UN Warns Many Will “Starve to Death” in Yemen as Saudi Fuel Blockade Hinders COVID-19 Battle
By Ahmed AbdulKareem | MintPress News | June 26, 2020
SANA’A, YEMEN — The streets of Sana’a have retained much of their character throughout the past six years of war. This, despite the ever-present threat of Saudi bombardment and the myriad viruses methodically working their way through the population, most recently COVID-19. The afternoon rush hour still brings out the buses, taxis and private vehicles that choke Haddah Street in northern Sana’a. Horns blare at junctions as drivers switch lanes, looking for any advantage they can find in a ritual that, until recently, brought a sense of welcome normalcy to a country faced with constant uncertainty. But six years of war have finally caught up with one of the last semblances of routine in Yemen.
In move undertaken by Saudi Arabia that is sure to exacerbate the country’s already-dire situation, the oil-rich U.S. ally is preventing oil tankers from delivering much-needed fuel to Yemen’s hospitals, water pumps, bakeries, cleaning trucks, and gas stations, plunging it, particularly its northern districts, into an acute fuel crisis.
According to a statement released by the Yemen Oil Company, at least 15 tankers carrying over 419,789 tons of fuel have been trapped at sea for over a month despite being checked and issued permits by both the Saudi-led Coalition and the United Nations. Now, the situation in the war-torn country is no longer tolerable.
The CEO of Yemen Oil said in a press conference held in the front of the United Nation office in Sana’a on Wednesday that the company’s remaining reserves won’t last for more than a few days. A statement issued by the company’s branch in Hodeida confirmed that its reserve stock had reached a critical stage and is no longer sufficient to supply the most important sectors in the country.
“One of the biggest threats in the past 100 years”
This is not the first time that Saudi Arabia has triggered a fuel crisis in Yemen, however, this blockade is significantly larger than previous ones and comes at a time when Yemen is battling COVID-19, which is spreading rapidly across the country. “It is the worse than what we expected to happen,” taxi driver Mohammed Abdullah Masoud said from beneath his mask, bags under his tired eyes. He had been waiting in line for two days for petrol. His older brother died last week from COVID-19 and he is now responsible for providing his brother’s wife and children with food and medicine as they stay quarantined at home. “My brother’s family needs bread and some vegetables. Nobody except me can provide them with essential necessities to stay alive. If I don’t have the fuel by the end of the day, something bad could happen to them.” he told MintPress.
The Saudi fuel blockade has not only forced thousands of Yemenis already struggling against an unprecedented explosion of famine, disease, and epidemics to wait for days in lines as far as the eye can see, it has also left water pumps, hospital generators, and transport vehicles without fuel and that lack of fuel has accelerated the spread of the COVID-19 as empty generators shut down facilities including an oxygen factory, hospital, nurseries, and a kidney failure center, all which need uninterrupted and stable electricity 24 hours a day.
Cholera, dengue fever, and malaria rates have also spiked, particularly in Hodeida, Sadaa, and Hajjah where summer temperatures can reach 129 degrees and the lack of fuel has left residents unable to escape the heat as the generators used to power air conditioners sit idle.
The price of food and medicine is also skyrocketing and the already negligible crops in Yemen are at risk of dehydration as farmers are unable to power the wells and pumps needed o to irrigate their fields. At least 80 percent of Yemen’s 28 million-strong population is reliant on food aid to survive in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and the decimation of the remaining agricultural sector is likely to increase that figure.
On Wednesday, Mark Lowcock, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told a closed UN Security Council meeting that many more people are likely to starve to death, succumb to COVID-19 and die of cholera, adding that the coronavirus was spreading rapidly across Yemen and about 25 percent of the country’s confirmed cases have died – “five times the global average.”
He added, “We have never before seen in Yemen a situation where such a severe acute domestic economic crisis overlaps with a sharp drop in remittances and major cuts to donor support for humanitarian aid – and this of course is all happening in the middle of a devastating pandemic.” For her part, UN Humanitarian Coordinator Lise Grande described COVID-19 in Yemen as “one of the biggest threats in the past 100 years.”
The Saudi blockade comes amid sustained Saudi-coalition bombing runs. Warplanes have been hovering over Sana’a and other provinces and have targeted several areas in Bydha, al-Jawf, Marib, and Sana’a, killing and injuring dozens of people. On Thursday, at least five people were killed and dozens were injured when Saudi warplanes destroyed four cars traveling on public roads in Radman and Qaneih.
The only effective option
Despite the challenges, Yemenis have strong morale and a seemingly unbreakable will to continue to withstand the Saudi ambitions for their country. “We die silently but with glory. We will never give in to Saudi Arabia,” 37-years-old Hamid told MintPress as he stood in a fuel line at a gas station in Sana’a. It has become a weekly ritual for Hamid, who queues in line for hours to get 30 liters of fuel every seven days. Hamid and the others waiting in line were gleefully checking their social media feeds and celebrating news reports that explosions were taking place in the Saudi capital following attacks bu the Houthi-led Yemeni Army.
In retaliation for the fuel embargo and the continued airstrikes on their country, the Houthi-led Yemeni army carried out large-scale attacks on a number of strategic sites in Saudi Arabia using a barrage of ballistic and winged missiles and drones which targeted the headquarters of the Saudi Defense Ministry and the General Intelligence Agency as well as King Salman Air Base, among other military targets in the capital Riyadh and the southern regions of Najran and Jizan. For many, retaliation against the Kingdom represents the only effective option to quell the Saudi attacks and blockade on their country.
