• Academics raise concerns about shortcomings of UK Covid-19 Inquiry
    Maryanne Demasi, PhD

    Over 50 prominent UK academics have signed an open letter to Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, calling for urgent action to address the shortcomings of the probe so far. The signatories of the letter say the Hallett Inquiry suffers from bias, false assumptions, and a lack of impartiality.

    “The Covid Inquiry is not living up to its mission to evaluate the mistakes made during the pandemic, whether Covid measures were appropriate, and to prepare the country for the next pandemic,” they write.

    Kevin Bardosh, lead signatory and Director of Collateral Global has been following the Inquiry closely. He’s concerned it has focused too much on “who said what and when,” rather than homing in on key scientific questions about the evidence (or lack thereof) underpinning policy decisions.


    Prof Kevin Bardosh, Director of Collateral Global. Photo credit: Shutterstock
    “The Inquiry was pre-designed on the assumption that the government ‘didn’t do enough’ to protect people during the pandemic,” says Bardosh. “But the thing about the pandemic is that more measures, didn’t mean more lives saved. It’s a paradoxical aspect of health policy that more doesn't necessarily mean better.

    Bardosh, who is affiliated with University of Edinburgh Medical School, says because the Inquiry’s starting position is that non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. masks) and lockdowns were necessary and effective, it’s not actually interrogating the trade-offs of these policies.

    “If you go back to pre-Covid, policies like lockdowns, extended school closures, and contact tracing for a respiratory virus, were not the ‘scientific consensus’ for how to respond rationally to a pandemic,” he says. “In fact, the reverse was true. The goal was to minimise the disruption to society because it would have all these short and long-term unintended consequences.”

    In December 2023, when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was questioned at the Inquiry, he admitted the UK government had failed to discuss the costs and benefits of pandemic policies.


    UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunk questioned at UK Covid Inquiry
    Sunak pointed to a peer-reviewed report by Imperial College London and the University of Manchester that applied a Quality-Adjusted Life Year analysis to the first lockdown in the UK and found “for every permutation of lives saved and GDP lost, the costs of lockdown exceed the benefits.” [emphasis added]

    Bardosh has also called out the Inquiry for its double standards in scrutinising experts.

    Take for example, Neil Ferguson, professor at Imperial College and former SAGE member. He was the architect behind lockdowns after his March 2020 models warned that 500,000 Brits would die unless tougher restrictions were put in place to curb spread of the virus.

    Bardosh says, “The Inquiry hasn’t really questioned Ferguson’s mathematical model in any substantial way. But if you compare that to the questioning of Professor Carl Heneghan, who's based out of Oxford, it was very confrontational, and they used provocative language to suggest he didn't have expertise in this area.”

    Heneghan, the director of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, was among 32 senior UK academics who urged then-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson to think twice about plunging Britain into a second lockdown in the autumn of 2020.

    It was revealed during evidence to the Inquiry, that the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Dame Angela McLean, called Heneghan a “fuckwit” on a WhatsApp chat during a September 2020 Government meeting for his dissenting views on lockdowns.


    Prof Carl Heneghan, director of Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine, Oxford
    Later, Heneghan penned a scathing article in The Spectator, calling the Inquiry a ‘farce – a spectacle of hysteria, name-calling and trivialities.”

    “Lockdown was the most disruptive policy in British peacetime history, with huge ramifications for our health, children’s education and the economy,” wrote Heneghan.

    “This is an opportunity for the inquiry to gather evidence and ask whether lockdown and other interventions actually worked….Instead we have a KC [King's Counsel] who seems uninterested in substance and obsessed with reading out rude words he has found in other people’s private messages.”

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    Bardosh and the other signatories have also raised concerns about the structure of the scientific advisory groups in the Inquiry, which have omitted key experts in child development, schooling impacts, social and economic policy.

    “The Inquiry must invite a much broader range of scientific experts with more critical viewpoints. It must also review the evidence on diverse topics so that it can be fully informed of relevant science and the economic and social cost of Covid policies to British society,” write the signatories.

    So far, Bardosh is unimpressed with the ‘political theatre’ of the Inquiry, but hopes Baroness Hallett will urgently address its shortcomings to avoid compromising the credibility of future public inquiries.

    “Not having an inquiry that really asks those questions is very damaging to the idea of accountability. We need to hold to account the policy decisions that were made because if we don’t, the next time there's a public health emergency, these measures will come back into place whether or not they actually work,” says Bardosh.

    The Hallett Inquiry is slated to run until 2026 and is reported to be one of the largest public inquiries in UK history. The cost of the UK government’s covid measures are estimated to be between £310bn and £410bn.


