Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Is Ukraine’s ‘Suicidal’ Kursk Attack Part of US Establishment’s Desperate Effort to Win in 2024?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 15.08.2024

Ukraine’s ill-fated Kursk terror attack could be part of the US Democratic establishment’s effort to prop up their candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential election, according to Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel.

Despite the US State Department and Pentagon denying any involvement in the Kiev regime’s Kursk aggression, it has all the earmarks of US-NATO management and planning, according to Major General Apti Alaudinov, deputy head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Military-Political Directorate and Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

“At this stage, nothing likely happens in Ukraine and vis-a-vis Russia unless approved in advance by someone in the US,” Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik. “Relevant questions include: exactly who approved these offensive operations and what debate, if any, occurred in Congress before these raids happened?”

Ortel called the Kursk attack a “wag the dog 2.0” operation, saying that it “seems a reprise” of then-US President Bill Clinton’s assault on one of Sudan’s biggest pharmaceutical factories in Khartoum in 1998. The US attack based on faulty intelligence was presented as retaliation to Al-Qaeda bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

However, some analysts noted at the time that the US bombing came as investigations into Clinton’s lies about his affair with Monica Lewinsky intensified. Dubbing the case a “wag the dog” situation, they suggested that Clinton urgently authorized the strike as a distraction, with the backing of many Democratic lawmakers including then-Senator Joe Biden.

The Kursk aggression appears to be as dubious in terms of military planning and strategic value as the senseless bombing of the Al Shifa factory. US Congressman Paul Gosar called Ukraine’s border incursion “suicidal” in an interview with Sputnik, while retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski wondered whether Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had a hand in the Kursk aggression planning.

Earlier, on August 8, CNN quoted Ukrainian officials as saying that the Kursk attack was aimed at demoralizing Russian forces and diverting them away from other parts of the front. However, as of August 12, the Ukrainian military told the New York Times and Financial Times (FT) that the Russian Armed Forces’ advance in Donbass, including near strategically important Chasov Yar and Torestk, is continuing unabated.

To complicate matters further for Kiev, at least six Ukrainian brigades that previously fought near Kharkov, Sumy, Chasov Yar and Toretsk were redirected to participate in the Kursk aggression, according to FT. The newspaper cited Ukrainian soldiers’ worries about leaving positions in Donbass to take part in the Kursk gamble.

On August 15, Russia’s Tsentr Battlegroup destroyed a Ukrainian military stronghold in the Avdeyyevka direction in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). On August 12, the Russian military liberated the settlement of Lisichnoye; earlier, Timofeyevka and Veseloye were retaken from the enemy. Russia liberated a total of 19 settlements of the DPR in July, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Harris and Walz’s ‘Illusionary’ Campaign Doomed to be Busted

One might ask why the US Democratic establishment would need any “prop-up” of their presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, given that the two are currently enjoying a surge in the polls.

According to Ortel, the surge appears to be short-lived and most likely artificial and made-up by the US corporate press, especially given that Harris’ poll numbers as Biden’s veep had been disastrous. For instance, the Wall Street analyst referred to a recent survey published by the Hill that claimed that more voters trust Harris than Donald Trump on the economy as completely detached from reality.

“The corporate-owned press, including Fox, has lost all credibility which explains their financial losses and the rise of Twitter spaces, Tucker Carlson and alternative truth-tellers that thrive,” Ortel said. “Traditional actors are resolved to sell fiction as fact to promote a singularly unaccomplished airhead to lead America out of the messes she helped create.”

Indeed, US conservative commentators and pundits have recently thrown Harris’ poll numbers, campaign performance and unwillingness to make one-on-one interviews into question.

“[The media] are so in the tank for Harris that they are defending her decision not to talk to them,” remarked US investigative journalist and author Michael Shellenberg on X on August 14. Earlier, the journalist drew attention to the fact that, for some strange reason, Harris has not put a policy agenda on her website.

Former White House Political Director Matt Schlapp tweeted that there is nothing short of a “push by the national media and Democratic National Committee (DNC) to legitimize Kamala Harris,” adding that she is not giving interviews to evade criticism over her vice presidency.

Similarly, Fox News host Sean Hannity recently called Harris “an illusion, built on a mountain of lies” on X.

Rogan O’Handley, a former entertainment lawyer, claimed on X on August 7 that the Harris campaign was caught offering Instagram influencers money to post personal stories about how the Biden-Harris administration helped them.

