Uprising in Guadeloupe
By David Montoute | Fourth World | November 23, 2021
An insurrectional situation has emerged in Guadeloupe. Roads are closed, buildings set on fire, and clashes between demonstrators and security forces are raging. Many Guadeloupeans have decided that, against dictatorship, violence is a legitimate option. It is a violence directed against the so-called ‘health pass’ and against the mandatory vaccination of careworkers imposed upon this overseas territory by Metropolitan France.
In September, France had made it compulsory for all health workers, home carers, transport staff, medical students, firefighters, and all related personnel to have the Covid vaccine. This was accompanied with the requisitioning of all Ivermectin stocks in order to force the deeply unpopular vaccine upon the people of Guadeloupe (as well as neighbouring Martinique). According to French government figures, only 33% of Guadeloupeans are vaccinated (versus 75% in Metropolitan France), with a simiar figure in Martinique.
Tensions rose in October with the arrest of two demonstrators, one of them being Claudine Maraton, the general secretary of the UTS-UGTG (the trade union section of the General Workers Union of Guadeloupe). The UGTG had taken a leading position in the political opposition to the vaccine mandate, a position that the president of the Guadeloupe region also came to echo. As the conflict sharpened, the governing En Marche party’s MP for Guadeloupe began to describe the situation on the island as “quasi-insurrectional”, with opposition to the Covid regulations showing a “weakening state authority” on the island.
The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran seemed to recognise the fragility of France’s position, and decided to push back the deadline for the vaccination mandate to November 15th. But if November 15th marked the end of the ‘health emergency’ measures in most of the overseas territories, in Guadeloupe, it marked the start of an indefinite general strike, launched by a collective of trade union and citizen organisations against the mandatory injection of careworkers and the pass sanitaire. At a press conference at the Palais de la Mutualité in Pointe-à-Pitre, Maïté Hubert M’Toumo, the new General Secretary of the UGTG had already sounded the battle-cry: “From Monday, war is declared!”
“From September, the French state decided to renew hostilities […] all doctors and nurses can receive a notice prohibiting them from working. This means that from Monday, the French state which spoke of war has just declared war on us. The situation is catastrophic. Thousands of workers are affected, whom they want to shamelessly fire, without delay of challenge. We can’t accept that. It’s not possible. The Guadeloupeans are in danger and from the moment war is declared, we are obliged to respond. From Monday, war is declared, there will be nothing that will work, we must organise ourselves so that nothing functions: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… every day! We have no choice, we must come together, all social and professional classes, all Guadeloupeans. From Monday there will be two camps: the camp of the French state which has decided to defile us and defile all who oppose their plans; and the other side that wants to protect the country in order to live in freedom. The French president said that vaccines are freedom, so freedom is conditioned on a vaccine, a vaccine that is not under control, a vaccine that generates more and more serious side effects. Is this freedom? It’s not possible. So from Monday, war is declared!”
Maïté Hubert M’Toumo
The Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS), also affected by the mandatory vaccination order, had come to assume a leading role in the protests. As the strike began on the 15th, fights broke out between firefighters and the elite gendarmes, When the gendarmes charged one group, the firefighters responded with jets of water. Other incidents between strikers and police triggered a wave of arrests as the Pointe-à-Pitre prosecutor’s office complained of “repeated threats to a law enforcement officer.” Maïté Hubert M’Toumo denounced the arrests in a public statement, calling them “a serious attack on a fundamental freedom which is the right to strike” and rallying “all members and activists to strengthen the picket lines”. Even as the government sent in hundreds of police and gendarme reinforcements, the strike hardened on the following weekend, with rioting breaking out in Pointe-à-Pitre and across the Island. Several gas stations were closed by protesters, and many motorists raided those that remained open, fearing the strike would impact fuel supplies. As the demonstrations and clashes escalated, shops and pharmacies were torched and looted, while schools, post offices and courts were shut down. Reports surfaced that protestors had broken into an arms depot in the island’s capital, Pointe-à-Pitre, and stolen rifles. Col Jean Pierre, of the gendarmerie at Pointe-à-Pitre, said some of the protesters had fired upon security forces. “We just don’t know how far this will still go,” the city’s mayor, Harry Durimel, told FranceInfo radio.
This weekend, Paris authorities began sending elite police and counterterrorism officers with armoured vehicles to Guadeloupe in a bid to stamp out the uprising. The police reinforcements set about dismantling protesters’ road barricades while the island’s authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew until Tuesday morning. By Monday the police had arrested at least 38 people charged with looting and smashing shops.
Over the weekend, the main UGTG trade union called for continued protests. Meanwhile, Martinique has followed its neighbour’s example and gone on general strike against the measures dictated by Paris.
