The first step in any negotiation is that the participants must share common views on the issue that will be discussed. The main topic takes center stage and viewpoints on its resolution will be put to consultation by the countries participating in the negotiations. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his deputy Ali Baqeri-Kani are seeking to build a common understanding about the nature of future discussions through making trips and phone calls with their counterparts.
In this regard, the Islamic Republic of Iran stresses that it will not participate in any talks revolving around the nuclear issue, and that the country’s nuclear program will not be the topic of any future negotiations.
But, what is the reason for such position in the talks which are set to start on November 29?
The case of negotiations related to Iran’s nuclear issue was closed in 2015 and the parties achieved significant results. In the course of the talks leading up to the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, the Islamic Republic faced unsubstantiated and political allegations. The country had also been subjected to attacks and questions that led it to be unjustly accused by Western media. Therefore, Iran had to build the necessary trust to show its goodwill seriousness.
So, Iran made large-scale retreats in the field of peaceful nuclear energy before the lifting of sanctions. This issue was strongly challenged inside the country. Critics of the agreement in Iran raised the question of why the Zionist regime is engaged in non-peaceful activities without being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while Iran is not supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency and even punished in some way despite its NPT membership and extensive cooperation with the UN atomic watchdog.
The negotiations reached a conclusion and all countries were obliged to honor their commitments based on a specific timetable.
According to the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the IAEA was responsible for verifying Iran’s practical measures at its nuclear sites. Later, in 16 reports, the body confirmed goodwill on the part of the Islamic Republic and its full implementation of the nuclear agreement.
These verification reports proved that Iran’s nuclear issue was only a political case brought by the country’s enemies and rivals. Iran’s full commitment to nuclear restrictions took place while the administration of former US president Barack Obama violated the JCPOA through various sanctions and pressure.
After that, the unilateral and illegal withdrawal of Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, from the JCPOA completed the unfinished work of the Democrats, and thus the United States practically violated an international agreement as well as UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Other JCPOA members either failed to provide Iran with the economic benefits of the deal or, like the three European countries, sided with America.
Hence, the United States and the European states are accused of reneging on their obligations. After the US pullout from the JCPOA, the Islamic Republic exercised more than two years of “strategic patience” to prevent the collapse of the nuclear pact.
Then Iran decided, in accordance with Articles 36 and 37 of the deal, to expand its peaceful nuclear activities and take reciprocal measures in the face of the blatant violation of the agreement.
The difference between the political actions of the Islamic Republic and the United States was that Washington through its withdrawal from the JCPOA breached the international agreement, while Tehran expanded its nuclear activities using the mechanisms and methods in the agreement to reaffirm its commitment to the failed deal.
However, the US government’s measures seriously damaged and weakened the deal, and significantly increased the Iranian people’s distrust towards Washington, according to opinion polls.
Investigation into one JCPOA signatory’s violation of its commitments is now the subject of the talks, and other axes of the negotiations will be formed around it, the most important of which are as follows:
1) The Islamic Republic will by no means renegotiate its previously negotiated nuclear issues. Other subjects such as missile and regional issues will also be off the agenda of the talks.
2) If the US government allows itself to completely change its policy towards international obligations after the change of each government, it must give the new Iranian government the right to at least oppose part of the Vienna talks under the previous administration and call for the beginning of new negotiations.
3) The US government’s unilateral and illegal move has made the high wall of mistrust between Iran and America stronger and more stable. If current US officials regard as wrong the path pursued in the past and regret it, they should take confidence-building measures now.
Unfortunately, so far, despite US President Joe Biden’s criticism of Trump’s policies towards the nuclear deal, Iran has not seen any serious change. Hours after taking office, Biden issued 17 executive orders to annul the previous administration’s decisions, but regarding Iran, he continued Trump’s strategy. This matter intensifies the need for the US to build trust.
4) The US has inflicted heavy damage on Iran over the past three years due to its unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal. The United States must apologize, compensate the losses, and compensate for Iran’s lack of benefit from the JCPOA.
5) Following confidence-building measures, the US must completely fulfill its obligations. It must remove visa bans, as well as the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), and more than 1,500 sanctions imposed on our country by US governments since its signing of the JCPOA.
6) Iran should have ample time to verify the normalization of its trade and the transfer of currency into the country.
7) The United States must commit itself not to violate its obligations with the change of governments in the country. Additionally, due to the growing distrust towards the US, its ability to trigger the snapback mechanism should be blocked and locked.
8) With the lifting of sanctions and the compensation for the damage inflicted on Iran, along with America’s commitment not to renege on its obligations again, Iran can take steps to return to the restrictions imposed under the JCPOA and thus the nuclear deal can be revived.
November 13, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | France, Iran, Obama, Sanctions against Iran, UK, United States, Zionism |
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INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA ROSE, PHD
In a September 18, 2021, interview with The Covexit podcast, Jessica Rose, Ph.D., who holds degrees in applied mathematics, immunology, computational biology, molecular biology and biochemistry, also discussed what the VAERS data tell us about the safety of the COVID shots.
Rose covers issues such as the magnitude of the side effects compared to other vaccination programs, the problem of under-reporting, and how causality can be assessed using the Bradford Hill Criteria. You can find a PDF of the slide show that Rose presents here.19 Here’s a summary of some of the key points made in this interview:
- Between 2011 and 2020, the number of VAERS reports ranged between 25,408 and 49,412 for all vaccines. In 2021, with the rollout of the COVID shots, the number of VAERS reports shot up to 521,667, as of September 3, 2021, for the COVID shots alone. (Fast-forward to October 22, 2021, and the report tally for COVID-related adverse events has ballooned to 837,593.20)
- Between 2011 and 2020, the total number of deaths reported to VAERS ranged between 120 and 183. In 2021, as of September 3, the reported death toll had shot up to 7,662. As of October 22, 2021, the death toll was 17,619.21
- Cardiovascular, neurological and immunological adverse events are all being reported at rates never even remotely seen before.
- The estimated under-reporting factor (URF) is 31. Using this URF, the death toll from COVID shots is calculated to be 205,809 as of August 27, 2021; Bell’s palsy 81,747; herpes zoster infection 149,017; paresthesia 305,660; breakthrough COVID 365,955; myalgia 528,457; life threatening events 230,113; permanent disabilities 212,691; birth defects 7,998.
- The Bradford Hill Criteria for causation are all satisfied. This includes but is not limited to strength of effect size, reproducibility, specificity, temporality, dose-response relationship, plausibility, coherence and reversibility.
November 13, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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Economist Ernst Wolff believes that a hidden alliance of political and corporate leaders is exploiting the pandemic with the aim of crashing national economies and introducing a global digital currency.
How is it that more than 190 governments from all over the world ended up dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in almost exactly the same manner, with lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccination cards now being commonplace everywhere? The answer may lie in the Young Global Leaders school, which was established and managed by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum, and that many of today’s prominent political and business leaders passed through on their way to the top.
The German economist, journalist, and author Ernst Wolff has revealed some facts about Schwab’s “Young Global Leaders” school that are relevant for understanding world events during the pandemic in a video from the German Corona Committee podcast. While Wolff is mainly known as a critic of the globalist financial system, recently he has focused on bringing to light what he sees as the hidden agenda behind the anti-Covid measures being enacted around the world.
