Leaked files expose Britain’s covert infiltration of Palestinian refugee camps
By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | April 13 2022
In February, Lebanese journalist Mohammed Shoaib was arrested on suspicion of collusion with Israel’s Mossad spy agency. The writer who worked for Al-Jaras, confessed that the notorious spy agency secretly paid him to author “dozens” of anti-Hezbollah articles, receiving a paltry $30 to $70 per article.
In particular, Shoaib was tasked with writing hit jobs on the “Iranian occupation” of Lebanon, and falsely linking Hezbollah with the August 2020 Beirut port blast, drug trafficking, and murder of political activists.
It is also alleged that Mossad specifically requested his work incite hostility towards Palestinian refugees in the country who number almost 300,000. In all, Lebanon hosts more than 1.7 million refugees and has the largest per capita population of refugees in the world.
Roughly half inhabit camps administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), where they endure abysmal living conditions, overcrowding, poverty, unemployment, lack of access to justice, and other unspeakable hardships. The 11-year, foreign-backed crisis in neighboring Syria has also prompted Palestinian refugees there – and Syrian citizens – to seek sanctuary in Lebanon.
Given Israel’s track record of multifaceted crimes against the Palestinian people, that they are targeting an already vulnerable refugee population for propaganda purposes is hardly surprising. Nonetheless, Israel is not the only hostile foreign country resorting to these tactics.
Leaked files reviewed by The Cradle reveal the British Foreign Office has for many years secretly meddled in Lebanon’s refugee camps, courtesy of ARK, a shadowy intelligence cutout run by probable MI6 operative Alistair Harris. London’s agenda is rather different than Tel Aviv’s, however – it seeks to subtly stir up revolutionary fervor, and exploit them as unwitting foot soldiers in its ongoing clandestine war against Lebanon’s ruling elite.
‘Community Engagement’
The documents indicate ARK has been operating in all 12 camps since 2009, implementing British-funded “programming” of various kinds. This experience has granted the company “granular understanding” of their internal political, economic, ideological, religious and practical dynamics, and led to the establishment of a “diverse delivery team” and array of “local contacts” with “access throughout all camps and gatherings,” meaning community-level discussions and activities of residents can be spied upon and influenced.
This intimate, insidious insight is reinforced by “daily monitoring of neighborhood-level WhatsApp groups,” with “any new information, such as affiliation between a local group and a faction, or conflict between factions” documented by ARK’s in-house “stakeholder tracker.”
Typically, ARK has engaged in small-scale initiatives in the camps, including the restoration of streets and cemeteries, recycling initiatives, assisting in the launch of small businesses, providing income to disadvantaged and disabled residents, creating nurseries and daycare centers, and even launching a community hub, Sawa Coffeeshop. It serves to this day as “a popular place for youth to gather and promote civic engagement in their community and a shared Palestinian identity that bridges factional differences.”
In submissions to the Foreign Office dating to May 2019, ARK proposed ramping up these activities significantly. It pledged to create “Community Leadership Committees” in each camp, composed of hand-picked “stakeholders” – including NGOs, youth activists, women’s organizations, and representatives of neighborhood armed groups – to identify “quick impact projects” that could be implemented therein. These projects aim to “counter threats to social stability in the camps, create or improve livelihood opportunities, and provide better access to services.”
A social media platform created by ARK, Nastopia – which boasted 20,000 “highly invested” followers on Facebook at the time, a figure that has almost doubled since – was forecast to be fundamental to these efforts.
The page, run by a 24-strong team of ARK-trained “youth reporters”, would be used to recruit local participants, increase awareness and demand for “community engagement and improved conditions” among camp residents. Other activities include the promotion of Foreign Office-financed projects and to publicize “success stories” generated by them, while “promoting Palestinian culture and a sense of belonging, and tackling social injustice.”
Nastopia was “already [an] effective voice for connecting Palestinian communities, particularly youth” by that point. ARK cited a recent “Camps Films Festival” organized by the platform, covered by Al-Jazeera, which showcased “films portraying life in the camps and what it means to be Palestinian,” and in the process provided “positive examples of a shared identity.”
All along, the Nastopia page was to be monitored with “community feedback” on the assorted initiatives gauged to identify areas in which these activities “could be adapted to maximize impact.” Specialist training provided to its staff meant the platform could also serve “as a forum for online and offline discussion about social injustices [and] virtual space to talk about topics considered taboo in the camps,” allowing ARK to burrow even deeper inside the heads of refugees.
‘Active Citizenship’
If the obvious surveillance and manipulation dimensions of ARK’s project weren’t troubling enough, it takes on an acutely sinister character when one considers a key objective of “highlighting successful initiatives” in the camps was to “[enhance] the audience’s confidence in their own ability to contribute to social change.”
A Foreign Office-commissioned Target Audience Analysis conducted by ARK in March 2019 sought to pinpoint a segment of Lebanon’s population that could be mobilized to “affect positive social change,” and methods by which tensions between sectarian communities could be reduced, in order to unify them in opposition to the country’s ruling elite. Reading between the lines, it gives every appearance of a blueprint for the overthrow of the Lebanese government.
An ideal audience was duly identified, representing 12 percent of the population, who disavowed violence but did not reject “other forms of contentious politics,” and could be “influenced” to engage in “behaviors leading to positive social change,” such as protests and community initiatives.
The only questions for ARK were: “What might be done to enable other Lebanese to have similar confidence in their potential to contribute to positive social change?” and “how might this segment of the population … be grown to include a larger fraction of the public?”
The answer, ARK proposed, was to both covertly and overtly promote the message that “change is possible and ordinary citizens have a role to play in achieving change,” by way of propaganda campaigns and civil society initiatives “[highlighting] where change has been achieved or where threats to Lebanon’s stability have been countered.” This would demonstrate to the country’s diverse population that “barriers” to reform can be overcome, by taking matters into their own hands.