The cultural rejection
Guadeloupe – like Martinique – has a deep-rooted history of anti-vaccine sentiment linked to distrust of the Paris government. Political scientist Pamela Obertan, who is helping to organise anti-mandate protests explains that Guadeloupeans “are descendants of slaves, and for us, control over our bodies is really important… The government wants to impose on us a medical experiment. We are still medical experiments.”
For decades, agriculture workers in Guadeloupe and Martinique were exposed to an endocrine-disrupting, carcinogenic pesticide called chlordecone. Around 95% of the population in these two islands is known to register chlordecone in their blood. Studies have linked the pesticide to prostate cancer, and, significantly, Guadeloupe and Martinique have the highest prostate cancer rates in the world. Yet nothing has been done about real health emergencies such as this one. And this goes a long way to explain the distrust towards the metropolis that is felt in the French Antilles. It is this context that has empowered vaccination-refusal, which is now turning into a nationalist and patriotic cause.
Accompanying this development, there is a longstanding usage and trust in folk medicine. As Guadeloupe’s University Hospital director lamented, the vaccine refusniks are “pushing Guadeloupian pharmacology.” From the start of the aggressive push for ”Covid” vaccination, sales of Virapic, a syrup based on the local jackass bitters herb, skyrocketed. This tropical shrub (Neurolaena lobata) is traditionally used for treatment of fever and flu symptoms, wounds and infections, and a variety of parasitic ailments such as malaria, ringworm, and amoebiasis. The plant has found a local champion in pharmacist Henry Joseph, co-founder of the laboratory Phytobokaz. Joseph, claims to have proven the plant’s efficacy against emerging RNA viruses and thus its relevance to ‘Covid-19′.
Whatever comes of such research, the island’s distrust in vaccines is unlikely to abate any time soon. The metropolitan government’s refusal to negotiate, together with the local suppression of data on vaccine deaths will continue to antagonise an already rebellious populace. According to lawyer Maître Ellen Bessis, the University Hospital Center (CHU) of Guadeloupe never declares vaccination status amongst any hospitalisations. This, she says allows them to register vaccinated deaths in Guadeloupe’s hospitals as unvaccinated, which is what she says is happening. Bessis’ claim is based on the extensive testimony of firefighters who, in Guadeloupe, share the job of transporting emergency cases to hospital. As the civil liberties organisation Rester Libre ! says, “If this information were verified, it would be an absolute scandal: a statistical lie designed to hide the dangerousness of the vaccine. It would create a crisis of absolute confidence with the public authorities, and, therefore, all the figures, all the data, could be called into question.”
It is difficult to imagine how the execrable Macron government could possibly backtrack in this conflict, or provide any concessions for Guadeloupe. For to do so would undermine the mandate policy in metropolitan France. Yet the rebellion of the island population can only deepen, as Ellen Bessis affirms.
“We wonder what is going on in the mind of the government!” says Jocelyn Zou, of the fire department’s union. “We Guadeloupeans have a notion of freedom. But they impose compulsory vaccination on us when alternative solutions exist. We have every motivation to fight to the end!”
France to send special forces to Guadeloupe after looting, arson:
RELATED: Martinique and Guadeloupe: Ivermectin stocks are requisitioned to force vaccination
School Districts in California Defy Newsom’s Edict to Inject Students with Pfizer Shots – Willing to Give Up State Funding
By Brian Shilhavy | Health Impact News | November 12, 2021
Finally, some sanity in an insane world that believes it is OK to abuse children and attempt to murder them with experimental Pfizer COVID-19 shots!
In an unanimous 5 to 0 vote, the Calaveras Unified School District (CUSD) in Calaveras County, California, has decided to defy Governor Newsom’s command to inject their students with Pfizer’s shots, no matter what the cost.
They are the second school district in the County to do so, and apparently other school districts in the State of California are considering similar measures.
At a Calaveras Unified School District (CUSD) board meeting Tuesday night, the board voted 5-0 against upholding the state-issued COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students and staff.
The five board members voted on an action put forth by board member Bryan Porath to “not enforce, support, or comply” with the mandate, which requires all students and school staff to be vaccinated by July of next year, following FDA approval of the vaccine for the child’s specific age group.
CUSD is Calaveras County’s largest school district and includes Calaveras High School, five elementary schools and one middle school.
This decision follows after the Mark Twain Union Elementary School District became the first in the county to vote against enforcing the mandate last week.
Some school districts throughout the state have similarly expressed concerns or pledged not to uphold the mandate, including districts in Apple Valley and Happy Valley, with one school board member in Temecula Valley resigning to avoid getting vaccinated, though it is undetermined whether the state rules apply to school board members.
A theme of solidarity and mutual support was echoed throughout comments from concerned parents, teachers, and school board trustees. Two fourth grade students from Valley Springs Elementary also rose to the podium, to ask the board to consider their feelings about the mandate. (Source.)
