The use of popular weight loss drugs to treat childhood obesity may have serious unintended negative consequences for children, according to a group of researchers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), UCI News reported.
In an article, which will be published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, the researchers outlined the likely dangers of more widespread use among children of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) — the drug class that includes blockbuster drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, among others.
The researchers warned against the unknown effects of prescribing the drugs to children, given the “dearth of research” on these drugs in children and adolescents and the likelihood that the drugs would be prescribed for long-term use.
The article includes a call to action for better research on the drugs’ effects on the pediatric population and oversight to mitigate threats to pediatric health.
High-profile research touting the success of the injectable drugs for treating childhood diabetes and promoting weight loss, along with the likelihood that the drugs will soon be available in oral form, makes it “inevitable” that more children and adolescents will be taking them, according to the UCI researchers.
Doctors will be more likely to prescribe the drugs, particularly among populations with high obesity and low fitness levels, and more children and teens may find ways to access and abuse the drugs on their own.
Children, they wrote, need energy for physical activity, like adults. But they also need extra energy from their diet for growth and development. Any change in the balance of caloric intake and energy expenditure, which the drugs may easily cause, could adversely affect children’s health later in life.
For example, an energy intake-to-expenditure imbalance could cause insufficient bone mineralization in youth which could lead to osteoporosis and fractures later in life. Lack of necessary caloric intake could also adversely impact metabolism, causing harmful growth patterns and inflammation, the researchers said.
The researchers found children already know about these drugs from social media. That knowledge, along with teens’ proclivities toward risk-taking, and the availability of the drugs in oral form will “create a perfect storm” for potential abuse.
“With the increase in social media, young people are already exposed to a diet culture and body images which may not be attainable and, ultimately, unhealthy,” said Jan D. Hirsch, Ph.D., article co-author and dean of the UCI School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “These drugs administered without proper supervision could cause a minefield of health and emotional problems for children as they age.”
The risks are particularly high among youth with eating disorders or body image issues, or youth who participate in weight-sensitive sports such as gymnastics or wrestling, they added.
The paradigm for addressing weight issues through medication, they wrote, is indicative of:
“the increasing medicalization of pediatric conditions … many of which result from environmental and societal rather than biological mechanisms, and the lack of progress in particular made in addressing the environmental and lifestyle issues that have contributed immeasurably to the childhood obesity epidemic.”
The researchers raised concerns about the lack of studies the drugs have undergone in pediatric populations. “Children are not miniature adults and as newer formulations emerge it cannot be assumed that pharmacokinetics [how a drug moves through the body] or adverse effects in adults are the same in children or adolescents,” they wrote.
They raised concerns about dosage, lifelong reliance on the drugs and other lifestyle interventions that may be necessary for children.
Other known side effects not mentioned in the article include pancreatitis, thyroid cancer, gallbladder swelling, renal failure, diabetic retinopathy and suicidal thoughts.
The drugs also carry serious and under-discussed risks for pregnant women, and experts have raised concerns about the use of the drugs by young women of childbearing age.
The authors concluded that given the “inevitable” overuse and abuse of these drugs among pediatric populations a network of academic centers called “Clinical and Translational Science Award Hubs” ought to take up the responsibility of mitigating the problem.
These hubs ought to build multidisciplinary teams to study the effects of these drugs on children and adolescents, use real-world data to identify where the drugs are most likely to be used, and update recommendations for lifestyle interventions, they suggested.
No mention of the AAP Guidelines
The paper did not mention another key driver of increasing prescriptions for weight-loss drugs among kids and teens — the new clinical guidelines for treating childhood obesity issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) earlier this year.
The AAP issued the guidelines in January, recommending weight loss drugs for obese children as young as 8 and consultation for bariatric surgery for children with severe obesity as young as 13.
The AAP issued the new recommendations less than a month after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy as a treatment for teenagers with obesity.
There are no long-term studies on the effects of the drugs in adults or teens.
The authors of the guidelines maintain their support for them. Lead guideline author Sarah Hampl recently told STAT News the guidelines urgently needed to be updated and, “We feel that this was a good continuation of previous work that had been done and reflected the latest state of the evidence, which, as we all know, is evolving rapidly.”
But when the guidelines were released, experts told The Defender they were “shocked” by the recommendations. They said the focus on drugs and surgery would have devastating adverse effects for children but would make big profits for Big Pharma.
Mary Lou Singleton, a midwife and family nurse practitioner, told The Defender the new AAP guidelines “offered no meaningful analysis or explanation of what is driving the childhood obesity epidemic.”
Dr. Michelle Perro, a pediatrician, executive director of GMO Science and author of “What’s Making Our Children Sick?: How Industrial Food Is Causing an Epidemic of Chronic Illness, and What Parents (and Doctors) Can Do About It,” added:
“Unless we remove the pesticides and other toxicants, the promotion of drugs and surgery are panaceas, bandaids, and foster the ‘pill for ill’ model, rather than root-cause real solutions.”
Experts in obesity medicine, nutrition, eating disorders and sociology, have also criticized the guidelines. They say the guidelines focus on weight instead of health, that they lack clarity about who the recommendations are for, they rely on limited data, and they downplay the long-term implications of drug treatment and surgery, STAT News reported.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
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.
September 1, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | United States |
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Experts say mRNA vaccine can make cells of the immune system “lazy” when it comes to fighting off viral and bacterial infections
Last week, a new peer-reviewed paper published in Frontiers in Immunology has sparked concern over whether mRNA shots could be weakening a person’s immune response.
The small study involved 29 children aged 5-11 years. Blood samples were taken from the children before and 28 days after a second dose of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine. Samples from eight children were also analysed at six months.
Researchers found that vaccination resulted in reduced levels of cytokines – molecules that play a crucial role in mobilising an immune response against viruses and bacteria.