    *Correction: an earlier version of this article said the cost of the Hallett Inquiry was estimated to be between £310bn and £410bn, but that is the estimate for the government’s covid measures.

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    https://blog.maryannedemasi.com/p/academics-raise-concerns-about-shortcomings
    Academics raise concerns about shortcomings of UK Covid-19 Inquiry Maryanne Demasi, PhD Over 50 prominent UK academics have signed an open letter to Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, calling for urgent action to address the shortcomings of the probe so far. The signatories of the letter say the Hallett Inquiry suffers from bias, false assumptions, and a lack of impartiality. “The Covid Inquiry is not living up to its mission to evaluate the mistakes made during the pandemic, whether Covid measures were appropriate, and to prepare the country for the next pandemic,” they write. Kevin Bardosh, lead signatory and Director of Collateral Global has been following the Inquiry closely. He’s concerned it has focused too much on “who said what and when,” rather than homing in on key scientific questions about the evidence (or lack thereof) underpinning policy decisions. Prof Kevin Bardosh, Director of Collateral Global. Photo credit: Shutterstock “The Inquiry was pre-designed on the assumption that the government ‘didn’t do enough’ to protect people during the pandemic,” says Bardosh. “But the thing about the pandemic is that more measures, didn’t mean more lives saved. It’s a paradoxical aspect of health policy that more doesn't necessarily mean better. Bardosh, who is affiliated with University of Edinburgh Medical School, says because the Inquiry’s starting position is that non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. masks) and lockdowns were necessary and effective, it’s not actually interrogating the trade-offs of these policies. “If you go back to pre-Covid, policies like lockdowns, extended school closures, and contact tracing for a respiratory virus, were not the ‘scientific consensus’ for how to respond rationally to a pandemic,” he says. “In fact, the reverse was true. The goal was to minimise the disruption to society because it would have all these short and long-term unintended consequences.” In December 2023, when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was questioned at the Inquiry, he admitted the UK government had failed to discuss the costs and benefits of pandemic policies. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunk questioned at UK Covid Inquiry Sunak pointed to a peer-reviewed report by Imperial College London and the University of Manchester that applied a Quality-Adjusted Life Year analysis to the first lockdown in the UK and found “for every permutation of lives saved and GDP lost, the costs of lockdown exceed the benefits.” [emphasis added] Bardosh has also called out the Inquiry for its double standards in scrutinising experts. Take for example, Neil Ferguson, professor at Imperial College and former SAGE member. He was the architect behind lockdowns after his March 2020 models warned that 500,000 Brits would die unless tougher restrictions were put in place to curb spread of the virus. Bardosh says, “The Inquiry hasn’t really questioned Ferguson’s mathematical model in any substantial way. But if you compare that to the questioning of Professor Carl Heneghan, who's based out of Oxford, it was very confrontational, and they used provocative language to suggest he didn't have expertise in this area.” Heneghan, the director of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, was among 32 senior UK academics who urged then-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson to think twice about plunging Britain into a second lockdown in the autumn of 2020. It was revealed during evidence to the Inquiry, that the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Dame Angela McLean, called Heneghan a “fuckwit” on a WhatsApp chat during a September 2020 Government meeting for his dissenting views on lockdowns. Prof Carl Heneghan, director of Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine, Oxford Later, Heneghan penned a scathing article in The Spectator, calling the Inquiry a ‘farce – a spectacle of hysteria, name-calling and trivialities.” “Lockdown was the most disruptive policy in British peacetime history, with huge ramifications for our health, children’s education and the economy,” wrote Heneghan. “This is an opportunity for the inquiry to gather evidence and ask whether lockdown and other interventions actually worked….Instead we have a KC [King's Counsel] who seems uninterested in substance and obsessed with reading out rude words he has found in other people’s private messages.” Share Bardosh and the other signatories have also raised concerns about the structure of the scientific advisory groups in the Inquiry, which have omitted key experts in child development, schooling impacts, social and economic policy. “The Inquiry must invite a much broader range of scientific experts with more critical viewpoints. It must also review the evidence on diverse topics so that it can be fully informed of relevant science and the economic and social cost of Covid policies to British society,” write the signatories. So far, Bardosh is unimpressed with the ‘political theatre’ of the Inquiry, but hopes Baroness Hallett will urgently address its shortcomings to avoid compromising the credibility of future public inquiries. “Not having an inquiry that really asks those questions is very damaging to the idea of accountability. We need to hold to account the policy decisions that were made because if we don’t, the next time there's a public health emergency, these measures will come back into place whether or not they actually work,” says Bardosh. The Hallett Inquiry is slated to run until 2026 and is reported to be one of the largest public inquiries in UK history. The cost of the UK government’s covid measures are estimated to be between £310bn and £410bn. *Correction: an earlier version of this article said the cost of the Hallett Inquiry was estimated to be between £310bn and £410bn, but that is the estimate for the government’s covid measures. Give a gift subscription https://blog.maryannedemasi.com/p/academics-raise-concerns-about-shortcomings
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    Academics raise concerns about shortcomings of UK Covid-19 Inquiry
    Over 50 prominent UK academics have signed an open letter to Baroness Heather Hallett, chair of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, calling for urgent action to address the shortcomings of the probe so far. The signatories of the letter say the Hallett Inquiry suffers from bias, false assumptions, and a lack of impartiality.
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  • Harvest Hues and Cozy Trends: Unveiling the Uniqueness of Fall Fashion