The school board had previously announced their rejection of the mandate and their intention to hold a vote on the issue in a letter to families and staff on November 4, as they announced there may be consequences from the State of California for defying the vaccine mandate.
The board is aware of the potential impacts on the district in terms of possible liability exposure, funding loss, other formal actions that can be taken against the district in response—and they understand the Superintendent’s recommendation for mandate compliance based upon these potential consequences—but they feel strong in their individual positions on this topic, as expressed on October 19th and as will be discussed on November 9th, when their vote will determine the position and direction of the district on this matter.
The school board’s action also defied the Superintendent’s recommendation, who apparently stands to potentially lose financially. Perhaps his job is on the line?
Prior to voting, Superintendent Mark Campbell advised the board that based on liability and the risks associated with going against the state-issued mandate—including “fall back from unions” and OSHA, state and local public health orders, and potentially losing Covid-related funding—he would recommend that the district remain in compliance with the state’s rules. Campbell advised that the district “stand(s) to lose students and staff on either end.”
One commenter from the audience told the board:
“I am so proud of you guys. I am so proud to be in Calaveras County, and I am so proud that we are united. I’m so proud. I know It takes a lot of courage to take a stand like this. I’m so proud of each one of you, and I’m so proud of all of us. … We’re gonna have your back.” Applause and a shout of “we got your back” echoed the sentiment throughout the room.
welcome to the hospital california
you can check in any time you like, but there might not be any doctors…
el gato malo | bad cattitude | November 11, 2021
president brandon and his merry band of miscreants have been busy mandating covid vaccines for health care workers. many states have done so as well.
this is going to create severe staffing crunches.
18% of front line HCW’s are not planning to vaccinate.
this rises to 24% in nursing homes.
this winter when hospitals are having “weather disruptions” like american and southwest airlines because the winds of “i do not wish to be vaccinated against my will” among health workers are reaching gale force, just remember:
this is not covid.
this is bad policy.
this is literally an attempt by health officials to:
“make hospitals and assisted living facilities safe by preventing doctors and nurses from making healthcare choices.”
no sane public health official would do this.
this has NOTHING to do with a virus. if it did, you’d trust acquired immunity and the medical judgement of doctors.
these people are wreckers.
they WANT these systems to break. they want a hospital crisis because that will create “an emergency” that allows them to step in and regulate or grab control or nationalize.
do NOT fall for this. this is a game of chicken and the doctors who want to have their own bodies be their own choice are in the right.
support health workers as they strike and stand up for themselves.
they were there for us. be there for them.
not only is this the morally correct thing to do, but it’s also in your own self-interest if you ever again want to be able to have your own medical choices be between you and your chosen physician.
can you seriously believe that a system that will not allow doctors to make THEIR OWN healthcare choices can be trusted to let them help you make YOURS?
this is not about your health, it’s about their power. their regulatory edifice seeks to subsume all of healthcare and to do it, they’re seeking to BREAK all healthcare.
this will not be market failure.
this will be market sabotage.
be sure you blame the right people.
and be sure you repay wreckers with being wrecked in return.
Anti-Covid pass campaigners’ message – Welsh defeat won’t stop us
TCW Defending Freedom – November 10, 2021
YESTERDAY was a dark day for Wales as plans to extend the use of Covid passes were agreed by the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd – no thanks to Plaid Cymru who shamefully backed the government – and set to start next Monday.
So no more cinemas, theatres, or concert halls for the new pariahs of Welsh society, no freedom for anyone who chooses not to have the experimental covid ‘vaccine’.
How very nasty, how very irrational.
The group Together, who have been co-ordinating a national campaign and who were in Cardiff lobbying yesterday, rightly refuse to be set back. They will keep on fighting this injustice. We all must. As they pointed out in their supporters’ email today, there has been no attempt by the Welsh Government to provide any evidence whatsoever (which they can’t, since the evidence does not stack up) to justify this egregious theft of individual liberty. They also report on the bad faith of the Senedd who refused to let its members speak to them. So much for any vestige of a free society in Wales.
That said, the Together team reported how inspiring it was to see so many people come from various parts of the UK to Cardiff to have their voices heard together. What is needed now, they say, is to get as many people who want to enjoy life normally and see friends without restrictions in a discriminatory two-tier society, engaging with Together’s events around the country.
The next of these is tomorrow, Thursday November 11, in New Brighton, Merseyside for a panel event: Can there be Science without Free Speech? It is to be held at Hope, the anti-supermarket, Victoria Road, New Brighton, Merseyside. Speakers include @DrHoenderkamp @jadenozzz @danieldaviesRPL @alanvibe.
They also invite us to ‘Stand with Health care Workers’ tomorrow in London at 3pm at Parliament Square. As we’ve already reported 60,000 care workers face loss of jobs because of the introduction of mandatory vaccinations. Choice is a fundamental right for all, and we need to uphold it.
