Forty years have past since their crimes were committed. But in the past week, former military figures from El Salvador’s civil war have been arrested for their roles in the cold-blooded killing of four Dutch journalists covering that war.
In early 1982, El Salvador was a dangerous place for journalists covering the civil war between FMLN guerrillas and the country’s armed forces. Despite the danger, Dutch journalists, Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemse and Hans ter Laag, ventured out to the Department of Chalatenango to get an interview with guerrilla fighters. The Salvadoran army ambushed their group and killed all the journalists.
The ambush was one of the war crimes documented in the 1993 UN Truth Commission Report following the conclusion of El Salvador’s civil war:
On the afternoon of 17 March 1982, four Dutch journalists accompanied by five or six members of FMLN, some of them armed, were ambushed by a patrol of the Atonal Battalion of the Salvadorian armed forces while on their way to territory under FMLN control. The incident occurred not far from the San Salvador-Chalatenango road, near the turn off to Santa Rita. The four journalists were killed in the ambush and only one member of FMLN survived. Having analysed the evidence available, the Commission on the Truth has reached the conclusion that the ambush was set up deliberately to surprise and kill the journalists and their escort; that the decision to ambush them was taken by Colonel Mario A. Reyes Mena, Commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade, with the knowledge of other officers; that no major skirmish preceded or coincided with the shoot-out in which the journalists were killed; and, lastly, that the officer named above and other soldiers concealed the truth and obstructed the judicial investigation…
1. The Commission on the Truth considers that there is full evidence that Dutch journalists Koos Jacobus Andries Koster, Jan Cornelius Kuiper Joop, Hans Lodewijk ter Laag and Johannes Jan Willemsen were killed on 17 March 1982 in an ambush which was planned in advance by the Commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade, Colonel Mario A. Reyes Mena, with the knowledge of other officers at the El Paraíso barracks, on the basis of intelligence data alerting them to the journalists’ presence, and was carried out by a patrol of soldiers from the Atonal BIRI, under the command of Sergeant Mario Canizales Espinoza.
2. These same officers, the sergeant and others subsequently covered up the truth and obstructed the investigations carried out by the judiciary and other competent authorities.
During the war a judicial investigation of the events came to an end in 1988 when the judge on the case sought asylum outside of El Salvador after receiving death threats, and the 1993 amnesty law prevented any prosecution thereafter.
After the amnesty law was nullified, the Fundación Comunicándonos and the Asociación Salvadoreña para los Derechos Humanos (ASDEHU) filed a complaint on March 13, 2018 asking for El Salvador’s attorney general (FGR) to reopen the case and prosecute the military officers in command of the ambush. The ambassador to El Salvador from the Netherlands joined the human rights attorneys as they presented the demand, and expressed his hope that the FGR would investigate and bring the guilty to justice.
The case was reopened, and now arrest warrants have been issued by the judge.
General Guillermo García, the minister of defense and strongman of the Salvadoran Army in the early 1980s, has been detained for his alleged responsibility in the murder of four Dutch journalists in 1982, members of the judicial branch involved in the case and two relatives of the victims confirmed to El Faro. Also arrested was Colonel Francisco Antonio Morán, the former director of the defunct Treasury Police, a fearsome security force tied to massacres, enforced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial activities attributed to death squads.
The arrests were ordered on October 13 by Judge María Mercedes Argüello of the trial court in Dulce Nombre de María, Chalatenango, after finding sufficient grounds for the accused officers to face trial for the murder of Jacobus Andries Koster, Jan Cornelius Kuiper, Hans Ter Laag, and Johannes Jan Willemsen, Dutch journalists ambushed and executed by the Salvadoran Army on Mar. 17, 1982, in rural Chalatenango.
General García and Colonel Morán were detained in the early hours of Friday, October 14, in their homes in San Salvador. Their first hearing was set for Monday, October 17.
The court also ordered the arrests of Colonel Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, former commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade of El Paraíso; Colonel Rafael Flores Lima, ex-chief of the Joint General Staff; and Sergeant Mario Canizales Espinoza, of the Atonal Battalion.
The 89 year old Garcia was deported from the US in 2016 after a federal court found him guilty of serious violations of human rights prior to his entry to the US. He has also been linked to other civil war atrocities such as the massacre at El Mozote and the killing of four US churchwomen.
Judge María Mercedes Arguello also ordered that authorities begin an extradition process against Col. Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, former commander of El Salvador’s 4th Infantry Brigade, who currently resides in the United States. Reyes Mena is alleged to have given the orders in 1982 to kill the four Dutch journalists. The massacre occurred in Santa Rita close to the base of the 4th Infantry Brigade in El Paraíso, Chalatenango.
Dutch journalists from ZEMBLA tracked Reyes Mena down through social media activity to a house in the United States. He has reportedly been living in the US since 1984, two years after the massacre. From NL Times:
Zembla tracked down the colonel who ordered the murder of the four Dutch. The now 79-year-old Mario Reyes Mena has been living in the United States for four years. Zembla found him through his three adult children, who are active on social media.
In 1993 a United Nations truth commission concluded that Reyes Mena was responsible for the ambush and the murder of the Dutch journalists – Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemsen and Hans ter Laag. That same year an amnesty law was passed in El Salvador, which meant that he could not be prosecuted in that country.
The ZEMBLA team tweeted the video of meeting Reyes Mena at his front door where they asked to speak to him about the allegations in the Truth Commission report.
Reyes Mena is seen answering the door in an ARENA T-shirt and angrily telling the reporters that he was never charged with anything. The video begins in English and later their conversation switches to Spanish.
The families of the victims and the Dutch government have been seeking justice in this case throughout the past 40 years. As prospects for reopening the case brightened, they published a multimedia website in English and Spanish which presents the story of the massacre, the historical context and the quest for justice.