Axios reported on August 13 that it found that Harris’ campaign was editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads to “make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are on her side.” The news outlet noted that while such activity is in line with the Google rules, the tech giant admitted there was a “glitch” that removed a disclaimer “sponsored” near the news headlines touting Harris.

US conservative journalist Kyle Becker also alleged on X that pollsters are “oversampling” Democrats for no reason “except deceiving the voters.” Becker believes that the reports that Harris is leading her Republican competitor in key battleground states are made up to justify her future win. “It is all designed to try to keep Harris within the margin of cheating,” tweeted Becker. In 2020, Biden won the presidential election after outperforming Trump by a razor-thin margin in crucial swing states. Many Republicans believe voting procedures were rigged there.

According to Ortel, the Harris-Walz campaign “honeymoon” may end as abruptly as it started.

“The true mud-slinging will start after Labor Day [September 2] and continue thereafter. No one yet has vetted Harris or Walz and I suspect their reputations will be gutted, fairly, well before November 5, 2024. Moreover, neither are effective, battle-hardened debaters, campaigners or leaders,” Ortel said.

Looming Crises Won’t Allow Harris-Walz to Fool Voters

While the Harris-Walz campaign needs good news, be it record-high poll numbers, Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, or their proxy Zelensky claiming victories, the problem is that the “looming crises and worsening economic prospects” won’t let “conflicted grifters” in the US establishment fool American voters again, according to Ortel.

As Ukrainian forces continue to lose ground on the battlefield, the Biden administration is still struggling to reach a ceasefire agreement amid Israel’s war in Gaza, fuelling discontent with the Democratic Party among Palestine supporters. According to the New York Post, an August 14 rally supporting Vice President Harris in the New York City descended into chaos after pro-Palestinian protesters infiltrated the gathering and later started to clash with the police.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg experts warn the US economy is expected to slow down under the Biden-Harris administration, casting an additional shadow on the Harris-Walz campaign.
Commenting on the Democratic administration’s chaotic domestic and foreign policies, Ortel noted:

“The period 1991 to present stands already as a rare epoch during which too many leaders combined arrogance and ignorance into a toxic cocktail, gulling voters with effective lies into bullied serfs, grateful for gruel as the donor class and their paid stooges seemingly prospered,” the pundit said. “‘What could have been’ from 1991 forward unburdened by Harris, Walz and other incompetent, conflicted has-beens is truly a marvel to contemplate! Let’s see whether the American election is free and fair and let’s see who actually wins.”

August 15, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 2 Comments

‘Sabotage’ fears at German military base – Der Spiegel

RT | August 14, 2024

A military base in the German city of Cologne was placed on lockdown on Wednesday over fears of a potential act of sabotage, Der Spiegel has reported. A spokesperson for the German Defense Ministry has confirmed that security services have launched an investigation.

In recent months, several Western media outlets as well as officials have alleged that Russia has been stepping up efforts to conduct acts of sabotage on European soil. Moscow’s presumed endgame is to disrupt the delivery of Western weapons to Ukraine and the training of Kiev’s troops abroad.

Moscow has consistently dismissed the allegations as “not serious” and “unfounded.”

In its article on Wednesday, Der Spiegel reported that the Bundeswehr barracks had been completely sealed off, with police and military counter-intelligence services looking into a potential case of unauthorized entry.

According to the media outlet, it is suspected that saboteurs might have contaminated water supply at the military facility. The outlet cited presumed internal instructions disseminated among the personnel warning against using water from the base’s utility system.

The article alleged that military personnel at the base had also been instructed to be on the lookout for any unknown individuals and to report “suspicious behavior” on the grounds. Der Spiegel speculated that security services may be searching the base for potential saboteurs, with a suspicious individual allegedly sighted near the fence that encloses the complex. The individual is understood to have fled after being detected.

The media outlet also reported that, on closer inspection by military police, an opening in the fence had been uncovered.

According to the article, cases of gastrointestinal disease have been reported at the base of late, though it is not clear whether these had anything to do with water supply at the installation.

The barracks in Cologne is where several Bundeswehr command units are stationed. On top of that, the installation houses the German Air Force, with Cologne Airport immediately adjacent to the base, Der Spiegel noted. According to its estimates, a total of 5,500 military and civilian personnel work at the military facility.