Nov. 3: Join the ‘Worldwide Walkout,’ a Global Protest Against Government Overreach
Children’s Health Defense
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) on Nov. 3 will join organizations and individuals in “Worldwide Walkout” by calling in sick or taking a personal day to protest the unprecedented loss of freedom that has occurred the world over since the COVID pandemic began.
Parents will also pull their children out of school for the day to protest the many restraints that have applied directly to children.
“No government in history has ever surrendered power in the absence of a demand,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., CHD chairman and chief legal counsel. “We need to tell these governments and their friends in the technocracy, the Silicon Valley billionaire boys club, the mainstream media and the pharmaceutical industry that we will no longer tolerate their trampling of citizens’ rights.”
Emboldened by reports of a recent walkout of Southwest employees — which led the airline’s management to drop plans to put unvaccinated employees on unpaid leave — nurses, doctors, teachers, police officers, firefighters and other workers are expected to participate in the protest.
“Coercive mandates of shoddily tested medical products and segregationist passports violate international human rights law,” said CHD President and General Counsel Mary Holland.
Holland added:
“We need brave citizens to peacefully refuse to comply with unlawful and unethical edicts that for the past year-and-a-half have been allowed to trump individual rights and freedoms. Those days are over. There will be no business as usual until segregationist and coercive medical policies advanced by government authorities end once and for all.”
Organizers announced the protest after the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), which advises the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on Tuesday recommended the agency authorize Pfizer’s Emergency Use Authorization COVID vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old.
The vote to recommend authorization of this vaccine, despite evidence that COVID does not pose a threat to young people, is causing even more unrest among those concerned with the safety of COVID vaccines in all age groups.
From mid-December 2020 through Oct. 15, 2021, the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) received 818,044 reports of injury following COVID vaccination, including 17,128 deaths.
“This vote by VRBPAC to put young children at risk of serious injury, and even death, is one more reason people need to stand up to tyranny, and let businesses and governments know we will no longer comply with reckless decisions that threaten the health of our children,” said CHD Executive Director Laura Bono.
CHD chapters, coalition partners and local community organizers are planning mass gatherings of people in peaceful noncompliance to take place in high-exposure areas in many cities and states. Visit “Worldwide Walkout” for locations and details. If you don’t see one for your area, reach out to others in your community to plan an event. Choose a location that is easy to get to and can be seen by many.
Once your date, location and time are in place, tell us your plans so we can help amplify your message.
CHD.TV will carry live coverage of the day’s events.
CA STUDENTS WALK OUT OVER VACCINE MANDATE
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | October 22, 2021
Thousands of California Parents pulled their children from schools across the state Monday, as part of a massive protest against Covid vaccine mandates.
Anti-Lockdown Protester Facing Multiple Prosecutions Needs Money to Pay For Legal Defence
By Toby Young • The Daily Sceptic • October 20, 2021
Debbie Hicks, the anti-lockdown protestor who was arrested after filming an apparently empty ward in Gloucestershire Royal Hospital at the end of last year, is facing four separate prosecutions in Magistrates’ Court – mainly for participating in anti-lockdown protests – and she needs to raise more funds to pay for her legal defence. The first case is due to be heard on November 16th and all four will be heard this winter. She has set up a CrowdJusice fundraiser that you can contribute to here.
Debbie’s solicitor plans to move on to the High Court if she loses in the Magistrates’ Court, or if the Magistrates’ Court says it doesn’t have the jurisdiction to consider her cases. That could be expensive, but the cause at stake could not be more important. Here is an extract from a note her solicitor sent to me:
These really are important cases in respect of Freedom of speech and Freedom to protest as:
- Success at the High Court will set a precedent that protest is not, and never has been, completely illegal during the pandemic – even under lockdown.
- Debbie suspects that the prosecution’s ultimate aim is to obtain a criminal behaviour order against her thereby chillingly curbing her ability to protest in the future.
- There are still a large number of other citizens across the country who are being ‘unlawfully’ prosecuted or have been convicted – a successful outcome at the High Court will lead to a landslide of other cases crumbling and open avenues of appeal to others already convicted.
- While the Crown Prosecution Service may try and quietly drop the odd case here and there after defence representations and arguments are filed, this will only occur when a prosecution lawyer reviews the case reasonably and objectively and properly analyses the law which is confusing and opaque – and, as Debbie has found, this is not easy to achieve. Success at the High Court will mean the CPS will have to blanket review all such cases and, with a legal precedent set, this will force the CPS to discontinue all remaining prosecutions.
- Many ordinary citizens without a previous blemish on their record will currently have criminal records because they’ve been convicted of these types of offences. Success in the High Court could lead to an avalanche of appeals and convictions being overturned.