Providing evidence of “responsive government at local levels” was crucial for reinforcing “principles of active citizenship” among Lebanon’s population – and the analysis specifically cited Syrians and Palestinians, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, as representing an “important part” of the country’s demography, to be motivated in this manner.
In other words, Foreign Office activities in the refugee camps form just one fragment of a wider, clandestine, multi-channel assault on public perceptions in Lebanon that Britain has been waging against its democratically-elected government.
A mobilized force
One can judge these efforts by their fruits. In October 2019, seven months after ARK’s Target Audience Analysis was supplied to the Foreign Office, large-scale protests engulfed the streets of Beirut, which have ebbed and flowed ever since, and generated enormous amounts of western media coverage along the way.
The extent to which ARK’s Foreign Office-funded meddling in Lebanon influenced this incendiary unrest may never be fully quantifiable, but it may be significant that in July that year, thousands of refugees across several camps began demonstrating in unison, demanding the government immediately reform employment laws barring them as “foreign workers” from numerous professions.
This turmoil was arguably the spark that ignited the entire “October Revolution” – and in one of its Foreign Office submissions, ARK refers to how it “takes pride” in ensuring refugees recruited to its illicit schemes receive “annual leave, sick leave, and health insurance,” despite this not being “legally necessary” due to local legislation “discriminating against Palestinians.”
Who benefits?
The influence of ARK on Lebanon’s impending general election in May, the country’s first since the riots began, is even more unambiguous. Several news outlets have hailed the unprecedentedly high profusion of young candidates vying for office – 80 in total, many of them women.
A clandestine Foreign Office project influenced by the aforementioned Target Audience Analysis sought to enlist Lebanese youth as “agents of change”, fostering among them a culture of active political participation, in order that they could better “hold political institutions and individuals accountable,” and increase “electoral participation” in favor of opposition parties.
Under its auspices, ARK convened “boot camps” in “priority areas” of Lebanon, cultivated “a national group capable of pushing for greater change” composed of young women, and created social media assets and youth-focused websites featuring political interviews, question-and-answer sessions, coverage of boot camp meetings, “calls to action,” and “humorous messaging campaigns.” Activity on these assets was scheduled to ramp up ahead of the 2022 elections.
Clearly, irrespective of the outcome of the Lebanon May elections, the ultimate victors won’t be the parties and candidates that secure office, or the average Lebanese citizens who elected them, but Britain – for whatever form the next government takes, one way or another, it will serve London’s financial, ideological, military, and political interests.
Sweden Saw Second Smallest Increase in National Debt Out of All EU Countries
By Noah Carl | The Daily Sceptic | April 13, 2022
In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, almost every country in the world had a major recession. As this map from the IMF shows, most countries in Europe saw GDP decline by more than 3%, the only exception being Ireland (which in any case has an unusual way of counting GDP).
Despite this, unemployment in the EU only increased by a modest 1.2 percentage points, rising from 6.6% to 7.8% by the third quarter of 2020. One reason why unemployment didn’t rise more during months of lockdown is that governments spent unprecedented sums of money on furlough and other wage-support schemes.
In other words, they paid people to sit at home all day. For example, The U.K.’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme paid furloughed workers 80% of their previous salary, up to a cap of £2,500 a week.
While such wage-support schemes had the benefit of preventing large rises in unemployment, they had the cost of being extremely expensive. Data published by the ONS in January of this year show just how expensive.
The chart below shows change in general government gross debt (as a percentage of GDP) in percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the third quarter of 2021:
Many countries saw absolutely huge increases in debt. Over just seven quarters, Spain’s debt grew by 26 percentage points, Italy’s by 21 percentage points, and Greece’s by 20 percentage points. The UK wasn’t far behind, logging an increase of 18.7 percentage points.
At the other end of the spectrum, Ireland’s debt grew by less than one percentage point, while Sweden’s grew by only 1.2 percentage points. Of course, Sweden’s strong performance comes as no surprise, given it was the only major European country that didn’t lock down in the spring.
As I noted previously, The Economist ranked Sweden third in a league table of 23 rich countries for overall economic performance during the pandemic. And we know this didn’t come at the cost of Swedish lives – the country actually saw negative excess mortality between January of 2020 and June of 2021.
To compare European countries in a comprehensive way, I plotted change in general government gross debt against age-adjusted excess mortality. (Data were not available for Germany, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland.)
Taking into account both metrics, Sweden was one of the best overall performers in Europe, along with Luxembourg, Denmark and Finland. And it was by far the best performer among countries with a population over 10 million.
By contrast, Eastern European countries and large Western European countries – almost all of which had strict lockdowns – did poorly on both metrics. So lockdown was harmful to the public finances, with little corresponding benefit in terms of reduced mortality.
Western Dissent from US/NATO Policy on Ukraine is Small, Yet the Censorship Campaign is Extreme
Preventing us from asking who benefits from a protracted proxy war, and who pays the price, is paramount. A closed propaganda system achieves that.
By Glenn Greenwald | April 13, 2022
If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive.
On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe. In what Reuters called “an unprecedented move,” all television and online platforms were barred by force of law from airing content from those two outlets. Even prior to that censorship order from the state, Facebook and Google were already banning those outlets, and Twitter immediately announced they would as well, in compliance with the new EU law.
But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU’s decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”
So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed “pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon.
What makes this outburst of Western censorship so notable — and what is at least partially driving it — is that there is a clear, demonstrable hunger in the West for news and information that is banished by Western news sources, ones which loyally and unquestioningly mimic claims from the U.S. government, NATO, and Ukrainian officials. As The Washington Post acknowledged when reporting Big Tech’s “unprecedented” banning of RT, Sputnik and other Russian sources of news: “In the first four days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, viewership of more than a dozen Russian state-backed propaganda channels on YouTube spiked to unusually high levels.”
Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Times article from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.