Dutch news outlets reported reactions to news of the arrests:
For Gert Kuiper, the brother of the murdered Jan Kuiper, the news about the arrests came as a big surprise. “It’s really good news, I’m hopeful that they will be brought to justice. These arrests give me hope that impunity will be nullified,” he told NOS. Kuiper is also happy that El Salvador is asking for the extradition of Colonel Reyes Mena, the leader of the unit that shot the Dutch. He left for the United States two years after the murders and still lives there. “The Americans can hardly let him live his life in Virginia unmolested,” says Kuiper.
Gert Kuiper and other relatives received the news about the arrests from their lawyers. Zembla reports that representatives of the Dutch Public Prosecution Service are going to El Salvador to speak with the suspects.
Advocates for the families held a press conference on Monday, October 17, to praise the actions of the court:
It is a very important case, considered as a crime against humanity, for which truth and justice have been demanded for 40 years. It is one of the crimes described in the report of the [UN] Truth Commission for El Salvador; thus we must recognize the courage of the judge,” said Oscar Pérez, president-director of Fundación Comunicarnos, an organization that, together with the Salvadoran Association for Human Rights (ASDEHU), is advancing the case in El Salvador.
The issue of US biolabs in Ukraine has once again received wide international publicity. On October 18, Belarus, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Syria, and Russia called for invoking Article VI of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) because of US military and biological activities in Ukraine.
Article VI of the Biological Weapons Convention allows states-parties to lodge a complaint with the United Nations Security Council if they suspect a breach of treaty obligations by another state. In the event of such a development, the United States, as a state-party to the convention, would be obliged to cooperate in any investigation that may be initiated by the UNSC.
Chinese experts interviewed by Sputnik believe that if the US has nothing to hide, it should provide a comprehensive explanation.
In early March 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense released information indicating that the United States was deploying an extensive biological research program in Ukraine. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the US has spent more than $200 million on 46 biological laboratories in Ukraine that participated in the US military biological program.
According to Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, one of the priority tasks of the Ukrainian laboratories was to collect and send to the United States strains of pathogens of dangerous infectious diseases – cholera, anthrax, tularemia, and others. At the same time, the transportation of the pathogens was not controlled within the WHO, BWC, or other international institutions, and various biological agents and substances were tested on Ukrainian military personnel, indigent citizens, and patients of mental hospitals.
According to Russia, the United States, under the guise of scientific activities and efforts to improve laboratory security systems, has been developing biological weapons in Ukraine.
According to data obtained by the Russian MoD from Ukrainian officials, traces of US activities were partially destroyed on the day the Russian special military operation was launched, and many pathogens were removed from the country, indicating that the US intends to continue research outside the country. Indirectly, this was also indicated by the words of US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. During a March 8 hearing of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, she reported on the presence of biosafety research facilities in Ukraine. She expressed concern about the possibility that these biolaboratories and materials stored there might come under the control of the Russian Armed Forces.
The US subsequently denied any connection between the laboratories and the Pentagon. However, according to Yang Mian, a professor at the Institute of International Relations, Communication University of China, the very existence of such laboratories raises questions:
“Russia says that it has found many US biolaboratories in Ukraine near Russia’s borders, some of which were researching infectious diseases. The US denied the accusations, saying that they were engaged in scientific research. Outside observers have every reason to ask: Why did the US set up so many laboratories around Russia? The US could have conducted research on these diseases internally as well as externally. Therefore, this situation is suspicious one way or another,” he said.
According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the US Department of Defense controls 336 biolaboratories in 30 countries around the world. In this regard, the issue of US-led biological research is of great concern to China, and this information provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense immediately resonated in the country.
“China has always demanded that the United States disclose the purpose and role of its own biological experiments. China’s concern could greatly increase international attention to this issue, as well as increasing pressure on the United States. China is very concerned about the safety of human life. Regarding this issue, China believes that the United States has a responsibility and should give a transparent and open report to the world,” Yang Mian explained.
According to the expert, what is most suspicious is the ambiguous actions of the United States, and the attempts to “cover up the issue”:
“Russia is demanding an investigation. Many countries are demanding it. It is imperative, the activities of the US should be investigated. But they are obstructing the investigation in every way possible. If the US is in the clear, then what is there to be afraid of? Many such studies have a dual purpose. The US says it was engaged in scientific research, but couldn’t it have been used to create new kinds of weapons? The US should provide evidence and explanations.”
Lyu Chao, dean of the Institute of American and East Asian Studies at Liaoning University, holds a similar view:
“The disclosed information about American biolaboratories in Ukraine has alarmed the international community. Therefore, the US has to provide a clear explanation. Better yet, instead of making excuses, it should conduct an international investigation, including one under the auspices of the WHO. This would be even more convincing,” Lyu Chao said.
Both experts were cautious in their assessments and noted that the topic of US biolaboratories in Ukraine requires additional clarification, both in terms of US arguments and scientific expertise. Due to the politicization of the situation, it is unlikely that the United States will agree to provide more clarity and engage in truly open cooperation. Moreover, judging by the experience of the September BWC meeting, where half of the participating countries did not attend, not everyone has the courage to openly question Washington’s position. Nevertheless, the current initiative of the eight countries is a case where the Western hegemon does not find itself in its usual role of prosecutor, but in the role of justifying itself. Perhaps the United States will have to answer questions that worry so many countries after all.
The West continues to persecute journalists whose work reveals the reality of the Ukrainian situation. Recently, French filmmaker Anne-Laure Bonnel reported that she received threats and lost her job as a result of her work in the Donbass. Bonnel recorded two documentary films showing the situation of the ethnically Russian people in the regions attacked by Kiev. In response, she was “cancelled” in Europe. The case shows how the West no longer has any commitment to media freedom and is willing to take dictatorial measures to silence journalists who expose the crimes committed by NATO allies.
Anne-Laure Bonnel first came to Donbass in 2015, shortly after the conflict in the east began. At the time, she witnessed the horror of the genocide committed by the Ukrainian authorities and filmed impactful scenes from the lives of Donbass’ residents. In 2016, Bonnel presented the film “Donbass” during a film festival at the Sorbonne University. At the time, her work had been applauded by critics – a situation very different from what would happen some years later.
