• The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Guide
    By David Bell, Thi Thuy Van Dinh March 22, 2024 Government, Society 30 minute read
    The World Health Organization (WHO) and its 194 Member States have been engaged for over two years in the development of two ‘instruments’ or agreements with the intent of radically changing the way pandemics and other health emergencies are managed.

    One, consisting of draft amendments to the existing International health Regulations (IHR), seeks to change the current IHR non-binding recommendations into requirements or binding recommendations, by having countries “undertake” to implement those given by the WHO in future declared health emergencies. It covers all ‘public health emergencies of international concern’ (PHEIC), with a single person, the WHO Director-General (DG) determining what a PHEIC is, where it extends, and when it ends. It specifies mandated vaccines, border closures, and other directives understood as lockdowns among the requirements the DG can impose. It is discussed further elsewhere and still under negotiation in Geneva.

    A second document, previously known as the (draft) Pandemic Treaty, then Pandemic Accord, and more recently the Pandemic Agreement, seeks to specify governance, supply chains, and various other interventions aimed at preventing, preparing for, and responding to, pandemics (pandemic prevention, preparedness and response – PPPR). It is currently being negotiated by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB).

    Both texts will be subject to a vote at the May 2024 World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland. These votes are intended, by those promoting these projects, to bring governance of future multi-country healthcare emergencies (or threats thereof) under the WHO umbrella.

    The latest version of the draft Pandemic Agreement (here forth the ‘Agreement’) was released on 7th March 2024. However, it is still being negotiated by various committees comprising representatives of Member States and other interested entities. It has been through multiple iterations over two years, and looks like it. With the teeth of the pandemic response proposals in the IHR, the Agreement looks increasingly irrelevant, or at least unsure of its purpose, picking up bits and pieces in a half-hearted way that the IHR amendments do not, or cannot, include. However, as discussed below, it is far from irrelevant.

    Historical Perspective

    These aim to increase the centralization of decision-making within the WHO as the “directing and coordinating authority.” This terminology comes from the WHO’s 1946 Constitution, developed in the aftermath of the Second World War as the world faced the outcomes of European fascism and the similar approaches widely imposed through colonialist regimes. The WHO would support emerging countries, with rapidly expanding and poorly resourced populations struggling under high disease burdens, and coordinate some areas of international support as these sovereign countries requested it. The emphasis of action was on coordinating rather than directing.

    In the 80 years prior to the WHO’s existence, international public health had grown within a more directive mindset, with a series of meetings by colonial and slave-owning powers from 1851 to manage pandemics, culminating in the inauguration of the Office Internationale d’Hygiene Publique in Paris in 1907, and later the League of Nations Health Office. World powers imposed health dictates on those less powerful, in other parts of the world and increasingly on their own population through the eugenics movement and similar approaches. Public health would direct, for the greater good, as a tool of those who wish to direct the lives of others.

    The WHO, governed by the WHA, was to be very different. Newly independent States and their former colonial masters were ostensibly on an equal footing within the WHA (one country – one vote), and the WHO’s work overall was to be an example of how human rights could dominate the way society works. The model for international public health, as exemplified in the Declaration of Alma Ata in 1978, was to be horizontal rather than vertical, with communities and countries in the driving seat.

    With the evolution of the WHO in recent decades from a core funding model (countries give money, the WHO decides under the WHA guidance how to spend it) to a model based on specified funding (funders, both public and increasingly private, instruct the WHO on how to spend it), the WHO has inevitably changed to become a public-private partnership required to serve the interests of funders rather than populations.

    As most funding comes from a few countries with major Pharma industrial bases, or private investors and corporations in the same industry, the WHO has been required to emphasize the use of pharmaceuticals and downplay evidence and knowledge where these clash (if it wants to keep all its staff funded). It is helpful to view the draft Agreement, and the IHR amendments, in this context.

    Why May 2024?

    The WHO, together with the World Bank, G20, and other institutions have been emphasizing the urgency of putting the new pandemic instruments in place earnestly, before the ‘next pandemic.’ This is based on claims that the world was unprepared for Covid-19, and that the economic and health harm would be somehow avoidable if we had these agreements in place.

    They emphasize, contrary to evidence that Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) origins involve laboratory manipulation, that the main threats we face are natural, and that these are increasing exponentially and present an “existential” threat to humanity. The data on which the WHO, the World Bank, and G20 base these claims demonstrates the contrary, with reported natural outbreaks having increased as detection technologies have developed, but reducing in mortality rate, and in numbers, over the past 10 to 20 years..

    A paper cited by the World Bank to justify urgency and quoted as suggesting a 3x increase in risk in the coming decade actually suggests that a Covid-19-like event would occur roughly every 129 years, and a Spanish-flu repetition every 292 to 877 years. Such predictions are unable to take into account the rapidly changing nature of medicine and improved sanitation and nutrition (most deaths from Spanish flu would not have occurred if modern antibiotics had been available), and so may still overestimate risk. Similarly, the WHO’s own priority disease list for new outbreaks only includes two diseases of proven natural origin that have over 1,000 historical deaths attributed to them. It is well demonstrated that the risk and expected burden of pandemics is misrepresented by major international agencies in current discussions.

    The urgency for May 2024 is clearly therefore inadequately supported, firstly because neither the WHO nor others have demonstrated how the harms accrued through Covid-19 would be reduced through the measures proposed, and secondly because the burden and risk is misrepresented. In this context, the state of the Agreement is clearly not where it should be as a draft international legally binding agreement intended to impose considerable financial and other obligations on States and populations.

    This is particularly problematic as the proposed expenditure; the proposed budget is over $31 billion per year, with over $10 billion more on other One Health activities. Much of this will have to be diverted from addressing other diseases burdens that impose far greater burden. This trade-off, essential to understand in public health policy development, has not yet been clearly addressed by the WHO.

    The WHO DG stated recently that the WHO does not want the power to impose vaccine mandates or lockdowns on anyone, and does not want this. This begs the question of why either of the current WHO pandemic instruments is being proposed, both as legally binding documents. The current IHR (2005) already sets out such approaches as recommendations the DG can make, and there is nothing non-mandatory that countries cannot do now without pushing new treaty-like mechanisms through a vote in Geneva.

    Based on the DG’s claims, they are essentially redundant, and what new non-mandatory clauses they contain, as set out below, are certainly not urgent. Clauses that are mandatory (Member States “shall”) must be considered within national decision-making contexts and appear against the WHO’s stated intent.

    Common sense would suggest that the Agreement, and the accompanying IHR amendments, be properly thought through before Member States commit. The WHO has already abandoned the legal requirement for a 4-month review time for the IHR amendments (Article 55.2 IHR), which are also still under negotiation just 2 months before the WHA deadline. The Agreement should also have at least such a period for States to properly consider whether to agree – treaties normally take many years to develop and negotiate and no valid arguments have been put forward as to why these should be different.

    The Covid-19 response resulted in an unprecedented transfer of wealth from those of lower income to the very wealthy few, completely contrary to the way in which the WHO was intended to affect human society. A considerable portion of these pandemic profits went to current sponsors of the WHO, and these same corporate entities and investors are set to further benefit from the new pandemic agreements. As written, the Pandemic Agreement risks entrenching such centralization and profit-taking, and the accompanying unprecedented restrictions on human rights and freedoms, as a public health norm.

    To continue with a clearly flawed agreement simply because of a previously set deadline, when no clear population benefit is articulated and no true urgency demonstrated, would therefore be a major step backward in international public health. Basic principles of proportionality, human agency, and community empowerment, essential for health and human rights outcomes, are missing or paid lip-service. The WHO clearly wishes to increase its funding and show it is ‘doing something,’ but must first articulate why the voluntary provisions of the current IHR are insufficient. It is hoped that by systematically reviewing some key clauses of the agreement here, it will become clear why a rethink of the whole approach is necessary. The full text is found below.

    The commentary below concentrates on selected draft provisions of the latest publicly available version of the draft agreement that seem to be unclear or potentially problematic. Much of the remaining text is essentially pointless as it reiterates vague intentions to be found in other documents or activities which countries normally undertake in the course of running health services, and have no place in a focused legally-binding international agreement.

    REVISED Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement. 7th March, 2024

    Preamble

    Recognizing that the World Health Organization…is the directing and coordinating authority on international health work.

    This is inconsistent with a recent statement by the WHO DG that the WHO has no interest or intent to direct country health responses. To reiterate it here suggests that the DG is not representing the true position regarding the Agreement. “Directing authority” is however in line with the proposed IHR Amendments (and the WHO’s Constitution), under which countries will “undertake” ahead of time to follow the DG’s recommendations (which thereby become instructions). As the HR amendments make clear, this is intended to apply even to a perceived threat rather than actual harm.

    Recalling the constitution of the World Health Organization…highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.

    This statement recalls fundamental understandings of public health, and is of importance here as it raises the question of why the WHO did not strongly condemn prolonged school closures, workplace closures, and other impoverishing policies during the Covid-19 response. In 2019, WHO made clear that these dangers should prevent actions we now call ‘lockdowns’ from being imposed.

    Deeply concerned by the gross inequities at national and international levels that hindered timely and equitable access to medical and other Covid-19 pandemic-related products, and the serious shortcomings in pandemic preparedness.

    In terms of health equity (as distinct from commodity of ‘vaccine’ equity), inequity in the Covid-19 response was not in failing to provide a vaccine against former variants to immune, young people in low-income countries who were at far higher risk from endemic diseases, but in the disproportionate harm to them of uniformly-imposed NPIs that reduced current and future income and basic healthcare, as was noted by the WHO in 2019 Pandemic Influenza recommendations. The failure of the text to recognize this suggests that lessons from Covid-19 have not informed this draft Agreement. The WHO has not yet demonstrated how pandemic ‘preparedness,’ in the terms they use below, would have reduced impact, given that there is poor correlation between strictness or speed of response and eventual outcomes.

    Reiterating the need to work towards…an equitable approach to mitigate the risk that pandemics exacerbate existing inequities in access to health services,

    As above – in the past century, the issue of inequity has been most pronounced in pandemic response, rather than the impact of the virus itself (excluding the physiological variation in risk). Most recorded deaths from acute pandemics, since the Spanish flu, were during Covid-19, in which the virus hit mainly sick elderly, but response impacted working-age adults and children heavily and will continue to have effect, due to increased poverty and debt; reduced education and child marriage, in future generations.

    These have disproportionately affected lower-income people, and particularly women. The lack of recognition of this in this document, though they are recognized by the World Bank and UN agencies elsewhere, must raise real questions on whether this Agreement has been thoroughly thought through, and the process of development been sufficiently inclusive and objective.

    Chapter I. Introduction

    Article 1. Use of terms

    (i) “pathogen with pandemic potential” means any pathogen that has been identified to infect a human and that is: novel (not yet characterized) or known (including a variant of a known pathogen), potentially highly transmissible and/or highly virulent with the potential to cause a public health emergency of international concern.

    This provides a very wide scope to alter provisions. Any pathogen that can infect humans and is potentially highly transmissible or virulent, though yet uncharacterized means virtually any coronavirus, influenza virus, or a plethora of other relatively common pathogen groups. The IHR Amendments intend that the DG alone can make this call, over the advice of others, as occurred with monkeypox in 2022.

    (j) “persons in vulnerable situations” means individuals, groups or communities with a disproportionate increased risk of infection, severity, disease or mortality.

    This is a good definition – in Covid-19 context, would mean the sick elderly, and so is relevant to targeting a response.

    “Universal health coverage” means that all people have access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship.

    While the general UHC concept is good, it is time a sensible (rather than patently silly) definition was adopted. Society cannot afford the full range of possible interventions and remedies for all, and clearly there is a scale of cost vs benefit that prioritizes certain ones over others. Sensible definitions make action more likely, and inaction harder to justify. One could argue that none should have the full range until all have good basic care, but clearly the earth will not support ‘the full range’ for 8 billion people.

    Article 2. Objective

    This Agreement is specifically for pandemics (a poorly defined term but essentially a pathogen that spreads rapidly across national borders). In contrast, the IHR amendments accompanying it are broader in scope – for any public health emergencies of international concern.

    Article 3. Principles

    2. the sovereign right of States to adopt, legislate and implement legislation

    The amendments to the IHR require States to undertake to follow WHO instructions ahead of time, before such instruction and context are known. These two documents must be understood, as noted later in the Agreement draft, as complementary.

    3. equity as the goal and outcome of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, ensuring the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people.

    This definition of equity here needs clarification. In the pandemic context, the WHO emphasized commodity (vaccine) equity during the Covid-19 response. Elimination of differences implied equal access to Covid-19 vaccines in countries with large aging, obese highly vulnerable populations (e.g. the USA or Italy), and those with young populations at minimal risk and with far more pressing health priorities (e.g. Niger or Uganda).

    Alternatively, but equally damaging, equal access to different age groups within a country when the risk-benefit ratio is clearly greatly different. This promotes worse health outcomes by diverting resources from where they are most useful, as it ignores heterogeneity of risk. Again, an adult approach is required in international agreements, rather than feel-good sentences, if they are going to have a positive impact.

    5. …a more equitable and better prepared world to prevent, respond to and recover from pandemics

    As with ‘3’ above, this raises a fundamental problem: What if health equity demands that some populations divert resources to childhood nutrition and endemic diseases rather than the latest pandemic, as these are likely of far higher burden to many younger but lower-income populations? This would not be equity in the definition implied here, but would clearly lead to better and more equal health outcomes.

    The WHO must decide whether it is about uniform action, or minimizing poor health, as these are clearly very different. They are the difference between the WHO’s commodity equity, and true health equity.

    Chapter II. The world together equitably: achieving equity in, for and through pandemic prevention, preparedness and response

    Equity in health should imply a reasonably equal chance of overcoming or avoiding preventable sickness. The vast majority of sickness and death is due to either non-communicable diseases often related to lifestyle, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus, undernutrition in childhood, and endemic infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. Achieving health equity would primarily mean addressing these.

    In this chapter of the draft Pandemic Agreement, equity is used to imply equal access to specific health commodities, particularly vaccines, for intermittent health emergencies, although these exert a small fraction of the burden of other diseases. It is, specifically, commodity-equity, and not geared to equalizing overall health burden but to enabling centrally-coordinated homogenous responses to unusual events.

    Article 4. Pandemic prevention and surveillance

    2. The Parties shall undertake to cooperate:

    (b) in support of…initiatives aimed at preventing pandemics, in particular those that improve surveillance, early warning and risk assessment; .…and identify settings and activities presenting a risk of emergence and re-emergence of pathogens with pandemic potential.

    (c-h) [Paragraphs on water and sanitation, infection control, strengthening of biosafety, surveillance and prevention of vector-born diseases, and addressing antimicrobial resistance.]

    The WHO intends the Agreement to have force under international law. Therefore, countries are undertaking to put themselves under force of international law in regards to complying with the agreement’s stipulations.

    The provisions under this long article mostly cover general health stuff that countries try to do anyway. The difference will be that countries will be assessed on progress. Assessment can be fine if in context, less fine if it consists of entitled ‘experts’ from wealthy countries with little local knowledge or context. Perhaps such compliance is best left to national authorities, who are more in use with local needs and priorities. The justification for the international bureaucracy being built to support this, while fun for those involved, is unclear and will divert resources from actual health work.

    6. The Conference of the Parties may adopt, as necessary, guidelines, recommendations and standards, including in relation to pandemic prevention capacities, to support the implementation of this Article.

    Here and later, the COP is invoked as a vehicle to decide on what will actually be done. The rules are explained later (Articles 21-23). While allowing more time is sensible, it begs the question of why it is not better to wait and discuss what is needed in the current INB process, before committing to a legally-binding agreement. This current article says nothing not already covered by the IHR2005 or other ongoing programs.

    Article 5. One Health approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response

    Nothing specific or new in this article. It seems redundant (it is advocating a holistic approach mentioned elsewhere) and so presumably is just to get the term ‘One Health’ into the agreement. (One could ask, why bother?)

    Some mainstream definitions of One Health (e.g. Lancet) consider that it means non-human species are on a par with humans in terms of rights and importance. If this is meant here, clearly most Member States would disagree. So we may assume that it is just words to keep someone happy (a little childish in an international document, but the term ‘One Health’ has been trending, like ‘equity,’ as if the concept of holistic approaches to public health were new).

    Article 6. Preparedness, health system resilience and recovery

    2. Each Party commits…[to] :

    (a) routine and essential health services during pandemics with a focus on primary health care, routine immunization and mental health care, and with particular attention to persons in vulnerable situations

    (b) developing, strengthening and maintaining health infrastructure

    (c) developing post-pandemic health system recovery strategies

    (d) developing, strengthening and maintaining: health information systems

    This is good, and (a) seems to require avoidance of lockdowns (which inevitably cause the harms listed). Unfortunately other WHO documents lead one to assume this is not the intent…It does appear therefore that this is simply another list of fairly non-specific feel-good measures that have no useful place in a new legally-binding agreement, and which most countries are already undertaking.

    (e) promoting the use of social and behavioural sciences, risk communication and community engagement for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

    This requires clarification, as the use of behavioral science during the Covid-19 response involved deliberate inducement of fear to promote behaviors that people would not otherwise follow (e.g. Spi-B). It is essential here that the document clarifies how behavioral science should be used ethically in healthcare. Otherwise, this is also a quite meaningless provision.

    Article 7. Health and care workforce

    This long Article discusses health workforce, training, retention, non-discrimination, stigma, bias, adequate remuneration, and other standard provisions for workplaces. It is unclear why it is included in a legally binding pandemic agreement, except for:

    4. [The Parties]…shall invest in establishing, sustaining, coordinating and mobilizing a skilled and trained multidisciplinary global public health emergency workforce…Parties having established emergency health teams should inform WHO thereof and make best efforts to respond to requests for deployment…

    Emergency health teams established (within capacity etc.) – are something countries already do, when they have capacity. There is no reason to have this as a legally-binding instrument, and clearly no urgency to do so.

    Article 8. Preparedness monitoring and functional reviews

    1. The Parties shall, building on existing and relevant tools, develop and implement an inclusive, transparent, effective and efficient pandemic prevention, preparedness and response monitoring and evaluation system.

    2. Each Party shall assess, every five years, with technical support from the WHO Secretariat upon request, the functioning and readiness of, and gaps in, its pandemic prevention, preparedness and response capacity, based on the relevant tools and guidelines developed by WHO in partnership with relevant organizations at international, regional and sub-regional levels.

    Note that this is being required of countries that are already struggling to implement monitoring systems for major endemic diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, and nutritional deficiencies. They will be legally bound to divert resources to pandemic prevention. While there is some overlap, it will inevitably divert resources from currently underfunded programs for diseases of far higher local burdens, and so (not theoretically, but inevitably) raise mortality. Poor countries are being required to put resources into problems deemed significant by richer countries.

    Article 9. Research and development

    Various general provisions about undertaking background research that countries are generally doing anyway, but with an ’emerging disease’ slant. Again, the INB fails to justify why this diversion of resources from researching greater disease burdens should occur in all countries (why not just those with excess resources?).

    Article 10. Sustainable and geographically diversified production

    Mostly non-binding but suggested cooperation on making pandemic-related products available, including support for manufacturing in “inter-pandemic times” (a fascinating rendering of ‘normal’), when they would only be viable through subsidies. Much of this is probably unimplementable, as it would not be practical to maintain facilities in most or all countries on stand-by for rare events, at cost of resources otherwise useful for other priorities. The desire to increase production in ‘developing’ countries will face major barriers and costs in terms of maintaining quality of production, particularly as many products will have limited use outside of rare outbreak situations.

    Article 11. Transfer of technology and know-how

    This article, always problematic for large pharmaceutical corporations sponsoring much WHO outbreak activities, is now watered down to weak requirements to ‘consider,’ promote,’ provide, within capabilities’ etc.

    Article 12. Access and benefit sharing

    This Article is intended to establish the WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS System). PABS is intended to “ensure rapid, systematic and timely access to biological materials of pathogens with pandemic potential and the genetic sequence data.” This system is of potential high relevance and needs to be interpreted in the context that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing the recent Covid-19 outbreak, was highly likely to have escaped from a laboratory. PABS is intended to expand the laboratory storage, transport, and handling of such viruses, under the oversight of the WHO, an organization outside of national jurisdiction with no significant direct experience in handling biological materials.

    3. When a Party has access to a pathogen [it shall]:

    (a) share with WHO any pathogen sequence information as soon as it is available to the Party;

    (b) as soon as biological materials are available to the Party, provide the materials to one or more laboratories and/or biorepositories participating in WHO-coordinated laboratory networks (CLNs),

    Subsequent clauses state that benefits will be shared, and seek to prevent recipient laboratories from patenting materials received from other countries. This has been a major concern of low-and middle-income countries previously, who perceive that institutions in wealthy countries patent and benefit from materials derived from less-wealthy populations. It remains to be seen whether provisions here will be sufficient to address this.

    The article then becomes yet more concerning:

    6. WHO shall conclude legally binding standard PABS contracts with manufacturers to provide the following, taking into account the size, nature and capacities of the manufacturer:

    (a) annual monetary contributions to support the PABS System and relevant capacities in countries; the determination of the annual amount, use, and approach for monitoring and accountability, shall be finalized by the Parties;

    (b) real-time contributions of relevant diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines produced by the manufacturer, 10% free of charge and 10% at not-for-profit prices during public health emergencies of international concern or pandemics, …

    It is clearly intended that the WHO becomes directly involved in setting up legally binding manufacturing contracts, despite the WHO being outside of national jurisdictional oversight, within the territories of Member States. The PABS system, and therefore its staff and dependent entities, are also to be supported in part by funds from the manufacturers whom they are supposed to be managing. The income of the organization will be dependent on maintaining positive relationships with these private entities in a similar way in which many national regulatory agencies are dependent upon funds from pharmaceutical companies whom their staff ostensibly regulate. In this case, the regulator will be even further removed from public oversight.

    The clause on 10% (why 10?) products being free of charge, and similar at cost, while ensuring lower-priced commodities irrespective of actual need (the outbreak may be confined to wealthy countries). The same entity, the WHO, will determine whether the triggering emergency exists, determine the response, and manage the contracts to provide the commodities, without direct jurisdictional oversight regarding the potential for corruption or conflict of interest. It is a remarkable system to suggest, irrespective of political or regulatory environment.

    8. The Parties shall cooperate…public financing of research and development, prepurchase agreements, or regulatory procedures, to encourage and facilitate as many manufacturers as possible to enter into standard PABS contracts as early as possible.

    The article envisions that public funding will be used to build the process, ensuring essentially no-risk private profit.

    10. To support operationalization of the PABS System, WHO shall…make such contracts public, while respecting commercial confidentiality.

    The public may know whom contracts are made with, but not all details of the contracts. There will therefore be no independent oversight of the clauses agreed between the WHO, a body outside of national jurisdiction and dependent of commercial companies for funding some of its work and salaries, and these same companies, on ‘needs’ that the WHO itself will have sole authority, under the proposed amendments to the IHR, to determine.

    The Article further states that the WHO shall use its own product regulatory system (prequalification) and Emergency Use Listing Procedure to open and stimulate markets for the manufacturers of these products.

    It is doubtful that any national government could make such an overall agreement, yet in May 2024 they will be voting to provide this to what is essentially a foreign, and partly privately financed, entity.

    Article 13. Supply chain and logistics

    The WHO will become convenor of a ‘Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network’ for commercially-produced products, to be supplied under WHO contracts when and where the WHO determines, whilst also having the role of ensuring safety of such products.

    Having mutual support coordinated between countries is good. Having this run by an organization that is significantly funded directly by those gaining from the sale of these same commodities seems reckless and counterintuitive. Few countries would allow this (or at least plan for it).

    For this to occur safely, the WHO would logically have to forgo all private investment, and greatly restrict national specified funding contributions. Otherwise, the conflicts of interest involved would destroy confidence in the system. There is no suggestion of such divestment from the WHO, but rather, as in Article 12, private sector dependency, directly tied to contracts, will increase.