Mohammed Abdulsalam, the spokesman and chief negotiator for Ansar Allah, the political wing of the Houthis, emphasized that the operation was aimed at restoring stability to the country and securing an end to the Saudi-led blockade. He said that Yemenis have no option but to confront and resist Saudi Arabia and urged international bodies to pressure the Saudi regime into ending the offensive.
The Saudi-led coalition has acknowledged the attacks but claims that the missiles and drones were intercepted and destroyed but provided no evidence to back that claim. Coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki called the strike a “deliberate and systematic operation to target civilians and civilian objects,” adding later that the coalition had “ intercepted” eight bomb-laden drones and three ballistic missiles. A high-ranking Houthi official told MintPress that the raids did indeed hit their intended targets, adding the army used a new weapon in the attack that will be soon be revealed.
The United States and other countries, including France and Britain, condemned the attack on their Saudi ally. They have thus far remained silent on the recent Saudi attacks and fuel blockade on Yemen which preceded the attacks on Saudi Arabia. Yemenis have accused Western countries of abandoning their much-touted commitment to human rights in exchange for Saudi arms deals. “We are killed by weapons belong[ing] to these countries, and get nothing from them except dirty statements that offend their [own] people,” a Yemeni tribal leader who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, told MintPress in response to the U.S. condemnation.
For their part, Ansar Allah censured statements condemning their retaliatory attacks. Abdulsalam said that “condemnations of our operations are no longer effective. They come within the framework of political courtesies and are in part funded by Saudi Arabia.” He insisted that Western countries should instead pressure the kingdom to stop the war. “The American administration practices the most heinous looting of Saudi money,” he added, “The statement of the American mission in Saudi Arabia following our operation is a kind of blackmail, nothing else.”
The Yemeni attacks are the tip of the iceberg as multiple high-ranking officials in the Houthi-backed Yemeni Army revealed to MintPress that they are preparing more attacks against targets in Saudi Arabia, including on oil facilities, royal palaces, military bases, airports, Saudi oil carriers, and other “sensitive targets” that they declined to mention. The consequences for Saudi Arabia will be dire until the blockade is lifted and the offensive comes to an end, they promise. “We should not let Saudi Arabia starve us and carry on enjoying stability and wealth.”
The Saud-led Coalition is heavily backed by Western countries, especially the United States, Britain, and Frace, which have used systematic economic strangulation as a weapon of war — targeting jobs, infrastructure, the agricultural sector, fuel and water pumping stations, factories, and the provision of basic services, as well as imposing a land, sea, and air embargo.
Meanwhile, as a direct result of the oil blockade, many Yemeni officials say that they are already seeking assistance from Iran, hoping that the Iranian government will come to their aid as they did in Venezuela, where six Iranian vessels carried fuel, food, and medicine to Caracas in defiance of U.S. sanctions. They asked Ansar Allah to work with Iran to circumvent the blockade and supply the vital facilities in the country with fuel. If such a move is carried out, Tehran will no doubt win the hearts and minds of Yemenis wary of any foreign intervention, all thanks to the Saudi-led coalition and the United States which in large part are carrying out the war with hopes to limit “Iranian influence” in Yemen.
Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.
Israel honors cyber-terrorists behind May attack on Iranian port
PressTV – June 26, 2020
The Israeli military has honored units, which had been involved in a May cyberattack against Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port on the coast of the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz.
The units that took part in the terrorist operation against the Iranian port have received “certificates of appreciation” from the head of Tel Aviv’s military intelligence apparatus Tamir Hayman.
The elements honored by the Israeli military include troops in the regime’s Unit 8200, which is Israel’s cyber spy agency.
A statement by the Israeli military claims that the cyberattack, carried out on May 9, has yielded “a unique and impressive operational achievement.”
However, Iranian officials said at the time that the attack briefly knocked computers at Shahid Rajaee port terminal offline.
Mohammad Rastad, managing director of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran, said the terrorist attack “failed to penetrate the PMO’s systems and was only able to infiltrate and damage a number of private operating systems at the ports”.
According to intelligence and cybersecurity officials, cited by the Washington Post, the attack was carried out by Israeli operatives. It came after the occupying regime said it had been the target of an attempt to penetrate the computers that operate water distribution systems in Israel.
The sprawling Shahid Rajaee port facility is the newest of two major shipping terminals in the Iranian coastal city of Bandar Abbas, on the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has been the target of US and Israeli cyber terrorism for a decade, including attempts to remotely sabotage the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
In 2010, US and Israeli intelligence agencies unleashed a computer worm called Stuxnet on Iranian uranium-enrichment plants in an attempt to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program. The Washington Post reported two years later that the US National Security Agency (NSA), its spy service CIA, and Israel’s military had worked together to launch Stuxnet against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The attack was followed by Mossad’s assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists.
Iranian officials have said the attacks worked to the US and Israeli detriment, helping improve the Islamic Republic’s readiness against acts of sabotage.
What Secrets Do Foreign US Bio Labs Hold?
By Vladimir Platov – New Eastern Outlook – 26.06.2020
Secret US bio laboratories are strewn across multiple countries in Africa, Asia, and even Europe. This is a global problem that is the attention of various media outlets as of late. More and more frequently, the numerous articles published on this issue voice questions such as: what secret programs (even supported by the country they are located in) are these US military bases pursuing? What if they are concocting a biological weapon to be used on their opposition, and they are the ones behind this entire coronavirus pandemic in the first place?
