Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Hamas calls on 18 countries signing hostage release initiative to expose Israel’s crimes

MEMO | April 27, 2024

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas expressed its regret over the statement issued by the White House, signed by 18 countries, calling for the release of the hostages in the Gaza Strip.

The movement conveyed on Friday that the statement: “Did not address basic issues for our people who are suffering under the burden of a comprehensive genocidal war and did not stress the need for a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip. This is in addition to the ambiguity surrounding other issues.”

Hamas stressed that it is: “Open to any ideas or proposals that take into account the just needs and rights of our people, represented by a complete cessation of the aggression against them, the withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, the unconditional and unrestricted return of the displaced, reconstruction, lifting the siege, and moving forward with reaching a serious prisoner exchange deal through the Palestinian people receiving their full legitimate national rights by self-determination, and establishing their independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Hamas called on the US administration, the countries that signed the statement and the international community: “To lift the lid on the crime of genocide committed by the Zionist enemy against children and defenceless civilians in the Gaza Strip, and to put pressure to end it, as an urgent priority.”

On Thursday, 18 countries called for an end to the crisis in the Gaza Strip and the establishment of peace and stability in the region.

This came in a joint statement on behalf of the leaders of the US, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and the UK, published on the White House website.

The statement demanded: “The immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for over 200 days. They include our own citizens. The fate of the hostages and the civilian population in Gaza, who are protected under international law, is of international concern.”

The countries’ leaders who signed the statement emphasised that: “The deal on the table to release the hostages would bring an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza,” without mentioning the deal’s details.

April 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

US to Allocate $40Mln in Defense Aid to Argentina Wishing to Be NATO’s Partner – Embassy

Sputnik – 19.04.2024

The United States will allocate $40 million to support defense modernization of Argentina, which has declared its intention to become NATO’s global partner, the US Embassy in Buenos Aires said.

On Thursday, Argentine Defense Minister Luis Alfonso Petri said that Buenos Aires wanted to become NATO’s global partner and had already submitted a corresponding request. NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana welcomed the request, saying that closer political and practical cooperation could benefit both parties.

“The United States is proud to announce that it is providing $40 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to support Argentina’s defense modernization,” the embassy said in a statement released on Thursday.

The diplomatic mission noted that such support is provided only to the US’s important partners.

Argentina will be able to purchase defense products, training services, and improve interaction thanks to US military aid. The funds will also contribute to Argentina’s purchase of F-16 fighter jets, the statement read.

In November 2023, Javier Milei won the runoff presidential election in Argentina. During the presidential campaign, Milei spoke against joining BRICS and cooperating with China, Brazil and Russia, and advocated a foreign policy oriented toward Israel and the United States.

April 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

‘Unsubstantiated’: Iran rejects Argentine court’s blaming for AMIA bombing

Press TV – April 17, 2024

The spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed a ruling by an Argentine court that blames Iran for two bombing attacks in the country during the 1990s, labeling the claims in the verdict as unsubstantiated and politically motivated.

“From Iran’s perspective, the court’s involvement in the AMIA building explosion case and its final judgment on the motives and primary causes of the blast is premature and lacks legal-judicial wisdom,” Nasser Kanaani said on Wednesday.

He was referencing a recent ruling by Argentina’s Court of Cassation, which attributed responsibility for the dual attacks on Israel’s embassy and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish center in Buenos Aires to Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.

The ruling, as reported by the press, alleged that Iran orchestrated the 1992 attack on Israel’s embassy and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA center.

The spokesperson argued that the ruling represents an effort to misdirect the investigation’s course to uncover the truth, as the case regarding the explosions is currently under review in another court.

“This demonstrates the execution of a new political project by the adversaries of the Islamic Republic of Iran, notably the Zionist regime,” he asserted.

The spokesperson highlighted that for the past thirty years, Iran has endorsed any constructive initiative to ascertain the truth behind the incident, including signing a memorandum of understanding with the Argentine government to establish a joint investigative commission.

“Unfortunately, the aforementioned actions have remained fruitless and have not achieved any result due to actions by those who have not sought to discover the truth and have always sacrificed the execution of justice for their political and partisan objectives within Argentina,” he said.

The spokesperson cautioned that the Israeli regime has repeatedly tried to shift focus from its genocide in Gaza, insinuating that it may have influenced the recent ruling.

“It is evident to all that in recent months, the Zionist regime has faced global condemnation for committing war crimes and the heinous killing of civilians, particularly Palestinian children and women in the Gaza Strip … [and is attempting] to distract the international community from its offenses in various ways.”

The 1992 and 1994 bombings in Argentina remain unclaimed and unresolved, although Israel has persistently accused Iran of involvement.

Argentina has cultivated strong ties with Israel under President Javier Milei, who has emerged as a fervent supporter of the regime.

Milei has backed the Israeli regime’s continued actions against Gaza, in contrast to most other Latin American leaders who have either cut ties with the regime or withdrawn their envoys from Tel Aviv.

Milei also recently declared that Argentina would join the few countries that have relocated their embassy in the Israeli-occupied territories from Tel Aviv to Al-Quds.