    Article 13bis: National procurement- and distribution-related provisions

    While suffering the same (perhaps unavoidable) issues regarding commercial confidentiality, this alternate Article 13 seems far more appropriate, keeping commercial issues under national jurisdiction and avoiding the obvious conflict of interests that underpin funding for WHO activities and staffing.

    Article 14. Regulatory systems strengthening

    This entire Article reflects initiatives and programs already in place. Nothing here appears likely to add to current effort.

    Article 15. Liability and compensation management

    1. Each Party shall consider developing, as necessary and in accordance with applicable law, national strategies for managing liability in its territory related to pandemic vaccines…no-fault compensation mechanisms…

    2. The Parties…shall develop recommendations for the establishment and implementation of national, regional and/or global no-fault compensation mechanisms and strategies for managing liability during pandemic emergencies, including with regard to individuals that are in a humanitarian setting or vulnerable situations.

    This is quite remarkable, but also reflects some national legislation, in removing any fault or liability specifically from vaccine manufacturers, for harms done in pushing out vaccines to the public. During the Covid-19 response, genetic therapeutics being developed by BioNtech and Moderna were reclassified as vaccines, on the basis that an immune response is stimulated after they have modified intracellular biochemical pathways as a medicine normally does.

    This enabled specific trials normally required for carcinogenicity and teratogenicity to be bypassed, despite raised fetal abnormality rates in animal trials. It will enable the CEPI 100-day vaccine program, supported with private funding to support private mRNA vaccine manufacturers, to proceed without any risk to the manufacturer should there be subsequent public harm.

    Together with an earlier provision on public funding of research and manufacturing readiness, and the removal of former wording requiring intellectual property sharing in Article 11, this ensures vaccine manufacturers and their investors make profit in effective absence of risk.

    These entities are currently heavily invested in support for WHO, and were strongly aligned with the introduction of newly restrictive outbreak responses that emphasized and sometimes mandated their products during the Covid-19 outbreak.

    Article 16. International collaboration and cooperation

    A somewhat pointless article. It suggests that countries cooperate with each other and the WHO to implement the other agreements in the Agreement.

    Article 17. Whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches

    A list of essentially motherhood provisions related to planning for a pandemic. However, countries will legally be required to maintain a ‘national coordination multisectoral body’ for PPPR. This will essentially be an added burden on budgets, and inevitably divert further resources from other priorities. Perhaps just strengthening current infectious disease and nutritional programs would be more impactful. (Nowhere in this Agreement is nutrition discussed (essential for resilience to pathogens) and minimal wording is included on sanitation and clean water (other major reasons for reduction in infectious disease mortality over past centuries).

    However, the ‘community ownership’ wording is interesting (“empower and enable community ownership of, and contribution to, community readiness for and resilience [for PPPR]”), as this directly contradicts much of the rest of the Agreement, including the centralization of control under the Conference of Parties, requirements for countries to allocate resources to pandemic preparedness over other community priorities, and the idea of inspecting and assessing adherence to the centralized requirements of the Agreement. Either much of the rest of the Agreement is redundant, or this wording is purely for appearance and not to be followed (and therefore should be removed).

    Article 18. Communication and public awareness

    1. Each Party shall promote timely access to credible and evidence-based information …with the aim of countering and addressing misinformation or disinformation…

    2. The Parties shall, as appropriate, promote and/or conduct research and inform policies on factors that hinder or strengthen adherence to public health and social measures in a pandemic, as well as trust in science and public health institutions and agencies.

    The key word is as appropriate, given that many agencies, including the WHO, have overseen or aided policies during the Covid-19 response that have greatly increased poverty, child marriage, teenage pregnancy, and education loss.

    As the WHO has been shown to be significantly misrepresenting pandemic risk in the process of advocating for this Agreement and related instruments, its own communications would also fall outside the provision here related to evidence-based information, and fall within normal understandings of misinformation. It could not therefore be an arbiter of correctness of information here, so the Article is not implementable. Rewritten to recommend accurate evidence-based information being promoted, it would make good sense, but this is not an issue requiring a legally binding international agreement.

    Article 19. Implementation and support

    3. The WHO Secretariat…organize the technical and financial assistance necessary to address such gaps and needs in implementing the commitments agreed upon under the Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations (2005).

    As the WHO is dependent on donor support, its ability to address gaps in funding within Member States is clearly not something it can guarantee. The purpose of this article is unclear, repeating in paragraphs 1 and 2 the earlier intent for countries to generally support each other.

    Article 20. Sustainable financing

    1. The Parties commit to working together…In this regard, each Party, within the means and resources at its disposal, shall:

    (a) prioritize and maintain or increase, as necessary, domestic funding for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, without undermining other domestic public health priorities including for: (i) strengthening and sustaining capacities for the prevention, preparedness and response to health emergencies and pandemics, in particular the core capacities of the International Health Regulations (2005);…

    This is silly wording, as countries obviously have to prioritize within budgets, so that moving funds to one area means removing from another. The essence of public health policy is weighing and making such decisions; this reality seems to be ignored here through wishful thinking. (a) is clearly redundant, as the IHR (2005) already exists and countries have agreed to support it.

    3. A Coordinating Financial Mechanism (the “Mechanism”) is hereby established to support the implementation of both the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations (2005)

    This will be in parallel to the Pandemic Fund recently commenced by the World Bank – an issue not lost on INB delegates and so likely to change here in the final version. It will also be additive to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and other health financing mechanisms, and so require another parallel international bureaucracy, presumably based in Geneva.

    It is intended to have its own capacity to “conduct relevant analyses on needs and gaps, in addition to tracking cooperation efforts,” so it will not be a small undertaking.

    Chapter III. Institutional and final provisions

    Article 21. Conference of the Parties

    1. A Conference of the Parties is hereby established.

    2. The Conference of the Parties shall keep under regular review, every three years, the implementation of the WHO Pandemic Agreement and take the decisions necessary to promote its effective implementation.

    This sets up the governing body to oversee this Agreement (another body requiring a secretariat and support). It is intended to meet within a year of the Agreement coming into force, and then set its own rules on meeting thereafter. It is likely that many provisions outlined in this draft of the Agreement will be deferred to the COP for further discussion.

    Articles 22 – 37

    These articles cover the functioning of the Conference of Parties (COP) and various administrative issues.

    Of note, ‘block votes’ will be allowed from regional bodies (e.g. the EU).

    The WHO will provide the secretariat.

    Under Article 24 is noted:

    3. Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement shall be interpreted as providing the Secretariat of the World Health Organization, including the WHO Director-General, any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the domestic laws or policies of any Party, or to mandate or otherwise impose any requirements that Parties take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures, or implement lockdowns.

    These provisions are explicitly stated in the proposed amendments to the IHR, to be considered alongside this agreement. Article 26 notes that the IHR is to be interpreted as compatible, thereby confirming that the IHR provisions including border closures and limits on freedom of movement, mandated vaccination, and other lockdown measures are not negated by this statement.

    As Article 26 states: “The Parties recognize that the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations should be interpreted so as to be compatible.”

    Some would consider this subterfuge – The Director-General recently labeled as liars those who claimed the Agreement included these powers, whilst failing to acknowledge the accompanying IHR amendments. The WHO could do better in avoiding misleading messaging, especially when this involves denigration of the public.

    Article 32 (Withdrawal) requires that, once adopted, Parties cannot withdraw for a total of 3 years (giving notice after a minimum of 2 years). Financial obligations undertaken under the agreement continue beyond that time.

    Finally, the Agreement will come into force, assuming a two-thirds majority in the WHA is achieved (Article 19, WHO Constitution), 30 days after the fortieth country has ratified it.

    Further reading:

    WHO Pandemic Agreement Intergovernmental Negotiating Board website:

    https://inb.who.int/

    International Health Regulations Working Group website:

    https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/index.html

    On background to the WHO texts:

    Amendments to WHO’s International Health Regulations: An Annotated Guide
    An Unofficial Q&A on International Health Regulations
    On urgency and burden of pandemics:

    https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/228/rational-policy-over-panic

    Disease X and Davos: This is Not the Way to Evaluate and Formulate Public Health Policy
    Before Preparing for Pandemics, We Need Better Evidence of Risk
    Revised Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement:

    Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
    For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.

    Authors

    David Bell
    David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.

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    Thi Thuy Van Dinh
    Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh (LLM, PhD) worked on international law in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Subsequently, she managed multilateral organization partnerships for Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund and led environmental health technology development efforts for low-resource settings.

    View all posts
    Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work.

    https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-pandemic-agreement-a-guide/