    As the leaves begin to paint the world in warm hues and a crisp breeze fills the air, the fashion landscape undergoes a transformation, welcoming the enchanting season of fall. This is the time when fashion enthusiasts eagerly embrace layers, textures, and a rich color palette that mirrors the stunning autumn scenery. In this article, we delve into the world of fall fashion, exploring unique trends and styles that capture the essence of the season.

    More >>>> https://sites.google.com/view/harvesthuesandcozytrendsunveil/home

    #fallfashion #fallfashions #makemoneyonline
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    Harvest Hues and Cozy Trends: Unveiling the Uniqueness of Fall Fashion As the leaves begin to paint the world in warm hues and a crisp breeze fills the air, the fashion landscape undergoes a transformation, welcoming the enchanting season of fall. This is the time when fashion enthusiasts eagerly embrace layers, textures, and a rich color palette that mirrors the stunning autumn scenery. In this article, we delve into the world of fall fashion, exploring unique trends and styles that capture the essence of the season. More >>>> https://sites.google.com/view/harvesthuesandcozytrendsunveil/home #fallfashion #fallfashions #makemoneyonline 😄
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  • Will Russia-China Strategic Patience Extinguish the Fire in West Asia?, by Pepe Escobar - The Unz Review
    Once upon a time, by the Don river, in the southern steppes of what today is still known as “Ukraine”, the Great King of Persia, the mighty Darius, leading the most powerful army ever assembled on earth, received a puzzling message from a foe he was pursuing: the nomad ruler Idanthyrsus, King of the Scythians.

    A Scythian envoy arrived at the Persian camp carrying a bird; a mouse; a frog; and five arrows.

    And then he left, in a rush.

    Wily Darius interpreted the message as the Scythians ready to submit to the Persians.

    Not so fast. It was up to Darius’s senior foreign policy advisor, Gobryas, who also happened to be his brother-in-law, to break the code:

    “Unless you Persians turn into birds and fly up in the air or into mice and burrow in the ground or into frogs and leap into lakes, you will never get home again but stay here in this country, only to be shot by Scythian arrows.”

    Well, apparently this tale from the depths of the pre-Silk Roads proves the strategic nightmare of waging war against elusive nomadic horse archers on the Eurasian steppes.

    But that could also be a tale about waging war against invisible urban guerrillas in sandals and RPGs hidden in the rubble in Gaza; flash mini-squads emerging from tunnels to hit and burn Merkava tanks before disappearing underground.

    History also tells us that Darius failed to bring the Scythian nomads to a head-to-head battle. So, in the autumn of 512 B.C., he pulled a pre-American gambit in Afghanistan 2,500 years before the fact: he declared victory and left.

    That Landed Aircraft Carrier

    Everyone familiar with West Asia – from US generals to grocers in the Arab Street – knows that Israel is a landed aircraft carrier whose mission is to keep West Asia in check on behalf of the Hegemon.

    Of course in a dog eats dog geopolitical environment it’s easy to misunderstand all wag the dog shenanigans. What’s certain is that for hegemonic circles of the US Deep State, and certainly for the White House and the Pentagon, what matters in the current incandescent juncture is the uber-extreme/genocidal Likud-led Netanyahu government in Israel, not “Israel” per se.

    That projects Netanyahu as the exact mirror image of the beleaguered sweaty sweatshirt actor in Kiev. Quite the geopolitical gift – in terms of deflecting blame away from the Hegemon for a genocide deployed live on every smartphone on the planet.

    And all that conducted under a veneer of legality – as in the White House and the State Department “advising” Tel Aviv to act with moderation; yes, you can bomb hospitals, schools, medical workers, journalists, thousands of women, thousands of children, but please be gentle.

    Meanwhile, the Hegemon has deployed an Armada to the Eastern Mediterranean, complete with two very expensive iron bathtubs, sorry aircraft carrier groups plus a nuclear submarine close to the Persian Gulf. That’s not exactly to survey guerrillas in underground tunnels and to “protect” Israel.