Mysterious Beginnings
The story begins with the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is an NGO founded by Klaus Schwab, a German economist and mechanical engineer, in Switzerland in 1971, when he was only 32. The WEF is best-known to the public for the annual conferences it holds in Davos, Switzerland each January that aim to bring together political and business leaders from around the world to discuss the problems of the day. Today, it is one of the most important networks in the world for the globalist power elite, being funded by approximately a thousand multinational corporations.
The WEF, which was originally called the European Management Forum until 1987, succeeded in bringing together 440 executives from 31 nations already at its very first meeting in February 1971, which as Wolff points out was an unexpected achievement for someone like Schwab, who had very little international or professional experience prior to this. Wolff believes the reason may be due to the contacts Schwab made during his university education, including studying with no less a person than former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Wolff also points out that while Schwab was there, the Harvard Business School had been in the process of planning a management forum of their own, and it is possible that Harvard ended up delegating the task of organizing it to him.
The Forum initially only brought together people from the economic field, but before long, it began attracting politicians, prominent figures from the media (including from the BBC and CNN), and even celebrities.
Schwab’s Young Global Leaders: Incubator of the Great Reset?
In 1992 Schwab established a parallel institution, the Global Leaders for Tomorrow school, which was re-established as Young Global Leaders in 2004. Attendees at the school must apply for admission and are then subjected to a rigorous selection process. Members of the school’s very first class in 1992 already included many who went on to become important liberal political figures, such as Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Tony Blair. There are currently about 1,300 graduates of this school, and the list of alumni includes several names of those who went on to become leaders of the health institutions of their respective nations. Four of them are former and current health ministers for Germany, including Jens Spahn, who has been Federal Minister of Health since 2018. Philipp Rösler, who was Minister of Health from 2009 until 2011, was appointed the WEF’s Managing Director by Schwab in 2014.
Other notable names on the school’s roster are Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand whose stringent lockdown measures have been praised by global health authorities; Emmanuel Macron, the President of France; Sebastian Kurz, who was until recently the Chancellor of Austria; Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary; Jean-Claude Juncker, former Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the European Commission; and Annalena Baerbock, the leader of the German Greens who was the party’s first candidate for Chancellor in this year’s federal election, and who is still in the running to be Merkel’s successor. We also find California Governor Gavin Newsom on the list, who was selected for the class of 2005, as well as former presidential candidate and current US Secretary of Transportation Peter Buttigieg, who is a very recent alumnus, having been selected for the class of 2019. All of these politicians who were in office during the past two years have favored harsh responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and which also happened to considerably increase their respective governments’ power.
Wolff believes that the people behind the WEF and the Global Leaders school are the ones who really determine who will become political leaders, although he stresses that he doesn’t believe that Schwab himself is the one making these decisions but is merely a facilitator. He further points out that the school’s alumni include not only Americans and Europeans, but also people from Asia, Africa, and South America, indicating that its reach is truly worldwide.
In 2012, Schwab and the WEF founded yet another institution, the “Global Shapers Community,” which brings together those identified by them as having leadership potential from around the world who are under 30. Approximately 10,000 participants have passed through this program to date, and they regularly hold meetings in 400 cities. Wolff believes that it is yet another proving ground where future political leaders are being selected, vetted, and groomed before being positioned in the world’s political apparatus.
Wolff points out that very few graduates of the Global Leaders school list it on their CVs. He says that he has only seen it listed on one: namely, that of the German economist Richard Werner, who is a known critic of the establishment. Wolff suggests that the school seems to like to include even critics of the system among its ranks, as another name among its graduates is Gregor Hackmack, the German chief of Change.org, who was in its 2010 class. Wolff believes this is because the organization wants to present itself as being fair and balanced, although it also wants to ensure that its critics are controlled opposition.
Another thing that the Global Leaders graduates have in common is that most of them have very sparse CVs apart from their participation in the program prior to being elevated to positions of power, which may indicate that it is their connection to Schwab’s institutions that is the decisive factor in launching their careers. This is most evident when the school’s alumni are publicly questioned about issues that they have not been instructed to talk about in advance, and their struggles to come up with answers are often quite evident. Wolff contends that their roles are only to act as mouthpieces for the talking points that those in the shadows behind them want discussed in public debate.
Schwab’s Yes Men in Action
Given the growing discontent with the anti-Covid measures put into practice by the school’s graduates who are now national leaders, Wolff believes it is possible that these people were selected due to their willingness to do whatever they are told, and that they are being set up to fail so that the subsequent backlash can be exploited to justify the creation of a new global form of government. Indeed, Wolff notes that politicians with unique personalities and strong, original views have become rare, and that the distinguishing character of the national leaders of the past 30 years has been their meekness and adherence to a strict globalist line dictated from above. This has been especially evident in most countries’ response to the pandemic, where politicians who knew nothing about viruses two years ago suddenly proclaimed that Covid was a severe health crisis that justified locking people up in their homes, shutting down their businesses, and wrecking entire economies.
Determining exactly how the school operates is difficult, but Wolff has managed to learn something about it. In the school’s early years, it involved the members of each class meeting several times over the course of a year, including a ten-day “executive training” session at the Harvard Business School. Wolff believes that, through meeting their classmates and becoming part of a wider network, the graduates then establish contacts who they rely on in their later careers. Today, the school’s program includes courses offered over the course of five years at irregular intervals, which in some cases may overlap with the beginnings of some of its participants’ political or professional careers – meaning they will be making regular visits to Davos. Emmanuel Macron and Peter Buttigieg, for example, were selected for the school less than five years ago, which means it is possible they have been regularly attending Young Global Leaders-related programs while in political office and may in fact still be attending them today.
A Worldwide Network of Wealth & Influence
Graduates from the Young Global Leaders school, and Global Leaders for Tomorrow before them, find themselves very well-situated given that they then have access to the WEF’s network of contacts. The WEF’s current Board of Trustees includes such luminaries as Christine Lagarde, former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and current President of the European Central Bank; Queen Rania of Jordan, who has been ranked by Forbes as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world; and Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the largest investment management corporation internationally and which handles approximately $9 trillion annually. By tracing the connections between the school’s graduates, Wolff claims that you can see that they continue to rely on each other for support for their initiatives long after they participated in the Global Leaders programs.
Wolff believes that many elite universities play a role in the process determined by the WEF, and that they should no longer be seen as operating outside of the fields of politics and economics. He cites the example of the Harvard Business School, which receives millions of dollars from donors each year, as well as the Harvard School of Public Health, which was renamed the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health after it received $350 million from the Hong Kong-born billionaire Gerald Chan. The same is true of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, which became the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health after media mogul Michael Bloomberg donated $1.8 billion to the school in 2018.
Wolff states that the WEF’s influence goes far beyond those who have passed through the Global Leaders and Global Shapers programs, however, as the number of people who participate in the annual Davos conferences is much larger than many suspect; he mentions being informed that approximately 1,500 private jets bring attendees to the event each year, overloading Switzerland’s airports.
The Alliance of Big Business & Government
The main goal of the WEF’s activities, Wolff believes, is to facilitate and further high-level cooperation between big business and national governments, something which we are already seeing take place. Viviane Fischer, another participant in the Corona Committee podcast, points out that the British-based company Serco processes migrants for the British government and also manages prisons around the world, among its many other activities. The pharmaceutical industry’s international reach is also considerable: Wolff mentions that Global Leaders alumnus Bill Gates, for example, had long been doing business with Pfizer, one of the main producers of the controversial mRNA anti-Covid vaccines, through his Foundation’s public health initiatives in Africa since long before the pandemic began. Perhaps not coincidentally, Gates has become one of the foremost champions of lockdowns and the Covid vaccines since they became available, and The Wall Street Journal has reported that his Foundation had made approximately $200 billion in “social benefits” from distributing vaccines before the pandemic had even begun. One can only imagine what its vaccine profits are today.
