The Abyss of Disinformation Gazes Into Its Creators
By Patrick Armstrong | Startegic Culture Foundation | August 17, 2020
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche
The other day the U.S. State Department published “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem“. The report should have a disclaimer like this:
Everything you read in the NYT or hear Rachel Maddow say about Russia is true: Putin is a murderer, a thief and a thug, he shot down MH17, poisoned the Skripals, elected Trump, invaded Georgia and stole Crimea. If you question any part of this, you are controlled and directed by Russian Disinformation HQ.
Freedom of speech does not entitle you to doubt The Truth.
The methodology of all of these things – this is one of several – is uncomplicated. Paul Robinson has commented on the dependence of so much comment about Russia, and this report in particular, on the myth of central control.
- Anything anywhere on Russian social media, whether sensible or crazy, was personally put there by Putin to sow discord and weaken us. All social media or websites based in Russia are 100% controlled by Putin.
- The Truth about Russia is found in the West’s official statements and in the “trusted source media”. Anyone who questions it benefits Putin, who wants to bring us down, and is therefore acting as a servant of Russian Disinformation HQ.
The argument really is that simple and can be found in its baldest (and stupidest) version on the EU vs DiSiNFO site, The NATO Centre of Excellence is pretty bad while The Integrity Initiative seems to have been embarrassed into silence. Note the “disinfo”, “excellence” and “integrity” bits – that’s called gaslighting. Who funds these selfless truth seekers? The EU, NATO and the British government. But they’re good and truthful, unlike those tricky Russians.
In this particular effusion they look at seven websites, six of which are registered in Russia and one in Canada. The report declares that they are in an ecosystem directed from Russian Disinformation HQ. In reality they are sites which publish writers who – to take one example – think that it is a bit unusual that a deadly nerve agent smeared on a door handle requires the roof of the house to be replaced. But doubt, these days, is the outward sign of an inward Putinism.
Door handle!
Yeah, OK, but why the roof?
Putinbot!
One of the websites mentioned in the report is the one you’re reading now – Strategic Culture Foundation.
Could these be the officials who told the NYT about the bounties? Or gave it the photos it had to walk back a few days later? Or said their sources had “mysteriously gone quiet?” Or told it all 17? Or said it was probably microwave weapons? Or gave us years of scoops about how Mueller was just about to lock him up? Or told the NYT that Russia’s “economy suffers from flat growth and shrinking incomes“? Probably, but you’re not supposed to ask these questions.
The report has a good deal of speculation about who backs Strategic Culture Foundation (p 15). Personally I don’t much care who runs it (and I very much doubt that the Kremlin understands the point of running an opinion website). I’ve been in the USSR/Russia business for some time and what I think hasn’t changed much since 1986 or so. I’ve written for a number of sites which have faded away and I will not permit having what I write changed; the one time it happened twelve years ago, I immediately switched my operations elsewhere. Strategic Culture Foundation has never changed anything I’ve submitted and only twice suggested a topic – this one and Putin’s weaponised crickets. (And the warning is still up at the U.S. State Department site!) The other writers on the site whom I know haven’t changed their views either. Strategic Culture Foundation hasn’t created something that didn’t exist before, it’s collected something that already existed. What do we writers have in common? Well, Dear Reader, look around you. Certainly we question The Truth. Or maybe SCF is a place where people “baffled by the hysterical Russophobia of the MSM and the Democratic Party since the 2016 election” can find something else? Or maybe it’s part of Madison’s “general intercourse of sentiments”?
There was a theory in the Cold War that the two sides would eventually converge. I often think that they met and then kept on going and passed each other. In those days the Soviets did their best to block what they considered to be – dare I suggest it? – disinformation. And so RFE/RL, BBC, Radio Canada and so on were jammed. We, on our side, didn’t care who listened to Radio Moscow or read Soviet publications. Today it’s the other way round. Which fact prompts the easy deduction that the side that’s confident that it has a better connection to reality and truth doesn’t waste effort trying to block the other. In a fascinating essay, the Saker describes Russian propaganda for its home audience: “give as much air time to the most rabid anti-Kremlin critiques as possible, especially on Russian TV talkshows”. They even took the trouble to dub Morgan Freeman’s absurd “we are at war” video. That’s brilliant – we won’t tell you they hate you, we’ll let them tell you they hate you.
The report talks as if this “ecosystem” were big and influential. But it’s a tiny mouse next to a whale. Total followers on Twitter of all seven sites are 156 thousand (p65). That’s nothing: the NYT has 47.1 million Twitter followers, BBC Breaking News 44.8, WaPo 16.1. Why even Rachel Maddow has ten million followers eager to hear her explain how Russia is going to turn off your furnace next winter. So the rational observer has a choice to make after reading this report: either the report ludicrously over-exaggerates the influence of this “ecosystem” or 156,000 website followers are astonishingly influential and I, with my Strategic Culture Foundation pieces, personally control several Electoral College votes.
The real message of “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem“, to someone who isn’t invested in spinning – ahem – theories about a Kremlin disinformation conspiracy, is that the “pillars” are feeble and the “ecosystem” small: Maddow alone has three times the followers of these seven plus the RT (3 million) the “all 17” report spent nearly half its space irrelevantly ranting about. Or maybe it’s saying that American voters are so easily influenced that “the Lilliputian Russians, spending a pittance compared to the Goliaths of the Clinton and Trump campaigns, was the deciding factor in 2016“.