“Our study showed that, in children, SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination decreases inflammatory cytokine responses,” wrote the authors.
This study builds on a previous pre-print in adult volunteers, that showed Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine could modulate the response of immune cells to non-specific viral fungal and bacterial infections.
The two studies are small, and the clinical outcomes were not assessed, so researchers cannot prove that mRNA vaccines increase a person’s susceptibility to “non-specific” infections in the real world.
However, this phenomenon has been shown to occur with other vaccines that are currently on the market.
In low-income countries with a high infectious disease pressure, so-called “non-live” vaccines such as the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine have been associated with increases in all-cause mortality and morbidity.
Christine Stabell Benn, epidemiologist, and professor at the University of Southern Denmark, is at the forefront of studying the phenomenon of “non-specific” effects of vaccines.
Christine Stabell Benn, epidemiologist and professor at University of Southern Denmark
“We found in our work that three months after subjects received the DTP vaccine, they showed lower immune responses in vitro to other infectious stimuli,” said Stabell Benn.
“Essentially, the immune cells become lazy, and they simply don’t respond as vigorously when they are challenged with an infectious agent,” she added.
The opposite was true when “live” vaccines were administered to people, such as the BCG (tuberculosis) vaccine.
“After BCG vaccination, immune cells would react more actively in response to other bacterial stimuli by reprogramming cells in the bone marrow to spit out more active innate immune cells,” said Stabell Benn.
The covid-19 vaccines are non-live vaccines, and Stabell Benn says the recent studies looking at reduced cytokine levels may be the “wakeup call” needed to do further studies.
“We now have two immunological studies that suggest the mRNA vaccines could suppress your ability to respond to other viruses, at least for a period of time, and it warrants urgent investigation,” said Stabell Benn. “Especially in children, because we are talking about a population at very low risk of severe covid-19 disease.”
Denmark stopped recommending vaccinating young children against covid-19, but in the US, it’s now part of the childhood immunisation schedule for individuals 6 months or older.
Stabell Benn said, “In the US where they are still vaccinating young children, they should immediately do a randomised study with mRNA vaccines, and investigate whether the reduced effect on cytokines translates into poorer clinical outcomes.”
Stabell Benn says it cannot be excluded that widespread use of the mRNA vaccines could be linked to recent unusual global outbreaks of bacterial infections, as well as viral infections.
This year for example, cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) have skyrocketed across Australia, with some states reporting close to 10 times the number of cases compared to the same time last year.
Stabell Benn said, “A major factor for increased infections is the lockdowns that weakened immune systems because they are meant to be continuously stimulated, but we cannot exclude that the vaccines have also played a significant role.”
Currently, her team is conducting a study comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children aged 5-11 years in Denmark.
“We will assess the clinical outcomes of these children, and most importantly, answer the question of whether there are any clinical differences in terms of the risk of other infections, other diseases in the children who were vaccinated or not,” she said.
Stabell Benn recently called for a new framework for testing and approving vaccines, in a paper published in the journal, Drug Safety (see key points below).
Stabell Benn said this framework should have been applied to the covid-19 trials. A major flaw in testing was that they did not assess whether the mRNA vaccines affected the risk of contracting other infections.
“While they reported covid-19 cases, they overlooked the possibility that people might’ve developed other infections like pneumonia down the track due to a weakened immune response after mRNA vaccination,” said Stabell Benn.
September 1, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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Indonesia’s military chief has denied issuing any shared statements with his US counterpart during a visit to Washington last week, after the Pentagon published a “joint” press release attributed to Jakarta which criticized Moscow and Beijing.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said the US statement does not reflect his country’s positions, stating that Indonesia seeks friendly relations with both Russia and China.
“There is no joint statement and no press conference. What is important for me to underline is that our relationship with China is very good. We respect each other, we already have mutual understanding. I conveyed that in the US,” he said, adding “We are close friends with China, we respect America, and we seek friendship with Russia.”
The official went on to announce plans to visit Beijing and Moscow in the coming months, voicing hopes that Jakarta could serve as a “bridge” between rival states.
The Pentagon missive, published on August 24 was titled ‘United States DoD and Indonesia MoD Joint Press Statement’ and took on a different tone. It claimed that both the US and Indonesia “shared the view that the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea are inconsistent with international law.” It also went on to “jointly” condemn Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, demanding a “complete and unconditional withdrawal” of Russian forces.
Though Indonesia’s Defense Ministry noted Subianto’s meetings with Pentagon head Lloyd Austin, it made no mention of any joint statement with Washington, and offered no comments about Russia or China.
Beijing was quick to jump on the American statement, with China’s embassy in Jakarta claiming the remarks had not been approved by Indonesian officials beforehand.
“We’re informed by the Indonesian side that what the US side described is not true. In fact, no such content can be found in the press release by the Indonesian side at the same meeting,” the embassy told reporters last weekend, slamming US efforts to “to sow discord and stir up trouble.”
During Subianto’s trip to the US, the two countries agreed to boost military cooperation, including joint war games and additional US weapons sales. The Pentagon further said Washington would help Jakarta’s military modernization drive, proposing “fighter aircraft upgrades, new multi-role fighter aircraft, and additional fixed and rotary wing transport aircraft,” among other gear.
Highlighting the growing military ties, Indonesian officials announced a deal to purchase 24 Sikorsky S-70M Black Hawk transport helicopters from US arms giant Lockheed Martin last week, soon after signing a major contract with Boeing for two-dozen F-15 fighter jets. Jakarta is working to revamp its air fleet, which currently operates systems from several different countries, including both US- and Russian-made fighter jets.
September 1, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception | China, Indonesia, Russia, United States |
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GoFundMe, the online fundraising platform, has come under fire for what appears to be an overt politicization of its services. In what is being broadly interpreted as an act of economic censorship, GoFundMe terminated a campaign organized by The Grayzone, a leftist and antiwar website led by Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté.
