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Daily Mail Falsely Brands Riots Against Police in Paris Suburbs as ‘Anti-Lockdown’ Protests

Sputnik – April 20, 2020

On 19 April, riots broke out in the suburbs of Paris following an accident where a 30-year-old motocyclist was seriously injured after he collided with a police car, with circumstances of the incident still being reviewed.

The Daily Mail has misleadingly branded anti-police clashes in Villeneuve-la-Garenne near Paris as “anti-lockdown” riots in the headline of its Monday article, while linking the skirmish to Emmanuel Macron’s recent extension of social-distancing orders.

The riots erupted in response to an incident in the evening of 18 April, when a 30-year-old motorcyclist was seriously injured after colliding with the open door of an unmarked police car. The man, whose leg was severely fractured in the incident, was successfully operated on on Sunday but was planning to file a complaint against the police.

According to the local authorities, the police opened the car’s door in order to detain the man, who was riding at a high speed. However, according to witnesses’ accounts and videos on social media, the door could have been opened deliberately in order to stop the motorcyclist. The incident is currently being investigated.

Following the incident, riots broke out in the Parisian suburb of Villeneuve-la-Garenne and continued through Sunday. They erupted again on Monday night, with protesters alighting cars and furniture on the streets and firing fireworks, while local law enforcement rushed into the areas. The videos of the incidents have been extensively circulating on social media.

April 20, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 4 Comments

Churchill’s War: the Real History of World War II

By Paul Craig Roberts • Institute for Political Economy • April 19, 2020

All truth-tellers are denounced, and most end up destroyed. Truth seldom serves the agendas of powerful interests.

The one historian from whom you can get the unvarnished truth of World War II is David Irving.

On the bookjackets of Irving’s books, the question is asked: What is real history?

The answer is that real history is history that travels straight from history-maker to the history-maker’s documents and from the document archives to the historian’s book without political input and free of academic and patriotic prejudice. It is history that cannot be bought.

Irving’s Hitler’s War was published in 1977. Irving was an archaeologist digging in history who located and dug up previously unknown documents and archives. He lets the factual record tell the history. He is exact and scrupulous and does not curry favor. The Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote: “The book was thoroughly researched . . . It confirmed Irving’s reputation as one of the world’s most thorough researchers and an exciting and readable historian.”

The first volume of Irving’s Churchill’s War was published in 1987. The second volume in 2001. The third and final volume is awaited.

These works far surpass all previous histories of the war and all accounts of the agendas and events that produced the war. Irving is not motivated to curry favor with the ruling establishment, to make us feel self-righteous in our victory by demonizing the opponent or to grind any personal, ideological, or political axe. He lets the history-makers speak for themselves in their own words, and it is seldom a pretty picture.

Irving’s books sold millions of copies, and he was well-to-do. But he fell foul of Zionists, oddly enough because he documented actual atrocities against Jews. The problem was the attrocities he found differed from the official holocaust story. He documented a holocaust of a sort, but it is a different one than the Zionists prefer. If I understand correctly, infuriated Zionists with plentiful funds used unethical tactics and brought lawsuits, the defense against which eventually bankrupted him. Little wonder most historians choose to suck up to powerful interests by validating their claims and explanations. The fake history they write is a self-protective device like a bullet-proof vest.

I previously reported on Hitler’s War and the first volume of Churchill’s War in my most widely read article — The Lies About World War II. As I quoted Irving’s account that Jews were killed, but in a more ad hoc than organized way, Zionists rushed to my already defective Wikipedia biography to attribute Irving’s words to me, thereby labeling me a “holocaust denier.” When I complained of the misrepresentation, I was fobbed off with the reply that I would not have quoted Irving if I had not agreed with him. In other words, if you report in a book review what a writer says, it means you agree with him. I am not qualified to agree or to disagree with Irving. Indeed, few people are.

People in the Western world have been indoctrinated for 75 years into a white hat/black hat story of World War II that exonerates the “allies” and demonizes Hitler and Germany. To tell people, especially elderly ones whose memory of the war was formed by war propaganda, that the “allies” were as bad or worse war criminals than the Germans brings fire and brimstone down on one’s head. It nevertheless needs to be done, because our view of ourselves reflects the make-believe story of the war with which we are inculcated. In the false history comes strength for the opinion that we Americans and our country are exceptional and indispensable and that these traits justify Washington’s hegemony over the world. Our destruction in whole or part of seven countries in the 21st century, our withdrawal from arms limitation agreements, our dangerous demonization of militarily powerful countries such as Russia and China all rest in our self-righteous view of ourselves. Of course, not all Americans share these self-righteous views, but the views are the basis for both Republican and Democrat foreign policy. Even the left-wing, or whatever remains of it, believes in war in order to overthrow dictators and “bring democracy and human rights.”

In what follows I am not going to attempt a review of Irving’s second volume on Churchill. Instead, I will report some of the findings that documents reveal, findings that will be new information for most readers. But first a preface.

Hitler did not start World War II. England and France launched World War II with a declaration of war against Germany. Hitler did not want a war with Britain and France and tried to avoid it and then end it with a peace agreement very favorable to Britain and France. Hitler regarded the British Empire as essential to the survival of European dominance. He promised Churchill in exchange for an end of hostilities that Germany would defend the British Empire with the German military anywhere in the world that it was in jeopardy. Hitler left a large part of France and French North Africa unoccupied. He left the French fleet in French hands.