Ironically this thing appeared at the same time as two that suggest Washington’s view of Moscow needs some work: It’s Time to Rethink Our Russia Policy and The Problem With Putinology: We need a new kind of writing about Russia. Good to see titles like that but they aren’t really rethinking anything: they still agree that Putin’s guilty of everything that Maddow says he is. Real re-thinking might get a toehold, for example, were people to contemplate why it is imbecilic to say that Moscow holds military exercises close to NATO’s borders. But you’ll only see that sort of thing on Strategic Culture Foundation and the others.
But now the abyss gazes back
Clinton loses an election, blames Russia, the intelligence agencies pile on, the media shrieks away. Americans are told patriotic Americans don’t doubt. And now we arrive at the next stage of insanity. William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, informs us that “Russia is backing Donald Trump, China is supporting Joe Biden and Iran is seeking to sow chaos in the U.S. presidential election…”. I guess that means that Russia and China will cancel each other out and that he’s telling us that Iran will choose the next POTUS. Who would have thought that the fate of the “greatest nation in earth” (as Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush Jr, Clinton, Bush Sr and Reagan like to call it) would be hidden under a turban somewhere in Iran?
So, American, know this: your “trusted sources” are telling you not to bother to vote in November – it’s not your decision.
COVID-19: Who’s Scheming?
By Dr. Pascal Sacré | Global Research | August 16, 2020
In order for us to be on the same wavelength, I have to define that word. Conspiracy Theorist: An advocate of Conspiracy theory.
It’s like saying, racist: defender of a theory of racism. We don’t get very far with that. A synonym is conspiracy theorist.
What is a conspiracy theory or conspiracy theorist? One thing’s for sure, these words are pejorative, bad. Nobody likes this label: “conspiracy theorist”, “conspiracy theory”.
Since September 11, 2001, this ancient word [1] has been used to disqualify anyone who makes statements which go against the official narrative.
Let’s analyze this sentence because every word is important.
By official, many mean governmental.
That’s not quite right.
If you say that Donald Trump, who is the “official” president and elected head of the U.S. government, is full of BS, who has used the support of the Russians to get elected [2] or that he wants to cancel the next U.S. elections [3], i.e. which constitute conspiracy theories against Trump, Western journalists in chorus will applaud. They won’t call you a conspiracy theorist even if, according to the definition, that’s what you have being doing.
In the case of COVID-19 in 2020, if you say that all the doctors (and there are not two, ten or a hundred, but thousands around the world) who say that hydroxychloroquine is a cure to COVID-19 and that these crazy doctors have escaped from a lunatic asylum [4], once again the journalists will congratulate you. In any case, even without proof of what you say, no one will call you a conspiracy theorist.
Yet, it is a conspiracy theory and it is directed against qualified doctors.
By doing so, you are accusing doctors [5], some of whom work at the University or in recognized hospitals for decades, such as Professor Harvey Risch [6] of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, Professor Didier Raoult, Director of the Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, and Dr Christian Perronne [7], a professor of French university hospital practitioners, specialized in the field of tropical pathologies and emerging infectious diseases and former president of the specialized commission “Communicable Diseases” of the High Council of Public Health, in addition to many less known but equally reliable and serious doctors, family doctors, field doctors, general practitioners or specialists [8 to 13].
You are a real “conspiracy theorist” if you think that all these highly qualified doctors are lying or want to manipulate you, Yet, no one will treat you like that.
The truth is that you will be labeled a “conspiracy theorist” if and only if you say things against the official narrative or official consensus, which is sustained and acknowledged by:
- international institutions (World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Economic Forum, United Nations, European Commission, European Medicines Agency…).
- By national relays who report to these international institutions in all important fields, health, medical, educational, media, economic… [14].
All this forms a coherent, transnational, supranational system (a consensus), driven by common goals and using a precise and studied language.
It must be understood that this system is independent of politicians and survives electoral changes. It perpetuates itself, whatever happens, not through a president, a particular person, but through these institutions that go through all the scandals [15 to 18] and all the attacks without taking a scratch.
Who runs this system?
I won’t answer here first because this is another task which deserves a full report and second, because many researchers have already successfully identified this topic [19 to 22].
Therefore, being a president, head of government, a medical graduate and representing a valid and serious authority is not enough to protect you from being challenged on the grounds that the challenger is a conspirator.
No.
To benefit from this protection, you must belong to the system, speak its language and pursue its goals.
Thus, Anthony Fauci, with his criticizable and contradictory remarks [23], will never be called a conspirator.
Professor Harvey Risch will.
Thus, newspapers that claim that Remdesivir (produced by Big Pharma) is effective in treating COVID-19, contrary to hydroxychloroquine, will never be called conspiracy theorists.
Those who say otherwise, with studies and doctors to back them up, yes.
The problem is that Trump said he was in favour of hydroxychloroquine as well, and he is discredited each time he says it.
It is said that Remdesivir proved its effectiveness against Covid-19, in a Belgian newspaper of August 11, 2020 [24].
Words are important.
The word “proven“, in this case, is false.
But who will notice it, if you are neither a doctor nor aware of the studies in question?
In the meantime, a lie is taken for granted, it becomes a truth.
A single treatment with Remdesivir will bring Gilead Science Inc. $2,500 per patient [25].
In contrast, Hydroxychloroquine, nothing or almost nothing. It is a very inexpensive drug.