- Success at the High Court will add clarity to the law that protesters have a reasonable excuse to gather and are not therefore committing an offence and cannot be directed to disperse or leave by the police.
- While the prohibition of protests has now been dropped, legislation can always be amended again in the future. Who knows if further lockdowns are on the horizon. We only have to look to Australia as an example of a government completely abusing its powers against its own citizens. Success at the High Court in Debbie’s case will make it harder for our Government to suspend the right to protest again.
Once again, if you’d like to make a contribution to Debbie’s fundraiser, you can find it here.
The cultural genocide in Palestine: On Sally Rooney’s decision to boycott Israel
![Sally Rooney attends a photocall during the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 22 August 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland. [Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/GettyImages-837270534.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
Sally Rooney during the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 22 August 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland. [Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images]
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 19, 2021
The pro-Israel crowd on social media was quick to pounce on award-winning Irish novelist, Sally Rooney, as soon as she declared that she had “chosen not to sell … translation rights of her best-selling novel, ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ to an Israeli-based publishing house”.
Expectedly, the accusations centered on the standard smearing used by Israel and its supporters against anyone who dares criticise Israel and exhibits solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people.
Rooney’s laudable action was not in the least ‘racist’ or ‘anti-Semitic’. On the contrary, it was taken as a show of support for the Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), whose advocacy is situated within anti-colonial and anti-racist political discourses.
Rooney, herself, has made it clear that her decision not to publish with Modan Publishing House, which works closely with the Israeli government, is motivated by ethical values.
“I simply do not feel it would be right for me, under the present circumstances, to accept a new contract with an Israeli company that does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the U.N-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people,” she said in a statement on 12 October.
In fact, Rooney’s contention is not with the language itself, as she stated that “the Hebrew-language translation rights to my new novel are still available, and if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movement’s institutional boycott guidelines, I will be very pleased and proud to do so.”
Rooney is not the first intellectual to take an ethical position against any form of cultural normalisation with Israeli institutions, especially those that directly support and benefit from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. Her position is consistent with similar stances taken by other intellectuals, musicians, artists, authors and scientists. The ever-expanding list includes Roger Waters, Alice Walker and the late Stephen Hawking.
The BDS movement has made it abundantly clear that, in the words of the movement’s co-founder, Omar Barghouti, “the Palestinian boycott targets institutions only, due to their entrenched complicity in planning, justifying, whitewashing or otherwise perpetuating Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights.”
Of course, some are still not convinced. Those critics of the BDS movement intentionally conflate between anti-Semitism and a legitimate form of political expression, which aims at weakening and isolating the very economic, political and cultural infrastructures of racism and apartheid. The fact that numerous anti-Zionist Jews are supporters and advocates of the movement is not enough to make them reconsider their fallacious logic.
One of the ‘politest’ denunciations of Rooney, appearing in the Jewish Forward magazine, was penned by Gitit Levy-Paz. The author’s logic is puzzling, to say the least. Levy-Paz accused Rooney that, by refusing to allow her novel to be translated into Hebrew, she has excluded “a group of readers because of their national identity.”
While the Forward writer is guilty of confusing political ethics and nationality, she is not the only one. Israeli Zionists do this as a matter of course, where the Zionist ideology and the Jewish religion – and, in this case, language – are quite often interchangeable. As a result, the definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ has been stretched to include anti-Zionism – though Zionism is a modern ideological construct. Since Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Zionist state, it follows that any form of criticism of Israeli policies are often depicted as if a form of anti-Semitism.
One of the most interesting aspects of this conversation on language is that the Hebrew language has been used by the State of Israel since its establishment in 1948 as the language of oppression. In the minds of Palestinians, anywhere in Palestine, Hebrew is rarely the language used to communicate culture, literature, social coexistence and such. Instead, every military ordinance issued by the Israeli army, including closures and home demolitions, let alone the proceedings of military court hearings, and even the racist anti-Palestinian chants in football stadiums, are communicated in Hebrew. Palestinians are then excused if they do not view the modern Hebrew language as a language of inclusion, or even innocuous, everyday communication.
These realisations are not the outcome of daily experiences only. Successive Israeli governments have passed numerous legislations over the years to elevate Hebrew at the expense of Arabic. For over seven decades, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people has been coupled with the erasure of their culture and their language, from the Hebraicisation of historic Arabic names of towns, villages and streets, to the demolition of ancient Palestinian graveyards, olive groves, mosques and churches, the Israeli ethnocide is a top item on the Israeli political agenda.
The Israeli Nation State Law of 2018, which elevated Hebrew as Israel’s official language and downgraded Arabic to a “special status”, was the culmination of many years of a relentless, centralised Israeli campaign, whose sole purpose is to dominate the Palestinians, not only politically but culturally as well.