Hitler’s aim was to restore the integrity of the German nation which had been torn apart and distributed to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, and France by the Versailles Treaty which had been forced on Germany after World War I by a policy of starvation. Germans in the territories turned over to Czechoslovakia and Poland were being persecuted and murdered. Hitler had no choice but to do something about it. He recovered German territory from France, Czechoslovakia, and Denmark without war.

The same outcome was likely in Poland except the British interfered. The British gave the Polish military dictatorship a “guarantee” to come to Poland’s aid if Poland refused Hitler’s demands. Consequently, the Polish dictatorship broke off negotiations with Germany. Germany and the Soviet Union then split Poland between them.

The guarantee compelled “British honor” to declare war on Germany—but not on the Soviet Union—and the hapless French were pulled along.

The British relied on the “powerful French military” and sent an expeditionary force which was promptly trapped at Dunkirk where Hitler let them go, thinking that an act of magnanimity and his refusal to humiliate the British would bring an end to the conflict. However, Churchill kept Hitler’s overly generous peace terms from the British people and from Parliament. Churchill had wanted war and had worked hard for one and now that he had power and a chance to repeat the military leadership of his great ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, he was determined to keep his war.

With Hitler in control of Europe, Churchill began working harder to get the US into the war. All along the way President Roosevelt had given Churchill war encouragement but without promising any definite course of action from America. Roosevelt wanted Britain at war. He knew it would bankrupt the British and place them economically in Washington’s hands, which would permit the US to break up the British system of trade preferences that allowed Britain to control world trade, destroy the British Empire, dethrone the British pound and replace it with the dollar. Roosevelt was an enemy of empire except America’s own. From FDR’s standpoint, World War II was an attack by the US on British trade preferences that were the backbone of the British Empire.

So Churchill got his war which cost Britain her empire, and Roosevelt replaced the British Empire with an American one. FDR paid a cheap price—about 300,000 US combat deaths. In her defeat of Germany, Russia lost about 9,000,000 soldiers in combat deaths and 26 million people altogether,

After the Russians stopped the German offensive, the war could have ended, but FDR and Churchill had established a policy of unconditional surrender, which shackled allied wartime foreign policy to two more years of death and destruction.

As Pat Buchanan said, it was The Unnecessary War. The war served Churchill’s path to power and Washington’s empire.

Volume 2 begins in 1941. Irving has tracked down and unearthed many documents that permit a better understanding of the war. Many official papers are still under lock and key and many have been destroyed. The effort to suppress truth from coming out continues 75 years after the war.

Secrecy is used to hide crimes. It is reputations that are protected, not national security.

Churchill used secrecy to protect his war crime of ordering the bombing of civilian residential areas of German cities with his emphasis on bombing the homes of the working class as they were closer together which helped the conflagation to spread. Churchill would first have the civilian areas firebombed, and then when firemen and rescue workers were engaged the British would drop high explosives. Churchill ignored military targets, preferring instead to break the morale of the German population by bombing civilian areas. He tried to get the British Air Force to include poison gas when dropping incendiary and high explosive bombs on civilian residential areas.

As the British people did not know Churchill was bombing civilians, Churchill hoped Hitler would be provoked into replying in kind. Hitler refused for three months to take the bait, but finally his military insisted that unless he bombed the British they would keep on bombing German civilian areas. Hitler gave in but initially insisted that only British industrial targets be bombed. Once a few bombs went astray, Churchill had his rallying cry that the Nazi barbarians were bombing civilians. He got away with this, but officials in the know worried that the British Air Force, especially “Butcher” Harris, would face war crimes trials when the war was over. British generals and admirals disagreed with Churchill’s bombing policy. They regarded it as unprofessional and unprincipled. They complained that it harmed the war effort by denying the army and navy needed air support.

In November 1942 British Air Chief Portal compared the German bombing of Britain with the British bombing of Germany. The Germans had dropped 55,000 tons of bombs, killing 41,000 British and destroying 350,000 homes. The British had dropped 1,250,000 tons of bombs, killing 900,000 German civilians, maiming one million more, and destroying 6,000,000 German homes. The UK/US firebombing of Dresden at the end of the war stands as one of the worst war crimes in history. It killed as many or more civilians as the atomic bombs Washington dropped on the two Japanese cities, also at war end.

Churchill was determined to bomb Rome, but was resisted by the British Air Force. In contrast, Hitler ordered the German military not to risk the destruction of Rome by defending it.

Churchill ordered the bombing of the French fleet, which Hitler had left in the hands of Vichy France, killing around 3,000 French sailors. Churchill together with FDR and Eisenhower invaded French Northwest Africa which was in the hands of Vichy France. Vichy France Admiral Darlan used his influence to persuade the French not to resist the invasion, thus minimizing British and American casualties. Darlan cooperated in every way. His reward was to be assassinated in a plot organized by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, later one of Britain’s disastrous prime ministers. The assassin protested that he was promised immunity by the British, but was quickly executed to silence him. Eden, whose ambition was larger than his intelligence, was in DeGaulle’s pocket, and DeGaulle wanted Darlan out of his way to power.

The military schemes that Churchill imposed on the British military, such as his invasion of neutral Norway, always came to a bad end, but he rescued himself with masterful speeches in Parliament.