    The ultimate – neocon and Zio-con – targets are of course Hezbollah, Syria, Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq and Iran: the whole Axis of Resistance.

    Iran-Russia-China, the new neocon-defined “axis of evil”, which happen to be the Top Three Actors of Eurasia integration, for all practical purposes have interpreted the genocide in Gaza as an Israeli-American operation. And they have clearly identified the key vector: energy.

    The inestimable Michael Hudson has noted how “we’re really seeing something very much like the Crusades here. It’s a real fight for who is going to control energy, because, again, the key, if you can control the world’s flow of energy, you can do to the whole world what the United States did to Germany last year by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.”

    BRICS 10 on the Move

    And that brings us to the fascinating case of the OIC/Arab World delegation of Foreign Ministers now on tour of selected capitals promoting their plan for a complete ceasefire in Gaza plus negotiations for an independent Palestinian state. The delegation, called the Gaza Contact Group, includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria and Palestine.

    Their first stop was Beijing, meeting Wang Yi, and the second stop Moscow, meeting Sergei Lavrov. That tells us all we need to know about BRICS 11 in action – even before the fact.

    Well, that’s actually BRICS 10, because after the election of pro-Hegemon Zionist Javier “Chainsaw Massacre” Milei for President, Argentina is now out of the picture, and possibly discarded by January 1st, 2024, when BRICS previously 11 starts under the Russian presidency.

    The OIC/Arab League special conference on Palestine in Saudi Arabia had yielded a meek final declaration that disappointed virtually the whole Global South/Global Majority. But then something started to move.

    Foreign Ministers started to coordinate closely. At first Egypt with China, after previous coordination with Iran and Turkey. That may sound counter-intuitive – but it’s all due to the gravity of the situation. That explains why the Iranian Foreign Minister is not part of the current traveling delegation – which is led, in practice, by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

    The meeting with Lavrov coincided with an extraordinary online BRICS meeting on Palestine, called by the current South African presidency. Crucial point: the flags of new members Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia could be identified behind the speakers.

    Iran’s President Raisi went no holds barred, calling for BRICS member states to use every political and economic tool available to pressure Israel. Xi Jinping called once again for a two-state solution and positioned China as the mediator of choice.

    For the first time Xi in his own words laid it all out: “There can be no security in the Middle East without a just solution to the question of Palestine. I have emphasized on many occasions that the only viable way to break the cycle of Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies in a two-state solution, in the restoration of the legitimate national rights of Palestine, and in the establishment of an independent state of Palestine.”

    And it should all start via an international conference.

    All of the above implies a concerted BRICS 10 unified position, in the next few days, applying maximum pressure on Tel Aviv/Washington for a ceasefire, fully supported by virtually the whole Global Majority. Of course there are no guarantees the Hegemon will allow it to succeed.

    Secret negotiations involving Turkey, for instance, have floundered. The idea was to have Ankara cutting off the supply of oil to Israel coming from the BTC pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan: the oil is then loaded on tankers to Ashkelon in Israel. That’s at least 40% of the oil fueling Israel’s military machine.

    Ankara, still a NATO member, balked – spooked by the inevitably hardcore American response.

    Riyadh, in the long run, could be even more daring: no more oil exports until there’s a definitive solution to Palestine according to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. Yet MbS won’t do it – because Saudi wealth is all invested in New York and London. It’s still a long, winding, bumpy road to the petroyuan.

    Meanwhile, realpolitik practitioners such as John Mearsheimer correctly point out that a negotiated solution for Israel-Palestine is impossible. A quick glance at the current map shows how the two-state solution – advocated by everyone from China and Russia to the Arab world – is dead; a Palestinian state, as Mearsheimer noted, “is going to be like an Indian reservation” in the US, “cut apart and isolated, not really a state.”

    No Hedging When it Comes to Genocide

    So what is Russia to do? Here is a very good informed hint.

    “Putin in the Labyrinth” means Moscow actively involved, in a BRICS 10 manner, to bring about a peaceful West Asia while maintaining internal stability in Russia under the ever-evolving Hegemon Hybrid War: it’s all interconnected.

    The Russia-China strategic partnership’s approach to West Asia set on fire by the usual suspects is all about strategic timing and patience – which the Kremlin and the Zhongnanhai exhibit in droves.

    No one really knows what goes on in the background – the deep shadow play behind the fog of intertwined wars. Especially when it comes to West Asia, always enveloped in serial mirages arising from the desert sands.

    At least we may try to discern mirages around the Persian Gulf monarchies, the GCC – and especially what MbS and his mentor MbZ are really playing at. This is the absolutely crucial fact: both the Arab League and the OIC are controlled by the GCC.