The terms “conspiracy” or “conspiracy theory” have nothing to do with truth or credibility, they have to do with conformity to dominant ideas, dictated by the system that relentlessly pursues its goals.
Another important word is “theory“. Conspiracy theories.
This implies ramblings without foundation, without evidence.
Yet many claims labeled “conspiracy theories” are not theoretical.
It is rare to have formal proof at the time of the claim. It may be the result of research, reflections or presumptions.
In forensic medicine or criminal science, you will not always have irrefutable evidence but a set of solid presumptions (motive, indirect and coherent facts) that is sufficient to convict an accused person, according to the law.
Consider the “conspiracy theory” that the pharmaceutical industry is pushing to discredit hydroxychloroquine in favour of its expensive products, antivirals such as Remdesivir or vaccines.
It would be nice to have irrefutable proof of this, but I can’t see an industry leader writing such an admission and then leaving it lying around to fall into the hands of an honest journalist. That would be really suicidal, don’t you think? And in any case, we would discredit that executive, or that journalist, until their words become worthless.
However, as we would do in any police investigation, is there a strong circumstantial body of evidence?
1) Does this industry have a motive?
Yes.
This industry has a famous motive for doing this: money.
It’s not thousands or hundreds of thousands of euros that would push a lot of people to commit murder, but billions of euros [26-27].
2) Does this industry have the means to do this?
Yes.
We know it thanks to the testimony of people from inside, like John Virapen, former CEO of Eli Lilly & Company in Sweden [28], or former editors of major medical journals like Marcia Angell [29] (New England Journal of Medicine) or Richard Horton [30] (Lancet).
3) Has the industry ever done it?
Yes.
There are proven cases that illustrate the corruption of doctors by the pharmaceutical industry, such as the case of anaesthetist Scott Reuben who falsified data concerning the efficacy of the antidepressant Effexor (venlafaxine), produced by Wyeth (merged with Pfizer) in neuropathic and postoperative pain [31].
This is just one example [32]. More recently, you have the Lancet-Gate: “Scientific Corona Lies” and Big Pharma Corruption
Even when the evidence is there, have you ever seen a journalist who accused someone of being a “conspiracy theorist” make his mea culpa, apologize for his misunderstanding and restore the reputation of the “theorist” in question? And above all, restore the truth?
For just one example, I will take the story of the Kuwaiti babies torn from their incubator and thrown to the ground by Iraqi soldiers to justify the American intervention in Iraq in 1990. President George H. Bush senior used it on several occasions in several inflammatory speeches.
It was a lie [33]. We know that.
Yet anyone who would have known or understood this, and said so at the time, would have been called a “conspiracy theorist” in collusion with Saddam Hussein.
For the record, and to show you that these techniques did not stop in 1991 or after the proof of this lie, the dishonest PR firm behind this Kuwaiti babies myth is the same firm that in 2020 helped the World Health Organization (WHO) to make the World Health Organization (WHO) believe in the COVID-19 pandemic and to enforce its diktats: the firm Hill & Knowlton [34].
So, what does this mean, conspiracy, and who is really a conspirator?
We can see that it means nothing.
It’s a pejorative, bad label, which will not be given to you if you lie, or if you criticize a person or a government that justly disturbs the system.
It will be given to you if what you say, even if it is true, plausible, proven, goes against the authorized discourse of the system.
Check it out for yourself.
Criticize the doctors who defend the use of hydroxychloroquine in VIDOC-19, and you won’t be charged with conspiracy.
You will be listened to, approved.
Criticize Anthony Fauci or the national security councils regarding Covid-19, then yes, you will be accused of conspiracy, indeed of all evils.
Very often it has nothing to do with theories.
The facts that are put forward are sometimes proven, very often supported by many solid and plausible arguments.
Words are very important. Do not underestimate their importance. They direct our thoughts.
I know this as a doctor, but I also know it as a passionate advocate of therapeutic communication.
Like the very first doctors of the Antiquity, I know that words can heal.
They can also make people docile or sick.
The words “conspiracy theorist”, “conspiracy theorist”, “conspiracy theorist” only serve to cut short any debate.
Only to have the person the dominant system wants to discredit rejected, so that person is no longer listened to.
That is what is dangerous, not “conspiracy theories”.
What is really dangerous is to not even want to debate and to exclude ideas, people and opinions on the pretext that they are disturbing.
That is what sows the seeds of a totalitarian society; not conspiracy theories.
It is by refusing any debate, any discussion and by brandishing this kind of disqualifying expression that threatens humanity.
Dr Pascal Sacré
Translation from French by Maya for Global Research
Notes :
[1] Théorie du complot, Wikipédia
[2] Ingérence : comment la Russie a biaisé la campagne de 2016 au profit de Trump
[3] Comment Trump pourrait saboter l’élection pour la remporter
[4] Hydroxychloroquine: Goliath contre David, acte I : les détracteurs
[5] Covid-19 – Hydroxychloroquine, David contre Goliath, acte II : les supporteurs
[6] L’hydroxychloroquine agit chez les patients à haut risque, et dire le contraire est dangereux, Harvey Risch M.D., Ph.D., professeur d’épidémiologie à la Yale School of Public Health.
[7] Christian Perronne : “À Garches, nous avons de bons résultats avec l’hydroxychloroquine”, April 15, 2020, Fervent defender of the treatment with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, for Pr Christian Perronne the question of its effectiveness no longer arises. Head of the Infectious Diseases Department at the Raymond-Poincaré Hospital in Garches, he has seen it every day since the beginning of the epidemic: Professor Raoult’s treatment cures and considerably reduces the need for intensive care.
