Western media’s anti-Iran reporting waives journalistic integrity to manufacture hate
By Robert Inlakesh | RT | January 5, 2023
Since the eruption of civil unrest in the Islamic Republic back in September, Western media has not shied away from spreading uncorroborated or outright false stories about Iran’s government. The implications of the constant stream of disinformation is the justification of sanctions that kill Iranians.
Following the death in Iranian custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, back in mid-September, civil unrest in Iran spread far and wide, with protests sparked over foreign media reports that had indicated that the young woman was beaten to death by Iran’s morality police. Later, CCTV footage was released, which contradicted some reports on how the young woman had died, followed by a coroner report which indicated her death came due to cerebral hypoxia as a result of underlying issues. Despite this, the demonstrations that started on September 16 continued.
What started initially as a number of demonstrations, primarily in Kurdish-predominant areas of Iran, turned into a nationwide dis-united movement that took the form of violent riots, online social media campaigns, symbolic hijab burning protests and even deadly terrorist attacks against sites of worship. As Iran accused the United States and Israel of attempting to spark a Syria-style civil war, US President Joe Biden vowed to “free Iran” during a speech in California. Amongst the chaos and the media reporting that aimed to portray the Iranian government as a distinct kind of evil, the Biden administration began to tighten its ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions campaign. The current US sanctions campaign, first enacted under the former Trump administration, has been condemned by the International Court of Justice due to its impact on humanitarian goods, such as medicine, entering Iran.
Outright lies, anonymous sources and distortions
Perhaps the most prominent piece of disinformation that has been disseminated about Iran during the past few months was the assertion, by Newsweek, that 15,000 Iranian demonstrators were sentenced to death. According to the initial claims, the Iranian parliament had supposedly voted to approve this move, implying that the country’s judiciary took no part in such a massive decision. The story was spread by leading online personas and even Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, who later deleted his post on Twitter about the matter.
However, since then the outlandish claims have not stopped coming. Prior to the Iranian national team’s game against the US in the FIFA World Cup, CNN released a report that no other major news outlet, save for a few tabloid news sites in the UK, touched. CNN quoted an unnamed “security source” that according to the report had managed to find out that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had infiltrated Qatar in order to threaten the Iranian team’s players.
The CNN story states that the source somehow found out that the players were offered luxury gifts, such as vehicles, prior to the beginning of the World Cup, which would imply that the source had intel on the Iranian team when they were in Tehran before the tournament. The report goes on to say that IRGC officials threatened the Iranian players’ families with torture in the event that they may protest their government during the World Cup. CNN’s source also claims that the coach of the Iranian team, a Portuguese national, was also interviewed by the IRGC, although they weren’t able to hear what was discussed like they did with the players.
The same article makes the additional claim that the Iranian government was flying out pro-government supporters to watch the team play, in essence creating artificial fans. None of the claims have been corroborated, and it didn’t gain purchase with major news outlets, which is strange considering the severity of the allegations being made that the IRGC, an official branch of Iran’s armed forces, had violated Qatar’s sovereignty in order to threaten their own football team. The difference between the CNN and Newsweek piece is that with the “security source”, there is no way to determine with certainty whether the whole thing is made up or not.
In the advent of news that Iran had abolished its morality police unit, responsible for the arrest of Mahsa Amini, another false story emerged from a number of little-known crypto-currency outlets online, claiming that Iran was set to freeze the bank account of women who weren’t wearing the appropriate Islamic covering. The origins of the story came from an interview that was conducted with an ultra-conservative member of Iran’s parliament, Hossein Jalali, who allegedly proposed a three-warning system via SMS, with the end penalty being the freezing of bank accounts. This has never come close to being implemented or even been discussed in parliament. Despite this, tweets claiming that Iran was implementing this strategy went viral.
Posts on social media from influencers have claimed that the Iranian security forces “are raping children”, and that young women are being murdered for showing their hair in a “horrific” and “medieval” crackdown. These reactions naturally come as a result of the factual inaccuracies of the reporting about Iran and we continue to see more and more as the weeks go on.
The most recent misrepresentation of the facts has come in the coverage and reaction to a number of executions in Iran. Earlier this month, the second death sentence connected to the recent civil unrest was carried out. This led to headlines from the likes of the Associated Press (AP), that read ‘Iran execution: Man publicly hanged from crane amid protests‘, which is how we saw the sentencing of Majidreza Rahnavard to death, by the Iranian judiciary, framed throughout Western media. The AP piece opens with the following paragraph:
“Iran executed a second prisoner on Monday convicted over crimes committed during the nationwide protests challenging the country’s theocracy, publicly hanging him from a construction crane as a gruesome warning to others.”
Whilst the AP article did explain, further down in the piece, that the young Iranian man had stabbed to death two Iranian security officials, injuring 4 others, what is written works to present Tehran as a monstrous regime that is unjustly killing Iranian protesters as a warning to others. The reality is, Iran does have a death sentence and does carry it out, but since some States in the US do the same, the story has to be twisted so that Iran is singled out as a special kind of evil. Iran’s death sentence is handed out through a judicial process, during which Majidreza Rahnavard admitted to killing two security officials. The incident was even filmed. No country on earth would allow such a crime to go unpunished.