The British had a poor opinion of Eisenhower, and FDR had a poor opinion of Eden. There was so much conflict between the British and the Americans that it is amazing they were able to agree to any plan of action. The American people disliked the British for drawing them into “their war.” The British disliked the Americans for the Negro troops sent to England where they were believed to be responsible for rapes and a crime wave. A lot of propaganda was necessary to focus the hate on the Germans.

The British did not want to sacrifice Arab interests to Zionists but usually did because Zionists had the money. Churchill himself was indebted to a multimillionaire Jew who bailed him out when he faced bankruptcy. Zionists attempted to use their leverage over Churchill to force his approval of both more Jewish immigration to Palestine and for the formation of a “Jewish fighting force,” allegedly to fight the Germans but in reality to drive Palestinians out of Palestine. Zionists promised Churchill that if he would agree to their demands, they would bring the US into the war against Germany. Such was their power.

The British saw Zionists’ interests as detrimental to their hold on their Arab colonies. When deportations of Jews and their mistreatment began leaking out, the British Foreign Office saw the reports as the work of the international Zionist campaign to create sympathy and to use the sympathy in behalf of their Palestinian purpose. When 700 Jews found incapable of work were shot in a work camp, the Foreign Office responded, “Information from Jewish refugees is generally coloured and frequently unreliable.” Eisenhower was pleased with Darlan and was unaware of Eden’s plot against him. An American newsman told Eisenhower’s staff that the agitation against Admiral Darlan came from “Jews of press and radio who wish to make certain we were fighting a war to make the world safe for Jews.” The Jews cried wolf so often that when he actually showed up they were not believed.

Much information emerges in the second volume about Churchill’s character, personal habits, excessive drinking—he was dependent on alcohol—and autocratic ways. He could turn people against him and then with a speech or by taking special notice of them put them back in his pocket. Churchill had flaws and the ability to survive them. Irving does not excoriate Churchill. He merely shows us what he was like. There are things to admire and things to disapprove.

Moreover, it is not only Churchill who was ambitious. All were. It is a mystery that organization survived ambition. Somehow officers were able to devote time to war against the Germans from the time they spent warring against one another for commands and promotions. The same with cabinet ministers. The same for the military services fighting one another for resources. And the same for the Germans. The Italian and German generals were so jealous of Rommel’s initial successes in North Africa that they worked to undermine him.

And German efficiency also bites the dust. German intelligence never caught on that the British were reading their codes and knew precisely every shipment to resupply Rommel which the British seldom failed to send to the bottom of the Mediterranean. One would think that after nothing gets through time and again that a light would come on.

Volume 2 has 200 pages of footnote references. It has a 35 page index. It is the kind of history that only gets written once in a century. Irving is clearly the master of historical documentation. When you disagree with Irving, most likely you are disagreeing with the documented historical record.

April 19, 2020 Posted by | Book Review, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 14 Comments

French Navy flagship & its Only carrier ‘Charles de Gaulle’ cuts Middle East op as Dozens of sailors sicken

RT | April 8, 2020

France’s sole aircraft carrier ‘Charles de Gaulle’ had to suspend its Mediterranean Sea mission and turn back to port shortly after around 40 of its crewmembers were placed under medical observation with suspected Covid-19.

All symptomatic sailors have been “isolated” from the rest of the crew and are being constantly monitored by medical staff, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

“They have symptoms consistent with a possible Covid-19 infection. These first symptoms have appeared recently.”

The illness struck the crew when the nuclear-powered ship was making its way to the Mediterranean Sea to participate in France’s Operation Chammal, directed against Islamist militants in the Middle East. Now, it will return to the southern French port of Toulon, where it had originally planned to dock on April 23.

Last month, the US Navy had to isolate more than 4,000 personnel on board the aircraft carrier ‘USS Theodore Roosevelt’ off Guam, after around 100 of its crew had tested positive for Covid-19.

April 8, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

France, Czechs, & Other US Allies Exit Iraq Over COVID-19 Fears

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 03/27/2020

The United States has shown itself willing to both keep up its ‘maximum pressure’ campaign on Iran and its proxies while riding roughshod over Iraqi sovereignty by remaining in the country even as Baghdad leaders and the broader population demand a final exit.

But in another sign Europe is ready to divorce itself from US aims in the region, France has abruptly withdrawn its forces from the country after being there for five years. Interestingly the prime reason given was troop safety concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, but we imagine European leaders likely now see an opportunity to make a swift and easy exit without provoking the ire of their US counterparts.

International correspondents say this includes French withdrawal from six bases, with a small contingent of about 100 troops remaining in the country. The Czech Ministry of Defense also announced the exit of its forces Wednesday, which followed a large contingent of British forces leaving last week, also on fears of coronavirus exposure during the mission.

“British, French, Australian and Czech troops who were coaching Iraqi counterparts were being temporarily sent home as Baghdad had put a hold on training operations to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” reports the AFP this week.

All had been there to support coalition anti-ISIL operations led by Washington. But as the US mission to defeat the Islamic State has lately become less relevant given the demise of the terror group, Washington’s focus became Iranian influence inside Iraq – far beyond the original mission scope.

The US itself had been reportedly drawing down from certain bases, but is not expected to ultimately depart given the current high state of tensions with Iran-backed militias in the country.