Emerging from recent discussions on whether the coronavirus is natural or artificially altered, comes information that CDC biologists from the US have been conducting unstable experiments on bats, which nearly all sources agree, trace back to the origin of the virus. They were raising and incubating entire colonies of bats, infecting them with deadly viruses, to study how the carriers of many infections handled them, and how infections can spread. The NCBI website has actually published three scientific works on the experiments carried out by CDC biologists involving infected bats, who have significant populations in South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, and across Asia. The first scientific work on this topic was published in 2015, while the latest – in 2020. In particular, these experiments by CDC biologists and the Pentagon were a joint effort involving colleagues from the Ministry of Defense (sic!) were conducted in 2017, while research on bats passing the infection to people was partially mentioned in March 2020. The results of completed experiments were similar: bats carry viruses, never get sick themselves, but can pass them on to humans.
We know that the USAID’s (which has undeniable ties with the Pentagon and CIA) EPT program was launched in 2009. It was to support US monitoring and laboratory opportunities in the chosen nations for studying wildlife and people coming in contact with animals, to discover new and already known virus agents, that can present a serious threat to people’s health. In Asia especially this program took root in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, and China. In China, for instance, partners of this program were chosen by the government program of the Wuhan institute of virology, and the American non-government organization – EcoHealth Alliance. The specifics of what the Americans were into in Wuhan can be partially found in several scientific works posted on the NCBI website. Of course, the true secrets behind such deals are never made public. Thus, China became a complete doormat for American biologists testing viruses.
However, many countries have been manipulated in such a way. US military bio laboratories work on creating bacterial weapons in the Ukraine, stated Renat Kuzmin from the Oppositional Platform for Life. He thus confirmed, as did Ukrainian political figure Aleksander Lazarev the criminal activities of 15 bio labs sanctioned by the Pentagon on Ukrainian soil. Kuzmin noted that they are carrying out intelligence measures, as well as creating bacterial weapons and testing several harmful diseases on Ukrainians. Ukrainian MPs Victor Medvedchuk and Renat Kuzmin sent a formal complaint to the UN for US bacterial labs illegally functioning on Ukrainian soil. In a recently increasing wave of protests against the activities of US bio labs in Ukraine, experts note that in 2001, the US declined to sign an international protocol naming 33 microorganisms as potential agents of biological warfare, suddenly finding 37 articles that were not in the interests of the United States, obviously creating a loophole for themselves to continue secret bio weapon work on foreign soil.
The media has repeatedly published material proving a number of incidents with dangerous viruses and toxins, leading to the death of innocent citizens in countries unwittingly hosting secret US bio labs. A significant amount of such materials has been in a US bio laboratory named the Lugar Research center (Alekseevka, Tbilisi), confirming the concerns about illegal US activities in Georgia. Secret experiments are being conducted at the facility. Some research is even done on people, who are isolated in special units and subsequently infected with the most dangerous diseases. “The proof of this lies in the experiments carried out in this bio lab directed towards using insects as carriers for highly dangerous biological agents, and infections, as well as equipping weapons with poisonous substances and infected agents,” read a statement on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation’s website.
Since 2008, the Pentagon has created nearly a dozen bio labs in Armenia. Reports in local media reveal that the research involves pathogens that have long been studied by DARPA as potential bio weapons: anthrax, brucellosis, plague, African swine fever and tularemia. Armenia is a country that has witnessed sparks of mutating viruses over the past ten years, that have also spread through all of Transcaucasia, giving the Pentagon sufficient proof of concept of how bio weapons might work naturally, both on Russia’s southern border as well as in Iran. Pentagon bio laboratories in Armenia employ a number of US military contractors, the foremost of which being CH2M Hill, which has already spent $50 million from DTRA in 2018. CH2M Hill is famous for organizing bio labs in Georgia, Uganda, Tanzania, Iraq, Afghanistan and southeast Asian countries. CH2M Hill’s sub contractors have expressed significant interest in Black&Veach, which runs US bio labs in Ukraine, Germany, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Thailand, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. Namely, the Battelle Memorial Institute and Southern Research Institute. Both companies are old partners of the Pentagon and CIA. Between 1952 and 1996, the Battelle Memorial Institute acquired 11 US army contracts and still conducts research and tests with the use of extremely toxic chemical substances and pathogenic bio active substances. One of Battelle’s joint operations with the CIA is Clear Vision in 1997 and 2000, while a low caliber bomb with anthrax was constructed as part of the operation to study the spreading principles of the virus after an explosion. This shines a light on the data from a partially classified presentation of the US Minister of Defense in 1981, where the economics of the three scenarios of possible biological attack in a big city are laid out. 16 simultaneous attacks using infected yellow fever mosquitoes through the air and aerosol attacks with spraying tularemia will lead to minimal losses. If 625,000 deaths occurred, the Pentagon would lose 29 cents per person.
This is why the activities of secret US bio labs located in numerous nations worldwide as well as proof of private company involvement such as CH2M Hill, Battelle, Metabiota and a number of others conducting research on dangerous anthrax bacteria, tularemia, hemorrhagic fever and a whole range of harmful viruses cannot go on unnoticed, and should be presented to the international public.
Biden And His Ventriloquists Keep Out-Hawking Trump
By Caitlin Johnstone | June 22, 2020
Joe Biden keeps trying to out-warmonger Donald Trump, and by Joe Biden I of course mean the team of handlers who are animating the dementia-ravaged corpse of the Biden campaign like a ventriloquist operating a wooden dummy.