In total, roughly 400 Iranians have allegedly been sentenced to prison terms for their involvement in various criminal activities during the latest round of civil unrest. Two Iranians have been executed, after admitting to carrying out attacks against the nation’s security forces.
Whilst there are others who may receive the death penalty, the Western media took it upon themselves to whip up a frenzy about an execution that was not even ruled. Earlier this month, several outlets ran headlines with allegations that an Iranian football player from Isfahan was next in line for execution. Reports claimed that a small-time football player, Nasr Azadani, had been sentenced to death and despite the Iranian judiciary denying this, the claims took hold on social media. 26-year-old Nasr Azadani was arrested in connection with the murder of several members of Iran’s security services. It has been reported that an indictment carrying the charge of “accessory to moharebeh” had been communicated with Azadani. The charge of “moharebeh” (“war against God” in Islamic law) can carry with it a death sentence, however, it is not clear whether being an accessory would be ruled this way.
The problem here is that Western media outlets jump on unsubstantiated claims, and repeat half truths, in an attempt to extract a predetermined anti-Iran narrative. From trusted outlets like the AP, to CNN, all the way to the tabloids, there is little care for fact checking and journalistic integrity. The goal is to delegitimize the Iranian government, to encourage outrage. Factual information is only important for nit-picking in a way that supports this biased narrative. At the same time, it is somewhat ironic that none of these media outlets, or Western politicians that repeat their claims and feign concern over Iranian prisoners, care one bit for journalist Julian Assange, who the US is attempting to extradite from the United Kingdom.
The outcomes of this kind of reporting are the encouragement of prejudiced hate against Iranian culture, the justification of sanctions that kill Iranians and the peddling of new-Orientalism talking points, all whilst claiming to be in support of human rights and feminism. There are various ways to make good faith criticisms of the Iranian government, but this is not what we are seeing, this is the Western media machine piling in on a regime change agenda, and everything they say needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.
Fake news about North Korea arming the Wagner PMC as an illustration of new “evidence” trends
By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 04.01.2023
It would seem that not long ago we touched on the intricate situation regarding rumors of North Korean or South Korean arms being supplied to the region of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, noting that there was no real evidence of either. Unfortunately, the situation is not evolving for the better and even those in the US establishment, who previously had refrained from making direct and unsubstantiated accusations, have begun to do so.
On December 22, 2022, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the DPRK had completed its initial arms delivery to Russia back in November, including infantry rockets and missiles: “We can confirm that North Korea has completed an initial arms delivery to Wagner, which paid for that equipment”. And while Washington does believe “that the amount of material delivered to Wagner will not change battlefield dynamics in Ukraine,” it is still “certainly concerned that North Korea is planning to deliver more military equipment.”
Kirby’s further statements reflected that, for him, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is taking place on some other globe. It turned out that Russian military officials report to the command of this PMC, which has 50,000 fighters. “It’s pretty apparent to us that Wagner is emerging as a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries”. The Russian reader can only raise a restrained smile, which also applies to the idea that the PMC has not only heavy equipment, but also missiles and heavy artillery in its arsenal.
Nevertheless, Kirby said the US, along with its allies and partners, would raise the issue in the UN Security Council, as the North’s arms deliveries were a clear violation of sanctions resolutions and he promised new sanctions against the Wagner group. US Permanent Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield also said that the US “intends to raise the DPRK’s and Russia’s violations of UN Security Council resolutions in future meetings of the Security Council and will share information of this violation with the Council’s 1718 Sanctions Committee.”
The ROK and Canadian foreign ministries joined in the condemnation. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly stressed that the actions of Wagner and Pyongyang “clearly violate international law and United Nations Security Council resolutions.” South Korea’s foreign ministry also condemned the arms trade between North Korea and the PMC, saying it was detrimental to peace and stability in the international community in direct violation of the resolutions.
More interestingly, Stéphane Dujarric, the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, told a briefing that the UN had no information on possible arms deliveries from the DPRK to the Wagner PMC. From the author’s point of view, this is a hint…
Equally interesting is that Kirby’s information was published almost exactly the same way a little earlier by the British media. Reuters quoted a senior US administration official as saying that the ammunition had been bought from the DPRK last month and delivered to Russia: allegedly the volume of shipments is not large enough to seriously affect military operations, but the US fears that this channel will continue to operate.
A little earlier, the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shinbun had reported that similar missiles were being supplied via the Hasan-Rajin railway.
And all this could not but prompt a comment from the DPRK Foreign Ministry, which on December 22 dismissed the manipulative report by the Japanese media as a completely clumsy and groundless PR stunt. The rest of the statement should be quoted as fully as possible:
“The DPRK remains unchanged in its principled stand on the issue of “arms transaction” between the DPRK and Russia which has never happened.