Digital technology, which is now all-pervasive, is also playing a prominent role in the elite’s global designs. Wolff highlights that BlackRock, run by Global Leaders alumnus Larry Fink, is presently the largest advisor to the world’s central banks and has been collecting data on the world financial system for more than 30 years now, and undoubtedly has a greater understanding of how the system works than the central banks themselves.
One of the goals of the current policies being pursued by many governments, Wolff believes, is to destroy the businesses of small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs so that multinational corporations based in the United States and China can monopolize business everywhere. Amazon, which was led until recently by Global Leaders alumnus Jeff Bezos, in particular has made enormous profits as a result of the lockdown measures that have devastated the middle class.
Wolff contends that the ultimate goal of this domination by large platforms is to see the introduction of digital bank currency. Just in the past few months, China’s International Finance Forum, which is similar to the WEF, proposed the introduction of the digital yuan, which could in turn be internationalized by the Diem blockchain-based currency network. Interestingly, Diem is the successor to Libra, a cryptocurrency that was first announced by Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, indicating that a global currency that will transcend the power of either the dollar or the yuan, and managed through the cooperation of Chinese, European, and American business networks, is currently being discussed. The International Finance Forum’s supervisory board includes such names as the WEF’s Christine Lagarde; Jean-Claude Trichet, the former President of the European Central Bank; and Horst Köhler, the former Head of the International Monetary Fund.
Wolff further explains that the lockdowns and subsequent bailouts that were seen around the world over the past two years left many nations on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to avoid an economic catastrophe, the governments of the world resorted to drawing on 650 billion special drawing rights, or SDRs, which are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets managed by the International Monetary Fund. When these eventually come due, it will leave these same governments in dire straits, which is why it may be that the introduction of digital currency has become a sudden priority – and this may have been the hidden purpose of the lockdowns all along.
Wolff says that two European countries are already prepared to begin using digital currency: Sweden and Switzerland. Perhaps not coincidentally, Sweden has had virtually no lockdown restrictions due to the pandemic, and Switzerland has taken only very light measures. Wolff believes that the reason for this may be that the two countries did not need to crash their economies through lockdown measures because they were already prepared to begin using digital currency before the pandemic began. He contends that a new round of lockdowns may be being prepared that will finish off the world’s economies for good, leading to massive unemployment and in turn the introduction of Universal Basic Income and the use of a digital currency managed by a central bank. This currency might be restricted, both in terms of what individuals can spend it on as well as in the time frame that one has to spend it in.
Further, Wolff indicates that the inflation currently being seen around the world is an inevitable consequence of the fact that national governments, after taking loans from the central banks, have introduced approximately $20 trillion into the global economy in less than two years. Whereas previous bailouts were directed into the markets, this latest round has gone to ordinary people, and as a result, this is driving up the prices of products that ordinary people spend their money on, such as food.
Democracy Has Been Cancelled
The ultimate conclusion one must draw from all of this, according to Wolff, is that democracy as we knew it has been silently cancelled, and that although the appearance of democratic processes is being maintained in our countries, the fact is that an examination of how governance around the world works today shows that an elite of super-wealthy and powerful individuals effectively control everything that goes on in politics, as has been especially evident in relation to the pandemic response.
The best way to combat their designs, Wolff says, is simply to educate people about what is happening, and for them to realize that the narrative of the “super-dangerous virus” is a lie that has been designed to manipulate them into accepting things that run contrary to their own interests. If even 10% of ordinary citizens become aware of this and decide to take action, it could thwart the elite’s plans and perhaps open a window for ordinary citizens to take back control over their own destinies.
November 12, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Timeless or most popular | WEF |
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Children’s Health Defense’s new book — “The Measles Book: Thirty-Five Secrets the Government and Media Aren’t Telling You about Measles and the Measles Vaccine” — is available here. Below is an edited version of the book’s foreword, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“The Measles Book: Thirty-Five Secrets the Government and the Media Aren’t Telling You about Measles and the Measles Vaccine” by Children’s Health Defense provides readers with vital, clear information they should have been told long ago.
The readers — American and global consumers of measles vaccines — will learn they have been misled by the pharmaceutical industry and its captured government agency allies into believing measles is a deadly disease and measles vaccines are necessary, safe and effective.
“The Measles Book” explodes this propaganda. In concise, factual detail, the book rips the cloak off pharma industry slogans to reveal a disease that is rarely life threatening, and a vaccine that is largely unnecessary — but which carries real risks for the children forced by mandates to take them.
The information in “The Measles Book” may come as a shock to many who previously trusted the “public health experts.”
Parents are simply not informed of the “real deal” with measles vaccines.
Why have the benefits of the measles vaccine been exaggerated and the risks understated?
Because these vaccines are a cash cow for an industry that long ago left behind the legacy of true public health pioneers, such as Dr. Jonas Salk.
“The Measles Book” exposes the fact that measles vaccines carry risks, but only for the vaccinee and his or her family — Big Pharma is free of virtually all legal liability when the measles vaccine injures a child.
“The Measles Book” explains how mainstream media — Pharmedia — is complicit in protecting Big Pharma and aiding and abetting its fear mongering and racketeering.
True investigative journalists should have long ago exposed the truth this book so clearly articulates: Measles outbreaks have been fabricated to create fear, in turn forcing government officials to “do something.”
Public health officials then inflict unnecessary and risky vaccines on millions of children for the sole purpose of fattening industry profits.
When a child is injured — and many are, though most injuries go unreported — the government and Pharma walk away, denying responsibility and liability.
If the child is one of the rare few to obtain compensation from the government for his or her injuries, taxpayers — not vaccine makers — foot the bill.
Pharma walks away, scot-free.
Grounded in powerful, well-documented evidence, “The Measles Book” compels readers to do what public health cognoscenti fear most — think for themselves.
November 12, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | United States |
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In a week when the UK has seen a prominent academic forced from her post by an activist mob, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has published a new paper that describes the 15-year hounding of environmental studies professor, Roger Pielke Jr.
Professor Pielke, one of the world’s leading environmental scientists, has been a vocal supporter of decarbonisation efforts, but this has not prevented green activists from engaging in an extraordinary campaign to silence him because he refuses to support claims that extreme weather is worsening.
And he is still being hounded today, with the University of Colorado Boulder launching and then dropping an investigation of his conduct, and forcing Pielke – their most senior environmental studies professor – to move to a tiny windowless office.
The paper’s author, civil liberties journalist Donna Laframboise said:
“The hounding of Roger Pielke has been abhorrent. It is time that university administrations stood up to cancel culture and the outrage mobs.”
And Laframboise points to this week’s announcement of a new university in Austin Texas, dedicated to the cause of academic freedom:
“Universities that behave this way will lose their best people to new and independent institutions that protect free thinking.”
GWPF Director Dr Benny Peiser said:
“The witch-hunt against Roger Pielke Jr. is symptomatic of a problem that we are seeing in universities across the developed world, with activists trying to silence dissenting opinions, and with the tacit, and in many case the active, support of administrators.
“Universities need to take great care – if the public lose faith in the system, public funding and generous donations from alumni can dry up very quickly.”