In response to Trump suggesting an openness to scaling back his administration’s murderous Venezuela policy and meeting with President Nicolás Maduro, whoever runs Biden’s Twitter account for him seized upon the moment to assert that the former vice president will be doing no such thing if elected commander-in-chief.
“Trump talks tough on Venezuela, but admires thugs and dictators like Nicolas Maduro,” tweeted Biden Incorporated. “As President, I will stand with the Venezuelan people and for democracy.”
“Translation: if Trump retreats from his current policy of trying to sanction and suffocate Venezuela into submission, Biden will make sure to revive it,” journalist Aaron Maté said in response.
“To be clear, Joe Biden is now attacking Donald Trump from the right on Venezuela,” said journalist Walker Bragman.
As FAIR’s Alan MacLeod accurately observed last year, this phrase “the Venezuelan people” is only ever invoked by the political/media class of the US-centralized empire for sloganeering purposes in support of US-led regime change interventionism in that nation, despite an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans opposing all US interventionism including sanctions.
This tactic of attacking Donald Trump for being insufficiently warlike is nothing new for Biden Inc, nor is it limited to Venezuela.
During the primary debates Biden attacked Trump for being insufficiently hawkish toward North Korea, claiming the president was wrong to meet with Kim Jong Un because it gives the leader “legitimacy”, whatever that means.
An April Biden campaign ad accused the president of being too soft on China by failing to force Beijing to allow US government officials into Wuhan to monitor the governing of a sovereign nation during a pandemic outbreak.
“Trump praised the Chinese 15 times in January and February as the coronavirus spread across the world,” says the ad’s narrator in an ominous voice. “Trump never got a CDC team on the ground in China. And the travel ban he brags about? Trump let in 40,000 travelers from China into America after he signed it. Not exactly airtight.”
Biden has attacked Trump’s partial troop withdrawal from Syria, using talking points from the so-called war on terror to absurdly claim during a primary debate that the president is putting America at risk of a terrorist strike from ISIS.
“We have ISIS that’s going to come here,” Biden said. “They are going to damage the United States of America. That’s why we got involved in the first place.”
And of course Biden & Co have been attacking Trump for being too soft on Russia, despite this administration’s many, many dangerously hawkish new cold war escalations against Moscow.
“We need a President who will stand up to the Kremlin, push back against Putin, and take immediate steps to ensure the security of our elections,” Biden’s Twitter account said last year.
This line of attack is so ubiquitous in the Biden campaign that it sometimes just takes the form of a vague, general swipe at Trump’s unwillingness to be more warlike, with an April tweet reading simply “Donald Trump says he’s a wartime president — it’s time for him to act like one.”
Again, this is Donald Trump these people are talking about. The same president who imprisoned Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes, killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, vetoed attempts to save Yemen from US-backed genocide, is working to foment civil war in Iran using starvation sanctions and CIA ops with the stated goal of effecting regime change, nearly started a full-scale war with Iran by assassinating its top general, occupied Syrian oil fields and implemented devastating sanctions with the goal of preventing Syria’s reconstruction, greatly increased the number of troops in the Middle East and elsewhere, greatly increased the number of bombs dropped per day from the previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians, and reduced military accountability for those airstrikes.
The second-to-last thing the world needs is political pressure placed on Donald fucking Trump to be more warlike. The very last thing the world needs is a US president who ends up being even more warlike than Trump.
America is a war machine on top of a police state on top of a mass media psyop. Only people who are willing to keep these psychopathic mechanisms in place are permitted to ascend to presidential candidacy. While all the news cameras focus on the relatively minor differences between presidents and presidential candidates, you can learn a lot more about America and what drives it by looking at their similarities.
Despite court ban, UK continues arms sales to Saudi Arabia: Report
Smoke billows following an airstrike by Saudi-led coalition in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, June 16, 2020. (Photo by AFP)
Press TV – June 21, 2020
The British government has apparently turned a blind eye to a landmark court ruling that restricts the sales of arms to Saudi Arabia for use against Yemen.
According to a report published by the British daily Guardian on Sunday, the court of appeals declared last year that British arms sales to the kingdom were “unlawful,” and accused ministers of ignoring whether airstrikes that killed civilians in Yemen broke humanitarian law.
At the time, the court barred the UK government from approving any new license to Saudi Arabia and ordered then Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox to hold an immediate review of at least 4.7 billion pounds’ worth of arms deals with Saudi Arabia.
British international trade authorities said at the time that the process would take “up to several months.”
Nevertheless, arms exports continue without properly assessing the risk to civilians, a year after the verdict, and fighter jet components as well as aircraft maintenance services are being offered to the Riyadh regime.
British multinational defense, security, and aerospace company BAE Systems, which is recognized as the UK’s largest arms exporter to Saudi Arabia, confirmed in its 2019 report that it continues to provide the kingdom with support services for twin-engine and multirole Eurofighter Typhoon warplanes under a contract struck in 2018.
Lately, Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade Emily Anne Thornberry, together with members of other opposition parties, wrote a letter to Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss in protest at the arms licenses that continue to operate.
“We are left to assume that – despite being ordered to review these licenses by the courts, and having 12 months to do so – your department has simply chosen not to comply,” they argued.
They warn that the British government’s expected failure to comply “creates the illogical situation where a UK company that applies for a license today will have that application rejected, but another company that was granted its license prior to 20 June last year may export exactly the same arms without restriction.”