The campaign aimed to generate funds for the reporting of Kit Klarenberg, Wyatt Reed, and Alex Rubenstein, had garnered $90,000 from over a thousand well-meaning individuals before GoFundMe abruptly pulled the plug.
The Grayzone reported it had garnered support from over 1,100 donors before GoFundMe decided to halt the disbursement of funds. An email from a member of the site’s Trust and Safety Team, known only as “Sabrina,” cited “external concerns” as the reason for the review of the fundraiser. Despite this, GoFundMe has provided no further details or updates since the initial communication on August 19.
“Our number one goal here is ensuring that the money from GoFundMe fundraisers always gets to the right place, so we really appreciate you helping us to make sure GoFundMe is a safe place to give,” Sabrina wrote in the email to The Grayzone.
The timing of this financial freeze is noteworthy, as it comes on the heels of sanctions imposed on The Grayzone’s managing editor, Wyatt Reed, by digital payment services Venmo and PayPal.
The incident spotlights the increasingly politicized nature of economic mechanisms, with GoFundMe emerging as an archetype of this unsettling trend.
By this point, GoFundMe is becoming renowned for its censorship. Last year, it extensively censored the civil liberties protests in Canada, and has even shut down campaigns from parents and students.
September 1, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | United States |
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I recently wrote how the Washington Post issued a statement that declared that the newspaper was “standing by” columnist Philip Bump on his proven false claims on subjects ranging from Lafayette Park to Russian collusion. Bump’s prior claims have not only been conclusively shown to be false but other major media outlets have now rejected those claims. However, the Post claimed this week that they are in fact true in response to one of my earlier columns.
Now, Miranda Devine at the New York Post has written about a meltdown by Bump in a podcast interview with Noam Dworman, owner of New York’s own Comedy Cellar. Dworman had asked Bump to explain some of his claims and Bump offered one of the most vivid examples of the new media and it is chilling. After declaring that “I’m gonna lose my mind,” he stormed out of the interview after refusing to address the contradictions and dubious claims in his prior columns.
Dworman’s podcast interview stands as one of the most revealing and vivid examples of how the media has changed in the age of rage. Bump moves quickly from the conversational to crazed when simply asked about the basis for his claims in the Washington Post.
Dworman was asking about the mounting evidence and contradictions in the Biden corruption scandal. Some of us have said that there is evidence of obvious corruption and influence peddling, but more investigation is needed to establish any basis for impeachment or criminal charges involving President Biden. Bump, however, will have none of it. The Post writer (who demanded investigations of a wide array of Republicans on false stories with little evidence) is vehement that there is nothing to see here . . . and the public just has to take his word for it.
Dworman remains polite and pushes Bump to simply engage him in explaining some of the countervailing evidence. Bump responds “I just I’m gonna lose my mind. I’m gonna lose my mind.”
As the interview shuts down, Dworman asks “is there nothing we can talk about … half the country believes this stuff.”
Bump: “I know, because half the country doesn’t actually dig into the issues.”
Dworman: “Here’s your chance to disabuse people. They don’t read the Washington Post.”
Bump will have nothing of it as Dworman continues to try to get him to explain his controversial writings: “There’s just no point, because all you want to do is you want to have me here as the putative expert so that you can present me with things that have been debunked multiple times that I’ve written about.”
Dworman: “What’s been debunked?”
Bump: “These, these claims. I’ve written about this, this argument about his dad calling him. I’ve written about this. Did you read what I wrote?”
Dworman: “It’s not debunked. Neither of us were there.”
Bump: “Well, I debunked it in the standpoint that I’ve already addressed this and presented the counterarguments to it.”
Of course, Bump has been repeatedly shown to have pushed false claims and then refused to admit to his errors. Moreover, he has repeatedly been criticized for not honestly presenting the counterarguments.
Dworman makes another valiant effort: “I have two issues here. One is Joe Biden’s behavior and one is the issue of the press. The press actually bothers me more than Joe Biden.”
Bump, however, has all but left the building: “Because you don’t listen to the press. I’m sitting here and I’m telling you, you’re wrong about these things, and you don’t listen, and you continue to insist upon things that are, you know, parsing of language. And it’s just, it’s this is why I keep saying it’s silly.” He then says that he is leaving.
Dworman responded “Well, it’s a shame because this is a good conversation.”
Bump: “It’s not a good conversation, because you refuse to listen to what I’m saying to you. You asked me on to present evidence. I keep telling you.”
However, what he “keeps telling” Dworman and the public is to just accept his conclusions and not question his support and analysis.
Bump then walks out with a statement that captures perfectly the new media. He first attacks independent journalist Matt Taibbi and says that he has “an agenda.”
Dworman delivers a haymaker in response and states “You have no agenda.”
That is when Bump delivers his exit line that foreshadowed the Post statement on my column: “I do have an agenda … My agenda is to do my best to try and present accurate information to the public. And I have an institution behind me to hold me to account when I don’t do that, which I think is an important consideration.”
Indeed, the Post would then stand entirely behind Bump and claim that all of his false statements were true. Even when other media have acknowledged that these claims were false, the Post insists that they remain true. Thus, the Post is now saying that the following are true despite findings by inspector generals and special counsels to the contrary: (1) Bill Barr did order the clearing of Lafayette Park for the Trump photo op, (2) Barr also lied when he denied the use of tear gas by federal personnel in Lafayette Park, (3) there was never any spying on the Trump campaign by the FBI, (4) Hunter Biden’s laptop was seeded with Russian disinformation, and (5) the Clinton campaign was not behind false Russian collusion claims. It is all now deemed true by the Post. It appears that, if “Democracy dies in darkness,” journalism more often dies in the light of day.
After all, the problem is not that they are false but that people just “don’t listen to the press. I’m sitting here and I’m telling you, you’re wrong about these things, and you don’t listen.”
