten their dramatic quality, and he needs to be pronounced an unreliable storyteller.
Nonetheless, in this kind of environment lying about the DPRK is not only allowed, it is something that is desirable. Kim Seong-min, the founder of Free North Korea Radio, in one of his interviews directly responded to a question about his attitude toward the most fantastic rumors that sometimes spread about what is happening in the North: “Any stories – whether they are truthful or not – are good, as long as they do not put the DPRK in a favorable light”.
However, a slew of widespread errors can be encountered in the stories told by this kind of community. They can be used to identify an “unreliable storyteller” whose testimony should be counterchecked at a minimum. The most obvious one is when the stories begin to resemble a “soap opera”, and narrators drastically overdo it with “heartbreaking details” that are aimed at evoking emotions.
A typical example of this is one quote from the stories by the famous defector Lee Soon-ok:
“… they use a kiln to bake bricks. When the newly fired bricks are removed, they push a person into this furnace. In a matter of seconds, the victim suffocates and loses consciousness… I resisted the best that I could, and burned by palms… Then they put me barefoot in the snow. As a result, I lost my toes…”
All that is left for the author to add is that the temperature in that furnace at that particular time was about 800 degrees.
As a result, while the testimony by defectors on other topics could be credible (especially when it comes to the body of testimony or conversations with ordinary, rather than career, defectors), the topic of human rights really does require additional verification. Otherwise, we get “boiled babies”, and one important problem gets its ears chewed off by fictitious stories. The more heartbreaking a story is, the more caution a scientist or journalist needs to take.
But unfortunately, given the power anti-Pyongyang propaganda has, attempts to cast doubt on this testimony provokes a reaction: “Those who have gone through such horrors cannot lie, and if you dare to doubt their words, then you yourself are no better than their executioners”. And these kinds of lawsuits are one consequence of that.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, is a leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
RT in Germany is planning to take legal action against the tabloid Bild, after the Berlin newspaper ran a sensationalist tale that relied on leaked Telegram chats from a former employee, who claimed he had to spy for the channel.
In the article published on Tuesday, reporter Julian Roepcke, who has previously been aligned with the ‘Disinformation Portal’ of NATO’s Atlantic Council adjunct, claims that, according to Bild’s information, President Vladimir Putin ordered a spy op on his “public enemy number one.” It allegedly targeted opposition figure Alexey Navalny and two of his close aides. The supposed snooping is said to have happened during the activist’s treatment for alleged Novichok poisoning last year at Berlin’s Charité clinic.
On top of that, writes Roepcke, “Russia’s leadership used the Russian foreign broadcaster RT DE, which in turn relied on two German employees.” To back up the claims, Bild also ran an interview with Daniel Lange, then an employee of RT DE, who claimed he had a feeling of having been used as a spy in the case. Lange also leaked to Bild what he says were internal chats with his bosses.
Calling out Roepcke’s article, the head of RT in Germany Dinara Toktosunova said Lange had leaked Telegram chats in which he was merely being asked to do his job, after he’d failed to get any exclusive and newsworthy material about Navalny’s stay in Germany.
“We remind our colleagues of the German legislation that (for now) protects the press by allowing it to collect information about matters of public interest,” Toktosunova added.
The Bild article comes just days after Commerzbank told the parent company of RT DE and Ruptly that it would be ending their business relationship and closing their accounts at the end of May. Since Commerzbank changed its terms of service last November, RT DE had been trying to find an alternative bank, but 20 other financial institutions have either ignored its enquiries or flatly refused to open accounts on its behalf.
Toktosunova believes this to be part of a wider campaign to obstruct RT’s work in Germany. “We have every reason to believe that RT in Germany has been targeted by what is essentially a financial embargo,” she said on March 4, after the Commerzbank announcement.
Navalny was flown to Germany in August 2020, with his staff claiming he had been poisoned with Novichok, frequently described as the world’s deadliest nerve agent. He was treated at Berlin’s Charité clinic. Moscow said that Germany had refused Russia’s requests for detailed information about his condition.
Bild itself followed Navalny’s every move in Germany; not only did it gain access to the clinic, but it also published photos taken right at the entrance to Navalny’s treatment room.
The blogger and self-styled anti-corruption activist, regarded as the Russian “opposition leader” in the Western press, despite polling in the low single digits, returned to Moscow in January, where he was arrested for violating parole conditions in a case he regards as politically motivated.
Add Diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, and eye damage to the ever expanding list of medical complaints that so-called experts are linking to coronavirus.