Donna Laframboise: The Hounding of Roger Pielke Jr. (pdf)
November 11, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | United States |
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Libya’s much-hailed first female Foreign Minister, Najla Mangoush, has been suspended by the country’s Presidential Council. The decision on 6 November concluded that the minister had been “acting unilaterally and without consultation” with the council as required by the political agreement of 9 November 2020 that divided authority between the Council of Ministers and the Presidential Council. The suspension decree also said that Mangoush is to be investigated by two experts who will submit their findings to the council within the next two weeks.
However, the real reason for the suspension and investigation is a comment in her interview with the BBC. The minister said that her government is “open” to the possibility of extraditing a Libyan citizen wanted by the United States in connection with the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. On the 32nd anniversary of the bombing on 21 December last year, the then US Attorney General William Barr accused a former Libyan intelligence officer, Abu Agila Mohammed Masud, of involvement in the atrocity. Despite what Mangoush told the BBC, though, it is unlikely that Masud will be extradited.
Two hundred and seventy people, mostly US citizens, were killed on that fateful night, including 11 people on the ground, when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie. A Libyan intelligence officer, Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi, was convicted of the atrocity and sentenced to life imprisonment in a 2001 trial. He was released in 2009 for health reasons — he was suffering from prostate cancer — and died in his Tripoli home in 2012.
Al-Megrahi protested his innocence to the end and his family launched a posthumous appeal to clear his name. The third appeal is now being considered by the UK Supreme Court in London after it was rejected by Scotland’s Court of Appeal in January.
His Glasgow-based lawyer, Aamer Anwar, was outraged by Mangoush’s comments. In a statement shared with MEMO he wrote, “Shame on you [Najla Mangoush] for broadcasting to the world, the words ‘positive outcomes’ are coming.” When asked about the possibility of extraditing Masud to the US the minster had used that phrase, implying that the issue is being discussed among ministers and a decision to collaborate with the US has already been made.
Anwar went on to question her motives by asking, “What reward are you expecting from the United States, a country that has bombed, humiliated and sanctioned your people?” He accused the minister of breaking Libyan law, which bans the extradition of Libyan citizens to be tried abroad.
Faced with a wave of public outrage, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation denied on 7 November what was attributed to the minister in the BBC interview. It insisted that Mangoush “never mentioned” Masud. It’s true that she did not refer to him by name, but the context of the interview clearly refers to him. The BBC released a clip of the interview in which Mangoush answered a question about extraditing Masud to the US and she said: “I don’t know but I think we, as a government, are very open in terms of collaboration in this matter.”
Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh came out quickly in her support, and said that the Presidential Council does not have the authority to suspend the foreign minister. Citing the political agreement that paved the way for the current government and council to share power, Dbeibeh said that the latter “has limited power” which does not include appointing or suspending ministers.
A top Libyan Supreme Court judge, Ali Al-Zuraiqi, confirmed in a televised interview said it is “illegal to extradite a Libyan citizen” to be tried in another country. He added that such a matter is in any case “for the judiciary in Libya to decide.”
Libyan commentators overwhelmingly rejected Mangoush’s statement, accusing her of reopening the Lockerbie case which, many say, has long since been closed. Indeed, in 2008 the US and Libya signed what is known as a Claims Settlement Agreement that ended all claims in connection, not only with the Lockerbie bombing, but also many others that involve violence and acts of terror committed before 2006.
Former Foreign Minister Mohamed Sayala was asked about his successor’s comments. “The Lockerbie case was completely closed,” he pointed out, “[and] its revival opens hell’s door” to Libya, particularly, in terms of financial compensation for the victims’ families. In the 2008 agreement with the US, Libya agreed to pay a total of $2.7 billion to victims’ family in order to “buy the peace”, as its then Prime Minister, Shukri Ghanem, described it.
Libya has never accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie tragedy and “mounting evidence” since the 2001 trial has pointed to Al-Megrahi’s innocence. Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed on board the doomed flight, is certain that Al-Megrahi is a “victim of a miscarriage of justice.” Swire is one of the campaigners pushing for his conviction to be overturned.
Ferial El-Ayeb, a consultant to Al-Megrahi’s defence team in Scotland, told MEMO that such comments by Foreign Minister Mangoush are “outrageous and insulting to us in the defence team.” She added that Libya is in “a weak situation now” and the kind of comments heard from the minister “will increase US pressure on the country to hand over Masud.”
A source in the foreign ministry, speaking anonymously, told MEMO yesterday that Mangoush was in her office despite the Presidential Council’s decision. The source added that she is expected to take part in tomorrow’s conference on Libya hosted by the French in Paris.
The only certainty, the source concluded, is that the “negative public backlash against [Mangoush] will act as a ‘deterrent’ to her and other officials to be careful when discussing sensitive issues.”
November 11, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular | Libya, United States |
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When we last looked at Indonesia their massive wave in Covid cases had just peaked after ivermectin was approved again on July 15th. Since then the cases have dropped from 50,000 a day to about 900. On a per capita basis today Indonesia is managing Covid about ten times better than Australia. Think about that.
Remember the reason for the Indonesian surge. In June, they had a controlled rolling caseload of 5,000 a day. It was not rising thanks to a philanthropist called Haryoseno who had been arranging for ivermectin supplies at low cost to help people. But in a fit of modern-medicine, in line with the deadly WHO recommendations, the Indonesian government banned ivermectin on June 12th. Cases took off. Mayhem ensued. And about 90,000 people died in the following surge.
By early July the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin was hot property in Indonesia, even if it was banned. A number of high-ranking politicians championed it, and people were flocking to buy it.
“Indonesians have ignored health warnings to stock up on a “miracle cure” for COVID-19 backed by leading politicians and social media influencers, as an out-of-control virus surge sweeps the country.”
— July 8th, NDTV
By July 15th the Indonesian government relented, and BPOM approved Ivermectin as Covid-19 Therapeutic Drug. By July 18th new daily cases peaked across Indonesia and now they are lower than they were before. During the surge, at least two million Indonesians were infected.
Perhaps Governments shouldn’t run around banning a wonder drug so safe that researchers in Australia feed it to small children to kill head lice.
All bell curves look the same, but some are bigger than others. Timing is everything. OWID
Google Trends show Indonesians were searching for ivermectin in early July. The average Indonesian apparently knows more about treating Covid than our Minister of Health. More even than our Chief Medical Officer.
There was one popular search in Indonesia as cases rocketed.
Greg Hunt could have managed the Covid debacle so much better if he’d just phoned up a pharmacist in Bali.
Compare the Rich-mans Vax plan
Australia, on the other hand, decided to vaccinate 15 million people or 70% of the entire population and still has twice as many cases as Indonesia does — even though Indonesia has ten times as many people and only on third of the government revenue.
The Australian TGA committee banned ivermectin on Sept 11th, by the way, possibly to make sure we didn’t accidentally eliminate Covid, or Pfizer’s third quarter profits. Who can tell?
That lockdown-and-vax plan and the roadmap to freedom doesn’t seem to be working too well. In Australia billions of dollars were burnt at the stake, not to mention the health risks of using experimental prophylactics, while Indonesia reduced Covid cases by 98% for about point-one percent of the cost and the main side effects were the deaths of worms, lice and bed bugs.
If Gladys had just dished out the Ivermectin — Uttar Pradesh style — on July 5th, the outbreak would have been over in a few weeks.
Australia vaccinated 70% of the population and locked down its two largest states to control Covid and still hasn’t succeeded. Source: OWID
Since July 18th when Indonesia cases peaked, Australian cases have grown from 31,000 to 150,000.