    https://www.minds.com/donshafi911/blog/the-who-pandemic-agreement-a-guide-1621719398509187077
    The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Guide By David Bell, Thi Thuy Van Dinh March 22, 2024 Government, Society 30 minute read The World Health Organization (WHO) and its 194 Member States have been engaged for over two years in the development of two ‘instruments’ or agreements with the intent of radically changing the way pandemics and other health emergencies are managed. One, consisting of draft amendments to the existing International health Regulations (IHR), seeks to change the current IHR non-binding recommendations into requirements or binding recommendations, by having countries “undertake” to implement those given by the WHO in future declared health emergencies. It covers all ‘public health emergencies of international concern’ (PHEIC), with a single person, the WHO Director-General (DG) determining what a PHEIC is, where it extends, and when it ends. It specifies mandated vaccines, border closures, and other directives understood as lockdowns among the requirements the DG can impose. It is discussed further elsewhere and still under negotiation in Geneva. A second document, previously known as the (draft) Pandemic Treaty, then Pandemic Accord, and more recently the Pandemic Agreement, seeks to specify governance, supply chains, and various other interventions aimed at preventing, preparing for, and responding to, pandemics (pandemic prevention, preparedness and response – PPPR). It is currently being negotiated by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB). Both texts will be subject to a vote at the May 2024 World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland. These votes are intended, by those promoting these projects, to bring governance of future multi-country healthcare emergencies (or threats thereof) under the WHO umbrella. The latest version of the draft Pandemic Agreement (here forth the ‘Agreement’) was released on 7th March 2024. However, it is still being negotiated by various committees comprising representatives of Member States and other interested entities. It has been through multiple iterations over two years, and looks like it. With the teeth of the pandemic response proposals in the IHR, the Agreement looks increasingly irrelevant, or at least unsure of its purpose, picking up bits and pieces in a half-hearted way that the IHR amendments do not, or cannot, include. However, as discussed below, it is far from irrelevant. Historical Perspective These aim to increase the centralization of decision-making within the WHO as the “directing and coordinating authority.” This terminology comes from the WHO’s 1946 Constitution, developed in the aftermath of the Second World War as the world faced the outcomes of European fascism and the similar approaches widely imposed through colonialist regimes. The WHO would support emerging countries, with rapidly expanding and poorly resourced populations struggling under high disease burdens, and coordinate some areas of international support as these sovereign countries requested it. The emphasis of action was on coordinating rather than directing. In the 80 years prior to the WHO’s existence, international public health had grown within a more directive mindset, with a series of meetings by colonial and slave-owning powers from 1851 to manage pandemics, culminating in the inauguration of the Office Internationale d’Hygiene Publique in Paris in 1907, and later the League of Nations Health Office. World powers imposed health dictates on those less powerful, in other parts of the world and increasingly on their own population through the eugenics movement and similar approaches. Public health would direct, for the greater good, as a tool of those who wish to direct the lives of others. The WHO, governed by the WHA, was to be very different. Newly independent States and their former colonial masters were ostensibly on an equal footing within the WHA (one country – one vote), and the WHO’s work overall was to be an example of how human rights could dominate the way society works. The model for international public health, as exemplified in the Declaration of Alma Ata in 1978, was to be horizontal rather than vertical, with communities and countries in the driving seat. With the evolution of the WHO in recent decades from a core funding model (countries give money, the WHO decides under the WHA guidance how to spend it) to a model based on specified funding (funders, both public and increasingly private, instruct the WHO on how to spend it), the WHO has inevitably changed to become a public-private partnership required to serve the interests of funders rather than populations. As most funding comes from a few countries with major Pharma industrial bases, or private investors and corporations in the same industry, the WHO has been required to emphasize the use of pharmaceuticals and downplay evidence and knowledge where these clash (if it wants to keep all its staff funded). It is helpful to view the draft Agreement, and the IHR amendments, in this context. Why May 2024? The WHO, together with the World Bank, G20, and other institutions have been emphasizing the urgency of putting the new pandemic instruments in place earnestly, before the ‘next pandemic.’ This is based on claims that the world was unprepared for Covid-19, and that the economic and health harm would be somehow avoidable if we had these agreements in place. They emphasize, contrary to evidence that Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) origins involve laboratory manipulation, that the main threats we face are natural, and that these are increasing exponentially and present an “existential” threat to humanity. The data on which the WHO, the World Bank, and G20 base these claims demonstrates the contrary, with reported natural outbreaks having increased as detection technologies have developed, but reducing in mortality rate, and in numbers, over the past 10 to 20 years.. A paper cited by the World Bank to justify urgency and quoted as suggesting a 3x increase in risk in the coming decade actually suggests that a Covid-19-like event would occur roughly every 129 years, and a Spanish-flu repetition every 292 to 877 years. Such predictions are unable to take into account the rapidly changing nature of medicine and improved sanitation and nutrition (most deaths from Spanish flu would not have occurred if modern antibiotics had been available), and so may still overestimate risk. Similarly, the WHO’s own priority disease list for new outbreaks only includes two diseases of proven natural origin that have over 1,000 historical deaths attributed to them. It is well demonstrated that the risk and expected burden of pandemics is misrepresented by major international agencies in current discussions. The urgency for May 2024 is clearly therefore inadequately supported, firstly because neither the WHO nor others have demonstrated how the harms accrued through Covid-19 would be reduced through the measures proposed, and secondly because the burden and risk is misrepresented. In this context, the state of the Agreement is clearly not where it should be as a draft international legally binding agreement intended to impose considerable financial and other obligations on States and populations. This is particularly problematic as the proposed expenditure; the proposed budget is over $31 billion per year, with over $10 billion more on other One Health activities. Much of this will have to be diverted from addressing other diseases burdens that impose far greater burden. This trade-off, essential to understand in public health policy development, has not yet been clearly addressed by the WHO. The WHO DG stated recently that the WHO does not want the power to impose vaccine mandates or lockdowns on anyone, and does not want this. This begs the question of why either of the current WHO pandemic instruments is being proposed, both as legally binding documents. The current IHR (2005) already sets out such approaches as recommendations the DG can make, and there is nothing non-mandatory that countries cannot do now without pushing new treaty-like mechanisms through a vote in Geneva. Based on the DG’s claims, they are essentially redundant, and what new non-mandatory clauses they contain, as set out below, are certainly not urgent. Clauses that are mandatory (Member States “shall”) must be considered within national decision-making contexts and appear against the WHO’s stated intent. Common sense would suggest that the Agreement, and the accompanying IHR amendments, be properly thought through before Member States commit. The WHO has already abandoned the legal requirement for a 4-month review time for the IHR amendments (Article 55.2 IHR), which are also still under negotiation just 2 months before the WHA deadline. The Agreement should also have at least such a period for States to properly consider whether to agree – treaties normally take many years to develop and negotiate and no valid arguments have been put forward as to why these should be different. The Covid-19 response resulted in an unprecedented transfer of wealth from those of lower income to the very wealthy few, completely contrary to the way in which the WHO was intended to affect human society. A considerable portion of these pandemic profits went to current sponsors of the WHO, and these same corporate entities and investors are set to further benefit from the new pandemic agreements. As written, the Pandemic Agreement risks entrenching such centralization and profit-taking, and the accompanying unprecedented restrictions on human rights and freedoms, as a public health norm. To continue with a clearly flawed agreement simply because of a previously set deadline, when no clear population benefit is articulated and no true urgency demonstrated, would therefore be a major step backward in international public health. Basic principles of proportionality, human agency, and community empowerment, essential for health and human rights outcomes, are missing or paid lip-service. The WHO clearly wishes to increase its funding and show it is ‘doing something,’ but must first articulate why the voluntary provisions of the current IHR are insufficient. It is hoped that by systematically reviewing some key clauses of the agreement here, it will become clear why a rethink of the whole approach is necessary. The full text is found below. The commentary below concentrates on selected draft provisions of the latest publicly available version of the draft agreement that seem to be unclear or potentially problematic. Much of the remaining text is essentially pointless as it reiterates vague intentions to be found in other documents or activities which countries normally undertake in the course of running health services, and have no place in a focused legally-binding international agreement. REVISED Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement. 7th March, 2024 Preamble Recognizing that the World Health Organization…is the directing and coordinating authority on international health work. This is inconsistent with a recent statement by the WHO DG that the WHO has no interest or intent to direct country health responses. To reiterate it here suggests that the DG is not representing the true position regarding the Agreement. “Directing authority” is however in line with the proposed IHR Amendments (and the WHO’s Constitution), under which countries will “undertake” ahead of time to follow the DG’s recommendations (which thereby become instructions). As the HR amendments make clear, this is intended to apply even to a perceived threat rather than actual harm. Recalling the constitution of the World Health Organization…highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition. This statement recalls fundamental understandings of public health, and is of importance here as it raises the question of why the WHO did not strongly condemn prolonged school closures, workplace closures, and other impoverishing policies during the Covid-19 response. In 2019, WHO made clear that these dangers should prevent actions we now call ‘lockdowns’ from being imposed. Deeply concerned by the gross inequities at national and international levels that hindered timely and equitable access to medical and other Covid-19 pandemic-related products, and the serious shortcomings in pandemic preparedness. In terms of health equity (as distinct from commodity of ‘vaccine’ equity), inequity in the Covid-19 response was not in failing to provide a vaccine against former variants to immune, young people in low-income countries who were at far higher risk from endemic diseases, but in the disproportionate harm to them of uniformly-imposed NPIs that reduced current and future income and basic healthcare, as was noted by the WHO in 2019 Pandemic Influenza recommendations. The failure of the text to recognize this suggests that lessons from Covid-19 have not informed this draft Agreement. The WHO has not yet demonstrated how pandemic ‘preparedness,’ in the terms they use below, would have reduced impact, given that there is poor correlation between strictness or speed of response and eventual outcomes. Reiterating the need to work towards…an equitable approach to mitigate the risk that pandemics exacerbate existing inequities in access to health services, As above – in the past century, the issue of inequity has been most pronounced in pandemic response, rather than the impact of the virus itself (excluding the physiological variation in risk). Most recorded deaths from acute pandemics, since the Spanish flu, were during Covid-19, in which the virus hit mainly sick elderly, but response impacted working-age adults and children heavily and will continue to have effect, due to increased poverty and debt; reduced education and child marriage, in future generations. These have disproportionately affected lower-income people, and particularly women. The lack of recognition of this in this document, though they are recognized by the World Bank and UN agencies elsewhere, must raise real questions on whether this Agreement has been thoroughly thought through, and the process of development been sufficiently inclusive and objective. Chapter I. Introduction Article 1. Use of terms (i) “pathogen with pandemic potential” means any pathogen that has been identified to infect a human and that is: novel (not yet characterized) or known (including a variant of a known pathogen), potentially highly transmissible and/or highly virulent with the potential to cause a public health emergency of international concern. This provides a very wide scope to alter provisions. Any pathogen that can infect humans and is potentially highly transmissible or virulent, though yet uncharacterized means virtually any coronavirus, influenza virus, or a plethora of other relatively common pathogen groups. The IHR Amendments intend that the DG alone can make this call, over the advice of others, as occurred with monkeypox in 2022. (j) “persons in vulnerable situations” means individuals, groups or communities with a disproportionate increased risk of infection, severity, disease or mortality. This is a good definition – in Covid-19 context, would mean the sick elderly, and so is relevant to targeting a response. “Universal health coverage” means that all people have access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship. While the general UHC concept is good, it is time a sensible (rather than patently silly) definition was adopted. Society cannot afford the full range of possible interventions and remedies for all, and clearly there is a scale of cost vs benefit that prioritizes certain ones over others. Sensible definitions make action more likely, and inaction harder to justify. One could argue that none should have the full range until all have good basic care, but clearly the earth will not support ‘the full range’ for 8 billion people. Article 2. Objective This Agreement is specifically for pandemics (a poorly defined term but essentially a pathogen that spreads rapidly across national borders). In contrast, the IHR amendments accompanying it are broader in scope – for any public health emergencies of international concern. Article 3. Principles 2. the sovereign right of States to adopt, legislate and implement legislation The amendments to the IHR require States to undertake to follow WHO instructions ahead of time, before such instruction and context are known. These two documents must be understood, as noted later in the Agreement draft, as complementary. 3. equity as the goal and outcome of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, ensuring the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people. This definition of equity here needs clarification. In the pandemic context, the WHO emphasized commodity (vaccine) equity during the Covid-19 response. Elimination of differences implied equal access to Covid-19 vaccines in countries with large aging, obese highly vulnerable populations (e.g. the USA or Italy), and those with young populations at minimal risk and with far more pressing health priorities (e.g. Niger or Uganda). Alternatively, but equally damaging, equal access to different age groups within a country when the risk-benefit ratio is clearly greatly different. This promotes worse health outcomes by diverting resources from where they are most useful, as it ignores heterogeneity of risk. Again, an adult approach is required in international agreements, rather than feel-good sentences, if they are going to have a positive impact. 5. …a more equitable and better prepared world to prevent, respond to and recover from pandemics As with ‘3’ above, this raises a fundamental problem: What if health equity demands that some populations divert resources to childhood nutrition and endemic diseases rather than the latest pandemic, as these are likely of far higher burden to many younger but lower-income populations? This would not be equity in the definition implied here, but would clearly lead to better and more equal health outcomes. The WHO must decide whether it is about uniform action, or minimizing poor health, as these are clearly very different. They are the difference between the WHO’s commodity equity, and true health equity. Chapter II. The world together equitably: achieving equity in, for and through pandemic prevention, preparedness and response Equity in health should imply a reasonably equal chance of overcoming or avoiding preventable sickness. The vast majority of sickness and death is due to either non-communicable diseases often related to lifestyle, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus, undernutrition in childhood, and endemic infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. Achieving health equity would primarily mean addressing these. In this chapter of the draft Pandemic Agreement, equity is used to imply equal access to specific health commodities, particularly vaccines, for intermittent health emergencies, although these exert a small fraction of the burden of other diseases. It is, specifically, commodity-equity, and not geared to equalizing overall health burden but to enabling centrally-coordinated homogenous responses to unusual events. Article 4. Pandemic prevention and surveillance 2. The Parties shall undertake to cooperate: (b) in support of…initiatives aimed at preventing pandemics, in particular those that improve surveillance, early warning and risk assessment; .…and identify settings and activities presenting a risk of emergence and re-emergence of pathogens with pandemic potential. (c-h) [Paragraphs on water and sanitation, infection control, strengthening of biosafety, surveillance and prevention of vector-born diseases, and addressing antimicrobial resistance.] The WHO intends the Agreement to have force under international law. Therefore, countries are undertaking to put themselves under force of international law in regards to complying with the agreement’s stipulations. The provisions under this long article mostly cover general health stuff that countries try to do anyway. The difference will be that countries will be assessed on progress. Assessment can be fine if in context, less fine if it consists of entitled ‘experts’ from wealthy countries with little local knowledge or context. Perhaps such compliance is best left to national authorities, who are more in use with local needs and priorities. The justification for the international bureaucracy being built to support this, while fun for those involved, is unclear and will divert resources from actual health work. 6. The Conference of the Parties may adopt, as necessary, guidelines, recommendations and standards, including in relation to pandemic prevention capacities, to support the implementation of this Article. Here and later, the COP is invoked as a vehicle to decide on what will actually be done. The rules are explained later (Articles 21-23). While allowing more time is sensible, it begs the question of why it is not better to wait and discuss what is needed in the current INB process, before committing to a legally-binding agreement. This current article says nothing not already covered by the IHR2005 or other ongoing programs. Article 5. One Health approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response Nothing specific or new in this article. It seems redundant (it is advocating a holistic approach mentioned elsewhere) and so presumably is just to get the term ‘One Health’ into the agreement. (One could ask, why bother?) Some mainstream definitions of One Health (e.g. Lancet) consider that it means non-human species are on a par with humans in terms of rights and importance. If this is meant here, clearly most Member States would disagree. So we may assume that it is just words to keep someone happy (a little childish in an international document, but the term ‘One Health’ has been trending, like ‘equity,’ as if the concept of holistic approaches to public health were new). Article 6. Preparedness, health system resilience and recovery 2. Each Party commits…[to] : (a) routine and essential health services during pandemics with a focus on primary health care, routine immunization and mental health care, and with particular attention to persons in vulnerable situations (b) developing, strengthening and maintaining health infrastructure (c) developing post-pandemic health system recovery strategies (d) developing, strengthening and maintaining: health information systems This is good, and (a) seems to require avoidance of lockdowns (which inevitably cause the harms listed). Unfortunately other WHO documents lead one to assume this is not the intent…It does appear therefore that this is simply another list of fairly non-specific feel-good measures that have no useful place in a new legally-binding agreement, and which most countries are already undertaking. (e) promoting the use of social and behavioural sciences, risk communication and community engagement for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This requires clarification, as the use of behavioral science during the Covid-19 response involved deliberate inducement of fear to promote behaviors that people would not otherwise follow (e.g. Spi-B). It is essential here that the document clarifies how behavioral science should be used ethically in healthcare. Otherwise, this is also a quite meaningless provision. Article 7. Health and care workforce This long Article discusses health workforce, training, retention, non-discrimination, stigma, bias, adequate remuneration, and other standard provisions for workplaces. It is unclear why it is included in a legally binding pandemic agreement, except for: 4. [The Parties]…shall invest in establishing, sustaining, coordinating and mobilizing a skilled and trained multidisciplinary global public health emergency workforce…Parties having established emergency health teams should inform WHO thereof and make best efforts to respond to requests for deployment… Emergency health teams established (within capacity etc.) – are something countries already do, when they have capacity. There is no reason to have this as a legally-binding instrument, and clearly no urgency to do so. Article 8. Preparedness monitoring and functional reviews 1. The Parties shall, building on existing and relevant tools, develop and implement an inclusive, transparent, effective and efficient pandemic prevention, preparedness and response monitoring and evaluation system. 2. Each Party shall assess, every five years, with technical support from the WHO Secretariat upon request, the functioning and readiness of, and gaps in, its pandemic prevention, preparedness and response capacity, based on the relevant tools and guidelines developed by WHO in partnership with relevant organizations at international, regional and sub-regional levels. Note that this is being required of countries that are already struggling to implement monitoring systems for major endemic diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, and nutritional deficiencies. They will be legally bound to divert resources to pandemic prevention. While there is some overlap, it will inevitably divert resources from currently underfunded programs for diseases of far higher local burdens, and so (not theoretically, but inevitably) raise mortality. Poor countries are being required to put resources into problems deemed significant by richer countries. Article 9. Research and development Various general provisions about undertaking background research that countries are generally doing anyway, but with an ’emerging disease’ slant. Again, the INB fails to justify why this diversion of resources from researching greater disease burdens should occur in all countries (why not just those with excess resources?). Article 10. Sustainable and geographically diversified production Mostly non-binding but suggested cooperation on making pandemic-related products available, including support for manufacturing in “inter-pandemic times” (a fascinating rendering of ‘normal’), when they would only be viable through subsidies. Much of this is probably unimplementable, as it would not be practical to maintain facilities in most or all countries on stand-by for rare events, at cost of resources otherwise useful for other priorities. The desire to increase production in ‘developing’ countries will face major barriers and costs in terms of maintaining quality of production, particularly as many products will have limited use outside of rare outbreak situations. Article 11. Transfer of technology and know-how This article, always problematic for large pharmaceutical corporations sponsoring much WHO outbreak activities, is now watered down to weak requirements to ‘consider,’ promote,’ provide, within capabilities’ etc. Article 12. Access and benefit sharing This Article is intended to establish the WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS System). PABS is intended to “ensure rapid, systematic and timely access to biological materials of pathogens with pandemic potential and the genetic sequence data.” This system is of potential high relevance and needs to be interpreted in the context that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing the recent Covid-19 outbreak, was highly likely to have escaped from a laboratory. PABS is intended to expand the laboratory storage, transport, and handling of such viruses, under the oversight of the WHO, an organization outside of national jurisdiction with no significant direct experience in handling biological materials. 3. When a Party has access to a pathogen [it shall]: (a) share with WHO any pathogen sequence information as soon as it is available to the Party; (b) as soon as biological materials are available to the Party, provide the materials to one or more laboratories and/or biorepositories participating in WHO-coordinated laboratory networks (CLNs), Subsequent clauses state that benefits will be shared, and seek to prevent recipient laboratories from patenting materials received from other countries. This has been a major concern of low-and middle-income countries previously, who perceive that institutions in wealthy countries patent and benefit from materials derived from less-wealthy populations. It remains to be seen whether provisions here will be sufficient to address this. The article then becomes yet more concerning: 6. WHO shall conclude legally binding standard PABS contracts with manufacturers to provide the following, taking into account the size, nature and capacities of the manufacturer: (a) annual monetary contributions to support the PABS System and relevant capacities in countries; the determination of the annual amount, use, and approach for monitoring and accountability, shall be finalized by the Parties; (b) real-time contributions of relevant diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines produced by the manufacturer, 10% free of charge and 10% at not-for-profit prices during public health emergencies of international concern or pandemics, … It is clearly intended that the WHO becomes directly involved in setting up legally binding manufacturing contracts, despite the WHO being outside of national jurisdictional oversight, within the territories of Member States. The PABS system, and therefore its staff and dependent entities, are also to be supported in part by funds from the manufacturers whom they are supposed to be managing. The income of the organization will be dependent on maintaining positive relationships with these private entities in a similar way in which many national regulatory agencies are dependent upon funds from pharmaceutical companies whom their staff ostensibly regulate. In this case, the regulator will be even further removed from public oversight. The clause on 10% (why 10?) products being free of charge, and similar at cost, while ensuring lower-priced commodities irrespective of actual need (the outbreak may be confined to wealthy countries). The same entity, the WHO, will determine whether the triggering emergency exists, determine the response, and manage the contracts to provide the commodities, without direct jurisdictional oversight regarding the potential for corruption or conflict of interest. It is a remarkable system to suggest, irrespective of political or regulatory environment. 8. The Parties shall cooperate…public financing of research and development, prepurchase agreements, or regulatory procedures, to encourage and facilitate as many manufacturers as possible to enter into standard PABS contracts as early as possible. The article envisions that public funding will be used to build the process, ensuring essentially no-risk private profit. 10. To support operationalization of the PABS System, WHO shall…make such contracts public, while respecting commercial confidentiality. The public may know whom contracts are made with, but not all details of the contracts. There will therefore be no independent oversight of the clauses agreed between the WHO, a body outside of national jurisdiction and dependent of commercial companies for funding some of its work and salaries, and these same companies, on ‘needs’ that the WHO itself will have sole authority, under the proposed amendments to the IHR, to determine. The Article further states that the WHO shall use its own product regulatory system (prequalification) and Emergency Use Listing Procedure to open and stimulate markets for the manufacturers of these products. It is doubtful that any national government could make such an overall agreement, yet in May 2024 they will be voting to provide this to what is essentially a foreign, and partly privately financed, entity. Article 13. Supply chain and logistics The WHO will become convenor of a ‘Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network’ for commercially-produced products, to be supplied under WHO contracts when and where the WHO determines, whilst also having the role of ensuring safety of such products. Having mutual support coordinated between countries is good. Having this run by an organization that is significantly funded directly by those gaining from the sale of these same commodities seems reckless and counterintuitive. Few countries would allow this (or at least plan for it). For this to occur safely, the WHO would logically have to forgo all private investment, and greatly restrict national specified funding contributions. Otherwise, the conflicts of interest involved would destroy confidence in the system. There is no suggestion of such divestment from the WHO, but rather, as in Article 12, private sector dependency, directly tied to contracts, will increase. Article 13bis: National procurement- and distribution-related provisions While suffering the same (perhaps unavoidable) issues regarding commercial confidentiality, this alternate Article 13 seems far more appropriate, keeping commercial issues under national jurisdiction and avoiding the obvious conflict of interests that underpin funding for WHO activities and staffing. Article 14. Regulatory systems strengthening This entire Article reflects initiatives and programs already in place. Nothing here appears likely to add to current effort. Article 15. Liability and compensation management 1. Each Party shall consider developing, as necessary and in accordance with applicable law, national strategies for managing liability in its territory related to pandemic vaccines…no-fault compensation mechanisms… 2. The Parties…shall develop recommendations for the establishment and implementation of national, regional and/or global no-fault compensation mechanisms and strategies for managing liability during pandemic emergencies, including with regard to individuals that are in a humanitarian setting or vulnerable situations. This is quite remarkable, but also reflects some national legislation, in removing any fault or liability specifically from vaccine manufacturers, for harms done in pushing out vaccines to the public. During the Covid-19 response, genetic therapeutics being developed by BioNtech and Moderna were reclassified as vaccines, on the basis that an immune response is stimulated after they have modified intracellular biochemical pathways as a medicine normally does. This enabled specific trials normally required for carcinogenicity and teratogenicity to be bypassed, despite raised fetal abnormality rates in animal trials. It will enable the CEPI 100-day vaccine program, supported with private funding to support private mRNA vaccine manufacturers, to proceed without any risk to the manufacturer should there be subsequent public harm. Together with an earlier provision on public funding of research and manufacturing readiness, and the removal of former wording requiring intellectual property sharing in Article 11, this ensures vaccine manufacturers and their investors make profit in effective absence of risk. These entities are currently heavily invested in support for WHO, and were strongly aligned with the introduction of newly restrictive outbreak responses that emphasized and sometimes mandated their products during the Covid-19 outbreak. Article 16. International collaboration and cooperation A somewhat pointless article. It suggests that countries cooperate with each other and the WHO to implement the other agreements in the Agreement. Article 17. Whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches A list of essentially motherhood provisions related to planning for a pandemic. However, countries will legally be required to maintain a ‘national coordination multisectoral body’ for PPPR. This will essentially be an added burden on budgets, and inevitably divert further resources from other priorities. Perhaps just strengthening current infectious disease and nutritional programs would be more impactful. (Nowhere in this Agreement is nutrition discussed (essential for resilience to pathogens) and minimal wording is included on sanitation and clean water (other major reasons for reduction in infectious disease mortality over past centuries). However, the ‘community ownership’ wording is interesting (“empower and enable community ownership of, and contribution to, community readiness for and resilience [for PPPR]”), as this directly contradicts much of the rest of the Agreement, including the centralization of control under the Conference of Parties, requirements for countries to allocate resources to pandemic preparedness over other community priorities, and the idea of inspecting and assessing adherence to the centralized requirements of the Agreement. Either much of the rest of the Agreement is redundant, or this wording is purely for appearance and not to be followed (and therefore should be removed). Article 18. Communication and public awareness 1. Each Party shall promote timely access to credible and evidence-based information …with the aim of countering and addressing misinformation or disinformation… 2. The Parties shall, as appropriate, promote and/or conduct research and inform policies on factors that hinder or strengthen adherence to public health and social measures in a pandemic, as well as trust in science and public health institutions and agencies. The key word is as appropriate, given that many agencies, including the WHO, have overseen or aided policies during the Covid-19 response that have greatly increased poverty, child marriage, teenage pregnancy, and education loss. As the WHO has been shown to be significantly misrepresenting pandemic risk in the process of advocating for this Agreement and related instruments, its own communications would also fall outside the provision here related to evidence-based information, and fall within normal understandings of misinformation. It could not therefore be an arbiter of correctness of information here, so the Article is not implementable. Rewritten to recommend accurate evidence-based information being promoted, it would make good sense, but this is not an issue requiring a legally binding international agreement. Article 19. Implementation and support 3. The WHO Secretariat…organize the technical and financial assistance necessary to address such gaps and needs in implementing the commitments agreed upon under the Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations (2005). As the WHO is dependent on donor support, its ability to address gaps in funding within Member States is clearly not something it can guarantee. The purpose of this article is unclear, repeating in paragraphs 1 and 2 the earlier intent for countries to generally support each other. Article 20. Sustainable financing 1. The Parties commit to working together…In this regard, each Party, within the means and resources at its disposal, shall: (a) prioritize and maintain or increase, as necessary, domestic funding for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, without undermining other domestic public health priorities including for: (i) strengthening and sustaining capacities for the prevention, preparedness and response to health emergencies and pandemics, in particular the core capacities of the International Health Regulations (2005);… This is silly wording, as countries obviously have to prioritize within budgets, so that moving funds to one area means removing from another. The essence of public health policy is weighing and making such decisions; this reality seems to be ignored here through wishful thinking. (a) is clearly redundant, as the IHR (2005) already exists and countries have agreed to support it. 3. A Coordinating Financial Mechanism (the “Mechanism”) is hereby established to support the implementation of both the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations (2005) This will be in parallel to the Pandemic Fund recently commenced by the World Bank – an issue not lost on INB delegates and so likely to change here in the final version. It will also be additive to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and other health financing mechanisms, and so require another parallel international bureaucracy, presumably based in Geneva. It is intended to have its own capacity to “conduct relevant analyses on needs and gaps, in addition to tracking cooperation efforts,” so it will not be a small undertaking. Chapter III. Institutional and final provisions Article 21. Conference of the Parties 1. A Conference of the Parties is hereby established. 2. The Conference of the Parties shall keep under regular review, every three years, the implementation of the WHO Pandemic Agreement and take the decisions necessary to promote its effective implementation. This sets up the governing body to oversee this Agreement (another body requiring a secretariat and support). It is intended to meet within a year of the Agreement coming into force, and then set its own rules on meeting thereafter. It is likely that many provisions outlined in this draft of the Agreement will be deferred to the COP for further discussion. Articles 22 – 37 These articles cover the functioning of the Conference of Parties (COP) and various administrative issues. Of note, ‘block votes’ will be allowed from regional bodies (e.g. the EU). The WHO will provide the secretariat. Under Article 24 is noted: 3. Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement shall be interpreted as providing the Secretariat of the World Health Organization, including the WHO Director-General, any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the domestic laws or policies of any Party, or to mandate or otherwise impose any requirements that Parties take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures, or implement lockdowns. These provisions are explicitly stated in the proposed amendments to the IHR, to be considered alongside this agreement. Article 26 notes that the IHR is to be interpreted as compatible, thereby confirming that the IHR provisions including border closures and limits on freedom of movement, mandated vaccination, and other lockdown measures are not negated by this statement. As Article 26 states: “The Parties recognize that the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the International Health Regulations should be interpreted so as to be compatible.” Some would consider this subterfuge – The Director-General recently labeled as liars those who claimed the Agreement included these powers, whilst failing to acknowledge the accompanying IHR amendments. The WHO could do better in avoiding misleading messaging, especially when this involves denigration of the public. Article 32 (Withdrawal) requires that, once adopted, Parties cannot withdraw for a total of 3 years (giving notice after a minimum of 2 years). Financial obligations undertaken under the agreement continue beyond that time. Finally, the Agreement will come into force, assuming a two-thirds majority in the WHA is achieved (Article 19, WHO Constitution), 30 days after the fortieth country has ratified it. Further reading: WHO Pandemic Agreement Intergovernmental Negotiating Board website: https://inb.who.int/ International Health Regulations Working Group website: https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/index.html On background to the WHO texts: Amendments to WHO’s International Health Regulations: An Annotated Guide An Unofficial Q&A on International Health Regulations On urgency and burden of pandemics: https://essl.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/download/228/rational-policy-over-panic Disease X and Davos: This is Not the Way to Evaluate and Formulate Public Health Policy Before Preparing for Pandemics, We Need Better Evidence of Risk Revised Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement: Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License For reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author. Authors David Bell David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA. View all posts Thi Thuy Van Dinh Dr. Thi Thuy Van Dinh (LLM, PhD) worked on international law in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Subsequently, she managed multilateral organization partnerships for Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund and led environmental health technology development efforts for low-resource settings. View all posts Your financial backing of Brownstone Institute goes to support writers, lawyers, scientists, economists, and other people of courage who have been professionally purged and displaced during the upheaval of our times. You can help get the truth out through their ongoing work. https://brownstone.org/articles/the-who-pandemic-agreement-a-guide/ https://www.minds.com/donshafi911/blog/the-who-pandemic-agreement-a-guide-1621719398509187077
    BROWNSTONE.ORG
    The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Guide ⋆ Brownstone Institute
    The commentary below concentrates on selected draft provisions of the latest publicly available version of the draft agreement that seem to be unclear or potentially problematic.
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  • Jessica Lyons - Truck-to-truck worm could infect – and disrupt – entire US commercial fleet:

    https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/22/boffins_tucktotruck_worm

    #CommercialTransportation #ElectronicLoggingDevice #ELD #Malware #ComputerWorm #RemoteAccess #RemoteMonitoring #RemoteManagement #RMM #OverTheAirUpdate #OTA #WiFi #Bluetooth #Cybersecurity #NetworkSecurity #InfrastructureSecurity #ComputerScience
    Jessica Lyons - Truck-to-truck worm could infect – and disrupt – entire US commercial fleet: https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/22/boffins_tucktotruck_worm #CommercialTransportation #ElectronicLoggingDevice #ELD #Malware #ComputerWorm #RemoteAccess #RemoteMonitoring #RemoteManagement #RMM #OverTheAirUpdate #OTA #WiFi #Bluetooth #Cybersecurity #NetworkSecurity #InfrastructureSecurity #ComputerScience
    WWW.THEREGISTER.COM
    Truck-to-truck worm could infect entire US fleet
    The device that makes it possible is required in all American big rigs, and has poor security
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  • Politicians come and go, but the elite are permanent in Malaysia
    Too powerful to overcome

    Murray Hunter
    Kuala Lumpur Itinerary : A Guide to the Perfect Five-Day Trip in KL
    Share

    Governments do change in Malaysia. Each incoming administration will have its own narratives and specific agendas. However, policies will be generally very similar, and based upon the same principles as the previous government. In and around the executive and administrative government is a network of elite people, who collectively yield massive power. The actors can be seen in GLCs, corporations, royal households, civil servants, the judiciary, police, and within the executive itself. This massive power is however, hidden due to its fragmentation, and unseen influence its membership carries.

    The Elite consolidate Malay power

    While politicians come and go, the elites are permanent, exercising both formal and informal influence. Together, the elite permeates across all society in all states and territories. There is an established elite in Penang, Sarawak, and Sabah. They act independently and in conjunction with the rest of the nation’s class of elites. Sometimes groups within the elite work together, and sometimes they oppose each other.

    ไฟล์:Flag of the Federated Malay States (1895 - 1946).png ...
    The real symbol of elite power

    No matter who is in power, the interwoven network of the elite is there. Governments must work in cooperation with these elites, or be seriously undermined. As we can see monopolies and concessions continue to flourish no matter which political grouping is in power. Major contracts are still dished out by direct negotiation, rather than open tender. Annual budgets and five-year plans still deliver ‘crafted opportunities’ to these groups, cementing crony capitalism and kleptocracy in Malaysia as a way of life. No administration will tax the Top 10 percent of income earners in the country.

    The power of the prime minister is only as strong as the relationships he carries with sections of the elite.

    Networks control corporate Malaysia

    Today’s public policy initiatives are implemented through government linked companies (GLCs) and partnerships with corporations. Thus, the running of government is concerned about business deals and contracts to business vehicles owned by the elite. This is why the Malaysian economy is so heavily dependent upon GLCs and crony corporations, which have been granted artificial monopolies.

    The only way someone can become a member of this exclusive group is to have strong connections with various stakeholders within the elite class. This is why new entrants strive to find ‘God fathers’ within the GLCs that employ them, and politicians seek to be appointed to agency and GLC boards.

    Some powerful people are members of multiple public corporation boards, and also on the boards of agencies and GLCs. Their networking potential is vast, where through informal relationship, much can be achieved to achieve their own ends.

    Much of elite networking with the government decision makers of the day, carries massive persuasion. Sometimes this persuasion is too powerful for government decision makers to refuse.

    Those activists, journalists, and NGOs who criticise what the elites do is dealt with through lawfare, humiliation through the media and even arrest by the police. Defamation actions are taken to drain the financial resources of activists to make them bankrupt, in order to silence them. Some just disappear all-together.

    The privileged elite are generally immune from the law, investigation by the politicised police, and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). This network controls and defines the law.

    The elite live by the creed ‘greed is good’

    They look after the interests of their own, using tools like the New Economic Policy (NEP), at the cost of the rest of Malaysians. After 60 years of the NEP most of the most marginalised people in Malaysia are Bumiputeras. The NEP concerns itself with equity within the economy, and not income, so the KPIs are skewed. The primary objective of the elite is to pursue ‘created opportunities’ to make money. This is why the Malaysian economy today is primarily based upon rent-seeking activities and not innovation. The elite take few risks.

    There was no indigenous Malaysian vaccine created during the Covid-19 pandemic, even though the government spent great sums of money promoting a biotechnology sector. Rather than local companies gearing up to produce parts for the local production of indigenous electric vehicles (EVs), most are facing financial difficulties and heading towards bankruptcy. These are just two examples of the rent-seeking Malaysian economy today.



    All countries have their own elites, where Malaysia is no exception. The elites form a strong component of the nature of the real-politic of the nation.

    Subscribe Below:

    https://open.substack.com/pub/murrayhunter/p/politicians-come-and-go-but-the-elite?r=29hg4d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web


    https://youtu.be/VVxYOQS6ggk
    Politicians come and go, but the elite are permanent in Malaysia Too powerful to overcome Murray Hunter Kuala Lumpur Itinerary : A Guide to the Perfect Five-Day Trip in KL Share Governments do change in Malaysia. Each incoming administration will have its own narratives and specific agendas. However, policies will be generally very similar, and based upon the same principles as the previous government. In and around the executive and administrative government is a network of elite people, who collectively yield massive power. The actors can be seen in GLCs, corporations, royal households, civil servants, the judiciary, police, and within the executive itself. This massive power is however, hidden due to its fragmentation, and unseen influence its membership carries. The Elite consolidate Malay power While politicians come and go, the elites are permanent, exercising both formal and informal influence. Together, the elite permeates across all society in all states and territories. There is an established elite in Penang, Sarawak, and Sabah. They act independently and in conjunction with the rest of the nation’s class of elites. Sometimes groups within the elite work together, and sometimes they oppose each other. ไฟล์:Flag of the Federated Malay States (1895 - 1946).png ... The real symbol of elite power No matter who is in power, the interwoven network of the elite is there. Governments must work in cooperation with these elites, or be seriously undermined. As we can see monopolies and concessions continue to flourish no matter which political grouping is in power. Major contracts are still dished out by direct negotiation, rather than open tender. Annual budgets and five-year plans still deliver ‘crafted opportunities’ to these groups, cementing crony capitalism and kleptocracy in Malaysia as a way of life. No administration will tax the Top 10 percent of income earners in the country. The power of the prime minister is only as strong as the relationships he carries with sections of the elite. Networks control corporate Malaysia Today’s public policy initiatives are implemented through government linked companies (GLCs) and partnerships with corporations. Thus, the running of government is concerned about business deals and contracts to business vehicles owned by the elite. This is why the Malaysian economy is so heavily dependent upon GLCs and crony corporations, which have been granted artificial monopolies. The only way someone can become a member of this exclusive group is to have strong connections with various stakeholders within the elite class. This is why new entrants strive to find ‘God fathers’ within the GLCs that employ them, and politicians seek to be appointed to agency and GLC boards. Some powerful people are members of multiple public corporation boards, and also on the boards of agencies and GLCs. Their networking potential is vast, where through informal relationship, much can be achieved to achieve their own ends. Much of elite networking with the government decision makers of the day, carries massive persuasion. Sometimes this persuasion is too powerful for government decision makers to refuse. Those activists, journalists, and NGOs who criticise what the elites do is dealt with through lawfare, humiliation through the media and even arrest by the police. Defamation actions are taken to drain the financial resources of activists to make them bankrupt, in order to silence them. Some just disappear all-together. The privileged elite are generally immune from the law, investigation by the politicised police, and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). This network controls and defines the law. The elite live by the creed ‘greed is good’ They look after the interests of their own, using tools like the New Economic Policy (NEP), at the cost of the rest of Malaysians. After 60 years of the NEP most of the most marginalised people in Malaysia are Bumiputeras. The NEP concerns itself with equity within the economy, and not income, so the KPIs are skewed. The primary objective of the elite is to pursue ‘created opportunities’ to make money. This is why the Malaysian economy today is primarily based upon rent-seeking activities and not innovation. The elite take few risks. There was no indigenous Malaysian vaccine created during the Covid-19 pandemic, even though the government spent great sums of money promoting a biotechnology sector. Rather than local companies gearing up to produce parts for the local production of indigenous electric vehicles (EVs), most are facing financial difficulties and heading towards bankruptcy. These are just two examples of the rent-seeking Malaysian economy today. All countries have their own elites, where Malaysia is no exception. The elites form a strong component of the nature of the real-politic of the nation. Subscribe Below: https://open.substack.com/pub/murrayhunter/p/politicians-come-and-go-but-the-elite?r=29hg4d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web https://youtu.be/VVxYOQS6ggk
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  • Biden-Soros Regime Illegally Funds Hungarian Opposition Media with $320,000 to Bring Down President and Former Justice Minister
    by Richard Abelson Feb. 13, 2024 10:00 am
    “Don’t let him get the last laugh!” – Hungarian ad campaign against Soros 2017
    The Biden regime is once again trying to overthrow the conservative Christian government of Hungary with US taypaxer money, paying over $320,000 via Soros-funded NGOs to 15 opposition media outlets ahead of the European Parliament elections June 6 to 9. A campaign by Soros-tied media forced the resignation of Hungarian President Katalin Novák and former Justice Minister Judit Varga.