[8] Riposte à la covid-19 : la saine colère du Dr BELLATON, Source : page Facebook de Silviane Le Menn, 20 avril 2020.
[9] Coronavirus : le bilan très positif d’un praticien lorrain qui prescrit l’hydroxychloroquine, the Lorrain Republican, Philippe Marque, April 6, 2020. The results are more than positive: “I have used this protocol on a dozen hospitalized patients, who therefore have a Covid-19 that is already relatively worrying, and I have had neither death nor any evolution towards a serious stage requiring resuscitation.”
[10] Un médecin mosellan constate l’efficacité d’un protocole à base d’azithromycine, the Lorrain Republican, Thierry Fedrigo, April 11, 2020. Two Moselle doctors and one of their Belgian colleagues seem to have developed a drug combination effective against coronavirus. Relying on azithromycin without resorting to the hydroxychloroquine advocated by the infectiologist Didier Raoult, they have noted a clear drop in hospitalizations of their treated patients.
[11] Un médecin néerlandais soigne les patients atteints de coronavirus, mais le gouvernement néerlandais n’est pas content, Amari Roos, 10 avril 2020
[12] Des médecins algériens attestent de l’«efficacité quasi totale» de l’hydroxychloroquine contre le Covid-19,April 27, 2020. The heads of infectious disease departments of a hospital in Blida and another in Algiers say that the hydroxychloroquine protocol followed in the treatment of patients with coronavirus gives a “near-total” positive result.
[13] Après l’Algérie, le Maroc encense l’efficacité de l’hydroxychloroquine contre le Covid-19, May 1, 2020. The therapeutic protocol based on hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin used against Covid-19 “has given positive results” in Morocco, the Health Minister said, adding that “side effects are minimal”.
[14] Ordres nationaux tels que l’Ordre des Médecins, l’Ordre des Pharmaciens, Hautes Autorités de Santé, Sciensano en Belgique…
[15] Agence européenne du médicament : des experts sous influence ?, 12 décembre 2017.
[16] Covid-19: les conseillers du pouvoir face aux conflits d’intérêts, paru le 31mars 2020, écrit par Rozenn Le Saint et Annton Rouget.
[17] Coronavirus : des liens troubles entre labos et conseils scientifiques, Valeurs actuelles, 3 avril 2020.
[18] L’Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l’Europe va enquêter sur l’OMS et le scandale « pandémique », Mondialisation.ca, F. William Engdahl, 6 janvier 2010
[19] Anthony C Sutton: British economist, historian and writer. Sutton was a Stanford scholar at the Hoover Foundation from 1968 to 1973. He taught economics at UCLA. He studied in London, Göttingen and UCLA and received a PhD in science from the University of Southampton, England. In 1972, at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, he was awarded a Ph.D : Wall Street et l’ascension de Hitler , Wall Street et la révolution bolchévique
[20] Carroll Quigley: American historian and professor of history at Georgetown University from 1941 to 1976. Quigley was born in Boston, where he later studied and earned two degrees and a doctorate in history from nearby and highly regarded Harvard University. At Georgetown University: Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
[21] Pierre Hillard : essayiste français, docteur en science politique : La marche irrésistible du nouvel ordre mondial , Chroniques du mondialisme
[22] Michael Parenti, American historian, political scientist and cultural critic. He has taught in American and foreign universities. A must read: L’Horreur impériale
[23] Lancet-Gate: « Mensonges scientifiques sur le coronavirus » et corruption des grandes sociétés pharmaceutiques., Mondialisation.ca, Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, 15 July 2020. Dr Anthony Fauci, Donald Trump’s adviser, described as “America’s top infectious disease expert”, played a key role in smearing the HCQ cure that had been approved years earlier by the CDC, as well as in legitimizing Gilead’s Remdesivir.
[24] Le remdesivir, médicament qui a prouvé son efficacité face au Covid-19, 11 août 2020.
[25] Le traitement au remdesivir coûtera 2.340 dollars, selon Gilead, 29 juin 2020
[26] COVID-19 : au plus près de la vérité. Vaccins., Mondialisation.ca, Dr Pascal Sacré, 2 août 2020
[27] COVID-19: au plus près de la vérité – Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), Mondialisation.ca, Dr Pascal Sacré, 29 juillet 2020
[28] Médicaments effets secondaires : la mort, les laboratoires nous trompent. John Virapen, le cherche midi éditions, 2014
[29] The truth about drug companies, how they cheat us, how to thwart them, Marcia Angell, MD, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, French translation, les éditions le mieux-être, 2005.
[30] COVID-19 : le côté obscur de la science révélé, Mondialisation.ca, Dr Pascal Sacré, 26 mai 2020
[31] Top Pain Scientist Fabricated Data in Studies, Hospital Says, 11 Mars 2009
[32] Du Nujol au Tamiflu : la guerre menée par l’industrie pharmaceutique contre nos santés, Mondialisation.ca, Dr Pascal Sacré, 16 juin 2010
[33] l’affaire des Couveuses de la Mort et le début de la Guerre du Golfe
[34] COVID 19 – Contrat de l’OMS avec la société de relations publiques Hill & Knowlton
Media Claim California Crop Crisis, as Farmers Complain About TOO HIGH Crop Yields
California farmers complain that record yields are lowering prices
By James Taylor | ClimateREALISM | August 16, 2020
Google News and the alarmist media are warning about climate change harming California crop production and bringing “hard times” to California farmers – even as California crop production sets records. In fact, California crop production is so strong that farmers are complaining that high yields are depressing crop prices.