All that in mind, the hypocrisy of Israel’s mouthpieces is unmistakable. They welcome, or at least remain silent, when Israel tries to demolish and bury Palestinian culture and language, but cry foul when a respected author or a well-regarded artist tries, though symbolically, to show solidarity with the oppressed and occupied Palestinian people.
The Palestinian boycott movement is conscious of its morally-driven mission, thus can never duplicate the tactics of the Israeli government and official institutions. BDS aims at pressuring Israel by reminding peoples all over the world of their moral responsibility towards the Palestinians.
BDS does not target Israelis as individuals and, under no circumstances, does it target Jewish individuals because they are Jews, or the Hebrew language, as such. Israel, on the other hand, continues to target Palestinians as a people, downgrades their language, dismantles their institutions and systematically destroys their culture. This is rightly referred to as cultural genocide, and it is our moral responsibility to stop it.
Google, Amazon staff protest ties to Israel spy network
MEMO | October 13, 2021
Employees of the tech giants, Google and Amazon, have condemned the companies for their contract with the Israeli military to develop cloud-based cybersecurity services, and have called on their employers to cut their ties with the occupation forces.
As part of the major $1.2 billion contracts signed with the Israeli military in May, following a bid in which it beat other giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are to provide cloud services technology to Tel Aviv and its armed forces.
In an article published yesterday in the Guardian newspaper, however, hundreds of anonymous employees of the companies, who described themselves as “employees of conscience from diverse backgrounds”, condemned the program named ‘Project Nimbus.’
Referencing their belief “that the technology we build should work to serve and uplift people everywhere,” the employees stated that “we are morally obligated to speak out against violations of these core values.”
They wrote that “we are compelled to call on the leaders of Amazon and Google to pull out of Project Nimbus and cut all ties with the Israeli military,” revealing that the signatories of the letter-number over 90 at Google and over 300 at Amazon.
The employees, who confirmed that they “are anonymous because we fear retaliation,” acknowledged that “We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes, and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
If Google and Amazon continue with the project which would “sell dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government”, then it would only enable the “further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitate the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.”
Aside from urging the companies to abandon the project and their ties with Israel’s occupation forces, the employees also “call on global technology workers and the international community to join with us in building a world where technology promotes safety and dignity for all.”
We need a Covid champion to defy Big Pharma like the thalidomide heroine
By Mary McGreechin | TCW Defending Freedom | October 13, 2021
IN 1960, Frances Oldham Kelsey prevented thousands of American babies from facing a life of severe disability.
A medical officer with the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), Kelsey refused to buckle under relentless pressure from the pharmaceutical company Merrell to approve the drug thalidomide for use as a sedative and, off-label, as a treatment for morning sickness.
From 1957, the drug had been used in Europe to ease extreme nausea in the early stages of pregnancy. But by 1961, mounting reports from concerned doctors revealed devastating birth defects in the babies of women who had taken thalidomide.
Determined to break into the lucrative American drug market, Merrell had claimed stringent testing showed the drug to be safe as well as efficacious.
Kelsey, however, was suspicious of incomplete data and the omission of tests on the drug’s prolonged use and refused to give her approval. Despite harassment and intimidation by the company – ‘most of the things they called me you wouldn’t print’ – Kelsey had remained resolute.
Today, as the Covid agenda aims to vaccinate every man, woman and child, minimising, or ignoring, often fatal side-effects, we need a Frances Kelsey to say: ‘No.’ Or even: ‘Not yet.’ Despite some courageous voices within the medical community speaking out at great personal cost, no influential figure has voiced the level of dissent needed to halt this programme.
Medical advances have, undeniably, delivered life-enhancing and life-saving treatments. Yet countless lawsuits against the pharmaceutical industry demonstrate that medicine can have an iatrogenic (illness-causing), as well as a therapeutic, effect. In the US alone, billions of dollars are paid annually in damages by pharmaceutical companies.
The industry has sought to temper such negative perceptions by cultivating a philanthropic image, portraying itself as a benevolent entity driven by altruism rather than a competitive industry whose investors salivate at ever-increasing share prices.
Despite these endeavours, it is astonishing that a large proportion of the public have failed to be concerned that drug companies which have been fined astronomical sums in multiple lawsuits have been granted liability immunity on Covid vaccines. With pharmaceutical firms typically afforded limited liability protection, this indemnity has been described as ‘very rare.’
Should we be surprised at the lack of public suspicion? The NHS has been elevated to such a degree that any condemnation of this behemoth is considered blasphemy. A 2020 Ipsos MORI poll revealed that more than 90 per cent of Britons trusted doctors and nurses ‘to tell the truth.’
Yet medics may be untruthful, or unaware of the full facts behind the medicine they prescribe. UK doctors believed thalidomide could be given ‘with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without adverse effect on mother or child’, yet it was later acknowledged that no tests were done involving pregnant women.