The international community will have to focus on the US criminal acts of bringing bloodshed and destruction to Ukraine by providing it with various kinds of lethal weapons and equipment on a large scale, rather than lending an ear to the groundless theory of “arms transaction” between the DPRK and Russia cooked up by some dishonest forces for different purposes.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to say that the Russian people are the bravest people with the will and ability to defend the security and territorial integrity of their country without any others’ military support”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner PMC, also dismissed the allegation of North Korean supplies as “gossip and speculation”, and the author partly agrees with him: there is still no regular railway connection between North Korea and Russia. All the more so since the movement of trains across the border is monitored by US military satellites, among others.
The author also draws attention to the fact that the PMC has far less capacity to procure this type of weapons than the state does, because it would require additional time. Finally, if the PMC had received these weapons back in November, they would have already been used on the battlefields, which would have left an information trail.
This looks like another fake about North Korean shells, but for the author it is an opportunity to talk about two additional things.
First, that accusations are very often based on the method of projection or, as the saying goes, the tongue ever turns to the aching tooth. And in this context, it is worth talking about a series of US pieces in the Western media which suggest that the “arsenal of democracy is depleting” and it is not Russia, but the “free world” which is having problems in supplying arms.
Second, although this version was first published by a British news agency and then voiced by Kirby himself, no evidence was produced. Meanwhile, the author reiterates a very important point: if you accuse your opponent and you have hard, irrefutable facts that incriminate them in some way, you can safely put them out there – without fear that some independent expert will discover that it was a poorly concocted fake. When someone says “we have secret evidence, but we won’t show it to you because it is a military secret”, this approach has been considered rotten since the Dreyfus affair.
The accusations concerning Moscow’s use of Iranian drones include at least debris that is structurally similar to Iranian designs. There is nothing in this case, and the Wagner PMC seems to be attacked because it is today the most demonized armed formation having anything to do with Russia. Moreover, it also operates in the Middle East and Africa, which might have added credibility to the US claims, if there had been any specifics.
The use of accusations, however, which are not backed up by any semblance of credible evidence, did not begin with North Korean shells. One may recall the high-profile doping case in which the Russian side somehow allegedly tampered with urine samples in containers that were not supposed to be opened as per design. One may recall the poisonings of the Skripals or Kim Jong-nam when, in response to a direct question as to how exactly on the technical side the special operation had been carried out, there was no sane answer.
Rather than going into detail and sorting out the extent to which certain actions are technically possible, the analysis is substituted by notions of how capable we think “They” are of doing It. And if They could do it, then They did it, no matter how.
That said, such unsubstantiated information becomes a pretext for imposing sanctions of any level of severity – and this is an important criterion of a post-globalization world in which there is no longer any room for normal investigations and evidence. And this is a worrying sign, because now it is possible to use a fantastic accusation as a pretext for sanctions and if it is said from a high rostrum, the status of the one who said it is confirmation in itself: “How can we doubt the existence of Marquis of Carabas if the talking cat claims it?”
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Jane Goodall isn’t a kindly grandmother; she’s a promoter of eugenics and a global population of 450 million
By Rhoda Wiloson • The Exposé • December 29, 2022
Yesterday we published an article that highlighted that the United Nations’ (“UN’s”) “30×30” goal is the biggest land grab in the history of the world. It is the theft of land and natural resources on a grand scale. To convince the public the UN’s goal is a “good thing,” the World Economic Forum (“WEF”) and the World Wildlife Fund (“WWF”) have chosen three leading influencers – Greta Thunberg, Jane Goodall and David Attenborough – to market the ideology under the guise of a “new deal for nature.”
But these three marketeers aren’t just mis-selling the “new deal for nature,” at least two of them – Goodall and Attenborough – are openly marketing depopulation, the killing of billions of people, under the fraudulent “climate change” ideology. Perhaps Thunberg is their apprentice and will take over the reins when one of her mentors has been “depopulated.”
In this article, we take a brief look at Goodall who is portrayed as a kindly grandmother that wouldn’t hurt a fly and someone even our youngest can trust. However, as with the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, she is not as her public image or name suggests. After learning a little about Goodall’s underlying beliefs, wisdom would say that children should stay well clear. Children should only watch documentaries or films associated with these marketeers in the presence of responsible adults. Adults who can negate any nuances which have been deliberately included to “nudge” or manipulate beliefs towards ideologies that are harmful not only to us but also to our natural world.
Jane Goodall is best known for her work with primates – her image of kindness has given her enormous credibility. But do not be fooled by the public image the propaganda machine portrays. To demonstrate Goodall’s underlying beliefs, we look at some of the remarks she has made over the years.
Wikispooks has noted two quotes from Goodall. The first was made in 2007:
“It’s our population growth that underlies just about every single one of the problems that we’ve inflicted on the planet. If there were just a few of us, then the nasty things we do wouldn’t really matter and Mother Nature would take care of it — but there are so many of us.” – Jane Goodall, November 2007
And the second was made in 2020. Goodall was chosen to take the podium at the 2020 WEF annual meeting where she could help prepare business and government managers for the need for a drastic population reduction. Goodall was speaking at a panel discussion called ‘Securing a Sustainable Future for the Amazon’. She proclaimed:
“All these [environmental] things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if there was the size of population that there was 500 years ago.”