September 1, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Hillary Clinton, United States, Washington Post |
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Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry on Tuesday filed an amicus brief in support of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) groundbreaking lawsuit against the legacy news media members of the Trusted News Initiative (TNI).
The lawsuit, filed May 31, alleges the TNI violated antitrust laws and the U.S. Constitution by colluding with tech giants, some of which also are members of the TNI, to censor online news.
An amicus brief is filed by non-parties to a lawsuit to provide information that has a bearing on the issues and to assist the court in reaching the correct decision.
According to Landry’s amicus brief:
“The scope of TNI group’s conspiracy is wide-ranging. Restricting disfavored information injures not merely the Plaintiffs, but also Louisiana residents and state officials.
“Louisiana officials need a free press to communicate with and understand the concerns of the State’s residents. Louisiana residents, in turn, need a free press to receive information and make up their own minds about what is true and what is false.
“The State has a strong interest in seeing the injuries the TNI group has inflicted on Louisiana officials and residents redressed.”
Jed Rubenfeld, lead attorney in CHD’s lawsuit, said Landry’s amicus brief “from the sovereign state of Louisiana is incredibly helpful to CHD’s historic case against TNI and in explicating Louisiana’s own compelling interests in its outcome.”
Landry in May 2022 helped bring a lawsuit against the Biden administration alleging key officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, colluded with social media giants to suppress free speech on topics like COVID-19 and election security.
CHD and its chairman on leave, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in March filed a similar lawsuit against Biden administration officials, in a Louisiana district court. A federal judge last month consolidated the two cases.
TNI describes itself as an industry “partnership” formed during the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. Its members include some of the world’s largest legacy news organizations including The Washington Post, The Associated Press, Reuters, and the BBC.
Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft also are members of the TNI.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include CHD, Jim Hoft (the Gateway Pundit), Dr. Joseph Mercola and seven others.
According to the complaint, one of TNI’s stated goals is to “choke off” and “stamp out” online news reporting that TNI or any of its members deems “misinformation.”
Federal antitrust laws prohibit companies from colluding to deny critical facilities or market access to rivals. Such agreements, known as group boycotts, are per se illegal.
Chief U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty for the Western District of Louisiana on Wednesday granted leave to file Landry’s amicus brief. The court’s decision on the defendants’ legal objections to the lawsuit is expected in the near future.
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.
August 31, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Anthony Fauci, Human rights, United States |
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From the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to Chinese-brokered peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the US administration of President Joe Biden has been overseeing an era of declining American power across West Asia. In the midst of this fall from grace as the Middle East’s hegemon, Washington’s obsession with achieving a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal demonstrates a disconnect from reality and proves that optics are more important than tangible policy positions.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sulivan made it publicly clear last Tuesday that a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which Washington is currently working on, is still far from being achieved. This announcement followed speculation in American media that such a deal could be imminent. For those who have been paying attention to the region’s politics, however, it couldn’t be more clear how arduous a task achieving such a deal would be.
Looking at the deal through an American lens, it is clear what a diplomatic achievement of this nature would mean for the legacy of a US president’s administration. It would go down as a significant victory for the head of state, Joe Biden. It would also provide a great photo-op in the event that it happens; one that could be used to demonstrate the government’s strength in the 2024 elections. It could be calculated by the Democratic Party administration that prioritizing such a deal could make up for the president’s previous failures regarding the American role in the Middle East.
However, objectively speaking, achieving Saudi-Israeli rapprochement will mean overcoming countless hurdles on all sides and may end up doing more harm than good regionally. This is despite the Biden administration’s promises that it would boost regional security and stability. Yet with the recent announcement that the BRICS bloc will be adding Iran and Saudi Arabia as members come January 2024, after Tehran and Riyadh re-established ties under Beijing’s auspices, such a deal could open new regional wounds and run contrary to the vision set forth by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
When the Trump administration managed to rope Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco into a normalization agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel (the Abraham Accords), the initiative came from the UAE itself, at a time when Abu Dhabi had clearly decided to go ahead with the move. There was no real struggle to convince the UAE to go ahead with normalizing ties with the Israelis. In fact, in the cases of Morocco and Sudan, the Emiratis helped place pressure on those nations to accept normalization deals.
Saudi Arabia, despite having maintained close ties with the Trump administration – the first foreign visit of US President Donald Trump was to Riyadh – shied away from signing onto the normalization deal with the Israelis, likely because such a move would be more challenging for a country like Saudi Arabia domestically than for the likes of neighboring Bahrain or the UAE.
As of now, Saudi-US relations under the Biden administrations have been far from cordial, and when the American president made his first trip to the Saudi kingdom last year, he was made to appear as an afterthought. When Joe Biden confronted Mohammed Bin Salman over the infamous killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Crown Prince allegedly fired back by bringing up the lack of action taken over the killing of American veteran journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, by an Israeli soldier. Mohammed Bin Salman even told The Atlantic monthly that he didn’t care if Biden misunderstood him. Saudi Arabia has also ignored calls from the US to alter oil production.
If the Biden administration is to convince Saudi Arabia to sign onto a normalization deal, concessions must first be granted. Riyadh reportedly seeks a civil nuclear program and a US security pact that could drag Washington into war in the event that the kingdom comes under attack. Such preconditions present a litany of hurdles for the American government.
Then there is Israel, which under any other government than the current far-right coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would easily be able to get away with signing such a deal. However, Netanyahu has reportedly been requested to make some kind of concession towards the Palestinians in order to make the UAE deal go ahead. The government that Benjamin Netanyahu now heads is entirely different to the one he led in 2019, and his coalition depends on the support of the extremist Religious Zionism (RZ) alliance. RZ even pushes back against the idea of security coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in Ramallah, despite the fact that this policy benefits Israeli security. RZ stated clearly, from the time of the 2022 national election, that one of its goals was to annex the West Bank and the most likely concession that the US will ask of Tel Aviv is to again promise that it will steer away from doing so.