    A campaign by Biden-Soros financed 444.hu media has forced the resignantion of popular Hungarian President Katalin Novák and charismatic Justice Minister Judit Varga of Victor Orbán’s Fidesz party. They were accused of pardoning a man convicted of covering sexual abuse of orphans.

    In 2019, the director of the orphanage in Bicske, János V., was sentenced to eight years in prison for the sexual abuse of underage male wards in ten cases between 2004 and 2016.

    His deputy, Endre Kónya, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for allegedly assisting the orphanage director to coerce one of the victims into retracting their statement. Endre Kónya began serving his prison sentence in November 2021 and transitioned to a halfyway house beginning of 2023. Ahead of the visit by Pope Francis in April 2023, Endre Kónya’s wife appealed to Novak to pardon her husband, who only had a few months left to serve. Novák pardoned the man 27 April 2023 with the signature of then-Justice Minister Judit Varga.

    For a Limited Time: Deals At The Gateway Pundit Discounts Page At MyPillow Now Come With Free Shipping On Your Entire Order


    This pardon was then revealed by 444.hu media and turned into a campaign by EU- and Soros-backed socialist Momentum party, which organized protests outside the President’s office February 9th and 10th. Novak resigned as President Feb. 10th, and Varga stepped down as MP and European Parliament candidate. Varga had stepped down as Justice Minister in June 2023 to run for the European Parliament.

    Fidesz spokesman János Halász called Momentum part of the “Soros plan” in 2020.

    On Jan. 27, Hungarian political analyst András László and American conservative expat in Hungary Rod Dreher had posted receipts on X showing that 444 and other media involved were funded by the Biden regime.

    László wrote that “left-wing NGOs announce which Hungarian media outlets will receive direct financing from the US Embassy. More than a DOZEN, a total of 15 media will receive US taxpayer money.”


    “US taxpayers are funding anti government media in Hungary, a NATO ally,” Rod Dreher wrote.

    Foreign-funded Soros opposition radio station Klubradio published an opinion piece calling the parting President and Justice Minister “whores”:


    Today Gateway Pundit can reveal the Biden regime funded the outlet that conspired with the Hungarian socialist opposition and Soros media to bring down the popular Hungarian President and Justice Minister – strong conservative Christian women fighting to protect the family and the civilization.

    Hungarian Rock Star Justice Minister Judith Varga in Texas: “Weak America” Leads to War – Hungary Doesn’t Want US Wokeness

    According to the documents posted by László, parent company Magyar Jeti received 10,025,048 Hungarian Forint ($27,939.23) from the US State Dept. via Ökotars Foundation for 444 media and 6452024 Hungarian Forint ($17981,42) for the Qubit publication. Klubradio, which László called “filth”, recieved 5,135,146 Hungarian Forint ($14311,35) from the US State Dept.

    Magyar Jeti was directly funded by the EU with €460,000 in 2022 and €130,000 in 2021, according to the EU Financial Transparency System.

    Ökotars Foundation received €3.86 M from the EU 2018-2022, and Mérték Media Monitor received €260,000 from the EU 2017-2022.

    “The U.S. Department of State entrusted Soros-funded Ökotárs Foundation and media watchdog Mérték Media Monitor to hand over $320,000 in taxpayer dollars to 15 media outlets critical of the pro-freedom Hungarian government, according to NGO and government documents”, Media Research Center wrote:

    Soros has funded Both Ökotárs and Mérték. Between 2017 and 2022, Soros gave $306,147 to the Ökotárs Foundation and $88,113 to Mérték Media Monitor. According to descriptions provided by the Open Society Foundation, all three donations to Mérték Media Monitor aligned with the current goals of the State Department.

    At least five of the media outlets that were awarded grant funding were funded by Soros. Soros has funded Nyugat Media for years, giving them $259,142 in five donations from 2017-2020. “Let’s make democracy together,” a $25,000 donation claimed in its description. ” A second donation referred to Nyugat Media as “the largest, independent media site in the Hungarian countryside.”

    Trending: Mitch McConnell and Senate RINOs Help Pass Ukraine Funding Package that Includes Language for Automatic Impeachment if Trump Terminates Funding for Ukraine War!

    Soros gave $129,962 to the Tilos Cultural Foundation from 2016 to 2022, four grants in total. Two of the grants reference support for “independent community media in Hungary” and “alternative values.”

    Soros has also given $197,478 to grant-recipient Atlatszo.hu Kozhasznu Nonprofit Kft. Two out of the four Soros grants were earmarked for “independent media,” while another donation aided collaboration with a different State Department beneficiary Magyar Hang. Soros gave $15,000 to grant-recipient Debreciner in 2019, again for “independent” media.

    Media Research Center Vice President Dan Schneider ripped the State Department for funding the Hungarian opposition: “It is wrong for U.S. government employees to farm out how our tax dollars are spent. It is outrageous that a lazy diplomat in our embassy relied on the Soros crew to figure out how to spend our taxpayer dollars.”


    Gateway Pundit has extensively covered the Biden-Soros interference in Hungary in the name of “democracy”. Foreign election interference is illegal in Hungary.

    Now it seems the Biden Regime has gone the next step of bringing down the Hungarian President and Justice Minister.

    The aim of the Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection Act is “to prevent foreign attempts to interfere in Hungary’s democratic processes”, Judit Varga wrote on X. “The adoption of the law was necessary: at the 2022 elections, the Hungarian left risked Hungary’s sovereignty by accepting foreign campaign contributions. This proves a serious attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign EU member state. Brussels has refused to comment or investigate the case ever since. The initiation of the infringement procedure is a clear proof that bureaucrats in Brussels don’t acknowledge: foreign NGO networks want to gain influence in member states. A main stake of the EP elections is whether it will be possible to elect a Parliament strong enough to free the Brussels bureaucracy from the grip of NGOs & mainstream media financed by international financiers.”



    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/biden-soros-regime-illegally-funds-hungarian-opposition-media/

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/biden-soros-regime-illegally-funds.html
    Biden-Soros Regime Illegally Funds Hungarian Opposition Media with $320,000 to Bring Down President and Former Justice Minister by Richard Abelson Feb. 13, 2024 10:00 am “Don’t let him get the last laugh!” – Hungarian ad campaign against Soros 2017 The Biden regime is once again trying to overthrow the conservative Christian government of Hungary with US taypaxer money, paying over $320,000 via Soros-funded NGOs to 15 opposition media outlets ahead of the European Parliament elections June 6 to 9. A campaign by Soros-tied media forced the resignation of Hungarian President Katalin Novák and former Justice Minister Judit Varga. A campaign by Biden-Soros financed 444.hu media has forced the resignantion of popular Hungarian President Katalin Novák and charismatic Justice Minister Judit Varga of Victor Orbán’s Fidesz party. They were accused of pardoning a man convicted of covering sexual abuse of orphans. In 2019, the director of the orphanage in Bicske, János V., was sentenced to eight years in prison for the sexual abuse of underage male wards in ten cases between 2004 and 2016. His deputy, Endre Kónya, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for allegedly assisting the orphanage director to coerce one of the victims into retracting their statement. Endre Kónya began serving his prison sentence in November 2021 and transitioned to a halfyway house beginning of 2023. Ahead of the visit by Pope Francis in April 2023, Endre Kónya’s wife appealed to Novak to pardon her husband, who only had a few months left to serve. Novák pardoned the man 27 April 2023 with the signature of then-Justice Minister Judit Varga. For a Limited Time: Deals At The Gateway Pundit Discounts Page At MyPillow Now Come With Free Shipping On Your Entire Order This pardon was then revealed by 444.hu media and turned into a campaign by EU- and Soros-backed socialist Momentum party, which organized protests outside the President’s office February 9th and 10th. Novak resigned as President Feb. 10th, and Varga stepped down as MP and European Parliament candidate. Varga had stepped down as Justice Minister in June 2023 to run for the European Parliament. Fidesz spokesman János Halász called Momentum part of the “Soros plan” in 2020. On Jan. 27, Hungarian political analyst András László and American conservative expat in Hungary Rod Dreher had posted receipts on X showing that 444 and other media involved were funded by the Biden regime. László wrote that “left-wing NGOs announce which Hungarian media outlets will receive direct financing from the US Embassy. More than a DOZEN, a total of 15 media will receive US taxpayer money.” “US taxpayers are funding anti government media in Hungary, a NATO ally,” Rod Dreher wrote. Foreign-funded Soros opposition radio station Klubradio published an opinion piece calling the parting President and Justice Minister “whores”: Today Gateway Pundit can reveal the Biden regime funded the outlet that conspired with the Hungarian socialist opposition and Soros media to bring down the popular Hungarian President and Justice Minister – strong conservative Christian women fighting to protect the family and the civilization. Hungarian Rock Star Justice Minister Judith Varga in Texas: “Weak America” Leads to War – Hungary Doesn’t Want US Wokeness According to the documents posted by László, parent company Magyar Jeti received 10,025,048 Hungarian Forint ($27,939.23) from the US State Dept. via Ökotars Foundation for 444 media and 6452024 Hungarian Forint ($17981,42) for the Qubit publication. Klubradio, which László called “filth”, recieved 5,135,146 Hungarian Forint ($14311,35) from the US State Dept. Magyar Jeti was directly funded by the EU with €460,000 in 2022 and €130,000 in 2021, according to the EU Financial Transparency System. Ökotars Foundation received €3.86 M from the EU 2018-2022, and Mérték Media Monitor received €260,000 from the EU 2017-2022. “The U.S. Department of State entrusted Soros-funded Ökotárs Foundation and media watchdog Mérték Media Monitor to hand over $320,000 in taxpayer dollars to 15 media outlets critical of the pro-freedom Hungarian government, according to NGO and government documents”, Media Research Center wrote: Soros has funded Both Ökotárs and Mérték. Between 2017 and 2022, Soros gave $306,147 to the Ökotárs Foundation and $88,113 to Mérték Media Monitor. According to descriptions provided by the Open Society Foundation, all three donations to Mérték Media Monitor aligned with the current goals of the State Department. At least five of the media outlets that were awarded grant funding were funded by Soros. Soros has funded Nyugat Media for years, giving them $259,142 in five donations from 2017-2020. “Let’s make democracy together,” a $25,000 donation claimed in its description. ” A second donation referred to Nyugat Media as “the largest, independent media site in the Hungarian countryside.” Trending: Mitch McConnell and Senate RINOs Help Pass Ukraine Funding Package that Includes Language for Automatic Impeachment if Trump Terminates Funding for Ukraine War! Soros gave $129,962 to the Tilos Cultural Foundation from 2016 to 2022, four grants in total. Two of the grants reference support for “independent community media in Hungary” and “alternative values.” Soros has also given $197,478 to grant-recipient Atlatszo.hu Kozhasznu Nonprofit Kft. Two out of the four Soros grants were earmarked for “independent media,” while another donation aided collaboration with a different State Department beneficiary Magyar Hang. Soros gave $15,000 to grant-recipient Debreciner in 2019, again for “independent” media. Media Research Center Vice President Dan Schneider ripped the State Department for funding the Hungarian opposition: “It is wrong for U.S. government employees to farm out how our tax dollars are spent. It is outrageous that a lazy diplomat in our embassy relied on the Soros crew to figure out how to spend our taxpayer dollars.” Gateway Pundit has extensively covered the Biden-Soros interference in Hungary in the name of “democracy”. Foreign election interference is illegal in Hungary. Now it seems the Biden Regime has gone the next step of bringing down the Hungarian President and Justice Minister. The aim of the Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection Act is “to prevent foreign attempts to interfere in Hungary’s democratic processes”, Judit Varga wrote on X. “The adoption of the law was necessary: at the 2022 elections, the Hungarian left risked Hungary’s sovereignty by accepting foreign campaign contributions. This proves a serious attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign EU member state. Brussels has refused to comment or investigate the case ever since. The initiation of the infringement procedure is a clear proof that bureaucrats in Brussels don’t acknowledge: foreign NGO networks want to gain influence in member states. A main stake of the EP elections is whether it will be possible to elect a Parliament strong enough to free the Brussels bureaucracy from the grip of NGOs & mainstream media financed by international financiers.” https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/biden-soros-regime-illegally-funds-hungarian-opposition-media/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/biden-soros-regime-illegally-funds.html
    WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COM
    Biden-Soros Regime Illegally Funds Hungarian Opposition Media with $320,000 to Bring Down President and Former Justice Minister | The Gateway Pundit | by Richard Abelson
    The Biden regime is once again trying to overthrow the conservative Christian government of Hungary with US taypaxer money, paying over $320,000 via Soros-funded NGOs to 15 opposition media outlets ahead of the European Parliament elections June 6 to 9.
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  • An Energy Balance Clustering Routing Protocol for Intra-Body Wireless Nanosensor Networks CORONA - NIH PMC 2019

    https://rumble.com/v4d2cq0-february-12-2024.html
    An Energy Balance Clustering Routing Protocol for Intra-Body Wireless Nanosensor Networks CORONA - NIH PMC 2019 https://rumble.com/v4d2cq0-february-12-2024.html
    Angry
    1
    0 Comments 1 Shares 864 Views
  • UK a money laundering, drug trafficking haven for MKO terrorists
    Thursday, 01 February 2024 4:38 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 01 February 2024 5:05 PM ]
    The British government this week imposed sanctions on Iranian officials on the false claim that they were using drug cartels to carry out terrorist activities.

    Iran summoned the British ambassador to Tehran to protest against the “baseless accusations” and “illegal” sanctions by London and informed him of the Islamic Republic’s “strong” indignation.

    “This is a bitter historical irony that a country that is the founder and supporter of organized terrorist groups, drug trafficking, and criminal gangs wants to make accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its loyal and honest forces, who are at the forefront of fighting organised crimes,” the director general of Western Europe at the Iranian foreign ministry, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, told British Ambassador Simon Shercliff.

    The accusation against Iran flies in the face of the UK’s dim record on fighting drug gangs, while the country also supports terrorism and allows its soil to be used as a safe haven for terrorist groups.

    Press TV has lately become privy to information provided by a security source which shows the British government has not only allowed the anti-Iran Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) to freely operate with a special privilege in the country, but has also closed its eyes to the terrorist cult’s engagement in drug trafficking.

    The information shows one of the three main TV offices of the terrorist group known as Simay-e Azadi is in the UK, disseminating the terrorist activities of the group and transmitting encrypted messages to its members.

    In addition, the UK government has removed the network from the oversight of Britain's communications regulator Ofcom in order to allow the channel to operate without any hindrance.

    As a result, the television is broadcasting violent content and terrorist acts 24/7 without being caught for falling foul of Ofcom’s Code of Practice.

    The hypocrisy, however, does not stop there. The British government has also provided the terrorist cult with the conditions to meet its financial needs through drug trafficking, according to the new information.

    The level of coordination and support is such that after one of the MKO’s drug networks in the UK was dismantled and its members were arrested, Britain’s MI6 intelligence service did not allow the news to be published in the media. The agency also provided for a show trial which allowed the MKO to keep channels for illegal financing of the cult’s terrorist activities open.

    According to the information, the UK is home to the largest network of money laundering and financing of MKO terrorists in the world, overseen by a man identified as Sivash Pisheh Varz.

    Siavash and his brothers, Aref and Dariush, are among the long-standing members of the terrorist group.

    Siavash himself is one of the most prominent figures in many companies and businesses linked to the MKO, who was arrested in London in 2009 for money laundering and trafficking over 9 million pounds in cash. His name is more often than not proof of MKO colluding.

    He is a member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization who has attended many MKO gatherings in Europe, acted as a tool of propaganda for the terrorist group and facilitated several lobbying efforts in Europe.

    In 2012, the British National Anti-Crime Foundation arrested a group of five individuals in relation to money laundering. The group which was taken into custody identified two money transfer centers in north Finchley.

    The arrest operation began in September 2011 when Elias Bani al-Ebad, 59, Mahmoud Saadat, 44, and Mohammad Karijani, 40, met each other at IKEA Wembley Parking. Little did they know that several officers of the National Anti-Crime Foundation were watching them.

    It was established that Karijani and Saadat were in contract with Siavash Pisheh Varz via telephone through the whole operation.

    The following day, Bani al-Ebad and Karijani arrived at the same location and moved another cargo. On the same day, the two men were arrested and officers seized 150,000 pounds. An additional 57,000 pounds was discovered at one of the residences.

    At Karijani’s address in Golders Green, police arrested Karijani’s wife, Samuel Jalali, 31, and Saadat, as they were destroying bank documents and other evidence. Among the documents, 43,350 pounds in cash was found. Pisheh Varz and Jalali were arrested in July 2012 and another 50,000 pounds was found in Pisheh Varz’s address.

    Moreover, a notebook listing several transactions worth 9.5 million pounds was recovered at Pisheh Varz’s house.

    The National Anti-Crime Foundation, after investigating the two money transfer centers, found that more than two million pounds had been transferred to the two centers in nine months.

    In a separate case, Pisheh Varz is accused of overseeing the shipment of 500 kilograms of heroin to Ukraine by three individuals identified as Mohammad Forough, Ahmad Shah and Homayoun Mehrpour – all members of the terrorist cult’s drug trafficking network.

    Pisheh Varz has a currency exchange office in the UK called "Transfer", which provides the financial needs of the MKO terrorist group.

    He uses the office as a front for two important missions: money laundering for the terrorist cult and providing financial needs and transferring money to terrorist networks inside Iran to buy equipment for their terrorist operations.

    https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/02/01/719293/Iran-MKO-money-laundering-in-UK-terrorism-support

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/uk-money-laundering-drug-trafficking.html
    UK a money laundering, drug trafficking haven for MKO terrorists Thursday, 01 February 2024 4:38 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 01 February 2024 5:05 PM ] The British government this week imposed sanctions on Iranian officials on the false claim that they were using drug cartels to carry out terrorist activities. Iran summoned the British ambassador to Tehran to protest against the “baseless accusations” and “illegal” sanctions by London and informed him of the Islamic Republic’s “strong” indignation. “This is a bitter historical irony that a country that is the founder and supporter of organized terrorist groups, drug trafficking, and criminal gangs wants to make accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its loyal and honest forces, who are at the forefront of fighting organised crimes,” the director general of Western Europe at the Iranian foreign ministry, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, told British Ambassador Simon Shercliff. The accusation against Iran flies in the face of the UK’s dim record on fighting drug gangs, while the country also supports terrorism and allows its soil to be used as a safe haven for terrorist groups. Press TV has lately become privy to information provided by a security source which shows the British government has not only allowed the anti-Iran Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) to freely operate with a special privilege in the country, but has also closed its eyes to the terrorist cult’s engagement in drug trafficking. The information shows one of the three main TV offices of the terrorist group known as Simay-e Azadi is in the UK, disseminating the terrorist activities of the group and transmitting encrypted messages to its members. In addition, the UK government has removed the network from the oversight of Britain's communications regulator Ofcom in order to allow the channel to operate without any hindrance. As a result, the television is broadcasting violent content and terrorist acts 24/7 without being caught for falling foul of Ofcom’s Code of Practice. The hypocrisy, however, does not stop there. The British government has also provided the terrorist cult with the conditions to meet its financial needs through drug trafficking, according to the new information. The level of coordination and support is such that after one of the MKO’s drug networks in the UK was dismantled and its members were arrested, Britain’s MI6 intelligence service did not allow the news to be published in the media. The agency also provided for a show trial which allowed the MKO to keep channels for illegal financing of the cult’s terrorist activities open. According to the information, the UK is home to the largest network of money laundering and financing of MKO terrorists in the world, overseen by a man identified as Sivash Pisheh Varz. Siavash and his brothers, Aref and Dariush, are among the long-standing members of the terrorist group. Siavash himself is one of the most prominent figures in many companies and businesses linked to the MKO, who was arrested in London in 2009 for money laundering and trafficking over 9 million pounds in cash. His name is more often than not proof of MKO colluding. He is a member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization who has attended many MKO gatherings in Europe, acted as a tool of propaganda for the terrorist group and facilitated several lobbying efforts in Europe. In 2012, the British National Anti-Crime Foundation arrested a group of five individuals in relation to money laundering. The group which was taken into custody identified two money transfer centers in north Finchley. The arrest operation began in September 2011 when Elias Bani al-Ebad, 59, Mahmoud Saadat, 44, and Mohammad Karijani, 40, met each other at IKEA Wembley Parking. Little did they know that several officers of the National Anti-Crime Foundation were watching them. It was established that Karijani and Saadat were in contract with Siavash Pisheh Varz via telephone through the whole operation. The following day, Bani al-Ebad and Karijani arrived at the same location and moved another cargo. On the same day, the two men were arrested and officers seized 150,000 pounds. An additional 57,000 pounds was discovered at one of the residences. At Karijani’s address in Golders Green, police arrested Karijani’s wife, Samuel Jalali, 31, and Saadat, as they were destroying bank documents and other evidence. Among the documents, 43,350 pounds in cash was found. Pisheh Varz and Jalali were arrested in July 2012 and another 50,000 pounds was found in Pisheh Varz’s address. Moreover, a notebook listing several transactions worth 9.5 million pounds was recovered at Pisheh Varz’s house. The National Anti-Crime Foundation, after investigating the two money transfer centers, found that more than two million pounds had been transferred to the two centers in nine months. In a separate case, Pisheh Varz is accused of overseeing the shipment of 500 kilograms of heroin to Ukraine by three individuals identified as Mohammad Forough, Ahmad Shah and Homayoun Mehrpour – all members of the terrorist cult’s drug trafficking network. Pisheh Varz has a currency exchange office in the UK called "Transfer", which provides the financial needs of the MKO terrorist group. He uses the office as a front for two important missions: money laundering for the terrorist cult and providing financial needs and transferring money to terrorist networks inside Iran to buy equipment for their terrorist operations. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/02/01/719293/Iran-MKO-money-laundering-in-UK-terrorism-support https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/uk-money-laundering-drug-trafficking.html
    WWW.PRESSTV.IR
    UK a money laundering, drug trafficking haven for MKO terrorists
    The British government this week imposed sanctions on Iranian officials on the false claim that they were using drug cartels to carry out terrorist activities.
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  • Dr. David Martin: The Next Terror Campaign on the World Is Already Being Planned
    “Preparing for Disease X”

    The Vigilant Fox

    The World Economic Forum held a 47-minute meeting in Davos this week titled “Preparing for Disease X.” In that meeting, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, warned that the next pandemic is not a matter of if but when.