The only thing more scary than the Ministry of Health’s incompetence is that politicians and philanthropists in the third world have more freedom than Australian ones do. The Indonesian media is more worth watching than the Australian ABC.
At this point people are still dying who could be saved.
As David Archibald says “It means that Australia could end its covid problem anytime it wanted to at hardly any expense at all. Our government would be aware of what the Indonesians have achieved. It also means that any covid deaths from here on are state-sanctioned murder. “
___________________________________________________________
The wonder drug that disappeared
My summary of Ivermectin
If you only email friends one link — make it this story. It’s the biggest medical scandal since 1850— Why is a cheap safe drug being ignored? Could it be that there would be no medical emergency and no need to rush out other riskier new treatments which are still classed as “experimental” if there was a safe alternative? There are billions of reasons to ask this question but newspapers wouldn’t publish the story. In desperation, some Americans are going to court to get rulings to order doctors to use Ivermectin on their loved ones. Even if they win, sometimes hospitals still refuse to use it on patients with few options left. One family hired a helicopter to take their mother away from intensive care in a hospital that refused to give Ivermectin (and had a happy ending). The debate is so suppressed, there are rumours the US President was treated with it in secret last year.
For peer reviewed studies read: The BIG Ivermectin Review: It may prevent 86% of Covid cases.
Ivermectin has also been used, with apparent success in India, Peru and Mexico (and so many other places). Covid cases fell in the states of India that approved Ivermectin use but rose in Tamil Nadu where it wasn’t permitted. Despite the success, India’s Health dept suddenly stopped Ivermectin use again and people in India are suing the WHO in disgust. In Peru, Ivermectin cut covid deaths by 75% in 6 weeks.
The FDA and others will say there is little evidence of success so far, but that’s a scandal in itself. Why are there no large trials? And why are other drugs like Remdesivir approved with only one trial? Ivermectin is so safe some 3.7 billion doses have already been used around the world. The inventors won a Nobel Prize for its discovery in 2015. We’ve known it might be useful since April last year, when an Australian group searched through many cheap safe drugs looking for any that might help against Covid. The news then was “Another possible cure for coronavirus, found in sheep dip: Ivermectin”. This was just a lab study, and it suggested doses would need to be too high. Even so, successes keep turning up in the real world? By July last year there were already signs Ivermectin could save as many as 50%. Why were large trials not started then? The UK trial is hobbled from the start.
November 11, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Australia, Human rights, Indonesia, WHO |
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This article defines a more effective public health strategy for the current COVID pandemic.
The core issue is that there is a huge array of reactions to both COVID infections and vaccines based on diverse biology, genetics and medical conditions of individuals. Missing from current policy is recognition and support of personalized medical methods.
First, medical history tells us the wisdom of making the medicine fit the person. This is the cornerstone of what is called personalized or individualized medicine. Good physicians also find the combination of drugs to best address an illness or disease. This contrasts with mass use of off-the-shelf, one-size-fits all drugs. Proposed here is an approach to tailor or fine tune medical solutions to individual biologic and genetic characteristics, and personal medical needs and circumstances.
As an example of how trying to get the public to accept a mass medicine is the case of seasonal flu vaccines. A large fraction of the public does not take them. During the 2019-2020 season, 63.8 percent of children between six months and 17 years got a flu shot. Among adults, just 48.4 percent of people got flu shots.
Why is this? Because it is common knowledge that their efficacy rate is relatively low. On average, people who get the flu shot are between 40 and 60 percent less likely to catch the virus than unvaccinated individuals. The truth is that the annual flu vaccine does not fit every individual. Even though there is little medical evidence that taking a flu vaccine poses significant health risks. But people know that the flu infection fatality rate is relatively low.
Many individuals make a sensible risk/benefit analysis, concluding that there are insufficient benefits. Others, especially older people with serious medical conditions and possibly weak immune systems get annual flu shots. The public health system has allowed a personalized approach to seasonal flu vaccines.
And it turns out, based on government data, that low risk is also the case for the current COVID pandemic. For the vast majority of people getting coronavirus infection either means no symptoms or only mild ones not much different than the flu or a very bad cold, and which pass in relatively few days. Here is the reported truth about low coronavirus death risks for healthy people:
“CDC showed that 94 percent of the reported deaths had multiple comorbidities, thereby reducing the CDC’s numbers attributed strictly to COVID-19 to about 35,000 for all age groups.”
This stands in contrast to the widely reported total of over 730,000 COVID related deaths. What this shows is the huge variations in how people respond to COVID infections because of their innate differences.
What COVID infected people do get is natural immunity to this virus that abundant medical research and clinical studies have shown is better than vaccine immunity. The latter declines in about six months, whereas natural immunity lasts longer and better defends against new variants.
Combination Of Medicines
Besides making the medicine fit the patient is established clinical wisdom for using a combination of drugs. And often, in this pandemic, some doctors use a combination that includes more than several generic medicines and, especially in hospitals, government approved drugs. Also widely used are vitamins and supplements. The eminent Dr. Peter McCollough has been the leading proponent of using individualized combinations to treat and prevent COVID infection disease. All this is an alternative to the strategy of mass vaccination for everyone.
Today, anyone without too much effort can find a host of combination protocols to treat and prevent COVID.
The Missed Opportunity Discussed Early In The Pandemic
Between the early 2020 months of the pandemic and the roll out of mass vaccination in late 2020 there was interest in applying the personalized medicine approach to managing the pandemic.
Consider what the Mayo Center for Individualized Medicine said for the COVID-19 response. The document detailed a number of initiatives Mayo was pursuing to address the pandemic by obtaining medical data that could lead to personalized pandemic solutions. This is what Mayo wanted to do:
“When COVID-19 spread across the U.S. in March 2020, the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine urgently responded to accelerate research, development, translation and implementation of novel tests, lifesaving treatments and diagnostics. Now, collaborative teams of scientists are continuing to unravel the mysteries of the novel virus, including using advanced genetic sequencing technologies to investigate how the virus can infiltrate a person’s immune system and wreak havoc on organs, tissue and blood vessels, leaving some patients with long-term effects.”
A September 2020 article had the intriguing title “How to use precision medicine to personalize COVID-19 treatment according to the patient’s genes.” Here are excerpts:
“In recent years, a gene-centric approach to precision medicine has been promoted as the future of medicine. It underlies the massive effort funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to collect over a million DNA samples under the “All of Us” initiative that began in 2015.
But the imagined future did not include COVID-19. In the rush to find a COVID-19 vaccine and effective therapies, precision medicine has been insignificant. Why is this? And what are its potential contributions?
If precision medicine is the future of medicine, then its application to pandemics generally, and COVID-19 in particular, may yet prove to be highly significant. But its role so far has been limited. Precision medicine must consider more than just genetics. It requires an integrative “omic” approach that must collect information from multiple sources – beyond just genes – and at scales ranging from molecules to society.
The situation becomes yet more complicated for infectious diseases. Viruses and bacteria have their own genomes that interact in complex ways with the cells in the people they infect. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 underlying COVID-19 has been extensively sequenced. Its mutations are identified and traced worldwide, helping epidemiologists understand the spread of the virus. However, the interactions between SARS-CoV-2 RNA and human DNA, and the effect on people of the virus’s mutations, remain unknown.”
… there is an opportunity to begin gathering the kinds of data that would allow for a more comprehensive precision medicine approach – one that is fully aware of the complex interactions between genomes and social behavior.