April 17, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , , | 2 Comments

Kissinger & the Americas: How the US Built Order ‘on The Ashes of Genocide’

Sputnik – December 3, 2023

“A huge loss.” “A cherished friend and mentor.” “His appointment said as much about his greatness as it did America’s greatness.” Tributes are pouring in after the death of Henry Kissinger, America’s best known diplomat.

Kissinger died Wednesday at the age of 100 at his home in Kent, Connecticut. Having served as US Secretary of State for eight years under the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon, Kissinger strove to maintain global US dominance during a time when it was in doubt. His influence molded America’s foreign policy for years to come.

But not everyone celebrates the empire built by the highly consequential statesman.

An Argentine speaks with Sputnik about how her family was affected.

Guillermo Montes (right) pictured next to his brother (left), the father of Agustina Montes © Courtesy of Agustina Montes

“What it really is, is a kingdom built on the ashes of genocide,” said Agustina Montes in an interview with Sputnik.

Montes is an Argentine citizen now living in New Zealand. Inflation neared 150% in her home country last month amidst an economic crisis that’s wreaked havoc on Argentina for half a decade.

Compounding the financial disruption, Montes sees an Argentine society still torn apart by its recent history.

“Genocide denialism is at an all time high,” laments the 37-year-old. “With the elections in Argentina, it’s more pressing than ever. Politicians make barely veiled threats about military uprising. We know what that can mean.”

Argentina’s vice president-elect Victoria Villarruel has downplayed the brutality of the South American country’s seven-year military dictatorship. Villarruel made headlines last month when she criticized UNESCO’s decision to declare Buenos Aires’ ESMA Navy school a World Heritage site. Tens of thousands passed through the facility before being tortured or killed.

Among them were Montes’ uncles, Miguel and Guillermo.

Reorganization

The “National Reorganization Process” was the benign name for the regime that seized power in 1976.

Argentines knew it was a military dictatorship. They’d seen several throughout the 20th century. If the generals sought to “reorganize” Argentine society it was through the barrel of a gun.

Amid the violence, one figure in Washington provided Argentina’s new rulers with the legitimacy they craved.

“We have followed events in Argentina closely,” said then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the country’s new foreign minister Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti. “We wish the new government well. We wish it will succeed. We will do what we can to help it succeed.”

“If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly.”

Photograph taken on April 29, 1975 in Washington of the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. © AFP 2023 / GENE FORTE

For the junta, the things that had to be done were kidnapping, torture, and murder. The regime faced pressure from armed resistance groups. Some of them aligned with charismatic former President Juan Perón. Many were socialists. The regime was intent on snuffing them out.

“I have a ‘desaparecido’ on each side of my family,” Montes told Sputnik, using the Spanish term for people who vanished during that period. “My dad’s brother Guillermo and my mum’s brother Miguel Angel.”

“Miguel Angel Fiorito – Milan to his family – was taken on July 12th, 1976, so pretty early in the dictatorship. My uncle was 21 and very idealistic, I’ve been told he was very funny and warm. He worked in the villas, or slums, and had a very keen sense of social justice.”

“Guillermo Montes was my dad’s brother. He was a bit older when he was taken, about 27 or 28. He made it to 1977. He was a massive man, called ‘the Yeti’ by his companions. He went to work one day and never came back.”

Left: Miguel Angel Fiorito, Right: Guillermo Montes © Courtesy of Agustina Montes

In the repressive fog of the time, “disappeared” became the euphemism for those who fell prey to the reorganization. The word was terrifying as much because of the uncertainty it implied as anything else. Families rarely received closure. “The army never spoke,” says Montes.

Parents throughout the country sought answers. The Madres de Plaza de Mayo was formed when a group of mothers came together in Buenos Aires’ central square. The group became known for their unique form of silent protest, wearing white headscarves symbolizing the cloth diapers of their disappeared children.

Montes said her grandmother knew of the Madres, but “she lacked the political beliefs they had. She loved her son but didn’t believe that what he had done was right.”

Politics provoked sharp divisions in Argentine society in those days.

“My mum’s family was pretty pro-dictatorship up until that point [that Miguel was kidnapped],” says Montes, “mostly because they were anti-Perón.” Montes explained that Miguel began Argentina’s required military service in March of 1976.

“He was also a part of the Montoneros, one of the leftist anti-dictatorship movements. Growing up in the ‘90s, where the rhetoric was that everyone involved in the guerrilla was a terrorist, I had a deep sense of shame about this. We did not discuss politics in my house.”

“My uncles were very present ghosts but we would not talk about them.”

The Chilean Method

The divisions within Montes’ family mirrored those throughout Latin America. Cuba’s revolution sent shockwaves across the region with the reverberations felt at the highest echelons of American power. They only intensified as grassroots movements approached political legitimacy.

Washington’s worst fears were realized in 1970, when the socialist Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile.