    Technologist and entrepreneur Dr. David Martin, often known for his viral address to the European Parliament, agrees — but from a slightly different perspective. He said, during a space hosted on 𝕏, that the next terror campaign on the world is already being planned:

    “What they’re doing right now is they’re planning the sequence of events where they can actually cascade another terror campaign, which then triggers not only the need for allegedly another medical countermeasure, but it also, this time, is going to involve the other piece that they failed to achieve with the COVID campaign, which is the eradication of cash-based transactions in commercial interaction because it turns out that one of the things that they desperately need to do is to make sure that they have central control on the flow of value exchange and the mapping of the networks associated with that.”

    Dr. David Martin mentioned that his organization, M•CAM International, “continues to maintain vigilance on all the 64 scheduled and funded pathogens that are in the queue for release against humanity."

    He highlighted that the ongoing events in Davos serve as a preliminary exercise for yet another pandemic exercise “to get ready for the passage of the IHR (International Health Regulations) World Health Organization Treaty reform, which is intended to take over a supra sovereignty on any declared emergency …”

    “They blundered their way into Covid,” remarked Dr. Martin, “and unfortunately (for them), they did not do the full control takeover that they wanted, which is exactly what is on the agenda for Davos this week.”

    Leave a comment

    The World Economic Forum’s 2024 meetings can be watched at weforum.org.

    The full conversation with Dr. David Martin can be listened to here.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/vigilantfox/p/dr-david-martin-the-next-terror-campaign?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
    Dr. David Martin: The Next Terror Campaign on the World Is Already Being Planned “Preparing for Disease X” The Vigilant Fox The World Economic Forum held a 47-minute meeting in Davos this week titled “Preparing for Disease X.” In that meeting, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, warned that the next pandemic is not a matter of if but when. Technologist and entrepreneur Dr. David Martin, often known for his viral address to the European Parliament, agrees — but from a slightly different perspective. He said, during a space hosted on 𝕏, that the next terror campaign on the world is already being planned: “What they’re doing right now is they’re planning the sequence of events where they can actually cascade another terror campaign, which then triggers not only the need for allegedly another medical countermeasure, but it also, this time, is going to involve the other piece that they failed to achieve with the COVID campaign, which is the eradication of cash-based transactions in commercial interaction because it turns out that one of the things that they desperately need to do is to make sure that they have central control on the flow of value exchange and the mapping of the networks associated with that.” Dr. David Martin mentioned that his organization, M•CAM International, “continues to maintain vigilance on all the 64 scheduled and funded pathogens that are in the queue for release against humanity." He highlighted that the ongoing events in Davos serve as a preliminary exercise for yet another pandemic exercise “to get ready for the passage of the IHR (International Health Regulations) World Health Organization Treaty reform, which is intended to take over a supra sovereignty on any declared emergency …” “They blundered their way into Covid,” remarked Dr. Martin, “and unfortunately (for them), they did not do the full control takeover that they wanted, which is exactly what is on the agenda for Davos this week.” Leave a comment The World Economic Forum’s 2024 meetings can be watched at weforum.org. The full conversation with Dr. David Martin can be listened to here. https://open.substack.com/pub/vigilantfox/p/dr-david-martin-the-next-terror-campaign?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
    0 Comments 0 Shares 2122 Views
  • "Evidence for a connection between coronavirus disease-19 and exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless communications including 5G"
    Beverly Rubik1,2*, Robert R. Brown3
    Sage Hana
    In advance, hand wringers…and Info Thought Minders.
    Yes, I’m going to keep asking the next question on my mind.
    I’m not a STEM. I’m not an engineer or scientist.
    Good news, though. Those geniuses are all pretty much captured by the forces that wish to murder you and your children and appear to be making shit up as they go…doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on theories of Super-Antigens or Virulent Virus Variants or conversely Not A Virus Terrains or Diablo Fairy Sauce Particles.
    Here is your Expert #3: Two clips of Lifetime Bioweapons Industry Expert Dr. Robert Malone trying to shut down Reverse Transcription of mRNA warnings in 2021 and 2022
    Read full story
    Here is your Expert #4: Dr. Pierre Kory. In July 2020, Kory warned about "maskless presymptomatic 'super spreaders'."
    Read full story
    Astrid v. Cole #3: Bigtree Follows Cole into Dubious Logicville
    Read full story
    In August, 2022, Bret Weinstein doubled down on "intense lockdowns" and ramped up testing to combat the Dangerous Novel Coronavirus. Straight out of Rockefeller's Operation Lockstep.
    Read full story
    Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Mike Yeadon Disagree on the Ability of Vaccines to Save the Elderly
    Read full story
    You get the idea.
    So me, being a soon to be liver-eaten contrarian logician, knowing what I do about the Master Plans thanks to the Cheat Codes…
    (Day Tapes: 1, 2, 3, 4.)
    …when I consider the various Chocolate vs. Peanut Butter false binary choices…
    Why not both?
    Why not three things?
    Why not a collection of vectors into your BODY, SOON TO BE CULLED CRITTER?
    I cannot stop thinking about radiation.
    Because good ole RADIATION has better access to the critters.
    Than say…Bird Covid.
    On that note, ME DIVE IN!
    Again!
    The Sabrina Files: "Everybody agrees the heart is electrical...your biofield is a body part."
    Read full story
    Here is a paper that I found buried in the interwebz.
    Here is the bonafides of the author, Dr. Beverly Rubik.
    In advance, this is not TRUST THE EXPERTS.
    This is parse out what various EXPERTS have to say and at the very least consider some logical explanations for WTF hebbbenned because after four years of this crap, it is pretty danged clear that ZEEE SCIENCE HAS BEEN FALSIFIED.
    FALSIFIED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
    Somewhere in this connection, then, was the statement admitting that some scientific research data could be - and indeed has been - falsified in order to bring about desired results. And here was said, "People don't ask the right questions. Some people are too trusting."
    Now this was an interesting statement because the speaker and the audience all being doctors of medicine and supposedly very objectively, dispassionately scientific and science being the be all and end-all ... well to falsify scientific research data in that setting is like blasphemy in the church ... you just don't do that.
    Anyhow, out of all of this was to come the New International Governing Body, probably to come through the U.N . and with a World Court, but not necessarily through those structures. It could be brought about in other ways. Acceptance of the U.N . at that time was seen as not being as wide as was hoped. Efforts would continue to give the United Nations increasing importance. People would be more and more used to the idea of relinquishing some national sovereignty.
    Here is the linked paper and I will pull a notable excerpt.
    (And also format into paragraphs to better digest.)
    I invite all STEMS to weigh in with information or factual data to refute any of the points within this paper. In theory, this is how science should work, yes?
    Just as with self assembling nano particles, graphene, or Wide Body Area Networks.
    Or Infectious Clones, or Virus Like Particles, or SV40, or germ transmission, or Blood Antibodies vs. Mucosal Antibodies vs. T-Cell Antibodies vs. Cow Poop Antibodies.
    *You laughed. Admit it.
    COVID-19 began in Wuhan, China in December 2019, shortly after city-wide 5G had “gone live,” that is, become an operational system, on October 31, 2019. COVID-19 outbreaks soon followed in other areas where 5G had also been at least partially implemented, including South Korea, Northern Italy, New York City, Seattle, and Southern California.
    In May 2020, Mordachev [4] reported a statistically significant correlation between the intensity of radiofrequency radiation and the mortality from SARS-CoV-2 in 31 countries throughout the world. During the first pandemic wave in the United States, COVID-19 attributed cases and deaths were statistically higher in states and major cities with 5G infrastructure as compared with states and cities that did not yet have this technology [5].
    There is a large body of peer reviewed literature, since before World War II, on the biological effects of WCR that impact many aspects of our health. In examining this literature, we found intersections between the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 and detrimental bioeffects of WCR exposure. Here, we present the evidence suggesting that WCR has been a possible contributing factor exacerbating COVID-19. 1.2.
    Overview on COVID-19 The clinical presentation of COVID-19 has proven to be highly variable, with a wide range of symptoms and variability from case to case. According to the CDC, early disease symptoms may include sore throat, headache, fever, cough, chills, among others. More severe symptoms including shortness of breath, high fever, and severe fatigue may occur in a later stage. The neurological sequela of taste and smell loss has also been described. Ing et al. [6] determined 80% of those affected have mild
    This should be a totally rational and stable comment section.


    https://youtu.be/2IfHqJufSME


    https://ko-fi.com/sagehanaproductions64182
    https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sagehanaJ
    https://open.substack.com/pub/sagehana/p/evidence-for-a-connection-between?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
    "Evidence for a connection between coronavirus disease-19 and exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless communications including 5G" Beverly Rubik1,2*, Robert R. Brown3 Sage Hana In advance, hand wringers…and Info Thought Minders. Yes, I’m going to keep asking the next question on my mind. I’m not a STEM. I’m not an engineer or scientist. Good news, though. Those geniuses are all pretty much captured by the forces that wish to murder you and your children and appear to be making shit up as they go…doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on theories of Super-Antigens or Virulent Virus Variants or conversely Not A Virus Terrains or Diablo Fairy Sauce Particles. Here is your Expert #3: Two clips of Lifetime Bioweapons Industry Expert Dr. Robert Malone trying to shut down Reverse Transcription of mRNA warnings in 2021 and 2022 Read full story Here is your Expert #4: Dr. Pierre Kory. In July 2020, Kory warned about "maskless presymptomatic 'super spreaders'." Read full story Astrid v. Cole #3: Bigtree Follows Cole into Dubious Logicville Read full story In August, 2022, Bret Weinstein doubled down on "intense lockdowns" and ramped up testing to combat the Dangerous Novel Coronavirus. Straight out of Rockefeller's Operation Lockstep. Read full story Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Mike Yeadon Disagree on the Ability of Vaccines to Save the Elderly Read full story You get the idea. So me, being a soon to be liver-eaten contrarian logician, knowing what I do about the Master Plans thanks to the Cheat Codes… (Day Tapes: 1, 2, 3, 4.) …when I consider the various Chocolate vs. Peanut Butter false binary choices… Why not both? Why not three things? Why not a collection of vectors into your BODY, SOON TO BE CULLED CRITTER? I cannot stop thinking about radiation. Because good ole RADIATION has better access to the critters. Than say…Bird Covid. On that note, ME DIVE IN! Again! The Sabrina Files: "Everybody agrees the heart is electrical...your biofield is a body part." Read full story Here is a paper that I found buried in the interwebz. Here is the bonafides of the author, Dr. Beverly Rubik. In advance, this is not TRUST THE EXPERTS. This is parse out what various EXPERTS have to say and at the very least consider some logical explanations for WTF hebbbenned because after four years of this crap, it is pretty danged clear that ZEEE SCIENCE HAS BEEN FALSIFIED. FALSIFIED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Somewhere in this connection, then, was the statement admitting that some scientific research data could be - and indeed has been - falsified in order to bring about desired results. And here was said, "People don't ask the right questions. Some people are too trusting." Now this was an interesting statement because the speaker and the audience all being doctors of medicine and supposedly very objectively, dispassionately scientific and science being the be all and end-all ... well to falsify scientific research data in that setting is like blasphemy in the church ... you just don't do that. Anyhow, out of all of this was to come the New International Governing Body, probably to come through the U.N . and with a World Court, but not necessarily through those structures. It could be brought about in other ways. Acceptance of the U.N . at that time was seen as not being as wide as was hoped. Efforts would continue to give the United Nations increasing importance. People would be more and more used to the idea of relinquishing some national sovereignty. Here is the linked paper and I will pull a notable excerpt. (And also format into paragraphs to better digest.) I invite all STEMS to weigh in with information or factual data to refute any of the points within this paper. In theory, this is how science should work, yes? Just as with self assembling nano particles, graphene, or Wide Body Area Networks. Or Infectious Clones, or Virus Like Particles, or SV40, or germ transmission, or Blood Antibodies vs. Mucosal Antibodies vs. T-Cell Antibodies vs. Cow Poop Antibodies. *You laughed. Admit it. COVID-19 began in Wuhan, China in December 2019, shortly after city-wide 5G had “gone live,” that is, become an operational system, on October 31, 2019. COVID-19 outbreaks soon followed in other areas where 5G had also been at least partially implemented, including South Korea, Northern Italy, New York City, Seattle, and Southern California. In May 2020, Mordachev [4] reported a statistically significant correlation between the intensity of radiofrequency radiation and the mortality from SARS-CoV-2 in 31 countries throughout the world. During the first pandemic wave in the United States, COVID-19 attributed cases and deaths were statistically higher in states and major cities with 5G infrastructure as compared with states and cities that did not yet have this technology [5]. There is a large body of peer reviewed literature, since before World War II, on the biological effects of WCR that impact many aspects of our health. In examining this literature, we found intersections between the pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2 and detrimental bioeffects of WCR exposure. Here, we present the evidence suggesting that WCR has been a possible contributing factor exacerbating COVID-19. 1.2. Overview on COVID-19 The clinical presentation of COVID-19 has proven to be highly variable, with a wide range of symptoms and variability from case to case. According to the CDC, early disease symptoms may include sore throat, headache, fever, cough, chills, among others. More severe symptoms including shortness of breath, high fever, and severe fatigue may occur in a later stage. The neurological sequela of taste and smell loss has also been described. Ing et al. [6] determined 80% of those affected have mild This should be a totally rational and stable comment section. 😹👍 https://youtu.be/2IfHqJufSME https://ko-fi.com/sagehanaproductions64182 https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sagehanaJ https://open.substack.com/pub/sagehana/p/evidence-for-a-connection-between?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
    0 Comments 0 Shares 11070 Views
  • Wikipedia’s Smear Piece on WCH Represents a Badge of Honour
    The World Council for Health's message of health sovereignty is clearly a threat to the establishment.

    World Council for Health
    Written by World Council for Health Correspondent Alice Ashwell, PhD.


    They say that you pick up the most flack when you’re right over the target.

    Since the Covid phenomenon began, the degree of flack has become a navigational aid in the pursuit of Truth. Wikipedia’s hit piece on the World Council for Health (WCH) is evidence that their message of health sovereignty has become a threat to the establishment.

    Brainwashing goes global

    Ever more brazenly over the past four years, members of the ‘Great Reset Establishment’ have been involved in a process of what Psychoanalyst Dr Bruce Scott calls ‘menticide’, or brainwashing on a global scale. Through the unethical use of applied psychology, governments, corporations, and organisations around the world have been manipulating the masses into compliance with their globalist agenda.

    Whether the issue has been Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, economic meltdown, or climate hysteria, the outcome has been an environment of heightened fear and uncertainty. People seeking direction have been subjected to unprecedented levels of propaganda and censorship, which have added to the confusion by creating a ‘through-the-looking-glass’ world in which it feels like truths have become lies, and vice versa.

    If this content is important to you, please share it with your network.

    Share

    Wikipedia - no longer reliable

    One of the ‘trusted’ sources we have become accustomed to turning to when seeking information on a host of topics is Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. This online encyclopedia was established in 2001 with the aim of being a free, open, and neutral source of information that anyone could access and edit. The idea was that all sides of controversial issues would be welcomed and readers would be left to make up their own minds. But, as Wikipedia co-founder-turned-critic Larry Sanger complained in an interview with Glenn Greenwald in July 2023, “It didn’t work out that way.”

    Over time, the platform has moved away from its non-negotiable editorial policy that content should strive to reflect a ‘neutral point of view’ (NPOV). As Kristin Heflin described in her PhD thesis in 2010, this means that:

    … all Wikipedia content must represent―fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. By insisting articles represent [―] all significant views without bias, the policy of striving for NPOV shares similarities with objectivity … (p. 89)

    In 2015, Heather Ford observed in her D. Phil. Thesis that Wikipedia was by that time offering “a skewed representation of the world that favours some groups at the expense of others” (p. 3). She continued:

    Instead of everyone having the same power to represent their views on Wikipedia, those who understand how to perform and speak according to Wikipedia's complex technical, symbolic and policy vocabulary tend to prevail over those who possess disciplinary knowledge about the subject being represented.

    This means that Wikipedia is able to decide which facts are stabilised or destabilised on its platform, according to the ideological positions of its editors. While Wikipedia originally provided the opportunity for people to publish without the need for gatekeepers or mediators, this is no longer the case. Especially since the Covid-19 event boosted the fortunes of the Censorship Industrial Complex, Wikipedians have become foot soldiers in the battle to scrub from the Internet information they consider to be mis-, dis-, or mal-information.

    Larry Sanger, in the interview mentioned above, described how he has watched Wikipedia’s neutrality evaporate over the years, shifting around 2005 to establishment views on topics like global warming and certain drugs, and starting to show bias against holistic medicine in the early 2010s. Its reliable sources of information are now left-of-centre media corporations such as CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times, while in their policies 80% of news sources on the right are deemed unreliable. Independent news outlets and self-published subject experts are also not able to edit a Wikipedia page. Before it is deemed acceptable, information needs to be filtered through a mainstream news source, which in turn is constrained by fact-checking services.

    Misrepresenting Covid dissidents

    The World Council for Health (WCH) is one of many organisations and individuals who have been defamed by Wikipedia since the advent of Covid-19. As discussed at the WCH’s 83rd General Assembly meeting in April 2023, this has been part of a much broader strategy to silence dissent with regard to the so-called pandemic and its protocols.

    WCH was established to challenge the official Covid response and its Wikipedia article was created in September 2022. The current Wikipedia entry is fairly close to the original version, although it has been edited a number of times. However, a number of Wikipedia pages created prior to Covid-19 have been completely amended since 2020, resulting in a ‘hero-to-zero’ fall from grace for people such as the author Dr Vernon Coleman (compare his October 2019 entry with the current article), and the early developer of the mRNA vaccine technology, Dr Robert Malone, whose role in this invention has been deleted from the page on mRNA vaccines.



    https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/multimedia/fact-checkers-independent-media/
    Who’s fact-checking the fact-checkers? A trio of independent media creators—Derrick Broze, Jason Bassler & Joe Martino—reveal their eye-opening shared experience in dealing with fact-checkers and censorship dating back years before Covid-19 emerged.


    Scarcely worth commenting on … but we shall!

    Let’s take a look at the WCH Wikipedia article (accessed 18 December 2023) to see just how deeply flawed and factually incorrect it is.

    Firstly, the content – comprising just eight paragraphs – is entirely inadequate. Other than stating that the organisation “appears to have been formed in September 2021” [emphasis mine], and that it was “founded by Jennifer A. Hibberd and Tess Lawrie”, nothing substantive is mentioned about what WCH is or what it does, despite its goals, values, and initiatives being clearly represented on its website and social media channels.

    Secondly, most of the article attempts to smear WCH by association. The bulk of the content refers to people or organisations who are part of the broader health freedom network but neither WCH staff nor council members, including Robert F Kennedy Jr of Children’s Health Defense and esteemed cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra. Wikipedia maligns these experts for their efforts to cancel the rollout of the experimental Covid-19 gene therapies which, contrary to the protestations of the fact-checkers, have caused millions of deaths worldwide. Ironically, Wikipedia accuses Dr Malhotra of “cherry-picking” sources to substantiate his concerns about the jab, yet they themselves cherry-pick tangential content and questionable opinions from, with only two exceptions, rather dubious sources.

    So, thirdly, let’s have a look at the references Wikipedia uses to back up its potentially libelous statements.

    The reference to Kerr et. al (March 2022) is simply a brief Erratum, noting that some of the authors of the paper quoted were using ivermectin to treat patients, which one would expect as they were reporting on its efficacy.

    The flawed Cochrane Review by Popp et. al (2022) that criticised a systematic review by Bryant et. al (2021) on the use of ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19 was thoroughly debunked in a letter sent to them by Fordham and colleagues in September 2021, but this has not been acknowledged on Wikipedia. The Bryant et al review remains in the top 10 most read out of 23 million tracked scientific papers.

    Three references are to fact-checking sites: AAP FactCheck (Australia), AFP Fact Check (France), and Health Feedback (USA), which employ teams of people to prevent the dissemination of information that is not in line with the menticidal narratives of the Great Reset Establishment.

    Four of the nine sources come from two Vice magazine journalists, Anna Merlan and Tim Hume. Their articles are replete with worn-out terms such as right-wing, conspiracy theorist, Covid-denier, anti-vaxxer, and mis-/disinformation-peddler. They also predictably take issue with ivermectin, common law, and even the notion of sovereign citizens! The tone of the articles ranges from wryly dismissive to scathingly scornful, with words such as discredited, nonsense, completely false, misleading, and fringe peppering the text. They also delight in reporting cases of doctors and scientists who have been barred from their professions for refusing to deny their professional oaths and personal principles. Underlying the supercilious slurs, however, runs a definite current of concern that these ‘discredited conspiracy theorists’ who are promoting health, freedom, and human rights may actually be gaining traction.

    Larry Sanger reflects on how far Wikipedia has departed from its original commitment to neutrality by pointing out the features of biased reporting, all of which apply to the Wikipedia article on WCH:

    negative information is so predominant that readers can infer that the authors harbor great hatred, resentment, or strong disapproval of the subject (especially when the target has a popular following among many ordinary people);

    dismissive epithets and judgments are used in Wikipedia’s own voice; or

    what a person is legitimately famous for is omitted, dismissed, or misrepresented

    While WCH might wish to create a more accurate Wikipedia entry, this is not possible. According to the view source button, only registered users are allowed to edit this article. In other words, WCH has no right of reply.


    Wikipedia, like a child having a tantrum, refuses point-blank to engage with those people and ideas it just WILL NOT acknowledge.
    Is there a future for Wikipedia?

    Why anyone would bother to search Wikipedia for information about WCH, which has a perfectly informative website and Substack, is anyone’s guess. But the more Wikipedia produces atrocious articles like the one on WCH, the faster they will lose credibility among those who simply want information and do not have an ideological axe to grind.

    In fact, it is worth subjecting this article to a well-known credibility test developed by California State University, and appropriately named the CRAAP test!

    Its five components (plus comments on the WCH article) include:

    Currency: Is the source up-to-date? – No, for one thing, it does not mention WCH’s second conference in 2023. Although editing of the Wikipedia article continues, no up-to-date information has been added.

    Relevance: Is the source relevant to your research? – Not if one wants to know anything about WCH. But it has been very relevant to an investigation into the decline and fall of Wikipedia.

    Authority: Where is the source published? Who is the author? Are they considered reputable and trustworthy in their field? – Absolutely not. Wikipedia’s policy on Reliable Sources specifically discounts independent experts in favour of large news corporations, which are committed to promoting Establishment narratives.

    Accuracy: Is the source supported by evidence? Are the claims cited correctly? – Not at all. Please visit the WCH website to confirm this.

    Purpose: What was the motive behind publishing this source? – The only purpose appears to be to discredit WCH.

    At least in the case of the WCH article, Wikipedia’s credibility is clearly questionable. More broadly, Wikipedia co-founder, Larry Sanger, believes that the platform can no longer be trusted. Observing that it has become a useful propaganda mouthpiece for the Establishment, he mused: “If only one version of the facts is allowed, then that gives a huge incentive to wealthy and powerful people to seize control of things like Wikipedia in order to shore up their power.”

