African Energy Chamber Calls Western Funding Withdrawal From Key Projects ‘Immoral’
Sputnik – 27.09.2024
The withdrawal of Western funding for key projects in Africa is outrageous and constitutes “financial apartheid,” NJ Ayuk, the executive chairman of the African Energy Chamber, told Sputnik.
“One of the key things you have to see is that the exclusionary rule, which we call financial apartheid, that you’ve seen from Western countries when it comes to financing Africa and really providing funds, it is wrong. It is immoral. It is outrageous what they’re doing,” Ayuk said on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week International Forum.
The official pointed to energy projects, saying that natural gas powering Europe was described as green, which was not the case for Africa.
“Africa is still the country where you have so many millions of people without electricity and without access to clean cooking,” Ayuk added.
The Russian Energy Week is taking place in the Russian capital from September 26-28.
Russia set to gain access to Atlantic port – media
RT | September 24, 2024
Russia is poised to gain access to a naval port in the Atlantic Ocean through a bilateral military cooperation agreement with the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, located off the west coast of Africa.
A bill on the issue has been approved by a Russian government commission on legislative activity, RTVI reported on Monday, citing a source familiar with the discussions.
The draft treaty will be put to a vote in the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. The first deputy chairman of the Duma’s Committee on International Affairs, Alexey Chepa, explained that ratifying the pact will allow Russian ships to be stationed in the Gulf of Guinea.
“Today, a large number of ports where our ships could come in for refueling are closed. Therefore, opportunities to find friendly ports significantly facilitate the activities of our fleet,” Chepa told RTVI.
Under the agreement between Russia and the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, which was initially signed in St. Petersburg in April, the two sides will exchange information and experience in the field of military education, and cooperate in providing engineering support for troops, combating piracy and terrorism, and providing military logistical support.
Cooperation is also expected to include joint exercises and other activities between the two countries’ armed forces.
The draft document says the agreement will last for an indefinite period, and that the adoption of the treaty will not require additional funds from the federal budget.
US has declared war on free speech – Russia
RT | September 15, 2024
The US crackdown on Russian media amounts to a declaration of war on free speech, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday. She described the new sanctions against RT and other news outlets as “repressions unprecedented in scale.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced new sanctions against RT on Friday, accusing it of engaging in “covert influence activities” and “functioning as a de facto arm of Russian intelligence.” Earlier in September, Washington imposed sanctions on RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and three other senior RT employees over alleged attempts to influence the 2024 US presidential election.
“The US has declared war on freedom of speech throughout the world, turning to open threats and blackmail against other states in an effort to set them against the domestic media and establish sole control over the global information space,” Zakharova said, promising that the punitive measures Washington was using to target Russian media would not go unanswered.
She added that accusations of attempts to influence the elections are a mere “witchhunt” and “spy-o-mania” done to manipulate public opinion and protect its citizens from any information that is inconvenient for them.
The head of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), James Rubin, told reporters on Friday that the “broad scope and reach” of RT was one of the reasons many countries around the world did not support Ukraine. The GEC has funded propaganda games aimed at children and forced Twitter to censor pro-Russian content. Rubin admitted last year that he wanted to use the GEC to shut down Russian media outlets around the world.
“We are going to be talking… in Latin America, Africa and Asia… to try to show all of those countries that right now broadcast – with no restrictions or control – RT and allow them free access to their countries,” Rubin said, arguing that RT’s presence has “had a deleterious effect on the views of the rest of the world about a war that should be an open and shut case.”
Reacting to the new restrictions, Simonyan argued that Washington’s claims about RT collaborating with Russian intelligence are a “classic case of projection.”
“The idea that you can’t achieve results without being part of the intelligence service has exposed them for what they are,” she said.