Among the top results today for a Google News search of “climate change” is an article in the Bakersfield Californian titled, “Climate change report forecasts hard times for Kern ag.” The article addresses a newly published report produced by a climate change activist group in conjunction with California state officials. The report claims climate change is setting up harmful conditions for California agricultural production.
The Californian article begins, “A new report warns Kern County agriculture will face tough challenges in the decades ahead as climate change makes irrigation water scarcer and weather conditions more variable and intense. The study concludes these hurdles ‘ultimately challenge the ability to maximize production while ensuring profitability.’”
The truth, however, is that a century of modest warming has brought increasingly beneficial temperatures and climate. Crop production is setting records virtually every year in Southern California, California as a whole, the United States, and globally.
In Kern County, total crop value rose 3 percent in 2019, setting a new record. Other California counties are also thriving under present climate. Fresno County’s total crop value rose 12 percent in 2018 to briefly overtake Kern County as the nation’s top-grossing county for agricultural production. Kern County’s 2019 growth reclaimed the title.
Crop production in 2020 is shaping up even better, with more new records forecast. The Sacramento Bee, for example, published an August 5 article titled, “This is what harvest of a 2020 record 2020 almond crop looks like.”
In fact, crop yields are so strong that some farmers are making news hoping for adverse weather to occur. The Californian itself reported this just last month, in an article titled, “Almond growers fret over expectations for another record harvest.” The article noted that record almond production is causing lower almond prices, making it harder for farmers to profit from their crop. The article noted that February’s almond tree blooms were “close to perfect” under ideal temperatures and climate conditions Curiously, the Californian failed to mention climate change’s role in the close-to-perfect climate conditions and record almond production.
The national crop outlook is just as strong. The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts record crop yields this year for the important corn and soybean crops, as well as other crops. This builds upon consistent growth in U.S. crop production and records being set on a near-annual basis.
Globally, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forecasts the 2020/2021 crop season will set yet another record for crop production. FAO reports global crop production has increased more than 10 percent during the past decade.
In summary, Google News and the corrupt media are once again reporting fake news and fake science. Global warming has brought about perfect California climate conditions and record crop production. Even as this happens, the media are deceiving people by reporting climate change is ushering in a California crop crisis.
James Taylor is Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute.
Russia says CNN claim US refused vaccine help is false
By Jonny Tickle | RT | August 14, 2020
The US did not reject Russia’s offer of cooperation in developing a coronavirus vaccine, according to a Moscow health official, who says help wasn’t even proffered, despite claims from CNN.
On Thursday, the American broadcaster claimed Russia had offered the US “unprecedented cooperation” to Operation Warp Speed, the US multi-agency body dedicated to creating Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. Citing an unnamed “senior Russian official,” the news network said the Americans had refused help from Moscow due to a “general sense of mistrust.”
Alexey Kuznetsov, an assistant to Russia’s Health Minister, rebuffed CNN’s assertion, explaining that his ministry did not send an “official proposal” to the US.
According to the American network, US officials believe the Russian vaccine to be so incomplete that any assistance didn’t generate any interest at all, with one official saying, “There’s no way in hell the US will try [the Russian vaccine] on monkeys, let alone people.”
On August 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the country had registered the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine, named Sputnik V. Developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, the vaccine will be available to the general public from January 2021. The process of creating the vaccine has been criticized by some Western countries, who claim that the speedy production means it hasn’t yet been proved safe.
First ever railway bridge connecting Russia & China to open in 2022
RT – August 12, 2020
The long-awaited cross-border railway bridge linking Russia and China across the Amur river is scheduled to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2022, authorities in Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region announced on Wednesday.
The 2,209-meter-long (1.4 mile) structure will link Russia’s Far East with China’s northernmost Heilongjiang province. The Nizhneleninskoye (Jewish Autonomous Region) to Tongjiang (Heilongjiang province) bridge will be the first railway bridge between the two countries. It is expected to bring bilateral trade to new highs.
China has already completed the construction of its part of the structure. As for the Russian side, the region’s acting governor Rostislav Goldstein said earlier it “would be preferable to complete all the work on time, which is the first quarter of 2021.”
Construction of the cross-border bridge officially began in 2016, after 28 years of negotiations. The new bridge and its associated infrastructure will be 19.9km (12.4 miles) long. Some 6.5km (4.1 miles) of the bridge and road junctions will lie in China, and the remaining 13.5km (8.4 miles) will be located in Russia, according to China’s CNS agency.
The highway section of the bridge over the Amur river was completed last year. It will greatly facilitate trade between the two countries, since the route will be roughly 3,500km (2,175 miles) shorter than before. Russia plans to export iron ore, coal, mineral fertilizers, lumber and other goods via the link to China.
Media Falsely Claim Ethiopian Climate Crisis as Crop Yields Set Records
By H. Sterling Burnett | ClimateREALISM | August 10, 2020
Among the top Google News search results today for “climate change,” an article at Insider.com claims “food insecurity from climate change” is “pushing millions of people into cities.” In reality, Ethiopian crop yields are enjoying consistent, impressive gains, and are setting new records virtually every year. Also, Ethiopia’s rural population is growing, not shrinking, as higher crop yields support more farmers and more food production. The Insider.com article being promoted by Google is a perfect example of the dishonest claims made by proponents of the Climate Delusion.