When it comes to the Palestinians, there is also the uncontrollable factor of a major escalation between the Palestinian armed factions and the Israeli military, over Israeli provocations at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Saleh Al-Arouri, the deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, recently told al-Mayadeen that in the event of any senior leader being targeted, there will be regional war. This is at a time when pressure is growing on the Israeli government to carry out an attack on Hamas leaders in response to numerous attacks against Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank. This, on top of the recent tensions at the Lebanese border with Hezbollah, all make for a potentially explosive situation, under which a Saudi-Israeli deal would look awful for Mohammed Bin Salman.
There is additionally the issue of what a Saudi-Israeli deal may do to Iranian-Saudi relations and their recent re-establishment of ties. As Saudi Arabia includes within it two of the holiest sites in the Islamic faith, Mecca and Medina, its decision to normalize ties with Israel will carry massive significance throughout the Muslim world. Such a move would prove it impossible for Tehran to remain neutral on the issue and it is very likely that the Iranians would reverse their decision to maintain ties with the Saudis. This means that if the Saudis are to sign a normalization deal with Israel, they have to know that this will undermine China’s diplomatic breakthrough and could end up presenting greater security concerns if they again find themselves competing so heavily for influence regionally with Iran. There is also cause for concern when it comes to Jordan’s reaction, which may see such a deal as a threat to its custodianship over the Holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, and feel that Saudi Arabia is encroaching upon its territory.
If the US administration had a serious approach to its Middle East policy, it would realize the dramatic shift that has occurred regionally and that its traditional allies have agendas that are no longer congruent with the old American status quo approach. It would seem, from observing the rhetoric and actions of Washington, that the current US government is in denial and cannot grasp that the days when it could boss around every country in West Asia are long gone. It will take pragmatic thinking to revive the US position in the long run, and one thing is for sure, a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal doesn’t make sense for any country at this time.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.
August 31, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, United States, Zionism |
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Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov demanded that Washington “stop the bacchanalia” and return every single piece of diplomatic property in the United States stolen from the Russian Federation.
“We demand Washington to stop the bacchanalia, comply with international obligations and return every single piece of diplomatic property in the United States stolen from us,” the Russian embassy quoted the diplomat as saying on its Telegram channel on Wednesday.
Antonov recalled that exactly six years ago, on August 31, 2017, the US administration “took a new round of unprecedented measures to restrict the activities of Russian diplomatic and consular missions in the United States and, in fact, further curtail bilateral ties.” “In the form of an ultimatum it demanded us to close in two days the Consulate General in San Francisco – one of the largest institutions providing visa, notary and other consular services to citizens of Russia and the United States. Simultaneously, we were groundlessly ordered to cease the activities of the Trade Representation in Washington, D.C.,” Antonov said.
According to him, over the past six years, the Russian embassy has sent “hundreds of diplomatic notes to the State Department regarding access to the real estate assets owned by the Russian Federation,” but each has been rejected. “The United States flagrantly violated fundamental norms of international law, including the Vienna Conventions on diplomatic and consular relations, as well as the bilateral Consular Convention of 1964. In addition, the US authorities flouted their own legislation, encroaching on the principle of inviolability of private property, guaranteed by the US Constitution,” the ambassador said with confidence.
All this, Antonov said, happened under the pretext of “alleged Russian interference in US elections,” however, “after years of slandering,” Washington has presented no real evidence in support of its claims. “The case of [former US President] ‘Donald Trump’s collusion with Moscow’ fell apart, but all the imposed sanctions are still there,” he lamented.
“We are cynically told that, according to the documents, Russia has not been deprived of ownership title to the real estate assets – just ‘banned from using them.’ There is a pseudo-legitimate attempt to juggle basic legal concepts,” the ambassador concluded.
August 31, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation | Russia, United States |
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The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has been trending towards a stalemate since the beginning of the year after Moscow’s growing edge in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” ensured that it won’t be defeated. NATO is unlikely to be defeated either, however, since it’ll probably intervene directly – whether as a whole or via a Polish–led mission that draws in the bloc via Article 5 – to freeze the Line of Contact in the event that Russia achieves a breakthrough and threatens to sweep through Ukraine.
The counteroffensive’s spectacular failure and the subsequently vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine strongly suggest that talks with Russia will resume by year’s end for freezing the conflict. Ahead of that happening, these wartime allies are frenziedly trying to convince their respective people that the other is responsible for this debacle simultaneously with formulating an attractive post-conflict vision of the future. The first is served by their vicious blame game while the second will now be discussed.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s now polling third after winning last week’s debate and had earlier attracted enormous media attention for his outspokenness on sensitive issues, just published his “Viable Realism & Revival Doctrine” in an article for The American Conservative. Of relevance to this piece is his plan for ending the NATO-Russian proxy war. Liberal–globalist policymakers and their media allies responded with fury, and it’s not difficult to see why.
Ramaswamy describes the conflict as a “no-win war” that’s needlessly depleted Western stockpiles to China’s benefit. With a view towards more effectively containing the People’s Republic in the Asia-Pacific, he therefore suggests extricating the US from its proxy war with Russia as soon as possible. To that end, he proposes recognizing the new ground realities in Eastern Europe, ending NATO expansion, refusing to admit Ukraine to the bloc, lifting sanctions, and having Europe shoulder the burden for its own security.
The explicit goal is to “get Putin to dump Xi”, and that’s why he says that the quid pro quo is “Russia exiting its military alliance with China.” Ramaswamy is convinced that his plan will “elevate Russia as a strategic check on China’s designs in East Asia” if it’s implemented into practice, but the problem is that no such “military alliance” exists between those two. Moreover, it’s unrealistic to imagine that the US will “get Putin to dump Xi” since they’re good friends and their countries are strategic partners.