Mali Alarmed That Weapons Supplied to Ukraine Fuel Terrorism in Sahel Region – Envoy to UN
Sputnik – 30.08.2024
UNITED NATIONS – Mali is alarmed that the weapons supplied to Ukraine by the collective West are ultimately fueling terrorism in the Sahel region, Malian Ambassador to the United Nations Oumar Daou said in Friday.
“The government of Mali would like to express its alarm with regard to the supply of weapons to Ukraine, because it’s been clearly established that a good part of the weapons … end up fueling terrorism and crime in the Sahel,” Daou said during a meeting of the UN Security Council.
The Malian ambassador also said that the weapons deliveries carry the risk of further destabilizing countries in Africa and exacerbate the suffering of the Malian people, who have already been “sorely tested by several years of conflict with dramatic consequences.”
French media, citing a Malian military source, reported in early August that terrorists from the Malian armed separatist groups traveled to Ukraine to receive training there.
Statement on proposed emergency roll-out of vaccine program in Africa for monkeypox
SAVIMS | August 23, 2024
We are deeply concerned about the recent announcements made by Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director General Jean Kaseya on Aug. 13 and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Aug. 14. It is important to address these announcements openly to the public.
In his statements, Kaseya declared regarding monkeypox vaccines:
“We have a clear plan to secure more than 10 million doses in Africa, starting with 3 million doses in 2024.”
We at the South Africa Vaccine Injury Medico-Legal Study-Group (SAVIMS) would like to point out pertinent facts to both institutions and other relevant bodies of interest:
1. There is no prescribed vaccine with documented Level 1 scientific evidence for monkeypox. The current WHO-recommended live virus vaccines, Jynneos and ACAM2000, are:
(a) intended for smallpox and are thus experimental for monkeypox;
(b) have reported serious adverse effects, and;
(c) contain live viral strains which may instigate a resurgence of the eradicated smallpox virus.
2. The potential use of mRNA vaccines. There is no scientific evidence supporting the use of any mRNA vaccine to prevent or mitigate any infectious disease. The observed data of adverse reactions to experimental mRNA vaccines far outweighs any benefit.
3. Informed consent is an ethical concept that is codified in the law and is in daily practice at every healthcare institution. Three fundamental criteria are needed for clinical informed consent: the patient must be competent, adequately informed and not coerced.
It is not possible for any recipient of these vaccines to receive legitimate informed consent based on current research.
4. The article by Allan-Blitz et al., “A position statement on Mpox as a Sexually Transmitted Disease,” concluded that monkeypox is a “sexually transmitted disease.” Preventative measures for this scenario should necessitate and provoke relevant clinical and primary healthcare and education initiatives directed at the high-risk group.
There is no merit in the recommendation of experimental vaccines to the general population.
5. The statistics and analysis, regarding the collated monkeypox data in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries in Africa by the WHO, warrant further investigation and must be independently audited.
The areas in which the highest statistics were collated should detail the criteria for testing, the procedures for testing, equipment sensitivity and specificity, personnel skill, clinical scenarios, and provocation for testing these specific communities. What tests were done to investigate and exclude other diseases, including communicable diseases?
6. There have been no autopsy reports published on the deaths related to monkeypox. The lack of formal documented autopsy, lack of information regarding equipment test sensitivities and specificities, and lack of information on procedures validating random collation of data, further reduces and invalidates the authenticity of the statistics.
SAVIMS position statement regarding emergency monkeypox vaccine rollout in Africa
We have reviewed the literature and analyzed the data on monkeypox, as well as its etiopathogenesis. Based on our understanding of this disease:
1. We do not support the Africa CDC and WHO declaration of a global health emergency for monkeypox.
2. It is established that monkeypox is predominantly a self-limiting condition. This does not warrant vaccine intervention.
3. We strongly object, based on the scientific evidence, to the “emergency” rollout of repurposed smallpox vaccines or any other proposed monkeypox vaccine to the people of Africa.
4. We question the authenticity of the number of deaths associated with monkeypox, as reported by the Africa CDC unless it can be verified through autopsy.