The effect of Covid vaccines on fertility and the unborn child are unknown. However, more than 30,000 women have, at present, reported changes in their menstrual cycle post-vaccination.
The vice-president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists stated: ‘We support calls for more research to understand why women may be experiencing changes to their menstrual cycle after having the vaccine.’ Stable door, horse and bolted come to mind.
And whilst pregnant women were excluded from the Covid vaccine trials, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) had these reassuring words to ‘pregnant people’: ‘Reproductive toxicity studies with the Moderna vaccine in rats haven’t uncovered any worrisome signals.’
Are we to place our trust in pharmaceutical companies whose employees’ emails reveal such statements as:
‘I am not 100 per cent comfortable with this data being made publicly available.’
‘Thus far we have buried trials 15, 31, 56 … how do we face the outside world when they begin to criticise us for suppressing data?’
‘Lisa has done a great “smoke and mirrors” job.’
All this correspondence was made public when litigation against AstraZeneca’s anti-psychotic drug Seroquel began. The company, now most famously known for the development and production of Covid vaccines, faced a major lawsuit in 2009 brought by thousands of Seroquel users who claimed they had developed diabetes whilst taking the drug.
The damning emails proved the pharmaceutical giant had been aware of the risk a decade earlier. Moreover, AstraZeneca had suppressed research which showed its earlier anti-psychotic treatment, Haloperidol, was more effective, and much cheaper, than Seroquel.
Employee John Tumas messaged concerns to colleagues that ‘our own analysis supports the “view out there” that we are less effective than Haloperidol.’
Promoting expensive treatments over cheaper alternatives has also caused debate regarding Covid-19. Those advocating for the use of Ivermectin, more commonly used as an anti-parasitic in animals, to treat the virus, have been relentlessly mocked. But studies have shown the drug can provide ‘an increase in clinical recovery … and a decrease in mortality rates even when used in patients with severe Covid-19.’
Yet a trial conducted on those with mild symptoms concluded it had little effect. Doctor Eduardo Lopez-Medina published his findings in JAMA, maintaining that Ivermectin had delivered negligible benefits.
However, a ‘conflict of interest disclosure’ revealed Dr Lopez-Medina was in receipt of grants and ‘personal fees’ from pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen and Sanofi Pasteur – all involved in the production of Covid-19 vaccines.
Countless stories have emerged in the past 18 months which should raise serious questions over transparency and truthfulness within the medical field – from doctors wrongly claiming intensive care units are full of unvaccinated 20 and 30-year-olds on ventilators, to hospital matrons inventing stories of children’s wards full of Covid patients.
And yet we are expected to have faith that such medics, and the pharmaceutical industry, have our best interests at heart in their pursuit of global vaccination against Covid-19.
Like Frances Oldham Kelsey, we should remain steadfast against coercion and duress. We should ask more questions and seek more answers. If we do not like the answers we find, then we must hold the line. For our own sake and that of our children.
SouthWest Airlines cancels 1,800 flights in 2 days amid rumours of employee ‘sickout’ due to Covid-19 vaccine mandate
RT | October 10, 2021
Thousands of passengers that booked Southwest Airlines flights for their weekend travel have been stranded in the US airports after the airline cancelled the flights amid reports of a protest against the vaccine mandate.
SouthWest, known for its relatively low prices, cancelled at least 1,018 flights on Sunday, that is in addition to 808 flights that were cancelled on Saturday, US Today reported, citing flight tracking data.
In a statement on Saturday, SouthWest blamed the abnormal rate of cancellations on air traffic control issues and “disruptive weather,” adding that they were working to “recover” the operation.
However, the situation appeared to have only worsened on Sunday, with SouthWest account on Twitter being inundated by complaints from the disgruntled passengers claiming that flights had been cancelled out of the blue and that the airline’s employees were nowhere to be seen.
“Flight cancelled out of nowhere and now NO ONE is seen at the front desks to assist customers,” actor Kevin Michael Martin complained.
Another passenger, who has been apparently stranded at a Dallas, Texas, airport, posted a photo of a long line of people, tweeting: “Ticket agent counter before security is a mess,” to which SouthWest responded by insisting that the chaos was merely a result of “ATC issue and disruptive weather.” “Thanks for hanging in there with us today,” SouthWest said.
Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), which represents some 10,000 pilots, also poured cold water on the speculations of an ongoing strike, saying on Sunday that the group was “focused on the safety of our crews, passengers, and overcoming operational challenges, not unofficial job actions.”
However, media citing “airline sources” have reported that air traffic controllers were staging a mass “sickout” or walkout at the federal air traffic control center in Hilliard, Florida, over mandatory vaccinations. The reported protest caused “ripple effect” paralyzing SouthWest operations, Leland Vittert, national correspondent for NewsNation, reported on Twitter.