World Economic Forum: Securing a Sustainable Future for the Amazon, Davos 2020, 22 January 2020
PolitiFact rushed to Goodall’s defence, albeit from a “Goodall’s population comments didn’t spark the pandemic” angle. “Goodall did make the human population growth comments seen in the video, but she has been making the same arguments for years,” the blogging site PolitiFact wrote. This is true. In the video below, Goodall admits that what she sees as a population problem “really hit” her in 1990, over 30 years ago. It was her perception of the “population problem” in Africa that convinced her.
Population Matters: Jane Goodall at Population Matters Conference 2019, 29 April 2019 (4 mins)
The Critic sums it up succinctly: “When eco-warriors talk of population control, they mean the world would be better off with fewer poor black people.” In other words, it is a eugenics programme hiding behind a purposefully manufactured “climate change” narrative. This is an appropriate conclusion in the context that this particular comment is raised and is bad enough on its own, but the implications are much larger than depopulating Africa.
Returning to her remarks in 2020, although Goodall doesn’t indicate what she believes the population of the world to be 500 years ago, according to Worldometer the global population in 1500 is estimated at 450 million. The current global population is estimated at a little over 8 billion. So, using simple mathematics, Goodall is promoting the death of more than 7.5 billion people. “This session was developed in partnership with the BBC,” WEF noted.
Repeatedly promoting depopulation increases Goodall’s guilt not diminishes it, a fact PolitiFact’s blogger doesn’t appear to be concerned with. Additionally, we can assume from the point of view of the blog’s publisher, PolitiFact, that advocating for the “depopulation” of over 7.5 billion people is all right as long as you’ve been at it for a long time.
As an article published by The Conversation quite rightly noted, “this remark might seem fairly innocuous, but it’s an argument that has grim implications … As these escalate, people must be prepared to challenge and reject the overpopulation argument.”
For those who struggle to translate what the term “depopulation” means in practical terms: It translates to enforcing a decline in birth rates – through infertility, miscarriages and abortions – and/or enforcing an increase in death rates – through mass murder and “nudging” people, including children, to commit suicide. Surely PolitiFact’s blogger understands that Goodall sees him and his loved ones as part of the “population problem” and so is in her sights to be “depopulated.”
If you’re wondering why PolitiFact would defend someone who promotes eugenics and genocide, looking at who provides the funds for their operations will give some clues. PolitiFact, unsurprisingly, receives large donations for “support of content and training” from all the usual propagandists such as Google News Initiative, Meta/Facebook, Microsoft, Omidyar Network/Luminate, WhatsApp and so on. PolitiFact is merely publishing blogs that conform with the ideologies of their funders. Their blogs should be read and understood within that context – that they are promoting an agenda and not presenting unbiased facts.
Never take anything at face value that has been developed or promoted by tools – such as WEF, BBC and PolitiFact – used by the propaganda machine. Things are not as they portray.
Gross distortion of facts on Mahsa Amini’s death in Western media
By Damian Lenard | Press TV | December 30, 2022
In his recent article Seven people with British links arrested in Iran over protests, freelance journalist for The Guardian, Nadeem Badshah, relates to the audience an interesting and all-too-familiar Western media version of the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran.
It is educational to dissect the article because it is representative of the propagandistic way in which foreign media have covered the tragic event for the past few months:
The 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian had been arrested for wearing “inappropriate attire” under Iran’s Islamic dress code for women.
Witnesses said Amini was beaten while inside a police van when she was picked up in Tehran. Police have denied the allegations, saying she “suddenly suffered a heart problem”.
I would refer to these short paragraphs as contextual snippets, repeated ad nauseam in media reports to drill propaganda points into the unprepared minds of the audience (yes, and we claim to abhor the widely misquoted “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” as if our own media was not an active part of that very machinery).
Let’s dig into this illustrative contextual snippet used by Badshah. I am by no means attempting to shame him, as it probably is a snippet offered by his employer/editor to make his job easier and — more importantly in this specific case — to make sure that key state propaganda is duly reinforced:
- Iran’s Islamic dress code for women
Iran’s Islamic dress code, like Western and Eastern secularist dress codes, exists not only for women but for all people in society.
Such dress codes are indeed applied differently for men and women not just in Iran, but everywhere around the world. The exception being the one or two countries on the face of the planet where public nudity or female toplessness is indiscriminately allowed in the majority of the territory.
This first part of the Guardian’s contextual snippet used by Badshah aims to brainwash readers by repetition with the notion that Iran is the only country in the globe with a dress code or the only one which enforces it. Worse, it is exclusively so for women in Iran. And that this “abhorrence” is the result of religion (and even worse, Islam) applied to politics.
The well is poisoned for the acceptance of the central part which follows:
- Witnesses said
Since no evidence whatsoever exists to support the hypothesis of Mahsa Amini having been brutally beaten to death, Western media is forced to rely exclusively on “witnesses/family said” assertions as their top proof to attempt to causally link Amini’s brief detention with her death.