5. We warn members of the public about the inherent risks of taking any vaccine, including those proposed for mpox, of which the effectiveness and safety have not been reliably determined by Level 1 clinical trials. There can be no justification for a vaccine with unknown adverse effects.
6. We urge the public to exercise their inherent human rights to refuse to give consent to any medical intervention that they do not feel comfortable taking.
We are open to dialogue and discussion with the Africa CDC on the issues raised above and on all matters of health and well-being concerning the African population.
SAVIMS is a voluntary multidisciplinary association under the Common Law governed by its members in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The purpose of SAVIMS is to follow the evidence to gain and communicate knowledge about vaccine injuries. This knowledge is necessary for the treatment and counseling of patients with vaccine injuries; as well as for medico-legal report writing and provision of evidence in respect of victims of vaccine injury and in other vaccine-related disputes. The objectives of SAVIMS are to promote human health and human rights as enshrined in the Bill of Rights of South Africa’s Constitution.
What’s Really Happening with Mpox
The Mpox Emergency
By David Bell | Brownstone Institute | August 18, 2024
The World Health Organization (WHO) acted as expected this week and declared Mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). So, a problem in a small number of African countries that has killed about the same number of people this year as die every four hours from tuberculosis has come to dominate international headlines. This is raising a lot of angst from some circles against the WHO.
While angst is warranted, it is mostly misdirected. The WHO and the IHR emergency committee they convened had little real power – they are simply following a script written by their sponsors. The African CDC, which declared an emergency a day earlier, is in a similar position. Mpox is a real disease and needs local and proportionate solutions. But the problem it is highlighting is much bigger than Mpox or the WHO, and understanding this is essential if we are to fix it.
Mpox, previously called Monkeypox, is caused by a virus thought to normally infect African rodents such as rats and squirrels. It fairly frequently passes to, and between, humans. In humans, its effects range from very mild illness to fever and muscle pains to severe illness with its characteristic skin rash, and sometimes death. Different variants, called ‘clades,’ produce slightly different symptoms. It is passed by close body contact including sexual activity, and the WHO declared a PHEIC two years ago for a clade that was mostly passed by men having sex with men.
The current outbreaks involve sexual transmission but also other close contact such as within households, expanding its potential for harm. Children are affected and suffer the most severe outcomes, perhaps due to issues of lower prior immunity and the effects of malnutrition and other illnesses.
Reality in DRC
The current PHEIC was mainly precipitated by the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), though there are known outbreaks in nearby countries covering a number of clades. About 500 people have died from Mpox in DRC this year, over 80% of them under 15 years of age. In that same period, about 40,000 people in DRC, mostly children under 5 years, died from malaria. The malaria deaths were mainly due to lack of access to very basic commodities like diagnostic tests, antimalarial drugs, and insecticidal bed nets, as malaria control is chronically underfunded globally. Malaria is nearly always preventable or treatable if sufficiently resourced.
During this same period in which 500 people died from Mpox in DRC, hundreds of thousands also died in DRC and surrounding African countries from tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and the impacts of malnutrition and unsafe water. Tuberculosis alone kills about 1.3 million people globally each year, which is a rate about 1,500 times higher than Mpox in 2024.
The population of DRC is also facing increasing instability characterized by mass rape and massacres, in part due to a scramble by warlords to service the appetite of richer countries for the components of batteries. These in turn are needed to support the Green Agenda of Europe and North America. This is the context in which the people of DRC and nearby populations, which obviously should be the primary decision-makers regarding the Mpox outbreak, currently live.
An Industry Produces What It Is Paid for
For the WHO and the international public health industry, Mpox presents a very different picture. They now work for a pandemic industrial complex, built by private and political interests on the ashes of international public health. Forty years ago, Mpox would have been viewed in context, proportional to the diseases that are shortening overall life expectancy and the poverty and civil disorder that allows them to continue. The media would barely have mentioned the disease, as they were basing much of their coverage on impact and attempting to offer independent analysis.