Responding to the rumours of a mass walkout on Sunday afternoon, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) dismissed the report, insisting that “no FAA air traffic staffing shortages have been reported since Friday.” “Flight delays and cancellations occurred for a few hours Friday afternoon due to widespread severe weather, military training and limited staffing in one area of the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center,” the agency said.
Jacksonville Aviation Authority Chief Operating Officer Tony Cugno reportedly sent an email to the JAA board of directors, pinning the blame for the havoc on some of the employees taking their “normal approved leaves” and controllers having to stay at home for 48 hours after receiving their Covid-19 vaccine shot.
The email was reported by Action News Jax anchor Ben Becker.
SouthWest Airlines became one of the last major US air carriers to introduce a vaccine mandate for its employees last Monday after the company was reportedly pressured by White House coronavirus adviser Jeffrey Zients to comply with President Joe Biden’s vaccination order. Some 56,000 SouthWest employees have until December 8 to get vaccinated if they want to keep their jobs.
Biden’s order states that companies with over 100 employees must either require the workers to get the Covid-19 jab or to test weekly for the virus.
Palestinian factions call for cancellation of Oslo and adoption of national agenda
MEMO | October 7, 2021
Five Palestinian factions called on Wednesday for the cancellation of the Oslo Accords and the adoption of a national agenda agreed upon by their secretaries general in September last year, Sama has reported.
According to the news agency, the five factions are the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad in Palestine, the Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.
They warned against what they called the blackmailing of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and undermining of its status at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian refugees. The EU’s “extortion” against UNRWA to make school textbooks and curriculums “Israel friendly” is intended to make Palestinian students grow up without knowing their national identity, they said.
The factions also reiterated the importance of fast-tracking the adoption of a national resistance strategy instead of Oslo and its related Paris Economic Protocol. The formation of a united leadership for a comprehensive popular resistance effort to push the Israeli occupation out of Palestine is also a priority, they insisted.
“Betting on the delusional international proposals” and dependence on the International Quartet led by the United States “is an extension of a three-decade of failure,” they added. “Political escalation is not achieved through illusory and empty statements, but through the accumulation of material power on the ground.”
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From the Archives
Wartime internment camps in Australia
National Archives of Australia
World War I
During World War I, for security reasons the Australian Government pursued a comprehensive internment policy against enemy aliens living in Australia.
Initially only those born in countries at war with Australia were classed as enemy aliens, but later this was expanded to include people of enemy nations who were naturalised British subjects, Australian-born descendants of migrants born in enemy nations and others who were thought to pose a threat to Australia’s security.
Australia interned almost 7,000 people during World War I, of whom about 4,500 were enemy aliens and British nationals of German ancestry already resident in Australia.
Records of World War I internment camps
World War II
During World War II, Australian authorities established internment camps for three reasons – to prevent residents from assisting Australia’s enemies, to appease public opinion and to house overseas internees sent to Australia for the duration of the war.
Unlike World War I, the initial aim of internment during the later conflict was to identify and intern those who posed a particular threat to the safety or defence of the country. As the war progressed, however, this policy changed and Japanese residents were interned en masse. In the later years of the war, Germans and Italians were also interned on the basis of nationality, particularly those living in the north of Australia. In all, just over 20 per cent of all Italians resident in Australia were interned. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Diplomats slam US negotiators’ performance in Iran talks
- Trump Refuses Exit Ramp, War with Iran will Continue
- Trump Says US Naval Blockade in Strait of Hormuz Will Begin Shortly
- US, Iran end 21-hour talks without agreement
- US IRAN TALKS: Who Are the Crazy Ones Here? /Lt Col Daniel Davis
- Talks with the US end without a deal over excessive US demands: Iran
- Feeling Better, Getting Worse: How Psychiatric Drugs Create the Illusion They Cure
- ‘Nobody Told Me’: Former Mental Health Patient Calls Out Dangerous Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs
- Dr. Abu-Sitta: Beirut ‘felt like a day in Shifa Hospital’
- Iran Has Won the War, It Will Be Up to the US to Secure the Peace: Mohammad Marandi
- If Americans Knew
- US-Iran ceasefire negotiations make zero progress – Daily Update
- Pro-Israel ‘Thinktanks’ and Individuals who Influence U.S. Foreign Policy
- Mearsheimer reveals how Israel dictates US policies on Iran, Gaza – video
- After killing 350+, Israel still has a “score to settle” with Lebanon before ceasefire – Daily Update
- Military aid to Israel emerges as the latest political litmus test for Democrats
- The only Palestinian children’s rights organization closes following years-long Israeli campaign against it
- ‘I Can’t Forget the Smell’: Lebanese Reel After Israel Kills Over 300 in Single Day
- DNC Shoots Down Resolutions Calling Out AIPAC and Limiting Arms to Israel
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- Israel killed at least 303 Lebanese yesterday – who were they? Daily Update
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- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
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