In February 2022, just a few days before the start of the Russian special military operation, she returned to Donbass in order to continue her project to document the humanitarian crisis in the region. In this recent trip, she filmed the scenes that composed a new film, called “Donbass: eight years later”. As in the first film, the work was not permeated by any political or ideological content, being just a documentary focused on exposing the local situation in a neutral and impartial way. However, this time her work was not welcomed in Europe.
Bonnel’s film was simply banned from all major European events. She was barred from participating in the festivals she used to work at. More than that, in a recent interview to RIA Novosti on October 18, Bonnel said that she was fired from her job at the University of Paris, where she taught for more than 15 years, and that she even received threats from pro-Kiev activists.
Bonnel also emphasizes that she suffered high psychological pressure with all these problems she has encountered since her return from Donbass. For her, the situation became truly unbearable, as her life changed completely just by the fact that she continued to do her work in the Donbass even with the start of the Russian operation. Suddenly, all the critics and fans who praised her in Europe started ignoring her films and trying to “cancel” her. All this left her deeply terrified and led Bonnel to remain silent for the last few months, only now coming to the public to denounce the persecution she has unfairly experienced.
These were some of her words during the interview:
“When I (…) came back [to France], I had to show my recordings to several people, and then I encountered the first problem: people who were interested in my recordings stopped showing up. That was the first problem (…) Once the film was released, I encountered other issues – they may or may not be related, it’s hard to say. But I lost my job at the University of Paris, where I taught for 15 years (…) My contract was not renewed (…) In an email from the university, I was told that I no longer met the values of the university, so they could not allow me to continue to work (…) Psychological pressure was put on me, I received threats. That’s why I lived in the shadows for a long time. It’s not easy”.
It is curious to note how an institution as prestigious and traditional as the University of Paris acted in a rude and authoritarian way when firing an employee just for having done exactly what a journalist is supposed to do: expose reality. Bonnel’s case reveals the real face of the current liberal West, which increasingly violates its own democratic principles just to support an illegitimate neo-Nazi regime.
The Bonnel case is just another sad episode in the persecution of journalists that has been promoted by the West and its Ukrainian proxy since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation. Sincere reporters have become one of the main targets of Kiev and the West.
While in Western “democracies” attempts are made to “cancel” independent journalism or classify it as “spreader of disinformation”, in the Ukrainian dictatorship the persecution is carried out by military means. It is not by chance that neo-Nazi terrorists killed Daria Dugina and bombed the hotel where the RT staff was staying in Donbass. It is also important to remember that hundreds of journalists are included on “Myrotvorets”, the infamous Ukrainian kill-list.
In fact, on several occasions, the West has made it clear that it is willing to do anything to prevent the reality about Ukraine from being revealed.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
Despite numerous publications about military research in secret US biology laboratories in the post-Soviet space and demands to place their activities under strict international control, there is, unfortunately, no qualitative improvement of the situation in this matter. Therefore, it is not surprising that at the recent 22nd Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State, the Chinese president additionally drew the attention of the association’s member countries to the need “to effectively meet the challenges in biosecurity, and other non-traditional security domains”. As part of the Samarkand Declaration of 2022, SCO countries were urged to strictly adhere to the Biological Weapons Convention and to adopt a protocol to it that provides for an effective verification mechanism.
After Russia initiated the special operation to denazify Ukraine, alongside publicly exposing the illegal US biological weapons development activities in secret biolabs, the Pentagon sought to move unfinished programs in Ukraine to other countries in the post-Soviet region as quickly as possible. This particularly pertains to the territory of the states of Central Asia (CA) and Eastern Europe.
Recently, Russia Today journalists have found out that the US has decided to study the deadly anthrax in a bio-lab in Kyrgyzstan. In this regard, the US Department of Health & Human Services plans to fund this work and allocate about a quarter of a million dollars for this purpose. According to the tender published on the procurement portal of the US government, the regional hospital in the city of Osh in the south of the republic will become the base for these tests. At the same time, the publication reminded that Kyrgyzstan and the United States are negotiating a new agreement between the two countries in the field of US biological laboratories in the Republic of Kazakhstan, but the nuances and points of the future document are hidden from the public.
Very disturbing information in this regard has recently come from Uzbekistan, where, according to the Telegram channel, the active work of US representatives to create a powerful military-biological cluster in that country is confirmed. This is particularly evidenced by the growing “work” in Uzbekistan in recent years on the part of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). On this issue, the publication has prepared an infographic on US military-biological activities in Uzbekistan, which clearly indicates the potential damage to the security of the countries of Central Asia, the Russian Federation and China, the main political opponents of the White House.
There is also information that the United States and the United Kingdom continue to conduct joint research at the Kazakhstan Central Reference Laboratory (CRL) in Almaty. In early 2022, the United Kingdom shipped a large number of samples of virus strains, laboratory equipment, diagnostic instruments, etc. through the British shipping company WN Shipping the first half of the year.
Kazakhstan’s CRL in Almaty was built with Pentagon funds and has a third level of biohazard because a repository for particularly dangerous infectious agents is located on the premises of this facility, which are examined by staff of specialized laboratories for plague, cholera, zoonotic bacterial and natural viral focal infections. According to Kazakhstan’s official information, no US military experts (biologists and virologists) reportedly work at CRL, and as of January 1, 2020, it is fully funded and owned exclusively by Kazakhstan’s budget. However, in reality, this facility is not directly funded by the United States, but through a system of American grants, i.e. the research is carried out in the interest of the United States under a certain program of the Pentagon. And apparently this “cooperation” continues.
This is confirmed, in particular, by the fact that on November 5, 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development of Kazakhstan initiated the process of public discussion on the construction project of the BSL-4 laboratory for work with especially dangerous strains and an underground storage facility for a collection of dangerous and especially dangerous strains in the village of Gvardeisky in the Zhambyl region, the construction of which is planned for 2025. The fourth biological safety code BSL-4 (Biosafety Level 4) of this planned biological laboratory alone indicates that the facility poses a high risk to people and society of the viruses being studied, most of which are simply impossible to handle.