The NIH has said: “The National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program has announced a significant increase in the COVID-19 data available in its precision medicine database, adding survey responses from more than 37,000 additional participants, and virus-related diagnosis and treatment data from the nearly 215,000 participant electronic health records (EHRs) that are currently available.”
The specialty germane to a personalized pandemic strategy is called pharmacogenomics. It is the study of the role of the genome in drug response. It combines pharmacology and genomics to discover how the genetic makeup of an individual affects their response to drugs, including vaccines.
It deals with the influence of acquired and inherited genetic variation on drug response in patients by correlating genetic factors of an individual with drug or vaccine absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination. It deals with the effects of multiple genes on drug and vaccine response.
The central goal of pharmacogenomics is to develop rational means to optimize drug therapy, including vaccination, with respect to the patients’ genotype, to ensure maximum efficiency with minimal adverse effects.
By using pharmacogenomics, the goal is that pharmaceutical drug treatments, including vaccination, can replace or at least complement what is dubbed as the “one-drug-fits-all” approach. Pharmacogenomics also attempts to eliminate the trial-and-error method of prescribing, allowing physicians to take into consideration their patient’s genes, the functionality of these genes, and how this may affect the efficacy of the patient’s current or future treatments (and where applicable, provide an explanation for the failure of past treatments).
An August 2020 journal article was titled “Pharmacogenomics of COVID-19 therapies.” Here are its optimistic views and findings:
“Pharmacogenomics may allow individualization of these drugs thereby improving efficacy and safety. … Pharmacogenomics may help clinicians to choose proper first-line agents and initial dosing that would be most likely achieve adequate drug exposure among critically ill patients; those who cannot afford a failure of ineffective therapy. It is also important to minimize the risks of toxicity because COVID-19 particularly affects those with comorbidities on other drug therapies.
We found evidence that several genetic variants may alter the pharmacokinetics of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, ribavirin, lopinavir/ritonavir and possibly tocilizumab, which hypothetically may affect clinical response and toxicity in the treatment of COVID-19. … These data support the collection of DNA samples for pharmacogenomic studies of the hundreds of currently ongoing clinical trials of COVID-19 therapies.
One of the biggest success stories in the field of pharmacogenomics was for a drug used to treat another, highly lethal, infectious disease: abacavir for HIV. … In an acute illness such as COVID-19, pharmacogenetics would only be useful if the genetic test results were already available (i.e., pre-emptive pharmacogenetic testing) or rapidly available (i.e., point-of-care genetic testing). …
In the face of unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, collaborative efforts among the medical communities are more important than ever to improve the efficacy of these treatments and ensure safety. Some large national COVID-19 trials are evaluating pharmacogenomics, which will inform the role of pharmacogenomics markers for future clinical use.”
A July 2020 NPR show was titled “Research On Personalized Medicine May Help COVID-19 Treatments.” This was deemed newsworthy:
The nationwide All of Us Research Program aims to tailor medical treatments of all kinds, including treatments that may be developed for the new coronavirus. So far more than 271,000 people nationwide have signed up to share data with the initiative. All of Us started under President Barack Obama in 2018 [sic] and involves institutions across the country.
“This is an exciting opportunity for our participants to have a direct impact on COVID-19 research, watching how their participation in this historic effort is truly making a difference,” said Dr. Elizabeth Burnside. “This focused initiative could be especially important for members of communities that are often underrepresented in health research and who may question the overall and personal benefit of research participation.”
In sum, there was legitimate medical interest early in the pandemic to use personalized medicine, in which drugs and drug combinations are optimized for individuals or certain population demographics. The central goal is minimization of drug and vaccine toxicities and adverse reactions and deaths.
But one thing is now clear. The personalized approach to managing the COVID pandemic has not been aggressively pursued by public health agencies. They have placed their resources and hopes with mass vaccination, both encouraged, coerced and increasingly mandated. The hope that we can vaccinate ourselves out of this pandemic has lost credibility.
In contrast, an alternative personalized approach, used by hundreds of physicians, based on generic medicines, vitamins and supplements have been more blocked than supported by the public health establishment as detailed in Pandemic Blunder.
Proposed New Public Health Strategy
Part One: Individuals decide either on their own or with the advice of their personal physician to be vaccinated for COVID. And to accept what government officials have decided are the best COVID medical solutions for outpatients and inpatients.
Part Two: Individuals choose a preferred medical professional who, on the basis of their education, training, experience and successful clinical results, offers alternatives to vaccination and government promoted medical solutions for outpatients and inpatients. The medical professional uses the patient’s medical history, conditions, needs and unique personal biologic and genetic circumstances to reach the best personalized medical solution.
The new public health strategy is, therefore, twofold. Widely available vaccination becomes focused or finely tuned to meet the desires and needs of part of the population. Along with use of the second part there is no sacrifice of true public health protection in the pandemic.
Part Two of the strategy directly addresses the widespread resistance to COVID vaccination by some Americans.
This is a rational perspective consistent with the belief in medical freedom. If one believes that there are some certain medical benefits of COVID vaccines, then traditional medical practice supports use of them on an individual therapeutic basis. This is a free personal decision, perhaps in consultation with their physician to accept that COVID vaccine risks are outweighed by its benefits.
Risks and benefits may be based on personal research of available medical information on vaccines. Or on information from government agencies, often without advice from their doctor.
Not to be ignored is increasing negative information on COVID vaccines reaching the public. One recent example from a published medical research article is that “cost-benefit analysis showed very conservatively that there are five times the number of deaths attributable to each inoculation vs those attributable to COVID-19 in the most vulnerable 65+ demographic.”
From this same study: within “eight days post-inoculation (where day zero is the day of inoculation), sixty percent of all post-inoculation deaths are reported in VAERS.” This study concluded: “It is unclear why this mass inoculation for all groups is being done, being allowed, and being promoted.”
In seeking to implement the wisdom of fit the medicine to the person, requires accepting the science that no two people, medically, genetically and biologically speaking, are exactly the same; this cannot be disputed. This is why using pharmacogenomics has a role to play. Looking at average statistical vaccine outcomes ignores and disrespects individual biologics, medical conditions, concerns and needs. This is an overselling of vaccines.
Americans have always wanted to see themselves as unique individuals. This translates to medical actions. Mass vaccination for everyone ignores and devalues this traditional belief by Americans.
There are also legitimate concerns that giving informed consent to a shot has not been based on a full, easily understood presentation of data on risks for different kinds of people with various medical histories.
Those who are resisting vaccination have a right to question that government agencies have not strictly followed medical science, data and experience. For example, a vast literature concludes that stay-at-home mandates, lockdowns and masking have not been effective in controlling pandemic impacts.
And there is now considerable evidence that those who are vaccinated can get breakthrough infections and spread the virus. “We have data now through the first week of August from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, showing that… over 60 percent of seniors over the age of 65 in the hospital with Covid have been vaccinated,” noted the esteemed Dr. Peter McCullough recently.
This erodes the credibility of public health agencies and their medical authority and destroys public trust in federal agencies implementing pandemic policies.
The Fallacy Of Only One Medical Solution
If the government would let some part of the public choose personalized treatment to deal with COVID infection and another part to choose vaccination (and other government actions) why is that not an acceptable public health policy? The two-part strategy will become increasingly important as the government promotes or mandates regular booster shots over months or years.
Choice is rational if, indeed, there are personalized treatment options other than vaccination that can be obtained from some medical professionals. Indeed, there is now a vast medical literature on treatment protocols not only to cure but also to prevent COVID infection. They are being used very successfully by hundreds of American physicians.
And some information reaching the public like the very successful use of the generic ivermectin in India and Indonesia reinforces the inclination of some people to seek alternative medical solutions. Also, that 100 to 200 members of Congress have used this generic.
Moreover, now there is also a vast medical literature, increasingly known to the public, supporting the strong effectiveness of natural immunity obtained through previous COVID infection. It is a rational personal decision to conclude that one’s natural immunity is sufficient medical protection without taking on any vaccine risks. They have the right to seek a medical professional that agrees with that medical reality.
The only conceivable “loser” for this approach would be vaccine makers having a smaller market.
Physicians should have the freedom to advise their patients to either use a generic medicine treatment protocol or help document their natural immunity (with valid testing) to allow patients to embrace personalized medical action rather than be vaccinated.
In this two-part policy approach, of promoting a choice between personalized medical protection versus mass vaccination, the entire population could be fully protected without sacrificing medical freedom and without various forms of vaccine mandates. Public health does not require total public acceptance of one medical solution.
This strategy is consistent with what many physicians said early in the pandemic. Namely that vaccination should be targeted on those with the highest risks of serious COVID impacts, not the entire population. It is widely known by the public and accepted by the medical establishment that this pandemic does not pose a serious threat of either illness or death for people below the age of about 70, unless they have serious comorbidities or serious illnesses. Infection fatality rates for most of the public do not argue for vaccination.
Much of the public wants and deserves the choice to use something other than a vaccine shot to protect themselves. That choice becomes operational only if the government allows and supports medical professionals to offer their patients alternatives to vaccines.
Here is the ethical and medical truth: Protecting individual health trumps protecting public health but is not antithetical to protecting public health. Overly coercive public health actions, such as vaccine mandates, are antithetical to protecting individual health for many people who fear even low probability negative reactions to vaccines.
Here is the ultimate medical truth: When all available medical science and means are fully used then the result is safely protecting public health without sacrificing medical freedom of both physicians and individuals.
The Current Strategy Has Failed
As we approach two years of dealing with this pandemic there is abundant evidence that the emphasis on mass vaccination has largely failed. The US has the highest number of COVID deaths on the planet. Even now, after wide use of the mass vaccination approach, recent 2,000 daily deaths are related to COVID infection. Every week more people are counted as COVID deaths than the 3,000 people who died in the 9/11 disaster.
Not to be ignored is the widely cited journal study titled “Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States.”
Breakthrough infections among the fully vaccinated are mounting. Because after about six months vaccines lose much of their effectiveness, especially against variants. And fully vaccinated people can and do carry and transmit the coronavirus.
If one wants first-hand accounts of how US physicians have documented their own negative impacts of COVID vaccines as well as those of their patients, then read a number of their affidavits.
Conclusions
A new public health strategy that no longer adheres to single-minded mass vaccination can obtain broad public support. Now is the time to endorse and support personalized medicine applied to the pandemic.
Much of the public may not yet know this. But missing from the new CDC definition of vaccine as of September 1, 2021 are these key phrases: “protecting the person from that disease” and “to produce immunity.” The new vaccine definition should reduce public confidence in current COVID vaccines. In fact, these changes reflect what is now known about the limitations of these vaccines. Fully vaccinated people can still get COVID disease and really do not have long lasting effective immunity to it.
Promoting choice is a far better public health approach than wide use of authoritarian pandemic controls that have devastated lives and produced mental stress and many collateral deaths.
On that last point, CDC has now recognized mood disorders put people at high risk for severe COVID cases. Compare pre-pandemic 2019 to 2020 when there were 53 million new cases of depression globally, a 28 percent increase, as reported in The Lancet. Surely, promoting more medical choice for addressing COVID would help people stay both mentally and physically healthy.
Resistance to vaccine mandates should not be seen as unpatriotic or as creating harm for others. Supporting personalized medicine is a way to avoid negative impacts on the American economy because of rigid, inflexible vaccine mandates that compel many Americans to accept job loss that in many ways imperil public safety.
Lastly, staying alive and safe surely is the presumed goal of all people. We have more tools than vaccines to help people meet their goal. Now we need the public health establishment to let all the tools be freely chosen.
Joel S. Hirschhorn’s new book Pandemic Blunder here: amazon.com
November 11, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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View this video on Bitchute or Rumble.
By P Gosselin – No Tricks Zone – 10. November 2021
Over 95% effective and safe, so insisted vaccine manufacturers, government agencies and mainstream media. Everyone should get out and take the jabs so life could get back to normal. Those who expressed doubts and warnings were immediately branded crackpots and banned by social media.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla even said that people who spread disinformation about (against) coronavirus vaccines were “criminals.”
But while the US and much of the media continue to pretend that the vaccines are safe, more and more countries across Europe are advising or even banning the use of certain types for certain age groups due to “cardiovascular side effects”, which have been occurring at an unusual frequency. … continue
November 11, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Allegations he was secretly a Russian-backed Manchurian candidate haunted former US President Donald Trump’s time in office. Now, though, long after he left the White House, the claims have gone from farce to clear falsification.
The indictment of Igor Danchenko on Thursday is the latest development in the painfully slow unravelling of the conspiracy behind the Russiagate hoax. At the same time, however, it is also a new window into the workings of the so-called ‘deep state’ forces that bought into the lies and wielded them like weapons against Trump’s presidency.
The scandal began, all accounts show, when Democratic contender Hillary Clinton’s campaign hired a private research firm, Fusion GPS, to dig up dirt on its political rival – then-Republican presidential contender Trump. Fusion GPS contracted the work out to former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele.
They didn’t get value for money, it seems. The subsequent Steele Dossier has since been exposed as a complete fraud – and one that wasn’t even well put together. Its damning ‘evidence’ referred to payments from the Russian consulate in Miami, despite there being no Russian consulate in Miami. Stories of secret servers, Trump staffers meeting with Moscow’s agents in Prague, and with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy, secret pee-pee tapes: the list was never-ending. All have been proven false.
What’s almost worse is that US intelligence knew it all boiled down to gossip and fraud, with then-CIA Director John Brennan warning President Obama in July 2016 that the Clinton campaign was effectively fabricating a Russia-Trump conspiracy theory.
The Russiagate accusations and investigations didn’t lead anywhere in terms of proving a conspiracy between Trump and the Kremlin. But the smears were successful in terms of delegitimising Trump, casting him as a Russian agent throughout his presidency and preventing any rapprochement between Washington and Moscow. Russiagate undermined key American institutions and intensified confrontation between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
Probing the conspiracy theorists
The tables appear to be turning against the Russiagate hoaxers and their media enablers as new investigations explore how the greatest scandal in US history – a foreign agent in the White House – turned out to be one big deception.
FBI Director James Comey gave Congressional testimony in December 2018, explaining how he came to give credibility to the obviously fraudulent Steele Dossier. Comey managed to say he “can’t remember,” “can’t recall,” and “doesn’t know” no fewer than 245 times. It has also been revealed that the DNC never gave the FBI access to its servers, allegedly hacked by Russians, and instead outsourced the investigation to the private corporation CrowdStrike.
The president of CrowdStrike, ex-FBI official Shawn Henry, had already admitted in a testimony in December 2017 that there was no evidence of Russian hacking. This testimony was not made public until May 2020, and in the intervening time House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff continued to maintain there was evidence of Russian hacking.
The first indictment went out against cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann in September 2021. Sussmann reported to the FBI that be had uncovered a secret server linking the Trump organisation to Russia’s Alfa-Bank, which was treated by the media as a smoking gun. Sussmann was indicted for lying to the FBI because he presented himself as an independent cyber expert when he peddled the false server story, when in reality he was hired by the Clinton campaign.
Danchenko and Brookings Institution
Special Council John Durham has now arrested and indicted Igor Danchenko, an analyst at the Brookings Institution. Danchenko was the primary source behind the infamous Steele Dossier ordered by Hillary Clinton. He has been indicted for lying to the FBI, as he claimed the information later featured in the dodgy dossier came from a phone call and meeting in New York with the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce’s president at the time, Sergey Millian.
Millian insists that no such conversation ever took place, either by phone or in person. The FBI investigation concluded that the phone call was made up, and Danchenko had repeatedly emailed Millian but never received a response. Danchenko’s trip to New York did not involve a meeting with Millian, and Danchenko was actually with his family at Bronx Zoo when the meeting was supposed to have taken place.
Danchenko worked for several years for Fiona Hill, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an anti-Russian hawk, and perhaps the most devastating witness against Trump in the impeachment hearings of 2019. Hill assisted in advancing Danchenko’s career and introduced him to Christopher Steele and Democratic Party operative Chuck Dolan. The latter contact is important, as Danchenko is also indicted for lying to the FBI about speaking to him.
The Brookings Institution is one of the oldest and influential think tanks in Washington, of the kind initially envisioned as an intermediary to connect politicians with academics so the decision-maker could make informed decisions. However, this world of influence has since become a billion-dollar industry due to the development of a business model in which policy gets put up for sale. The Brookings Institution is now seemingly involved in the largest political fraud in US history.
The deep state on trial?
The term ‘deep state’ can easily be dismissed as a conspiracy theory of a hidden government, although in reality it merely denotes a bureaucracy that can act autonomously and pursue independent policies. Officials often, out of choice or necessity, operate to some extent independently from the elected officials they are supposed to serve.
For example, NATO’s 30 member states keep co-operating irrespective of the constant cycles of elections that rotate new defence ministers around the table. Some things happen regardless of who is in charge.
The bureaucracy can lean on everything from think tanks, intelligence agencies, and a myriad of institutions who inform the politicians and implement their decision-makers. The undemocratic bureaucracy acting under the democratic institutions can be considered a deep state – a government within a government that ensures continuity of the status quo.
When the status quo is disrupted, the deep state may act independently against the policies of the democratic institutions. Russiagate revealed that the election of Trump, with the stated intention of “getting along with Russia,” triggered the bureaucracy to act independently of democratic institutions. Intelligence agencies laundered gossip and smears by presenting them as credible; investigations were initiated on deeply flawed evidence to undermine the legitimacy of an elected representative; military leaders bragged about withholding information from the president; the media acted as soldiers in an information war by uncritically pushing bizarre narratives; and one of Washington’s major think tanks is now involved in the fabrication of the entire Russiagate scandal.
The status quo of anti-Russian policies and narratives usually enjoys bipartisan consensus and therefore goes on without criticism or fanfare. However, the mistake made by Russiagaters was to turn hysteria over Moscow into a political weapon, which one side had to defend against. Now it is coming undone; the recriminations are likely to go beyond the journalists, politicians, and imaginative analysts who backed it, and shine a light on the darkest recesses of the American state.
Glenn Diesen is a Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal.
November 10, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | CIA, FBI, United States |
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Welcome to the Matrix (i.e. the metaverse), where reality is virtual, freedom is only as free as one’s technological overlords allow, and artificial intelligence is slowly rendering humanity unnecessary, inferior and obsolete.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, sees this digital universe—the metaverse—as the next step in our evolutionary transformation from a human-driven society to a technological one.
Yet while Zuckerberg’s vision for this digital frontier has been met with a certain degree of skepticism, the truth—as journalist Antonio García Martínez concludes—is that we’re already living in the metaverse.
The metaverse is, in turn, a dystopian meritocracy, where freedom is a conditional construct based on one’s worthiness and compliance.
We are almost at that stage now.
Consider that in our present virtue-signaling world where fascism disguises itself as tolerance, the only way to enjoy even a semblance of freedom is by opting to voluntarily censor yourself, comply, conform and march in lockstep with whatever prevailing views dominate.
Fail to do so—by daring to espouse “dangerous” ideas or support unpopular political movements—and you will find yourself shut out of commerce, employment, and society: Facebook will ban you, Twitter will shut you down, Instagram will de-platform you, and your employer will issue ultimatums that force you to choose between your so-called freedoms and economic survival.
This is exactly how Corporate America plans to groom us for a world in which “we the people” are unthinking, unresistant, slavishly obedient automatons in bondage to a Deep State policed by computer algorithms.
Science fiction has become fact.
Twenty-some years after the Wachowskis’ iconic film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machines—a world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a blue pill or a red pill—we stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making.
We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing human beings and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives.
Look around you. Everywhere you turn, people are so addicted to their internet-connected screen devices—smart phones, tablets, computers, televisions—that they can go for hours at a time submerged in a virtual world where human interaction is filtered through the medium of technology.
This is technological tyranny and iron-fisted control delivered by way of the surveillance state, technological tyrants such as Google and Facebook, and government spy agencies.
So consumed are we with availing ourselves of all the latest technologies that we have spared barely a thought for the ramifications of our heedless, headlong stumble towards a world in which our abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos is grooming us for a future in which freedom is an illusion.
Yet it’s not just freedom that hangs in the balance. Humanity itself is on the line.
Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which “just about every device you have—and even products like chairs, that you don’t normally expect to see technology in—will be connected and talking to each other.”
It is estimated that 127 new IoT devices are connected to the web every second.
This “connected” industry has become the next big societal transformation, right up there with the Industrial Revolution, a watershed moment in technology and culture.
Yet given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices are operating entirely independent of their human creators, which poses a whole new set of worries.
As technology expert Nicholas Carr notes, “As soon as you allow robots, or software programs, to act freely in the world, they’re going to run up against ethically fraught situations and face hard choices that can’t be resolved through statistical models. That will be true of self-driving cars, self-flying drones, and battlefield robots, just as it’s already true, on a lesser scale, with automated vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers.” For instance, just as the robotic vacuum, Roomba, “makes no distinction between a dust bunny and an insect,” weaponized drones will be incapable of distinguishing between a fleeing criminal and someone merely jogging down a street.
Moreover, it’s not just our homes and personal devices that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government, our bodies and our innermost thoughts that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control.
It is expected that by 2030, we will all experience The Internet of Senses (IoS), enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), 5G, and automation. The Internet of Senses relies on connected technology interacting with our senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch by way of the brain as the user interface.
As journalist Susan Fourtane explains, “Many predict that by 2030, the lines between thinking and doing will blur… By 2030, technology is set to respond to our thoughts, and even share them with others… Using the brain as an interface could mean the end of keyboards, mice, game controllers, and ultimately user interfaces for any digital device. The user needs to only think about the commands, and they will just happen. Smartphones could even function without touch screens.”
This is the metaverse, wrapped up in the siren-song of convenience and sold to us as the secret to success, entertainment and happiness.
It’s a false promise, a wicked trap to snare us, with a single objective: total control.
George Orwell understood this.
Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.”
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the Metaverse is just Big Brother in disguise.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president The Rutherford Institute. His books Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State are available at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
November 10, 2021
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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