Yet there is little to no censorship — either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies — of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed “pro-Russian,” regardless of whether they spread disinformation. The “Russians With Attitude” Twitter account became popular in part because they sometimes criticized Russia, in part because they were more careful with facts and viral claims that most U.S. corporate media outlets, and in part because there is such a paucity of outlets that are willing to offer any information that undercuts what the U.S. Government and NATO want you to believe about the war.
Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts, was not disinformation but skepticism about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way, it is not “disinformation” but rather viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing. One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine (just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley). But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment.
It is unsurprising that Silicon Valley monopolies exercise their censorship power in full alignment with the foreign policy interests of the U.S. Government. Many of the key tech monopolies — such as Google and Amazon — routinely seek and obtain highly lucrative contracts with the U.S. security state, including both the CIA and NSA. Their top executives enjoy very close relationships with top Democratic Party officials. And Congressional Democrats have repeatedly hauled tech executives before their various Committees to explicitly threaten them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more in accordance with the policy goals and political interests of that party.
But one question lingers: why is there so much urgency about silencing the small pockets of dissenting voices about the war in Ukraine? This war has united the establishment wings of both parties and virtually the entire corporate media with a lockstep consensus not seen since the days and weeks after the 9/11 attack. One can count on both hands the number of prominent political and media figures who have been willing to dissent even minimally from that bipartisan Washington consensus — dissent that instantly provokes vilification in the form of attacks on one’s patriotism and loyalties. Why is there such fear of allowing these isolated and demonized voices to be heard at all?
The answer seems clear. The benefits from this war for multiple key Washington power centers cannot be overstated. The billions of dollars in aid and weapons being sent by the U.S. to Ukraine are flying so fast and with such seeming randomness that it is difficult to track. “Biden approves $350 million in military aid for Ukraine,” Reuters said on February 26; “Biden announces $800 million in military aid for Ukraine,” announced The New York Times on March 16; on March 30, NBC’s headline read: “Ukraine to receive additional $500 million in aid from U.S., Biden announces”; on Tuesday, Reuters announced: “U.S. to announce $750 million more in weapons for Ukraine, officials say.” By design, these gigantic numbers have long ago lost any meaning and provoke barely a peep of questioning let alone objection.
It is not a mystery who is benefiting from this orgy of military spending. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that “the Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight U.S. weapons manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia lasts years.” Among those participating in this meeting about the need to increase weapons manufacturing to feed the proxy war in Ukraine is Raytheon, which is fortunate to have retired General Lloyd Austin as Defense Secretary, a position to which he ascended from the Raytheon Board of Directors. It is virtually impossible to imagine an event more favorable to the weapons manufacturer industry than this war in Ukraine:
Demand for weapons has shot up after Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 spurred U.S. and allied weapons transfers to Ukraine. Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity. . .
Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting. . . The White House said last week that it has provided more than $1.7 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the invasion, including over 5,000 Javelins and more than 1,400 Stingers.
This permanent power faction is far from the only one to be reaping benefits from the war in Ukraine and to have its fortunes depend upon prolonging the war as long as possible. The union of the U.S. security state, Democratic Party neocons, and their media allies has not been riding this high since the glory days of 2002. One of MSNBC’s most vocal DNC boosters, Chris Hayes, gushed that the war in Ukraine has revitalized faith and trust in the CIA and intelligence community more than any event in recent memory — deservedly so, he said: “The last few weeks have been like the Iraq War in reverse for US intelligence.” One can barely read a mainstream newspaper or watch a corporate news outlet without seeing the nation’s most bloodthirsty warmongering band of neocons — David Frum, Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney, Wesley Clark, Anne Applebaum, Adam Kinzinger — being celebrated as wise experts and heroic warriors for freedom.
This war has been very good indeed for the permanent Washington political and media class. And although it was taboo for weeks to say so, it is now beyond clear that the only goal that the U.S. and its allies have when it comes to the war in Ukraine is to keep it dragging on for as long as possible. Not only are there no serious American diplomatic efforts to end the war, but the goal is to ensure that does not happen. They are now saying that explicitly, and it is not hard to understand why.
The benefits from endless quagmire in Ukraine are as immense as they are obvious. The military budget skyrockets. Punishment is imposed on the arch-nemesis of the Democratic Party — Russia and Putin — while they are bogged down in a war from which Ukrainians suffer most. The citizenry unites behind their leaders and is distracted.
Russia’s Ukraine operation has no deadline
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 13, 2022
In his first extended remarks in nearly a month about the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that peace talks had reached a “dead end” and pledged that Russia’s “military operation will continue until its full completion.”
Putin defined a more limited aim for the war, focusing on control of the Donbass — and not all of Ukraine. Putin reiterated that Russia’s actions so far in several regions of Ukraine were intended only to tie down enemy forces and carry out missile strikes with the purpose of destroying the Ukrainian military’s infrastructure, so as to “create conditions for more active operations on the territory of Donbass.”
In his words, “Our goal is to provide aid to the people of Donbass, who feel an unbreakable bond with Russia and have been the subjects of genocide for eight years.”
Asked why the operation cannot be speeded up, Putin told reporters: “I often get these questions, ‘can’t we hurry it up?’ We can. But it depends on the intensity of hostilities and, any way you put it, the intensity of hostilities is directly related to casualties.”
He made it clear that “our task is to achieve the set goals while minimising these losses. We will act rhythmically, calmly, and according to the plan that was initially proposed by the General Staff.” He added, “The operation is going according to plan.”
Clearly, Mariupol port city in the south of Donbass could have been conquered with brute force. But that would have caused horrific casualties. Instead, the enemy forces — Ukrainian military, neo-Nazi Azov battalion and foreign mercenaries — have been steadily cornered and entrapped in two main locations, namely, Azovstal steel mills and the city’s main port.
The Russian forces have gained control of the port, while in Azovstal, about 3000-strong enemy forces have been surrounded, who include possibly dozens or hundreds of military officers from the NATO countries — and, surprisingly, Sweden. The experts estimate that the fall of the city into Russian hands is imminent. The Russian Ministry of Defence announced on Wednesday that over 1,000 Ukrainian troops, including 162 officers, surrendered earlier in the day in Mariupol.
In retrospect, the main purpose behind the frantic diplomatic efforts by some of the NATO countries (France and Germany, in particular) to sponsor “humanitarian corridors” out of Mariupol had a nefarious agenda to exfiltrate the Western officers trapped in the city. The heart of the matter is, NATO forces are de facto deployed in Ukraine, as foreign volunteers or as military instructors, and, equipped with heavy military equipment, they are fighting the Russian Army.
A French journalist who managed to sneak in with French “volunteers” has since come out with a video showing that American military personnel coordinate the foreign military in Ukraine and are directly handling the training and enrolment of the foreign “volunteers” in the Ukrainian forces.
In such conditions, quite obviously, peace talks between Moscow and Kiev cannot progress. The big question is: Does the Biden administration want the conflict to end and a peace agreement to be negotiated? The answer seems ‘no’. In fact, the US is fuelling this conflict.
The US Senate has approved a draft law on lend-lease, which will greatly simplify supplies to Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reported that the US will provide Ukraine with heavy equipment, including Soviet air defence systems. The Biden administration is said to be preparing to announce more than $700 million in additional military assistance to Ukraine, which is likely to include heavy ground artillery systems, helicopters and armoured vehicles. The US had provided more than $2.4 billion in military assistance to Ukraine during Biden’s presidency, including $1.7 billion since Russia began its special operation in Ukraine in late February.
Interestingly, Putin confirmed yesterday the reports that British intelligence had stage-managed the so-called Bucha killings to pillory Russian military and create an international ruckus. The Pentagon had ostentatiously distanced itself from the controversy riveted on what turned out to be fake news. Putin said:
“There is a lot of commotion, but they (EU and US) just needed to adopt a new package of sanctions, as we know very well. Today, we discussed their special operation, the psychological operation carried out by the British.
“If you want to know the addresses, the secret meeting places, the licence plate numbers, the brands of vehicles they used in Bucha, and how they did it, the FSB of Russia can provide this information. If not, we can help. We exposed that ugly, disgusting position of the West together with our Russian friends, in full and from the beginning to the end.”
The Russian and Ukrainian forces have been regrouping and strengthening their positions in Eastern Ukraine through the past fortnight in preparation for a decisive battle for the Donbass. The Russian forces are preparing to encircle a huge concentration of Ukrainian troops, estimated to be in the region of 100,000 servicemen drawn from the best units of the armed forces. Kiev is also transferring all available forces to the eastern front in order to stop the Russian offensive.
Putin’s remarks yesterday suggest that Russia is not looking for a quick victory at any cost. Putin said on Tuesday that Moscow “had no other choice” and that the operation aimed to protect people in parts of eastern Ukraine and to “ensure Russia’s own security”. He vowed it would “continue until its full completion and the fulfilment of the tasks that have been set.”
To be sure, fighting in eastern Ukraine will intensify over the next two to three weeks but the final outcome will take time. The Ukrainian forces and the foreign fighters who have flocked to the eastern region are well-equipped and will not only put up stiff resistance but may even carry the fight into Russian territory.
This grim scenario is fraught with the real danger that NATO may increasingly be finding itself at war with Russia in Ukraine. According to Western media reports, elite British and US special forces units are deployed in Ukraine, including servicemen of the British Special Air Service (SAS) and soldiers of the First Operational Unit of Special Forces “Delta” of the US Army.
There have been reports that the operations in Mariupol were under the command of an American general who attempted to escape by helicopter sent to rescue him a week ago, but was intercepted by the Donetsk militia involved in the operation alongside the Russian forces, and was taken into their custody. It is entirely conceivable that the Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Moscow mission on Monday and his “very direct, open and tough” talks with Putin at a one-to-one meeting at the latter’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence near Moscow was in coordination with Washington. There has been no readout of the 75-minute meeting from the Kremlin.
Chinese energy major quits West – report
Samizdat | April 13, 2022
China’s state-owned oil and gas corporation China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is reportedly preparing to exit from the US, UK and Canada due to mounting concerns about sanctions, regulations and rising costs.
Relations between China and Western countries have soured over the past several years. Beijing’s ties with Washington were shattered after former US President Donald Trump launched a large-scale trade war, hitting a wide range of Chinese goods with import levies. Tensions have been mounting recently after China refused to condemn Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
CNOOC, China’s top offshore oil and gas producer, is currently seeking to leave the West by selling “marginal and hard to manage” assets in the three nations, according to unnamed industry sources quoted by Reuters.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, told the agency that the company’s top management found it “uncomfortable” to manage its Western assets because of regulations and high operating costs.
CNOOC, which entered the three countries by a $15 billion acquisition of Canadian energy major Nexen in 2013, was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange after Trump’s anti-China campaign was launched. Prior to that the company had been listed on the NYSE for two decades. Joe Biden’s administration removed the firm from the blacklist about a year ago.
In the US, the Chinese energy major owns onshore assets in the Eagle Ford and Niobrara shale basins and also has offshore stakes in the Stampede and Appomattox fields in the Gulf of Mexico. In Britain, the company operates three sites in northeast Scotland, and has oil sands and shale gas assets in Canada.
“Assets like Gulf of Mexico deepwater are technologically challenging and CNOOC really needed to work with partners to learn, but company executives were not even allowed to visit the US offices,” a senior industry source said, as quoted by media.
“It had been a pain all along these years and the Trump administration’s blacklisting of CNOOC made it worse,” he explained.
Moreover, the latest sanctions imposed by the US on Russia may hit CNOOC’s assets, the sources also said. The company, which is getting ready to list on the Shanghai stock exchange in April, is reportedly planning to purchase assets in Latin America and Africa.
CNOOC reportedly produced some 1.57 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2021, of which 62,000 were from sites in Canada and 80,000 were from sites elsewhere in North America. Altogether, its assets in the US, UK and Canada produce nearly 220,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, according to Reuters’ calculations.
Britain’s military facilities being enhanced to host new US nukes: Report
Press TV – April 13, 2022
British underground military facilities are being upgraded for use in storing US nuclear weapons as part of an extensive nuclear arms modernization program pursued by Washington, US military budget documents show.
In the Biden administration’s 2023 military budget request, the UK was added to the list of countries where infrastructure investment is under way at “special weapons” storage sites, alongside Turkey, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands – all countries where the US stores an estimated 100 B61 atomic bombs, the UK-based The Guardian daily reported Tuesday.
The report cites Hans Kristensen, the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), as saying that the British site being upgraded to host the nukes is the US airbase at RAF Lakenheath, located 100 kilometers northeast of London.
As part of the US nuclear arms modernization bid, the report says, “The B61 has been given a new lease of life with a guidance system, the B61-12 variant, due to go into full production in May.”
Washington’s 2023 budget request states that NATO “is wrapping up a 13-year, $384m infrastructure investment program at storage sites in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, and Turkey to upgrade security measures, communication systems, and facilities.”
This is while Britain has become anxious to assume a more assertive role when it comes to its own nuclear deterrent, according to the report, which noted that London announced last year that it would boost its own stockpile of Trident nuclear warheads by 40 percent to 260 – the first such increase since the end of the cold war.
It further cited British government sources as saying that the UK has “a clearer appreciation” of its role as a nuclear weapons state in a renewed era of state competition with Russia and China.
According to the daily, the British Defense Ministry did not comment on the upgrade mentioned in the US budget, though one official said, “We won’t provide anything on this as it relates to the storage of nuclear weapons.”
It then underlined that the development comes “just four months after the arrival in Lakenheath of the first of a new generation of nuclear-capable US combat aircraft, the F-35A Lightning II, the first such deployment in Europe.”
The report further cited Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, as saying that the upgrade of the British storage facilities is “an early sign that the US and NATO are preparing to engage in a protracted and maybe heightened standoff with Putin’s Russia.”
“The administration should provide some clarity about the military necessity and goals of possibly bringing nuclear weapons back to the UK,” Kimball emphasized.
The developments in Europe are part of a broader retreat from arms control, the daily also noted, adding that the Biden administration’s nuclear posture review – which has been sent to Congress but not yet declassified – reportedly do not include the changes the US president pledged during his campaign.
In 2020, Biden claimed he would formally declare the sole purpose of nuclear weapons to be deterrence of a nuclear attack against the US or its allies. But the review leaves open the option of using nuclear arms to respond to non-nuclear threats as well.
However, the nuclear disarmament group CND said the “quiet announcement” by the US amounted to more militarization at a time of growing risk and would add to the risks faced by the British public. CND’s General Secretary Kate Hudson said she feared it could lead to US warheads being redeployed in Britain, insisting, “Nuclear weapons don’t make us safe – they make us a target.”
The US withdrew its B61 munitions from Lakenheath in 2008, marking the end of more than half a century of maintaining a US nuclear stockpile in Britain. At the time of the withdrawal, the gravity bombs were widely considered as militarily obsolete and hopes were higher for further disarmament by major holders of nuclear weapons.
In the 1990s, RAF Lakenheath had 33 underground storage vaults, where 110 B61 bombs were stored, according to the FAS. Since their withdrawal, the vaults have been dormant. Kristensen said he believed the vaults are now being upgraded so the new B61-12 bombs can be stored there.
According to Kristensen, when the new B61-12 bombs are delivered – expected next year – they will replace older models already there, noting that the Lakenheath upgrade is intended to provide more flexibility to move the nuclear weapons around Europe.
“One of the things they have talked about is protecting the deterrent against Russia’s improved cruise missiles capabilities,” Kristensen asserted. “So they could be trying to beef up the readiness of more sites without them necessarily receiving nukes, so that they have the options to move things around in a contingency if they need to.”
UK censorship bill will impact small, independent media outlets while giving large media outlets a pass
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | April 11, 2022
The UK government is currently pushing a sweeping online censorship bill, the Online Safety Bill, which will force tech giants to censor content based on the vague, subjective term “harm.”
One of the government’s main arguments when attempting to defend these controversial censorship requirements has been that “news content will be completely exempt from any regulation under the Bill.” However, the rules that govern these exemptions are written in a way that favors large media outlets and makes it difficult for small, independent outlets to qualify.
For starters, the state-funded media outlets the BBC and Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C) automatically qualify as “recognised news publishers” – the standard that determines whether a publisher is exempt from the bill’s regulations.
Other outlets need to either hold a license under the Broadcasting Act 1990 or 1996 or meet numerous conditions which include “publishing news-related material that is created by different persons,” having a registered office or business address in the UK, making the name and address of the outlet’s owner public, being subject to a standards code and editorial control, and having a complaints procedure.
Obtaining a license under the Broadcasting Act 1990 or 1996 creates additional costs for small outlets, such as the £2,500 ($3,300) license application fee and the minimum annual license fee of £1,000, ($1,320). It also gives Ofcom the power to decide which outlets can get a license.
The provision for news-related materials from non-license holders to be created by “different persons” also prevents individual journalists from qualifying as recognized news publishers. Furthermore, the requirement for non-license holders to make their name and address public shuts out anonymous or pseudonymous publishers from these recognized news publisher exemptions.
Additionally, these non-license holder conditions create additional compliance burdens which disproportionately impact smaller news outlets with fewer staff and resources.
The disproportionate impact this censorship bill has on small, independent media outlets is just one of the many areas of concern. The bill also includes proposals that will jail people whose posts cause “psychological harm” with “no reasonable excuse,” tasks Big Tech with deciding when something is “illegal” or “fraudulent,” and more.
…..
You can get a full overview of all the free speech and privacy threats posed by the Online Safety Bill here.
You can see a full copy of the full Online Safety Bill here.
The bill is currently making its way through Parliament and you can track its progress here.
SAS and Delta Force part of “secret war”: French intelligence source
Samizdat | April 11, 2022
Elite special forces from the UK and the US have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of hostilities with Russia in late February, a source in the French intelligence community reportedly told a Le Figaro reporter, last week.
The claim was reported by the newspaper’s senior international correspondent Georges Malbrunot on Saturday, the day when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his surprise visit to Kiev. The British leader was reportedly surrounded by guards from the elite SAS force, though this claim was not officially confirmed.
SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did [sic] the American Deltas,” Malbrunot tweeted citing a French intelligence source. He added that according to the source Russia was well aware of the “secret war” waged against its troops by foreign commandos. Le Figaro included his report in their updates on Ukraine.
The UK and the US have been among the most active military supporters of Kiev. Johnson reportedly personally urged his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to keep on fighting against Russia and not settle for peace until better terms are offered.
Western pro-fighting consensus was apparently confirmed last week by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who said on Saturday that the “war will be won on the battlefield” as he too was visiting Kiev.
British media earlier reported that dozens of “retired” SAS soldiers had gone or planned to go to Ukraine to contribute their expertise in reconnaissance and anti-tank warfare to Kiev’s cause. Their services were allegedly paid for by “a country in Europe, still to be named, via a private military company” rather than by the British government, according to the UK tabloid the Daily Mirror.
The Russian military reported action against what it described as “mercenaries” fighting for Ukraine on several occasions. One of the recent instances was on Saturday, just as Johnson and Borell were in Kiev.
The Russian defense ministry said Kiev attempted to use a civilian ship in its latest failed attempt to evacuate high-value personnel from the port city of Mariupol, which saw some of the most intensive fighting during the conflict. The individuals intended for evacuation were identified as leaders of the ultranationalist Azov battalion and foreign mercenaries. There are unconfirmed reports that hundreds of foreign nationals could be blocked in Mariupol along with several thousand Azov troops.
The US and the UK have publicly stated they had no plans to involve their troops in the fighting in Ukraine. Both are major suppliers of arms to Kiev and were training soldiers in Ukraine before the Russian offensive. The experts were reported pulled out of the country in the run-up to the hostilities.
Britain’s Defence Ministry banned active service members from traveling to Ukraine in early March, saying that violating the rule could result in prosecution. Kiev called on volunteers abroad to join the ranks of its newly-created “foreign legion” after the Russian attack.
UK growth falters amid historic cost-of-living surge
Samizdat | April 11, 2022
The UK is facing the biggest decline in living standards since comparable records began in the 1950s, according to an independent forecast.
The London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) released a report on Monday, saying that the “cost of living crisis” has “well and truly” arrived in the UK. CEBR cites the recent uprating of the energy price cap – reflecting the global rise in energy costs – as the reason, saying that average UK households will be paying a whopping 73% more for their energy bill than compared to a year ago. In addition, petrol prices are up by 30% on the year and diesel prices are 36% higher, the report says.
According to the consultancy, in the coming months the consumer price inflation will far outstrip wage growth, jumping by a further 2.5% from its February level of 6.2%, which was the highest in 30 years. While most forecasts expect the UK economy to grow in each quarter of 2022, the energy price crisis will still see the households notably worse off, CEBR notes.
The Bank of England warned in March that inflation in the country is set to hit a 40-year high of 8.7% at the end of the year due to a rise in global energy prices over the past few months. The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, also said last month that Britain was heading for the biggest single shock from energy prices since the 1970s, with the economy set to suffer a growth slowdown.
If Hospitals Are Currently Under Pressure, They Only Have Themselves to Blame
By In-house doctor | The Daily Sceptic | April 10, 2022
There follows a guest post by our in-house doctor, a former senior NHS medic, who says the latest ‘perfect storm’ causing pressure on the health service in parts of the country is more a self-induced squall.
In the middle of last week, several NHS Trusts issued warnings about the acute strain their services were under. The South Central Ambulance Service went so far as to declare a critical incident – normally reserved for a situation in which demands on the service exceed the capacity to manage those demands. I was surprised that so many NHS bodies spread over a wide geographical area issued public warnings about their failure to cope at the same time. Statements referred to high demand on services (hardly news) and lacked any specific detail about critical capacity constraints. Accordingly, the Daily Sceptic asked me to interrogate the available data to work out the extent to which a Covid resurgence might be responsible for the latest ‘perfect storm’ to hit the NHS.
Graph 1 shows daily admissions of Covid positive patients from the community. Admissions have risen in the last few weeks, but seem to be tailing off. Data from Graph 1 have been the subject of hysterical articles in the mainstream press implying the latest Omicron BA.2 subvariant may be triggering a new wave of acute Covid infections. It’s not sensible to interpret Graph 1 as a stand-alone figure without considering contextual information from other datasets.
Graph 1
Graph 2 for example shows information from the Primary Diagnosis dataset. Regular readers will recall this set shows the numbers of patients admitted suffering from acute Covid compared to the patients testing positive for Covid but admitted for another condition. The grey line shows the ratio is gradually falling – in other words the headline figures in Graph 1 are misleading, because nearly 60% of those patients are not actually ill with Covid but admitted for other reasons.
Graph 2
Graph 3 shows the numbers of patients testing positive for Covid in intensive care departments. The rise in cases seen in Graph 1 since the beginning of March 2022 is absent – so although there are more hospital inpatients testing positive for Covid than at the end of February, they are not ending up in critical care. Further, the data from the most recent ICNARC report reveal that the latest tranche of Covid ICU patients have lower oxygen requirements and better respiratory ratios than the cohort from this time last year – in other words, they are not as acutely ill.
Graph 3
Graph 4 is very instructive. It shows the average length of stays of Covid patients up to the end of December 2021. This data was released in March and unfortunately is only complete up to the end of 2021, but it is reasonable to infer that current length of stay is unlikely to be worse now than in December of 2021, due to increased availability of new monoclonal antibody drugs which reduce disease severity for the highest risk patients. Graph 4 expresses average length of stay as the mean average (blue bars) and the median average (orange bars). Both these averages are steadily reducing with the median length of stay being down to four days by the end of December 2021. For the information of statistically curious readers, the median average in this case is probably more representative of the situation as the mean average can easily be skewed to the upside by a small number of very long-stay patients.
Graph 4
Overall, from the available Covid-specific patient data, we see a rise in total positive Covid tests on admission from the community, but fewer than half of these patients are symptomatic for Covid. Very few patients are ill enough to need ICU care and the length of stay for acutely ill Covid patients continues to fall. The vast majority require a few days of supplementary oxygen, intravenous steroids and monoclonal antibody infusion (or other adjunctive therapies) before being fit to discharge. So where is the problem?
Last week Saffron Cordery, deputy CEO of NHS providers, commented that staff absences played a part in the current crisis. Graph 5 shows the data for Covid related staff absences up to March 2nd (the latest figures released) – they don’t seem to have changed much lately and were on a downward trend since the turn of the year. It’s possible they may have started to increase again, but the figures are not yet released for public scrutiny.
Graph 5
My personal suspicion is that Graph 6 shows the main issue causing trouble in hospitals. Graph 6 shows the number of patients in hospitals deemed medically fit for discharge. It is shown as a stacked bar chart, so the blue bar represents the patients who actually were discharged and the orange bar shows patients who were fit for discharge but had to remain in hospital for administrative reasons (often referred to as ‘bed blocking’). Readers will readily notice the ‘weekend effect’ in the figures, and that about 11,000 patients per day are in hospital when they are fit to be discharged – about 10% of the total NHS bed stock.
Graph 6
Over two years into the pandemic, the NHS does not yet seem to have solved fundamental administrative problems in relation to patient flow through the system. I am also aware from personal communication with colleagues that most NHS trusts are still imposing unnecessary Covid protocols which add to the time taken to complete basic episodes of care such as routine operations. This reduces efficiency still further in a healthcare system not renowned for operational efficiency in the first place.
Speaking about the latest crisis, Mark Ainsworth, Director of Operations at the South Central Ambulance Service, said declaring a critical incident meant it could focus its resources on the neediest patients.
Discharging medically fit patients from hospital and exercising a modicum of common sense when compiling Standard Operating procedures might achieve the same effect.
Unless FullFact.org Says So Then It’s Not True, The UK Government Advises
By Rhoda Wilson – The Exposé – April 7, 2022
Most of us are aware that it’s not only online but also things published by corporate media that aren’t always what they seem. However, a major difference between government or corporate media reports and independent or citizen reports shared online, is the latter allows for public discourse and open debate, providing they are not censored, while corporate media and their fact-checking services do not – they prefer a top-down “above all” approach.
Denying public debate negates the all-important diversity of thought in a liberal and democratic society. Silencing counterarguments that challenge their preferred storyline enables governments and corporate media to create a one-sided narrative. A narrative that, left unchallenged, moves further and further away from the truth. But here’s a fact that you will not find on either GOV.UK or Full Fact: a lie cannot become truth, no matter how often it is repeated.
The SHAREChecklist attempts to provide advice on what to share and what not to share apparently for the good of others. Information that does not originate from their sources could be “harmful to share with our friends and families,” the UK government claims.
It’s important to understand that we, the people, are in the midst of an information war. One which began in earnest at the start of 2020. A battle in the public space for complete and truthful information while governments and their advisors attempt to manipulate our perceptions and behaviours so we obey their instructions, without question, even when those instructions prove to be harmful.
Even the most trusting know that governments and politicians hide the truth, manipulate the truth and even outright lie – it’s merely the extent that varies. We know that governments use mass media – television, radio and online – as tools to roll out their narratives to the public en masse. Additional government tools include initiatives such as their SHAREChecklist campaign.
At the very least corporate media is biased but as they sink deeper into an ever-narrowing storyline it is becoming apparent that reports are being manufactured and that they are activists seeking to implement an agenda, they are not journalists.
Fact-checking services do not provide facts they provide opinions. Last year, Facebook admitted in court that its “fact checks” are nothing more than statements of opinion. Not experts’ opinions but those of the “fact-checkers.” And self-described “fact-checkers” are not independent. They are dependent on donations from large corporations, the same corporations that work to craft a narrative and silence public debate through censorship.
The SHAREChecklist
As we work through the checklist what will become apparent is that in no way does the government advise, or even so much as hint at encouraging: critical thinking, comparing a variety of sources, open dialogue or debate. The checklist leads readers along a path to following a narrative set by a centralised coterie – the government or whoever is “advising” them.
The Government’s first bit of advice is to “make sure information comes from a trusted source.” This is common sense and something we should all be doing, and most likely instinctively are. What each of us believes are “trusted sources” is decisive.
A source that has been proven to lie without remorse is not a source to be trusted. Any source that consistently and persistently promotes Covid injections as “safe and effective” and so roll up your sleeve for another shot, for example, is not to be trusted. Within these sources, the lies are pathological and systemic. Such a source – the BBC, SAGE or UK government, for example – does not suddenly and inexplicably switch from being wanton liars to being truthful.
The second bit of advice the Government has to offer is to read beyond the headline – yet more common sense. A headline cannot contain all the substantive information that an article contains.
Additionally, clickbait headlines, for example, are common practice in all forms of media. To avoid a knee jerk response to the attention-seeking text we should not take an article, or post online, at its headline. Corporate media, as with marketing agencies, are particularly adept at clickbait headlines, texts and thumbnails. And, of course, the UK government has SPI-B and the Nudge Unit to advise them on how to use psychology to maximise public “engagement” and “cooperation.” The checkmark or tick symbol incorporated into the SHAREChecklist logo is an example of typical Nudge Unit behavioural psychology.
Again, in its third bit of advice, the Government advises some additional common sense: “check the facts.” What is notable about this point is that, according to the UK government, there are a limited number of sources that provide these “facts.” Actually, there are only two: themselves, of course, and “fact-checkers,” namely Full Fact.
The BBC frequently and repeatedly tells its viewers that it is a trusted source, bringing you the all facts. Yet, SHAREChecklist does not recommend them as a source to “check the facts.” This may or may not be an indication of how the Government views BBC’s “fact-based” reporting or, possibly, recognition that the public has, by and large, lost its trust in the BBC.
Taking on board the first two bits of advice – “trusted source” and “read beyond the headline,” in this case the Government’s headline – we take a brief look at the Government recommended “fact-checker” Full Fact later in this article.
The fourth bit of the Government’s advice is as true for images and videos shared online as it is for images and videos shown on television. There have been many examples of dubious images and videos published by corporate media over the past two years that deserve to be questioned. There is no source of information, “official” or unofficial, that we should not test for accuracy and reliability. Stay sceptical. Criticism is not only legitimate, it is necessary.
The final bit of advice the Government gives is that typos could be an indication that the information is false. How are those with dyslexia or learning difficulties supposed to feel reading that? For those who find it hard to express their thoughts and ideas in writing, you’re in good company. While Albert Einstein loved mathematics and science, he disliked grammar and had problems with spelling.
After singling out typos, then comes the sneaky bit: “official guidance” – in other words, the Government’s or the centralised coterie’s guidance – has been “carefully checked” presumably for spelling and grammatical errors. So naturally, the Government’s typo-free publications must be true – of course! On that basis, if you want to avoid being censored download Grammarly now!
Who Is Full Fact?
Full Fact’s website states: “We’re developing world-leading technology and new research to spot repeated claims, and find out how bad information can be tackled at a global scale. And we campaign for change that will make bad information rarer and less harmful.”
Who are the people and organisations behind Full Fact? Who are they campaigning for? Who is determining what information is “bad”?
In 2012, UK Column published an article about Full Fact, ‘Faux Facts – The disturbing Truth About fullfact.org’, digging a little deeper into “this interesting little non-profit company, headed by Tory Party donor and Anne Freud Centre Chairman Michael Samuel.”
In 2019 Daily Mail wrote that Full Fact was at the centre of an election row with the Tories and was forced to defend its credibility after it stepped into a social media war after an election debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson. Daily Mail quoted Dominic Raab: “Who said Final Fact is the final arbiter of what the public gets to see as the truth? There’s no god-given right, set in law.”
“Foundations set up by eBay creator Pierre Omidyar and left-wing investor George Soros have also joined tech giants in giving six-figure sums to London-based Full Fact along with thousands of unnamed individual donors paying between £25 and £5,000 each,” Daily Mail reported.
A 2021 article published in The Critic noted the board of trustees included Labour peer Baroness Janet Royall, Lib-Dem peer Lord John Sharkey and former Conservative Party member Lord Richard Inglewood. These three peers are still trustees and Michael Samuel is still chairman.
The Critic article goes on to note that Full Fact is a charity with a small output of research compared to its size, funded primarily by big-tech and staffed to a large extent by former public sector workers or ex-reporters from left-wing media. “Full Fact’s website reports that they were paid £1.1 million by Facebook and £206,500 by Google in 2019, plus a monthly payment of £7,300 worth of free advertising by the search giant. The funding by big-tech in 2019 makes up roughly 70% of their declared funding for the year,” The Critic wrote.
As you can see for yourself in the table below Full Fact is still predominantly funded, and so their opinions are influenced, by the notorious online censor organisations – Facebook, which includes WhatsApp, and Google, which includes YouTube. In 2021, almost 40% of Full Fact’s “donations” came from Facebook and Google.
Full Fact Funders 2021
Full Fact does not pass the government’s SHAREChecklist test and, according to UK government advice, their articles may be “harmful” if shared with friends and families – do not share them.
| Full Fact Funding 2021 retrieved 6 April 2022 | ||
| £305,119.64 | Third Party Fact Checking programme | |
| £116,352.14 | Framework for collaboration during misinformation crises | |
| £59,634.83 | Health fellowship | |
| Hundreds of individual donors and gift aid | £370,148.00 | Core funding |
| Mohn Westlake Foundation | £250,000.00 | Core funding |
| Google AI for Good Impact Challenge | £235,222.77 | Automated fact checking |
| Nuffield Foundation | £100,000.00 | Fact checking and annual report |
| Luminate | £75,789.87 | Core funding |
| Esmée Fairbairn Foundation | £68,333.33 | Core funding |
| £61,809.84 | WhatsApp fact checking service | |
| International Fact Checking Network & WhatsApp | £53,737.20 | Vaccine Grant Program |
| Baillie Gifford | £50,000.00 | Core funding |
| John Ellerman Foundation | £50,000.00 | Core funding |
| Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust | £50,000.00 | Core funding |
| The Buchanan Programme | £49,801.68 | Core funding |
| The Dulverton Trust | £35,000.00 | Core funding |
| Gill Family Foundation | £30,000.00 | Core funding |
| James Padolsey | £30,000.00 | Core funding |
| International Fact Checking Network & National Endowment for Democracy | £26,576.58 | Fact-Checkers Working Together Research Program |
| Colefax Charitable Trust | £25,000.00 | Core funding |
| The M J Samuel Charitable Trust | £17,500.00 | Core funding |
| International Fact Checking Network & YouTube | £17,064.56 | Fact Checking Development Grant |
| Highway One Trust | £10,000.00 | Policy team |
| William de Winton | £10,000.00 | Core funding |
| Reed Foundation | £9,000.00 | Core funding |
| Good Thinking Society | £8,000.00 | Core funding |
| Dorothy Bishop | £6,000.00 | Core funding |
| Cecil Pilkington Charitable Trust | £5,000.00 | Core funding |
| Tinsley Charitable Trust | £5,000.00 | Core funding |
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From the Archives
The great ADHD swindle
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
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