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people,” said Kissinger during a closed-door meeting with Nixon. “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

The CIA immediately went to work destabilizing Allende’s democratic government, infiltrating Chile’s trade unions, provoking strikes, fomenting opposition within the military. Within three years Allende was overthrown in a military coup backed by Kissinger. The country’s new leader General Augusto Pinochet declared war on the left, and Santiago’s national soccer stadium was filled with dissidents waiting to be tortured, jailed, and killed.

Nixon’s embrace of Pinochet was justified under the Cold War banner of anticommunism. Socialists, democratically-elected as they may be, were also simply bad for business as it turned out. Concerned about their investments in Chile, the US-based International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation funneled millions of dollars toward forces plotting Allende’s downfall.

Three years later, Argentina’s military government sought a similar approach to repress opposition. “Their theory is that they can use the Chilean method,” aide Harry Shlaudeman informed Kissinger in 1976. “That is, to terrorize the opposition – even killing priests and nuns and others.”

By then an axis of dictatorship stretched across the Southern Cone, with American-backed juntas in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, and now Argentina. Under the coordination of the US Central Intelligence Agency the governments coordinated their efforts in a campaign of state terror known as Operation Condor.

“I don’t remember the first time I heard or read his name,” said Montes of Kissinger. “My family didn’t speak about this, and back then this whole period of Argentine history was completely erased from history classes at school.”

“I think of his name in proximity to the names of our dictators: Videla, Massera. Kissinger, the CIA, ‘Plan Condor.’ Like shadowy figures behind it all.”
Montes is likewise unsure about what drew her uncles towards issues of social justice.

“They didn’t get that from their families,” she insisted. “None of my grandparents were particularly socialist, quite the contrary. I believe they saw the disparities, the injustice all around them. But they were both middle class. My mum always says Miguel would give the clothes off his back if it meant helping someone else.”

The Latin American left was a diverse array of forces. Some admired the guerrilla tactics of Che Guevara. Others simply advocated for Western European-style labor reforms. Still, others professed Liberation Theology, a strain of Catholicism that stressed concern for the poor.

But after Cuba’s popular uprising against US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista trended towards socialism, any movement from below could be suppressed in the name of fighting the communist threat.

“Some people still say that my uncles and others like them were terrorists,” claims Montes, “that they did all sorts of horrible things, bombed child care centers and schools. Where is the evidence of that?”

“And if they did, why did the military – that was in control of the government, the police and the judicial system – not put them through a trial and in jail? Why did they disappear them and destroy any evidence and witnesses of what they allegedly did?”

Miguel and Guillermo stood firm by their beliefs, even as the military consolidated its rule.

“There is resentment towards them from my parents and grandparents,” says Montes. “They both could have escaped Argentina. They chose to stay knowing what could happen to them.”

Heaven and Earth

Kissinger stayed on as secretary of state through 1977. Then-US President Jimmy Carter continued to support the junta until the following year; when he moved to end arms transfers, Kissinger registered his opposition by attending the 1978 World Cup in Argentina as the personal guest of dictator Jorge Videla.

US relations with the regime were restored and expanded after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 as the CIA sought their assistance in training Central American death squads.

Lieutenant General Videla’s government shaped up to be perhaps the most repressive of all those of the Condor era. Of the 60,000 who were killed across the continent, it’s estimated that around half of them were Argentines.

Montes’ grandparents were determined to make sure Miguel and Guillermo weren’t among them.

“[Miguel] was taken and my grandma, who was also widowed around that time, started moving ‘heaven and earth,’ as we say, to find him,” she said. “She was threatened by police and even by the church when she went there, they told her she would end up just like him.”

“My parents met through their mothers’ – my grannies’ – fight to find out what happened to their sons. I used to think it was a very romantic story when I was a child. But the reality is that two very broken people met each other because of one of the most horrific things that happened to them.”

The final years of the dictatorship saw mounting economic instability. The military attempted to distract from the matter by waging war against the United Kingdom for control of the Falkland Islands. When they failed, the days of the junta were numbered.

Liberal democracy was restored in 1983. Time went by, but Miguel and Guillermo were still gone. President Carlos Menem’s pardon of the junta leaders six years later suggested a desire to forget about the nightmare of Argentina’s Dirty War.

It was only in 2003, when new investigations were opened, that the relatives of Argentina’s desaparecidos finally saw the potential to receive some closure. For Montes’ family the process would take over a decade.

“We didn’t get to find out what happened to my uncles until very recently, almost 40 years after the fact,” says Montes. “The only reason we know what happened is because of witnesses, people that survived, who saw them.”

In that moment Miguel and Guillermo reappeared, but only in memory as Montes’ family imagined their tragic last days.

“They were both taken to the same concentration camp, the ESMA. Miguel Angel was tortured with electricity until he died. We don’t know what happened after, his body was likely burned.”

“Guillermo was able to survive the electric torture. He was drugged and put on a plane, and dropped alive in the River Plate.”

Very Present Ghosts

Montes recounts the horrible toll of her uncles’ kidnappings on her family.

“My mum was around 14 years old when her brother disappeared and her dad died. That family was destroyed… Most of the people this happened to have been destroyed: mentally, physically. My parents have had substance abuse issues, mental health issues.”