The base is also said to be a key hub for Ukrainian service members returning home after receiving military training in Europe.

Back in April, the German Prosecutor General’s Office reported that two German-Russian dual nationals had been arrested on suspicion of planning to sabotage local military infrastructure.

Around the same time, the head of German domestic intelligence, Thomas Haldenwang, warned that the risk of acts of sabotage had “significantly increased” in the country.

August 14, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | 1 Comment

Hate influencer VOA ‘aims to sow discord between China, India amid improving ties’

By Liu Xuanzun | Global Times | August 13, 2024

Chinese experts on Tuesday slammed a recent report by the Chinese language version of the Voice of America (VOA) on India’s newly debuted light tank, saying that the US media is seeking to sow discord between China and India amid a recent recovery in relations by hyping the threat of military confrontation which has been subsiding for years.

VOA reported on Monday that India’s Zorawar light tank, designed for high altitude operations, will be deployed along the China-India borders “amid continued tensions.”

Calling it a game changer, the report hyped India’s new tank and its capabilities, and how it can rival its Chinese counterpart, the Type 15.

The first reports on the debut of the Zorawar light tank were published by Indian media in early July, which, although mentioning China as well, noted that the new Indian tank will not be ready before 2027, a key detail that was ignored by VOA.

Recently, relations between China and India have been recovering, with the two sides having held the 30th Meeting of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on China-India Border Affairs in late July.

It has been more than four years since the Galwan Valley clash of 2020, and since then the two countries have held multiple rounds of border talks on different levels in both military and diplomatic channels, having seen de-escalation and disengagement in multiple points of contact, a Beijing-based military expert who requested not to be named told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The US media’s hype on military confrontation along the China-India border is unprofessional, and it exposes the US’ mentality of wanting to sow discord amid improving China-India ties, the expert added.

From a military point of view, China has commissioned and actually deployed the Type 15 light tank since 2019, while India’s new tank will have to wait until at least 2027, the expert said, noting that India’s defense industry has a history of issues such as delays, cost rises and technical problems.

August 13, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

I reported a piece for the New York Times on antisemitism. I found a major error, but the Times didn’t care.

An elected official alleged an antisemitic break-in. Police say it didn’t happen.

Pro-Palestinian protest in Teaneck, New Jersey outside Congregation Keter Torah on March 10, 2024. Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty.
By Arvind Dilawar | Drop Site News | August 8, 2024

As a freelance journalist, I contributed to a New York Times article earlier this year about an anti-Zionist demonstration in Teaneck, New Jersey, a township just outside of New York City. Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered to protest an event organized by Israeli realtors marketing properties in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank—Israeli settlements widely regarded as illegal under international law. Amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Times article described the protest as contributing to escalating fear and tension in otherwise peaceable Teaneck. As a pivotal example of alleged antisemitic activity in the area, my co-author John Leland, a Times staff reporter, quoted township councilmember Hillary Goldberg, who claimed that her home had been “broken into” as part of a string of abuse in response to her vocal support of Israel and her Jewish background.

“I have been threatened; I had a box truck with my picture on it and the words ‘liar liar’ driven around town; my house has been broken into; I have received antisemitic messages,” Goldberg told Leland, adding: “I have never felt so afraid to be Jewish as now.”

It was an explosive allegation—a racially motivated break-in at the home of an elected official—and also a brand new one. Prior to the Times coverage, Goldberg was featured in an article from The Intercept about anti-Zionist organizing at Teaneck High School being suppressed by local politicians, including the councilmember. According to The Intercept, Goldberg appears to have collaborated with U.S. Representative Josh Gottheimer to have the entire Teaneck school district investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for alleged antisemitism in retaliation for students organizing for a ceasefire in Gaza last November.

There is no mention of a break-in at Goldberg’s home in The Intercept article—nor coverage of it elsewhere, either in the news or social media. Goldberg’s comments to the Times were the first, and thus far only, mention of the incident anywhere.

The way the reporting and editing process unfolded next was a window into how politically convenient claims make their way into the paper of record without corroboration—and stay in despite contradictory evidence.

When I shared my concerns regarding Goldberg’s apparent political motivations as laid out in the Intercept article, as well as the lack of coverage of this otherwise extremely newsworthy allegation, Leland assured me that the councilmember had filed a police report, meaning her story checked out. But when I requested the report, he told me he hadn’t actually seen it, only been assured by Goldberg that she had filed it. The story went to press without further verification of her claim.