Now the public health industry is dependent on emergencies. They have spent the past 20 years building agencies such as CEPI, inaugurated at the 2017 World Economic Forum meeting and solely focused on developing vaccines for pandemic, and on expanding capacity to detect and distinguish ever more viruses and variants. This is supported by the recently passed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).
While improving nutrition, sanitation, and living conditions provided the path to longer lifespans in Western countries, such measures sit poorly with a colonial approach to world affairs in which the wealth and dominance of some countries are seen as being dependent on the continued poverty of others. This requires a paradigm in which decision-making is in the hands of distant bureaucratic and corporate masters. Public health has an unfortunate history of supporting this, with restriction of local decision-making and the pushing of commodities as key interventions.
Thus, we now have thousands of public health functionaries, from the WHO to research institutes to non-government organizations, commercial companies, and private foundations, primarily dedicated to finding targets for Pharma, purloining public funding, and then developing and selling the cure. The entire newly minted pandemic agenda, demonstrated successfully through the Covid-19 response, is based on this approach. Justification for the salaries involved requires detection of outbreaks, an exaggeration of their likely impact, and the institution of a commodity-heavy and usually vaccine-based response.
The sponsors of this entire process – countries with large Pharma industries, Pharma investors, and Pharma companies themselves – have established power through media and political sponsorship to ensure the approach works. Evidence of the intent of the model and the harms it is wreaking can be effectively hidden from public view by a subservient media and publishing industry. But in DRC, people who have long suffered the exploitation of war and the mineral extractors, who replaced a particularly brutal colonial regime, must now also deal with the wealth extractors of Pharma.
Dealing with the Cause
While Mpox is concentrated in Africa, the effects of corrupted public health are global. Bird flu will likely follow the same course as Mpox in the near future. The army of researchers paid to find more outbreaks will do so. While the risk from pandemics is not significantly different than decades ago, there is an industry dependent on making you think otherwise.
As the Covid-19 playbook showed, this is about money and power on a scale only matched by similar fascist regimes of the past. Current efforts across Western countries to denigrate the concept of free speech, to criminalize dissent, and to institute health passports to control movement are not new and are in no way disconnected from the inevitability of the WHO declaring the Mpox PHEIC. We are not in the world we knew twenty years ago.
Poverty and the external forces that benefit from war, and the diseases these enable, will continue to hammer the people of DRC. If a mass vaccination campaign is instituted, which is highly likely, financial and human resources will be diverted from far greater threats. This is why decision-making must now be centralized far from the communities affected. Local priorities will never match those that expansion of the pandemic industry depends on.
In the West, we must move on from blaming the WHO and address the reality unfolding around us. Censorship is being promoted by journalists, courts are serving political agendas, and the very concept of nationhood, on which democracy depends, is being demonized. A fascist agenda is openly promoted by corporate clubs such as the World Economic Forum and echoed by the international institutions set up after the Second World War specifically to oppose it. If we cannot see this and if we do not refuse to participate, then we will have only ourselves to blame. We are voting for these governments and accepting obvious fraud, and we can choose not to do so.
For the people of DRC, children will continue to tragically die from Mpox, from malaria, and from all the diseases that ensure return on investment for distant companies making pharmaceuticals and batteries. They can ignore the pleading of the servants of the White Men of Davos who will wish to inject them, but they cannot ignore their poverty or the disinterest in their opinions. As with Covid-19, they will now become poorer because Google, the Guardian, and the WHO were bought a long time back, and now serve others.
The one real hope is that we ignore lies and empty pronouncements, refusing to bow to unfounded fear. In public health and in society, censorship protects falsehoods and dictates reflect greed for power. Once we refuse to accept either, we can begin to address the problems at the WHO and the inequity it is promoting. Until that time, we will live in this increasingly vicious circus.
David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.