“A lot of people in my country want us to ‘move on’ from what happened, to stop talking about it. But how can you do that when the collective trauma still remains?”

Montes now feels much differently about her uncles – especially Miguel, who she’s heard many stories about.

“I have since learned a lot about my uncle and believe he was an incredible man. It feels weird to say, when he died at 21. But what made Miguel and Guillermo literally give their lives for what they believed in? I don’t know. I wish I got to meet them, to talk to them.”

Young Miguel Angel Fiorito as an infant (left) and young boy (right) © Courtesy of Agustina Montes

Among the many condolences and the judicious praise of Kissinger as a friend, a pioneer, and even a peacemaker, the eulogy of former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk may contain the most truth: “He was deeply skeptical of those who would aim to try to achieve a peaceful world. He was much more focused on establishing order because order was more reliable than peace.”

“I’m not surprised,” responded Montes. “Order for most, freedom for few.”

And what about George Bush’s comment, that Kissinger was a symbol of “America’s greatness?”

“I feel like they are saying the quiet part out loud. He is a symbol of America’s imperialism,” says Montes.

“Living in South America – and I’m sure this is true of many other so-called ‘Third World countries’ – we get sold this glossy idea of the US, you know? The Land of the Free, of Opportunity, of Freedom and Dreams.”

“I used to be enamored with the US! I grew up watching US TV shows and movies. I learned English from watching ‘Friends.’ It’s only when you grow up a bit that you start seeing it for what it is.”

The Palestinian American scholar Edward Said once remarked:

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort.

And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.

When asked about the influence of the junta – and that of Kissinger and the United States – Montes is unequivocal.

“Their legacy is seen in the poverty in the villas, in the sunken eyes of hungry kids all over the world, in the missing but remembered, in the children of women who were taken that we are still looking for. It’s still very much there.”

But Montes doesn’t think the final chapter has been written in the story of Latin America. “I wholeheartedly believe in justice.”

December 3, 2023 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Argentina convicts vice-president of corruption

RT | December 6, 2022

Argentina’s sitting Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was found guilty of corruption on Tuesday and sentenced to six years in prison, along with a lifelong ban on holding public office going forward. She will remain free until the end of her term, however, due to immunity.

The federal court in Buenos Aires rendered the verdict after three and a half years of proceedings involving more than 100 witnesses. Kirchner, 69, was accused of taking bribes and having an “illicit association” with a construction magnate during her 2007-2015 presidency. Prosecutors had sought a 12-year sentence.

Kirchner has been vice president and head of the Argentinian senate since December 2019, and can only be stripped of immunity with an unlikely two-thirds vote in the chamber. She also has the option to appeal the verdict to the supreme court.

Tuesday’s verdict is the first time a sitting vice president in Argentina was sentenced for wrongdoing while in office. Kirchner’s Vice President Amado Boudou, as well as Presidents Carlos Menem and Fernando de la Rua, had all been convicted after leaving their posts.

Kirchner had denied all charges and called the process politically charged and ridden with irregularities. Within minutes of the verdict, she said it went beyond “lawfare.”

“This is a parallel state and judicial mafia, and the confirmation of a parastatal system where decisions are made about the life, patrimony and freedom of all Argentines outside the electoral results,” she said.

Kirchner succeeded her late husband Neastor (2003-2007) as president, and was suspected of directing millions in public works funds to Lázaro Baez, a businessman who was a friend of the couple.

After Kirchner left office in 2015, she was also charged with setting a fraudulently low price for dollar-denominated futures, but later acquitted. Another indictment charged her with treason, but was later dropped, while a claim that she had made a secret pact with Iran to protect the alleged perpetrators of a 1994 terrorist bombing was thrown out by another federal court in October 2021.

President Alberto Fernandez backed Kirchner, calling the investigation into her “political” in nature. The next presidential election in Argentina is in 11 months, and it was widely believed Kirchner would run for the post again, though no official announcements have been made.

Kirchner is seen as the most influential figure inside Argentina’s ruling Justicialist Party, founded by Juan and Eva Peron in 1946. Her son Maximo leads the ruling majority bloc in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Argentinian parliament.

December 6, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

‘US-led effort to isolate Russia failed’

Samizdat – August 5, 2022

The US-led drive to isolate Russia through sanctions has not succeeded, as half the countries in the Group of Twenty leading global economies refused to sign on, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

According to the publication, senior officials from leading Western nations are surprised by the lack of support within the wider G20, despite their efforts to make the case for restrictions against Russia.

Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey have not joined the sanctions that were adopted by the US, UK, EU, and their allies Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Some nations, like China and South Africa, have openly criticized the restrictions. The G20 nations account for around 85% of global economic output.

According to Bloomberg, the reasons for the lack of support include strong trade ties, historical affinities to Moscow, and a distrust of former colonial powers.

August 5, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

US asks Argentina to confiscate aircraft linked to Iran

MEMO | August 3, 2022

The US Department of Justice said on Tuesday that it has asked the government in Buenos Aires for permission to seize an Iranian plane that was sold to new owners in Venezuela but is being held in Argentina on suspicion of being linked to international terrorist groups.