I was eventually able to obtain the police reports myself via an Open Public Records Act request, and they revealed that the police had determined no break-in, nor any other crime, had been committed. According to the first police report, dated February 10, six officers responded to a call at Goldberg’s publicly listed address because, according to the complainant, “Lights basement were on // were not on when left // back door was locked when got home unlocked.” The half-dozen officers checked the property but found no sign of forced entry nor anything else amiss. Two subsequent checks of the area found nothing further, and a follow-up investigation by a sergeant two days later ended the same.

“The sergeant did respond to the residence a couple days after the initial incident was reported and spoke with the complainant,” Seth Kriegel, deputy chief of the Teaneck Police Department, reiterated to me. “And based on speaking with her and his investigation, he determined that there was no burglary that had occurred—or attempted burglary.”

Teaneck police determined that no crime had been committed at Goldberg’s property, according to Kriegel. He also noted that subsequent checks were requested by the complainant, a dozen of which were conducted before the publication of the Times article, and none found anything to report.

Believing a correction to the Times story was in order—or at least an update, to give readers a fuller picture—I shared the police reports with Leland—who told me that he had already gotten them and, despite the explicit contradictions, no correction would be issued. When presented with the police reports, management at the Times also declined to reconcile them with its coverage. Instead, managing director of external communications, Charlie Stadtlander, said in a statement that the article was “thoroughly reported, fact-checked and edited, and we stand behind its publication.” Goldberg did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Times has come under fire in recent months for refusing to issue corrections to several other articles about Israel and Palestine.

Perhaps most significantly, the Times continues to defend an article accusing Palestinian militants of committing “systematic” sexual violence against Israelis on October 7, despite criticism from professors of journalism, cited by The Washington Post, and others regarding significant issues with the story and its reporting. The Times was forced to issue an “update” (rather than a correction, as would be stipulated by standard journalistic practice) to address contradictory evidence that later emerged.

Anti-Zionist groups such as Writers Against the War on Gaza and publications such as Mondoweiss have also criticized the Times for minimizing Israel’s role in the ongoing famine in the Gaza Strip, casting the Israeli genocide as a feminist endeavor and largely ignoring the killings of more than a hundred fellow journalists in Gaza.

Such apparent contradictions in the Times’ coverage of Israel and Palestine led to significant internal dissent at the publication. A planned podcast episode on the aforementioned story about sexual violence had to be scrapped after producers raised questions about its reliability. At least four other contributors have also resigned or severed relationships with the Times for similar reasons, according to the outlet Them.

Unfortunately the Times is not alone in breaking with standard journalistic ethics when it comes to covering Israel and Palestine. In a decade of being a full-time freelance journalist, I have personally never come up against the kind of opposition I’ve experienced trying to cover the reverberations of the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.

In December, an editor at The Smart Set, an arts and culture magazine that I contributed to for five years without issue, accepted a pitch of mine on decolonization—only to have a higher-up summarily reject the draft, without edits, notes, or payment.

In April, Times Union, the regional affiliate of Hearst Newspapers in Upstate New York, published an article that I had written about local businesses being harassed for supporting a ceasefire in Gaza. It was online for less than 24 hours before the editor-in-chief interrupted his own travel plans to force the newsroom to take it down. There were no factual errors in the article nor procedural errors in its reporting. Rather, it was Times Union that ran afoul of standard practice by refusing to issue a retraction acknowledging, much less justifying, their decision.

These experiences, as well as mine at The Times, could individually be written off as little more than professional setbacks, especially when compared to the unimaginable suffering in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, including at least 15,000 children, according to Al Jazeera at the time of this writing. These otherwise minor journalistic malpractices, however, should be understood as coming together to form a web, like the Kevlar-tough strands of spider’s silk, with the fates of those Palestinians caught in the middle.

August 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

Iran has no goal to accelerate cyber activities to influence US elections: UN mission

Press TV – August 9, 2024

Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations says the country has no goal or interest in “cyber activities” to influence the 2024 US presidential election.

“Iran does not have any goal or a plan for a cyber attack and it does not interfere in the US elections which is an internal issue of this country,” the mission said on Friday.