Mali Cuts Ties with Ukraine Over Kiev’s Support for Al-Qaeda
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | August 6, 2024
Mali has severed its diplomatic ties with Ukraine following an attack by the local Al-Qaeda affiliate on Malian forces. Kiev called the move short-sighted.
Late last month, opposition forces, including an al Qaeda affiliate in the Sahel, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), killed scores of Malian soldiers and mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group that is supporting Bamako.
Andriy Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), said Kiev aided JNIM in its assault. “The rebels received the necessary information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals.” An estimated 84 Russian contractors were killed, along with nearly 50 Malian soldiers.
Bakamo expressed “deep shock” over the “subversive remarks” and received the statement as an admission of Kiev’s involvement in the slaughter of its soldiers.
Malian government spokesman Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga denounced Ukraine for supporting JINM. He said Yusov’s remarks confirmed “Ukraine’s involvement in a cowardly, treacherous and barbaric attack by armed terrorist groups.”
“Mali condemns the hostility of the authorities of Ukraine who do not observe that Mali has always called for a peaceful settlement of the crisis between the Russian Federation and Ukraine,” he added.
Kiev responded by claiming Bakamo failed to provide evidence proving Ukraine backed the terrorists. “It is regrettable that … Mali decided to sever … relations … without conducting a thorough study of the facts and circumstances of the incident … and without providing any evidence of Ukraine’s involvement in the said event,” a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.
Kiev added it has the right to take all necessary political and diplomatic retaliations.
Following the 2011 American-backed uprising in Libya that ousted long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, jihadist groups spread into neighboring countries and throughout the African Sahel. In the following decade, Mali experienced several coups as the jihadists destabilized the region.
During the latest coup in 2021, Assimi Goïta swept into power in Bakamo. Part of the policy of the junta has been to expel France, Mali’s long-time colonial ruler. Under Goïta, Mali has stepped up ties with Moscow including the private military firm Wager.
Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali sign treaty to become confederation
Al Mayadeen | July 7, 2024
“This summit marks a decisive step for the future of our common space,” Capt. Ibrahim Traore, the leader of Burkina Faso, wrote on X.
The military-led governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger convened their first joint summit on Saturday in Niamey, the capital of Niger. During this historic meeting, they announced the formation of a confederation of the three Sahel states.
In their inaugural summit since coming to power, the leaders adopted a joint statement outlining a treaty to establish the confederation.
“This summit marks a decisive step for the future of our common space. Together, we will consolidate the foundations of our true independence, a guarantee of true peace and sustainable development through the creation of the ‘Alliance of Sahel States’ Confederation,’” Capt. Ibrahim Traore, the leader of Burkina Faso, wrote on X.
Tensions with ECOWAS persist
The summit appears to signal a departure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Tensions between the Sahel nations and ECOWAS escalated after Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani seized power from the elected President Mohamed Bazoum in a coup in Niger last July. In response, ECOWAS imposed sanctions on Niger and threatened intervention, further straining relations.
“The AES (Alliance of Sahel States) is full of enormous natural potential which, if properly exploited, will guarantee a better future for the people of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso,” said Traore.
“Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS,” stated Tiani to his fellow Sahel leaders.
The three AES countries accuse ECOWAS of being manipulated by former colonial ruler France, with Tiani calling for the new bloc to become a “community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers.”
Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso’s military leaders have all rejected French influence, expelling French troops from their countries and turning instead toward what they call their “sincere partners” – Russia, Turkey, and Iran. They emphasize sovereignty as a guiding principle of their governance and aim to establish a common currency.
Germany to Close Airbase in Niger After Negotiations on Soldiers Immunity Fail – Reports
Sputnik – 07.07.2024
The German armed forces will give up its airbase in Niger, which was used as a military transport hub, by August 31, as the sides failed to extend the agreement concerning the base, German media reported on Saturday, citing the German Defense Ministry.