The unannounced arrival of the plane in Argentina on 8 June raised concerns within the Argentinian government about its relations with Iran, Venezuela and companies that the US has imposed sanctions on. The Justice Department said that the seizure request followed the disclosure of a warrant in the District Court for the District of Columbia dated 19 July to take the aircraft for violating export control laws.

According to the department, the US-made Boeing 747-300 is under sanctions because Iran’s Mahan Air sale to Emtrasur last year violated US export laws. Both companies are subject to US sanctions over their alleged cooperation with terrorist organisations.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said that, “The department will not tolerate transactions that violate our sanctions and export laws.” Mahan Air faces sanctions for its ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which the US has listed as a terrorist organisation.

There were 14 Venezuelans and five Iranians travelling on the aircraft when it landed in Buenos Aires. Seven of the passengers are still being held by the Argentinian authorities.

August 3, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Iran and Argentina apply to join BRICS

Samizdat | June 27, 2022

The Islamic Republic of Iran has officially submitted its application to join the group of five emerging economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, the foreign ministry in Tehran announced on Monday. The move comes after the Iranian president addressed the BRICS summit last week.

While BRICS is not a treaty bloc, it has a “very creative mechanism with broad aspects,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday, according to the Tasnim news agency. He added that Tehran has already had “a series of consultations” with BRICS about the application.

Iran’s membership would “add value” for everyone involved, said Khatibzadeh, noting that BRICS members account for up to 30% of the world’s GDP and 40% of the global population.

On Friday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addressed the BRICS virtual summit hosted by China, and expressed Tehran’s readiness to share its capabilities and potentials with the group.

Argentina has also applied to join BRICS. President Alberto Fernandez on Friday urged the creation of cooperation mechanisms that could represent the alternative to ostensibly private institutions run by – and in the interest of – the West.

During the session on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the five-member group was working on setting up a new global reserve currency “based on a basket of currencies of our countries.”

June 27, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | 1 Comment

Argentina Requests BRICS Membership

Samizdat – 24.06.2022

Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández requested BRICS membership for his country during the 14th summit of the international organization, which the Argentinian leader attended among other high-ranking guests.

“We aspire to be a full member of this group of nations that already represents 42% of the world’s population and 24% of the global gross product”, the president said.

Fernández noted that his country could supplement the union of five countries as a reliable supplier of food, as well as a recognized player in the field of biotechnology and logistics. He further stressed Argentina’s ability to train specialists in various fields, as well as provide various services on the international scale.

The president expressed an eagerness for his country to join the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) during its 14th summit, which is taking place in a videoconference format this year. It formally kicked off on June 22 and has continued through June 24.

Its members meet to discuss acute political and economic trends and mildly coordinate their own political and economic policies. They also discussed how to jointly navigate the currents of global trade and exercise their considerable influence (24% of global GDP) to change them.

June 24, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | 1 Comment

Plan Puma: When Argentina Ran Military Drills at the Behest of the US to Invade Venezuela

By Julian Cola | MintPress News | March 1, 2022

BUENOS AIRES – Argentina’s Defense Minister Jorge Tayana and his Venezuelan counterpart, Minister of People’s Power for Defense Vladimir Padrino López, have agreed to cooperate in pursuing their investigation of Puma, a series of military exercises conducted in Argentina in 2019 with the aim of invading Venezuela and overthrowing the government. The military drills – which were overseen by Argentina’s former rapid deployment force army commander and current head of the army, General Juan Martín Paleo – were undertaken between April and July 2019, during the presidency of Mauricio Macri.

“As an active member of the Lima Group, Macri’s government demonstrated an interventionist attitude in relation to Venezuela,” said Tayana.

With the overall goal of overthrowing the Bolivarian Revolution, the objective of the military drills was to train a swift action battalion ready and available to the U.S. military’s Southern Command. Seven military exercises were conducted at the Campo de Mayo garrison and by videoconference. Participants included Córdoba’s Parachute Brigade, the Tenth Mechanized Infantry Brigade of La Pampa, and commandos from Argentina’s Special Operations Force, also located in Córdoba. After the initial incursion into Venezuelan territory, a multinational task force would follow to provide military support and consolidate the occupation.

The Communist Party of Argentina has called for Paleo’s removal.

Revealed by Argentinean journalist Horacio Verbitsky, operation Puma also uncovered maps of Venezuela with military installations and positions. Not so unassuming codewords and acronyms were used to describe different countries in the region. “South America is called South Patagonia. Venezuela is referred to as Volcano and its officials in conflict are NM and JG, otherwise, Nicolás Maduro and Juan Guaidó,” said Verbitsky. The map also showed Colombia referred to as “Ceres”; the two Guyanas and Suriname are “Tellus”; Brazil is “Febo”; Peru and Ecuador are “Fauno”; Chile is “Juno”; Uruguay is “Baco”; and Paraguay and Bolivia are nonexistent.

It also has been noted that the first Puma military exercises were conducted in April 2019, just 15 days prior to Operation Liberty, a failed attempt to seize a military base east of Caracas. The operation was coordinated by the disgraced former president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaidó, and opposition figurehead Leopoldo López.