Andrew Smith, of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, said, “The UK government has consistently put arms company interests ahead of the rights and lives of people in Yemen. The government has proven that it cannot be trusted to implement its own rules.”
The United Kingdom has reportedly licensed the sale of arms worth over 5.3 billion pounds to Saudi Arabia ever since Riyadh and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in order to bring former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past five years.
Were COVID-19 and COVID-20 Created in a US Lab?
By Larry Romanoff | Moon of Shanghai | June 21, 2020
It was amusing to watch the emergence of this debate on the US-China stage. The Chinese were understandably unwilling to be blamed for the emergence of a virus in which they had no part, and thus reacted strongly to accusations the virus originated in a Wuhan lab. The Americans proved to be even more terrified at the possibility of scientific proof that the virus escaped from one of their bio-labs, and resorted to the only weapon they had which was to turn up the volume on blaming China. There were two main reasons for this state of affairs: (1) The US was the only country known to contain all the varieties that were being spread worldwide. (2) The US is the only nation in the world known to have repeatedly used biological weapons on other countries, beginning with North Korea and never ceasing. Of even more damning consequence is the known locations of about 400 American bio-weapons labs spread throughout the world, to say nothing of the pathetically-lax institution at Fort Detrick. (1) (2) (3)
Moreover, Trump recently claimed he could kill the entire population of Afghanistan within days. “Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone and this is not using nuclear. It would be over in – literally, in 10 days.” Biological weapons would seem the only alternative. Hemorrhagic Fever and Hantavirus worked for the US in North Korea; perhaps also Afghanistan. (4) (5) (6) Mr. Trump later denied intention to carry out his threat, but let’s dispense with the fiction of the US having no biological weapons and that Fort Detrick and the 400 foreign labs are performing only benevolent “peace medicine” functions. If it were China with the above history and SARS, MERS, AIDS, EBOLA, bird flu, swine flu, and COVID-19 first erupted in the US, the Americans would claim this as 100% proof that China was responsible. It cannot be a surprise that much of the world today is naturally tending to lay these outbreaks at America’s doorstep.
But returning to our topic of man-made COVID-19 or COVID-20, it seems everyone has been a little too eager to dismiss the possibility (or probability) of these viruses having a (human) helping hand.
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of the Institute for Science in Society cites a Journal of Virology report (Feb 2000) (7) that described a method for inducing desired mutations into coronavirus to create new viruses. “Manipulating viral genomes is now routine, and it is easy to create new viruses that jump host species in the laboratory in the course of apparently legitimate experiments in genetic engineering. It is not even necessary to intentionally create lethal viruses, if one so wishes. It is actually much faster and much more effective to let random recombination and mutation take place in the test tube. Using a technique called ‘molecular breeding’, millions of recombinants can be generated in a matter of minutes. These can be screened for improved function in the case of enzymes, or increased virulence, in the case of viruses and bacteria. In other words, geneticists can now greatly speed up evolution in the laboratory to create viruses and bacteria that never existed in all the billions of years of evolution on earth.” (8) It wasn’t widely publicised, but Dr. Ho called for a full investigation into the possible genetic engineering and dissemination of the SARS virus. (9)
Then another article in which the author explained that scientists eager to dispel the notion of an artificial origin, do so by pointing out that these new coronaviruses didn’t reflect their computer simulations, the author stating, “To put it simply, the authors are saying that SARS-CoV-2 was not deliberately engineered because if it were, it would have been designed differently.” However, the London-based molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou commented that this line of reasoning fails to take into account that there are a number of laboratory-based systems that can select for high affinity RBD variants that are able to take into account the complex environment of a living organism. “So the fact that COVID-19 didn’t have the same RBD amino acid sequence as the one that the computer program predicted in no way rules out the possibility that it was genetically engineered.” (10)
The article further states that “[The] authors of the Nature Medicine article seem to assume that the only way to genetically engineer a virus is to take an already known virus and then engineer it to have the new properties you want. On this premise, they looked for evidence of an already known virus that could have been used in the engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Since they failed to find that evidence, they stated, “Genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.” But Dr Antoniou told us that while the authors did indeed show that SARS-CoV-2 was unlikely to have been built by deliberate genetic engineering from a previously used virus backbone, that’s not the only way of constructing a virus. A well-known alternative process that could have been used has the cumbersome name of “directed iterative evolutionary selection process”. In this case, it would involve using genetic engineering to generate a large number of randomly mutated versions of the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD), which would then be selected for strong binding to the ACE2 receptor and consequently high infectivity of human cells.
“This selection can be done either with purified proteins or, better still, with a mixture of whole coronavirus (CoV) preparations and human cells in tissue culture. This preparation of phage, displaying on its surface a “library” of CoV spike protein variants, is then added to human cells under laboratory culture conditions in order to select for those that bind to the ACE2 receptor. This process is repeated under more and more stringent binding conditions until CoV spike protein variants with a high binding affinity are isolated. Once any of the above selection procedures for high affinity interaction of SARS-CoV spike protein with ACE2 has been completed, then whole infectious CoV with these properties can be manufactured. Such a directed iterative evolutionary selection process is a frequently used method in laboratory research.”
There is, incidentally, another possible way that COVID-19 could have been developed in a laboratory, but in this case without using genetic engineering. This was pointed out by Nikolai Petrovsky, a researcher at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in South Australia. Petrovsky says that coronaviruses can be cultured in lab dishes with cells that have the human ACE2 receptor. Over time, the virus will gain adaptations that let it efficiently bind to those receptors. Along the way, that virus would pick up random genetic mutations that pop up but don’t do anything noticeable. “The result of these experiments is a virus that is highly virulent in humans but is sufficiently different that it no longer resembles the original bat virus. Because the mutations are acquired randomly by selection, there is no signature of a human gene jockey, but this is clearly a virus still created by human intervention.”