But Iran and Iraq’s ‘counter-pressure’ campaign is only set to continue, as on Thursday two rockets slammed into the Iraqi capital’s high-security Green Zone early in the morning, in an incident that’s become almost a monthly occurrence. There were no reports of injuries.

Middle East regional correspondent and analyst Elijah Magnier observes of the rapid draw down: “Coronavirus is offering an opportunity for the world to detach itself from US dominance and reshuffle alliances.”

Indeed this will likely be the outcome in geopolitical hot spots and even economies around the globe.

March 29, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | 4 Comments

Why France is hiding a cheap and tested virus cure

The French government is arguably helping Big Pharma profit from the Covid-19 pandemic

By Pepe Escobar | Asia Times | March 28, 2020

What’s going on in the fifth largest economy in the world arguably points to a major collusion scandal in which the French government is helping Big Pharma to profit from the expansion of Covid-19. Informed French citizens are absolutely furious about it.

My initial question to a serious, unimpeachable Paris source, jurist Valerie Bugault, was about the liaisons dangereuses between Macronism and Big Pharma and especially about the mysterious “disappearance” – more likely outright theft – of all the stocks of chloroquine in possession of the French government.

Respected Professor Christian Perronne talked about the theft live in one of France’s 24/7 info channels: “The central pharmacy for the hospitals announced today that they were facing a total rupture of stocks, that they were pillaged.”

With input from another, anonymous source, it’s now possible to establish a timeline that puts in much-needed perspective the recent actions of the French government.

Let’s start with Yves Levy, who was the head of INSERM – the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research – from 2014 to 2018, when he was appointed as extraordinary state councilor for the Macron administration. Only 12 people in France have reached this status.

Levy is married to Agnes Buzy, who until recently was minister of health under Macron. Buzy was essentially presented with an “offer you can’t refuse” by Macron’s party to leave the ministry – in the middle of the coronavirus crisis – and run for Mayor of Paris, where she was mercilessly trounced in the first round on March 16.

Levy has a vicious running feud with Professor Didier Raoult – prolific and often-cited Marseille-based specialist in communicable diseases. Levy withheld the INSERM label from the world-renowned IHU (Hospital-University Institute) research center directed by Raoult.

In practice, in October 2019, Levy revoked the status of “foundation” of the different IHUs so he could take over their research.

French professor Didier Raoult, biologist and professor of microbiology, specializes in infectious diseases and director of IHU Mediterranee Infection Institute. Photo: AFP/Gerard Julien

Raoult was part of a clinical trial that in which hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin healed 90% of Covid-19 cases if they were tested very early. (Early, massive testing is at the heart of the successful South Korean strategy.)

Raoult is opposed to the total lockdown of sane individuals and possible carriers – which he considers “medieval,” in an anachronistic sense. He’s in favor of massive testing (which, besides South Korea, was successful in Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam) and a fast treatment with hydroxychloroquine. Only contaminated individuals should be confined.

Chloroquine costs one euro for ten pills. And there’s the rub: Big Pharma – which, crucially, finances INSERM, and includes “national champion” Sanofi – would rather go for a way more profitable solution. Sanofi for the moment says it is “actively preparing” to produce chloroquine, but that may take “weeks,” and there’s no mention about pricing.

A minister fleeing a tsunami

Here’s the timeline:

On January 13, Agnes Buzyn, still France’s Health Minister, classifies chloroquine as a “poisonous substance,” from now on only available by prescription. An astonishing move, considering that it has been sold off the shelf in France for half a century.

On March 16, the Macron government orders a partial lockdown. There’s not a peep about chloroquine. Police initially are not required to wear masks; most have been stolen anyway, and there are not enough masks even for health workers. In 2011 France had nearly 1.5 billion masks: 800 million surgical masks and 600 million masks for health professionals generally.

But then, over the years, the strategic stocks were not renewed, to please the EU and to apply the Maastricht criteria, which limited membership in the Growth and Stability Pact to countries whose budget deficits did not exceed 3% of GDP. One of those in charge at the time was Jerome Salomon, now a scientific counselor to the Macron government.

On March 17, Agnes Buzyn says she has learned the spread of Covid-19 will be a major tsunami, for which the French health system has no solution. She also says it had been her understanding that the Paris mayoral election “would not take place” and that it was, ultimately, “a masquerade.”

What she does not say is that she didn’t go public at the time she was running because the whole political focus by the Macron political machine was on winning the “masquerade.” The first round of the election meant nothing, as Covid-19 was advancing. The second round was postponed indefinitely. She had to know about the impending healthcare disaster. But as a candidate of the Macron machine she did not go public in timely fashion.

In quick succession:

The Macron government refuses to apply mass testing, as practiced with success in South Korea and Germany.

Le Monde and the French state health agency characterize Raoult’s research as fake news, before issuing a retraction.

Professor Perrone reveals on the 24/7 LCI news channel that the stock of chloroquine at the French central pharmacy has been stolen.

Thanks to a tweet by Elon Musk, President Trump says chloroquine should be available to all Americans. Sufferers of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, who already have supply problems with the only drug that offers them relief, set social media afire with their panic.

US doctors and other medical professionals take to hoarding the medicine for the use of themselves and those close to them, faking prescriptions to indicate they are for patients with lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

Morocco buys the stock of chloroquine from Sanofi in Casablanca.