    And yet, as both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi become members of BRICS 10, they certainly see that the Hegemon’s new gambit is to set back the advances of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in West Asia by setting the region on fire.

    Yes, this is the War against China morphing from Hybrid to Hot, side by side with the Final Solution for the “Palestinian problem”.

    And as a bonus, from the Hegemon’s perspective, that should bring this bunch of desert bedouins firmly on board the new D.O.A. gambit, the IMEC (India-Middle East Corridor), which is in fact the Europe-Israel-Emirates-Saudi Arabia-India trade corridor, in theory a competitor to BRI.

    A major running theme across all nooks and crannies of the Arab street is how killing off the Palestinian resistance is an even more passionate issue for the sold out GCC elites than confronting Zionism.

    That explains, at least in part, the non-reaction reaction of the GCC to the ongoing genocide (they are now trying to make amends). And that is parallel to their non-reaction reaction to the Hegemon’s methodical, slow motion genocide, rape and pillaging over time of Iraqis, Syrians, Afghans, Libyans, Yemenis, Sudanese and Somalis.

    It’s absolutely impossible – and inhuman – to hedge when it comes to genocide. The verdict is still pending on whether the GCC has chosen a side, thus turning completely apart, spiritually and geopolitically, from the wider Arab street.

    This genocide may be the defining moment of the young 21st century – realigning the entire Global South/Global Majority and clarifying who’s on the right side of History. Whatever it does next, the Hegemon seems destined to totally lose the entire West Asia, the Heartland, wider Eurasia and the Global South/Global Majority.

    Blowback works in mysterious ways: as the “aircraft carrier” in West Asia went utterly insane, it only turbo-charged the Russia-China strategic partnership to mold History further on down the road to the Eurasia Century.