The Kyrgyz public has already reacted very critically to this project. Protesters have gathered in front of the US Embassy, outraged that the lab will be built near the border with Kyrgyzstan, just 90 kilometers from Bishkek. Kyrgyz experts, together with the International Association for the Control of Biological Research, sent a letter this summer to the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, asking that the construction of a biological laboratory in the border region be stopped.
Obviously, Washington is eager to preserve the countries of Central Asia as a testing ground for its military biological research. Hence the US efforts to develop similar projects in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. At the same time, Washington has an increased interest in Tashkent and Alma-Ata, as these two countries have better developed infrastructure and more qualified personnel compared to other Central Asian states. The increased US interest in Uzbekistan is also due to the fact that the country is not a member of the CSTO, which gives Washington more freedom of action.
Malaysia-based daily newspaper The Straits Times uncovered on 17 October the arrest of a Mossad-affiliated hit team, involved in the kidnapping of a Palestinian in Kuala Lumpur, on behalf of Israel.
The Mossad team was able to locate two Palestinian computer programming specialists while they were leaving a diner near Jalan Yap Kwan Seng by car, just after 10 pm.
The “snatch-and-grab” team consisted of four local Malaysians who kidnapped the driver of the car and took him into one of the two vehicles used for the operation, leaving the second Palestinian behind and allowing him to escape – something that would later come back to haunt them.
The vehicles left the scene and arrived at the chalet they were headed to, where the Palestinian IT specialist was tied up in one of the rooms and put on a video call with Israeli Mossad operatives who started to bark questions at him, inquiring about Hamas’s cyber unit.
The call was organized by two men, who interrogated the specialist for 24 hours, while the Malaysian team was on standby to torture the victim when answers were unsatisfactory.
The Straits Times learned that the Mossad wanted insight into his experience in software development and his role in assisting the Cyber unit of Hamas to develop new weapons.
Additionally, the Mossad wanted to uncover his associates in the hierarchy of leaders in the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
Meanwhile, the other specialist who was able to escape sensed the gravity of the situation and alerted the security personnel at a hotel nearby, initiating the pursuit to arrest the cell.
Remarkably, it was revealed that the Mossad had prepared another chalet room for the second specialist. A team was waiting overseas to interrogate him as well, but miscommunication confused the kidnappers.
According to Al-Jazeera, the second specialist was a more valuable target. However, had he not been able to escape, the Malaysian police would have remained oblivious to the entire operation.
Reportedly, despite the cell’s training in Europe by Mossad operatives, the recruits failed to notice the CCTV cameras and used fake plates, giving the police enough information to locate them.
“Had the Malaysian police not acted swiftly, the victim would have likely disappeared,” informed sources told The Straits Times.
The newspaper added that the police arrived halfway through the video call, surprising the Israelis at the other end, who terminated the call as soon as they heard the chaos outside and saw the police.
The two Palestinian IT specialists, said to be natives of Gaza, have since left Malaysia for an undisclosed country.
There are no official relations between Malaysia and Israel, and this plot is one of several Mossad operations in southeast Asia. Nonetheless, its impact on the secret ties between both countries is questionable.
Back in 2015, then-prime minister Minister Najib Razak visited the Hamas-run government in Gaza and expressed his support for the besieged enclave in southern occupied Palestine.
“We believe in the struggle of the Palestinian people. They have been suppressed and oppressed for so long,” said Razak.
Nonetheless, data released by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reveals that Malaysia imported $1.457 billion worth of products in 2014, a 24 percent increase since the previous year. Economic ties are unaffected as of today.
Scientists at Boston University claim to have created a new variant of Covid-19 with an 80% mortality rate, by combining the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus with the original Wuhan strain. The research, which echoes experiments thought to have created the virus in the first place, has caused outrage.
In a research paper published last week, the scientists explained that they isolated the spike protein of the Omicron variant and combined it with the “backbone” of the original strain that circulated in early 2020. This created a virus that “robustly escapes vaccine-induced… immunity” and inflicts “serious disease” on laboratory mice, 80% of whom died during testing, the paper stated.
While the team admitted that their mutant strain would likely be less deadly in humans than mice, they found that it produced five times as many virus particles in lab-grown human lung cells when compared to the Omicron variant.
The paper has yet to be peer reviewed.
News of the research caused outrage online, as it is widely believed that similar ‘gain-of-function’ research – a term describing the alteration of a pathogen to enhance its potency – at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China led to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The US funded such research at the Wuhan Institute, although it is still unclear whether the specific coronavirus that caused the pandemic originated in the lab.
“This should be totally forbidden, it’s playing with fire,” former Israel Institute for Biological Research head Shmuel Shapira said of the Boston experiments. “How many times did virologists say they were not making chimeric SARS viruses more deadly? How many???” reporter Paul Thaker tweeted.
The Boston team aren’t the only scientists returning to potentially dangerous research in the aftermath of the pandemic. EcoHealth Alliance, the private company responsible for much of the Wuhan Institute’s pre-2020 gain-of-function research, was awarded a $650,000 grant by the US last month to study “the potential for future bat coronavirus emergence in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.”
As a non-partisan, volunteer activist group, Fearless Canada was present at the beginning and on several other occasions during the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa. As such, many of our members witnessed first-hand what the situation looked like on the ground and how it all began. We took extensive video footage of the events during the first weekend from the moment when truckers were being directed toward Parliament by Ottawa police. We have decided to submit our evaluation of the events as well as our strongly held view that the invocation of the Emergency Measures Act (hereafter referred to as “EMA”) by the Trudeau government was not only inappropriate, but also unlawful and unconstitutional.