    Indeed, in recent years, Google has invested substantially in the Wikipedia Foundation, paying them to provide the “most accurate and up-to-date information” for its search engine. Google is now elevating Wikipedia articles in Internet searches, using their content to populate their ‘knowledge panels’, and inserting their articles under videos on YouTube (its subsidiary) in an effort “to fight misinformation and conspiracy theories.” In this way, the actual spreaders of misinformation flood the Internet with their post-truth propaganda, causing those who value Truth, Beauty, and Goodness to look elsewhere for information.

    What is particularly interesting, though, is that the Wikipedia edifice may be crumbling from within. Thanks to the transparency of the Wikimedia system, one is able to peer behind the curtain into the online discussions of the various editors working on a particular article. And here we discover dissention in the ranks. Recent discussions between Wikipedia editors working on the WCH article reveal anything but agreement regarding this flimsy hit-piece. For example, one editor asks why the article on WCH focuses on Dr Lawrie. The person then asks why Dr Lawrie’s qualifications, directorship, publication record, and over 4,000 citations are not mentioned (actually Dr Lawrie has over 5,000 citations and is ranked among the top 5% of Researchgate scientists), but only her prior role as an obstetrician. It is encouraging to read the following comment:

    Science is research and debate, not dogma; even in the case Lawrie could be wrong on some things, that doesnt's [sic.] make her a conspiracy theorist, but a good researcher. Suppression of scientific debate is not scientific method.

    Later, and for good reason, concerns are expressed about the use of Vice magazine as a ‘reliable source’ (RS).


    Anna Merlan, author of three of the Vice articles.
    Conclusion

    WCH’s Wikipedia experience is the tip of a very large iceberg of censorship and suppression (Shi-Raz et al. 2023) that, especially over the past four years, has been threatening to sink those opposing Establishment narratives. Media and tech companies, including Wikipedia, Google, and the fact-checkers mentioned in this article, have played a central role in stifling debate and attempting to constrain narratives and minds. But, as Larry Sanger puts it, “people have natural BS detectors” and are not satisfied with condescending journalists or one flavour of opinion.

    Instead, as described by Shi-Raz et al., many people who are concerned about public health and committed to freedom of speech have not been deterred by the efforts of the Establishment. Instead, they have been motivated to create a world in parallel to the mainstream, using alternative channels of communication, establishing multi-disciplinary support networks, and developing alternative medical and health information systems such as, of course, the World Council for Health.

    And, recognising the decline of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger is in the process of creating what he calls the ‘Encyclosphere’, a massive network of online encyclopaedias covering a plethora of specialist and generalist areas of knowledge, that is set to literally put Wikipedia in its place as an equal among many others.

    So, while Wikipedia spends an inordinate amount of time, energy, and money on a business that not only lacks substance but is also mean-spirited and divisive, initiatives like WCH and the Encyclosphere shine like candles in the dark, illuminating a better way.

    Share


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    https://worldcouncilforhealth.substack.com/p/wikipedia-smear-piece-wch?utm_medium=ios
    Wikipedia’s Smear Piece on WCH Represents a Badge of Honour The World Council for Health's message of health sovereignty is clearly a threat to the establishment. World Council for Health Written by World Council for Health Correspondent Alice Ashwell, PhD. They say that you pick up the most flack when you’re right over the target. Since the Covid phenomenon began, the degree of flack has become a navigational aid in the pursuit of Truth. Wikipedia’s hit piece on the World Council for Health (WCH) is evidence that their message of health sovereignty has become a threat to the establishment. Brainwashing goes global Ever more brazenly over the past four years, members of the ‘Great Reset Establishment’ have been involved in a process of what Psychoanalyst Dr Bruce Scott calls ‘menticide’, or brainwashing on a global scale. Through the unethical use of applied psychology, governments, corporations, and organisations around the world have been manipulating the masses into compliance with their globalist agenda. Whether the issue has been Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, economic meltdown, or climate hysteria, the outcome has been an environment of heightened fear and uncertainty. People seeking direction have been subjected to unprecedented levels of propaganda and censorship, which have added to the confusion by creating a ‘through-the-looking-glass’ world in which it feels like truths have become lies, and vice versa. If this content is important to you, please share it with your network. Share Wikipedia - no longer reliable One of the ‘trusted’ sources we have become accustomed to turning to when seeking information on a host of topics is Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. This online encyclopedia was established in 2001 with the aim of being a free, open, and neutral source of information that anyone could access and edit. The idea was that all sides of controversial issues would be welcomed and readers would be left to make up their own minds. But, as Wikipedia co-founder-turned-critic Larry Sanger complained in an interview with Glenn Greenwald in July 2023, “It didn’t work out that way.” Over time, the platform has moved away from its non-negotiable editorial policy that content should strive to reflect a ‘neutral point of view’ (NPOV). As Kristin Heflin described in her PhD thesis in 2010, this means that: … all Wikipedia content must represent―fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. By insisting articles represent [―] all significant views without bias, the policy of striving for NPOV shares similarities with objectivity … (p. 89) In 2015, Heather Ford observed in her D. Phil. Thesis that Wikipedia was by that time offering “a skewed representation of the world that favours some groups at the expense of others” (p. 3). She continued: Instead of everyone having the same power to represent their views on Wikipedia, those who understand how to perform and speak according to Wikipedia's complex technical, symbolic and policy vocabulary tend to prevail over those who possess disciplinary knowledge about the subject being represented. This means that Wikipedia is able to decide which facts are stabilised or destabilised on its platform, according to the ideological positions of its editors. While Wikipedia originally provided the opportunity for people to publish without the need for gatekeepers or mediators, this is no longer the case. Especially since the Covid-19 event boosted the fortunes of the Censorship Industrial Complex, Wikipedians have become foot soldiers in the battle to scrub from the Internet information they consider to be mis-, dis-, or mal-information. Larry Sanger, in the interview mentioned above, described how he has watched Wikipedia’s neutrality evaporate over the years, shifting around 2005 to establishment views on topics like global warming and certain drugs, and starting to show bias against holistic medicine in the early 2010s. Its reliable sources of information are now left-of-centre media corporations such as CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times, while in their policies 80% of news sources on the right are deemed unreliable. Independent news outlets and self-published subject experts are also not able to edit a Wikipedia page. Before it is deemed acceptable, information needs to be filtered through a mainstream news source, which in turn is constrained by fact-checking services. Misrepresenting Covid dissidents The World Council for Health (WCH) is one of many organisations and individuals who have been defamed by Wikipedia since the advent of Covid-19. As discussed at the WCH’s 83rd General Assembly meeting in April 2023, this has been part of a much broader strategy to silence dissent with regard to the so-called pandemic and its protocols. WCH was established to challenge the official Covid response and its Wikipedia article was created in September 2022. The current Wikipedia entry is fairly close to the original version, although it has been edited a number of times. However, a number of Wikipedia pages created prior to Covid-19 have been completely amended since 2020, resulting in a ‘hero-to-zero’ fall from grace for people such as the author Dr Vernon Coleman (compare his October 2019 entry with the current article), and the early developer of the mRNA vaccine technology, Dr Robert Malone, whose role in this invention has been deleted from the page on mRNA vaccines. https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/multimedia/fact-checkers-independent-media/ Who’s fact-checking the fact-checkers? A trio of independent media creators—Derrick Broze, Jason Bassler & Joe Martino—reveal their eye-opening shared experience in dealing with fact-checkers and censorship dating back years before Covid-19 emerged. Scarcely worth commenting on … but we shall! Let’s take a look at the WCH Wikipedia article (accessed 18 December 2023) to see just how deeply flawed and factually incorrect it is. Firstly, the content – comprising just eight paragraphs – is entirely inadequate. Other than stating that the organisation “appears to have been formed in September 2021” [emphasis mine], and that it was “founded by Jennifer A. Hibberd and Tess Lawrie”, nothing substantive is mentioned about what WCH is or what it does, despite its goals, values, and initiatives being clearly represented on its website and social media channels. Secondly, most of the article attempts to smear WCH by association. The bulk of the content refers to people or organisations who are part of the broader health freedom network but neither WCH staff nor council members, including Robert F Kennedy Jr of Children’s Health Defense and esteemed cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra. Wikipedia maligns these experts for their efforts to cancel the rollout of the experimental Covid-19 gene therapies which, contrary to the protestations of the fact-checkers, have caused millions of deaths worldwide. Ironically, Wikipedia accuses Dr Malhotra of “cherry-picking” sources to substantiate his concerns about the jab, yet they themselves cherry-pick tangential content and questionable opinions from, with only two exceptions, rather dubious sources. So, thirdly, let’s have a look at the references Wikipedia uses to back up its potentially libelous statements. The reference to Kerr et. al (March 2022) is simply a brief Erratum, noting that some of the authors of the paper quoted were using ivermectin to treat patients, which one would expect as they were reporting on its efficacy. The flawed Cochrane Review by Popp et. al (2022) that criticised a systematic review by Bryant et. al (2021) on the use of ivermectin to prevent and treat Covid-19 was thoroughly debunked in a letter sent to them by Fordham and colleagues in September 2021, but this has not been acknowledged on Wikipedia. The Bryant et al review remains in the top 10 most read out of 23 million tracked scientific papers. Three references are to fact-checking sites: AAP FactCheck (Australia), AFP Fact Check (France), and Health Feedback (USA), which employ teams of people to prevent the dissemination of information that is not in line with the menticidal narratives of the Great Reset Establishment. Four of the nine sources come from two Vice magazine journalists, Anna Merlan and Tim Hume. Their articles are replete with worn-out terms such as right-wing, conspiracy theorist, Covid-denier, anti-vaxxer, and mis-/disinformation-peddler. They also predictably take issue with ivermectin, common law, and even the notion of sovereign citizens! The tone of the articles ranges from wryly dismissive to scathingly scornful, with words such as discredited, nonsense, completely false, misleading, and fringe peppering the text. They also delight in reporting cases of doctors and scientists who have been barred from their professions for refusing to deny their professional oaths and personal principles. Underlying the supercilious slurs, however, runs a definite current of concern that these ‘discredited conspiracy theorists’ who are promoting health, freedom, and human rights may actually be gaining traction. Larry Sanger reflects on how far Wikipedia has departed from its original commitment to neutrality by pointing out the features of biased reporting, all of which apply to the Wikipedia article on WCH: negative information is so predominant that readers can infer that the authors harbor great hatred, resentment, or strong disapproval of the subject (especially when the target has a popular following among many ordinary people); dismissive epithets and judgments are used in Wikipedia’s own voice; or what a person is legitimately famous for is omitted, dismissed, or misrepresented While WCH might wish to create a more accurate Wikipedia entry, this is not possible. According to the view source button, only registered users are allowed to edit this article. In other words, WCH has no right of reply. Wikipedia, like a child having a tantrum, refuses point-blank to engage with those people and ideas it just WILL NOT acknowledge. Is there a future for Wikipedia? Why anyone would bother to search Wikipedia for information about WCH, which has a perfectly informative website and Substack, is anyone’s guess. But the more Wikipedia produces atrocious articles like the one on WCH, the faster they will lose credibility among those who simply want information and do not have an ideological axe to grind. In fact, it is worth subjecting this article to a well-known credibility test developed by California State University, and appropriately named the CRAAP test! Its five components (plus comments on the WCH article) include: Currency: Is the source up-to-date? – No, for one thing, it does not mention WCH’s second conference in 2023. Although editing of the Wikipedia article continues, no up-to-date information has been added. Relevance: Is the source relevant to your research? – Not if one wants to know anything about WCH. But it has been very relevant to an investigation into the decline and fall of Wikipedia. Authority: Where is the source published? Who is the author? Are they considered reputable and trustworthy in their field? – Absolutely not. Wikipedia’s policy on Reliable Sources specifically discounts independent experts in favour of large news corporations, which are committed to promoting Establishment narratives. Accuracy: Is the source supported by evidence? Are the claims cited correctly? – Not at all. Please visit the WCH website to confirm this. Purpose: What was the motive behind publishing this source? – The only purpose appears to be to discredit WCH. At least in the case of the WCH article, Wikipedia’s credibility is clearly questionable. More broadly, Wikipedia co-founder, Larry Sanger, believes that the platform can no longer be trusted. Observing that it has become a useful propaganda mouthpiece for the Establishment, he mused: “If only one version of the facts is allowed, then that gives a huge incentive to wealthy and powerful people to seize control of things like Wikipedia in order to shore up their power.” Indeed, in recent years, Google has invested substantially in the Wikipedia Foundation, paying them to provide the “most accurate and up-to-date information” for its search engine. Google is now elevating Wikipedia articles in Internet searches, using their content to populate their ‘knowledge panels’, and inserting their articles under videos on YouTube (its subsidiary) in an effort “to fight misinformation and conspiracy theories.” In this way, the actual spreaders of misinformation flood the Internet with their post-truth propaganda, causing those who value Truth, Beauty, and Goodness to look elsewhere for information. What is particularly interesting, though, is that the Wikipedia edifice may be crumbling from within. Thanks to the transparency of the Wikimedia system, one is able to peer behind the curtain into the online discussions of the various editors working on a particular article. And here we discover dissention in the ranks. Recent discussions between Wikipedia editors working on the WCH article reveal anything but agreement regarding this flimsy hit-piece. For example, one editor asks why the article on WCH focuses on Dr Lawrie. The person then asks why Dr Lawrie’s qualifications, directorship, publication record, and over 4,000 citations are not mentioned (actually Dr Lawrie has over 5,000 citations and is ranked among the top 5% of Researchgate scientists), but only her prior role as an obstetrician. It is encouraging to read the following comment: Science is research and debate, not dogma; even in the case Lawrie could be wrong on some things, that doesnt's [sic.] make her a conspiracy theorist, but a good researcher. Suppression of scientific debate is not scientific method. Later, and for good reason, concerns are expressed about the use of Vice magazine as a ‘reliable source’ (RS). Anna Merlan, author of three of the Vice articles. Conclusion WCH’s Wikipedia experience is the tip of a very large iceberg of censorship and suppression (Shi-Raz et al. 2023) that, especially over the past four years, has been threatening to sink those opposing Establishment narratives. Media and tech companies, including Wikipedia, Google, and the fact-checkers mentioned in this article, have played a central role in stifling debate and attempting to constrain narratives and minds. But, as Larry Sanger puts it, “people have natural BS detectors” and are not satisfied with condescending journalists or one flavour of opinion. Instead, as described by Shi-Raz et al., many people who are concerned about public health and committed to freedom of speech have not been deterred by the efforts of the Establishment. Instead, they have been motivated to create a world in parallel to the mainstream, using alternative channels of communication, establishing multi-disciplinary support networks, and developing alternative medical and health information systems such as, of course, the World Council for Health. And, recognising the decline of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger is in the process of creating what he calls the ‘Encyclosphere’, a massive network of online encyclopaedias covering a plethora of specialist and generalist areas of knowledge, that is set to literally put Wikipedia in its place as an equal among many others. So, while Wikipedia spends an inordinate amount of time, energy, and money on a business that not only lacks substance but is also mean-spirited and divisive, initiatives like WCH and the Encyclosphere shine like candles in the dark, illuminating a better way. Share If you find value in this Substack and have the means, please consider making a contribution to support the World Council for Health. Thank you. Upgrade to Paid Subscription Refer a friend Donate Subscriptions Give Direct to WCH https://worldcouncilforhealth.substack.com/p/wikipedia-smear-piece-wch?utm_medium=ios
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    Wikipedia’s Smear Piece on WCH Represents a Badge of Honour
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  • ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 92: International community rejects Israeli calls for Gaza ethnic cleansing as assault nears three-month mark
    Bombardment, death, and starvation continue to take their toll on Gaza, as the international community denounces Israeli ministers’ calls for the ethnic cleansing of the devastated Palestinian territory.

    Mondoweiss Palestine BureauJanuary 6, 2024
    People look on as the Jordanian army carries an airdrop of medicines and supplies at the Jordanian field hospital in Khan Younis, January 4, 2024. (Photo: © Haitham Imad/EFE via ZUMA Press/APA Images)
    Palestinians look on as the Jordanian army carries out an airdrop of medicines and supplies at the Jordanian field hospital in Khan Younis, January 4, 2024. (Photo: © Haitham Imad/EFE via ZUMA Press/APA Images)
    Casualties:

    22,722 killed* and at least 58,166 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
    322 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
    *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 6. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups say the death toll is higher than 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

    Key Developments

    Israel continues to bombard Gaza relentlessly, killing 122 Palestinians and injuring 256 more in the span of 24 hours.
    Gaza’s government media office reports allegations that Israeli forces desecrated graves, seized bodies in al-Tuffah cemetery.
    The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimated that 4% of Gaza’s population is either dead, wounded, or missing, as UNICEF warns that 90 percent of children under the age of two are subjected to ‘severe food poverty.’
    World Health Organization records almost 600 attacks on Gaza’s healthcare sector since October 7.
    UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths: “We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.”
    Meanwhile, Israel’s Knesset hosts calls for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, to be shuttered.
    The international community reacts strongly to Israeli ministers’ calls for Palestinians to be expelled from Gaza, with Scotland’s first minister saying: “That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing.”
    Congo, Rwanda, and Chad deny reports that their governments have been in talks with Israel to host thousands of Palestinian refugees.
    Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets toward northern Israel and occupied Lebanese territories, calling it “the first response” to the assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Aruri, while Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warns that time is running out to de-escalate hostilities with Lebanon.
    “Destruction” is one of the three pillars of peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu writes in a Jerusalem Post Op-Ed.
    Turkey formally arrests 15 people suspected of having ties with Israel’s Mossad.
    Palestinians mourn as bodies of deceased loved one are taken out of the mortuary of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Deir El-Balah, Gaza on January 05, 2024. (Photo: Ali Hamad/APA Images)
    Palestinians mourn as bodies of deceased loved one are taken out of the mortuary of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Deir El-Balah, Gaza on January 05, 2024. (Photo: Ali Hamad/APA Images)
    Gaza: The war must end, aid groups implore

    As the three-month mark since October 7 nears, humanitarian and rights groups are ramping up their pleas for the war to come to an end, as Israeli-inflicted bombardments, death, injury, sickness, and famine plague the entire population of Gaza.

    According to WAFA news agency, Israeli airstrikes hit the areas of al-Zawaida, al-Maghazi, Khuza’a, Beit Lahia, and Khan Younis since Friday, adding that Israeli snipers were targeting civilians trying to flee in central Gaza.

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    Israeli forces reportedly targeted the vicinity of a number of medical centers, including the European, Al-Amal, and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir al-Balah. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “hospitals in Gaza and other vital medical infrastructure have been attacked nearly 600 times” since October 7 – averaging more than six attacks per day on Gaza’s strained healthcare system.

    According to the Gaza Ministry of Health on Saturday, Israeli forces killed at least 122 Palestinians and injured 256 more in the span of 24 hours, raising the total toll to 22,722 killed and 58,166 wounded since October 7. Thousands more are believed to be either missing or stuck under the rubble.

    According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, 4 percent of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants – or around 90,000 people – “are now dead, wounded, or missing,” noting that the onslaught has been a “mass-disabling event.”

    Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance groups reported ongoing fighting with Israeli ground forces in the areas of Gaza City, Khan Younis, Bani Suheila, and al-Maghazi.

    The Government Media Office reported on Saturday that Israeli bulldozers had flattened through a cemetery in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of al-Tuffah, destroying graves, running over corpses, and allegedly seizing the bodies of 150 recently deceased Palestinians. “This raises suspicions of another crime, namely the theft of organs of the martyrs,” the office said in a statement. Palestinians have long accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians without their families’ consent, claims that have been corroborated in the past by Israeli doctors.

    Almost exactly three months to the day since October 7, humanitarian and human rights groups are multiplying desperate calls for an end to the multifaceted and relentless devastation in Gaza caused by Israel’s merciless pummelling of the small occupied territory.

    The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq denounced in a statement on Friday Israel’s deliberate attacks on internally displaced people in Gaza.

    “The plight of 1.9 million displaced Palestinians, with hundreds of thousands subjected to repeated evacuations amid continuous Israeli bombing, has reached an intolerable level, leaving an indelible mark of shame on the world. Many in Gaza have been compelled to move multiple times, in harsh cold weather, leaving behind all their belongings. They are crammed into limited geographical areas without healthcare and at a time when communicable diseases and epidemics are spreading. People endure starvation and thirst, while Israeli relentless attacks persist,” the rights groups said.

    French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that France and Jordan had airdropped aid into Gaza, while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated on Friday his calls for the entry of more humanitarian aid.

    According to UNICEF, 90 percent of children under two in Gaza are now subject to “severe food poverty,” while cases of diarrhea in children under the age of 5 have skyrocketed to 3,200 new cases per day, compared to an average of 2,000 per month prior to October, due to the absence of sufficient hygiene facilities and products and Israel’s destruction of critical infrastructure in Gaza.

    The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) meanwhile reported that Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza was “severely flooded with water and waste […] the consequence of damage to the Abu Rasheed reservoir pumping station and infiltration from the lagoon in Jabalia.” “This poses life-threatening risks of contamination and outbreak of communicable diseases among already vulnerable communities residing in overcrowded conditions,” OCHA wrote.

    OCHA Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths delivered an impassioned plea on Friday calling for the international community to bring the deadly conflict to an end.

    “We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity,” Griffiths wrote.

    “This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.”

    Palestinian children collect firewood at the destroyed Hamad Town residential complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 06, 2024. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/APA Images)
    Palestinian children collect firewood at the destroyed Hamad Town residential complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 06, 2024. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/APA Images)
    Hezbollah fires rockets, as Israeli forces injure dozens in the West Bank

    One day after a much anticipated speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the wake of Israel’s assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Aruri in the suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese resistance movement fired a volley of rockets towards northern Israel and the occupied Shebaa Farms on Saturday.

    Hezbollah said it had launched more than 60 rockets early on Saturday, calling it “the first response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Saleh al-Aruri.” Israeli media reported that rocket sirens were continuing to sound across northern Israel throughout the morning.

    Lebanese media meanwhile reported that the Israeli army had carried out a number of strikes in southern Lebanon, injuring at least one person.

    Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meanwhile warned on Friday that time was running out to de-escalate tensions with Hezbollah and prevent the outbreak of a full-blown war on the northern front.

    “We prefer the path of an agreed-upon diplomatic settlement, but we are getting close to the point where the hourglass will turn over,” the Times of Israel quoted him as saying.

    Hezbollah is only one of several non-state actors in the region to have taken up arms in support of Palestinians in recent months. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq group claimed on Friday to have launched yet another rocket attack on a U.S. military base in Erbil, while a “maritime security event” was reported on Saturday in the Red Sea, where the Yemeni Houthi group has been launching a series of attacks on commercial vessels in solidarity with Gaza, disrupting a major global trade route.

    In the occupied West Bank, local Palestinian resistance groups reported armed confrontations with Israeli forces in Balata refugee camp, Qalqilya, Nablus, Ya’bad, and Tulkarem.

    WAFA news agency reported that Israeli soldiers and settlers injured several Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, in Tulkarem, Anabta, Shweika, Ya’bad, Tura, Surif, Qabatiya, Madama, and Qatana. Israeli forces reportedly detained two women in Shweika, both wives of Palestinians currently or formerly imprisoned by Israel.

    International community rejects Israeli ministers’ calls for Gaza ethnic cleansing

    Meanwhile, the international community has been slamming calls by far-right Israeli ministers to expel the majority of Gaza’s population to other countries.

    Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has reportedly been in contact with senior European Union officials expressing fears that Israel may take advantage of the international community’s humanitarian initiative, such as the transfer of wounded Palestinians for treatment abroad, to permanently displace large swathes of the population.

    French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna was quoted by WAFA as saying that the calls by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir were “irresponsible and keep us away from a solution.”

    “Gaza is a Palestinian land that wants to become part of the future Palestinian state,” she said, seemingly in response to high-level, unilateral discussions within Israeli leadership about the future of Gaza.