    https://www.unz.com/pescobar/will-russia-china-strategic-patience-extinguish-the-fire-in-west-asia/
    Will Russia-China Strategic Patience Extinguish the Fire in West Asia?, by Pepe Escobar - The Unz Review Once upon a time, by the Don river, in the southern steppes of what today is still known as “Ukraine”, the Great King of Persia, the mighty Darius, leading the most powerful army ever assembled on earth, received a puzzling message from a foe he was pursuing: the nomad ruler Idanthyrsus, King of the Scythians. A Scythian envoy arrived at the Persian camp carrying a bird; a mouse; a frog; and five arrows. And then he left, in a rush. Wily Darius interpreted the message as the Scythians ready to submit to the Persians. Not so fast. It was up to Darius’s senior foreign policy advisor, Gobryas, who also happened to be his brother-in-law, to break the code: “Unless you Persians turn into birds and fly up in the air or into mice and burrow in the ground or into frogs and leap into lakes, you will never get home again but stay here in this country, only to be shot by Scythian arrows.” Well, apparently this tale from the depths of the pre-Silk Roads proves the strategic nightmare of waging war against elusive nomadic horse archers on the Eurasian steppes. But that could also be a tale about waging war against invisible urban guerrillas in sandals and RPGs hidden in the rubble in Gaza; flash mini-squads emerging from tunnels to hit and burn Merkava tanks before disappearing underground. History also tells us that Darius failed to bring the Scythian nomads to a head-to-head battle. So, in the autumn of 512 B.C., he pulled a pre-American gambit in Afghanistan 2,500 years before the fact: he declared victory and left. That Landed Aircraft Carrier Everyone familiar with West Asia – from US generals to grocers in the Arab Street – knows that Israel is a landed aircraft carrier whose mission is to keep West Asia in check on behalf of the Hegemon. Of course in a dog eats dog geopolitical environment it’s easy to misunderstand all wag the dog shenanigans. What’s certain is that for hegemonic circles of the US Deep State, and certainly for the White House and the Pentagon, what matters in the current incandescent juncture is the uber-extreme/genocidal Likud-led Netanyahu government in Israel, not “Israel” per se. That projects Netanyahu as the exact mirror image of the beleaguered sweaty sweatshirt actor in Kiev. Quite the geopolitical gift – in terms of deflecting blame away from the Hegemon for a genocide deployed live on every smartphone on the planet. And all that conducted under a veneer of legality – as in the White House and the State Department “advising” Tel Aviv to act with moderation; yes, you can bomb hospitals, schools, medical workers, journalists, thousands of women, thousands of children, but please be gentle. Meanwhile, the Hegemon has deployed an Armada to the Eastern Mediterranean, complete with two very expensive iron bathtubs, sorry aircraft carrier groups plus a nuclear submarine close to the Persian Gulf. That’s not exactly to survey guerrillas in underground tunnels and to “protect” Israel. The ultimate – neocon and Zio-con – targets are of course Hezbollah, Syria, Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq and Iran: the whole Axis of Resistance. Iran-Russia-China, the new neocon-defined “axis of evil”, which happen to be the Top Three Actors of Eurasia integration, for all practical purposes have interpreted the genocide in Gaza as an Israeli-American operation. And they have clearly identified the key vector: energy. The inestimable Michael Hudson has noted how “we’re really seeing something very much like the Crusades here. It’s a real fight for who is going to control energy, because, again, the key, if you can control the world’s flow of energy, you can do to the whole world what the United States did to Germany last year by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.” BRICS 10 on the Move And that brings us to the fascinating case of the OIC/Arab World delegation of Foreign Ministers now on tour of selected capitals promoting their plan for a complete ceasefire in Gaza plus negotiations for an independent Palestinian state. The delegation, called the Gaza Contact Group, includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria and Palestine. Their first stop was Beijing, meeting Wang Yi, and the second stop Moscow, meeting Sergei Lavrov. That tells us all we need to know about BRICS 11 in action – even before the fact. Well, that’s actually BRICS 10, because after the election of pro-Hegemon Zionist Javier “Chainsaw Massacre” Milei for President, Argentina is now out of the picture, and possibly discarded by January 1st, 2024, when BRICS previously 11 starts under the Russian presidency. The OIC/Arab League special conference on Palestine in Saudi Arabia had yielded a meek final declaration that disappointed virtually the whole Global South/Global Majority. But then something started to move. Foreign Ministers started to coordinate closely. At first Egypt with China, after previous coordination with Iran and Turkey. That may sound counter-intuitive – but it’s all due to the gravity of the situation. That explains why the Iranian Foreign Minister is not part of the current traveling delegation – which is led, in practice, by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The meeting with Lavrov coincided with an extraordinary online BRICS meeting on Palestine, called by the current South African presidency. Crucial point: the flags of new members Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia could be identified behind the speakers. Iran’s President Raisi went no holds barred, calling for BRICS member states to use every political and economic tool available to pressure Israel. Xi Jinping called once again for a two-state solution and positioned China as the mediator of choice. For the first time Xi in his own words laid it all out: “There can be no security in the Middle East without a just solution to the question of Palestine. I have emphasized on many occasions that the only viable way to break the cycle of Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies in a two-state solution, in the restoration of the legitimate national rights of Palestine, and in the establishment of an independent state of Palestine.” And it should all start via an international conference. All of the above implies a concerted BRICS 10 unified position, in the next few days, applying maximum pressure on Tel Aviv/Washington for a ceasefire, fully supported by virtually the whole Global Majority. Of course there are no guarantees the Hegemon will allow it to succeed. Secret negotiations involving Turkey, for instance, have floundered. The idea was to have Ankara cutting off the supply of oil to Israel coming from the BTC pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan: the oil is then loaded on tankers to Ashkelon in Israel. That’s at least 40% of the oil fueling Israel’s military machine. Ankara, still a NATO member, balked – spooked by the inevitably hardcore American response. Riyadh, in the long run, could be even more daring: no more oil exports until there’s a definitive solution to Palestine according to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. Yet MbS won’t do it – because Saudi wealth is all invested in New York and London. It’s still a long, winding, bumpy road to the petroyuan. Meanwhile, realpolitik practitioners such as John Mearsheimer correctly point out that a negotiated solution for Israel-Palestine is impossible. A quick glance at the current map shows how the two-state solution – advocated by everyone from China and Russia to the Arab world – is dead; a Palestinian state, as Mearsheimer noted, “is going to be like an Indian reservation” in the US, “cut apart and isolated, not really a state.” No Hedging When it Comes to Genocide So what is Russia to do? Here is a very good informed hint. “Putin in the Labyrinth” means Moscow actively involved, in a BRICS 10 manner, to bring about a peaceful West Asia while maintaining internal stability in Russia under the ever-evolving Hegemon Hybrid War: it’s all interconnected. The Russia-China strategic partnership’s approach to West Asia set on fire by the usual suspects is all about strategic timing and patience – which the Kremlin and the Zhongnanhai exhibit in droves. No one really knows what goes on in the background – the deep shadow play behind the fog of intertwined wars. Especially when it comes to West Asia, always enveloped in serial mirages arising from the desert sands. At least we may try to discern mirages around the Persian Gulf monarchies, the GCC – and especially what MbS and his mentor MbZ are really playing at. This is the absolutely crucial fact: both the Arab League and the OIC are controlled by the GCC. And yet, as both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi become members of BRICS 10, they certainly see that the Hegemon’s new gambit is to set back the advances of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in West Asia by setting the region on fire. Yes, this is the War against China morphing from Hybrid to Hot, side by side with the Final Solution for the “Palestinian problem”. And as a bonus, from the Hegemon’s perspective, that should bring this bunch of desert bedouins firmly on board the new D.O.A. gambit, the IMEC (India-Middle East Corridor), which is in fact the Europe-Israel-Emirates-Saudi Arabia-India trade corridor, in theory a competitor to BRI. A major running theme across all nooks and crannies of the Arab street is how killing off the Palestinian resistance is an even more passionate issue for the sold out GCC elites than confronting Zionism. That explains, at least in part, the non-reaction reaction of the GCC to the ongoing genocide (they are now trying to make amends). And that is parallel to their non-reaction reaction to the Hegemon’s methodical, slow motion genocide, rape and pillaging over time of Iraqis, Syrians, Afghans, Libyans, Yemenis, Sudanese and Somalis. It’s absolutely impossible – and inhuman – to hedge when it comes to genocide. The verdict is still pending on whether the GCC has chosen a side, thus turning completely apart, spiritually and geopolitically, from the wider Arab street. This genocide may be the defining moment of the young 21st century – realigning the entire Global South/Global Majority and clarifying who’s on the right side of History. Whatever it does next, the Hegemon seems destined to totally lose the entire West Asia, the Heartland, wider Eurasia and the Global South/Global Majority. Blowback works in mysterious ways: as the “aircraft carrier” in West Asia went utterly insane, it only turbo-charged the Russia-China strategic partnership to mold History further on down the road to the Eurasia Century. https://www.unz.com/pescobar/will-russia-china-strategic-patience-extinguish-the-fire-in-west-asia/
    WWW.UNZ.COM
    Will Russia-China Strategic Patience Extinguish the Fire in West Asia?
    Once upon a time, by the Don river, in the southern steppes of what today is still known as “Ukraine”, the Great King of Persia, the mighty Darius, leading the most powerful army ever assembled on earth, received a puzzling message from a foe he was pursuing: the nomad ruler Idanthyrsus, King of the Scythians. A Scythian envoy arrived at the Persian camp carrying a bird; a mouse; a frog; and five arrows. And then he left, in a rush. Wily Darius interpreted the message as the Scythians ready to submit to the Persians. Not so fast. It was up
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    #nature #flowers #autumn
    When you live in the neighborhood of nature, you have to be attentive and ready to notice, enjoy and capture the ever-changing beauty of nature. #nature #flowers #autumn
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  • Found some nice deadwood and enjoyed the autumn scenery today