Pakistan decides to increase its production of chloroquine to be sent to China.

Switzerland discards the total lockdown of its population; goes for mass testing and fast treatment; and accuses France of practicing  “spectacle politics.”

Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, having had himself treated with chloroquine, without any government input, directly calls Sanofi so they may deliver chloroquine to Nice hospitals.

Because of Raoult’s research, a large-scale chloroquine test finally starts in France, under the – predictable – direction of INSERM, which wants to “remake the experiments in other independent medical centers.” This will take at least an extra six weeks – as the Elysee Palace’s scientific council now mulls the extension of France’s total lockdown to … six weeks.

If joint use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin proves definitely effective among the most gravely ill, quarantines may be reduced in select clusters.

The only French company that still manufactures chloroquine is under judicial intervention. That puts the chloroquine hoarding and theft into full perspective. It will take time for these stocks to be replenished, thus allowing Big Pharma the leeway to have what it wants: a costly solution.

It appears the perpetrators of the chloroquine theft were very well informed.

Bagged nurses

This chain of events, astonishing for a highly developed G-7 nation proud of its health service, is part of a long, painful process embedded in neoliberal dogma. EU-driven austerity mixed with the profit motive resulted in a very lax attitude towards the health system.

As Bugault told me, “test kits – very few in number – were always available but mostly for a small group connected to the French government [ former officials of the Ministry of Finance, CEOs of large corporations, oligarchs, media and entertainment moguls].  Same for chloroquine, which this government did everything to make inaccessible for the population.

They did not make life easy for Professor Raoult – he received death threats and was intimidated by ‘journalists.’

And they did not protect vital stocks. Still under the Hollande government, there was a conscious liquidation of the stock of masks – which had existed in large quantities in all hospitals. Not to mention that the suppression of hospital beds and hospital means accelerated under Sarkozy.”

This ties in with anguished reports by French citizens of nurses now having to use trash bags due to the lack of proper medical gear.

At the same time, in another astonishing development, the French state refuses to requisition private hospitals and clinics – which are practically empty at this stage – even as the president of their own association, Lamine Garbi, has pleaded for such a public service initiative: “I solemnly demand that we are requisitioned to help public hospitals. Our facilities are prepared. The wave that surprised the east of France must teach us a lesson.”

Bugault reconfirms the health situation in France “is very serious and will become even worse due to these political decisions – absence of masks, political refusal to massively test people, refusal of free access to chloroquine – in a context of supreme distress at the hospitals. This will last and destitution will be the norm.”

Professor vs president

In an explosive development on Tuesday, Raoult said he’s not participating in Macron’s scientific council anymore, even though he’s not quitting it altogether. Raoult once again insists on massive testing on a national scale to detect suspected cases, and then isolate and treat patients who tested positive. In a nutshell: the South Korean model.

That’s exactly what is expected from the IHU in Marseille, where hundreds of residents continue to queue up for testing. And that ties in with the conclusions by a top Chinese expert on Covid-19, Zhang Nanshan, who says that treatment with chloroquine phospate had a “positive impact,” with patients testing negative after around four days.

The key point has been stressed by Raoult: Use chloroquine in very special circumstances, for people tested very early, when the disease is not advanced yet, and only in these cases. He’s not advocating chloroquine for everyone. It’s exactly what the Chinese did, along with their use of Interferon.

For years, Raoult has been pleading for a drastic revision of health economic models, so the treatments, cure and therapies created mostly during the 20th century, are considered a patrimony in the service of all humanity.“That’s not the case”, he says, “because we abandon medicine that is not profitable, even if it’s effective. That’s why almost no antibiotics are manufactured in the West.”

On Tuesday, the French Health Ministry officially prohibited the utilization of treatment based on chloroquine recommended by Raoult.  In fact the treatment is only allowed for terminal Covid-19 patients, with no other possibility of healing. This cannot but expose the Macron government to more accusations of at least inefficiency – added to the absence of masks, tests, contact tracing and ventilators.

On Wednesday, commenting on the new government guidelines, Raoult said, “When damage to the lungs is too important, and patients arrive for reanimation, they practically do not harbor viruses in their bodies any more. It’s too late to treat them with chloroquine. Are these the only cases – the very serious cases – that will be treated with chloroquine under the new directive by [French Health Minister] Veran?” If so, he added ironically, “then they will be able to say with scientific certainty that chloroquine does not work.”

Raoult was unavailable for comment on Western news media articles citing Chinese test results that would suggest he is wrong about the efficacy of chloroquine in dealing with mild cases of Covid-19.

Staffers pointed instead to his comments in the IHU bulletin. There Raoult says it’s “insulting” to ask if we can trust the Chinese on the use of chloroquine. “If this was an American disease, and the president of the United States said, ‘We need to treat patients with that,’ nobody would discuss it.”

In China, he adds, there were “enough elements so the Chinese government and all Chinese experts who know coronaviruses took an official position that ‘we must treat with chloroquine.’ Between the moment when we have the first results and an accepted international publication, there is no credible alternative among people who are the most knowledgeable in the world. They took this measure in the interest of public health.”

Crucially: if he had coronavirus, Raoult says he would take chloroquine. Since Raoult is rated by his peers as the number one world expert  in communicable diseases, way above Dr. Anthony Fauci in the US, I would say the new reports represent Big Pharma talking.