    While states such as Bahrain and Japan also expressed concern, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf strongly condemned any plans for Israel to expel Palestinians from Gaza. “That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing and must be called out,” he said.

    Meanwhile, the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Chad have publicly denied Israeli media reports alleging that the three countries were in talks with Israel to take in thousands of Palestinians.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on Saturday on the first leg of his latest Mideast tour, where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and reportedly discussed the situation in Gaza.

    In a statement on Saturday, Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh said the Palestinian group hoped “that Mr. Blinken has drawn lessons from the past three months and realized the magnitude of the mistakes made by the United States in its blind support of the Zionist occupation […] We also hope that his focus this time will be on ending the aggression as a step towards ending the occupation of all Palestinian land.”

    Yet former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who was visiting Israel on Friday, said it was “so important that the U.S. makes it clear that we are with Israel today, we will be with Israel tomorrow and we will be with Israel every day until the threat of Hamas is eliminated.”

    Both Donald Trump, under whom Pence served, and current U.S. President Joe Biden have been staunch supporters of Israel.

    Israel’s politicians remain divided on the details

    Cracks within the Israeli leadership are becoming more and more apparent after reports emerged this week of shouting matches between the country’s military leadership and the most far-right elements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.

    Retired army general and former Netanyahu political rival Benny Gantz – who became a war cabinet minister after October 7 – warned the premier that it was his “responsibility to fix this, and to choose between unity and security, or politics.”

    As Israeli outlets like Haaretz predict that the opposition against Netanyahu, which had been put on the back burner for the past three months, could once again come to the fore, the embattled prime minister stood his ground in an Op-Ed published by the Jerusalem Post.

    “Peace rests upon the three pillars of destruction, demilitarization, and deradicalization,” he wrote, adding that Hamas’ “destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities” committed on October 7.

    In his own Op-Ed in the same newspaper, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid criticized Netanyahu and his government’s continued refusal for the P.A. to be involved in the administration of the Gaza Strip after the war, while noting that none of his opponents within Israel have advocated for this option.

    “Netanyahu has fabricated a fictional adversary that he pledges to subdue. Let’s hope that at least in this regard, he will do a better job than he has against the real enemies we’ve been fighting in Gaza and on Israel’s northern border,” Lapid wrote.

    “What is good for the State of Israel is bad for the maintenance of his government,” he added. “You cannot shape reality when you are dependent on a group of people who deny the existence of that reality.”

    As various Israeli political factions debate the finer points of a “day after” plan for which they refuse to involve Palestinians themselves, the families of six Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza landed in Qatar on Friday in hopes of reviving talks for another hostage swap deal, amid growing fears that more of their loved ones could die amid continued Israeli bombardment and starvation of the Gaza Strip.

    BEFORE YOU GO – At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever.

    Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses.

    Support our journalists with a donation today.

    https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-92-international-community-rejects-israeli-calls-for-gaza-ethnic-cleansing-as-assault-nears-three-month-mark/
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 92: International community rejects Israeli calls for Gaza ethnic cleansing as assault nears three-month mark Bombardment, death, and starvation continue to take their toll on Gaza, as the international community denounces Israeli ministers’ calls for the ethnic cleansing of the devastated Palestinian territory. Mondoweiss Palestine BureauJanuary 6, 2024 People look on as the Jordanian army carries an airdrop of medicines and supplies at the Jordanian field hospital in Khan Younis, January 4, 2024. (Photo: © Haitham Imad/EFE via ZUMA Press/APA Images) Palestinians look on as the Jordanian army carries out an airdrop of medicines and supplies at the Jordanian field hospital in Khan Younis, January 4, 2024. (Photo: © Haitham Imad/EFE via ZUMA Press/APA Images) Casualties: 22,722 killed* and at least 58,166 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 322 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 6. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups say the death toll is higher than 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. Key Developments Israel continues to bombard Gaza relentlessly, killing 122 Palestinians and injuring 256 more in the span of 24 hours. Gaza’s government media office reports allegations that Israeli forces desecrated graves, seized bodies in al-Tuffah cemetery. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimated that 4% of Gaza’s population is either dead, wounded, or missing, as UNICEF warns that 90 percent of children under the age of two are subjected to ‘severe food poverty.’ World Health Organization records almost 600 attacks on Gaza’s healthcare sector since October 7. UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths: “We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.” Meanwhile, Israel’s Knesset hosts calls for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, to be shuttered. The international community reacts strongly to Israeli ministers’ calls for Palestinians to be expelled from Gaza, with Scotland’s first minister saying: “That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing.” Congo, Rwanda, and Chad deny reports that their governments have been in talks with Israel to host thousands of Palestinian refugees. Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets toward northern Israel and occupied Lebanese territories, calling it “the first response” to the assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Aruri, while Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warns that time is running out to de-escalate hostilities with Lebanon. “Destruction” is one of the three pillars of peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu writes in a Jerusalem Post Op-Ed. Turkey formally arrests 15 people suspected of having ties with Israel’s Mossad. Palestinians mourn as bodies of deceased loved one are taken out of the mortuary of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Deir El-Balah, Gaza on January 05, 2024. (Photo: Ali Hamad/APA Images) Palestinians mourn as bodies of deceased loved one are taken out of the mortuary of Al-Aqsa Hospital for burial in Deir El-Balah, Gaza on January 05, 2024. (Photo: Ali Hamad/APA Images) Gaza: The war must end, aid groups implore As the three-month mark since October 7 nears, humanitarian and rights groups are ramping up their pleas for the war to come to an end, as Israeli-inflicted bombardments, death, injury, sickness, and famine plague the entire population of Gaza. According to WAFA news agency, Israeli airstrikes hit the areas of al-Zawaida, al-Maghazi, Khuza’a, Beit Lahia, and Khan Younis since Friday, adding that Israeli snipers were targeting civilians trying to flee in central Gaza. Advertisement Are you tired of Twitter? Follow Mondoweiss on the Mastodon social network. Israeli forces reportedly targeted the vicinity of a number of medical centers, including the European, Al-Amal, and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir al-Balah. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “hospitals in Gaza and other vital medical infrastructure have been attacked nearly 600 times” since October 7 – averaging more than six attacks per day on Gaza’s strained healthcare system. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health on Saturday, Israeli forces killed at least 122 Palestinians and injured 256 more in the span of 24 hours, raising the total toll to 22,722 killed and 58,166 wounded since October 7. Thousands more are believed to be either missing or stuck under the rubble. According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, 4 percent of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million inhabitants – or around 90,000 people – “are now dead, wounded, or missing,” noting that the onslaught has been a “mass-disabling event.” Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance groups reported ongoing fighting with Israeli ground forces in the areas of Gaza City, Khan Younis, Bani Suheila, and al-Maghazi. The Government Media Office reported on Saturday that Israeli bulldozers had flattened through a cemetery in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of al-Tuffah, destroying graves, running over corpses, and allegedly seizing the bodies of 150 recently deceased Palestinians. “This raises suspicions of another crime, namely the theft of organs of the martyrs,” the office said in a statement. Palestinians have long accused Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians without their families’ consent, claims that have been corroborated in the past by Israeli doctors. Almost exactly three months to the day since October 7, humanitarian and human rights groups are multiplying desperate calls for an end to the multifaceted and relentless devastation in Gaza caused by Israel’s merciless pummelling of the small occupied territory. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq denounced in a statement on Friday Israel’s deliberate attacks on internally displaced people in Gaza. “The plight of 1.9 million displaced Palestinians, with hundreds of thousands subjected to repeated evacuations amid continuous Israeli bombing, has reached an intolerable level, leaving an indelible mark of shame on the world. Many in Gaza have been compelled to move multiple times, in harsh cold weather, leaving behind all their belongings. They are crammed into limited geographical areas without healthcare and at a time when communicable diseases and epidemics are spreading. People endure starvation and thirst, while Israeli relentless attacks persist,” the rights groups said. French President Emmanuel Macron said on X that France and Jordan had airdropped aid into Gaza, while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated on Friday his calls for the entry of more humanitarian aid. According to UNICEF, 90 percent of children under two in Gaza are now subject to “severe food poverty,” while cases of diarrhea in children under the age of 5 have skyrocketed to 3,200 new cases per day, compared to an average of 2,000 per month prior to October, due to the absence of sufficient hygiene facilities and products and Israel’s destruction of critical infrastructure in Gaza. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) meanwhile reported that Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza was “severely flooded with water and waste […] the consequence of damage to the Abu Rasheed reservoir pumping station and infiltration from the lagoon in Jabalia.” “This poses life-threatening risks of contamination and outbreak of communicable diseases among already vulnerable communities residing in overcrowded conditions,” OCHA wrote. OCHA Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths delivered an impassioned plea on Friday calling for the international community to bring the deadly conflict to an end. “We continue to demand an immediate end to the war, not just for the people of Gaza and its threatened neighbors, but for the generations to come who will never forget these 90 days of hell and of assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity,” Griffiths wrote. “This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end.” Palestinian children collect firewood at the destroyed Hamad Town residential complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 06, 2024. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/APA Images) Palestinian children collect firewood at the destroyed Hamad Town residential complex in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 06, 2024. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/APA Images) Hezbollah fires rockets, as Israeli forces injure dozens in the West Bank One day after a much anticipated speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the wake of Israel’s assassination of Hamas senior leader Saleh al-Aruri in the suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese resistance movement fired a volley of rockets towards northern Israel and the occupied Shebaa Farms on Saturday. Hezbollah said it had launched more than 60 rockets early on Saturday, calling it “the first response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Saleh al-Aruri.” Israeli media reported that rocket sirens were continuing to sound across northern Israel throughout the morning. Lebanese media meanwhile reported that the Israeli army had carried out a number of strikes in southern Lebanon, injuring at least one person. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meanwhile warned on Friday that time was running out to de-escalate tensions with Hezbollah and prevent the outbreak of a full-blown war on the northern front. “We prefer the path of an agreed-upon diplomatic settlement, but we are getting close to the point where the hourglass will turn over,” the Times of Israel quoted him as saying. Hezbollah is only one of several non-state actors in the region to have taken up arms in support of Palestinians in recent months. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq group claimed on Friday to have launched yet another rocket attack on a U.S. military base in Erbil, while a “maritime security event” was reported on Saturday in the Red Sea, where the Yemeni Houthi group has been launching a series of attacks on commercial vessels in solidarity with Gaza, disrupting a major global trade route. In the occupied West Bank, local Palestinian resistance groups reported armed confrontations with Israeli forces in Balata refugee camp, Qalqilya, Nablus, Ya’bad, and Tulkarem. WAFA news agency reported that Israeli soldiers and settlers injured several Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, in Tulkarem, Anabta, Shweika, Ya’bad, Tura, Surif, Qabatiya, Madama, and Qatana. Israeli forces reportedly detained two women in Shweika, both wives of Palestinians currently or formerly imprisoned by Israel. International community rejects Israeli ministers’ calls for Gaza ethnic cleansing Meanwhile, the international community has been slamming calls by far-right Israeli ministers to expel the majority of Gaza’s population to other countries. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has reportedly been in contact with senior European Union officials expressing fears that Israel may take advantage of the international community’s humanitarian initiative, such as the transfer of wounded Palestinians for treatment abroad, to permanently displace large swathes of the population. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna was quoted by WAFA as saying that the calls by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir were “irresponsible and keep us away from a solution.” “Gaza is a Palestinian land that wants to become part of the future Palestinian state,” she said, seemingly in response to high-level, unilateral discussions within Israeli leadership about the future of Gaza. While states such as Bahrain and Japan also expressed concern, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf strongly condemned any plans for Israel to expel Palestinians from Gaza. “That is the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing and must be called out,” he said. Meanwhile, the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Chad have publicly denied Israeli media reports alleging that the three countries were in talks with Israel to take in thousands of Palestinians. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey on Saturday on the first leg of his latest Mideast tour, where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and reportedly discussed the situation in Gaza. In a statement on Saturday, Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh said the Palestinian group hoped “that Mr. Blinken has drawn lessons from the past three months and realized the magnitude of the mistakes made by the United States in its blind support of the Zionist occupation […] We also hope that his focus this time will be on ending the aggression as a step towards ending the occupation of all Palestinian land.” Yet former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who was visiting Israel on Friday, said it was “so important that the U.S. makes it clear that we are with Israel today, we will be with Israel tomorrow and we will be with Israel every day until the threat of Hamas is eliminated.” Both Donald Trump, under whom Pence served, and current U.S. President Joe Biden have been staunch supporters of Israel. Israel’s politicians remain divided on the details Cracks within the Israeli leadership are becoming more and more apparent after reports emerged this week of shouting matches between the country’s military leadership and the most far-right elements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. Retired army general and former Netanyahu political rival Benny Gantz – who became a war cabinet minister after October 7 – warned the premier that it was his “responsibility to fix this, and to choose between unity and security, or politics.” As Israeli outlets like Haaretz predict that the opposition against Netanyahu, which had been put on the back burner for the past three months, could once again come to the fore, the embattled prime minister stood his ground in an Op-Ed published by the Jerusalem Post. “Peace rests upon the three pillars of destruction, demilitarization, and deradicalization,” he wrote, adding that Hamas’ “destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities” committed on October 7. In his own Op-Ed in the same newspaper, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid criticized Netanyahu and his government’s continued refusal for the P.A. to be involved in the administration of the Gaza Strip after the war, while noting that none of his opponents within Israel have advocated for this option. “Netanyahu has fabricated a fictional adversary that he pledges to subdue. Let’s hope that at least in this regard, he will do a better job than he has against the real enemies we’ve been fighting in Gaza and on Israel’s northern border,” Lapid wrote. “What is good for the State of Israel is bad for the maintenance of his government,” he added. “You cannot shape reality when you are dependent on a group of people who deny the existence of that reality.” As various Israeli political factions debate the finer points of a “day after” plan for which they refuse to involve Palestinians themselves, the families of six Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza landed in Qatar on Friday in hopes of reviving talks for another hostage swap deal, amid growing fears that more of their loved ones could die amid continued Israeli bombardment and starvation of the Gaza Strip. BEFORE YOU GO – At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever. Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses. Support our journalists with a donation today. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-92-international-community-rejects-israeli-calls-for-gaza-ethnic-cleansing-as-assault-nears-three-month-mark/
    MONDOWEISS.NET
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 92: International community rejects Israeli calls for Gaza ethnic cleansing as assault nears three-month mark
    Bombardment, death, and starvation continue to take their toll on Gaza, as the international community denounces Israeli ministers’ calls for the ethnic cleansing of the devastated Palestinian territory.
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  • What do you know about Solana?

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    What do you know about Solana? 10 interesting facts about Solana: 1. High Throughput: Solana is known for its high throughput, capable of processing over 65,000 transactions per second, making it one of the fastest blockchain networks. 2. Proof of History (PoH): Solana uses a unique consensus mechanism called Proof of History, which helps in ordering transactions before they are added to the blockchain, enhancing efficiency. 3. Low Transaction Costs: With its high throughput and low fees, Solana aims to provide cost-effective transactions, attracting developers and users looking for affordable blockchain solutions. 4. Fast Confirmation Times: Solana achieves fast confirmation times, often settling transactions in a matter of seconds, contributing to a seamless user experience. 5. Dynamic Sharding: Solana employs dynamic sharding, allowing the network to adapt and optimize its performance based on demand, ensuring scalability as the user base grows. 6. Rust Programming Language: Solana is built using the Rust programming language, known for its memory safety and performance, contributing to the platform's reliability. 7. Decentralized Applications (DApps): The Solana ecosystem hosts a variety of decentralized applications, ranging from DeFi platforms to gaming and NFT projects, showcasing its versatility. 8. Serum DEX: Solana is home to Serum, a decentralized exchange (DEX) that operates on the blockchain, providing users with a platform for trading various assets in a trustless manner. 9. Interoperability: Solana is designed to be interoperable with other blockchain networks, fostering collaboration and allowing assets to move seamlessly between different platforms. 10. Active Community: Solana has a vibrant and active community of developers, contributors, and enthusiasts, fostering innovation and continuous improvement within the ecosystem. Solana themed Robot NFT: https://bit.ly/3vm2gdg #nfts #nft #buynft #nftcollectibles #nftcollection #nftart #nftartwork #nftartist #facts #solana #sol #crypto #cryptocurrency
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  • There are various ways to make money from a website, and the most suitable method depends on your niche, audience, and the value you provide. Here are some common ways to monetize a website:

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    There are various ways to make money from a website, and the most suitable method depends on your niche, audience, and the value you provide. Here are some common ways to monetize a website: Advertising: Display Ads: Use ad networks like Google AdSense to display ads on your website and earn revenue based on clicks or impressions. Direct Ad Sales: Sell advertising space directly to businesses or advertisers. Affiliate Marketing: Promote products or services related to your content and earn a commission for each sale or lead generated through your referral links. Sponsored Content: Partner with brands or companies to create and publish content on your site that promotes their products or services in exchange for payment. Sell Products or Services: Offer physical or digital products for sale on your website. This could include merchandise, ebooks, online courses, or any other products relevant to your audience. Subscription or Membership Model: Charge users a fee to access premium content, resources, or features on your website. This can include exclusive articles, videos, or community forums. Donations: Ask your audience for voluntary contributions or donations to support your website. Platforms like Patreon can facilitate this. Freelancing and Consulting: If you have expertise in a particular field, offer consulting services or freelance work through your website. Sell Ad Spaces: Instead of relying on ad networks, you can directly sell advertising space on your website to businesses in your niche. Job Board: If your website is industry-specific, you can create a job board where employers pay to post job listings. Lead Generation: Collect leads on your website and sell them to businesses in related industries. Event Sponsorships: If you host events, webinars, or conferences, seek sponsors who are willing to pay for visibility in front of your audience. Sell Data or Insights: If your website collects valuable data or insights, consider selling access to that information to businesses or researchers. License Content: License your content, such as articles, photos, or videos, to other websites or media outlets for a fee. Software and Tools: Develop and sell proprietary software, tools, or apps that cater to your audience's needs. Flip or Sell Your Website: Once your website has gained value and traffic, you can sell it on website marketplaces like Flippa. It's essential to choose a monetization strategy that aligns with your audience's preferences and provides value to them. Experiment with different methods and analyze the results to determine what works best for your specific website.
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  • ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 84: Gaza at ‘catastrophic threshold’ of famine, West Bank marks ‘deadliest year on record’ for Palestinian children
    Israel faces growing tensions between the war cabinet and the far-right coalition government as Egypt presents a ceasefire proposal. Meanwhile, Israeli forces kill at least three Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

    Mondoweiss Palestine BureauDecember 29, 2023
    People struggle to recover bodies and survivors from under the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli airstrike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. (Photo: by Bashar Taleb/APA Images)
    People struggle to recover bodies and survivors from under the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli airstrike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. (Photo: by Bashar Taleb/APA Images)
    Casualties:

    21,507 killed* and at least 55,915 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
    316 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
    *This figure is the latest confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health as of December 29. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

    Key Developments

    Deadly airstrikes pummel several areas across Gaza, killing 187 people in 24 hours.
    Fighting continues to rage on between Israeli ground troops and Palestinian armed groups, as Israeli army announces an expansion of operations in Khan Younis.
    U.N. says hunger in Gaza has passed “catastrophic threshold,” as UNRWA estimates 40 percent of the population is at risk of famine while aid barely trickles in.
    Health and human rights groups denounce Israel’s continued targeting of Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis and Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia amid systematic attacks on the health care system in Gaza.
    Palestinians who were detained in northern Gaza report threats, violence, and humiliation at the hands of Israeli forces.
    Hamas delegation heads to Cairo on Friday to discuss Egyptian proposal for ceasefire, reiterates call for complete cessation of Israeli aggression in Gaza, and for Palestinians to determine the shape of their own political future.
    Israeli leadership torn between war cabinet and far-right elements of coalition government, who refuse to consider possibility of Palestinian Authority involvement in Gaza.
    Leaked Israeli High Court draft ruling indicates one of most contested clauses of Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul could be struck down, reigniting internal Israeli disputes.
    Thousands of demonstrators call for release of hostages in Jerusalem i culmination of five days of protests, Israeli army releases probe into killing of three Israeli hostages by own soldiers.
    Israel continues to shell southern Lebanon and Syria, armed groups in neighboring countries respond.
    U.S. forces intercept Yemeni drone and missile in Red Sea.
    Israeli forces shoot and kill a Palestinian man allegedly responsible for stabbing attack at checkpoint near Jerusalem on Thursday, raids home and detains relatives.
    Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in southern occupied West Bank on Friday following alleged car-ramming attack.
    Israeli forces detain more than 15 Palestinians during violent overnight raids, as U.N. raises the alarm about the rising violence in the occupied West Bank.
    Peace Now warns Israel is expanding illegal settlements in northern and southern West Bank “in the shadow of war.”
    Hundreds of protesters in Times Square hold mock funeral procession on Thursday to denounce killing of thousands of Palestinian children by Israeli forces in Gaza.
    Gaza continues to suffer

    Twelve weeks into the Israeli rampage in the Gaza Strip, airstrikes continue to flatten the small Palestinian territory, killing dozens as fighting rages on between Israeli ground forces and Palestinian resistance fighters.

    Deadly Israeli airstrikes were reported since Thursday afternoon in Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, as well as in the Nuseirat, al-Bureij, and al-Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza, and in Beit Hanoun and the Gaza City neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza.

    The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported at midday on Friday that at least 187 people had been killed and 312 wounded in the span of 24 hours, raising the total toll to at least 21,507 killed and at least 55,915 wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

    Meanwhile, Palestinian groups reported ongoing fighting in the area of Khan Younis, Khuza’a, al-Bureij, Tal al-Zaatar, and various areas in Gaza City – contradicting Israeli claims that the northern Gaza Strip is under full army control.

    The Israeli army has meanwhile announced its plans to expand its operations in Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of internally displaced civilians have fled since October. More than 1.9 million internally displaced Palestinians in what was already one of the most densely populated areas on earth continue to be squeezed into ever tinier slivers of land, with an estimated 100,000 people fleeing to Rafah in recent days alone.

    Israel confirmed the death of one Israeli soldier on Thursday, bringing the official toll of the ground invasion in Gaza to 168 soldiers — although a government gag order prevents Israeli media from reporting on the full scope of military casualties.

    The humanitarian catastrophe Israel has deliberately inflicted on Gaza through its refusal to allow in sufficient aid and its destruction of essential infrastructure has begun to affect its own troops as well. At least one soldier has died as a result of a fungal infection likely due to exposure to sewage leaks, with Israeli media reporting that more soldiers could also suffer from similar infections.

    The impact on Israeli troops pales in comparison to the devastation wrought on Palestinians, who are starving and suffering from a host of injuries and preventable illnesses amid a complete collapse of the medical system.

    The Gaza Ministry of Health announced that 20 patients were scheduled to leave Gaza on Friday to receive medical treatment in Egypt, but noted that many more were in dire need of care they were unable to receive in the bombarded enclave. “Our urgent priority is to evacuate for treatment abroad 5,000 wounded with serious and complex cases to save their lives,” Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said.

    The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that only 76 trucks of aid were allowed into the Gaza Strip on Thursday, far below the pre-October 7 average of 500 trucks a day.

    “You think getting aid into Gaza is easy? Think again,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths posted on X on Friday, listing stringent inspections, bombardments, damaged roads, and desperate civilians crammed into smaller and smaller areas as only some of the obstacles making the delivery of these small amounts of food, medicine, and other essential items even more difficult.

    On Friday morning, an UNRWA official reported that Israeli forces fired at an aid convoy in northern Gaza, even as it was driving on “a route designated by the Israeli army,” damaging one vehicle.

    According to UNRWA, 40 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are “at risk of famine.” The U.N. has meanwhile activated a Famine Review Committee for Gaza “due to evidence surpassing the acute food insecurity Phase 5,” described as the “catastrophic threshold.”

    Israel has meanwhile continued to target Palestinian health facilities and workers, notably the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis and Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, prompting condemnation from Palestinian human rights organizations.

    A Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedic who was detained by Israeli forces in Jabalia said soldiers held him and other paramedics for hours with their hands tied behind their backs, and heavily beat them, including on their heads and “sensitive areas,” and that one of his colleagues was repeatedly hit with rocks. He added that Israeli bulldozers ran over ambulances, destroying them completely. PRCS says at least eight of its staff members are still detained by Israeli forces.

    Al-Qidra said on Thursday that Israel was detaining at least 99 health personnel in “harsh conditions of torture, starvation, and exposure to extreme cold.”

    The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) meanwhile shared the testimony of one of its researchers, Ayman Lubbad, who was detained by Israeli forces for a week earlier this month.

    “Men and boys as young as 14 were instructed to strip and kneel in the street […] They inappropriately photographed us while we were half-naked and forced some of us to dance,” Lubbad said. “Upon learning that I work for a human rights organization, the interrogator threateningly said: ‘I will teach you your rights very well in prison.’”

    Egyptian proposal to be discussed amid internal Israeli turmoil

    Amid the carnage, Egypt reiterated on Thursday that it was awaiting responses to its framework proposal to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza, a hostage swap agreement, and map out future Palestinian governance after the war.

    A Hamas delegation was due in Cairo on Friday to discuss the proposal. In a press conference on Thursday, the Palestinian group said it was open “to any ideas or proposals to stop the aggression completely and finally on our people in the Gaza Strip,” but that there would be no deal to release Israeli hostages until Israeli pummeling of Gaza ceased.

    It nonetheless stressed that “the management of Palestinian affairs is a Palestinian internal decision, and it is the decision of the Palestinian people alone, and our people will not accept a leadership that comes to them on the back of a Zionist or American tank.”

    “Our people today want a national leadership that carries the project of liberation and commits to resistance in all its forms to achieve national goals,” Hamas added.

    Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister and far-right extremist settler Bezalel Smotrich dug in his heels on Friday following reports that the U.S. was pressuring Tel Aviv to release Palestinian Authority tax revenue it has been withholding since October 7.

    Because Israel controls all international borders with the occupied Palestinian territories, it collects customs and other forms of revenue on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, the nominal political body operating in the occupied West Bank. However, Israel has repeatedly withheld these taxes over the years as a punitive tactic, regardless of whether the P.A. is involved.

    “As long as I am Finance Minister, not a single shekel will go to the Nazi terrorists in Gaza,” Smotrich wrote on X.

    Smotrich is involved in growing tensions within Israeli leadership, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been facing pressure from the war cabinet — which includes himself, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and opposition leader Benny Gantz — and his far-right coalition government. A war cabinet meeting that had been scheduled for Thursday to discuss scenarios for “the day after” the war was postponed after Smotrich opposed its discussion of any future in which the PA might play a role.

    Netanyahu was facing a slew of corruption charges and internal dissent due to his attempt to hijack the judicial system before the war.

    The Israeli High Court is reportedly set to strike down a key part of the prime minister’s controversial judicial overhaul, according to a draft ruling leaked on Thursday, bringing back to the fore a national debate that had been effectively silenced since October 7.

    Netanyahu is now also facing pressure for his handling of the hostage situation. Thousands of protesters rallied in Jerusalem on Thursday night, calling for the release of hostages.

    An estimated 130 people are still believed to be held by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza as bargaining chips to obtain the release of thousands of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. While 105 hostages were released during a six-day truce in November, Israel has since failed to release more hostages through combat operations.

    The Israeli army released on Thursday the results of its internal investigation into the killing of three Israeli hostages by Israeli forces earlier this month while they were waving a white flag. The probe found that soldiers shot at the hostages who were calling for help, despite their commander having ordered them not to shoot. The Times of Israel nevertheless reported that “the soldiers involved in the incident were not expected to be dismissed or to stand trial due to their actions.”

    ‘Deadliest year on record’ for children in the West Bank

    At least three Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since Thursday, as confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians were reported in several areas during military raids.

    A Palestinian man identified as Ahmad Alyan was killed after allegedly carrying out a stabbing attack at the Israeli military checkpoint of Mizmoria between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Thursday night, reportedly injuring two Israeli police officers. Israeli forces later raided his family’s home in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukaber, detaining his parents and sister.

    An alleged car-ramming attack took place near the illegal Israeli settlement of Otniel on Friday afternoon, with the driver killed on the spot by Israeli forces. The P.A. Ministry of Health identified the driver as Amr Abdel Fattah Abu Hussein, and said he was killed east of the Palestinian town of Dura.

    Another Palestinian, identified as 38-year-old Muhammad Sayel Al-Jundi from the town of Yatta, was shot and killed by Israeli forces at a checkpoint between Hebron and Bethlehem on Thursday night. WAFA news agency did not provide more detail on the circumstances surrounding his death.

    Israeli forces have continued to violently raid Palestinian towns and villages across the West Bank, provoking clashes in al-Faraa refugee camp, Balata refugee camp, Qalqilya, Rafat, Kafr Aqab, and Ain al-Sultan refugee camp.

    At least three Palestinians were wounded during the Israeli raid in al-Faraa, and another five were detained, in addition to 14 other Palestinians detained overnight across the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces also seized children’s toys in a raid in the southern city of Hebron, WAFA reported.

    In East Jerusalem, Israeli forces once again fired rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas, and skunk water at worshippers seeking to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday.

    The spike in violent Israeli repression in the West Bank since October 7 has led the UN to raise the alarm in a report released on Thursday.

    “The use of military tactics means and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and the enforcement of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory movement restrictions that affect Palestinians are extremely troubling,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said. “The violations documented in this report repeat the pattern and nature of violations reported in the past in the context of the long-standing Israeli occupation of the West Bank. However, the intensity of the violence and repression is something that has not been seen in years.”

    UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Adele Khodr meanwhile said on Thursday that 2023 was the “deadliest year on record for children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” with 83 children killed since October 7 alone.

    “Children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been experiencing grinding violence for many years, yet the intensity of that violence has dramatically increased,” Khodr said. “The suffering of children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, must not fade into the background of the current conflict — it is part of it.”

    As Israeli state violence rages on, the settler colonial enterprise continues advancing in violation of international law. Israeli settlers expanded a road in the World Heritage site of Battir near Bethlehem on Thursday, seeking to further entrench a settler outpost built in the area in recent years.

    Peace Now released a new report on Thursday on the expansion of the Battir outpost, as well as the expansion of the Homesh settlement in the northern West Bank “in the shadow of war.”

    “While Israel is at war, Smotrich and his colleagues are asserting facts on the ground that may open up another front in the West Bank,” Peace Now wrote. “If we don’t stop the dream of settlement in the northern West Bank and in Battir, we will wake up to the nightmare of settlements in the Gaza Strip.”

    Before you go - We need your help. Mainstream media’s wilful complicity in the genocide of Palestinian people is a reminder of just how vital our work at Mondoweiss is. This article and our extensive coverage since October 7 have been made possible by readers like you who donate to keep our reporting free and independent.

    With your support, we will continue covering the ongoing events in Gaza and across Palestine, as well as amplifying the Palestine movement worldwide. Together, we will make sure to keep reporting Palestinian stories, even when the rest of the world looks away.

    Support our critical work with a donation today.

    https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-84-gaza-at-catastrophic-threshold-of-famine-west-bank-marks-deadliest-year-on-record-for-palestinian-children/
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 84: Gaza at ‘catastrophic threshold’ of famine, West Bank marks ‘deadliest year on record’ for Palestinian children Israel faces growing tensions between the war cabinet and the far-right coalition government as Egypt presents a ceasefire proposal. Meanwhile, Israeli forces kill at least three Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Mondoweiss Palestine BureauDecember 29, 2023 People struggle to recover bodies and survivors from under the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli airstrike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. (Photo: by Bashar Taleb/APA Images) People struggle to recover bodies and survivors from under the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli airstrike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. (Photo: by Bashar Taleb/APA Images) Casualties: 21,507 killed* and at least 55,915 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 316 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. *This figure is the latest confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health as of December 29. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. Key Developments Deadly airstrikes pummel several areas across Gaza, killing 187 people in 24 hours. Fighting continues to rage on between Israeli ground troops and Palestinian armed groups, as Israeli army announces an expansion of operations in Khan Younis. U.N. says hunger in Gaza has passed “catastrophic threshold,” as UNRWA estimates 40 percent of the population is at risk of famine while aid barely trickles in. Health and human rights groups denounce Israel’s continued targeting of Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis and Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia amid systematic attacks on the health care system in Gaza. Palestinians who were detained in northern Gaza report threats, violence, and humiliation at the hands of Israeli forces. Hamas delegation heads to Cairo on Friday to discuss Egyptian proposal for ceasefire, reiterates call for complete cessation of Israeli aggression in Gaza, and for Palestinians to determine the shape of their own political future. Israeli leadership torn between war cabinet and far-right elements of coalition government, who refuse to consider possibility of Palestinian Authority involvement in Gaza. Leaked Israeli High Court draft ruling indicates one of most contested clauses of Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul could be struck down, reigniting internal Israeli disputes. Thousands of demonstrators call for release of hostages in Jerusalem i culmination of five days of protests, Israeli army releases probe into killing of three Israeli hostages by own soldiers. Israel continues to shell southern Lebanon and Syria, armed groups in neighboring countries respond. U.S. forces intercept Yemeni drone and missile in Red Sea. Israeli forces shoot and kill a Palestinian man allegedly responsible for stabbing attack at checkpoint near Jerusalem on Thursday, raids home and detains relatives. Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in southern occupied West Bank on Friday following alleged car-ramming attack. Israeli forces detain more than 15 Palestinians during violent overnight raids, as U.N. raises the alarm about the rising violence in the occupied West Bank. Peace Now warns Israel is expanding illegal settlements in northern and southern West Bank “in the shadow of war.” Hundreds of protesters in Times Square hold mock funeral procession on Thursday to denounce killing of thousands of Palestinian children by Israeli forces in Gaza. Gaza continues to suffer Twelve weeks into the Israeli rampage in the Gaza Strip, airstrikes continue to flatten the small Palestinian territory, killing dozens as fighting rages on between Israeli ground forces and Palestinian resistance fighters. Deadly Israeli airstrikes were reported since Thursday afternoon in Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, as well as in the Nuseirat, al-Bureij, and al-Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza, and in Beit Hanoun and the Gaza City neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported at midday on Friday that at least 187 people had been killed and 312 wounded in the span of 24 hours, raising the total toll to at least 21,507 killed and at least 55,915 wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 7. Meanwhile, Palestinian groups reported ongoing fighting in the area of Khan Younis, Khuza’a, al-Bureij, Tal al-Zaatar, and various areas in Gaza City – contradicting Israeli claims that the northern Gaza Strip is under full army control. The Israeli army has meanwhile announced its plans to expand its operations in Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of internally displaced civilians have fled since October. More than 1.9 million internally displaced Palestinians in what was already one of the most densely populated areas on earth continue to be squeezed into ever tinier slivers of land, with an estimated 100,000 people fleeing to Rafah in recent days alone. Israel confirmed the death of one Israeli soldier on Thursday, bringing the official toll of the ground invasion in Gaza to 168 soldiers — although a government gag order prevents Israeli media from reporting on the full scope of military casualties. The humanitarian catastrophe Israel has deliberately inflicted on Gaza through its refusal to allow in sufficient aid and its destruction of essential infrastructure has begun to affect its own troops as well. At least one soldier has died as a result of a fungal infection likely due to exposure to sewage leaks, with Israeli media reporting that more soldiers could also suffer from similar infections. The impact on Israeli troops pales in comparison to the devastation wrought on Palestinians, who are starving and suffering from a host of injuries and preventable illnesses amid a complete collapse of the medical system. The Gaza Ministry of Health announced that 20 patients were scheduled to leave Gaza on Friday to receive medical treatment in Egypt, but noted that many more were in dire need of care they were unable to receive in the bombarded enclave. “Our urgent priority is to evacuate for treatment abroad 5,000 wounded with serious and complex cases to save their lives,” Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that only 76 trucks of aid were allowed into the Gaza Strip on Thursday, far below the pre-October 7 average of 500 trucks a day. “You think getting aid into Gaza is easy? Think again,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths posted on X on Friday, listing stringent inspections, bombardments, damaged roads, and desperate civilians crammed into smaller and smaller areas as only some of the obstacles making the delivery of these small amounts of food, medicine, and other essential items even more difficult. On Friday morning, an UNRWA official reported that Israeli forces fired at an aid convoy in northern Gaza, even as it was driving on “a route designated by the Israeli army,” damaging one vehicle. According to UNRWA, 40 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are “at risk of famine.” The U.N. has meanwhile activated a Famine Review Committee for Gaza “due to evidence surpassing the acute food insecurity Phase 5,” described as the “catastrophic threshold.” Israel has meanwhile continued to target Palestinian health facilities and workers, notably the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis and Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, prompting condemnation from Palestinian human rights organizations. A Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedic who was detained by Israeli forces in Jabalia said soldiers held him and other paramedics for hours with their hands tied behind their backs, and heavily beat them, including on their heads and “sensitive areas,” and that one of his colleagues was repeatedly hit with rocks. He added that Israeli bulldozers ran over ambulances, destroying them completely. PRCS says at least eight of its staff members are still detained by Israeli forces. Al-Qidra said on Thursday that Israel was detaining at least 99 health personnel in “harsh conditions of torture, starvation, and exposure to extreme cold.” The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) meanwhile shared the testimony of one of its researchers, Ayman Lubbad, who was detained by Israeli forces for a week earlier this month. “Men and boys as young as 14 were instructed to strip and kneel in the street […] They inappropriately photographed us while we were half-naked and forced some of us to dance,” Lubbad said. “Upon learning that I work for a human rights organization, the interrogator threateningly said: ‘I will teach you your rights very well in prison.’” Egyptian proposal to be discussed amid internal Israeli turmoil Amid the carnage, Egypt reiterated on Thursday that it was awaiting responses to its framework proposal to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza, a hostage swap agreement, and map out future Palestinian governance after the war. A Hamas delegation was due in Cairo on Friday to discuss the proposal. In a press conference on Thursday, the Palestinian group said it was open “to any ideas or proposals to stop the aggression completely and finally on our people in the Gaza Strip,” but that there would be no deal to release Israeli hostages until Israeli pummeling of Gaza ceased. It nonetheless stressed that “the management of Palestinian affairs is a Palestinian internal decision, and it is the decision of the Palestinian people alone, and our people will not accept a leadership that comes to them on the back of a Zionist or American tank.” “Our people today want a national leadership that carries the project of liberation and commits to resistance in all its forms to achieve national goals,” Hamas added. Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister and far-right extremist settler Bezalel Smotrich dug in his heels on Friday following reports that the U.S. was pressuring Tel Aviv to release Palestinian Authority tax revenue it has been withholding since October 7. Because Israel controls all international borders with the occupied Palestinian territories, it collects customs and other forms of revenue on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, the nominal political body operating in the occupied West Bank. However, Israel has repeatedly withheld these taxes over the years as a punitive tactic, regardless of whether the P.A. is involved. “As long as I am Finance Minister, not a single shekel will go to the Nazi terrorists in Gaza,” Smotrich wrote on X. Smotrich is involved in growing tensions within Israeli leadership, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been facing pressure from the war cabinet — which includes himself, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and opposition leader Benny Gantz — and his far-right coalition government. A war cabinet meeting that had been scheduled for Thursday to discuss scenarios for “the day after” the war was postponed after Smotrich opposed its discussion of any future in which the PA might play a role. Netanyahu was facing a slew of corruption charges and internal dissent due to his attempt to hijack the judicial system before the war. The Israeli High Court is reportedly set to strike down a key part of the prime minister’s controversial judicial overhaul, according to a draft ruling leaked on Thursday, bringing back to the fore a national debate that had been effectively silenced since October 7. Netanyahu is now also facing pressure for his handling of the hostage situation. Thousands of protesters rallied in Jerusalem on Thursday night, calling for the release of hostages. An estimated 130 people are still believed to be held by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza as bargaining chips to obtain the release of thousands of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. While 105 hostages were released during a six-day truce in November, Israel has since failed to release more hostages through combat operations. The Israeli army released on Thursday the results of its internal investigation into the killing of three Israeli hostages by Israeli forces earlier this month while they were waving a white flag. The probe found that soldiers shot at the hostages who were calling for help, despite their commander having ordered them not to shoot. The Times of Israel nevertheless reported that “the soldiers involved in the incident were not expected to be dismissed or to stand trial due to their actions.” ‘Deadliest year on record’ for children in the West Bank At least three Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since Thursday, as confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians were reported in several areas during military raids. A Palestinian man identified as Ahmad Alyan was killed after allegedly carrying out a stabbing attack at the Israeli military checkpoint of Mizmoria between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Thursday night, reportedly injuring two Israeli police officers. Israeli forces later raided his family’s home in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukaber, detaining his parents and sister. An alleged car-ramming attack took place near the illegal Israeli settlement of Otniel on Friday afternoon, with the driver killed on the spot by Israeli forces. The P.A. Ministry of Health identified the driver as Amr Abdel Fattah Abu Hussein, and said he was killed east of the Palestinian town of Dura. Another Palestinian, identified as 38-year-old Muhammad Sayel Al-Jundi from the town of Yatta, was shot and killed by Israeli forces at a checkpoint between Hebron and Bethlehem on Thursday night. WAFA news agency did not provide more detail on the circumstances surrounding his death. Israeli forces have continued to violently raid Palestinian towns and villages across the West Bank, provoking clashes in al-Faraa refugee camp, Balata refugee camp, Qalqilya, Rafat, Kafr Aqab, and Ain al-Sultan refugee camp. At least three Palestinians were wounded during the Israeli raid in al-Faraa, and another five were detained, in addition to 14 other Palestinians detained overnight across the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces also seized children’s toys in a raid in the southern city of Hebron, WAFA reported. In East Jerusalem, Israeli forces once again fired rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas, and skunk water at worshippers seeking to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday. The spike in violent Israeli repression in the West Bank since October 7 has led the UN to raise the alarm in a report released on Thursday. “The use of military tactics means and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and the enforcement of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory movement restrictions that affect Palestinians are extremely troubling,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said. “The violations documented in this report repeat the pattern and nature of violations reported in the past in the context of the long-standing Israeli occupation of the West Bank. However, the intensity of the violence and repression is something that has not been seen in years.” UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Adele Khodr meanwhile said on Thursday that 2023 was the “deadliest year on record for children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” with 83 children killed since October 7 alone. “Children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been experiencing grinding violence for many years, yet the intensity of that violence has dramatically increased,” Khodr said. “The suffering of children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, must not fade into the background of the current conflict — it is part of it.” As Israeli state violence rages on, the settler colonial enterprise continues advancing in violation of international law. Israeli settlers expanded a road in the World Heritage site of Battir near Bethlehem on Thursday, seeking to further entrench a settler outpost built in the area in recent years. Peace Now released a new report on Thursday on the expansion of the Battir outpost, as well as the expansion of the Homesh settlement in the northern West Bank “in the shadow of war.” “While Israel is at war, Smotrich and his colleagues are asserting facts on the ground that may open up another front in the West Bank,” Peace Now wrote. “If we don’t stop the dream of settlement in the northern West Bank and in Battir, we will wake up to the nightmare of settlements in the Gaza Strip.” Before you go - We need your help. Mainstream media’s wilful complicity in the genocide of Palestinian people is a reminder of just how vital our work at Mondoweiss is. This article and our extensive coverage since October 7 have been made possible by readers like you who donate to keep our reporting free and independent. With your support, we will continue covering the ongoing events in Gaza and across Palestine, as well as amplifying the Palestine movement worldwide. Together, we will make sure to keep reporting Palestinian stories, even when the rest of the world looks away. Support our critical work with a donation today. https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-84-gaza-at-catastrophic-threshold-of-famine-west-bank-marks-deadliest-year-on-record-for-palestinian-children/
    MONDOWEISS.NET
    ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 84: Gaza at ‘catastrophic threshold’ of famine, West Bank marks ‘deadliest year on record’ for Palestinian children
    Israel faces growing tensions between the war cabinet and the far-right coalition government as Egypt presents a ceasefire proposal. Meanwhile, Israeli forces kill at least three Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
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  • If you will look at it objectively, the Cosmos ecosystem is the next biggest after Ethereum in terms of adoption and usage, not Solana or Avalanche or Cardano.

    BNB, ATOM, CRO, INJ, TIA, SEI, DYDX, KAVA, AXL, OKT, RUNE, OSMO, KUJI, AKASH, JUNO, XPRT, LUNA, SCRT, FET, STRD.

    Next to Cosmos is the Polkadot or Substrate ecosystem.

    DOT, MOVR, AZERO, ASTR, KSM, GLMR, EWT, ENJ, ACA, KAR, PHA, LINA, KILT, OM, SDN, BNC, XOR, CAPS, CQT, LIT.

    Solana and Cardano are monolithic blockchains (at their current state) while Cosmos and Polkadot are polylithic.

    Polylithic blockchains have multiple chains connected to a core chain and form a network of networks. Each chain can communicate (interoperability) and support each other (shared security).
    If you will look at it objectively, the Cosmos ecosystem is the next biggest after Ethereum in terms of adoption and usage, not Solana or Avalanche or Cardano. BNB, ATOM, CRO, INJ, TIA, SEI, DYDX, KAVA, AXL, OKT, RUNE, OSMO, KUJI, AKASH, JUNO, XPRT, LUNA, SCRT, FET, STRD. Next to Cosmos is the Polkadot or Substrate ecosystem. DOT, MOVR, AZERO, ASTR, KSM, GLMR, EWT, ENJ, ACA, KAR, PHA, LINA, KILT, OM, SDN, BNC, XOR, CAPS, CQT, LIT. Solana and Cardano are monolithic blockchains (at their current state) while Cosmos and Polkadot are polylithic. Polylithic blockchains have multiple chains connected to a core chain and form a network of networks. Each chain can communicate (interoperability) and support each other (shared security).
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  • ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI using GPT-3.5 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3.5) technology. Here is some information about ChatGPT:

    GPT technology:
    GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a technology based on artificial intelligence, specifically on deep neural networks.
    GPT relies on transformations to understand and generate natural language.

    Training:
    ChatGPT is trained using large amounts of data, to understand a wide range of topics and contexts.
    A self-supervised learning technique was used, where the model learns from the data without the need for precise classification of each element.

    Uses:
    ChatGPT can be used to interact with users via text, whether it's in general chat, technical support, or any application that requires an understanding of natural language.

    Capacity:
    ChatGPT can have natural conversations and answer various queries.
    It has limited memory and limited long-term context tracking capabilities.

    Updates:
    The ChatGPT model may be improved and updated over time to improve its performance and understanding.

    Challenges:
    ChatGPT may face some challenges, such as the possibility of generating inaccurate answers or incorrectly understanding the context of the dialogue.

    Security and privacy:
    Security and privacy measures are taken to protect the information entered, but caution must be taken when dealing with sensitive data.
    ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI using GPT-3.5 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3.5) technology. Here is some information about ChatGPT: GPT technology: GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a technology based on artificial intelligence, specifically on deep neural networks. GPT relies on transformations to understand and generate natural language. Training: ChatGPT is trained using large amounts of data, to understand a wide range of topics and contexts. A self-supervised learning technique was used, where the model learns from the data without the need for precise classification of each element. Uses: ChatGPT can be used to interact with users via text, whether it's in general chat, technical support, or any application that requires an understanding of natural language. Capacity: ChatGPT can have natural conversations and answer various queries. It has limited memory and limited long-term context tracking capabilities. Updates: The ChatGPT model may be improved and updated over time to improve its performance and understanding. Challenges: ChatGPT may face some challenges, such as the possibility of generating inaccurate answers or incorrectly understanding the context of the dialogue. Security and privacy: Security and privacy measures are taken to protect the information entered, but caution must be taken when dealing with sensitive data.
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