Don’t forget brain damage, lung damage, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis. Covid is the virus that keeps on giving. Professor Francesco Rubino, an expert on type 1 diabetes, based at King’s College London told The Daily Mail :
“We started to become very concerned about diabetes within the first couple of months of the pandemic, when we began to get reports from around the world of an increase in cases among hospitalised Covid patients.
These were patients in whom diabetes suddenly developed at the same time as they were sick with Covid.”
The link is tenuous. In a study published by the journal Diabetes Care, 0nly 5 children out of 30 who were diagnosed with diabetes, had coronavirus. Karen Logan, a clinical nurse specialising in diabetes, admitted that a proper controlled study is needed to prove causation.
But that doesn’t matter. Government scientists are appearing on UK media this morning warning of the terrors of “Long Covid.” Presenters just nod along as professors list all manner of ailments thought to be linked to the virus.
I never know whether to laugh or cry when after listing all of these terrifying diseases, the experts finish by saying, “more research is needed.” God help me. My kingdom for just one (w)anchor to say “You mean you’ve just made all of that up? Why are you scaremongering?” I can dream.
According to today’s Mail Online :
Thousands are already thought to be afflicted by so-called ‘long Covid’ — symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness, chest pain, muscle aches, pounding heart and depression that persist for weeks or even months after the initial infection.
Now it seems the virus may also be capable of sparking serious and potentially incurable autoimmune conditions — where the body’s immune system attacks tissues, causing not just type 1 diabetes but the skin condition psoriasis and the joint disease rheumatoid arthritis, for example.
Meanwhile, emerging evidence points to lasting, potentially even permanent, harm to the hearts, kidneys and even the eyes of some Covid patients.
Emerging evidence? This is ridiculous. Using this logic it’s easy to see how they are doing it. If someone tests positive for covid and has an ingrowing toenail, you could conceivably claim that there is emerging evidence linking ingrowing toenails to covid. It’s laughable.
But I seem to be the only one laughing. I’m surrounded by people who are lapping it up. People haven’t suspended their disbelief, they’ve flushed it down the toilet.
In France recently, a woman was found running naked in a basement. She told paramedics that voices told her to do it. I swear to God, they linked her behaviour to coronavirus. Did the French say “pull the other one?” No! It was reported with a straight face.
In my opinion, these preposterous “Long Covid” stories are designed to scare people into having the jab and the jabs to come this Autumn. Uptake is a real problem for the government.
Hundreds of thousands of NHS workers have said they won’t have a jab. Under-40’s are far less likely to have it too. The propagandists are upping the ante.
You would think that a publication calling itself Christian would actually place a premium on telling the truth. Sadly it is only propaganda that matters to the Christian Science Monitor :
Jinotega, Nicaragua
Maria Gonzalez knows that growing coffee in Nicaragua’s northern mountains – as she has done since she was a little girl – gets harder and harder each year.
Rising temperatures are spoiling harvests when berries ripen too fast and a coffee leaf disease wiped out about half of the region’s crop between 2012 and 2014, killing most of Ms. Gonzalez’s plants.
Just as her new plants were starting to flourish, whipping winds and torrential rains from hurricanes Eta and Iota last November uprooted the bushes and shook the unripe berries to the ground.
With an initial hard few years now stretching into a decade, coffee farmers like Ms. Gonzalez face a tough decision: stay loyal to their coffee crop or find a new way to survive.
“I’m experimenting with a lot of things because if I see that one is doing better, I’ll stick with that,” she said. “And if not, we’ll be there fighting for our coffee.”
A coffee picker carries sacks of coffee cherries at a plantation in the Nogales farm in Jinotega, Nicaragua January 7, 2016.
Soaring temperatures in Central America due to climate change are forcing farmers to pull up coffee trees and replace them with cocoa, spurring a revival in the cultivation of a crop once so essential to the region’s economy.
Of course, there are inevitably years when harvests are poor, but the decline in output between 2012 and 2014 was no greater than many other years since 1961.
It is estimated that harvest losses from the two hurricanes, which frequently hit Nicaragua, will be between 10% and 15%., taking output back to 2017 levels. Again, drops of this magnitude are commonplace in Nicaragua.
And far from the Jinotega region being particularly vulnerable as claimed, it is recognised as the best in a country noted for the quality of its coffee:
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal cited an unnamed State Department Global Engagement Center official, saying Russian intelligence is trying to undermine confidence in US mass-jabbing for covid.