Raoult has been mercilessly savaged and demonized by French corporate media that are controlled by a few oligarchs closely linked to Macronism. Not by accident the demonization has reached gilets jaunes (yellow vest) levels, especially because of the extremely popular hashtag  #IlsSavaient (“They knew”), with which the yellow vests stress that French elites have “managed” the Covid-19 crisis by protecting themselves while leaving the population defenseless against the virus.

That ties in with the controversial analysis by crack philosopher Giorgio Agamben in a column published a month ago, where he was already arguing that Covid-19 clearly shows that the state of exception – similar to a state of emergency but with differences important to philosophers – has become fully normalized in the West.

Agamben was speaking not as a doctor or a virologist but as a master thinker, following in the steps of Foucault, Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt. Noting how a latent state of fear has metastasized into a state of collective panic, for which Covid-19 “offers once again the ideal pretext,” he described how, “in a perverse vicious circle, the limitation of freedom imposed by governments is accepted in the name of a desire for security that was induced by the same governments that now intervene to satisfy it.”

There was no state of collective panic in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam – to mention four Asian examples outside of China. A dogged combination of mass testing and contact tracing was applied with immense professionalism. It worked. In the Chinese case, with the help of chloroquine. And in all Asian cases, without a murky profit motive to the benefit of Big Pharma.

There hasn’t yet appeared the smoking gun that proves the Macron system not only is incompetent to deal with Covid-19 but also is dragging the process so Big Pharma can come up with a miracle vaccine, fast. But the pattern to discourage chloroquine is more than laid out above – in parallel to the demonization of Raoult.

March 28, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Heads up – naval sitrep

By Nat South | The Saker Blog | March 8, 2020

Photo op of US State Department delegation putting a foot into Idlib. Kelly Craft & James Jeffrey met with the White Helmets at the Turkish /Syrian border.

2. France News 24 (02/03)

3. U.S. Intel sources indicate… (06/03)

Rumour control: the ‘unconfirmed’, ‘unverifiable’ type as usual from journalists & media sources who diligently and blindly act as stenographers. Rather telling that a time when Syria & Russia have potentially achieved an important element of the 2018 Sochi agreement, (security corridor for M4 route & M5 secured), following talks between Erdogan & Putin in Moscow, we are now once more fed US anonymous intel stories about chemical weapon usage in Syria.

There a few other items of a similar kind of nature from the narrative keepers of regime change circulating on social media. I like to think that this isn’t a case of deja-vu, recalling events leading up to April 2018. I like to think I am completely wrong in having this feeling, but I cannot help sensing a brewing geopolitical storm that just keeps going. So, with this in mind, I will briefly outline what is the situation at sea, in the Eastern Mediterranean in particular.

To use an expression, keeping an eye on the ball on the current naval situation in the Eastern Mediterranean. Noteworthy is this: tweet from the U.S. Navy in Europe. The newly arrived U.S. carrier group trained with its French counterpart, ‘Charles de Gaulle’ which has been in the Eastern Mediterranean for a few weeks. Officially, the ‘Ike’ will be “conducting operations in U.S. 6th Fleet to support maritime security operations in international waters alongside our allies and partners.”

The last time that the USS Dwight Eisenhower and ‘Charles de Gaulle’ operated together was in 2016. This wasn’t however the first time that the French nuclear carrier operated alongside a U.S. one though (2014). As such, it would be difficult to infer any imminent operations from such activities. I remember a few commentators on the verge of hyperventilating over the presence of USS carriers back April 2019. along with the presence of another in the region. Abraham Lincoln and John C. Stennis carrier strike groups carried out operations in the Mediterranean Sea.

The presence of either U.S. or French aircraft carriers does not mean rising tensions or imminent operations against Syria, (or vice versa). Ultimately, nothing happened in spring 2019 regarding naval tensions in the region. But there again, there wasn’t the surreal background issue of an intense conflict in Idlib between Turkey and Syria in the media glare. In addition, there is a continuing hostile rhetoric in the air and one example is the U.S. ambassador to the UN was quite vocal in supporting Turkish actions.

Thankfully, the recent conflict did not become a large-scale conflict involving external powers (NATO, USA & Russia). Although, while the situation was escalating on the ground, the Russian Navy did send 2 additional Black Sea Fleet based warships through the Bosphorus on 28 February, reportedly to the Eastern Mediterranean. These were the frigates “Admiral Makarov” and “Admiral Grigorovich”. Not actually significant compared to the scale of the build-up in 2018 where at least an additional 6 Russian Navy ships & possibly 2 submarines were sent to the region in a 3-week period.

Contrary to some pundits, the arrival of the ‘Ike’ was not a response to escalating events over Idlib, since these deployments are planned a long time beforehand. Yet it was unusual in that it left straight after successfully completing the Composite Unit Training Exercise (COMPTUEX).

It seems weird to have the issue of chemical attacks pop up in the March/April period with the accusations that the “Assad Regime” has launched a chemical weapons attack on the so-called moderate opposition held areas. Then the West finger pointing at Russia and insults of anyone dissenting of being Russian propaganda mouthpieces. “Time will tell” and the April 2019 incident was shown to be a macabre false flag, highlighting serious concerns over manipulation of information & blatant bias of the resulting OPCW report, as confirmed by whistle-blowers.