It vehemently rejected a report released on Friday claiming that Microsoft has identified a series of actions by Iranian cyber actors aimed at influencing the upcoming US election. These include email phishing attacks, fake news sites, and impersonating activists.

“Iran has been a victim of various cyber offensive operations against the country’s infrastructures, public service centers and industries,” the mission said.

It emphasized that Iran’s cyber power is defensive and proportionate to the threats posed against the country.

Late in July, Iran’s mission to the UN dismissed allegations that Tehran intended to disrupt the election and negatively affect it in favor of Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate.

The mission described a major part of such accusations as psychological operations to give false momentum to election campaigns.

Under the facile pretext of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the US and Mossad have been carrying out a campaign of sabotage and cyber attacks on Iran’s civilian nuclear program for quite some time.

One of the most well known cyber attacks utilized the notoriously malicious Stuxnet worm.

In 2011, Tehran announced that an investigation had concluded that both the United States and Israel were behind the Stuxnet attack.

Israeli sabotage attempts against Iran’s nuclear program have miserably failed despite the regime’s assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists through unrelenting US support.

Mossad has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists using methods ranging from magnetic mines attached to their cars and allegedly the use of a remote controlled robotic assassin.

August 9, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , | 1 Comment

Italian paper pays damages after labelling Palestine rights advocate a ‘terrorist’

MEMO | August 8, 2024

Italian newspaper Il Corriere Della Sera has been ordered to pay €15,000 in damages to Shawan Jabarin, the general director of Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, for falsely accusing him in 2021 of being a terrorist and murderer.

In a press release published this week, Al-Haq said the paper had published the claims days after Jabarin was invited to join a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian Parliament on 20 December 2021 following Israel’s designation of Palestinian NGOs as ‘terrorist organisations’.

Two days after the hearing, Il Corriere della Sera published an article “containing false and defamatory statements” labelling Jabarin a “terrorist”. Additionally, “the newspapers omitted essential contextual information around Israel’s targeted designation of six Palestinian civil society organisations as ‘terror organisations’, thereby infringing on the readers’ right to access free and impartial information.”

After being summoned to court, the paper accepted a settlement agreement, which included compensating Jabarin for “reputational” damage suffered and publishing an article retracting the defamatory claims. However it failed to admit, in its article, that it was among those who had defamed the Palestinian rights advocate.

August 8, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | 1 Comment

Debunking the debunkers on the “myths” of antidepressants

By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | August 5, 2024

Recently, The Conversation ran an article which claimed to “debunk” a range of myths about antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Natalina Salmaso, a clinical psychologist at Carleton University in Canada, highlighted five common myths that make people hesitant to take antidepressants.

Salmaso said hesitancy is often “unfounded” and “may not be grounded in science” and that “debunking the myths surrounding antidepressants is critical to permitting educated treatment decisions for those who suffer.”

However, Salmaso’s article was full of omissions and falsehoods, so we decided to debunk the debunker.

Myth 1 – I am stronger if I do this without meds

Salmaso says that a person with depression is like an athlete with a broken leg.

An athlete cannot compete effectively with a broken leg, in the same way a person with depression cannot function effectively, because their brain “is no longer responding to everyday life.”

She adds that a person’s brain needs to “heal” before they can expect it to function like they did pre-depression and implied antidepressants can help.

This is grossly misguided. This feeds into the false narrative that depression is a brain disease that can be cured by antidepressants.

Antidepressants don’t cure people with depression and their symptomatic effects are so small that they lack clinical relevance.

Studies show that patients actually do better with psychotherapy, which has enduring effects. Further, psychotherapy halves the risk of suicide whereas antidepressants double this risk, in people of all ages.

Myth 2 – I will be dependent on antidepressants to be happy

Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t make people ‘happy’ per se, but they “allow people to experience all emotions in an appropriate and balanced way.”

However, this is not what patients report. SSRIs tend to make people feel “numb” and unable to experience emotions. Some describe it as an inability to feel love, attachment or sexual excitement.

Some experience sexual dysfunction, which can continue long after the drug is discontinued.

Salmaso says that antidepressants “are a long-term (typically at a minimum for a year) and (hopefully) curative treatment, much like chemotherapy for certain types of cancer.”

This is also misguided. Most people become depressed because they have stressful or depressing circumstances, which no drug can cure.