The talks broke down after the new Nigerien authorities had refused to grant German soldiers with immunity from prosecution, the NTV news outlet reported, citing a document the ministry had presented before the parliament.
Germany expects to withdraw its troops from the country by the end of August as well.
The German military has used the base in Niger’s capital, Niamey since 2013 as a supply center for its armed forces in neighboring Mali, which were stationed there as part of a UN peacekeeping mission.
Nigerien authorities, which took power in a military takeover in July 2023, have since then also terminated military agreements with France and the United States, which led to the French and US forces’ withdrawal from the country.
The WHO pandemic treaty: dead but not buried
BY KEVIN BARDOSH | UNHERD | MAY 28, 2024
As the World Health Assembly began this week in Geneva, it was announced that member states had failed to reach agreement on a new, legally binding pandemic treaty.
Despite not reaching the deadline after more than two years of negotiations, the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, remained confident that the 194 member states would eventually reach an agreement, perhaps in six to 12 months. Health diplomats are also confident that amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) — a parallel set of global governance rules, including a new tiered system to declare a pandemic — will go ahead this week. We will have to wait and see.
Front and centre in the failure of the treaty this week were disputes between the Global North and South regarding pathogen sharing and access to the new tests, treatments and vaccines that would be developed by the pharmaceutical industry in the event of a new pandemic. This rekindled longstanding neocolonial sentiments, especially among African countries, concerned that access to pharmaceutical products would be dependent on fulfilling treaty obligations.
Recent analyses have also shown that, to meet basic targets of the treaty, developing countries would need to heavily invest in pandemic preparedness and response to the tune of some $31 billion per year. This level of financing would take away vital budgets from existing health systems and skew national priorities. Is this really in the best interest of developing countries?
Other criticisms of the treaty have come from US and UK conservatives. Senate Republicans recently called for the Biden administration to reject the treaty and shift focus to “comprehensive WHO reforms that address its persistent failures without expanding its authority”. With US elections set for November, negotiators in Geneva are well aware that Donald Trump may withdraw from the WHO if elected, as he did in 2020. In the UK, Nigel Farage also came out against the treaty, expressing concern about future WHO-supported lockdowns: “The WHO can be a force for good in the world, but only if it returns to its noble principles and core objectives.”
Yet the WHO has vehemently rejected any concerns about the treaty infringing on “national sovereignty”, previously calling them “fake news, lies, and conspiracy theories”. Mainstream news outlets — from the New York Times to Reuters — have reiterated these talking points. Recent articles in Health Policy Watch called for critics, or rather “spreaders of disinformation”, to be treated like an “organised crime” network. Any legitimate criticism is unwelcome.
Those in global health leadership want bolder steps to manage the “infodemic”. But advocates of the treaty have regularly engaged in misinformation themselves. Take, for example, a recent video from former UK prime minister Gordon Brown, now WHO Ambassador for Global Health Financing. In the video, Brown makes the bold claim that “the world needs agreement on the pandemic accord” since “no one is safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere”. The latter statement is a perfect illustration of the propaganda tools used by governments in the name of “health” during Covid: utopian, illogical, and Orwellian.
The negotiations and media framing of them, therefore, represent the cultural ethos of biosecurity, which prioritises “making the world safer” (security) over all other values and, given our collective experiences during Covid, basic principles of logic and Western democratic norms.
The WHO is also, this week, seeking an unprecedented increase of its budget by $7 billion over four years to respond to crises. Yet the organisation has failed to conduct a serious post-mortem of the failures of the Covid pandemic response. Instead, media outlets and health authorities complain about “mistrust” and “populism” without any mention of the harms of vaccine mandates and coercive and ineffective lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates, and other Covid measures. We must march forward into a global treaty, no questions asked.
Yet this problem is now systemic in global public health. Many preeminent Covid evaluation reports are deeply flawed. A recent paper called the UK Royal Society’s assessment, published last year, “irrelevant and weak from a methodological point of view but also dangerously misleading in terms of policymaking. This is how misinformation occurs.”