No evidence was cited like virtually always when Russia and other invented US enemies are accused of things they had nothing to do with.
Russia aside, there’s nothing remotely safe and effective about rushed to market, inadequately tested, experimental Pfizer and Moderna mRNA technology.
The same goes for J & J covid vaccine and AstraZeneca’s entry in Europe.
They’re all unapproved, granted emergency use authorization when no emergency exists.
Less than two months after mass-jabbing began, countless thousands suffered serious adverse events including deaths.
No one should be a mass-jabbing guinea pig for Pharma.
No one should risk their health and well-being so Pfizer, Moderna, and now Johnson & Johnson can cash in big on a bonanza of profits at the expense of individuals duped to believe they’ll be protected from what’s too hazardous to touch.
According to State Department disinformation, New Eastern Outlook, Oriental Review, News Front, and Rebel Inside truth-telling about mass-jabbing hazards is Russian propaganda.
According to the unnamed US official, “Russian intelligence services bear direct responsibility for using these four platforms to spread propaganda and lies (sic),” adding:
“We can say these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services (sic).”
“They’re all foreign-owned, based outside of the United States.”
“They vary a lot in their reach, their tone, their audience, but they’re all part of the Russian propaganda and disinformation ecosystem (sic).”
According to the neocon/Russophobic Alliance for Securing Democracy that’s militantly hostile to the notion everywhere:
“The emphasis on denigrating Pfizer is likely due to its status as the first vaccine besides Sputnik V to see mass use, resulting in a greater potential threat to Sputnik’s market dominance.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov debunked the above fake news, saying:
“It’s nonsense. Russian special services have nothing to do with any criticism against vaccines.
“If we treat every negative publication against the Sputnik V vaccine as a result of efforts by American special services, then we will go crazy because we see it every day, every hour and in every Anglo-Saxon media.”
The Journal explained that the unnamed US official “didn’t provide specific evidence linking the publications to Russian intelligence” — because none exists like time and again earlier when phony accusations are made.
Unlike US rushed to market experimental drugs for mass-jabbing, introduction of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine last summer followed over 20 years of vaccine research, according to Sechenov University’s Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology director Vadim Tarasov.
Technology used to develop Sputnik V is based upon adenovirus, the common cold.
Tarasov explained that the vaccine may not entirely stop covid from spreading. It’ll make symptoms milder, he said, adding:
“We can really talk about a breakthrough as our country has shown itself to be one of the leaders in the global pharmaceutical industry due to the fact that it has retained and developed new competencies in drug development.”
There’s no ambiguity about the health hazards of experimental US drugs for mass-jabbing.
Using them as directed risks serious self-inflicted harm or death — why it’s crucial to avoid them.
“Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Since COVID19 first hurtled over the horizon, before landing upon us all with great force, I find that I have been asked to believe in many impossible things. First, I was told that attempting to create herd immunity was not achievable. It would also be extremely dangerous and would inevitably result in many hundreds of thousands of excess deaths.
Then the vaccines arrived at fantastical speed and I was told that mass vaccination, by creating herd immunity, would be the factor that would allow us to conquer COVID19 and return to normal life. I am not entirely sure which of these things is impossible, but one of them must be.
I was then told the vaccine would provide greater immunity than being infected with COVID19. Which was interesting. I am not sure if this is actually impossible, but it seemed unlikely that anyone could make such statements after about three hundred people had actually been studied, and just two months had passed.
At the time I was aware of two people proven to have been re-infected with COVID19, out of about ten million cases. So, getting infected certainly seemed to provide a pretty good degree of immunity. A re-infection rate of 0.00005%
I also know that vaccinations can only ever really create an attenuated response. Whereas a full-blown infection triggers a full-blown immune response. So, I think it is pretty close to impossible that vaccination can provide greater protection than that from getting the actual disease. Which is why I think it is utterly bonkers we are actually vaccinating people who have circulating antibodies in their blood.
I am also being asked to believe that face masks are essential to stop the spread of COVID19 and prevent millions of deaths worldwide. The use of masks to prevent viral spread is something I actually researched in depth before COVID19 arrived (for various reasons), as did the WHO. They looked at non-pharmaceutical interventions for prevention of influenza, and produced a hefty report, which covered the use of masks.
Yes, I agree, influenza is not exactly the same as COVID19. But it is pretty much the same size of virus, and it is thought to spread in much the same way. Anyway, the WHO reported their views on masks in 2019, using data from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) – the gold standard.