The reader might already be willing to accept such a weak hearsay kind of proof (which would be disregarded or even mocked as poor journalism should it apply to an event in their own countries) because, after all, Iran is exceptionally evil as “proven” in point 1.
- Police have denied the allegations
This segment is typically dedicated to the antithesis of the previous premises, supposedly for balance and to pretend journalistic honesty. What does the other side have to defend itself? In this case, what does it have? Claims by the police. Pretty weak, isn’t it? Is that all you’ve got Iran? So it’s the word of noble witnesses (do we care how it was established that they even exist?) against that of the evil Iranian police.
The claim that “police have denied the allegations” implies the denial of the hypothesis (brutally beaten to death) is only supported by a police statement (the directly involved party and, we must remember, any authority in Iran is evil). Combined with them saying she “suddenly suffered a heart problem,” (note the cherry-picking of a quote with an inaccurate medical description to further undermine the credibility of the party) while totally omitting:
(a) The existence of a clear CCTV camera video recording at the police station in which Amini collapses on her own without the aid of any external agent and,
(b) The “leaked” hospital photographs of Amini showing no sign of trauma or blood consistent with a fatal beating (or debatable signs if one possesses a powerful imagination), expose the utter disregard for journalistic integrity, and full commitment to pedaling state propaganda regardless of the damage it causes.
The reason why I find this rather fascinating is because of the vicious circle that is built around these structures of reporting about a country like Iran:
The premises of point 1. (the exceptional evilness of religion applied in politics, the exceptional evilness of Iran’s dress code, the exceptional oppression Iran crushes women with) bias the evaluation of the following points, and at the same time tend to be “proven” with non-facts analogous — in terms of objective weakness — to those of points 2. and 3.
Thanks to meticulously-crafted reality distortion of this sort, the Western public, which believes itself to be professionally informed and impervious to manipulation, unsuspectingly swallows dogma after dogma of misrepresented reality.
The result is the installation of moral shock and the reaffirmation of solid prejudices useful to rally sufficient public support for the foreign policy of the day: usually the collective punishment of entire nations by war or economic sanctions.
Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, so getting half a million Iraqi children killed by sanctions and millions more by war can be deemed “worth it” or at least as just an honest mistake, as opposed to punishable war crimes and crimes against humanity.
If only there was a way to poll the staunch defenders of freedom and democracy (a noble utopia that could only separate itself from tyranny with a perfectly well-informed public), asking how many of them were offered to watch the CCTV footage and “leaked” hospital photos of Mahsa Amini (as opposed to handed only hearsay rumors) that would have otherwise allowed them to decide for themselves.
Goethe was certainly on to something big when he wrote in his Elective Affinities: None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Damian Lenard, Ph.D., is a political commentator with focus on Eurasian politics. He speaks fluent Persian and occasionally writes for Iranian publications.
Ukraine adopts restrictive media law
RT | December 29, 2022
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed into law a restrictive media bill on Thursday. The long-debated legislation introduces heavy state regulations, as well as officially forbids covering Russia in a positive way.
The legislation greatly empowers Ukraine’s media regulator, the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting. Half of the Council’s members are directly appointed by the Ukrainian president, with another half selected by the country’s parliament, Verkhovna Rada.
Under the new rules, the regulator is able to impose fines on all types of media, as well as hand them mandatory notices. The Council will be able to revoke licenses from printed media, as well as block online outlets for publishing restricted materials and refusing to take them down.
The new legislation also delves into the online media field, which has remained effectively unregulated in Ukraine. The final version of the bill has not imposed a mandatory registration for online media outlets, introducing a “voluntary” one instead. Those that opt to secure said registration will be shielded from extrajudicial blockage, while outlets without it can be subjected to 14-day bans after a number of “serious” violations.
Online media outlets with opaque structure, those not having easily distinguishable owners or reporters, can be easily banned by the regulator as well.
A sizable part of the legislation is devoted to tackling purported “Russian propaganda” and effectively outlaws any positive coverage of Moscow’s actions that challenge the official stance of Kiev. The bill also reinforces a ban on all Russian media outlets, which have been already de-facto outlawed in the country. Moreover, the legislation prohibits the media from publishing information somehow “discrediting” the Ukrainian language and denying or whitewashing the “criminal nature” of the Soviet-era “totalitarian regime.”
The media bill was first introduced back in 2020, but passing it was put into motion only after the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Moscow broke out in late February. The bill passed its first reading in late August, with the final version adopted early this month. The legislation has been repeatedly criticized by Ukrainian opposition figures, journalists, and international rights groups alike over the assertive role of the government and potential damage to freedom of speech in the country.
No rise in temps or rainfall in Bangladesh for 100 years, despite alarmists pointing to it as ‘canary in the coalmine’
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | DECEMBER 28, 2022
The country of Bangladesh is mostly a floodplain. Over 80% of the territory is classified as such, while 75% of the land is less than 10 metres above sea level. Heavy monsoons and widespread flooding are common. In an average year, 18% of the landmass is inundated, a figure that rose to 75% in 1988. What better place for western guilt-trippers to highlight and claim that all the natural tribulations are down to humans changing the climate? And what better ‘poster child’ for grant-hungry activists and local politicians to highlight when demanding large amounts of ‘compensation’ from developed nations to assuage the sins of industrialisation?