The Insider.com article, titled “Climate change is pushing millions of people into cities like Addis Ababa. Here’s what rapid urbanization looks like in the Ethiopian capital,” asserts that World Health Organization predictions of a growing Ethiopian urban population prove that climate change is devastating crop production and driving people into cities. But that is faulty logic that defies objective reality. In reality, Ethiopia is benefiting from increasing food production and rapid economic growth in its cities. This economic growth is not forcing people away from the farms, but rather enticing many Ethiopians into cities with better paying jobs and the cultural and social attractions of urban life.
Data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), charted below, show remarkable growth in Ethiopian crop yields as the Earth continues its modest warming. Crop yields per acre are currently 80 percent higher than just a decade ago, and double what they were in the year 2000.
Moreover, the FAO reports that fully half the Ethiopian population was undernourished in the year 2000, while less than 20 percent of the population is undernourished today.
It is amazing that a “news” article at Insider.com can paint this spectacular crop growth and beneficial improvement in nutrition as “food insecurity from climate change.”
About the only thing that is true in the Insider.com article is that Ethiopia is experiencing dramatic urban population growth. However, it is a lie that the urban growth is being caused by climate change destabilizing food production and forcing people into cities. According to the FAO, Ethiopia’s urban areas have added 13 million people since the year 2000. However, Ethiopia’s rural areas have added 28 million people since the year 2000. Ethiopia’s urban and rural areas are gaining population – with rural areas experiencing the largest growth – as increasing crop yields sustain more population and bring more wealth to the nation’s people.
World Bank economic data illustrate this. Per the World Bank:
“Ethiopia’s economy experienced strong, broad-based growth averaging 9.9 percent a year from 2007/08 to 2017/18, compared to a regional average of 5.4%. … Industry, mainly construction, and services accounted for most of the growth. … Higher economic growth brought with it positive trends in poverty reduction in both urban and rural areas. The share of the population living below the national poverty line decreased from 30% in 2011 to 24% in 2016.”
In summary, Ethiopia is enjoying spectacular gains in crop yields that are supporting a rapidly growing population and dramatic growth in both urban and rural populations. The growth in Ethiopia’s urban population is clearly and inarguably a result of spectacular increases in food production and a wealthier population rather than mythical food insecurity. But the easily discernible and reassuring truth doesn’t promote climate alarmism. Therefore, the media lie and invent a false narrative.
Anti-Semitism payouts are an ‘abuse of members money,’ trade union warns Labour Party
RT | August 1, 2020
Britain’s Labour party is dishing out “substantial damages” to staffers who accused the party of anti-Semitism. However, new Labour leader Keir Starmer is facing backlash for this tactic of handling the issue.
Labour’s opponents have long accused the party of anti-Semitism, and a BBC documentary last year promised to shed light on these accusations. In it, seven former party members and a host of Israel advocates claimed that the party had stymied investigations into anti-Jewish sentiment within its ranks. The party condemned the documentary as “biased,” and accused the former members of having “personal and political axes to grind.”
These former members then sued the party, which agreed last week to pay “substantial damages” in the hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle the matter.
Starmer has made stamping out anti-Semitism a top priority, but the party’s most influential backers don’t agree with handing over cash payouts.
“It’s an abuse of members’ money,” ‘Unite’ leader Len McCluskey told the Observer on Saturday. “A lot of it is Unite’s money and I’m already being asked all kinds of questions by my executive. It’s as though a huge sign has been put up outside the Labour party with ‘queue here with your writ and get your payment over there.’”
With 1.2 million members, Unite is Britain’s second-largest trade union. It is also the Labour Party’s largest donor, and has coughed more than £7 million for the party since the start of last year. A withdrawal of its funding would leave the party at risk of insolvency, especially considering the more than 30 anti-Semitism lawsuits it may still have to settle.
McCluskey told the Observer that there is “no doubt” that his union will demand a review of the money it donates to the party. “It would be a mistake if anybody took Unite for granted,” he remarked. “I think that would be a mistake.”
Who Are You Gonna Believe?
By Steve Sailer • Unz Review • July 29, 2020
From the NYT opinion page:
Help Me Find Trump’s ‘Anarchists’ in Portland
The president has his politically driven narrative. And then there’s reality.
By Nicholas Kristof
Opinion ColumnistJuly 29, 2020, 4:23 p.m. ET
PORTLAND, Ore. — I’ve been on the front lines of the protests here, searching for the “radical-left anarchists” who President Trump says are on Portland streets each evening.
I thought I’d found one: a man who for weeks leapt into the fray and has been shot four times with impact munitions yet keeps coming back. I figured he must be a crazed anarchist.
But no, he turned out to be Dr. Bryan Wolf, a radiologist who wears his white doctor’s jacket and carries a sign with a red cross and the words “humanitarian aid.” He pleads with federal forces not to shoot or gas protesters.
“Put your gun barrels down!” he cries out. “Why are you loading your grenade launchers? We’re just standing ——”
And then they shoot.
Dr. Wolf, an assistant professor at Oregon Health Sciences University, helps at a medic stand operated by volunteers from the medical school. Could they be radical-left anarchists? No, they’ve imposed order on the anarchy of the street by establishing qualifications for field medics and a hierarchy among them, so that any badly injured protester will immediately get the right kind of care.