WITHDRAWAL FROM LIMA GROUP

Macri was a regional head of state who recognized Guaidó as president of Venezuela. He also was a signer to the Organization of American States’ (OAE) Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. During heightened tensions against the Venezuelan government, this treaty made it permissible to activate the armed forces of regional countries if any member state suffered an attack.

Venezuela’s National Assembly has approved an agreement, signed by the government and opposition, on three principal aspects regarding the protection of its national territory: (1) Coordinate and reject any pretense of military intervention; (2) Incentivize investigations to determine responsibility and impose sanctions on those who attempt to undermine or weaken the national territory; (3) Strengthen internal laws related to security and defense of the national territory.

Argentina’s current president, Alberto Fernández, withdrew from the Lima Group in March 2021. “The Republic of Argentina has formalized its withdrawal from the so-called Lima Group, considering the actions promoted by the group internationally, to isolate Venezuela and its representatives, have achieved nothing,” noted Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The official press release also stated that the Lima Group was composed of “Venezuelan opposition members,” as if they were equal parties to the group. Their presence has “led to the adoption of positions that our government can’t undertake and will not support.”

Established by 13 countries – including Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru – with support from the United States, the Lima Group’s stated purpose is to “denounce the rupture of the democratic order in Venezuela.” Despite not officially being a participating member, the U.S. government attended several Lima Group conferences via videoconference.

“In May 2019, as Paleo commanded the second and third sessions of the Argentine Armed Forces exercise to invade Venezuela,” said Verbitsky, “[t]he (U.S.) Southern Command published” a white paper entitled “Enduring Promise for the Americas.” The publication of the document coincided not only with Operation Puma military drills but also an official visit by the Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, Craig Faller, to Argentina in June 2019. During his stay, the career military official convened with Venezuela’s former Minister of Defense Oscar Aguad to discuss issues involving cyber-defense, narco-trafficking, and organized crime.

March 2, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 1 Comment

Update on ivermectin for covid-19

By Sebastian Rushworth, M.D. | May 9, 2021

Back in January I wrote an article about four randomized controlled trials of ivermectin as a treatment for covid-19 that had at that time released their results to the public. Each of those four trials had promising results, but each was also too small individually to show any meaningful impact on the hard outcomes we really care about, like death. When I meta-analyzed them together however, the results suddenly appeared very impressive. Here’s what that meta-analysis looked like:

It showed a massive 78% reduction in mortality in patients treated with covid-19. Mortality is the hardest of hard end points, which means it’s the hardest for researchers to manipulate and therefore the least open to bias. Either someone’s dead, or they’re alive. End of story.

You would have thought that this strong overall signal of benefit in the midst of a pandemic would have mobilized the powers that be to arrange multiple large randomized trials to confirm these results as quickly as possible, and that the major medical journals would be falling over each other to be the first to publish these studies.

That hasn’t happened.

Rather the opposite, in fact. South Africa has even gone so far as to ban doctors from using ivermectin on covid-19 patients. And as far as I can tell, most of the discussion about ivermectin in mainstream media (and in the medical press) has centred not around its relative merits, but more around how its proponents are clearly deluded tin foil hat wearing crazies who are using social media to manipulate the masses.

In spite of this, trial results have continued to appear. That means we should now be able to conclude with even greater certainty whether or not ivermectin is effective against covid-19. Since there are so many of these trials popping up now, I’ve decided to limit the discussion here only to the ones I’ve been able to find that had at least 150 participants, and that compared ivermectin to placebo (although I’ll add even the smaller trials I’ve found in to the updated meta-analysis at the end).

As before, it appears that rich western countries have very little interest in studying ivermectin as a treatment for covid. The three new trials that had at least 150 participants and compared ivermectin with placebo were conducted in Colombia, Iran, and Argentina. We’ll go through each in turn.

The Colombian trial (Lopez-Medina et al.) was published in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) in March. There is one thing that is rather odd with this study, and that is that the study authors were receiving payments from Sanofi-Pasteur, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Janssen, Merck, and Gilead while conducting the study. Gilead makes remdesivir. Merck is developing two expensive new drugs to treat covid-19. Janssen, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, and Sanofi-Pasteur are all developers of covid vaccines. In other words, the authors of the study were receiving funding from companies that own drugs that are direct competitors to ivermectin. One might call this a conflict of interest, and wonder whether the goal of the study was to show a lack of benefit. It’s definitely a little bit suspicious.

Anyway, let’s get to what the researchers actually did. This was a double-blind randomized controlled trial that recruited patients with mildly symptomatic covid-19 who had experienced symptom onset less than 7 days earlier. Potential participants were identified through a statewide database of people with positive PCR-tests. By “mildly symptomatic” the researchers meant people who had at least one symptom but who did not require high-flow oxygen at the time of recruitment in to the trial.