Here is an outline of claimed reported chemical weapons attacks in March/April:

March 2013 Aleppo

April 2013 Saraqeb

April 2014 Kafr Zita

March 2015 Sarmin

April 2017 Khan Sheikhoun

(This resulted in an U.S. Tomahawk strike from 2 U.S. warships)

April 2018 Douma

(Multiple air / sea launched missiles strikes – U.S. UK & France).

April 2019 – claim made.

If you look at the date of the above 2019 article, it just happens to coincide with the presence of the two U.S. carrier groups in spring 2019. Worth noting is that the April 2018 strikes did not involve carriers at all. Effectively, the destroyers & submarines are already operating in the Eastern Mediterranean and it is only these that are needed to carry out sea-based missile strikes, (2017 & 2018).

Do we now have another round of rumours? Another round of brazen & contrived attempts to frame Syria & Russia as disinfo ops designed to trigger principally USA retaliation, at a time when the situation in Idlib has ended with a ceasefire to the advantage of Syria & Russia. Another sequel in the making? The Russian MoD stated recently that jihadists did attempt to carry out a chemical weapons attack to frustrate Syrian government forces but instead got poisoned themselves in Saraqeb.

As it stands, it is business as usual in the Mediterranean with the U.S. Navy, along with the USNS and the Russian Navy. The Russian Navy rescue ship ‘Prof. Muru’ is in the Eastern Mediterranean off Crete, possibly waiting and watching the U.S. Navy. One of the Admiral Grigorovich class deployed in the Mediterranean has left it, going through the Strait of Gibraltar on March 5 leaving two other frigates on station.

A bigger picture of the composition & types of ships Russian Navy forward deployed from Tartus is provided in this tweet. The main point is that the Russian Navy presence in the Eastern Mediterranean is largely to protect the Russian bases, not to counter NATO or the U.S. It is composed of very few combat ships and mostly logistical support. The main ASW backbone is the submarine force and the 2 frigates. That’s it. The only interesting event was the deployment in quick succession of 3 ships from the Black Sea as part of the regular longstanding Syrian Express, (BDK Orsk, Novocherkassk & Caesar Kunikov). It is the latest tangible support for operations in Idlib, especially with regards to providing new equipment and also replacements for equipment destroyed by the Turks. Lastly, that is not to say that the Russian Navy sits idly, every mission is a learning experience, with Syrian lessons fed back into across all level into the training infrastructure on the whole.

Note:

The only other significant Russian Navy warship that could beef up the contingent was last in Colombo, Sri Lanka. “Yaroslav Mudry”left on March 6. https://twitter.com/srilankaglobal/status/1236268463947165696 Additionally, the ‘Admiral Vinogradrov’ also called into Colombo.

The French carrier has now left the Mediterranean after 7 weeks operations in the east.

https://twitter.com/marinenationale/status/1236354201866784768<

March 8, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The ‘Stolen Province’: Why Turkey Was Given A Corner Of Syria By France 80 Years Ago

Sputnik – February 29, 2020

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is becoming more and more embroiled in a direct fight with Syria over Idlib Province. The fighting is directly across the border from Hatay, a province which was given to Turkey in 1939 after a disputed referendum.

Turkey has lost a total of 54 soldiers in Idlib province this month as Syria’s President Bashar Assad and his Russian allies have accused Turkey of failing to honour a deal to separate extremist groups from other fighters in the region.

The Syrian Army now controls the southern half of Idlib province but the fighting has increased the stream of refugees attempting to cross the border into the Turkish province of Hatay.

​The border between Syria and Turkey is a relatively straight line from east to west until it reaches the Orontes river.

Then it suddenly dips and heads southwards for about 80 miles, before turning west again and meeting the Mediterranean just beyond Mount Kilic.

​Strategically this little corner of the Levant – known as Liwa Iskanderoun to the Syrians – is vitally important to the Turkish state.

​Now called Hatay province, it contains the cities of Antakya and Iskanderun – previously known as Antioch and Alexandretta – and the port of Dortyol, which was known as Chork Marzban to its Armenian population before the genocide which finally ended in 1923.

In that same year the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which enshrined the boundaries of the Turkish state.

​Those borders remain exactly the same today – except for Hatay province, which suddenly joined Turkey in 1939.

Syria, Lebanon and much of the Middle East had been part of the Ottoman Empire until it collapsed after being defeated in the First World War.

Under the Treaty of Lausanne, Hatay was part of the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon but just before the Second World War broke out, Paris suddenly decided to hold a referendum and Hatay voted to become part of Turkey.

​Syria became independent in 1945 – with Lebanon as a separate state – and refused to recognise Hatay as part of Turkey.

But little was said about it until the conflict in Syria began to draw in President Erdogan and the Turkish armed forces several years ago.

Syrian media began to highlight the suspicious and controversial way Hatay, or Liwa Iskanderoun, was given to the Turks.

In the late 1930s, France was growing increasingly worried about an impending war with Hitler’s Germany and French diplomats were desperately trying to sign up potential allies in Europe and the Middle East.

Ataturk died in 1938 and his successor, Ismet Inonu, was keen to continue his Turkish nationalist fervour.

So when the French suggested a treaty of friendship during the upcoming war, Inonu was willing to accept, on one condition that Turkey recover Hatay.