See, they are organized so they can’t anarchists!
Also, they are anarchists so they can be an organization, and thus they are not liable under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization law!
Accomplishing all this while tear gas is swirling and impact munitions are whizzing by, without even asking for insurance cards — that seems the opposite of what fanatical anarchists might do.
Maybe the rioting anarchists were in front of the crowd, where there are discussions about Black Lives Matter? I found musicians and activists and technicians, who were projecting a huge sign on the wall of a nearby building — “Fed Goons Out of PDX” — that seemed a bit geeky for anarchists.
Oh, wait, there was a man using angry language about the federal “occupation” and calling it “abhorrent.” Lots of protesters don’t seem to like him, so could he be a crazed anarchist rioter?
Oops, no, that’s just Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, sputtering after being tear-gassed by the feds.
Listen up, people, we at the New York Times spent the last six years telling you in excruciating detail about the menace posed by the radical right. If the radical left were important, wouldn’t we have, you know, gotten around to mentioning them? So, logically, they don’t exist.
Russia Report… A Triumph of Orwellian Bombast
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 24, 2020
The sensational headlines screaming on the front pages of British newspapers this week showed that the parliamentary Russia Report was a triumph of bombast.
The Daily Mail led with “Damning Russia Dossier” while The Times heralded “MI5 to get more powers” and “Tough new laws will combat threat of Russian spies”. The Times also splashed its front page with a large photograph of Russian President Vladimir Putin seemingly lurking behind a curtain, which just goes to show how much British journalism has descended into cartoonish trivia.
There is sound reason why the British government delayed until this week publication of the so-called Russia Report by a cross-party parliamentary committee. That’s plainly because there is nothing in it that could in any way substantiate lurid claims of alleged Russian interference in British politics.
The 55-page document was neither “damning” nor “devastating” as The Daily Mail asserted. The groundless hype suggests that the headline writers simply were looking for something to sell to readers regardless of facts.
Boris Johnson, the prime minister, received a copy of the report 10 months ago, but decided to postpone its publication until after the general election that was held in December. That delay led to claims that his Conservative government was hiding something sinister. There were procedural hiccups from the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) being replaced with new members. However, now that the report is published any rational reader can see that the real cause of the delay is down to the report being a dud, despite all the breathless speculation. It is an empty vessel, with no evidence or substantive detail. It consists of entirely prejudiced assertions that Russia is “a hostile state” and the UK “is clearly a target for Russia disinformation campaigns and political influence”.
The nine lawmakers on the committee and their nine predecessors acknowledge among their sources for the report the following individuals: Anne Applebaum, William Browder and Christopher Steele. All of them are zealously anti-Russia and are prodigious purveyors of “Russian interference” narratives to anyone who will listen to them. Steele is the notorious former MI6 spy who cooked up the ludicrous “Russia Dossier” for the Democrats to smear Trump with in the 2016 elections. That dossier fueled the bogus “Russiagate” scandal.
Of course, the main sources for the parliamentary committee are British intelligence agencies, MI6, MI5 and GCHQ. Candid admission of all those sources should underscore with redlines that the so-called report is nothing but a propaganda screed. Yet the British media treat it with deference and respect as if it is a credible, objective assessment.
What is rather laughable is the unrestrained prejudice of the authors who are, in reality, propagandists more suited to being frozen in Cold War mentality than offering any kind of “expertise”. They claim Russian politics is “paranoid” and “nihilistic” driven by “zero-sum calculation”. All those attributed defects are merely self-projection by the authors of this report and their sources.
It is rather telling that in place of anything resembling substance of alleged Russian interference, the parliamentarians refer to “open sources” of media influence by Russian state-owned RT and Sputnik. They accuse these media of “direct support of a pro-Russian narrative in relation to particular events”. Oh, how shocking! And the British state-owned BBC does not also do the same?
Again referring to “open sources” – meaning public media reports – the parliamentarians claim that the Kremlin interfered in the Scottish referendum on independence back in 2014. So just because Russian news media featured that subject in its coverage is supposed to be “evidence” of Kremlin interference. The absurd accusation is also a convenient way to smear Scottish pro-independence.
Oddly enough, the report says there was no manifest Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Well that’s handy. The Tory government wouldn’t want to smear its ambitions of reviving the British empire, that’s for sure.
The ISC publication is a self-serving dud that is “not worth a penny”, as Russian lawmaker Aleksy Chepa put it.
It is loaded with complacent British self-regard and knee-jerk Russophobia.
The parliamentarians repeatedly rebuke the British government and state intelligence for not taking the “threat” of alleged Russian meddling seriously enough.
A more plausible explanation is because there is negligible Russian meddling in British politics, as Moscow has consistently stated. If the British government and its spooks fail to get excited – in private – about allegations of Russian malfeasance it’s because there is actually nothing to the allegations. Still, the parliamentarian anti-Russia ideologues assume to know better. They are convinced that Britain is a target for Kremlin hostility and they lambast the government and intelligence services for “not making it a priority issue”.
The Orwellian plot thickens when the authors of the boilerplate Russian Report then conclude by urging MI5 to be given more secretive powers to collaborate with social media networks in order to control information in the name of combating a “hostile state threat”. This is a sinister, anti-democratic call worthy of a dictatorship for censoring and blackballing any dissenting views under the guise of “defending democracy”.