Since then, there has only been one RCT done on COVID19 transmission, in Denmark. It did not find any significant benefit from masks in reducing spread. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33205991/
Never has a trial been subjected to such immediate and hostile reporting. Fact-checkers (whoever exactly they might be, or what understanding they have of medical research) immediately attacked it. One such, called PolitiFact, made the following judgement, which amused me.
“Social media posts claim,“The first randomized controlled trial of more than 6,000 individuals to assess the effectiveness of surgical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection found masks did not statistically significantly reduce the incidence of infection.”
The study concluded that wearing masks did not offer a very high level of personal protection to mask wearers in communities where wearing masks was not common practice. The study noted, however, that the data suggested masks provided some degree of self-protection.
So, according to PolitiFact, masks provided self-protection, but not personal protection. An interesting concept. Note to self, try to find out the difference between these two things.
In fact, this was just one of hundreds of critical articles, with self-anointed fact checkers clearly desperate to pull it to pieces. Yes, we have now entered a world when political fact checkers feel free to attack and contradict the findings of scientific papers, using such scientific terms as ‘Mostly false.’ Maybe they should have called it ‘very unique’ at the same time. Or, like the curate’s egg, that was good in parts.
Ignoring the modern-day Spanish Inquisition, and their ill-informed criticisms, I will simply call this study. More evidence that face masks don’t work. Perhaps someone will come along with a study proving that face masks work. So far … nada. Another impossible thing.
4: As of the 2nd March 2021 there have been 122,953 deaths from COVID19 in the UK.
Unlike many people I have actually written COVID19 on death certificates. Mostly they have been educated guesses. On at least five of them, early last year, there had been no positive swab to go on. So, I was just going on probable symptoms. As were many other doctors at the time.
Which means that you can take five off that number for starters. Although, of course, once written, that is very much, that … when it comes to death certificates. In fact, early on in the pandemic, we were probably underdiagnosing as often as over diagnosing deaths from COVID19. Although no-one will ever know. With no positive swab – and few swabs were being done – and almost no post-mortems – you were simply guessing.
As for now … NOW we have the very strange concept that any death within twenty-eight days of a positive COVID19 swab is recorded as a COVID19 death. Simultaneously, I am told that if I have a positive test at work, and then take some time off work (I can never remember the latest guidance). I am not to have another swab for ninety days.
How so? Because it now seems (I actually knew this a long time ago), that swabs can remain positive for months after the infection has been and gone [or was maybe never there to begin with]. Or to put this another way, you can have a positive swab long after you have been infected – and recovered. There are just some bits of virus up your nose that can be magnified, through the wonders of the PCR test, into a positive result.
Which means that an elderly person, infected months ago, can be admitted to hospital for any reason whatsoever. The they can have a positive swab – everyone is swabbed. Then they can die, from whatever it was they were admitted for in the first place. Then, they will be recorded as a COVID19 death.
In truth, this is just the start of impossible things when it comes to the number of COVID19 deaths. Do not get me started on PCR cycle numbers, and false positives. We would be here all day.
Equally, how many people have truly died of COVID19, instead of simply with COVID19? If I painted a blue circle on your forehead, then you died, I would not say that you died of a blue circle painted on your forehead. I would say that you died with a blue circle painted on your forehead.
5: The Swedish COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster. It Shouldn’t Be a Model for the Rest of the World
This was actually the headline title from an article in TIME magazine. The article went on to state that ‘The Swedish way has yielded little but death and misery. And this situation has not been honestly portrayed to the Swedish people or to the rest of the world.’https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/
Death and misery. Hmmmm, I might make this the title of my next book. Bound to be a best seller.
Yes, Sweden has been attacked from all sides with terrific venom, for holding out against imposing severe lockdown. How dare they… follow the WHO’s initial advice. That everyone else ignored.
So, have they done well with regard to COVID19 deaths? Not particularly. Have they done badly? Not particularly. On Worldometer they rank twenty fourth highest for deaths per million of the population. Which is pretty much bang on average for Western Europe.
One reason why they might not have appeared to do better is that, in the year 2019, they had their lowest rate of death for at least ten years. Three and a half thousand less in total than in 2018 https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-deaths/ . In Norway, a country used to beat Sweden with, due to their very low COVID19 deaths there was no difference in death rate between 2018 and 2019. To be blunt, the elderly population in Sweden had some catching up to do.
Once you factor this in, the much-lauded difference in deaths, between Norway and Sweden, kind of disappears.