People have been misled to believe that antidepressants can “correct” a chemical imbalance in the brain. A systematic review in 2022 thoroughly debunked the hypothesis that depression is caused a serotonin imbalance.

Salmaso even says that “most studies show that if you take antidepressant medications for a year before coming off of them, the majority of people will not relapse.”

This is also incorrect. The majority of studies on relapse are flawed because they involve subjects already on antidepressants and when they suddenly stop them for the trial they experience withdrawals, which interferes with the assessment of relapse.

Also, the longer someone takes an antidepressant, the higher the probability of that person experiencing withdrawal effects.

Myth 3 – Meds will change who I am, I will be different or feel high

Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t change you, but rather “allow you to view things from a more balanced perspective.”

However, Danish psychiatrists have reported that half of the patients on antidepressants agreed that the treatment could alter their personality and that they had less control over their thoughts and feelings.

Far from rebalancing the brain, antidepressants alter the normal functioning of the brain and disrupt biological processes with potentially devastating consequences.

As far as “changing who you are,” there have been ample reports of out-of-body experiences (including akathisia) where people became suicidal or homicidal on antidepressants, even in people with no history of this behaviour.

A systematic review found that taking antidepressants increased aggression three times more than taking a placebo, in children and adolescents.

Myth 4: I will become addicted

Salmaso says that antidepressants “are generally not addictive and have a low potential for misuse.”

This is not correct. Antidepressants can lead to dependency. Many people experience withdrawal symptoms, which are very similar to those that people experience when they try to come off benzodiazepines.

Salmaso claims that some patients get headaches and other withdrawal symptoms when the stop taking antidepressants “suddenly” but says they are “generally short-lived and can be minimised by tapering off treatment slowly.”

However, it is well-documented that about half of patients on antidepressants cannot stop them without experiencing withdrawals symptoms, which for some, can persist for many years. These symptoms are very difficult to “minimise” even with slow tapering.

Myth 5: Meds should only be used as a last resort

Salmaso disagrees that antidepressants should be used as a last resort.

She says that reserving antidepressants only for extreme cases “doesn’t make sense” because depression can reduce “work productivity and has immense societal consequences.”

“The financial repercussions that can be attributed to depression in terms of the number of workdays missed, jobs lost, accidents caused, etc. are enormous,” she added.

However, studies examining the efficacy of antidepressants have not shown any meaningful effects, such as improvements in quality of life, and they make it more difficult for people to function.

In all countries where this relationship has been examined, the increased use of antidepressants has been accompanied by an increase in disability pensions for mental health reasons.

Salmaso argues that, “Depression significantly increases risk of cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, respiratory disease and Parkinson’s disease, to name a few. It also seems to worsen the outcomes for cancer.”

Antidepressants do not improve these conditions either. Overall, it is our view that Salmaso’s evidence and arguments are flawed and misguided.

August 7, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

WSJ admits no proof of UNRWA staff collaborating with Hamas

Al Mayadeen | August 5, 2024

The chief editor of The Wall Street Journal Elena Cherney has admitted to not having evidence to back up its January claims that numerous UNRWA employees in Gaza were involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Semafor news reported.

The Wall Street Journal stated in January, citing Israeli intelligence, that at least 12 UNRWA employees were personally involved in the events of October 7.

“The fact that the Israeli claims haven’t been backed up by solid evidence doesn’t mean our reporting was inaccurate or misleading, that we have walked it back or that there is a correctable error here,” Cherney said at the time.

Sources told Semafor that since the WSJ article was published, its writers have attempted to validate the information several times but have failed at doing so.

They also divulged that WSJ journalists covering the war on Gaza have frequently expressed worry about the newspaper’s biased coverage of “Israel”.

In March, Reuters reported that following weeks of a nonstop Israeli-targeted campaign against the UN agency, UNRWA said in an unpublished report that some of its staffers were coerced into falsely stating that they had ties with the Palestinian Resistance movement – Hamas and that they took part in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7

The occupation entity alleged in January that 12 of the 12,000 UNRWA members in Gaza participated in the October operation.

According to the news agency, UNRWA’s report dated February said that its workers were subjected “to threats and coercion” by the Israeli authorities “while in detention and pressured to make false statements against the Agency,” including that it has affiliations with Hamas and that “UNRWA staff members took part” in the Resistance operation in October 2023.