We must first unequivocally state that, in our view, the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the EMA in no way met the legal threshold to do so. The usage of the EMA is reserved for exceptional circumstances in which a serious foreign or existential threat imperils the security of the nation. Such security threats would be typically related to war, as the older, subsequently replaced War Measures Act aimed to address. In no conceivable way could the temporary discomfort or inconvenience borne by Ottawa citizens or businesses justify the use of an Act that is meant to aid the government in protecting the nation against threats of an incalculably larger scale. As such, the purpose of the Commission is not to determine whether the invocation of the EMA served the Trudeau government in its objective to deescalate the so-called “occupation” of Ottawa’s downtown core, but rather to assess whether the legal threshold for its invocation was met.
The Early Days in Ottawa
Our group arrived in Ottawa in the early afternoon of January 28, 2022. The first thing we noticed was Ottawa police directing truckers and their rigs onto Wellington Street towards Parliament. The atmosphere was festive and light despite the frigid weather. As more protesters arrived in Ottawa over the course of the weekend, we would quickly observe that the crowds were both peaceful and diverse. Men, women, and children from all different backgrounds and walks of life gathered in the capital with a common goal. They demanded that the Trudeau government lift measures that, in their view, were both unjustified and discriminatory in nature. As a result of those measures, the majority of protesters in Ottawa were themselves directly impacted in profound and often irreversible ways.
In talking with dozens of truckers and protesters, we learned that many had lost their jobs, connections to loved ones, access to essential services, and much more. While speaking with police officers, we learned that many felt they were unlawfully coerced into taking a COVID vaccine in order to keep their jobs. Our impression on the ground was that the majority of police officers were in fact aligned with the goals of the protest. They, too, wanted to see an immediate end to damaging and ineffective policies that divided our nation along medical lines previously acknowledged as a matter of private and personal concern.
Legacy Media and the Trudeau Government’s Portrayal of the Freedom Convoy
While in Ottawa, our group kept an eye on the news coming out of legacy media outlets such as the CBC, CTV News, and Global News. It became impossible not to notice that a concerted narrative had quickly taken shape to misrepresent the situation and characterize protesters as far-right extremists, racists, antisemites, and more. The unjustified slander of protesters directly conflicted with our experience on the ground. What we saw was a festive and peaceful rally, replete with volunteers offering food and shelter from the cold, routinely cleaning streets and sidewalks, and organizing fun activities for the kids. At no time did we spot a single racist or Nazi in the vast crowds, as was incessantly suggested by both the Liberal government and the mainstream media. From what we could tell, these characterizations were fabricated in order to serve a narrative that aimed to discredit the legitimacy and lawfulness of the protest.
As time went on, the media’s portrayal of the situation continued to unhinge itself from reality. The press published stories about imminent violence, a van loaded with illegal firearms, and more. None of these allegations turned out to be true. Yet, the misrepresentation of the situation had already reached the eyes and ears of Canadians from coast to coast, very few of which witnessed the event themselves. But by then, the damage had already been done, just as it seemed to have been intended.
The Invocation of the EMA
At the moment the Trudeau government invoked the EMA, it must be noted that the protest in Ottawa was already in the process of de-escalation. The protest organizers and their lawyers had already brokered a dismantlement deal with the Ottawa mayor and police services. Truckers were already on their way out of the downtown core and the blockades at two Canadian points of entry had already long-since been dismantled. Yet rather than follow an organized de-escalation plan agreed to by all factions, Ottawa police and the Trudeau government instead opted to escalate the situation by using violence and propaganda against Canadian citizens. The impacts of the invocation of the EMA were profound and unwarranted.
Immediately ensuing the invocation of the EMA, police and governmental authorities froze protesters’ bank accounts and deployed violent anti-riot squads all over the downtown core of Ottawa. Several protesters were injured as police again escalated tensions using all manner of crowd dispersal techniques. In the days following the invocation of the EMA, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland wasted no time in announcing that certain aspects of the EMA would be written into law, granting broad and unconstitutional powers to government without the requisite EMA enacted. It had become clear that the Trudeau government had a predetermined objective in enacting the EMA, one that would grant greater leverage over political dissidents and, more broadly, Canadians that disagreed with its ideology. This in itself represents an egregious misuse of the EMA in order to further a political agenda.
Conclusion
The volunteer activists at Fearless Canada include Canadian scholars, lawyers, professors, small business owners, and artists. We unanimously and unequivocally feel that the Trudeau government’s invocation of the EMA as a response to ongoing protests in Ottawa was both unlawful and unconstitutional. We submit that the government manipulated public opinion by fabricating evidence of unlawful activity in Ottawa and invoked the EMA under false pretenses in order to abet their predetermined agenda. We believe that the evidence overwhelmingly supports our position, and we look forward to seeing all of it brought to light during the Commission’s discovery process.
This statement was authored by the executive of Fearless Canada and endorsed by members.
The statement has been submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission of Canada, which began public hearings on Thursday, October 13, which will run every weekday until November 25. Live hearings can be viewed here, and True North Centre publishes a recap for each day.
Press TV Correspondent from Donetsk, Johnny Miller, says Ukraine has been hitting civilian areas on the outskirts of Donetsk, and today, the central city administrative building was hit by US-made missiles.
Ukraine attacked Donetsk with American missiles – mayor
Samizdat | October 16, 2022
Ukrainian forces have carried out a strike on Donetsk using the US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launch system, with one missile hitting the city administration building, local authorities claimed on Sunday. Four people were reportedly wounded.
Alexey Kulemzin, the mayor of Donetsk, posted a video on his Telegram account depicting a pile of rubble around what appeared to be the city administration. Another clip uploaded by Kulemzin shows extensive damage to the building, as well as several wrecked and charred cars nearby.
According to the territorial defense of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), four people were wounded during the shelling.
Meanwhile, local authorities told RIA Novosti that they are looking into the strike on the city administration, with one official saying that the shell fragments will be submitted for ballistic examination.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukraine of targeting residential blocks and civilian infrastructure in various towns in Donbass, with the strikes often resulting in destruction, injuries, and deaths.
Since the start of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, Western countries have supplied Ukraine with a significant amount of weaponry, munitions, and other aid. The US, in particular, has provided Ukraine with 20 HIMARS systems and ammunition for them, which Kiev has allegedly used to target civilians on numerous occasions.