Earlier this year, Bangladesh was hit by the regular monsoon rains and flooding. Sky News reported that “experts say that climate change is increasing the frequency, ferocity and unpredictability of floods in Bangladesh”. Needless to say, the BBC made the same point, adding that “experts say that climate change is increasing the likelihood of events like this happening around the world”.
Presumably, when they talk about climate change, Sky and the BBC are worried about flooding being caused by rising temperatures and increased rainfall. It might therefore be considered curious that these climate changes do not seem to have affected Bangladesh.
According to figures compiled for the World Bank, the average temperature in Bangladesh is the same today as it was 100 years ago. There are the usual cyclical changes, but global warming is not much in evidence around the Bay of Bengal.
Let’s try rainfall.
Again according to the World Bank, we see little change in the overall trend going back 100 years. If anything, rainfall has slightly decreased, and there‘s certainly nothing unusual in the recent past. The graph shows that rainfall can vary widely between years. Severe monsoons in the past have caused enormous damage and heavy loss of life. Six catastrophic floods were recorded in the 19th century and 18 in the 20th. These days, hundreds of people can die in the flooding; in the past the figures could run into hundreds of thousands.
In a recent article in Climate Home News, it was said that Bangladeshis were dealing with wave after wave of climate chaos. The article “sponsored” by the international ngo Helvetas told its Western audience that one of the impacts of these disasters is “forced migration”. Of course, this plays into another common climate scare, suggesting, without any discernible evidence, that huge numbers of people will become ‘climate refugees’ in the future, mostly from tropical areas, and inevitably seeking to move northwards to ‘safety’.
Making Bangladesh a poster country for Western Armageddonites spreading the pseudoscientific notion that humans are causing the climate to radically change, does the country few favours. It is sited in many geographically fragile areas, and is prone to tropical cyclones. But over 160 million people are sustained by good agriculture, increased manufacturing development, and economic growth of around 6% per annum.
As countries become more prosperous, they can become more resilient in the face of what nature has always thrown at them. This appears to have happened in the case of Bangladesh, where the number of fatalities from flooding has significantly declined over the last 50 years. Surely, this is the good news story that should be spread in mainstream media, and probably would be if the climate change narrative was not embedded in every part of the discourse.
As we have reported throughout the year, it has been a disastrous period for climate alarmists preaching their gospel of doom to inflict a controlling Net Zero political agenda across the world. Global warming ran out of steam years ago, and no amount of ‘adjusting’ of surface temperature databases can hide that fact. Weather events are cyclical, and attributing any one event to human activity is model-driven junk science. Summer Arctic sea ice stopped declining over a decade ago, but David Attenborough still says it could all be gone by 2035. Polar bears, penguins and coral – all doing nicely thank you. More prosperous and healthier societies are learning to protect themselves against the ravages of Mother Nature. Small increases in carbon dioxide, otherwise known as plant food, continue to green up the planet, leading to higher food yields, reduced famine and healthier eco systems.
Twitter Files – The important question
The decline of the MSM
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | December 26, 2022
When Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, he promised to scrutinise the previous administration. Whether this was because he genuinely wanted to emancipate the company or because he was annoyed at being forced to pay the price he paid (after being sued), who knows but it provides for some interesting reading.
Musk enlisted the help of several journalists, including Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Michael Shellenberger and Lee Fang. Apparently, his one request was that any information found must first be revealed on Twitter.
On 2 December, the first instalment of the Twitter files was released with the most recent, ninth part, published on Christmas Eve.
So, what have we learnt so far?
Benjamin Carlson provides a good summary:
- History changed because of this:
- Hunter Biden’s alleged corruption censored;
- Covid 19 lockdown debate stifled;
- Trump silenced.
You may agree with each decision. But there is no denying that halting information flow and free debate had real consequences.
- Many things called conspiracy theories were true:
- FBI was working with Twitter and paid them million of dollars;
- Blacklists and shadow bans were real;
- US intel lobbied to censor accounts;
- Covid-19 conversation was heavily manipulated;
- Twitter rules changed and enforced by whim.
- Censorship is being cloaked in the language of safety:
- ‘Safety, harm, violence’ redefined to apply to ideas;
- Opinions and information deemed ‘unsafe’ subject to silencing;
- Jokes, memes, questions about the origin of Covid off limits.
- The government is policing opinion:
- FBI has 80 staff monitoring speech;
- Small accounts on left and right flagged;
- FBI held frequent meetings with Twitter;
- Facebook, Youtube and Instagram = similar?
- Private censors & police control what you say and to whom.
- Social media executives lie freely:
- Twitter execs repeatedly and publicly denied shadow bans;
- In reality, bans were in place as “visibility filtering”;
- Ultimately, no accountability to public.
- Free speech is controlled by a small group:
- Biggest decisions in Twitter Files made by 3-4 individuals;
- Despite misgivings and doubts, once made, decisions stuck;
- Now it’s Musk.