Having clarified that, this plan does have its merits. From the Russian side, it ensures that country’s objective national security interests and gives it the chance to rely on the EU for preemptively averting potentially disproportionate economic dependence on China upon the lifting of sanctions. On the home front, Ramaswamy’s plan appeals to the pragmatic policymaking faction whose influence is on the rise as proven by the success over the summer of their policy towards India that was detailed here.
The timing couldn’t have been better. The US is looking for a “face-saving” way to resume peace talks as previously explained, and the rising influence of pragmatic policymakers could lead to them overruling the liberal-globalists’ objections to this, though their rivals could still try to sabotage this. The enormous media attention that Ramaswamy has already generated, not to mention what he’s now receiving as a result of his proposal, could reshape the national discourse on the proxy war’s endgame.
Americans are becoming fatigued with this conflict but no one had yet articulated an attractive post-conflict vision of the future until now. Irrespective of Ramaswamy’s political future, his plan serves to spark a wider conversation at all levels about the pragmatism of compromising with Russia in order to free the US up for more effectively containing China in the Asia-Pacific. This can in turn facilitate the resumption of talks with Russia, especially if it emboldens pragmatic US policymakers.
The vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine over the counteroffensive’s failure leads to the inevitable one over who’s responsible for losing this proxy war, with all of this preceding America’s formulation of an attractive post-conflict vision of the future for its people and policymakers alike. The first dynamic is continually intensifying and making more headlines by the day, while the second is also presently unfolding but mostly in silence, and it’s this dynamic that Ramaswamy’s plan contributes to.
Accepting the impossibility of Russia abandoning its mutually beneficial cooperation with China and acknowledging that lifting the sanctions likely won’t happen either, the rest of his proposals could form the parameters of a potential Russian-American deal for ending their proxy war in Ukraine. That former Soviet Republic wouldn’t join NATO, nor would that bloc expand any further, and the West would de facto recognize the new ground realities in Eastern Europe while the EU bears the burden for its security.
Russia would obviously have to agree to some regional compromises too in that scenario, such as Ukraine’s privileged post-conflict relationship with NATO and the hard security guarantees that the Anglo-American Axis will likely provide, but these could be acceptable if its other interests are met. If there’s any movement in this direction, then it shouldn’t be maliciously spun as Russia conspiring to facilitating the US’ containment of China, but seen for what it truly is: Russia putting its interests first.
August 31, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism | China, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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By Drago Bosnic | August 31, 2023
While the troubled Biden administration keeps parroting the same narrative about the CO2 emissions, even insisting that a ban on gas stoves would “help fight global warming”, it’s also actively working on the return of the ever so “climate-friendly” live nuclear weapons testing. The Russian Foreign Ministry has been warning about this for months, although this is usually decried as “Russian disinformation” by the mainstream propaganda machine. It’s important to note that thanks to the efforts of the United States, the CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty) never entered into force and its implementation is largely dependent on the goodwill of the signatories.
“The situation involving the CTBT is causing increasing concern. The responsibility for the situation in which the treaty has not entered into force over more than a quarter of a century of its existence lies squarely with the United States, which defiantly refused to ratify it and is now demonstrating its clear intention to resume testing,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned back in early March, adding: “We cannot afford to remain idle spectators to what is happening. If the United States nevertheless decides to take such a step and be the first to conduct nuclear tests, we will be forced to respond proportionately. No one should have dangerous illusions that global strategic parity can be upset.”
However, it seems that’s exactly what the US is trying to accomplish. Its intention to restart nuclear weapons testing isn’t subsiding in the slightest. Quite the contrary it would seem, as the belligerent thalassocracy is now actively working on restoring and improving its nuclear test sites. Andrey Belousov, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN and International Organizations in Geneva, stated that the US is still engaged in covert activities in Nevada, which shows that it doesn’t intend to stop testing new nuclear warheads. Belousov warned that Washington DC is working to improve and maintain the nuclear test site in a state of full operational readiness.
“The United States does not hide the development of new types of nuclear warheads, the effectiveness of which will sooner or later have to be tested in practice,” Belousov stated.
What the high-ranking Russian diplomat is most likely referring to is the so-called “nuclear super-fuse” technology that the US has been testing for decades, particularly under the Obama administration (and ever since). Investigative historian Eric Zuesse wrote extensively on the topic, warning that the sole purpose of this controversial technology is to exponentially amplify the effectiveness of America’s first-strike capabilities, meaning that the belligerent thalassocracy is contemplating a direct attack on Russia. Zuesse’s warnings are not to be discarded or ignored, as he argues that Finland’s NATO accession is a crucial part of this sinister plan.
It’s estimated that the US is planning to trap Russia by positioning its nuclear missiles about 500 miles or 7 minutes of missile-flying distance from the Kremlin. The Pentagon believes this would be a “checkmate move” as it would allow a decapitation strike on Russia’s central command so that it doesn’t have enough time to launch retaliatory missiles. The goal is to demand Russia’s surrender on the assumption there would be no way for Moscow to assess the situation within only 7 minutes and respond accordingly. The plan was set in motion no later than 2006 when the relations between Russia and the US were cordial and years before there were major tensions between them.
Namely, at the time, America’s two most prestigious national security academic journals, Foreign Affairs and National Security, both recommended replacing the idea of mutually assured destruction (MAD) with the new strategy of so-called “nuclear Primacy” that involves America’s dominance in first-strike capabilities, all in order to win a nuclear war against Russia. Zuesse argues that positioning missiles in Ukraine was supposed to be the way to achieve “nuclear primacy”, but since that’s no longer a possibility, Finland is to take the central role in this plan. It should be noted that Moscow will certainly know if the deployment of American nuclear weapons in Finland ever takes place.