Many countries, the UK and US included, are still in the process of evaluating their Covid response. Others have none planned. It seems more than reasonable that the global public health community should first be obliged to take a serious, evidence-based look at just how wrong the experts got it from 2020-22. But to do that, we need the WHO to be less concerned about fighting “conspiracy theorists” and “far-Right nationalists” and more concerned about earning back the trust of the world’s public. It will be a long road ahead.
Kevin Bardosh is a research professor and Director of Research for Collateral Global, a UK-based charity dedicated to understanding the collateral impacts of Covid policies worldwide.
Featured Video
The Destruction of Libya in 2011
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Review
On Herd Mentality
By Jeb Smith | April 14, 2026
I no longer trust “we the people,” because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires.
In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.
Media’s purpose is to conform people’s thought to a preferred goal, which is why Republican and Democratic voters both firmly hold their parties’ general stances, reciting the same talking points. The people do not originate ideas; their thoughts are fed to them by the media so they can consume, digest, and parrot back whatever they are served. When it comes to politics, we rarely think for ourselves. We are told what to think.
Watch PBS, MSNBC and read your local newspaper for six months, and you will receive a particular view and understanding of the world. Then listen to The Mike Church Show, The Blaze, and The Daily Wire, and you will get not just another perspective but a whole different world of facts and events. The world people believe they live in can be entirely different depending on their news sources.
We enjoy seeing the enemy humiliated, which describes why those engulfed in politics love their preferred media sources; they keep returning for more like a drug addict. Networks ensure their “experts” align with the worldview they and their audience desire. The people who watch PBS, BBC, and so forth expect a specific perspective to be presented. Fox News watchers demand the same. In doing this, we both encourage and assure we are misled.
In their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, professors Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels argue, based on substantial research, that voters do not decide the party platform and agenda. Instead, the parties control the “ideologies” of the voters. When the party the voter identifies with changes its position, the individuals also change theirs. They discovered the individual would quickly adopt the views of their group; they will ignore or change their own opinions over time to fit in with the collective they identify with. Achen and Bartels wrote “group memberships largely drove policy views, not vice versa.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Italy suspends defense deal with ‘Israel’ over war on Iran, Lebanon
- Indonesia Agrees to Receive Oil, Gas Supplies From Russia – Indonesian Energy Ministry
- Saudi Arabia Urges US Back to Iran Talks as Other Oil Routes Face Risk
- Iran demands reparations from Arab states
- Tankers transit Strait of Hormuz amid US attempt to impose blockade, data shows
- US Strikes Kill Five in Alleged Pacific Anti-drug Campaign
- EU Defense Agency head says compulsory military service could be necessary
- France To Vote On Bill That Would Criminalize Criticism Of Israel
- There are No Ceasefires with Israel, Only Opportunities for Later Attacks
- China to Ignore Trump’s Blockade: The Strait Remains Open to Us
- If Americans Knew
- ‘Not Acceptable’: President of Iran Condemns Trump For His ‘Desecration of Jesus, the Prophet of Peace’
- We Are the Barbarians
- Netanyahu Says the Trump Administration Gives Him Reports on Iran Talks Every Day
- Second Contractor Steps Forward to Blow the Whistle on Israeli Attacks at Gaza Aid Site
- Mighty Israel wants all of its neighbors to be defenseless – Daily Update
- Emergency waivers move arms for Israel, UAE to speed lane
- Caitlin Johnstone: Nobody’s “Obsessed” With Israel — It’s Just A Uniquely Horrible Country
- Israel’s Ben Gvir says he feels like the ‘owner’ of Al-Aqsa Mosque
- History of flotilla campaigns to end Israel’s siege of Gaza
- Humanitarian Scorecard: Six Months In, Gaza Ceasefire is Failing
- No Tricks Zone
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
Aletho News 