    #fall #offgrid #foraging #pob #alive #cent
    Found some nice deadwood and enjoyed the autumn scenery today #fall #offgrid #foraging #pob #alive #cent
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  • Tourist Map Sri Lanka

    Comprehensive road map of Sri Lanka systems, historical and religious sites, forests and wildlife sanctuaries, ports and diving spots and many more..

    https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/srilanka/map-of-sri-lanka/tourist-map-sri-lanka.php

    Map of Sri Lanka

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    Tourist Map Sri Lanka Comprehensive road map of Sri Lanka systems, historical and religious sites, forests and wildlife sanctuaries, ports and diving spots and many more.. https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/srilanka/map-of-sri-lanka/tourist-map-sri-lanka.php Map of Sri Lanka #srilanka #map #srilankamap #touristmap #travel #tourism #colombo #ceylon #viral #trending #travelphotography #travelblogger #adventure #sea #beach #pool #fitness #beachlife #beachvibes #wanderlust #mountains #view #landscape #photographer #autumn #summer #winter #ocean
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  • My compost pile gets nicer and nicer, now gonna grow a lot more thanks to all the autumn leaves ????????

    #compost #soil #gardening #pob #cent #someeoriginals
    My compost pile gets nicer and nicer, now gonna grow a lot more thanks to all the autumn leaves ???????? #compost #soil #gardening #pob #cent #someeoriginals
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    3 Σχόλια 0 Μοιράστηκε 10034 Views
  • Eco tourism Sri Lanka

    Eco tourism in Sri Lanka is a huge trend right now, where most people want to experience their surroundings of the purest form, such as pristine seas and unexplored wilderness.

    https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/srilanka/eco-tourism/eco-tourism.php

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    Eco tourism Sri Lanka Eco tourism in Sri Lanka is a huge trend right now, where most people want to experience their surroundings of the purest form, such as pristine seas and unexplored wilderness. https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/srilanka/eco-tourism/eco-tourism.php #srilanka #ecotourism #eco #touristmap #travel #tourism #colombo #ceylon #viral #trending #travelphotography #travelblogger #adventure #sea #beach #pool #fitness #beachlife #beachvibes #wanderlust #mountains #view #landscape #photographer #autumn #summer #winter #ocean
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  • Places to visit in Sri Lanka