This is precisely the reason why Russia has rearmed half of its ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) with maneuvering hypersonic warheads and why it has the “Perimeter” system. Namely, this system allows the Russian military to respond even in the extremely unlikely case that the entire Russian leadership is killed in a decapitation strike that Washington DC is openly contemplating at this point. Apart from its second-to-none strategic arsenal, world-class SSBNs (ballistic missile submarines) and unrivaled strategic bombers/missile carriers, Moscow has also deployed a number of “Poseidon” nuclear-tipped underwater drones that are so destructive they can cause literal radioactive tsunamis.
In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that Moscow is in the late stages of developing weapons based on new physical principles. These have been in testing for several years now. Such Russian claims are usually discarded by the mainstream propaganda machine, as the political West still believes that Moscow is supposedly “incapable” of fielding such high-tech weapons. However, Russia has been proving this notion wrong for centuries now. For instance, when Putin announced that Moscow was developing hypersonic weapons back in 2004, this was met with ridicule in the West. However, nobody was laughing when Russia inducted its first hypersonic weapons several years later.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
August 31, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Russia, United States |
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Artificial intelligence can’t be trusted to auto-correct emails, much less make civilization-altering decisions about the use of lethal force, a peace activist told Sputnik on Wednesday. Putting autonomous weapons into high-risk situations only risks triggering a war nobody can back down from.
The US Department of Defense has unveiled a new AI drone program designed to close the gap with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Called “Replicator,” the program aims to introduce thousands of cheap and disposable – “atrittable” in Pentagon parlance – autonomous drones over the next two years.
“Replicator will galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of US military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap and many,” US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said on Tuesday at an industry event.
Noting that China’s core advantage is mass – “more ships, more missiles, more people” – Hicks said the US would “counter” the PLA’s mass “with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, and harder to beat.”
Michael Wong, the national vice president of Veterans for Peace, co-chair of the Veterans for Peace China Working Group, and co-founder of Pivot to Peace, a coalition of Chinese and peace communities, told Radio Sputnik that giving AI the power to both trigger and escalate military conflicts “poses a great danger to all of humanity.”
“We should be very concerned. Let me make three main points. First, China does not want an arms race. They’ve spoken at the UN about this and they’re very much against having such a race in the first place. And my second point is, if there is an arms race, if the United States is foolish enough to force it on China, China will win. And my third point is, these AI, sometimes called killer robots, are a danger to all of humanity because they interact with each other, they could conceivably interact with our nuclear systems, and it risks decisions being made by AI without the oversight of humans or controlled by humans that will escalate situations out of control,” he said.
“Zhang Jun, who is the China representative to the UN, spoke at the UN recently, and he urged the UN to lead in advocating for a peaceful use of AI, regulations and rules to control the development of AI and to direct AI for peaceful use, not for weapons. And he felt that standards need to be made to regulate and control AI. And UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres also said that interaction between AI, nuclear weapons, biotechnology, neurotechnology and robotics is deeply alarming,” Wong explained.
“And yes, if China were to have an arms race forced on them on AI, China’s actually slightly more advanced in some ways in AI than we are. They also are able to mass produce things in general much faster than we are. For example, here in California, we’ve been trying for over a decade to build high speed rail just from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We have not been able to do that. China has built thousands of miles of light rail all across the country, networking every major city in China in just about ten years. So in terms of mass producing anything, China will win if we engage in a race with China.”
Wong then pointed out a very practical example of why giving computers such authority is dangerous: they can’t even get things like spell-checking and auto-correcting text right.
“How much trouble do you have with your computer? Would you trust your computer to make life and death decisions for you?” he asked. “You know, I have trouble with my smartphone auto-correcting my email, making mistakes, and making them wrong. Yeah, you know. So do we want autonomous robots, killer robots out there deciding which humans to kill and when and why?”
“And also if two automated nationwide systems are fighting each other, they will be geared and programmed to win, which means that if they can’t win, they will escalate. And that means that escalation could easily spiral out of control. We could end up in a nuclear war. So this is very foolish. There is actually an organization I discovered called Stop Killer Robots dot org. If anybody wants to go to their website, they can get involved.”
For years, the US and its allies have engaged in so-called “freedom of navigation operations” (FONOPS) in which they deliberately flout the territorial claims of other nations that they consider to be “excessive” by sailing US warships through those waters. In the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, such demonstrations have become commonplace, although China takes them seriously and has at times met FONOPS with a stern response, sending their warships and aircraft to within a few dozen feet of the violating US ship or plane.
Wong noted that the Pentagon’s “Replicator” program would increasingly put AI into such flashpoints.
“For Americans to understand how China feels, just imagine if China or Russia were doing freedom of navigation patrols up and down our coast. And when I say freedom of navigation patrols, I’m not even just talking about sending a cruiser or a destroyer through these waters every every few months, I’m talking about entire aircraft carrier battle groups, a whole armada of ships patrolling up and down China’s coast. And that’s very provocative. Just imagine if China or Russia were doing that to us. How would we feel? That would be a very obvious threat. The Americans, when they read the mainstream news, they hear China’s being aggressive, China’s being a threat. China is not on our borders, that China’s not running battle groups up and down our coast. We’re doing it to them,” he said.
“And we say, well, we’re defending our allies in the Pacific. Our allies are not under threat. China’s not threatening Japan. China is not threatening South Korea, China is not even threatening Taiwan.”
We keep saying China intends to invade Taiwan: China’s very clear they’ve been saying the same thing now that they’ve been saying for 50 years, which is ‘We want peaceful reunification with Taiwan eventually, no time frame named, and that we would only consider use of force if Taiwan were to declare independence.’ The United States keeps trying to push that red line. And if you look at polls in Taiwan, the polls always say a majority of people in Taiwan want to maintain the status quo. And the status quo is working for both sides just fine right now. You know, there’s been billions of dollars in trade that goes back and forth each year between the mainland and Taiwan, there’s thousands of tourists and businesspeople that go back and forth every year, the economies are thriving on both sides. The status quo is working just fine. So the United States is the one that keeps pushing the red line and trying to provoke a war just like we did in Ukraine,” Wong said.