Participants in the treatment group received 300 ug/kg body weight of ivermectin every day for five days, while participants in the placebo group received an identical placebo. 300 ug/kg works out to 21 mg for an average 70 kg adult, which is quite high, especially when you consider that the dose was given daily for five days. For an average person, this would work out to a total dose of 105 mg. The other ivermectin trials have mostly given around 12 mg per day for one or two days, for a total dose of 12 to 24 mg (which has been considered enough because ivermectin has a long half-life in the body). Why this study gave such a high dose is unclear. However, it shouldn’t be a problem. Ivermectin is a very safe drug, and studies have been done where people have been given ten times the recommended dose without any noticeable increase in adverse events.

The stated goal of the study was to see if ivermectin resulted in more rapid symptom resolution than placebo. So participants were contacted by telephone every three days after inclusion in the study, up to day 21, and asked about what symptoms they were experiencing.

398 patients were included in the study. The median age of the participants was 37 years, and they were overall very healthy. 79% had no known co-morbidities. This is a shame. It means that this study is yet another one of those many studies that will not be able to show a meaningful effect on hard end points like hospitalization and death. It is a bit strange that studies keep being done on young healthy people who are at virtually zero risk from covid-19, rather than on the multi-morbid elderly, who are the ones we actually need an effective treatment for.

Anyway, let’s get to the results.

In the group treated with ivermectin, the average time from inclusion in the study to becoming completely symptom free was 10 days. In the placebo group that number was 12 days. So, the ivermectin treated patients recovered on average two days faster. However, the difference was not statistically significant, so the result could easily be due to chance. At 21 days after inclusion in the study, 82% had recovered fully in the ivermectin group, as compared to 79% in the placebo group. Again, the small difference was not statistically significant.

In terms of the hard end points that matter more, there were zero deaths in the ivermectin group and there was one death in the placebo group. 2% of participants in the ivermectin group required “escalation of care” (hospitalization if they were outside the hospital at the start of the study, or oxygen therapy if they were in hospital at the start of the study) as compared with 5% in the placebo group. None of these differences was statistically significant. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t real. Like I wrote earlier, the fact that this was a study of healthy young people meant that, even if a meaningful difference does exist in risk of dying of covid, or of ending up in hospital, this study was never going to find it.

So, what can we conclude?

Ivermectin does not meaningfully shorten duration of symptoms in healthy young people. That’s about all we can say from this study. Considering the conflicts of interest of the authors, my guess is that this was the goal of the study all along: Gather together a number of young healthy people that is too small for there to be any chance of a statistically significant benefit, and then get the result you want. The media will sell the result as “study shows ivermectin doesn’t work” (which they dutifully did).

It is interesting that there were signals of benefit for all the parameters the researchers looked at (resolution of symptoms, escalation of care, death), but that the relatively small number and good health status of the participants meant that there was little chance of any of the results reaching statistical significance.

Let’s move on to the next study, which is currently available as a pre-print on Research Square (Niaee et al.). It was randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled, and carried out at five different hospitals in Iran. It was funded by an Iranian university.

In order to be included in the trial, participants had to be over the age of 18 and admitted to hospital because of a covid-19 infection (which was defined as symptoms suggestive of covid plus either a CT scan typical of covid infection or a positive PCR test).

150 participants were randomized to either placebo (30 people) or varying doses of ivermectin (120 people). The fact that they chose to make the placebo group so small is a problem, because it makes it very hard to detect any differences even if they do exist, by making the statistical certainty of the results in the placebo group very low.

The participants were on average 56 years old and the average oxygen saturation before initiation of treatment was 89% (normal is more than 95%), so this was a pretty sick group. Unfortunately no information is provided on how far along people were in the disease course when they started receiving ivermectin. It stands to reason that the drug is more likely to work if given ten days after symptom onset than when given twenty days after symptom onset, since death usually happens around day 21. If you, for example, wanted to design a trial to fail, you could start treating people at a time point when there is no time for the drug you’re testing to have a chance work, so it would have been nice to know at what time point treatment started in this trial.

So, what were the results?

20% of the participants in the placebo group died (6 out of 30 people). 3% of the participants in the various ivermectin groups died (4 out of 120 people). That is an 85% reduction in the relative risk of death, which is huge.

So, in spite of the fact that the placebo group was so small, it was still possible to see a big difference in mortality. Admittedly, this is a pre-print (i.e. it hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet), and the absolute numbers of deaths are small, so there is some scope for random chance to have created these results (maybe people in the placebo group were just very unlucky!). However, the study appears to have followed all the steps expected for a high quality trial. It was carried out at multiple different hospitals, it used randomization and a control group that received a placebo, and it was double-blinded. And death is a very hard end point that is not particularly open to bias. So unless the researchers have falsified their data, then this study constitutes reasonably good evidence that ivermectin is highly effective when given to patients hospitalized with covid-19. That’s great, because it would mean that the drug can be given quite late in the disease course and still show benefit.