Notes
(1) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/virus-biological-us-army-weapons-fort-detrick-leak-ebola-anthrax-smallpox-ricin-a9042641.html
(2) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/gary-d-barnett/the-u-s-is-the-world-leader-of-bio-weapons-research-production-and-use-against-mankind/
(3) https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-military-bio-labs-in-ukraine-production-of-bio-weapons-and-disease-causing-agents/5605307
(4) https://www.globalresearch.ca/did-trump-tacitly-threaten-use-biological-weapons/5687936
(5) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-24/why-did-donald-trump-say-he-could-kill-10-million-afghans/11342794
(6) https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/08/21/604070/US-President-Donald-Trump-Afghanistan-war-win-without-nuclear-weapons
(7) http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/10627550
(8) https://www.i-sis.org.uk/SAGE.php
(9) m.w.ho@i-sis.org.uk
(10) https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19383-where-did-the-covid-19-virus-come-from
Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com.
Barbaric U.S. Sanctions on Syria Are Futile Extension of Failed Regime-Change War
Strategic Culture Foundation | June 19, 2020
A total blockade of war-torn Syria is the desired effect of sweeping new sanctions imposed this week by the United States. The purpose is to prevent the Arab nation from achieving reconstruction and international normalization after suffering nearly a decade of war.
Washington’s objective is to make regime change in Damascus inevitable by making social conditions in the country as unbearable for the population as it possibly can.
With cruel Orwellian irony, the American sanctions implemented this week bear the words “Syria Civilian Protection Act”.
The U.S. legislation was passed by both parties in the Congress last year and signed off by President Donald Trump. Syria was already under American sanctions, but the latest round of restrictions aim to choke off all international investment and trade with the country.
It should be remarked too that the European Union renewed its own sanctions on Syria last month. Such partnering with the U.S. is a reprehensible sign of the EU’s political and moral bankruptcy.
Kelly Craft, America’s ambassador to the UN, informed the Security Council that the sanctions would prevent the Syrian government from “securing military victory”.
The move was denounced by Russia, China and Iran as “inhumane”. Syria’s envoy to the UN, Bashar al-Ja’afari, said the American plan for embargo showed a “new face of terrorism”.
Washington’s admission that the restrictions are aimed at preventing military victory are telling. It shows that the U.S. is livid from the failure of its regime-change campaign over the past decade in which Washington and other NATO powers covertly sponsored foreign aggression against Syria. That nefarious plot was defeated by the courage of the Syrian people and their armed forces, along with the crucial support of Russia, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Having failed on the battle field, Washington is now pursuing its criminal regime-change war objective through economic aggression.
All of this, it should be said, is in flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter. The U.S. conduct is tantamount to the Nuremberg-standard designating crimes of state-sponsored terrorism.
The sanctions unveiled this week are but the opening of a new front for assault on Syria.
“We anticipate many more sanctions,” stated U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who went on to say for risible propaganda effect, “and we will not stop until Assad and his regime stop their needless, brutal war against the Syrian people and the Syrian government agrees to a political solution to the conflict.”
The “political solution” that Pompeo is referring to is the one dictated by Washington which means Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stepping down, to be replaced by an American puppet regime.
It is notable that the new sanctions also target the Assad family, including the president’s wife, Asma, as well as the wider national economy. Pompeo vilified Asma al-Assad as a “notorious war profiteer”. Such personal attack on a foreign leader and his family shows a new low in Washington’s gutter tactics. It is no doubt a sign of the frustration and vindictiveness seething in the waning U.S. imperium that it is resorting to such sordid gouging.
The latest U.S. sanctions are a despicable act of barbarity by Washington. If there was any prevailing justice, Washington should be paying massive reparations to Syria for orchestrating a war of aggression. Not only the U.S., but all those other accomplices in the criminality: Britain, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel.
However, the renewed aggression will backfire. America’s international image is descending rapidly into a cesspool of its own making. At a time of global pandemic from the coronavirus, Washington is seen as an unrelenting degenerate ramping up sanctions against several nations, including Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Russia and China, as well as Cuba and North Korea.
Whatever moral and political authority the U.S. may have had in the past, it is now squandering at a startling pace. The corrosive effect from this degeneracy on U.S. power and its financial privileges from the dollar as international reserve currency is very real and underway.
The attempts to block Syria’s reconstruction will only galvanize other nations to redouble their efforts to solidify an alternative to the U.S.-dominated financial system. Iran has vowed to ignore American sanctions on Syria. So too will Russia, China, Venezuela and others.
Washington failed to subjugate the Syrian nation despite inflicting unspeakable terrorism on it by enlisting jihadi gangs from all over the world to do its dirty work. The war’s death toll stands at near 400,000 with millions of more lives ruined through displacement. Reconstruction costs may run into trillions of dollars. But the new phase of American economic aggression will also fail. Because of international solidarity with Syria.
Washington’s tyranny is inadvertently creating a portal to a new global geopolitical realignment, one which will see the final demise of U.S. imperial power.
UNHRC joins pile-on against US police’s ‘systemic racism,’ but US military makes police brutality look like amateur hour
By Helen Buyniski | RT | June 15, 2020
The UN Human Rights Council has joined the worldwide protests taking aim at racism and police brutality among US police forces. But where are these voices when the US military kills millions in the Middle East and Africa?
Burkina Faso, speaking on behalf of 54 African nations, requested an urgent debate on “racially motivated human rights violations” – specifically systemic racism and police brutality – in the US, and the UNHRC has agreed to hold the debate on Wednesday. But compared with what US military policy has wrought on the populations of the Middle East and northern Africa, police killings are a blip on the radar.
The UNHRC debate is the latest grand public statement in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month, and speaks to a growing disconnect between what has become a laser-focus on US policing and awareness of the much greater harms caused by Washington’s foreign policy – harms that are just as racialized, if not more so, but which mysteriously fly under the radars of activist groups.
Because this blindness doesn’t just afflict the UNHRC. In the US, groups like Black Lives Matter and the Sunrise Movement are demanding that US cities “defund police” and reallocate that funding to social programs, a solution that divides the American people and ignores the root causes of police violence – over-militarization, lack of accountability, lack of enforcement of existing laws, poor training, and austerity budgets that have slashed services like mental health and social welfare programs.
There’s no doubt US police forces need a dramatic overhaul. But the sudden international focus on domestic policing ignores the much greater casualty numbers among black and brown populations resulting from the ‘War on Terror’, which is nearly two decades old and showing no signs of ending anytime soon, despite the feeble campaign promises of President Donald Trump. In addition to the declared wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the US has bombed or helped to bomb innocent people in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan over the past 19 years, and has covertly extended its military tentacles deep into Africa in a bid to counter Chinese influence.
The result has been millions of deaths and countless more injuries, largely among non-white, Muslim populations. It’s difficult to calculate the true toll of US military violence, but a 2015 report by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War concluded at least 1.3 million had died in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan alone since the 9/11 terror attacks were used as an excuse to launch the US’ holy war on the Middle East. Their report cautioned that the true number could exceed two million – a total which does not include hundreds of thousands (if not millions) more war deaths in Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere.
It’s hard to get a reliable count of civilian casualties, as leaked documents from the drone program have shown as many as 90 percent of those killed in US airstrikes are not the intended targets, and the Pentagon labels any unknown bodies as “enemy combatants” if it can’t identify them. As the military itself admitted at the height of the Iraq invasion, “We don’t do body counts.” And some of the worst harm caused by US foreign policy extends beyond simple killing.
With the help of NATO, the US’ ‘humanitarian bombing’ of Libya in 2011 transformed it from the most advanced nation in Africa, where technological advances were literally turning the desert green, to a brutal place where slaves were sold in open markets. Black people in Libya were targeted for the cruelest atrocities by the NATO-supported rebels, and were often arrested for nothing more than their skin color. It’s difficult to forget the horrific photos that emerged from Abu Ghraib prison, or the tales of CIA ‘black spots’ where innocent men were tortured for weeks on a mere tip from a vengeful neighbor.
Even the indirect involvement of the US military causes extensive harm. Ever-tightening sanctions strangle Iran, and the US has severely restricted humanitarian aid flowing to Somalia and Nigeria, blaming terror groups that arose in the power vacuum left by Gaddafi’s gruesome murder. Some 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation thanks to aid blockades maintained by US ally Saudi Arabia, and the UN predicted last year that the conflict would claim over 233,000 lives by 2020.
Those institutions that do try to address US military atrocities face significant opposition – the Trump administration just last week announced sanctions on members of the International Criminal Court for having the gall to do their job and attempt to investigate US war crimes. Perhaps this is why an open UN letter signed by 22 African officials this weekend glossed over the devastating history of US military action in perpetuating systemic racism around the world, instead keeping its condemnations politely vague. Yet domestic activist groups are just as silent about the harm US military power causes worldwide, even while claiming they want justice for black and brown populations.
The activists who genuinely want a better world – as opposed to the professional agitators who’d lose their jobs if all human suffering vanished off the face of the Earth – might consider replacing their rallying cry of “defund the police” with “defund the Pentagon.” The $738 billion that institution received in 2020 could buy a lot of social justice. If black lives truly matter, they matter everywhere – not just inside US borders.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
Stop Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia!
International League of Peoples’ Struggle, Canada | June 12, 2020
After stalling for two years, the Canadian government has renegotiated a sale of light armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia for $14 billion. The deal was put on hold in 2018 because of political pressure against Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist. This news is jolting because, in December 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had said he would not go ahead with the sale. However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois-Philippe Champagne announced that the contract was back on the table on Thursday, April 9, 2020.
The government claims it must proceed with the deal because thousands of jobs and substantial revenues might otherwise be lost. General Dynamics is the supplier building the vehicles to be sold. The government its sales rep. General Dynamics stands to lose profits from the transaction. However, it could be involved in the manufacture of other machinery for domestic and foreign use.
In response to the objection that the items to be sold to Saudi Arabia will likely be used for war, Minister Champagne tells the people not to worry.
“Under our law, Canadian goods cannot be exported where there is a substantial risk that they would be used to commit or to facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law, international human rights law or serious acts of gender-based violence.” (The Defense Post, April 10, 2020).
If that is the case, then, no military items should be exported. Champagne added that there are protections in that export permits be delayed or canceled if it learns of goods sold not used for the buyers’ stated purposes. Well, it is pretty clear that military items are for military use, just as it is clear that Saudi Arabia is an aggressor who will likely use military equipment in its aggression against Yemen and elsewhere. Saudi Arabia is committing human rights violations and crimes against humanity. The fact that the war inhibits health care and safety responses to COVID-19 is even more reprehensible.
The Canadian Chapter of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles has opposed all military contracts with Saudi Arabia all along. We have stood in solidarity with the people of Yemen who have been suffering under assault after assault by Saudi forces, calling for Saudi Arabia keep its hands off Yemen. According to Dr. Yahyia Mohammed Saleh Mushed of the Union of Arab Academics at Sana’a University, the war has displaced around 200,000 people and left the country in misery (Sanctions Kill webinar, May 31, 2020). We deplore the coalition states (US, UK, France and Canada) that arms and supports these assaults. Furthermore, we find no justify for the blockade against Yemen, and join in the calls for the illegal economic coercive measures against Yemen and all countries to be lifted, especially in view of the humanitarian concerns during a pandemic.
Canada has been on the war path for the past two decades. It stands by the US imperialist war machine steadfastly and plays a deadly role as its most fervent ally. It itself is an imperialist state with ambitions for market expansion abroad. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau voices intolerance against states that dare to follow an independent course away from the dictates and norms set by the US. His negative relations with Venezuela are the starkest example. Also, his government has been increasing the national military budget and expanding the Canadian armed forces, favouring more active engagement. Money for health care and housing has been siphoned for the folly of war.
Now with the determination to rise against domestic militarization and resist its racist blades, let us also decry international militarization and organize to dismantle NATO, the US military bases and imperialist military agreements, and send the troops home. Let us expose and put pressure against the arms trade that encourages instability and feeds off bloody conflict. Let us call for a reduction of military budgets and redirect more tax money into social services and regional economic development.
Stop the Sales of Arms to Saudi Arabia!
Reject the arms trade!
Stop US and Canadian imperialism!
Dismantle NATO!
Close all foreign military bases!
End the coercive economic measures against all targeted countries!
International League of Peoples’ Struggle is an an alliance of organizations and movements that promotes, supports and develops the anti-imperialist and democratic struggles of the peoples of the world against imperialism and all reaction.
International Criminal Court Expresses Regret Over US Sanctions, Vows to Continue Work
Sputnik – June 12, 2020
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has expressed regret over the US decision to target its officials with sanctions and expressed determination to continue its work.
“The International Criminal Court expresses profound regret at the announcement of further threats and coercive actions, including financial measures, against the Court and its officials, made earlier today by the Government of the United States”, the ICC said in a statement on late Thursday.
According to the Court’s statement, the US move is one of a series of unprecedented attacks on the ICC and on the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice, which reflects the commitment and cooperation of the ICC’s 123 States Parties.
“The ICC stands firmly by its staff and officials and remains unwavering in its commitment to discharging, independently and impartially, the mandate bestowed upon it by the Rome Statute and the States that are party to it”, the statement added. “An attack on the ICC also represents an attack against the interests of victims of atrocity crimes, for many of whom the Court represents the last hope for justice. As it continues to meet its mandated responsibilities, the Court relies on the staunch support and cooperation of its States Parties”.
On Thursday, the White House announced that US President Donald Trump had issued an executive order authorizing sanctions against ICC officials who are investigating potential war crimes committed by US soldiers in Afghanistan.
In March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) approved the commencement of an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by parties to the Afghan conflict, including US military personnel.
Trump admin sanctions International Criminal Court officials investigating US war crimes
RT | June 11, 2020
The Donald Trump administration is imposing economic sanctions on International Criminal Court officials who are engaged with “any effort” to investigate or prosecute US personnel for war crimes.
In a statement on Thursday, the White House press office said President Donald Trump has also authorized the “expansion of visa restrictions” against ICC officials and their family members.
The US has repeatedly threatened to impose sanctions on the Hague-based court and asserted that it has no right to investigate or prosecute US personnel without Washington’s consent.
The White House statement described the court’s actions as “an attack on the rights of the American people” and a threat to “infringe upon our national sovereignty.”
It added that the ICC was established “to provide accountability for war crimes” but said “in practice” it had become “unaccountable and ineffective.”
Efforts by the ICC to investigate allegations of war crimes by Israel against Palestinians have also drawn ire from the Trump administration.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argued in May that Palestine does not “qualify as a sovereign state” and that the court cannot conduct “illegitimate” investigations against Israel. He threatened that the US would “exact consequences” if the court continued its efforts to investigate alleged crimes.
In the Thursday statement, the White House said the ICC was pursuing “politically-motivated investigations” against the US and its allies “including Israel.”
Without offering evidence, the statement said the US was concerned that “adversary nations are manipulating” the court by “encouraging” allegations against American personnel.
It claimed there is “strong reason to believe” that there is “corruption and misconduct” at the “highest levels” of the court which call its integrity into question.
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From the Archives
Sanctions, War and the Policy of Dual Containment
By SASAN FAYAZMANESH | March 17, 2008
It is now nearly three decades since the Unites States adopted the policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq. While much has been written about the containment of Iraq, there has been very little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran. In a book that is going to be released on March 31, 2008, entitled The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment (Routledge), I attempt to address this shortcoming by investigating when and why the US policy of containment of Iran came about, how it evolved, and where it stands today.[1] To the extent that Israel has been involved in US policy making, the study will also include the role that Israel has played in the containment of Iran. Also, since the fate of Iran has been inextricably linked to that of Iraq, occasionally the investigation will overlap with the containment of Iraq.
The policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq originated during the Carter Administration, but it was not until the Clinton Administration that the expression “dual containment” became popular. … continue
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