    Most beautiful places to see in Sri Lanka, Places to visit in Sri Lanka. romantic Destinations and Activities.

    https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/places.php

    Places to see in Sri Lanka

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    Places to visit in Sri Lanka Most beautiful places to see in Sri Lanka, Places to visit in Sri Lanka. romantic Destinations and Activities. https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/places.php Places to see in Sri Lanka #srilanka #thingstodo #srilankamap #touristmap #travel #tourism #colombo #ceylon #viral #trending #travelphotography #travelblogger #adventure #sea #beach #pool #fitness #beachlife #beachvibes #wanderlust #mountains #view #landscape #photographer #autumn #summer #winter #ocean
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  • Romantic Honeymoon Beach
    ????️????????????????️????????????????????????????

    Let us arrange a romamtic holiday for you.
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    Romantic Honeymoon Beach ????️????????????????️???????????????????????????? Let us arrange a romamtic holiday for you. https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/activities-sri-lanka/surfing/surfing.php Follow▶️ @srilanka_travel . Sri Lanka Travel Tour Operator. Explore Sri Lanka with Us ????+94 777854022 ( Mobile-WhatsApp) ????info@srilankatravelandtourism.com ????www.srilankatravelandtourism.com ????by @anianocun #srilanka #viral #trending #instagram #instagood #instatravel #travelphotography #traveller #travelblogger #travelgram #adventure #sea #beach #pool #fitness #beachlife #beachvibes #wanderlust #mountains #train #view #landscape #photographer #autumn #summer #winter #ocean #nft #meta #ceylon
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  • Madu River Boat Safari

    Madu River is located in the south of Sri Lanka near Galle. The water of the river is dotted with small islands and the banks are all covered with lush mangrove forests that are home to dozens of incredible animal species.

    https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/activities-sri-lanka/boat-safari-madu-river/sri-lanka-madu-river-boat-ride.php

    Madu River Boat Safari

    #srilanka #maduriver #boatsafari #madu #travel #tourism #colombo #ceylon #viral #trending #travelphotography #travelblogger #adventure #sea #beach #pool #fitness #beachlife #beachvibes #wanderlust #mountains #view #landscape #photographer #autumn #summer #winter #ocean
    Madu River Boat Safari Madu River is located in the south of Sri Lanka near Galle. The water of the river is dotted with small islands and the banks are all covered with lush mangrove forests that are home to dozens of incredible animal species. https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/activities-sri-lanka/boat-safari-madu-river/sri-lanka-madu-river-boat-ride.php Madu River Boat Safari #srilanka #maduriver #boatsafari #madu #travel #tourism #colombo #ceylon #viral #trending #travelphotography #travelblogger #adventure #sea #beach #pool #fitness #beachlife #beachvibes #wanderlust #mountains #view #landscape #photographer #autumn #summer #winter #ocean
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  • Things to do in Sri Lanka

    Best things to do in Sri Lanka
    Fun and thrilling activities to do in Sri Lanka

    What to do in Sri Lanka

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    Things to do in Sri Lanka Best things to do in Sri Lanka Fun and thrilling activities to do in Sri Lanka What to do in Sri Lanka https://www.srilankatravelandtourism.com/best-things-to-do-in-sri-lanka.php #srilanka #thingstodo #srilankamap #touristmap #travel #tourism #colombo #ceylon #viral #trending #travelphotography #travelblogger #adventure #sea #beach #pool #fitness #beachlife #beachvibes #wanderlust #mountains #view #landscape #photographer #autumn #summer #winter #ocean
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  • Wild parsnip root, free food! I used to do it all wrong with this plant because I would start harvesting when I saw they begin to flower, worried I might "miss my chance". But then I found out that it's better to harvest when it starts getting colder and it was true! The plant grows twice in the year and if you wait for the cold season ones you'll get some huge tender roots that are a great addition to any meal. The warm season roots are tough and fibrous so there's just not much to think about here, great plant to forage from autumn to winter.

    #foraging #offgrid #abundance #wildfood #pob #cent #aliveandthriving
    Wild parsnip root, free food! I used to do it all wrong with this plant because I would start harvesting when I saw they begin to flower, worried I might "miss my chance". But then I found out that it's better to harvest when it starts getting colder and it was true! The plant grows twice in the year and if you wait for the cold season ones you'll get some huge tender roots that are a great addition to any meal. The warm season roots are tough and fibrous so there's just not much to think about here, great plant to forage from autumn to winter. #foraging #offgrid #abundance #wildfood #pob #cent #aliveandthriving
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    1 Σχόλια 0 Μοιράστηκε 3932 Views