France agreed, but was technically breaching the Treaty of Lausanne, so in order to give it a fig leaf of respectability, the French suggested a referendum.

​Hatay was at the time a mixture of nationalities – Turks, Turkmen, Sunni Arabs, Alawites (Alevis), Armenians and even some Greeks – with no clear majority, but Ankara is widely believed to have bussed in Turks from other parts of Anatolia and rigged the result of the referendum.

Relations between Turkey and Syria were strained for decades over the issue of Hatay but they began to improve in the 1990s as Turkey sought Syrian help in combating Kurdish guerrillas.

Just before the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, an agreement was signed to build a $28 million Syrian-Turkish Friendship Dam on the Orontes River.

But construction was postponed by the conflict and now Turkey and Syria have had a falling out, with Erdogan furious at Assad for daring to target Turkish troops even though they were siding with jihadist rebels.

February 29, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | 3 Comments

Erdogan Confirms Intention to Meet With Putin, Merkel, Macron to Discuss Idlib on 5 March

Sputnik – February 22, 2020

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed on Saturday that he intended to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron in Istanbul on 5 March to discuss the situation in Syrian Idlib.

“I held telephone conversations with Putin, Macron and Merkel on Idlib. We will meet together on 5 March and discuss this topic again”, Erdogan said, speaking in Izmir province.

On Friday, Erdogan said that the leaders of France and Germany had offered Putin hold a summit on Syria on 5 March in Istanbul.

Earlier in February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Turkey had not fulfilled several key commitments on Idlib, including its failure to distinguish between the armed opposition, which is ready for dialogue with the government within the framework of the political process, and terrorists. In turn, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay has claimed that Ankara had fulfilled its obligations in Idlib.

Idlib remains the last stronghold of militants and terrorists in Syria. In September 2018, Russia and Turkey agreed to create a demilitarized buffer zone in the province, but militants continued to stage attacks on the Syrian government troops and civilians, which resulted in a new offensive of Damascus in the region.

February 22, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

The Death Of Free Speech: Zuckerberg Asks Governments For Instructions On “What Discourse Should Be Allowed”

By Jonathon Turley | February 17, 2020

I have written for years on the effort of European countries to expand their crackdown on free speech globally through restrictions on social media and Internet speech. It appears that Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has relented in what may prove the death knell for free speech in the West. Zuckerberg seems to relent in asking governments for regulations stipulating what speech will be permitted on Facebook and other platforms. It is the ultimate victory of France, Germany, and England in their continuing attack on free expression though hate speech laws and speech regulation.

Zuckerberg told an assembly of Western leaders Saturday at the Munich Security Conference that “There should be more guidance and regulation from the states on basically — take political advertising as an example — what discourse should be allowed?” He did add: “Or, on the balance of free expression and some things that people call harmful expression, where do you draw the line?” The problem is that his comments were received as accepting that government will now dictate the range of free speech. What is missing is the bright line rule long maintained by the free speech community.

As tragically demonstrated in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, speech regulations inevitably expand with time. The desire to silence one’s critics becomes insatiable for both governments and individuals.

Zuckerberg is facing great pressure, including from Democratic leaders in the United States, to regulate political speech and he seems to be moving away from the bright-line position against such regulation as a principle. Instead, he is accepting the fluid concept of “balanced” regulations that has always preceded expanding speech codes and criminalization:

“There are a lot of decisions in these areas that are really just balances between different social values. It’s about coming up with an answer that society feels is legitimate and that they can get behind and understand that you drew the line here on the balance of free expression and safety. It’s not just that there’s one right answer. People need to feel like, ‘OK, enough people weighed in, and that’s why the answer should be this, and we can get behind that.’”

 

February 17, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | 2 Comments

US openly paves way for INF-banned missiles to be placed in Europe & Asia – Lavrov

RT | February 17, 2020

Just out of a milestone nuclear missile accord, the US is about to deploy short- and intermediate-range missiles in Europe and Asia, prompting Moscow to engage France and other partners to preserve security on the continent.

“In order to agree on specific solutions, we need multilateral talks and multilateral consultations involving, of course, the United States, who destroyed the treaty,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday, referring to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

This pact saw Washington and Moscow eliminate entire classes of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and missile launchers capable of carrying nukes back in the 1980s.

Now, they are actively creating the prerequisites for the deployment of these previously banned weapons in Europe, and indeed in Asia, they don’t hide it.

Japan, South Korea and some “Pacific islands” are the likeliest locations for these deployments, Lavrov noted.

Meanwhile, the minister, who unexpectedly met with his American counterpart Mike Pompeo at the Munich Security Conference, said he felt “certain shifts” in how the US approaches arms control now.

“We discussed a number of issues relating to the whole range of problems that are on the agenda of our strategic dialogue, including those that are within the competence of the five permanent members [of the UN Security Council], and those relating to arms control issues,” he revealed.

Lavrov and Pompeo have agreed “to continue pointed professional conversation on it.” But until US-Russia relations thaw, Moscow will reach out to other partners in Europe concerned about the fate of the INF.

“Of course, we will talk about this with the French,” the foreign minister added. France seems to be particularly responsive to Russia’s concerns. This month, President Emmanuel Macron insisted the Europeans cannot sit idle as they “could rapidly face a new race for conventional weapons, even nuclear weapons, on their own soil.”

February 17, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

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