‘Our study shows that all-cause mortality was largely unchanged during the epidemic as compared to the previous four years in Norway and Sweden, two countries which employed very different strategies against the epidemic. Excess mortality from COVID-19 may be less pronounced than previously perceived in Sweden, and mortality displacement might explain part of the observed findings.’https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.11.20229708v1.full
In absolute figures. Sweden had
92,185 deaths in 2018
88,766 deaths in 2019
97,941 deaths in 2020
A drop, then a rebound. Perhaps another way to look at the figures is to compare 2020 with a bad Swedish year in the past. In 2012, 91,938 people died. However, the population was lower at 9.5 million vs 10.2 million. So:
The absolute death rate in 2012 was 0.957%.
The absolute death rate in 2020 was 0.969%.
The difference between 2012 and 2020 is 0.012%. That is 120 extra deaths per million of the population, which is 1,224 people in population of 10.2 million. The statistics tell us that twelve thousand people died from COVID19 in Sweden. Maybe you can make all that add up. Frankly, I find it impossible.
6: Lockdowns have worked.
Before COVID19 came along, no country had ever attempted a lockdown – ever. So, no-one had any idea if such a thing could possibly work. There was no evidence, from anywhere, to support its use.
It was the Chinese who started it, and who claimed great success for their jackboot lockdown tactics. Well, they convinced me… not. Frankly, if I had to choose a country from which to obtain high quality, unbiased information, about anything, China would not feature in my top one hundred and ninety-four countries
But there you go, lockdown worked under the control of the kind and caring CCP. Hoorah, cheering all round, and the first person to stop cheering gets shot. Well, we don’t want any damned nay-sayers, do we? After that, according to almost everything I have read, everywhere, it worked for everyone else too. Remarkable.
Yes, it is certainly true you can find countries that locked down, closed their borders, and kept the rates low. That, however, is not proof of anything at all. The scientific method requires a little more rigour than this.
In fact, the main thing that scientific rigour requires is that you specifically do not go around looking for facts that support your hypothesis. Because that, I am afraid, is the exact opposite of science. What you need to do, instead, is to go around looking for facts that disprove your hypothesis. This is what Karl Popper called falsification.
For example, my hypothesis is that “all swans are white”. I seek, and find, only white swans. So, this makes my hypothesis is correct? No. What science requires you do is to hunt tirelessly for black swans. If you never find one, fine. However, you need to be aware that the moment you do, your hypothesis has just been disproven. In real life things are very rarely as simple as this, but that is the basic principle.
However, with lockdown (and I recognise that no two countries locked down in the same way) the hypothesis is that countries which did not lockdown will have higher rate of death for COVID19 than those that did.
So, let us look, first, at the countries with the highest rate of COVID19. Excluding very small countries e.g., San Marino, or Gibraltar, we have, in descending order of deaths per million of the population https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ .
Czechia
Belgium
Slovenia
UK
Italy
Montenegro
Portugal
USA
Hungary
Bosnia and Herzegovina
North Macedonia
Bulgaria
Spain
Mexico
Peru
Croatia
Slovakia
Panama
France
Every single country in this list carried out fairly strict lockdowns. The UK, apparently, has the strictest lockdown in the world, this winter.
Four countries that have been roundly criticized for having far less restrictive lockdowns are: Sweden, Japan, Belarus and Nicaragua (Realistically there are others, in poorer countries, where lockdowns have not happened – because they can’t afford it)
In these four ‘non-lockdowns’ countries, the death rate is, on average 391 per million.
In the top twenty ‘lockdown’ countries, the death rate is, on average 1,520 per million.
The only non-lockdown country in the top ninety for death rates is Sweden. It comes just below France, at number twenty-four.
Now, if the difference between lockdown and non-lockdown countries were ten per cent, or even fifty per cent, I would fully accept that there are many other variables that could explain such finding away. Although, of course, we should really look at a higher rate in the non-lockdown countries, not a lower rate.
Yet although this evidence is out there, I am being asked to believe that lockdowns work. At least the WHO agrees with me on this impossible thing. As Dr David Nabarro, the WHO special envoy on COVID19 said:
“We really do appeal to all world leaders, stop using lockdown as your primary method of control,” he said.
Fifteen of the 9/11 “hijackers” from Saudi Arabia were CIA agents working for the United States government, which was seeking to destroy the Middle East for Israel and to double the American military budget, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic who has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2003…. continue
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