Pfizer just reported FDA’s decision to approve a bivalent Covid booster for “emergency use” for children 5-17 years of age.
What is amazing is that the approved bivalent vaccine was NOT tested on children or even on baby mice, at all!
For each of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines authorized today, the FDA relied on immune response and safety data that it had previously evaluated from a clinical study in adults of a booster dose of a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine that contained a component of the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 and a component of omicron lineage BA.1. The FDA considers such data as relevant and supportive of vaccines containing a component of the omicron variant BA.4 and BA.5 lineages. In addition, the FDA has evaluated and considered immune response and safety data from clinical studies of the monovalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, including as a booster dose in pediatric age groups. These data and real-world experience with the monovalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, which have been administered to millions of people, including young children, support the EUA of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines in younger age groups.
May I ask, why no testing? The FDA and Pfizer had plenty of time: they were testing bivalent boosters on adults since the beginning of the year. No testing on children was done with any bivalent booster.
Could Pfizer at least purchase 8 baby mice and try their booster on 8 mouse babies? They surely could do that along with the adult dose testing.
An added touch of ridiculousness here is that the FDA also chose NOT to consult “FDA advisors” and thus did not convene the VRBPAC committee. That committee would, of course, approve anything. So, what is the reason for not convening it? The reason is that the FDA did not want to have any votes — even one vote — against this vaccine and did not want to have a public hearing about this travesty.
Three-Year-Old Spike Injections Still Required for Primary Series
It gets worse, of course. Only 30% of children 5-11 years of age are Covid vaccinated.
Should the parents of the 70% of unvaccinated children decide that they want their child to receive a bivalent (updated with Ba.5 formulation) shot, they would have to first give that child two shots of a three-year-old monovalent Wuhan-based vaccine (primary series), and only then they would be allowed to give their children the new and updated shot. Why? The FDA is not telling us.
The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent is authorized for administration at least two months following completion of primary or booster vaccination in children down to six years of age.
If someone asked me three years ago, whether it is possible that the FDA would approve a children’s vaccine with ZERO testing on children, I would of course laugh the question off as ludicrous. Now it is reality. Even worse, schools and camps may start requiring it.
I thought that the reputation of our health authorities could only bottom at zero. Clearly, though, they want to drive it down to the negative territory.
Elon Musk has expressed concerns over a controversial website that lists supposed enemies of Kiev, amid claims that his own name briefly appeared on Mirotvorets following his threats to cut funding for Starlink satellite internet services actively used by the Ukrainian troops.
“Is this list real? What’s the URL?” the SpaceX CEO tweeted in response to independent journalist Eva Karene Bartlett, who on Friday shared a viral screenshot that claims to show his persona added to the notorious database.
“I’ve been speaking and writing about this list for years, after being placed on it in 2019, but now that Musk is on it, after Roger Waters and others, perhaps the ‘peacemaker’ list might itself be killed…,” Bartlett wrote.
Elon Musk’s name was not on the list as of Saturday, and it remains unclear whether it indeed briefly appeared on Mirotvorets. Some reports alleged his profile was swiftly scrubbed from the database, while Ukrainian activists claimed the picture was fake and called it a Russian provocation.
Many of Musk’s followers were surprised to find out that he’d never heard of Mirotvorets before, and bombarded him with examples of prominent public figures on the database, some already marked “liquidated.” Musk admitted it was “concerning,” after checking with Wikipedia that such a list does indeed exist, and was allowed to stay online since 2014.
Mirotvorets, or “Peacemaker,” is a supposedly independent database of individuals whom anonymous moderators consider to be threats to Ukrainian national security. The site denies being a kill list; rather, it claims to be a source of information for law-enforcement agencies and “special services” about pro-Russian terrorists, separatists and war criminals, among others. It allegedly has links to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry.
The Mirotvorets project gained some notoriety in 2015, when writer and historian Oles Buzina and politician Oleg Kalashnikov were assassinated in Ukraine after their profiles appeared on the website. In 2016, EU officials and journalist groups condemned Mirotvorets for leaking data on more than 4,000 members of the media.
Human rights activists have discovered that the website features the personal details of 327 children, prompting the Russian authorities to share their concerns over this “huge injustice” with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The website has published personal details – names, addresses, photos, social media pages – of children, the youngest of whom is not even 10 years old yet, according to the head of the Foundation for the Fight against Repressions.
The allegations of Musk briefly featured on the ‘kill list’ have been making the rounds on social media for the past two days, following reports that he sought to cut free Starlink service for Ukraine unless the Pentagon covers his company’s losses. On Saturday Musk made an abrupt U-turn, saying “the hell with it… we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”
While once regarded as only a rumor, newfound documents reveal that Israeli troops tried to poison wells and contaminate the drinking water of the Palestinian community in 1948 under Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (David Grün).
Operation “Cast Thy Bread” was a plan to poison wells with bacteria in Arab neighborhoods and even some Jewish pockets to evacuate several locations and expand the state-in-the-making.
The Israeli news outlet Haaretz published an extensive article about the documents and the involvement of high-ranking officials such as the prime minister and military generals.
Though partially exposed decades ago, the extent of the operation as well as the involvement of high-ranking officials remained in the dark, until now.
Alongside high-ranking military officials, Prime Minister Ben Gurion was very interested in the idea of biological weapons.
On 1 April 1948, he wrote about “the development of science and speeding up its application in warfare,” in his journal, while purchasing “biological materials” just a month and a half later for the sum of around $2,000.
Moshe Dayan, the former minister of defense, was also directly involved in the operation.
Under the pseudonym “Moshe Neptune,” he instructed senior Israeli army commanders about the operation.
“There is an immediate need to appoint in your HQ a special officer for Cast Thy Bread matters. The matter is of utmost importance and must be kept in great secrecy by you,” he is quoted as saying in the documents.