Let’s move on to the third trial (Chahla et al.), which is currently available as a pre-print on MedRxiv. It was carried out in Argentina, and funded by the Argentinean government. Like the first trial we discussed, this was a study of people with mild disease. It literally boggles my mind that so many researchers choose to study people with mild disease instead of studying those with more severe disease. Especially when you consider that these studies are all so small. A study of people with mild disease needs to be very large to find a statistically significant effect, since most people with covid do well regardless. The risk of false negative results is thus enormous. If you’re going to do a small-ish study, and you want to have a reasonable chance of producing results that reach statistical significance, it would make much more sense to do it on sick hospitalized patients.

The study was randomized, but it wasn’t blinded, and there was no placebo. In other words, the intervention group received ivermectin (24 mg per day), while the control group didn’t receive anything. This is a bad bad thing. It means that any non-hard outcomes produced by the study are really quite worthless, since there is so much scope for the placebo effect and other confounding factors to mess up the results. For hard outcomes, in particular death, it should be less of a problem (although we wouldn’t expect any deaths in such a small study of mostly healthy people with mild disease anyway).

The study included people over the age of 18 with symptoms suggestive of covid-19 and a positive PCR test. The average age of the participants was 40 years, and most had no underlying health issues. A total of 172 people were recruited in to the study.

The researchers chose to look at how quickly people became free of symptoms as their primary endpoint. This is enormously problematic, since the study, as already mentioned, wasn’t blinded and there was no placebo. Any difference between the groups could easily be explained by the placebo effect and by biases towards treatment benefit among the researchers.

Anyway, the study found that 49% in the treatment group were free of symptoms at five to nine days after the beginning of treatment, compared with 81% in the control group. However, the lack of blinding means that this result is worthless. The methodology is just too flawed.

No data is provided on the number of people who died in each group. Since it isn’t reported, I think it’s safe to assume that there were no deaths in either group. Nor is any data provided on the number of hospitalizations in each group.

So, what does this study tell us?

Absolutely nothing at all. What a waste of time and money.

Let’s move on and update our meta-analysis. The reason we need to do a meta-analysis here is that none of the trials of ivermectin is large enough on its own to provide a definitive answer as to whether it is a useful treatment for covid-19 or not. For those who haven’t heard of meta-analyses before, basically what you do is just take the results from all different studies in existence that fulfill your pre-selected criteria, and then put them together, so as a to create a single large “meta”-study. This allows you to produce results that have a much higher level of statistical significance. It is particularly useful in a situation where all the individual trials you have to work with are statistically underpowered (have too few participants), as is the case here.

In this new meta-analysis, I’ve included every double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial I could find of ivermectin as a treatment for covid. Using only double-blind placebo-controlled trials means that only the highest quality studies are included in this meta-analysis, which minimizes the risk of biases messing up the results as far as possible. In order to be included, a study also had to provide mortality data, since the goal of the meta-analysis is to see if there is any difference in mortality.

I was able to identify seven trials that fulfilled these criteria, with a total of 1,327 participants. Here’s what the meta-analysis shows:

What we see is a 62% reduction in the relative risk of dying among covid patients treated with ivermectin. That would mean that ivermectin prevents roughly three out of five covid deaths. The reduction is statistically significant (p-value 0,004). In other words, the weight of evidence supporting ivermectin continues to pile up. It is now far stronger than the evidence that led to widespred use of remdesivir earlier in the pandemic, and the effect is much larger and more important (remdesivir was only ever shown to marginally decrease length of hospital stay, it was never shown to have any effect on risk of dying).

I understand why pharmaceutical companies don’t like ivermectin. It’s a cheap generic drug. Even Merck, the company that invented ivermectin, is doing it’s best to destroy the drug’s reputation at the moment. This can only be explained by the fact that Merck is currently developing two expensive new covid drugs, and doesn’t want an off-patent drug, which it can no longer make any profit from, competing with them.

The only reason I can think to understand why the broader medical establishment, however, is still so anti-ivermectin is that these studies have all been done outside the rich west. Apparently doctors and scientists outside North America and Western Europe can’t be trusted, unless they’re saying things that are in line with our pre-conceived notions.

Researchers at McMaster university are currently organizing a large trial of ivermectin as a treatment for covid-19, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. That trial is expected to enroll over 3,000 people, so it should be definitive. It’s going to be very interesting to see what it shows when the results finally get published.

May 9, 2021 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Argentine Government to Launch Legal Action Against Ex-President Over IMF Loan

Sputnik – 10.04.2021

Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez issued a decree instructing the country’s special legal body to act as a plaintiff on behalf of the state in a case against his predecessor Mauricio Macri, stemmed from his decision to take a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the amount of $50 billion.

“Prosecutors representing the state as the claimant are ordered to pursue the case, ‘Mauricio Macri and others, fraud against state bodies’ … and to facilitate the advancement of the criminal process in order to determine those responsible for the crime,” the decree says.

The document further states that the case is related to Marci’s decision to take a loan from the IMF in the amount of $50 billion in 2018. The current government has repeatedly spoken about the difficulties surrounding paying off the debt and began negotiations with the IMF on a new assistance program.

In addition, lawyers were instructed to initiate actions leading to compensation for possible losses incurred as a result of the actions of the previous authorities.

The decree was signed by the country’s current president, prime minister, and ministers of economy and justice.

April 10, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries