US created Ukraine conflict – Shoigu
RT | April 26, 2024
The Ukraine conflict is Washington’s doing and the US is deliberately trying to prolong the fighting, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Friday during a meeting with his counterparts from Asian nations.
Shoigu is taking part in a gathering of military chiefs from members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a nine-strong mutual defense organization. The Russian minister used the forum hosted by Kazakhstan to reiterate Moscow’s position on the origins of its conflict with Ukraine.
He identified Washington as a major source of global instability, citing its record of military interventions abroad, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The US also uses less direct financial and diplomatic tools to damage its opponents, including by fueling chaos in different parts of the world, Shoigu alleged.
“The US had first created, and now is deliberately prolonging the Ukraine conflict,” the minister stated. “As it signals purported intention to de-escalate, the West keeps pumping Kiev with weapons.”
Ukraine cannot properly control the donations, meaning there is the risk that they could end up with terrorist groups, Shoigu warned.
“They provide real-time intelligence, train Ukrainian troops, deploy Western military specialists and mercenaries on the battlefield,” he added, describing the involvement by various NATO members.
The US and its allies claim that Russia launched an “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine in February 2022, and they have since sent tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Kiev.
Shoigu accused the US of double standards regarding a nation’s right to self-defense. He cited Washington’s blocking of a UN Security Council resolution which would have condemned Israel for attacking an Iranian consulate in Damascus in early April. Tehran’s eventual retaliatory attack was the result of this obstruction, the Russian minister said.
Iran joined the SCO last year and was also taking part in the meeting in Kazakhstan.
Blinken’s Failed Diplomacy: Feeble and Hostile Threats against China by Top-ranking US Officials Visiting Beijing
By Drago Bosnic | Global Research | April 25, 2024
On April 24, US State Secretary Antony Blinken landed in China and officially started his (hopefully) diplomatic visit. The relationship between the two countries has worsened significantly. Beijing’s peaceful overtures have been met with nothing but hostility in Washington DC. The United States is simply terrified of the prospect that China will overtake it. However, this has already happened in many ways.
When not murdering millions around the world, America is still trying to figure out whether public toilets should be “mixed-gender”, while China is busy building not just itself, but the world, too.
Most of the planet is perfectly aware of this disparity and is making it clear that cooperation with Beijing is a matter of choice, while having anything to do with Washington DC mostly boils down to coercion, as the political elites there are simply incapable of conducting “diplomacy” without resorting to arm-twisting.
Blinken is going to China precisely with such bearing, pompously announcing that he “arrives with a warning that the US and its European allies are no longer prepared to tolerate China’s sale of weapon components and dual-use products to Russia”. The political West insists that this is “helping Vladimir Putin rebuild and modernize his arms factories, enabling him to intensify his onslaught on Ukraine”. Caught in the web of its own endless stream of lies, the belligerent power pole is trying to blame anyone but itself. However, this is all futile, particularly when it comes to superpowers such as China. Beijing will certainly decide whether or not to do business with someone and the political West has no say in it whatsoever. Blinken will have three days to relay the US position and if that time will be used to make toothless threats and attempt blackmail, he should’ve certainly picked another country.
The mainstream propaganda machine thinks that the relations between the US and China are improving, citing Blinken’s planned attendance at a basketball game as the indicator of this.
However, the simple fact that none of the top-ranking officials greeted him when he flew in indicates something completely different. Blinken is supposed to meet Beijing’s veteran Foreign Minister Wang Yi tomorrow. The encounter is expected to last at least six hours and might even include President Xi Jinping. This will certainly depend on Blinken’s command of actual diplomacy, as the aforementioned threats he pompously announced are only for domestic consumption and are entirely void in China. The US might threaten with sanctions, but this is a two-way street and any reciprocal measures would certainly hurt America’s economic and maybe even national security interests. It’s entirely up to the US whether things will take such an unpleasant turn.
The troubled Biden administration reportedly raised the issue of the supposed “support” for Russia directly with President Xi Jinping, while US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did the same during her recent visit to China. However, Beijing seems completely unconcerned, as it has repeatedly stated that Washington DC’s threats regarding its close ties with Moscow mean nothing, particularly as the US and its vassals and satellite states keep escalating their aggression in the Asia-Pacific. It seems that simply maintaining normal economic and financial relations with Russia now boils down to “helping” its efforts to push back against NATO aggression in Europe. After all, even if countries like China, Iran and North Korea are building closer ties with their northern neighbor, it can only be expected that everyone the political West keeps threatening will find ways to unite their forces and push back together.
“Let me stress again that China’s right to conduct normal trade and economic exchanges with Russia and other countries in the world on the basis of equality and mutual benefit should not be interfered with or disrupted,” Wang Wenbin, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, stated just before Blinken’s arrival, adding: “China’s legitimate and lawful rights and interests should not be infringed on.”
US officials insist that Beijing supposedly “gave up on the idea of sending weapons directly to Moscow thanks to their threats“. However, the entire claim is essentially a multilayered lie, as there’s no evidence whatsoever that China ever planned on arming Russia, let alone that it stopped doing so because of the political West’s pressure. On top of that, Washington DC is trying to disrupt the rapidly growing trade between the two (Eur)Asian giants, particularly through claims that Beijing is supplying so-called “dual-use” industrial goods. This is where the endless hypocrisy and mental gymnastics of the political West become most evident. While the US just decided to send dozens of billions worth of weapons to directly undermine Russia’s and China’s basic national security interests, it’s accusing the latter of “helping” the former by simply trading with it, as the so-called “dual-use” industrial goods can be pretty much anything.
Worse yet, the US and its vassals and satellite states are surrounding both Beijing and Moscow with long-range missiles and deploying troops not only in their vicinity, but directly on their borders. Still, according to their own admission, “the Blinken team is worried that China’s response to pressure over Russia could be to slow down progress in other areas of the bilateral relationship”. This also includes the (Eur)Asian giant’s close ties with North Korea, as the US wants it to put pressure on Pyongyang. Washington DC is particularly terrified of the prospect that Russia, China and North Korea are forming a more monolithic alliance that the political West will be simply hopeless to match. However, they have nobody else to blame but themselves. Constant threats and attempts to undermine all three of these countries left them with no other choice but to work together. After all, that’s one of the reasons why BRICS itself exists.
Blinken threatens China over Russia ties
RT | April 26, 2024
Washington is ready to introduce more sanctions against China over its alleged transfer of dual-use goods and components, which can supposedly be used by the Russian military industrial complex, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference in Beijing following his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the US official recalled that Washington has already imposed sanctions against more than 100 Chinese entities and is “fully prepared to act” and “take additional measures.”
Blinken claimed that China’s alleged support for the Russian defense industry raises concerns not only about the situation in Ukraine, but also about a “medium to long-term threat that many Europeans feel viscerally that Russia poses to them.”
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal had also reported that the US was drafting sanctions that could cut off some Chinese banks from the global financial system unless Beijing severs its economic ties with Russia.
The outlet claimed that US officials believe trade with China has allowed Russia to rebuild its military industrial capacity and could help it defeat Ukraine in a war of attrition.
Beijing, in turn, has accused the US of hypocrisy for providing billions of dollars in assistance to Ukraine while “unreasonably criticizing the normal trade and economic relations between Russia and China.”
“This is a very hypocritical and irresponsible approach,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbing told reporters on Friday in response to Blinken’s concerns about Beijing’s support of Moscow.
China has also vehemently rejected accusations leveled by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg of “fueling” the Ukraine conflict. Beijing has instead blamed NATO for instigating the crisis by continuing its expansion in Europe and refusing to respect Russian national security concerns.
Following his meeting with Blinken, President Xi suggested that the US and China “should be partners, not rivals” and should strive towards achieving “mutual success and not harm each other.”
“I proposed three major principles: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. They are not only a summary of past experience, but also a guide to the future,” the Chinese leader was quoted as saying.
Beijing has maintained a policy of neutrality on the Ukraine conflict, with Chinese officials repeatedly stating that the country is not selling weapons to either Russia or Ukraine. Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning insisted that China “regulates the export of dual-use articles in accordance with laws and regulations,” urging “relevant countries” not to “smear or attack the normal relations between China and Russia.”
In December last year, US President Joe Biden issued a decree which enabled sanctions on foreign financial institutions that continue to deal with Russia. It targeted lenders outside US and EU jurisdictions that help Russia source sensitive items, which reportedly include semiconductors, machine tools, chemical precursors, ball bearings, and optical systems.
‘A Dangerous Vaccine for a Nothing Disease’: U.S. Stockpiling Bird Flu Vaccines
‘Why is it called a biodefense project?’
By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | April 24, 2024
With the recent spread of H5N1 bird flu to dairy cows in eight states — and the infection of a Texas dairy worker marking the second known human case in the country — public health officials are raising concerns over the adequacy and safety of stockpiled vaccines meant to protect against a potential pandemic, according to Barron’s.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains bird flu is a low risk to humans — the infected dairy worker only contracted a case of conjunctivitis (pink eye) — and that there is currently no known mechanism for human-to-human transmission.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), avian flu is responsible for 463 deaths worldwide over the past 20 years. The CDC reports only two U.S. cases of bird flu, and both were mild. No Americans have died from the virus.
Still, government agencies and Big Pharma manufacturers are building their capacity for bird flu vaccine production.
The U.S. government holds three U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved H5N1 vaccines in its National Pre-Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Stockpile.
The vaccines, manufactured by pharmaceutical giants Sanofi, GSK and CSL Seqirus, all contain mercury, a known neurotoxin, according to product inserts.
The same companies — plus Moderna — are working to develop new bird flu vaccines.
Federal officials said they supply several hundred thousand doses within weeks and 10 million more using materials on hand, and expect to produce 125 million doses within four months.
Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, suggested the agency has a “pretty low threshold” to deploy the stockpiled vaccines.
“We believe that, if we needed to, [our vaccines] would be reasonably good matches,” Marks said on April 1 at the World Vaccine Congress in Washington, D.C.
Given that all stockpiled vaccines were made for an earlier strain of H5N1, it’s uncertain how effective they would be against the strains that are circulating now, former FDA scientist Luciana Borio told STAT News.
“The FDA-approved H5N1 vaccines — licensed in 2013, 2017, and 2020 — do not elicit a protective immune response after just one dose,” Borio said. Even after two doses, “It is unknown whether the elicited immune response is sufficient to protect against infection or severe disease.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) program told Barron’s the agency could “ramp up production to make enough vaccine doses to vaccinate the entire U.S. population.”
A portion of the stockpile consists of “chunks” of premade antigens — good for training the immune system against specific strains — and adjuvants, the ingredients used to activate the human immune system when vaccines are administered.
However, despite its assurances of rapid vaccine delivery, ASPR did not detail its plans beyond claiming it could vaccinate about 68 million people, or one-fifth of the country’s population — using the two-dose regimen — within four months of an outbreak.
Internist and epidemiologist Dr. Meryl Nass, appearing with James Corbett on the April 20 episode of “Good Morning CHD,” said, “You’ve got a dangerous vaccine for a nothing disease,” noting the low number of human H5N1 cases reported thus far.
“It’s supposedly for a life-threatening illness,” she said. “Of course, pink eye is not life-threatening,” she said.
“The whole purpose of bird flu is to make you think the pandemics are out there, they’re coming for you all the time, and you need them [the health bureaucracy] to save you,” Nass said.
Sanofi vaccine contains thimerosol, PEG
Sanofi’s H5N1 vaccine, approved for adults in April 2007, was developed from a virus strain isolated from a Vietnamese patient in 2004.
“Our egg-based vaccine supply would well contribute to support a global influenza pandemic response should it arise either from A/H5N1 or any other influenza strain,” a Sanofi spokesperson told MedPage Today.
Each 90 microgram (µg) dose includes influenza virus hemagglutinin, 500 milligrams (mg) of porcine (pig) gelatin and approximately 98 µg of thimerosal, a mercury derivative (equaling approximately 50 µg of mercury/dose).
Other ingredients used in the development of the vaccine include embryonated chicken eggs, formaldehyde, polyethylene glycol and sugar.
Polyethylene glycol, or PEG, has been linked to the anaphylactic reaction in the COVID-19 vaccines.
The product warnings cited adverse events related to the 1976 swine flu vaccine, which included Guillain-Barré syndrome and other neurological disorders such as encephalopathy, optic neuritis/neuropathy, partial facial paralysis and brachial plexus neuropathy, as well as vasculitis and altered immunocompetence.
The initial clinical trial, conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, featured an experimental group of 452 healthy adults ages 18-64, of which 103 were given two 90 µg doses administered 28 days apart, resulting in 44% of recipients developing a protective immune response.
The other adults in the vaccine group received 45 µg, 15 µg or 7 µg doses. The product information does not indicate their immune responses. However, given that the 90 µg/dose version is the one stockpiled, it’s likely the lesser amounts were ineffective.
Experts at the time expressed concern over the large doses, compared to the standard 15 µg dose used in seasonal flu vaccines, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
The trials didn’t include anyone under age 18, which would indicate that the safety and efficacy of the vaccine for this age group are undetermined.
GSK vaccine approved for 6-month-olds
GSK’s H5N1 vaccine, approved in 2013 for people as young as 6 months, was made from the same virus strain as Sanofi’s.
According to GSK’s package insert, each adult dose also contains the adjuvant AS03, made of 11.86 mg DL-α-tocopherol (vitamin E), 10.69 mg squalene (wrongly blamed for Gulf War syndrome, according to Nass) and 4.86 mg of an emulsifier called polysorbate 80. The insert also lists 5 µg of thimerosal, which equates to less than 2.5 µg mercury.
Other elements used in the production of the vaccine — and still present in the doses — include ovalbumin or embryonated hen eggs (at least 0.083 µg), formaldehyde (at least 12.5 µg) and sodium deoxycholate (at least 3.75 µg).
Pediatric doses contain about half the adult amounts of each ingredient, according to the product information.
In the clinical trial of about 2,000 adults 18 and older, 91% of those between 18 and 64 and 74% of those over 65 who received a two-dose (0.5 milliliters each) regimen of the GSK vaccine developed an adequate level of antibodies, according to the FDA.
The package insert warns of adverse events like Guillain-Barré syndrome, fainting and “cerebral vascular accidents” and notes one case of pulmonary embolism.
Three subjects developed thyroid cancer on days 21, 29 and 223 after administration. Two subjects developed polymyalgia rheumatica, two developed psoriasis, and one of each developed autoimmune hepatitis, celiac disease, cranial nerve 4 palsy, Crohn’s disease, facial paralysis and other symptoms.
A pediatric age group of 838 subjects ages 6 months through 17 years participated in a clinical trial. In addition to frequently reported symptoms of injection site pain, swelling, muscle aches, headache, fatigue, gastroenteritis, fever and other symptoms, serious adverse events included one report of a febrile convulsion and one case of alopecia within seven days of administration.
In a randomized control trial in eight countries outside the U.S. for children 6 months through 9 years old, one death was reported (day 42) along with one case of hepatitis and nasopharyngitis (day 385), three cases of appendicitis (on days 8 or 9) and one case of thyroid cancer (day 84).
Other adverse events included alopecia areata (2 subjects), glomerulonephritis (2 subjects), hypothyroidism (2 subjects) and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (1 subject).
GSK recently said it could provide at least 200 million doses to governments worldwide in the event of a pandemic, according to Barron’s.
CSL Seqirus vaccine: 1 in 200 died during clinical trials
The most recent addition to the U.S. government stockpile of bird flu vaccines is CSL Seqirus’ Audenz for H5N1, approved in 2020 for infants and adults 6 months old and up.
The vaccine contains CSL’s MF59 adjuvant, which includes 9.75 mg squalene, 1.175 mg polysorbate 80, 1.175 mg of sorbitan trioleate, 0.66 mg of sodium citrate dihydrate and 0.04 mg of citric acid monohydrate.
Nass considers MF59 dangerous because it can stimulate autoimmunity. “This adjuvant has not been approved for most other vaccines,” she said. She noted that the FDA is willing to take more risks for a vaccine needed in a dire emergency.
Other ingredients from the production process include MDCK cell protein (at least 3.15 µg) and MDCK cell DNA (at least 10 nanograms), both from dog kidneys, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (at least 4.5 µg) and ß-propiolactone (at least 0.1 µg).
Each 5 milliliter (mL) multidose vial contains 0.5 mL of thimerosal as a preservative, providing 25 µg of mercury per dose.
Fatality from the clinical trials included 11 (0.5% or 1 in 200) from the experimental group, compared to 0.1% or 1 in 1,000 for the placebo group.
In a trial with children ages 6 months through age 17, 8% of vaccine recipients developed upper respiratory infections within 21 days of vaccination.
Among the adverse events noted in post-marketing reports were swollen lymph nodes, swelling, anaphylaxis, Bell’s palsy, convulsions, demyelination, encephalitis and Guillain-Barré syndrome.
“So 1 in 200 died [and] you want to take this vaccine for a case of pink eye,” Nass said. “This is an example of how … one bad decision sort of goes and rolls down a hill and snowballs to another.”
New bird flu vaccines in development
As concerns mount over the effectiveness of stockpiled vaccines, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies are racing to develop new H5N1 vaccines better matched to currently circulating strains.
Barron’s reported that the U.S. government has been working with GSK, CSL Seqirus, Sanofi and Moderna to develop vaccines that better match the latest H5N1 strains.
GSK, recipient of multi-year pandemic preparedness contracts to supply a bird flu vaccine to the U.S., Canada, the European Union and the WHO, said it would be ready to supply 200 million doses globally, “updated with the latest circulating strains,” according to MedPage Today.
In October 2022, CSL Seqirus announced it was developing another vaccine based on the “pre-pandemic” H5N8 A strain, as part of ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) program.
The new vaccine also uses the MF59 adjuvant.
One of the surface proteins of H5N8 is reportedly similar, according to Barron’s, to the strain of H5N1 that infected the Texas dairy worker.
According to MedPage Today, CSL Seqirus said it could scale up production at its California facility — built in a private-public partnership with BARDA — to deliver 150 million vaccine doses during an outbreak.
Sanofi also partnered with BARDA in 2019 to “expand pandemic influenza preparedness” using the same recombinant technology as Sanofi’s Flublok Quadrivalent vaccine. Leveraging its existing technology would allow the company to more rapidly deliver a pandemic vaccine.
Moderna said in March 2023 that it planned to develop a bird flu vaccine, stating its COVID-19 vaccine was developed from its H10N8 pandemic flu vaccine research. Moderna didn’t mention the bird flu vaccine in its March 2024 announcements.
However, the company reported on its seasonal flu vaccine, mRNA-1010, saying it had “demonstrated consistently acceptable safety and tolerability across Phase 3 trials.”
“Early studies done by mRNA vaccine companies on seasonal flu are promising, which could be good news here since mRNA vaccines can be made more quickly than vaccines using eggs or cells,” said Borio.
‘Why is it called a biodefense project?’
Linking to a 2023 Global Biodefense article discussing BARDA’s work with CSL Seqirus, Dr. Peter McCullough tweeted on April 23, “Why is the bird flu (highly pathogenic avian influenza, H5N1) human vaccine a US @NIH @BARDA project with CSL? Why is it called a ‘biodefense’ project?”
The Daily Mail raised similar concerns about the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) collaborating with the Chinese Academy of Sciences — which oversees biodefense labs like the Wuhan Institute of Virology — to develop more virulent strains of bird flu viruses, ostensibly to aid in the development of vaccines.
The White Coat Waste Project disclosed details of the USDA-China program in a February post showing numerous research project agreements beginning in April 2021.
A bipartisan group of Congress members on April 12 sent USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack a letter stating, “This research, funded by American taxpayers, could potentially generate dangerous new lab-created virus strains that threaten our national security and public health.”
Dr. Richard Bartlett, an emergency room director and former Texas Department of Health and Human Services advisory council member, in the April 10 episode of “The Defender In-Depth,” suggested gain-of-function research on bird flu viruses may be responsible for the current outbreak or could cause a future pandemic.
“After everything we just experienced and all the loss of life and bankruptcy and damage to the economy, families destroyed with COVID, why would you continue gain-of-function research?” he asked.
Nass told Corbett she was skeptical of the push for bird flu vaccines. “Every single time we’ve had an emergency and vaccines have been rolled out quickly, it’s resulted in disaster,” she said.
Nass cautioned against relying on centralized solutions pushed by public health authorities.
“They want you only to be able to get the solution they have made for you,” she said. “They don’t want it widely distributed where you have agency to decide whether you want it for yourself or not. … Don’t be scared. This is a scam.”
John-Michael Dumais is a news editor for The Defender. He has been a writer and community organizer on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, war, health freedom and all things related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
ByteDance Will Shut Down TikTok in US Rather Than Comply with Divestment Demand
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | April 25, 2024
ByteDance says it will not sell off its popular video-sharing app TikTok after President Joe Biden signed a law that will ban the platform from American users in nine months if it is not sold away from Chinese ownership.
Several sources inside ByteDance say TikTok is not for sale, Reuters reported Thursday. The company officials explained that while TikTok is only a small portion of ByteDance’s business, the technology used by the platform is also utilized across ByteDance’s other services. The company believes selling TikTok will hurt its other business.
On Wednesday, President Biden signed a bill that will ban TikTok in nine months if the platform does not divest of all Chinese ownership. Some 170 million Americans—including Biden’s own reelection campaign—use the platform.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said he believes the company can defeat the ban in court on constitutional grounds and argued the platform will not be sold or banned. “Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” Chew said. “The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail again.”
Senator Rand Paul also voiced hopes TikTok would prevail in court. “The censors who abound in Congress will likely vote to ban TikTok or force a change in ownership. It will likely soon be law,” Paul wrote in a recent op-ed published by Reason. “I think the Supreme Court will ultimately rule it unconstitutional, because it would violate the First Amendment rights of over 100 million Americans who use TikTok to express themselves.”
American politicians argue TikTok must be banned, or at least severed from ByteDance, because the app presents a national security risk. They claim that Beijing could utilize the site’s data and algorithm to wage an intelligence or disinformation campaign against Americans.
However, there is no proof China has used TikTok for any nefarious operations against the US. Additionally, Chew has argued that TikTok is a global company and not merely Chinese-owned. During a congressional hearing last year, the executive said that three of TikTok’s five board members are Americans, while 60% of TikTok is owned by global investment firms and another 20% is owned by employees. The remaining 20% stake is held by ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming.
Liberal world order must be destroyed – Orban
RT | April 25, 2024
Western liberal hegemony has failed and must be destroyed, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated on Thursday, suggesting it could end as soon as this year.
Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC Hungary) in Budapest, Orban criticized the existing “world order based on progressive liberal hegemony,” saying it has spawned numerous figureheads who are “not fit to be leaders,” with even “beauty pageants” knowing more about peace then they do.
He accused liberal politicians of building “hegemonic ideological control to which everyone must submit” instead of actual governing, while turning “state bodies into tools of oppression.” Such forces are a dangerous enemy whose time is coming to an end, Orban claimed.
“The progressive liberals sense the danger, the end of this era also means their end,” the prime minister argued. Their dominance could be overcome as soon as this year, Orban predicted, citing the upcoming EU Parliament and US presidential elections.
“The proponents of the old world are sitting in Brussels, and although it is not my business to interfere in American politics, I fear that they are also sitting in Washington. This is what we are doing this year. This year, we will try to drive them out,” the Hungarian prime minister said.
“This year, God willing, we can end the inglorious era of the Western civilization. We can end the world order built on progressive liberal hegemony. The progressive liberal world spirit has failed. It gave the world war, chaos, unrest and destroyed economies.”
The emerging world order will be based on true sovereignty, with countries driven by their actual national interests rather than a global ideology, according to Orban.
“Let the era of sovereignty come, let’s get back towards peace and security. Let’s make America great again, let’s make Europe great again,” he concluded.
US Pays Lip Service to Palestinians’ Plight While Arming Israel
Sputnik – 25.04.2024
US President Joe Biden authorized providing some $15 billion worth of military supplies to Israel this week.
While the United States has repeatedly voiced concerns about the massive civilian casualties caused by the ongoing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, it does not deter Washington from sending military supplies to Tel Aviv, essentially helping Israel wage this campaign.
The latest multibillion-dollar package for Israel comes as the Israeli military leadership appears intent to attack Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip that is currently densely packed with refugees who fled from other parts of the Palestinian enclave ravaged by the Israeli invasion.
Although Biden reportedly warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month that an assault on Rafah would be a mistake, the White House does not seem keen to actually prevent Tel Aviv from carrying out this attack – which is likely to result in a large number of civilian casualties.
Earlier this month, CNN reported that the Biden administration authorized the transfer of some 1,000 MK82 bombs and an equal number of small-diameter bombs, apparently undaunted by the fact that the Israeli military seems rather keen to flatten buildings across the Gaza Strip via airstrikes.
The US leadership also seems unperturbed – or at least unperturbed enough to halt the military supplies to Israel or, heaven forbid, impose sanctions on Tel Aviv – by occurrences such as the Israeli airstrike on a humanitarian convoy in the Gaza Strip, which killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen food relief NGO.
Booed at Columbia University, Johnson warns to bring National Guard to quell pro-Palestine protests
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson at Columbia University, in New York City on April 24, 2024. (Photo by Reuters)
Press TV – April 25, 2024
House Speaker Mike Johnson has threatened to use National Guard against students’ pro-Palestinian protests at US universities as he got booed and heckled at Columbia University.
Following a meeting with Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives along with a group of Republican House members urged Shafik to step down if she fails to control Gaza war demonstrations on campus during a press briefing at Low Library on Wednesday.
Johnson was joined by GOP Reps. Mike Lawler, Nicole Malliotakis and Anthony D’Esposito, all from New York, and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina.
“We just can’t allow this kind of hatred and anti-Semitism to flourish on our campuses. And it must be stopped in its tracks. Those who are perpetrating this violence should be arrested,” he said, accusing protesters of chasing down Jewish students and harassing them.
Students chanted “Free Palestine” and heckled and loudly booed Johnson and demanded his return to Washington DC, with the noise of protesters almost overpowering his speech.
Johnson, who also met with Jewish students before his remarks, said that he plans to urge US President Joe Biden to take executive action against the protests if necessary, adding, “If this is not contained quickly, and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard.”
Protesters shouted “stop the genocide” as other Republican leaders spoke. The Republicans accused protesters of being part of the problem and supporting the resistance movements of Hamas and Hezbollah.
New York Democrats criticize Johnson for “politicizing” the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests in Columbia, with Gov. Kathy Hochul stating that the presence of an entourage is exacerbating the division.
Johnson said in an interview after his speech that he respects the right to protest, but that he thought the students on campus had crossed into harassment.
Pro-Palestinian academic activism has grown significantly across the US since the onset of the Israeli regime’s US-backed war of genocide against the Gaza Strip.
Starting from the Colombia University in New York, protest encampments with a unified demand that their schools cut financial ties to Israel have been spread across the country. Demonstrations have been held in many universities such as Harvard, MIT, UT and other universities in Michigan, Minnesota and Colombia.
They are calling for universities to distance themselves from any companies that are advancing Israel’s savage military campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Johnson’s speech came hours after Biden officially signed into law a long-awaited foreign aid bill for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan that had faced considerable delays in the House due to political gridlock.
The new package will provide $26 billion for the Israeli regime, which has been engaged in a genocidal war against the Gaza Strip since last October.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the billions of dollars in US assistance, writing on X that it “demonstrates strong bipartisan support for Israel.”
From Bird Flu to Climate Snakes
By Breeauna Sagdal | Brownstone Institute | April 24, 2024
Seasoned veterinarians and livestock producers alike have been scratching their heads trying to understand the media’s response to the avian flu. Headlines across every major news outlet warn of humans becoming infected with the “deadly” bird flu after one reported case of pink-eye in a human.
The entire narrative is predicated upon a long-disputed claim that Covid-19 was the result of a zoonotic jump—the famed Wuhan bat wet-market theory.
While the source of Covid is hotly contested within the scientific community, the policy vehicle at the center of this dialectic began years prior to Sars-CoV-2 and is quite resolute in force and effect.
In 2016, the Gates Foundation donated to the World Health Organization to create the OneHealth Initiative. Since 2020, the CDC has adopted and implemented the OneHealth Initiative to build a “collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach—working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.”
In the aftermath of Covid-19, the OneHealth Initiative began taking shape, due largely in part to millions of tax dollars appropriated through ARP (American Rescue Plan) funding.
Through its APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Investigation System) the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) was given $300 million in 2021 to begin implementing “a risk-based, comprehensive, integrated disease monitoring and surveillance system domestically…to build additional capacity for zoonotic disease surveillance and prevention,” globally.
“The One Health concept recognizes that the health of people, animals, and the environment are all linked,” said USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Jenny Lester Moffitt.
According to the USDA’s press release, the Biden-Harris administration’s OneHealth approach will also help to ensure “new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices,” by “making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America.”
In other words, the federal government is using regulatory enforcement to intervene in the marketplace, in addition to subsidizing corporations with tax dollars to direct a planned economic outcome—ending meat consumption.
Climate-Smart Commodities – Planning the Economy through Subsidized Intervention
Under the recently announced Climate-Smart Commodities program, the USDA has appropriated $3.1 billion in tax subsidies to one hundred and forty-one new private Climate-Smart projects, ranging from carbon sequestration to Climate-Smart meat and forestry practices.
Private investors such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – who just committed $1 billion to the development of lab cultured meat-like molds, and meat grown in petri dishes, to
Ballpark, formerly known for its hot dogs but is now harvesting python meat, is rushing to cash in on this new industry, and the OneHealth/USDA certification program.
Culling The Herd – Regulatory Intervention in the Marketplace
Meanwhile, the last vestiges of America’s food freedom and decentralized food sources are quietly being targeted by the full force of the federal government.
The once voluntary APHIS System is poised to become the mandatory APHIS-15, which among many other changes, “the system will be renamed Animal Health, Disease, and Pest Surveillance and Management System, USDA/APHIS-15. This system is used by APHIS to collect, manage, and evaluate animal health data for disease and pest control and surveillance programs.”
Among those “many changes” that APHIS-15 is undergoing, one should be of particular interest to the public—the removal of all references to the voluntary* Bovine Johne’s Disease Control Program.
“Updating the authority for maintenance of the system to remove reference to the Bovine Johne’s Disease Control Program.”
In addition to removing references to the once-voluntary herd culling program, the USDA is also implementing mandatory RFID ear tags in cattle and bison.
According to the USDA/APHIS-15, expanded authority places disease tracing in their jurisdiction and the radio frequency ear tags are necessary for the “rapid and accurate recordkeeping for this volume of animals and movement,” which they say “is not achievable without electronic systems.”
The notice clearly spells out that RFID tags “may be read without restraint as the animal goes past an electronic reader.”
“Once the reader scans the tag, the electronically collected tag number can be rapidly and accurately transmitted from the reader to a connected electronic database.”
However, industry leaders and lawmakers alike have said the database will be used to track vaccination history and movement, and that this data may be used to impact the market rate of cattle and bison at the time of processing.
Centralized Control of Processing/Production via Public-Private Partnership Agreements
In addition to the vast new authority of the USDA funded through the OneHealth Initiative, and the ARP, the EPA has also created its own unique set of regulatory burdens upon the entire meat industry.
On March 25, 2024, the EPA finalized a new set of Clean Water Act rule changes to limit nitrogen and phosphorus “pollutants” in downstream water treatment facilities from processing facilities. While the EPA’s interpretation of authority and jurisdiction over wastewater is concerning long-term, the broader context of consolidated processing under four multinational meat-packing companies is of much greater concern for the immediate future.
With few exceptions, in the United States it is illegal to sell meat without a USDA certification. Currently, the only way to access USDA certification is through a USDA-certified processing facility.
According to the EPA, the new rules will impact up to 845 processing facilities nationwide, unless facilities drastically limit the amount of meat they process each year.
With processing capabilities being the number one barrier to market for livestock producers, and billions of dollars in grants being awarded to Climate-Smart food substitutes, the amount of government intervention into the marketplace becomes very clear.
The United States, once a consumer-demand free market society, is currently witnessing the use of government force, and intervention tactics to steer and manipulate the marketplace. Similar to 1930’s Italy, this is being achieved by the state within the state, through the use of selectionism, protectionism, and economic planning between public-private partnership agreements.
The long-term and unavoidable problem with economic fascism is that it leads to authoritarian and centralized control, from which escape is impossible.
As each industry becomes centralized and consolidated under the few, consumer choice simultaneously disappears. As choice disappears, so does the ability of the individual to meet their specific and unique needs.
Eventually, the individual no longer serves a role outside of its usefulness to the state—the final exhale before the last python squeeze.
A Warped View of Patriotism on Pat Tillman
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | April 24, 2024
A recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times demonstrates what is a warped interpretation of the term “patriotism.” The op-ed is about former football player Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan twenty years ago. It’s written by Bill Dwyre, a former sports editor for the Times.
Dwyre reminds us that Tillman was motivated to join the military after the 9/11 attacks. He gave up a $3.6 million football contract to join the U.S. military and was hoping to be sent to Afghanistan to fight the terrorists.
Dwyre writes, “It was a can’t-miss story of patriotism. Americans applauded from the safety and comfort of our homes and communities.” (Since he uses the pronoun “our,” presumably Dwyre fell into the “safety and comfort” group rather than the “patriot” group.)
Unfortunately, however, Dwyre doesn’t explain why Tillman’s act was one of “can’t miss” patriotism. Apparently for him it’s a self-evident truth.
No declaration of war
The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It is the higher law that we the people impose on government officials. We are expected to obey their laws, and they punish us when we fail to do so. By the same token, they are supposed to obey our law, the Constitution.
The Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war as a prerequisite to a president’s waging war against any other nation-state. If a president and his army wage war without a congressional declaration of war, they are acting in violation of the law.
It is undisputed that President Bush did not secure a congressional declaration of war from Congress before he ordered his military to invade Afghanistan. That made their war illegal under our form of government.
How can participating in an illegal war be considered “patriotic”? Dwyre doesn’t explain that.
The U.S. was the aggressor under Nuremberg
Moreover, the common perception is that Bush invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban regime, which was governing the country, had been complicit in the 9/11 attacks by having knowingly harbored Osama bin Laden, who U.S. officials suspected had orchestrated the attacks.
Not so. Bush initiated his war because the Taliban regime refused to comply with his unconditional demand to deliver bin Laden into the hands of the Pentagon and the CIA. Yet, there was no extradition treaty between Afghanistan and the United States and, therefore, Afghanistan was operating within its rights under international law to refuse Bush’s unconditional extradition demand.
Nonetheless, knowing that the Pentagon and the CIA would torture bin Laden into confessing to the crime, Afghanistan offered to deliver him to an independent nation for a fair trial. In making the offer, Afghanistan sought the same amount of proof that would be required in a normal extradition hearing. The U.S. government refused the offer, perhaps because it was unable to provide such proof.
Therefore, given that Afghanistan had the authority under international law to refuse Bush’s extradition demand, that makes Bush’s invasion illegal under the war-of-aggression provision of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
How can participation in an unconstitutional and illegal war be considered “patriotic”? Unfortunately, Dwyre fails to explain.
If one assumes that the 9/11 attackers were the ones who did the attacking (as compared to the attacks being an “inside job,” as some believe), it’s worth pointing out that they were motivated by the death and destruction that the U.S. government’s foreign policy had wreaked in the Middle East. But of course, a real “patriot” does not bring up that discomforting fact and instead blindly supports the government’s claim that the terrorists attacked us out of hatred for our “freedom and values.”
Tillman’s opposition to the Iraq War
One of the fascinating aspects of Dwyre’s op-ed glorifying Tillman’s patriotism is what he leaves out of the op-ed. Tillman was an outspoken opponent of Bush’s invasion and war of aggression against Iraq. Dwyre doesn’t even mention that, which is revealing.
Keep in mind, after all, that Bush’s war on Iraq was also waged without a congressional declaration of war, making it illegal under our form of government. Bush’s claim that he was waging to war to enforce UN resolutions falls flat because only the UN can enforce its resolutions. The fact is that the U.S. war on Iraq was an even clearer case of a war of aggression under the Nuremberg principles than the U.S. war on Afghanistan.
Despite Tillman’s fierce objections to the U.S. war on Iraq, the U.S. military nonetheless ordered him to “serve” in Iraq, which he did. Keep in mind though that every U.S. soldier takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution and is under a legal and moral obligation to refuse to obey unlawful orders. Tillman chose to obey the unlawful order to deploy to Iraq.
U.S. government lies
After his “service” in Iraq, Tillman was deployed to Afghanistan, where he continued to speak out against the U.S. war on Iraq. It was there that he was killed. As Dwyre points out, the U.S. military initially lied about his death, claiming falsely that he was killed by enemy fire. In fact, what actually happened is that he was killed by his own men in what was described as “friendly fire.”
In 2006, Tillman’s brother, Kevin Tillman, wrote a scathing op-ed on truthdig.com, in which he echoed his brother Pat’s view of the Iraq war: “Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.”
Why would’t Dwyre mention Pat Tillman’s (and his brother’s) fierce opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq in his op-ed? My hunch is that it’s because he considers opposition to U.S. wars to be unpatriotic and, therefore, Tillman’s apparent lack of “patriotism” with respect to Iraq doesn’t fit conveniently within his patriotism narrative. Under Dwyre’s warped interpretation of patriotism, apparently it’s only those who blindly support the U.S. national-security state’s foreign wars and its interventionist foreign policy who should be considered “patriots.” Apparently, those who reject such wars and choose instead to remain in the “safety and comfort” of their homes instead of fighting them should be considered non-patriots.
Pakistan under risk of sanctions over trade deal with Iran: Washington
The Cradle | April 24, 2024
Washington threatened Pakistan with sanctions on 23 April over a trade agreement recently signed with Iran.
“We advise anyone considering business deals with Iran to be aware of the potential risk of sanctions. Ultimately, the Government of Pakistan can speak to their own foreign policy pursuits,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on 23 April.
The warning came after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Pakistan on 22 April and met with top officials, including Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“Both sides agreed to increase the volume of bilateral trade to 10 billion US dollars in the next five years,” Sharif’s office said in a statement.
Raisi and Sharif also discussed during the visit the importance of energy cooperation between Tehran and Islamabad.
A gas pipeline project between the two, dating back over a decade and aimed at allowing the flow of Iranian gas into Pakistan, has been consistently held up by the US.
A US official revealed last month that Washington has set a “goal” to prevent the construction of the Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline. The project has been delayed by nearly a decade in large part due to US economic pressure.
“I fully support the efforts by the US government to prevent this pipeline from happening,” US Assistant Secretary Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Donald Lu, said during a congressional hearing on 19 March. “We are working toward that goal,” he stressed.
On Wednesday, Iran and Pakistan issued a joint statement calling on the UN Security Council “to prevent Israel’s regime from its adventurism in the region and its illegal acts attacking its neighbors and targeting foreign diplomatic facilities.”
The statement also called “for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian access to the besieged people of Gaza, return of the displaced Palestinians, as well as ensuring accountability of the crimes being committed by the Israeli regime. They reiterated their support for a just, comprehensive, and durable solution based on the aspirations of the people of Palestine,” according to the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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From the Archives
Is America behind the massive surge in Kiev regime’s child trafficking?
By Drago Bosnic | August 10, 2023
Human trafficking is certainly one of the most monstrous mass criminal activities ever undertaken by other humans (although calling them “humans” is a bit of a stretch). And yet, there’s a special kind of this deeply repulsive crime that pushes it to diabolical proportions – child trafficking. Underage kids, particularly those who were abandoned, sold or have very poor/abusive family backgrounds, are by far the most vulnerable group. The depraved criminals who engage in such illicit activities specifically target unfortunate children and given there are millions of them all around the globe, particularly in war-torn areas, the “recruitment pool” is effectively endless. Unfortunately, the demand on the black market also seems to be constant and growing, making it a very lucrative and appealing prospect for criminals. … continue
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- If Americans Knew
- No big deal: Israel to halt humanitarian aid to Gaza for 2 days – Daily Update
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- Jordan Has Had Enough: King Abdullah’s Scathing Warning to Israel
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- Jewish supremacy, anti-Palestinian bigotry on display in Israel – Daily Update
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- Israeli former leaders and security chiefs threaten legal action over ‘Jewish terrorism’
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- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