“Cast Thy Bread will be activated by Nahshon [meaning Operation Nahshon forces, which included the Harel Brigade] on Monday or Tuesday. I will come down mid-week with all the material,” the document reveals.
Dayan also describes that the various location will be evacuated under his command, once successfully poisoned.
“Is there authorization to use B [the Hebrew letter Bet] in the areas that will be evacuated by us [i.e., Israel],” he asked.
Intent, motive and means: People serving life sentences in U.S. prisons have been convicted on weaker grounds than the circumstantial evidence against Washington for the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines.
Circumstantial evidence, just like direct proof, can be used to prove the elements of a crime, the existence or completion of certain acts and the intent or mental state of a defendant. Generally speaking, a prosecutor, to obtain a conviction, needs to show beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant committed a certain act and that the defendant acted with specific intent.
Nord Stream 1 is a multi-national project operated by Swiss-based Nord Stream AG intended to supply some 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian natural gas annually to Europe by directly transporting it from Russia, through twin 1,224 kilometer-long pipelines laid beneath the Baltic Sea, to a German hub, from which the gas would be distributed to other European consumers.
The first of the twin pipelines was completed in June 2011 and began supplying gas in November 2011. The second was completed in April 2012 and began supplying gas in October 2012. Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, owns 51 percent interest in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline project.
Nord Stream 2 is a near clone of the Nord Stream 1 project, consisting of twin 1,220-kilometer pipelines laid beneath the Baltic Sea connecting Russia to Germany. Started in 2018, it was completed in September 2021. Like Nord Stream 1, the Nord Stream 2 is designed to deliver approximately 55 bcm of natural gas from Russia to Europe through Germany. Nord Stream 2, like Nord Stream 1, is operated by a multinational company in which Gazprom has 51 percent ownership.
Unlike Nord Stream 1, Nord Stream 2 was never allowed to begin supplying gas.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines are anathema to U.S. national security policy, which for decades has been sour on the degree to which Russian natural gas dominates the European energy market. This animus was perhaps best captured by a column published in the German newspaper DieWelt in July 2019.
The piece, co-authored by Richard Grenell, Carla Sands, Gordon Sondland (respectively, the U.S. ambassadors to Germany, Denmark and the European Union), was entitled “Europe must retain control of its energy security” and made the argument that the “Nord Stream 2 pipeline will drastically increase Russia’s energy leverage over the EU,” noting that “[s]uch a scenario is dangerous for the bloc and the West as a whole.”
Observing that “a dozen European countries rely on Russia for more than 75 percent of their natural gas needs,” the ambassadors concluded “This makes United States allies and partners vulnerable to having their gas shut off at Moscow’s whim.”
Moreover, the ambassadors claimed,
“European Union reliance on Russian gas presents risks for Europe and the West as a whole and makes U.S. allies less secure. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will heighten Europe’s susceptibility to Russia’s energy blackmail tactics. Europe must retain control of its energy security.”
The ambassadors also wove in some critical geopolitical context as well, declaring
“Make no mistake: Nord Stream 2 will bring more than just Russian gas. Russian leverage and influence will also flow under the Baltic Sea and into Europe, and the pipeline will enable Moscow to further undermine Ukrainian sovereignty and stability.”
Russia’s “weaponization” of energy against Europe was the topic of a “debate” that Gary Peach and I carried out in December 2018 on the pages of Energy Intelligence, which monitors issues pertaining to global energy security. Gary, one of EI’s senior writers, covers Russian energy.
I argued that “Russia has never sought to use its status as a major supplier of energy to Europe as a vehicle of policy influence,” noting that:
“[t]he weaponization of Russian energy comes in the form of sanctions imposed against Moscow and the pursuit of policies designed to curtail development of Russia’s energy sector. It is far easier to make a case that the U.S. and Europe pose a threat to Russian energy security rather than vice versa.”
Gary, on the other hand, noted that
“Gazprom’s supply contracts exhibit the underlying economic threat from Moscow: The pricing formula is roughly the same for all countries, but those countries in Russia’s good graces receive an arbitrary ‘discount.’” He concluded that “when Gazprom is the only conceivable gas supplier, it has shamelessly abused the monopoly.”
In December 2019 the administration of President Donald Trump imposed sanctions in a desperate last-second bid to prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from being completed.
These sanctions were waived by the administration of President Joe Biden in May 2021 in an effort to be seen as repairing relations with Germany that had been severely frayed during the Trump administration. However, upon completion, Nord Stream 2 was prevented from operating by objections raised by German regulators regarding licensing issues, which were not expected to be resolved until mid-2022.
In the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration devised a plan to punish Russia by imposing severe economic sanctions which would target the Russian energy sector, including measures designed to halt the delivery of gas from Russia to Germany via the Nord Stream pipelines.
One of the issues confronting U.S. policy makers was finding the right mix of sanctions that would succeed in harming Russia without destroying the European economy in the process. Policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic, however, recognized that meaningful sanctions which targeted Russian energy contained collateral risk to the European economy which could not be avoided.
One of the mechanisms that U.S. and E.U. policy makers were hoping would alleviate the economic consequences of sanctioning Russian energy was to increase the supply of U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe. Since 2016 the amount of LNG supplied by the U.S. to Europe has increased, with more than 21 bcm delivered in 2021.
But 21 bcm couldn’t begin to offset the quantity of natural gas being shipped by Russia to Europe in case of any large-scale disruption of Russian energy supplies brought on by the imposition of economic sanctions that targeted the Russian energy sector.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine — and the realization that the energy disruption to Europe was going to be far greater than had been anticipated — Biden made good on his promise to increase the supply of U.S. LNG to Europe. But the quantities still fell far short of demand, and at prices that were, literally, bankrupting all of Europe.
The Victims
With Germany blocking the operation of Nord Stream 2 and sanctions precluding the repair of the Nord Stream 1, the German population began bearing the brunt of the sanctions on Russian energy.
Despite their government’s insistence that it would remain resolute in confronting what it perceived as Russian aggression against Ukraine, the German people had other plans. By Sept. 26 they began taking to the streets in large numbers to demand that their government open the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and provide the German people and economy with the energy needed to survive.