“There’s no need for this. The United States basically is trying to stop China from its peaceful economic rise because they don’t want a large segment of the world not being under the thumb of US domination. It’s basically exploitation and imperialism of the Third World, of which China is still a part.”
“The US elite, especially right now, is composed of people who have a very arrogant and unrealistic view of America and the world. They keep introducing new weapons systems into Ukraine and thinking that that’s going to turn the tide of war. And each time they’re proven wrong, because whatever they do, the Russians will counter it,” he said. “And they’re applying that same logic to China, that they can come up with some new gimmick that can somehow defeat China.”
“This magical thinking is very, very dangerous. You know, there’s always been talk about pushing the edge of nuclear escalation in Ukraine, and they’re doing the same thing with China, they’re pushing the edge, constantly, of escalation. They’re introducing new systems, they’re getting more and more desperate and they’re engaging in more and more magical thinking, which is extremely dangerous. And once we have all these AI killer robots running around the planet – because not just China, but, you know, many countries can develop them – we’ll have something that we don’t have control over. It almost looks like the ‘Terminator’ series of movies that Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in.”
August 31, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular | China, United States |
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Apparently, the Ukrainian government wants to disguise the dictatorial aspect of the regime by pretending to be a democracy. According to information reported by Western media, Kiev plans to organize elections next year. The news is surprising, as the country has been under martial law since February 2022, which would legitimize the postponement of the elections. However, the aim is believed to be to increase Zelensky’s popularity and improve his public image.
The information was published by the Spanish newspaper El Pais on August 28th. Anonymous sources familiar with the matter were consulted by journalists and said that elections will strengthen Zelensky, thus motivating a circumvention of the norms imposed by martial law.
Until recently, Zelensky ruled out elections, but now there are signs that he and his team are changing the strategy. In an interview with local TV a few days ago, Zelensky said: “The logic is that if you are protecting democracy, you must also protect it during the war. And one way to protect it is elections”. In the same vein, Ruslan Stefanchuk, the head of the Ukrainian parliament, stated in July that updates to Ukrainian martial law “would take place soon” as “democracy cannot stop”. Some analysts believe he was commenting on the possibility of calling elections even in times of war.
There are some additional reasons why Kiev is planning these measures. First, it is necessary to remember that the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime is not sovereign, and all its decisions are taken under the direct influence of foreign agents. And recently there has been pressure from some Americans for Ukraine to implement “more democratic” policies to justify Western support. American politicians have already expressed, including in a personal meeting with Zelensky, their desire to see elections in Ukraine next year, which explains Ukraine’s readiness to revise its martial law.
“After a meeting with Zelensky in Kyiv on Wednesday, two senators from the Democratic Party, Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal, as well as Republican Lindsey Graham, stressed that they considered it necessary for Ukrainian democracy to hold elections despite the country being at war. The Democratic position has a lot to do with the upcoming presidential election in the United States, which will be held in November 2024. The Republican Party has numerous prominent members (including former President Donald Trump) who have criticized military support for Kyiv, and who, since last spring, have used the argument that Ukraine is not so different from Russia, since the country has suspended democracy under the pretext of war”, El Pais’ article reads.
However, some sources also believe that the main reason for Kiev to take this action is a matter of domestic politics. Zelensky’s popularity has fallen recently, not just because of the conflict, but also because the Ukrainian president has failed to fulfill his main promise during the previous election campaign: to fight corruption. So, instead of thinking about concrete solutions to the corruption problem, Zelensky apparently plans to regain his popularity through new elections. The Ukrainian political scenario does not allow for the existence of a solid opposition coalition, given that many parties were banned and opposing politicians arrested, so it could be “easy” for Zelensky to achieve victory.
In this regard, Mark Savchuk, a political commentator and adviser to the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Office, told journalists:
“Zelenskiy is a great public relations man, especially with the international community, and we are lucky for that, but if there is now talk of going to the polls it is because of Ukrainian internal issues that he does not want to be aired abroad (…) Only in the judiciary have there been improvements, but neither Zelenskiy nor his team are prepared [to fight corruption]. Ordinary Ukrainians see that this is still a corrupt country, they experience it on a daily basis and there are always new stories about it in the news (…) Their team is inept and corrupt. We have a serious corruption problem and they believe that their popularity will slip, so they want to take advantage of their charisma now electorally.”
However, it will not be so easy to organize elections in the midst of the conflict. There are many difficulties to be faced by Ukrainian citizens in an election scenario. In all regions affected by the hostilities it will be virtually impossible for citizens to vote, as the possibility of moving around is severely limited due to the intensity of the fighting. This will restrict the voting area to only some western regions of Ukraine, where the population is more influenced by pro-NATO media and tends to support the regime – despite growing criticism of Zelensky’s administrative ability.
In practice, there are two risks for Zelensky with the plan to hold a new election. One of them is Zelensky losing the dispute. Although the Ukrainian opposition has been practically neutralized by the regime’s dictatorial policies, it has become increasingly clear that Western sponsors plan to replace Zelensky, which makes it possible for Washington to create the necessary conditions for another candidate to win. The other risk is that, even if he wins, Zelensky remains unpopular, with his victory looking like a mere bureaucratic procedure, given the absence of relevant opponents. In this scenario, the plan to make Ukraine look “more democratic” would fail.
However, in either case, Ukraine’s real problem will not be solved: the country will continue to work as a proxy for the US and fight an unwinnable war against a much stronger enemy, causing unnecessary suffering for the Ukrainian population.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist and a researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
August 31, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Ukraine, United States |
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