The Israeli allegations prompted over 15 countries, including the United States, to suspend almost half a billion dollars in UNRWA funding. The agency warned of the catastrophic repercussions of this decision on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, already in shatters due to “Israel’s” ongoing genocide and starvation policy.

Since then, several countries resumed their funding as none of the Israeli allegations were corroborated.

‘Israel’ passes bill in first reading to label UNRWA ‘terrorist org.’

Last month, the Israeli parliament granted initial approval to a bill that aims to label UNRWA as a “terrorist organization” and suggests severing ties with the humanitarian agency.

The bill received approval during its first reading in the Knesset. It was set to be sent back to the Israeli “Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee” for additional review and discussion before the final decision is made.

Commenting on the Knesset’s measure, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma warned that this is “another attempt in a wider campaign to dismantle the agency,” adding that “such steps are unheard of in the history of the United Nations.”

The Palestinian Resistance group Hamas condemned the approval of the bill, saying that the bill seeks “to end the Palestinian cause, foremost the refugee issue.”

Hamas called on the international community and the United Nations to “take firm stances against Israel” and protect UNRWA from the occupation’s attempts to “eliminate it.”

Similarly, the Palestinian al-Mujahideen Movement condemned the bill, describing it as a “Zionist attempt to eliminate one of the legal witnesses to our people’s tragedy and their displacement in 1948,” asserting that the decision is a “precursor to a new policy of starvation and siege” against the Palestinian people.

August 5, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Source tells Tasnim NYT report on Haniyeh assassination false

Al Mayadeen | August 3, 2024

An informed source has dismissed a recent report by The New York Times regarding the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Speaking to Tasnim News Agency on Saturday, the source described the NYT article published on August 1 as being “riddled with lies” and a continuation of a psyop of the Israeli occupation that lacks any news value.

The source specifically highlighted the involvement of Ronen Bergman, one of the report’s authors, suggesting that his track record undermines the credibility of the article.

“The Zionist regime has crossed a major red line and committed a barbaric and cowardly assassination, whose full details are being investigated,” the source stated.

They accused the Israeli occupation of mobilizing its security elements within media outlets to disseminate false details, thereby confusing the public and experts to cover up their terrorist acts.

According to the source, vital information has surfaced about Haniyeh’s martyrdom. They refuted the NYT‘s claim that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device covertly smuggled into his residence. Instead, the source stated that evidence indicates an aerial projectile, possibly carried by a drone, was responsible for the explosion.

The source further denied claims in the NYT report that members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council met with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei at 7 am on July 31.

The source described such details as part of an old media tactic designed to make readers believe in the authenticity of the report by providing seemingly precise information.

August 3, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda as its own

By Jonathan Cook | July 28, 2024

BBC coverage of the attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights on Saturday has been intentionally misleading.

The BBC’s evening news entirely ignored the fact that those killed by the blast are a dozen Syrians, not Israeli citizens, and that for decades the surviving Syrian population in the Golan, most of them Druze, has been forced to live unwillingly under an Israeli military occupation.

I suppose mention of this context might complicate the story Israel and the BBC wish to tell – and risk reminding viewers that Israel is a belligerent state occupying not just Palestinian territory but Syrian territory too (not to mention nearby Lebanese territory).

It might suggest to audiences that these various permanent Israeli occupations have been contributing not only to large-scale human rights abuses but to regional tensions as well. That Israel’s acts of aggression against its neighbours might be the cause of “conflict”, rather than, as Israel and the BBC would have us believe, some kind of unusual, pre-emptive form of self-defence.

The BBC, of course, chose to uncritically air comments from a military spokesman for Israel, who blamed Hizbullah for the blast in the Golan.

Daniel Hagari tried to milk the incident for maximum propaganda value, arguing: “This attack shows the true face of Hizbullah, a terrorist organisation that targets and murders children playing soccer.”

Except, as the BBC failed to mention in its report, Israel infamously targeted and murdered four young children from the Bakr family playing football on a beach in Gaza in 2014.

Much more recently, video footage showed Israel striking yet more children playing football at a school in Gaza that was serving as a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed by earlier Israeli bombs.

Doubtless other strikes in Gaza over the past 10 months, so many of them targeting school-shelters, have killed Palestinian children playing football – especially as it is one of the very few ways they can take their mind off the horror all around.

So, should we – and the BBC – not conclude that all these attacks on children playing football make the Israeli military even more of a terrorist organisation than Hizbullah?