The Crime
On Sept. 26, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline reported a massive drop in pressure. The next day, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline reported the same. A Danish fighter jet, flying over the pipeline route, reported seeing a one-kilometer diameter disturbance in the water off the island of Bornholm, directly over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, created by the massive release of natural gas underwater. (Danish authorities have estimated that between the two pipelines the total amount of methane released into the atmosphere was around 500,000 metric tons.)
The incident took place in the exclusive economic zone of Sweden, and the Swedish Security Service took the lead in investigating what had happened. (Curiously, Russia was not invited to participate, despite having a vested economic and security interest in the matter.)
“After completing the crime scene investigation,” the Swedes reported, “the Swedish Security Service can conclude that there have been detonations at Nord Stream 1 and 2 in the Swedish economic zone,” noting that the blasts had caused “extensive damage” to the lines.
The Swedes also declared that they had retrieved some materials from the incident site, which were being analyzed to determine who was responsible. This evidence, the Swedes stated, “strengthened the suspicions of gross sabotage.”
While all parties involved with the Nord Stream pipeline “sabotage” concur that the cause was manmade, no nation outside Russia has named a suspect. (Russian President Vladimir Putin has attributed the attack, which Russia has labeled an act of “international terrorism,” on the “Anglo-Saxons” — the British and Americans.)
Biden dismissed the Russian claims. The pipeline attack “was a deliberate act of sabotage and the Russians are pumping out disinformation and lies,” the U.S. president said. “At the appropriate moment, when things calm down, we’re going to be sending divers down to find out exactly what happened. We don’t know that yet exactly.”
But we do know. Biden told us himself. So did Secretary of State Antony Blinken. So did the U.S. Navy. Between the three, we have incontrovertible evidence of intent, motive and means — more than enough needed to prove guilt beyond any reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Intent
Speaking to reporters on Feb. 7, Biden declared “If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
When a journalist asked how Biden could do such a thing, given that Germany was in control of the project, Biden retorted: “I promise you: We will be able to do it.”
No prosecutor has ever had a more concise statement of intent — a veritable confession before the event — than this. Joe Biden should be taken at his word.
Motive
When asked by reporters on Oct. 3 to comment on the Nord Stream pipeline attacks, Blinken responded in part by noting that the attack was “a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs.”
Blinken further declared that the U.S. would work to alleviate the “consequences” of the pipeline attack on Europe, alluding to the provision of U.S. LNG at exorbitant profit margins for U.S. suppliers — another “opportunity.”
Prosecutors often speak of cui bono, a Latin phrase that means “who benefits,” when seeking to import motive for a crime committed, under the presumption that there is a high probability that those responsible for a specific crime are the ones who stand to gain from it.
Blinken. Tremendous opportunity.
Cui Bono.
Means
In early June, in support of a major NATO exercise known as BALTOPS (Baltic Operations) 2022, the U.S. Navy employed the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle, or UUV, mine hunting technology to be tested in operational scenarios.
According to the U.S. Navy, it was able to evaluate “emerging mine hunting UUV technology,” focusing on “UUV navigation, teaming operations, and improvements in acoustic communications all while collecting critical environmental data sets to advance the automatic target recognition algorithms for mine detection.”
One of the UUV’s used by the U.S. Navy is the Seafox.
In September, specialized U.S. Navy helicopters — the MH-60R, capable of employing the Seafox UUV — were tracked flying off the Danish island of Bornholm, directly over the segments of the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines that were later damaged in the sabotage incidents.
“On November 6, 2015, the NATO Seafox mine disposal unmanned underwater vehicle was found during the scheduled visual inspection of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. It lay in space between gas pipelines, clearly near one of strings. NATO said the underwater mine disposal vehicle was lost during exercises. Such NATO exercises when the combat explosive device turned out to be exactly under our gas pipeline. The explosive device was deactivated by Swedish Armed Forces at that time.”
Guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt
The burden that exists to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt “is fully satisfied and entirely convinced to a moral certainty that the evidence presented proves the guilt of the defendant.” In the matter of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 attacks, this burden has been met when it comes to assigning blame to the United States.
Biden all but confessed the crime beforehand, and his secretary of state, Blinken, crowed about the “tremendous opportunity” that was created by the attack. Not only did the U.S. Navy actively rehearse the crime in June 2022, using the same weapon that had been previously discovered next to the pipeline, but employed the very means needed to use this weapon on the day of the attack, at the location of the attack.
Guilty as Charged
The problem is, outside of Russia, no one is charging the United States. Journalists run away from the evidence, citing “uncertainty.” Europe, afraid to wake up to the reality that its most important “ally” has committed an act of war against its critical energy infrastructure, condemning millions of Europeans to suffer the depravations of cold, hunger and unemployment —all the while gouging Europe with profit margins from the sale of LNG that redefine the notion of “windfall” — remains silent.
There is no doubt in any thinking person’s brain as to who is responsible for the attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. The circumstantial case is overwhelming and fully capable of winning a conviction in any U.S. court of law.
But no one will bring the case, at least not at this moment.
Shame on American journalism for ignoring this flagrant attack on Europe.
Shame on Europe for not having the courage to publicly name their attacker.
But most of all, shame on the administration of Joe Biden, who has lowered the U.S. to the same standard of those it hunted down and killed for so many years — a simple international terrorist, and a state sponsor of terrorism.
Lawsuits accusing top US universities of harboring antisemitism all originate from one source: a corporate law firm that fielded the pro-settler ex-US ambassador to Israel, and which was registered as a foreign agent of an Israeli principal as recently as 2021.
The firm now represents professional Israel lobby activists posing as victimized “Jewish students” and seeking to crush the free speech rights of Palestine solidarity activists. … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
News of the research caused outrage online, as it is widely believed that similar ‘gain-of-function’ research – a term describing the alteration of a pathogen to enhance its potency – at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China led to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The US 