One difference: his embrace of public polls to set policy.
- The slippery slope is real:
- Staff rebellion led to Trump ban;
- Staff called for more covid-19 censorship;
- 2021-22 saw increase of bans and ‘one-offs’.
This is how you get Billy Baldwin in the crosshairs.
Once you silence a president, who has a right to speak?
This is all massive stuff but nothing most of us didn’t already know or suspect. And the Fauci files that Musk keeps saying he will release haven’t been published yet.
But the important question is, why have the Main Stream Media barely reported on it? If we had learnt that the secret services in another country had meddled with elections in their country, it would be everywhere. But happens in the West and nothing.
I keep getting adverts from the BBC popping up telling me to trust them.
So what have the BBC written about the Twitter files to earn my trust? It seems they have only written a brief article, two weeks ago, merely touching on the issues mentioned above. The article titled “Twitter Files spark debate about ‘blacklisting’” says we are missing the context as to whether other accounts have faced similar treatment. Furthermore, they question whether the restricted accounts were in breach of rules for example spreading false claims about Covid.
The BBC continues, “restricting accounts can be a useful tool if they are spreading harmful material.” and “there have been various reports suggesting marginalised groups including trans and plus size people were more likely to have their accounts restricted.”
So, unfortunately, I can’t trust you BBC, you haven’t written one sentence on the implications such meddling could have had on the US elections. If there had been an equivalent Russian Twitter Files, you would have been on the case every single day.
Marianna Spring, the BBC’s infamous disinformation correspondent analyses the situation at the end of the article. Unsurprisingly, but predictably, her main point is that how you interpret the “Twitter Files” depends on how you think misinformation should be dealt with. She also says that those caught up in the revelations have received backlash online.
Again, nothing about how the misinformation and censorship may have changed the outcome of the US election.
But that’s about it from the BBC.
Next on to the Guardian. They have one article called “I read Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ so you don’t have to” which pretty much sums up their position. The article describes the censorship as “individual examples of rightwing users being on the end of light-touch moderation” and Jay Bhattacharya as a “Covid sceptic”.
And again, other than this, the Guardian haven’t reported on the issue since.
The more right wing leaning newspapers have a few more stories. The Times and Telegraph reported on how Twitter aided the Pentagon, how Donald Trump was banned and a Republican claim that the Biden family is the most corrupt in history.
The Daily Mail is probably the only UK paper to have covered this story in detail.
So why, after all of the revelations from the “Twitter Files” is much of the Main Stream Media so happy to ignore what had been going on? It’s a rhetorical question. I know the answer and you know the answer but it’s one which erodes any remaining trust we might have in MSM reporting.
Most people, especially older people, trust the BBC, read the odd headline and watch the evening news. So, when the real scandals revealed in the “Twitter Files” are never reported on, the general population don’t have a clue. Even with well-read people, I have tried to discuss the topic but they haven’t even heard of the “Twitter Files”, let alone what has been revealed.
And this is before the Fauci files are released, if they ever are. But if they are, then don’t for one second think that the general public will hear about them or change their position on anything to do with Covid. It just won’t happen unfortunately. If the MSM do report on the Fauci files, it will be brief and they will conclude that lockdowns were necessary to prevent deaths and vaccines are a miracle from God.
Daily Mail Promotes ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’ Scare that Experts Call “Junk Science”
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | DECEMBER 24, 2022
The Daily Mail recently published a story claiming the world could face a mass extinction of plants and animals within less than 80 years, with more than a quarter of species dying by 2100. It was an eye-catching headline, timed of course to appear at the same time as the UN’s biodiversity conference. But curiously missing from the article, based on a recent science paper, was a note that most of the data underpinning the eco-scare were created by the authors of the report, while assumptions were made that global temperatures would rise by up to 5°C. Given that global temperatures have risen only 1.1°C over the last two centuries, and over the last two decades probably no more than 0.1°C, this looks a tad on the high side.
The report authors give considerable weight to the view that food chains are fragile in nature, and one extinction leads to another. This may be true in some cases, although most animals in the wild are resilient in adapting their diets to changing conditions. But building a media ‘mass death’ headline surely needs a few actual facts. The authors admit: “Apart from the obvious modelling and computational challenges to incorporate interactions among species, the main reason why there are few studies accounting for interactions is that obtaining sufficient data in most communities is intractable.” They add that an important caveat is that “while our virtual species are functionally realistic, they do not have taxonomic or phylogenetic meaning.” According to the Mail, the scientists aimed to build an “ecologically plausible Earth”.
Modelled results were obtained via a supercomputer assuming temperatures suddenly leap by between 4-5°C in just 80 years. The so-called ‘pathways’ feeding in these huge temperature rises are themselves the product of computers. But reality has started to bite in climate model circles with the realisation that their mock-ups are running far too hot. Four decades of wrong forecasts and the knowledge that global warming went off the boil two decades ago has led to a slight lowering of the various projections. But claiming that a quarter of species could disappear within 80 years as temperatures rise five times more than they have done for the last 200 is just fanciful speculation.
The Mail reported that the scientists’ tool can map extinctions everywhere on earth. It is said to confirm “beyond doubt” that the world is in the throes of its sixth mass extinction.
The sixth mass extinction scare is becoming very popular in climate Armageddon circles. Heavily promoted by the World Wildlife Fund, it has a lot going for it on the propaganda front, although some may quibble that it is notably short on actual proof. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 823 animals and plant species (mostly animals) that have gone extinct since 1500. If we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, as the Mail reports, we might have expected to be able to name more than 823 extinct species in 522 years.
Five years ago, the eminent Smithsonian paleontologist Doug Erwin dismissed sixth mass extinction talk as “junk science“. He went on to state that “many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were”.
The Australian science blogger Jo Nova had an interesting take on the latest mass extinction science paper. “So a supercomputer adds up 15,000 webs of low level data on sloths, bark and butterflies, with error bars larger than trends, in systems we don’t understand, and a million lines of code, and extrapolates data up the kazoo – what could possibly go wrong?”
She goes on to quote Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, who has noted that most of the species going extinct, “never existed in the first place”. Moore is another who is underwhelmed by extinction work produced by computers. He is unimpressed by estimates from the biologist Edward Wilson that 50,000 species go extinct every year. This estimate is based on computer models of the number of potential but as yet undiscovered species in the world.
“There’s no scientific basis for saying that 50,000 species are going extinct. The only place you can find them is in Edward O. Wilson’s computer at Harvard University. They’re actually electrons on a hard drive. I want a list of Latin names of actual species,” he wrote.
Finally, let us remember the Bramble Cay melomys, the first animal said to have become extinct due to human-caused climate change. Until recently, this little brown rat lived on a small sandy island off the coast of Australia. How it got there nobody knows, but rats are very resourceful and it probably hopped on a passing branch, said goodbye to a billion of its close relatives, and set sail. It liked its new home since there were plenty of blue turtle and birds eggs to eat. But, alas, its home was only three metres above sea level and the area prone to cyclones (your fault), so one day it got washed away. The Guardian was particularly taken with its sad end since it called for a “moment of silence”, and said it would “continue to fight for the things you believe in” – although presumably not eating blue turtle eggs.
Ukraine presidential aide calls for destruction of Iranian weapon factories
The Cradle | December 24, 2022
A presidential aide for Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on 24 December called for the “liquidation” of Iranian weapons and drone manufacturing facilities and the arrest of those supplying the Islamic Republic with raw materials.
“Important to abandon nonworking sanctions, invalid UN resolutions concept, [and] move to more destructive tools,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted early Saturday.
Since September, Kiev has accused Tehran of supplying the Kremlin with hundreds of kamikaze drones allegedly used to hit Ukrainian infrastructure.
On Friday, the head of Ukraine’s spy agency claimed Russia had already launched around 540 drones at military and energy targets. For its part, Iran denies supplying Russia with drones since the start of the war.
The call for military action against Iran by Zelensky’s aide comes just days after officials in the Islamic Republic warned that its “strategic patience” towards Ukraine was running out.
“Iran’s patience will not be limitless,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a statement published by the state-run IRNA news agency on 22 December, where he also reiterated Tehran’s official position of “never supplying military equipment to any side to be used in the Ukraine war.”
“Mr. Zelenskyy should better learn a lesson from the fate of other world leaders who have invested hope on America’s support,” Kanaani concluded.
This statement was released hours after President Zelensky delivered an address at the US Capitol building, where he rebuked Iran for being an ally in Russia’s “genocidal policy” before describing Tehran as a “terrorist” state.
“Russia found an ally in this genocidal policy — Iran … Iranian deadly drones sent to Russia in the hundreds became a threat to our critical infrastructure. That is how one terrorist has found the other,” the Ukrainian leader told an exuberant gathering of US lawmakers before demanding Washington deliver more financial aid to fuel the war against Russia.
Since the start of the war, the White House has approved approximately $113 billion in economic and military assistance to Kiev. According to government spending data, over the last 12 months, Ukraine has been awarded more US taxpayer dollars than 40 US states.
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Jewish Guilt is the Discourse of The Goyim
By Gilad Atzmon | April 24, 2018
For quite some time the British have accepted that British Jewish organizations have hijacked the political discourse. As has happened in other Western countries, the British political establishment has engaged is a relentless rant against antisemitsm. Sometime the focus drifts for a day or two. An alleged ‘Russian nerve gas attack’ provided a 48 hour pause. Occasionally we bomb Arabs in the name of ‘human intervention’ only to realize a day or two later that we have, once again, followed a premeditated foreign agenda. But, somehow, we always return to the antisemitism debate, as if our media and politicians are a herd of flies gravitating to a pile of poop. … continue
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- What Is Hay Fever?
- If Americans Knew
- The Republican & Democratic Politicians Trying to Scuttle Iran Agreement
- Israel’s continued targeting of civilians in Lebanon renders ceasefire meaningless
- U.S. intelligence warns Israel is likely to undermine Iran peace deal, officials say
- In Gaza, Fathers Can’t Promise Their Children Food, Safety, or Even Survival
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- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
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- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
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