One area where the ISC document begins to deal with reality – but only superficially and misleadingly – is on the subject of super-rich Russian expatriates living in London, which is dubbed “Londongrad”. Many of these oligarchs are beneficiaries of looting Russian state assets during the privatization-robbery frenzy under former President Boris Yeltsin. They are not “friends of Putin” as the British lawmakers make out. These shady oligarchs are often big donors to the Conservative party, not because they want to inject pro-Russian influence, but rather because they are typically opposed to the current Russian government and are seeking to destabilize it. If there is any Russian “influence” in British politics it is that which promotes illegal regime-change policies in opposition to the Russian state.
In every aspect the much-vaunted Russia Report is a worthless pile of propaganda. Even a glimmer resembling something real – the Russian oligarchs in Londongrad – turns out to be an inversion of reality. And yet, pathetically, the British media amplify the nonsense with reverence and gravitas.
‘US must stop slander and smearing’: China rebuffs allegations it stole Covid-19 vaccine data
RT | July 22, 2020
Beijing has accused the US of waging a global smear campaign, after Chinese nationals were accused of hacking foreign companies that conduct Covid-19 vaccine research.
The US must “immediately stop its slander and smearing of China on cyber security issues,” spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry Wang Wenbin told reporters. “The Chinese government is a staunch defender of cyber security, and has always opposed and cracked down on cyber attacks and cyber crime in all forms.”
Wang said that “cyberspace must not become a new battlefield,” because upholding “peace and stability” in cyberspace is in the common interest of all countries.
The US Justice Department earlier accused two Chinese nationals of targeting companies around the world, including biotech firms in Maryland, Massachusetts, and California that are conducting research related to vaccines for the coronavirus.
The Covid-19 pandemic remains one of the areas where the US is accusing Beijing of misconduct. American officials, including President Donald Trump, claimed that China accidentally released the coronavirus from a laboratory in the city of Wuhan, where the disease was first recorded, and initially tried to hide the scale of the outbreak.
Another line of attack involves allegations that Beijing is influencing the World Health Organization (WHO). British media reported that on Tuesday that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told MPs at a “private meeting” in London that China had “bought” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus by helping him to get elected.
“There was a deal-making election and when push came to shove, you get dead Britons, because of the deal that was made,” Pompeo was quoted by the media as saying.
The Trump administration has heavily criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The US officially initiated its withdrawal from the organization this month.
Beijing has repeatedly denied having concealed any information about the outbreak and slammed suggestions that the virus came from one of its labs as false.
American-Chinese relations hit a new low on Wednesday, when the US demanded that China shut down its consulate in Houston, Texas. The US State Department explained that this decision will help to protect American intellectual property and the personal data of US citizens. Beijing blasted the move as “escalatory” and promised to retaliate.
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What is the Israeli Lobby in Australia Doing in Interfaith Dialogue?
By Ali Kazak | Dissident Voice | October 11, 2015
For years Israel and its lobby around the world have been trying to normalise their relations with Arabs and Muslims without solving the Palestine Question.
One of the methods they resorted to in the last few years is using human rights and community organizations such as interfaith dialogue and Multiculturalism to achieve this objective and to: isolate the Palestinians, marginalise the Palestine question, end Israel’s isolation, and prevent criticism of Israel, knowing that these organisations will be the first to stand against Israel’s violations, racial and religious discrimination.
The group responsible for this task in Australia is The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC); its Director of International & Community Affairs, Jeremy Jones is in charge of lobbying religious community organizations, specifically Muslims and Christians. Consequently he convened the Faith Communities for Reconciliation, founding participant in the Australian Partnership of Religious Organisations and the Australian National Dialogue of Christians, Muslims & Jews.
AIJAC is a private political propaganda group. It is recognised as the main Israeli lobby in Australia. It coordinates its activities and works intimately with the Israeli embassy in Canberra and different institutions in Israel. It is privately funded by some Jewish businessmen. It monitors closely Australian politicians, the media, ethnic and religious groups, (especially Arabs and Muslims), unions and academics on their stands towards Israel and the Palestine question. … continue
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- Iran’s friends are about to make life much more difficult for Israel and the US
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- Envoy warns UN on Trump’s threat to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s civilian infrastructure
- The Larak Corridor: Iran’s Rial Gate With No US, No Israel, and No Way Around
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- ‘War Crime’: Iran condemns attacks on Arak, Ardakan nuclear sites
- Two-thirds of Americans want quick end to Iran war even if goals unmet
- If Americans Knew
- Gaza families reunite years after babies evacuated amid Israel’s war
- International Rescue Committee warns Gaza’s children face grave protection risks
- Iran’s Alleged 47-Year War on America: Debunking the 1,050 American Deaths Canard
- Israel wants US to bomb more of Iran’s civilian structures (113,000 is not enough) – Not a ceasefire Day 173
- Ann Coulter Rips Into Fox News for Iran War Coverage
- Joe Kent Urges Americans To Call White House and Congress To Object To Sending Troops Into Iran
- DNC Resolution to Reject AIPAC Funding Puts Democratic Leaders in the Hot Seat
- Swedish foundation to build 400 schools as over 650,000 Gaza children remain without education for 2 years
- Israeli army admits photshopping image of slain Lebanese journalist
- This is how Israel is systematically killing health workers under the cover of war in Lebanon
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
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