Note too the way the western media are so ready to accept unquestioningly Israel’s claim that Hizbullah was responsible for the blast – and dismiss Hizbullah’s denials.

Viewers are discouraged from exercising their memories. Any who do may recall that those same media outlets were only too willing to take on faith Israeli disinformation suggesting that Hamas had hit Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital back in October, even when all the evidence showed it was an Israeli air strike.

(Israel soon went on to destroy all Gaza’s hospitals, effectively eradicating the enclave’s health sector, on the pretext that medical facilities there served as Hamas bases – another patently preposterous claim the western media treated with wide-eyed credulity.)

The BBC next went to Jerusalem to hear from diplomatic editor Paul Adams. He intoned gravely: “This is precisely what we have been worrying about for the past 10 months – that something of this magnitude would occur on the northern border, that would turn what has been a simmering conflict for all of these months into an all-out war.”

So there you have it. Paul Adams and the BBC concede they haven’t been worrying for the past 10 months about the genocide unfolding under their very noses in Gaza, or its consequences.

A genocide of Palestinians, apparently, is not something of significant “magnitude”.

Only now, when Israel can exploit the deaths of Syrians forced to live under its military rule as a pretext to expand its “war”, are we supposed to sit up and take notice. Or so the BBC tells us.

Update:

Facebook instantly removed a post linking to this article – and for reasons that are entirely opaque to me (apart from the fact that it is critical of the BBC and Israel).

Facebook’s warning, threatening that my account may face “more account restrictions”, suggests that I was misleading followers by taking them to a “landing page that impersonates another website”. That is patent nonsense. The link took them to my Substack page.

As I have been warning for some time, social media platforms have been tightening the noose around the necks of independent journalists like me, making our work all but impossible to find. It is only a matter of time before we are disappeared completely.

Substack has been a lifeline, because it connects readers to my work directly – either through email or via Substack’s app – bypassing, at least for the moment, the grip of the social-media billionaires.

If you wish to keep reading my articles, and haven’t already, please sign up to my Substack page.

July 31, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Rejects US Intelligence Words on Tehran’s Alleged Interference in Elections – Reports

Sputnik – 30.07.2024

TEHRAN – Iran’s mission to the United Nations has rejected US intelligence statements regarding Tehran’s alleged interference in the upcoming elections in the United States, the IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

On Monday, media reported that the office of the Director of National Intelligence of the United States had unsubstantiated claims that Russia, China and Iran allegedly use marketing, communications and other means to influence US voters and the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.

“Iran has no purpose or activity aimed at influencing the US elections. Most of these accusations are being made as part of psychological actions to artificially revive election campaigns,” the Iranian mission to the UN said, as quoted by the news agency.

July 30, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 1 Comment

China responds to US election interference claim

RT | July 30, 2024

Beijing has never interfered in US elections and has no intention of doing so, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has stressed in response to accusations recently levied by US intelligence officials.

The ministry’s statement comes in response to a late July Election Security Update by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in which Russia, China and Iran were accused of supposedly using their influence to impact US politics and threaten the upcoming US presidential election, scheduled for November.

In the report, ODNI stated that while China “probably does not plan to influence the outcome of the US presidential election,” actors linked to Beijing are expected to “seek to denigrate down-ballot candidates” who are seen as a threat to China’s core interests. The agency suggested that similar actions were carried out by Chinese agents “in a handful of midterm races in 2022.”

ODNI also stated that it is aware that Beijing is using social media to sow “divisions in the US and portray democracies as chaotic.”

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian responded to the accusations by stating that “China has never interfered in and will not interfere in the US election.”

“We oppose the US spreading false information to smear China and oppose the US election using China as an excuse,” Lin stressed.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also categorically rejected ODNI’s allegations of election meddling, describing them as “absurd” and accusing the US intelligence community of succumbing to “fashionable trends in domestic politics” and “looking for enemies.”

“The Americans cannot think of a better enemy than Russia,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday, adding that more similar accusations are likely to come out in the future as the US election approaches. He explained that Russia and its President Vladimir Putin continue to be major factors for US Republicans and Democrats to exploit amid their ongoing political struggle.

The Kremlin spokesman expressed regret that Moscow has to deal with this fact, noting that the American politicians’ baseless accusations only serve to further harm Russian-American relations.

July 30, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »