Brits Forced to Live in Darkness and Cold
Free West Media | April 29, 2023
On March 10, the Scottish trade magazine Scottish Housing News published a frightening report from Scotland’s largest builder, Barratt Developments Scotland. It shows that 51 percent, a majority of Scots, could not afford to heat or light their homes. They were forced to live in chilly homes with the lights off, as they otherwise could not afford to pay for electricity.
Gas and electricity bills have risen even more in recent months, and the UK government’s support system for energy bills will end at the end of March, further putting pressure on already strained British households. Those who suffer the most are the elderly and sick, not least those with lung disease and asthma. This is exacerbated by disease-causing mold that comes with cold and damp indoor climates. Reported cases of mold-damaged homes in Scotland have increased by 25 percent since 2021. Tens of thousands of Scots are already affected.
Thousands are feared to die as a result of these conditions. Already last winter, over 7,400 Brits died as a result of cold homes. But since last winter, electricity prices have doubled, so the figure is believed to be significantly higher this winter. In December 2022 alone, 1,047 Brits, mostly elderly, died as a result of cold and damp air in their homes. This is 36 percent more than in December 2021, indicating that over 10,000 Brits are likely to die this winter due to cold in their homes… or rather, poverty, not being able to afford electricity.
The survey shows that many are now forced to resort to tricks that their grandparents once used to keep warm during the winter with simple means, such as wearing long johns or sealing door gaps. It emerged that 58 percent, again a majority of respondents, now routinely wear thermal underwear at home to cope with the cold in their homes. 40 percent cover gaps under doors and 41 percent have hung up thick curtains over both doors and windows. People warm themselves under blankets and with tea lights. A quarter use electric heated blankets in bed, instead of heating the bedroom. 57 percent of respondents have turned off radiators in rooms they rarely or never use, and it appears they are forced to live in a smaller part of their homes.
Those hardest hit are, as usual, families with children and the elderly, but another age group also stands out. It is the so-called Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2013. In this age group, there are young adults up to 26 years old, many of whom work online from home. The survey shows that nearly two-thirds in this age category are forced to turn off lights and lower the temperature so much that they often become ill. It is especially serious when it affects a group that largely works from home, as they are forced to breathe the raw and disease-causing air created in too cold homes around the clock.
This is happening in the once-rich and powerful United Kingdom, which only a hundred years ago was the largest empire in world history.
Cold home is a health risk
The Swedish Public Health Agency warns against having too cold a home and writes:
“Too cold indoors can affect blood pressure and is believed to increase the risk of heart and vascular diseases and lung-related diseases. Rheumatism and certain muscle diseases can also be negatively affected if it is too cold. Drafts can cause muscle problems, stiff necks, and eye irritation.”
The Public Health Agency recommends an investigation of indoor temperatures if they fall below 20 degrees Celsius. This is to ensure that the “operative temperature” does not fall below the guideline value of 18 degrees Celsius. The “operative temperature” refers to the average of the air temperature and surrounding surface temperature. The Public Health Agency also clearly states that this is an absolute minimum. They write on their website:
“The indoor temperature should take into account people who need a warmer indoor temperature. For sensitive groups, the temperature should be 2 degrees higher. Examples of sensitive people may include the elderly, those with mobility impairments, people with rheumatism, and people with lower metabolism. The municipal environmental and health protection office can decide whether a person belongs to a sensitive group.”
If the temperature is lower, those affected are urged to contact their landlord or housing association. The Public Health Agency then writes:
“If sufficient measures are not taken, the next step is to contact the municipality’s environmental and health protection office. They can require the property owner to investigate and possibly remedy the indoor temperature.”
Food shortages and rationing
The situation is further aggravated by soaring inflation, with rapidly rising food prices and increasing interest rates. The survey shows that 55 percent of respondents were very concerned about rising interest rates. This not only affects homeowners with loans but also tenants, as landlords are often in debt themselves. Overall, it is a witch’s brew of rising costs for interest, electricity, fuel, food, and other necessities. Rising interest rates and energy costs affect virtually everything. For example, grocery stores are forced to pay more in rent, electricity, and transportation. Their increased costs, in addition to already high purchasing costs from distributors, are then added to already high product prices.
There is also a lesser-known reason for rising food prices, which is declining harvests, reducing supply while demand remains the same or increases. The lower harvests are mainly due to the cooler climate that Nya Tider has been at the forefront of reporting since 2019. For Europe, for example, Spain and countries in North Africa, from which we import, have been affected by poor harvests.
This is also due to higher energy prices, which have largely wiped out the production of artificial fertilizers outside of Russia and a few other countries that continue to have cheap energy. Europe has seen a large part of its chemical industry and artificial fertilizer production shut down. Without artificial fertilizers, almost half of the world’s population would be without food. The sharply reduced production globally will, therefore, have a devastating impact on global food security.
Europe is also affected by greenhouse farming closures, which supply the continent with a large portion of its fruits and vegetables, being forced to shut down during the winter months due to the high costs of heating. This not only creates shortages but further drives up prices. In the United Kingdom, this has been evident in grocery stores, where shelves have been empty during February and March. The situation has occasionally been so severe that rationing has been introduced, which is the first time since World War II. Customers are only allowed to buy three types of vegetables and a maximum of two of each. An example of this is the supermarket chain Morrison.
This has forced many Britons to shop around at multiple stores to find everything they need, to the extent that it is even possible. Tomatoes, for example, are expected to remain scarce until the end of April. Given the worsening food security situation, many fear that rationing, which has been implemented by private companies this time, could soon be mandated by the state. Some believe this to be one of the main reasons why the EU and many Western countries are accelerating the digitization and surveillance of food purchases. An example of this is Norway, which last year began registering all food purchases, where and what type of food all Norwegians buy. Many fear that this is a step towards a future digital rationing system.
Net zero – a lie
It is worth remembering that Scotland has boasted about being the best in the UK at transitioning its energy production to “green energy,” especially with numerous wind turbines. In 2019, mainstream media had headlines such as “Why is Scotland leading in renewable energy?” (ITV News). Now, reality has caught up. Wind turbines notoriously perform poorly during winter, so poorly that they often consume energy instead of producing it. This is because they need to be heated to prevent freezing during the winter, using energy from the regular power grid or diesel generators. Advocates of “green energy” and power companies are silent about this.
There is a genuine shortage, but this is self-inflicted. We could have chosen to subsidize energy this winter as we did for other industries.
Justin King, former CEO of the UK’s second-largest grocery chain Sainsbury’s, on the shortage of fruits and vegetables
This winter was exceptionally cold in Scotland, and the strain on the power grid that supplies the wind turbines was so great that the Scottish power company was forced to heat its wind turbines using large quantities of diesel generators. They tried to keep this a secret, but it leaked out (see NyT v.10/2023). This is an important reason why the Scots suffered the most in the UK this winter.
However, it is not only the Scots but all Britons who are affected by the “green transition,” which is anything but green since reduced carbon dioxide leads to reduced vegetation and thus wildlife, that is, less food for humanity. The supposedly green agenda is already hitting hard against energy production. It also damages and increases the costs of food production, as the resulting high energy prices have led to a sharp reduction in artificial fertilizer production and numerous greenhouse closures across Europe.
The green agenda does not involve a gradual and proven transition with preserved energy security but enforces closures of not only fossil-fueled power plants but also, for example, hydroelectric plants that are claimed to threaten or destroy wildlife (see NyT v.27-28/2022). When the energy crisis becomes uncontrollable, emergency measures are forced, often involving the restarting of coal-fired power plants that genuinely pollute the environment. We have seen this in several EU countries and American states. The UK has also been forced to keep its aging coal power plants on standby and must do so for at least another year to avoid a catastrophe next winter. The shutdown of these plants has been postponed several times, and the operators themselves, the British company Drax and EDF, owned by the French state, actually want to close them down by the end of March. This is because they have already retired parts of the staff and can’t handle maintenance, which must be planned well in advance. Now, the bizarre situation has arisen where the agenda-driven politicians, who have been eager to shut down the power plants, are begging the owners to keep them open until spring 2024.
With the knowledge that a country’s energy production is directly proportional to its gross domestic product (GDP) – a fact that the establishment and its media conceal – we know that “net zero” in practice means deindustrialization and dramatically lowered living standards. Even worse and something very few people reflect on is that net zero will affect Western nations, their businesses, and populations, while multinational corporations and the wealthiest globalist elite can buy themselves out through emission rights or simply by controlling Western governments as they do now. Net zero applies to us, but not to them – something everyone should remember the next time the establishment and its media advocate for it.
State Covid Propaganda Destroyed Public’s Ability to Consent to Vaccines – Chairman of UK Council for Psychotherapy
BY DR CHRISTIAN BUCKLAND | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | APRIL 28, 2023
There follows an open letter from Dr. Christian Buckland, Chairman of the Board of the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy, to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemning the “use of unethical psychological techniques and behavioural science on the unknowing and non-consenting U.K. public”. Among numerous harms are that the use of techniques to increase fear, shame and guilt “materially undermined, if not removed, the U.K. population’s ability to give valid informed consent to taking a COVID-19 vaccine”.
April 28th 2023
Dear Prime Minister,
I am the Chairman of the Board of the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), one of the UK’s foremost psychological governing bodies. However, I write this open letter in my own capacity. I believe I have a professional obligation to write to you in an attempt to protect the public from any further harm caused by the unethical application of psychological research and practice.
I unreservedly condemn the U.K. Government’s use of unethical psychological techniques intended to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt, under the guise of behavioural science and insights which were designed to change the public’s behaviour without their knowledge and conscious participation. It is now clear that in 2020 the U.K. Government deliberately chose to artificially inflate the level of fear within the U.K. population by exaggerating the risk factors of COVID-19, and concomitantly downplaying the protective factors. We also witnessed the Government’s promotion of social disapproval and guilt messaging. These techniques were embedded into a multi-channel, co-ordinated public health campaign designed to change the public’s behaviour without their knowledge. Moreover, in tandem with the mainstream media, the Government also proactively suppressed, censored and ostracised any healthcare professional or scientist who suggested alternative responses to COIVD-19, or who simply questioned the messaging and measures being implemented by the Government.
Evidence of the recommendation of using unethical psychological techniques to gain behavioural change
The Government document titled ‘Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures’ was written for the Government by the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) which is a subgroup of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
The premise of the document was to provide options for changing the behaviour of the U.K. public without their knowledge. A passage within this document states: “A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”. It makes certain recommendations including:
- “The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard hitting emotional messaging”
- “Coercion”
- “Social disapproval”
The recommendations made by SPI-B included ones intended to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt. Psychological practitioners know that deliberately trying to frighten someone into change with erroneous or exaggerated information can easily cause long-term psychological damage. We also know that using social disapproval can create splits and divisions within society, and that inducing feelings of guilt can elevate the risk of suicide.
SPI-B also included a simple risk assessment matrix which acknowledges that the “spill over effects” of using media to increase the sense of personal threat and of using social disapproval “could be negative”. There is also a statement demonstrating there was a conversation regarding the spill over effects, although this does not appear to be fully documented. The risk factors and ethics of using fear, shame, guilt and coercion would almost certainly have been known to the members of SPI-B because several members were British Psychological Society (BPS) registered chartered psychologists. In an interview with one of the members of SPI-B, BPS registered educational psychologist Dr. Gavin Morgan, he refers to the use of fear by his SPI-B colleagues and says (as relayed by Laura Dodsworth, in A State of Fear pp. 262,263):
“Clearly using fear as a means of control is not ethical. What you do as a psychologist is co-construction. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government.” … Was it unethical to use fear, I asked? “Well I didn’t suggest we use fear.” But your colleagues did. What do you think of that? He paused. “Oh God.” Another reluctant pause. “It’s not ethical,” he said.
Like Dr. Morgan, any BPS registered psychologists within SPI-B would or should have recognised that recommending the Government uses fear as a means of controlling the public breached their professional code of ethics and conduct. An urgent investigation is required both by the U.K. Government and the BPS. Two specific points of the British Psychological Society Code of Ethics and Conduct (2021) that may have been broken are (with my emphasis):
3.3 Responsibility. Because of their acknowledged expertise, members of the Society often enjoy professional autonomy; responsibility is an essential element of autonomy. Members must accept appropriate responsibility for what is within their power, control or management. Awareness of responsibility ensures that the trust of others is not abused, the power of influence is properly managed and that duty towards others is always paramount. Statement of values: Members value their responsibilities to persons and peoples, to the general public, and to the profession and science of psychology, including the avoidance of harm and the prevention of misuse or abuse of their contribution to society. In applying these values, psychologists should consider:
- Professional accountability;
- Responsible use of their knowledge and skills;
- Respect for the welfare of humans, non-humans and the living world;
- Potentially competing duties.
3.4 Integrity. Acting with integrity includes being honest, truthful, accurate and consistent in one’s actions, words, decisions, methods and outcomes. It requires setting self-interest to one side and being objective and open to challenge in one’s behaviour in a professional context. Statement of values: Members value honesty, probity, accuracy, clarity and fairness in their interactions with all persons and peoples, and seek to promote integrity in all facets of their scientific and professional endeavours”.
Evidence that psychological techniques to induce fear, shame, guilt and coercion were used on the U.K. public
The SPI-B document in question demonstrates that the options of eliciting feelings of fear, shame, guilt and the use of coercion was recommended to the U.K. Government. There is evidence that those options were indeed subsequently deployed on the U.K. population.
In August 2022, you stated:
In every brief, we tried to say: let’s stop the ‘fear narrative’. It was always wrong from the beginning. I constantly said it was wrong… It was wrong to scare people like that.
Additionally, leaked WhatsApp messages from the former Health Minister at the time, Matt Hancock, published in the Daily Telegraph in March 2023, confirm that fear and guilt were used:
Hancock: We frighten the pants of everyone with the new strain. But the complications with that Brexit is taking the top line
Poole: Yep that’s what will get proper bahviour (sic) change
Hancock: When do we deploy the new variant …
Case: Ramping up messaging – the fear/guilt factor vital
The above are just two examples where senior Government Ministers recognised that fear and guilt was used as drivers for behavioural change of the UK population without their knowledge.
The existing literature
It is important to acknowledge that the above-mentioned psychological techniques were used on the U.K. population without their knowledge or consent, and that this in direct contradiction of long-established and carefully considered behavioural science advice which made clear that, in theory and practice, the consent of the public is paramount. According to a 2010 Institute for Government report:
The use of MINDSPACE (or other ‘nudge’ type policy tools) may require careful handling – in essence, the public need to give permission and help shape how such tools are used. (p10)
Continuing, the report states:
Policy-makers wishing to use these tools summarised in MINDSPACE need the approval of the public to do so. (p74)
Further literature supports that permission from the public is essential. David Halpern wrote in 2015:
If there is one great risk to the application of behavioural insights in policy, it is that the thread of public permission wears too thin. If governments, or indeed communities or companies, wish to use behavioural insights, they must seek and maintain the permission of the public to do so. (p365)
As there was no approval obtained, the options recommended and deployed were not in alignment with the principles of behavioural science.
It is important to highlight that the same kinds of techniques were used on children in relation to mask wearing, social distancing and vaccine uptake, with many techniques continuing into 2022. These techniques violated UNICEF’s recommendations from its ethical toolkit for behavioural science projects directed at children. The tool-kit states:
A core idea underlying the applied behavioural science approach is that interventions should not restrict choice and should transparently communicate project goals. When designing an intervention, practitioners should determine how transparent it will be to those affected by it. They should ensure that children and parents can easily opt out, and should design feedback mechanisms so that children and their parents can voice concerns, see the outcomes of their objections, and hold decision-makers to account.
The behavioural science literature also indicates a potential link between the misuse of behavioural psychology and an increased risk of suicide, stemming from an All Party Parliamentary Group Report on the Morse Review into the Loan Charge in 2020. One of the recommendations within the report demands:
An independent assessment and a suspension of HMRC’s use of behavioural psychology / behavioural insights, in light of the ongoing suicide risk to those impacted by the Loan Charge.
The literature highlights that approval from the public must be sought and maintained. Additionally, all behavioural science projects directed at children must have effective feedback mechanisms and methods of opting out, with decision makers able to be held accountable. There are also existing potential concerns that behavioural science may increase suicide levels. These important ethical aspects and safety signals appear to have been ignored. The lessons of history warn us that in times of existential crisis, whether real or only perceived, our ethics are at risk of being abandoned, and psychological knowledge can become misused by governments:
Under some historical conditions or circumstances and contexts, psychologists and psychological knowledge were in danger of being abused by political powers, largely for clandestine purposes, such as conducting torture or the persecution of political opponents. (Maercker A, Guski-Leinwand S, 2018)
It is of grave concern that the actions of the U.K. Government during the Covid era potentially fit into the category of abusing psychological knowledge and being absent of ethics, thus require serious investigation.
The impact of psychological pressure on informed consent
For the sake of brevity, I will not reiterate the multiple concerns already documented by others surrounding the consequences of the Government’s actions around lockdown, hospital discharges, school closures and mask mandates. I do, however, wish to highlight one extremely serious consequence that I believe has occurred as a direct result of the use of unethical psychological techniques and behavioural insights on the unknowing public: by adopting the techniques used, the Government significantly and materially undermined, if not removed, the U.K. population’s ability to give valid informed consent to taking a COVID-19 vaccine.
According to Public Health England:
Consent must be obtained before starting any treatment or physical investigation or before providing personal care for a patient. This includes the administration of all vaccines.
Also,
It is a legal and ethical principle that valid consent must be obtained before starting personal care, treatment or investigations.
Also,
For consent to immunisation to the (sic) valid, it must be given freely, voluntarily and without coercion by an appropriately informed person who has the mental capacity to consent to the administration of the vaccines in question.
From the above, it is clear that for medical consent to be valid it must be given without coercion. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines coercion as:
The threat or use of punitive measures against states, groups or individuals in order for them to undertake or desist from specified actions. In addition to the threat of or limited use of force (or both), coercion may entail economic sanctions, psychological pressures, and social ostracism.
The psychological techniques used by the U.K. Government fall under that definition of coercion. If follows that according to Public Health England’s statements and for the general public at least, consent to immunisation was invalidated by the behaviour of the U.K. Government. It is also important to highlight that there have been serious injuries and death directly linked to the COVID-19 vaccine. Many of those injured or who have died would not have taken a vaccine if they had not been psychologically pressured, feared being ostracised socially and were given accurate information.
The removal of the general population’s ability to give informed medical consent is of the gravest concern, and a severe and dangerous consequence of using behavioural insights and psychological techniques on an unknowing public.
Conclusion
The need to hold tightly to professional ethics, in particular to the ethical principle of informed consent, is not just an ‘academic’ issue. It is a matter of practical and fundamental importance to responsible government.
According to David Halpern, “Behavioural insights, like any other form of knowledge, can be used for good or bad” (p348). It is my opinion that the use of behavioural insights and psychological techniques designed to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt utilised by the U.K. Government since March 2020 has been unethical. The consequences are still unravelling but they appear to include serious damage to trust in government and its agencies, the NHS and the medical and scientific professions.
I propose that there be an immediate cessation of the use of all behavioural science techniques designed to elicit feelings of fear, shame and guilt used by the Government pending an urgent, open and independent inquiry. This inquiry should also have as an objective the re-establishment of ethical frameworks necessary to protect the public and to provide accountability. I would welcome a discussion on this most important of matters.
Most respectfully
Dr. Christian Buckland
Doctor of Psychology in Psychotherapy and Counselling
Kiev sends media ‘correct terminology’ instructions
RT | April 28, 2023
A list of “correct” phrases, narratives and names emailed to media outlets in Serbia is genuine and came at the instruction of the foreign ministry in Kiev, Ukraine’s embassy in Belgrade confirmed on Friday.
“It’s a recommendation we sent out to the media so that they would use correct terminology in their reporting regarding the war in Ukraine,” the embassy told the daily Novosti. According to RT Balkans, the email was sent to all print and electronic media in Serbia on Thursday.
According to the instructions, reporters should use “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine” instead of calling it a crisis, conflict, war, or even “Russian war in Ukraine.” Another guideline insists that “unprovoked full-scale military invasion” should be used instead of “special military operation.”
The Pentagon and multiple US and UK outlets already use this terminology, but it is unclear whether they adopted it on “recommendations” from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, or if it was the other way around.
The email comes after the US and the EU demanded Belgrade censor and ban Russian outlets such as RT Balkans and Sputnik, and crack down on ‘Russian narratives’ about Ukraine. While some Western-owned media in Serbia already use Kiev’s preferred phrasing, some outlets were offended by the embassy’s efforts to censor their reporting.
“Who are they to recommend to anyone how to work, or write?” Filip Rodic, the deputy head editor at Pecat magazine, told Novosti. “If they think they can censor the entire world, that’s total insanity.”
There was no explanation why the document sent to Serbian media was entirely in English, either. Some of the politically proscribed phrases in it – “the Ukraine,” for example – are already meaningless in Serbian, whose grammar has no articles. It is also a phonetic language that doesn’t spell, which makes the insistence on using Ukrainian spellings for place names – Horlivka and not Gorlovka, Kharkiv and not Kharkov, Mykolaiv and not Nikolaev, etc. – likewise not applicable.
In places, the document appears to confuse official narratives for recommended phrasing, demanding the use of “Ukraine’s legitimate efforts to de-occupy Crimea, which is a part of Ukraine’s sovereign territory within the internationally recognized borders,” in place of “Ukraine’s attacks on Crimea,” for example.
The government in Kiev has insisted for years on using its preferred phrases and place names, such as imposing “Kyiv” on English speakers. One prominent Ukrainian activist explained last month that language “plays a critical role” in the hybrid war, because it “creates a mental map in our mind which we use to make sense of what’s happening.”
“One of the best ways to support us is using Ukraine-centric terminology,” said Alona Shevchenko of Ukraine DAO.
Israel lobby piles pressure on Twitter, Facebook to ban Press TV
Press TV – April 27, 2023
Social media groups Facebook and Twitter have come under pressure from pro-Israel lobby groups to remove accounts of Iran’s leading broadcaster Press TV from their platforms.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCHD) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have demanded that Press TV be blocked for publishing content in Britain, The Telegraph reported Thursday.
ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said it was “inexcusable” to offer Press TV a platform.
“We urge Meta [the owner of Facebook] and Twitter to immediately launch an investigation and to take action to prevent Press TV and the Iranian other media outlets from misusing these social platforms.”
“Facebook and Twitter profit by providing Iranian state propagandists with the reach and amplification they need to evade domestic broadcast bans, and influence millions of new viewers in the West,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the CCHD, said.
Their concern is particularly focused around Press TV’s “Palestine Declassified” program, formerly hosted by former UK MP Chris Williamson and former Bristol University professor David Miller.
Williamson was suspended from the Labour Party after dismissing concerns about anti-Semitism in the party as “smears” and “bulls—.” And Miller was dismissed from Bristol University after he revealed Jewish students critical of his views were “directed by Israel.”
The groups cite an episode of the Press TV program devoted to unpacking the “witch hunt” in Labour and the way the party was “captured by key Israel lobby groups.”
Another episode dealt with a network of “Zionist” individuals and organizations which exerted a disproportionate influence over global affairs, including the West’s intervention in the Ukraine war and a “campaign to improve King Charles III’s image in the UK Muslim community.”
The groups are rattled by videos on Press TV’s program that exposes Jewish influence over global affairs and the entertainment industry.
In July 2013, Press TV was forced off the air in the UK after the media regulator Ofcom revoked its license for allegedly breaching the Communications Act.
In the same year, it was taken off the air in North America after the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
Press TV was dropped from the Galaxy 19 satellite platform that allowed it to broadcast in the United States and Canada, without saying when it was dropped.
The network has denounced the measures as “media terrorism.”
The broadcaster has a large number of viewers across Western countries and a considerable number of followers on social media.
In December 2022, Firas al-Najim, a Canadian human rights advocate, said Press TV is the voice of the oppressed, a news network working to expose the crimes and double standards of the West against free nations.
Weeks after the European Union imposed sanctions on the leading broadcaster, French satellite operator Eutelsat notified Press TV of its plan to take the network off the air. Najim said then that the move unmasked the conspiracy of the Western governments.
‘Huge Grab of Power’: MP Andrew Bridgen Warns Against WHO Pandemic Treaty, IHR Amendments
Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response: International Agreement, 17 Apr 2023
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 26, 2023
Andrew Bridgen, a U.K. member of Parliament this month warned his fellow parliamentarians that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) proposed new pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) represents “a huge grab of power” by “unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.”
The WHO is promoting a pandemic treaty and IHR amendments to its existing members to increase the global health organization’s power during health emergencies.
In Bridgen’s 18-minute speech — since viewed by almost 100,000 people — delivered April 17 during a parliamentary debate, Bridgen called for a referendum, or public vote, on the WHO’s proposals.
People in the U.K. “do not want to be ruled” by an unelected group of people, Bridgen said. “We should have a referendum, because sovereignty belongs to the people. It’s not ours to give away.”
The debate was triggered after 156,086 U.K. constituents signed a petition calling for the U.K. government “to commit to not signing any international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness established by the WHO, unless this is approved through a public referendum.”
Bridgen pointed out that WHO employees are exempt from taxes and have diplomatic immunity — meaning they are protected from prosecution.
He said the WHO pandemic treaty and its IHR amendments seek to take “huge powers” away from “this Parliament and every other Parliament around the world.”
“These two instruments would fundamentally reset the relationship between citizens and sovereign state — not only in this country but also around the whole world,” he added.
The proposals would empower “unelected, unaccountable, top-down, supernational” officials to “impose sweeping, legally binding” orders on member states — including forcing companies to manufacture and export certain medical treatments or shutting companies down “regardless of what the local people think,” Bridgen said.
Bridgen said the WHO’s proposals are skewed toward aggregating power in the hands of WHO officials — rather than the hands of democratic governments — because they would grant the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ph.D., the power to decide “when the pandemic or the emergency is over and when he’ll possibly give us the power back.”
Bridgen said he had “grave” concerns about who is “actually running and controlling” the WHO and its current initiatives.
The WHO consists of its 192 member states — “basically the whole of the U.N. membership, excluding Liechtenstein and the Holy See” — but it now receives 86% of its funding from non-member states, Bridgen said.
The WHO’s second-largest donor is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the fifth-largest donor is Gavi.
“You have to think: Why are they doing this?” Bridgen said, adding:
“They [the Gates Foundation and Gavi] are also the biggest donors — or biggest investors — in pharmaceuticals and the experimental mRNA technology which was so profitable for those who produced it during the last pandemic.”
Bridgen urged his fellow lawmakers to review the WHO proposals in great detail.
“They [the proposals] need to be considered very strongly. Sticking your head in the stand isn’t going to do it,” he said. “It won’t do for my constituents,” he added.
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
More vaccines and fake meat to appease the biotech monster
By Guy Hatchard | TCW Defending Freedom | April 26, 2023
Science Minister George Freeman has announced a record £52billion investment in public research and development over the next three years. That is £775 for every man, woman and child in Britain. So what are they spending your money on? You probably guessed it: the first grants under the scheme are being made to produce more biotech vaccines and industrial quantities of fake meat.
Freeman announced that traditional agriculture is inadequate to the task of feeding the world. Accordingly, the newly funded Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub will spearhead the development of processes to produce key food groups such as proteins sustainably and cost-effectively to feed a growing global population.
The Hub will undertake ‘upstream engagement with a wide range of stakeholders including consumers, food producers and retailers to promote transformational food development’. Translation: very soon the government will be rewriting our dinner menus.
According to Professor Marianne Ellis of the University of Bath, who will benefit from the first funding award, ‘This would enable production of foodstuffs and the vast array of co-products that are the same as traditional products produced in a system similar to brewing.’
Bearing in mind that no specific processes have yet been developed or their products tasted, the claim of similarity with traditional food and the analogy with the brewing of beer stumbles at the first hurdle. In fact what is being proposed is biotechnology on an industrial scale using processes which are already known to be energy-hungry, risk-intensive and subject to genetic contamination.
In my book Your DNA Diet, I discuss research illustrating the value of natural food based on DNA to maintain our health. We have enjoyed a co-evolutionary relationship with these foods for millions of years. Genetically processed foods will not have this same relationship. Industrial production of such foods will also change the relationship of consumers with producers, placing food supply in the hands of giant corporations.
The second recipient of government research largesse will be the Future Vaccines Manufacturing Hub led by Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert at Oxford University and Professor Martina Micheletti at University College London. This group is a follow-on from the Oxford University-AstraZeneca collaboration which gave us a Covid vaccine that is no longer used around the world possibly because of the danger of adverse effects.
The Vaccine Hub intends ‘to make it possible to undertake mass programmes of non-invasive vaccination’. For your reference, non-invasive delivery systems currently under development include oral and nasal vaccines, and vaccines built into foods.
The Vaccine Hub will develop cellular-level technologies. As we have noted previously, the basis of life as we know it is the cell. Genetically altering cellular processes is inherently mutagenic and undermines the very basis of biostability and health.
The press release from UK Research and Innovation announcing these new grants is headlined: ‘Vaccine and food manufacturing hubs will save lives and cut carbon’. It makes ample use of phrases designed to sound reassuring such as ‘Food production revolutionised’, ’A hub for health and life’, and so on. The release also reassures us that Covid vaccines have been ‘game-changing’ – they certainly have, but not in the way originally intended. The current high level of excess deaths in the UK and elsewhere, disproportionately affecting those in receipt of Covid vaccines, tells its own story.
The hubs are each associated with a long list of private-sector partners from the biotechnology industry. To facilitate the commercialisation of biotech products, the UK government is loosening the regulations requiring the public to be informed about what they are eating. The Genetic Technology Act, which passed into law last Thursday, ‘removes plants and animals produced through precision breeding technologies from regulatory requirements applicable in England to the environmental release and marketing of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)’.
The key change here is merely semantic: genetic manipulation is now described as a ‘precise’ process and will thereby escape regulation and labelling. Watch Dr Michael Antoniou of King’s College London discuss the dangers of gene crop deregulation in the new Act.
New UK policies appear to be at least in part a response to the huge pressure exerted by scientists, academic institutions and biotech firms on the government to continue the massive level of funding they enjoyed during the pandemic. All this is being undertaken in the absence of any credible official evaluation of the impact, advisability, cost and safety of pandemic policies. It is of note that independent evaluations such as this paper are pointing to huge mistakes, which the new grants appear poised to repeat. A form of madness has gripped our politicians as they rush ahead without bothering to inform themselves of potential dire consequences.
Treatment of Russia at UN shows need of its urgent reform or even replacement
By Drago Bosnic – April 25, 2023
The importance of global cooperation and international law has never been more pronounced in the post-WWII era than it is today. The world’s most important organization in this regard is certainly the United Nations, with one of its main tasks being to uphold international law and maintain its impartiality, regardless of which country or entity it is engaged with. Unfortunately, the UN has failed on both counts, but its role as an international forum of sorts that serves as the last frontier of dialogue between states is still evident. And yet, it seems that even this largely ceremonial role is too much for the political West, as it undermines its desire for total dominance through the so-called “rules-based world order“.
Perhaps the best example (although “the worst” would probably be a more suitable word) of this is the atrocious treatment of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the UN. The latest UN Security Council meeting (chaired by FM Lavrov) should serve as a textbook example of how not to conduct diplomacy, probably for decades to come. The tensions have been quite high at the UNSC due to the political West’s frustrations after Russia took over the council in April, a rule based on the regular monthly rotation. Lavrov warned against this and stated that the world has become a more dangerous place, possibly more so than at the height of the Cold War.
“As was the case in the Cold War, we have reached the dangerous, possibly even more dangerous, threshold,” Lavrov said.
The meeting, titled the “Maintenance of international peace and security”, came under fire as Western diplomats repeatedly grumbled about Russia taking over chairing of the UNSC on April 1 and that it allegedly “must be an April Fool’s joke”. Lavrov himself slammed the United States and its vassals and satellite states for abandoning diplomacy and called for the clarification of relations on the battlefield. However, Western “diplomats” went about with their hostility, including Olaf Skoog, the official representative of the European Union to the UN. Skoog openly called Russia “cynical” for allegedly “trying to portray itself as a defender of the UN charter and multilateralism”.
“We all know that while Russia is destroying, we are building. While they violate, we protect,” he said.
This statement alone shows the immeasurable level of EU/NATO’s self-delusion, as the political West’s truly unprovoked and brutal aggression against the world stands as a stark reminder of just how opposite of truth this is. However, it wasn’t just Western officials that took aim at Russia. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also stated that “Russia’s invasion is causing massive suffering and devastation to the country and its people” and then (rather inexplicably) added that “it’s fueling global economic dislocation triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic”. Neither of these statements makes much sense, as he has said virtually nothing about the suffering of the people of Donbass in the six years since taking office.
“Tensions between major powers are at an historic high. So are the risks of conflict, through misadventure or miscalculation,” Guterres also warned.
Apparently, he stated this to “even out” his previous one-sided statement, but he failed in this too, as he never mentioned which side was responsible for stoking the tensions to a boiling point. Still, perhaps the most laughable example of endless hypocrisy came from the US, when its UN representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield called Lavrov himself “hypocritical” and criticized Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression.
“Our hypocritical convener today, Russia, invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, and struck at the heart of the UN Charter. This illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary war runs directly counter to our most shared principles – that a war of aggression and territorial conquest is never, ever acceptable,” she said.
Again, such statements are beyond laughable or even enraging to dozens of countries that have been invaded or targeted by Washington DC. However, what’s truly disturbing is how the US is abusing its status as the UN’s permanent host country. There have been countless examples of Russian, Belarussian, Syrian, North Korean and many other officials, diplomats, journalists, etc. that have been denied entry into the US, preventing access to what is supposed to be an impartial organization.
These incessant Western-induced tensions serve as a testament to the notion that the UN should be reformed significantly. Liz Truss, one of the UK’s recent fast-track prime ministers, floated the idea last year, one of the very few things she was right about. Of course, her reasoning for the move was quite the opposite, but the point still stands. The actual world should start creating truly international institutions that are completely divorced from the malign influence of the US-led political West. This includes either relocating or even completely replacing the UN itself.
The very idea that increasingly irrelevant countries such as France or the UK have permanent seats at the UNSC, unlike actual giants such as Brazil or India, is geopolitically ludicrous. If the political West aims to control so-called “international institutions”, then it can do so within its own geopolitical boundaries. But the issue is that it aims to control quite literally everyone, which has been preventing the emergence of a truly independent multipolar world for decades. To say nothing of how the political West has been (ab)using the UN to promote or even impose its so-called “values” on the rest of the world, something that the vast majority of civilizations find repugnant.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
UK minister calls for tech execs to be jailed if they ignore censorship demands
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 23, 2023
UK’s Technology and Science Secretary Michelle Donelan has recommended jail time for social media bosses who refuse to remove “harmful” content from their platforms. The proposal is part of the authoritarian Online Safety Bill.
The bill would give broadcasting regulator Ofcom regulatory authority over social media platforms. The platforms would be required to censor “all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred” based on protected characteristics like race, religion, gender, disability, and gender identity.
Citing the protection of children, Donelan said that social media executives who ignore the requirement and restrictions of the Online Safety Bill should go to jail, The Telegraph reported.
The measure would be used as a last resort for executives that “have consented or connived in ignoring enforceable requirements” to remove content such as “disinformation” by a foreign state.
Currently, the bill would see companies fined up to 10% of global turnover for failing to comply with the censorship demands.
Beware Perfidious Albion as Britain Takes Lead Role in War Provocation
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 23, 2023
The much-vaunted Anglo-American “special relationship” is gaining a new dubious meaning as Britain emerges as an adept agent provocateur for inciting a wider NATO war against Russia.
Warmongering British lawmakers are this week demanding a more robust NATO response over an alleged “act of war” by Russia involving a Royal Air Force spy plane and a Russian fighter jet.
Recent documents leaked from the Pentagon have indicated that a British recon plane was nearly shot down by a Su-27 over the Black Sea. Following the incident last September, the British Ministry of Defense played down the encounter as a “technical malfunction”.
It appears now, however, that the British RC-135 spy plane was fired on by the Russian jet, but that the missile missed. It may have been a deliberate warning shot as the British surveillance aircraft is understood to have been near the Russian territory of Crimea. The British and the Americans are supplying the Kiev regime forces with targeting information. So Russia is arguably entitled to take defensive measures against belligerents, as it did when an American MQ Reaper drone was intercepted last month over the Black Sea. The U.S. has reportedly restricted its surveillance flights in the area since that incident.
Now that it is being reported that a Russian missile was fired, some British politicians are demanding a response to “an act of war”.
This particular incident may well blow over. But it raises concern that British forces are playing an incendiary role in the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. With that country already pumped up with NATO weapons, and the Black Sea and Baltic region packed with NATO forces conducting massive war maneuvers over the next weeks and months, the danger is heightened for an accidental or even intended escalation. Given NATO’s common defense commitments, an incident involving one member of the military alliance would inevitably trigger the other 30 members into an all-out war-footing.
Britain’s treacherous role has recently taken on a routine, calculated character in Ukraine.
As NATO has stepped up arms supplies to Ukraine over the past year, it is London that seems to have upped the ante all the way. It was the British that broke the taboo over sending battlefield tanks when they announced earlier this year the supply of Challenger 2 tanks. That move then put the onus on Germany and the United States to accede to supplying the Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.
The Brits then went a step further by announcing they would supply Ukrainian forces with depleted uranium artillery shells. Russia condemned that move for its known environmental contamination hazards as well as breaching the line for using radiological/nuclear weapons. Moscow and others contend that depleted uranium shells are a form of “dirty nuclear bomb”.
In any case, technical quibbling aside, the move to supply depleted uranium weapons by London is seen as a particularly gratuitous provocation toward Russia.
The recent Pentagon leaks, which appear to be authentic albeit distorted by U.S. media spin, also confirmed previous separate claims that NATO special forces are operating on the ground in Ukraine fighting against Russian military.
Significantly, it is the British who have deployed the biggest number of special forces compared with other NATO members. What these commandoes are doing in Ukraine is not clear. As the BBC reported:
“According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow Nato states Latvia (17), France (15), the U.S. (14) and the Netherlands (1). The document does not say where the forces are located or what they are doing.”
Without a hint of irony, the BBC added: “UK special forces are made up of several elite military units with distinct areas of expertise, and are regarded to be among the most capable in the world.”
Distinct areas of expertise, most capable, indeed! That’s classic British euphemism for you.
It is alleged that British operatives have been helping Ukrainian artillery hit the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant – Europe’s largest civilian nuclear power plant – as a way to escalate the war.
It is also alleged by Moscow that it was members of the British Special Boat Service (SBS) that orchestrated the mass drone attack on Russian bases in Crimea last November. The air raid was thwarted by Russian defenses, but if it had succeeded the response from Russia would have been geopolitically explosive.
It should also be recalled that even before Russia launched its military intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there was a serious provocation involving a British warship in the Black Sea.
HMS Defender infringed on Russian territorial waters south of Crimea on June 23, 2021. After ignoring Russian verbal warnings, the British destroyer was fired on. A Russian Su-24 fighter jet dropped bombs in the ship’s path.
Similar to the more recent incident involving the Royal Air Force RC-135 spy plane, the British Ministry of Defense tried to play down the naval incident. But it later transpired from secret documents that London sought to deliberately provoke Russia in a show of support for Ukraine.
For the most part of the past century, the failed British empire was assigned the junior role as the butler to service the needs of the American empire. This special relationship involved London giving political and diplomatic cover for its American boss, as well as military services when required for one dirty war or another.
It is axiomatic that a dying empire is a dangerous beast, liable to lash out to salvage its waning power. The American empire has reached its death throes moment. But perhaps more dangerous than a dying imperial power is a dying imperial side-kick flunky.
Today, Britain is a broken-down impoverished de-industrialized wasteland whose shocking numbers of poor are like an army of living dead. It has long ago lost former colonies to parasite off. But there is one former colony – the United States – that might just be stupid enough to allow Perfidious Albion to manipulate a catastrophic war.
The tensions over the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with Russia are a powder-keg situation. And the British dirty-tricks brigade are the past masters that merit being closely watched.
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Trans ‘milk’ as good as the real thing – NHS
RT | February 18, 2024
The drug-induced nipple secretions of trans women are as good as mothers’ breast milk for babies, the University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust claimed in a letter to campaigners made public in a report by British think tank the Policy Exchange on Sunday.
The healthcare trust’s medical director, Rachel James, argued that the off-label prescription drug cocktail men transitioning to female take in order to produce milk was “similar to the natural hormones which encourage lactation to develop when the baby is newly born.”
“The evidence which is available demonstrates that the milk is comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby,” James wrote in the letter, sent to Children of Transitioners last August.
Biological men who wish to lactate must first take hormones to grow milk glands and then take high doses of either domperidone or metoclopramide to stimulate milk production. Neither drug is approved for this use, though they are occasionally prescribed off-label to biological women who have trouble lactating.
However, domperidone’s own manufacturer, Janssen, warns patients the drug “may cause unwanted side effects affecting the heart in a breastfed baby” and “should be used during breastfeeding only if your physician considers this clearly necessary.” … continue
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