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WHO never Discovered SARS-COV-2 Artificial Origin but Promotes VIPs Calling for New Deal on Future Pandemics 28 Marzo 2024 FacebookTwitterWhatsAppEmailLinkedInTelegramCondividi 12.285 Views by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio VERSIONE IN ITALIANO “I love my brother Bobby, but I do not share or endorse his opinions on many issues, including the COVID pandemic, vaccinations, and the role of social media platforms in policing false information,” she said at the time. “It is also important to note that Bobby’s views are not reflected in or influence the mission or work of our organization.” These were the sentences about Robert F. Kennedy jr statements released by Kerry Kennedy, former wife of New York Governor Andrea Cuomo and Chair of the Amnesty International USA Leadership Council. Nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate. She serves on the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace, as well as Human Rights First, and Inter Press Service (Rome, Italy). Zuckerberg Confession: “Establishment asked Facebook to ‘censor’ Covid posts” Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, is one of the VIPs who signed the “Call for urgent Agreement on International Deal to Prepare for and prevent future Pandemics” (whole text below) meanwhile World Health Organization is loosing many hopes that WHO Assembly will approve the Pandemic Treaty due to the opposition of Russia an many other nations. WHO, EU Launch New Global Vaccine Passport Initiative: “Death Sentence for Millions” The appeal was launched by Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown, the website of former UK prime minister., who signed it as Tony Blair, the Former UN General Secretary Ban-ki Moon, New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Helen Cark and Italian former PM Mario Monti, life senator and former manager of New York bank Goldman Sachs in business with Pfizer, nominated as president of Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development, a body created by the World Health Organization during Covid-19 emergency despite his ties with Wuhan Institute of Virology. WUHAN-GATES – 68. THE SMOKING GUN OF MANMADE SARS-COV-2. Fauci, Wuhan & Chinese Military Scientists behind Research on Vaccine for Biodefense Indeed Monti was in the European Commission which financed the EPISARS project for the developing of dangerous research on Coronavirus SARS from which, in a huge affair among China and US, emerged the artificial SARS-Cov-2. WUHAN-GATES – 65. L’ANELLO MANCANTE DEL DIABOLICO COMPLOTTO NWO-UE: Dal SARS da Laboratorio di Monti al Vaccino COVID col Grafene di Capua Although WHO has not yet been able to prove the laboratory origin of the Covid-19 virus, also because it has entrusted the investigations to doctors with enormous conflicts of interest for having worked in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, today it continues to insist on launch the global agreement on pandemics thanks to those same people who supported Bill Gates’ global immunization plan and the “Covid-19 pandemic planned for decades” as declared by the lawyer Robert F. Kennedy jr and as demonstrated by the patents expert David Martin on the role of Anthony Fauci, and detailed by the Gospa News investigations of the “Wuhan-Gates” cycle. WHO claims to develop more and major researches on viruses when it is now well established that the Covid-19 pandemic was caused by man precisely because of research on biological weapons. Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio © COPYRIGHT GOSPA NEWS prohibition of reproduction without authorization follow Fabio Carisio Gospa News director on Twitter follow Gospa News on Telegram Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published MAIN SOURCES GOSPA NEWS – WUHAN-GATES INVESTIGATIONS GOSPA NEWS – COVID, BIG PHARMA, VACCINES WHO: “Call for urgent Agreement on International Deal to Prepare for and prevent future Pandemics” Article originally published on World Health Organization All links to Gospa News articles have been added aftermath, in relation to the topics highlighted Subscribe to the Gospa News Newsletter to read the news as soon as it is published A high-powered intervention by 23 former national Presidents, 22 former Prime Ministers, a former UN General Secretary and 3 Nobel Laureates is being made today to press for an urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord, under the Constitution of the World Health Organizaion, to bolster the world’s collective preparedness and response to future pandemics. WUHAN-GATES – 69. How and Why the Spy of Biden & Gates Hid ManMade SARS-Cov-2 in US Intelligence Dossier Former UN General Secretary Ban-ki Moon, New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Helen Cark, former UK Prime Ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, former Malawi President Joyce Banda, former Peru President Franciso Sagasti, and 3 former Presidents of the UN General Assembly are amongst 100+ global leaders, from all continents and fields of politics, economics and health management who today issued a joint open letterurging accelerated progress in current negotiations to reach the world’s first ever multi-lateral agreement on pandemic preparedness and prevention. “A pandemic accord is critical to safeguard our collective future. Only a strong global pact on pandemics can protect future generations from a repeat of the COVID-19 crisis, which led to millions of deaths and caused widespread social and economic devastation, owing not least to insufficient international collaboration,” the leaders write in their joint letter. WUHAN-GATES – 60. NEW SCANDAL INTO WHO. French Co-Chair of Investigative Group on SARS-2 Worked in the China Bio-lab which Enhanced Coronavirus In the throes of the COVID-19 disaster which, officially, claimed 7 million lives and wiped $2 trillion from the world economy, inter-governmental negotiations to reach international agreement on future pandemic non-proliferation were begun in December 2021 between 194 of the world’s 196 nations. Nations set themselves the deadline of May 2024 by which they should reach agreement on what would be the world’s first ever Pandemic Accord. The Ninth round of Pandemic Accord negotiations are underway this week and next. Signatories of today’s open letter hope their combined influence willencourage all 194 nations to maintain the courage of their Covid-years conviction and make their own collective ambition of an international pandemic protocol a reality by the intended May deadline to enable ratification by the World Health Assembly at its May 2024 Annual General Assembly. And they urge negotiators “to redouble their efforts” to meet the imminent deadline and not let their efforts be blown off course by malicious misinformation campaigning against the WHO, the international organisation which would be tasked with implementing the new health accord. Taking a swipe at those who wrongly believe national sovereignty may be undermined by this major international step forward for public health the signatories say “there is no time to waste” and they call on the leaders of the 194 nations taking part in the current negotiations to “redouble their efforts to complete the accord by the May deadline.” WUHAN-GATES – 72. THE SUMMARY: WHO Intrigues on the SARS-Cov-2 Bioweapon & Vaccine Plots – McCullough reveals The letter, hosted on the website of The Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown states, “Countries are doing this not because of some dictum from the WHO – like the negotiations, participation in any instrument would be entirely voluntary – but because they need what the accord can and must offer. In fact, a pandemic accord would deliver vast and universally shared benefits, including greater capacity to detect new and dangerous pathogens, access to information about pathogens detected elsewhere in the world, and timely and equitable delivery of tests, treatments, vaccines, and other lifesaving tools. “As countries enter what should be the final stages of the negotiations, governments must work to refute and debunk false claims about the accord. At the same time, negotiators must ensure that the agreement lives up to its promise to prevent and mitigate pandemic-related risks. This requires, for example, provisions aimed at ensuring that when another pandemic threat does arise, all relevant responses – from reporting the identification of risky pathogens to delivering tools like tests and vaccines on an equitable basis – are implemented quickly and effectively. As the COVID-19 pandemic showed, collaboration between the public and private sectors focused on advancing the public good is also essential.” WUHAN-GATES – 24. WHO & Pandemic in Gates-China’s Puppet Hands: Dr. Tedros Leader of TPLF, Islamic-Communist Rebels blamed of Last Massacre in Ethiopia by Amnesty “A new pandemic threat will emerge; there is no excuse not to be ready for it. It is thus imperative to build an effective, multisectoral, and multilateral approach to pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. Given the unpredictable nature of public-health risks, a global strategy must embody a spirit of openness and inclusiveness. There is no time to waste, which is why we are calling on all national leaders to redouble their efforts to complete the accord by the May deadline.” “Beyond protecting countless lives and livelihoods, the timely delivery of a global pandemic accord would send a powerful message: even in our fractured and fragmented world, international cooperation can still deliver global solutions to global problems.” Article originally published on World Health Organization Joint letter to leaders of WHO member states calling for an urgent agreement on a pandemic accord Originally published on the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown website on March, 20, 2024 The overwhelming lesson we learned from COVID-19 is that no one is safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere – and that can only happen through collaboration. In response, the 194 countries which are members of the World Health Organization decided in December 2021 to launch negotiations for a new international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, a Pandemic Accord, as a “global framework” to work together to prepare for and stem any new pandemic threat, including by achieving equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. WUHAN-GATES – 62. MANMADE SARS-Cov-2 FOR GOLDEN VACCINES: Metabiota, CIA, Biden, Gates, Rockefeller intrigued in Ukraine, China and Italy Negotiation of an effective pandemic accord is a much needed opportunity to safeguard the world we live in. Countries themselves have proposed this instrument, individual countries are negotiating it, and only countries will ultimately be responsible for its requirements and its success or failure. Establishing a strong global pact on pandemics will protect future generations from a repeat of the millions of deaths and the social and economic devastation which resulted from a lack of collaboration during theCOVID-19 pandemic. All countries need what the accord can offer: the capacity to detect and share pathogens presenting a risk, and timely access to tests, treatments and vaccines. An agreement is meant to be reached just two and a half months from now – countries imposed a deadline of May 2024, in time for the 77th World Health Assembly. WUHAN-GATES – 73. Half of Century of Covert Bioweapon Development Leading to Fauci’s SARS-Cov-2 and to mRNA Lethal Vaccines As countries now enter what should be the final stages of the negotiations, they must ensure that they are agreeing on actions which will do the job required: to prevent and mitigate pandemic threats. We urge solutions which ensure both speed in reporting and sharing pathogens, and in access – in every country – to sufficient tools like tests and vaccines to protect lives and minimise harm. The public and private sectors must work together towards the public good. This global effort is being threatened by misinformation and disinformation. Among the falsehoods circulating are allegations that the WHO intends to monitor people’s movements through digital passports; that it will take away the national sovereignty of countries; and that it will have the ability to deploy armed troops to enforce mandatory vaccinations and lockdowns. All of these claims are wholly false and governments must work to disavow them with clear facts. WUHAN-GATES – 47. SARS-2 BIOWEAPON. Pentagon’s DARPA Stopped a Risky Test in US but Funded a Secret one in UK with Gates It is imperative now to build an effective, multisectoral and multilateral approach to pandemic prevention,preparedness, and response marked by a spirit of openness and inclusiveness. In doing so we can send a message that even in this fractured and fragmented world, cross-border co-operation can deliver global solutions to global problems. We call on leaders of all countries to step up their efforts and secure an effective pandemic accord by May. A new pandemic threat will emerge – and there is no excuse not to be ready for it. Originally published on the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown website on March, 20, 2024 Name Title Carlos Alvarado* President of Costa Rica (2018-2022) Michelle Bachelet* President of Chile (2006-2010) Jan Peter Balkenende* Prime Minister of The Netherlands (2002-2010) Ban Ki-moon* Eighth Secretary General of the United Nations Joyce Banda* President of Malawi (2012-2014) Kjell Magne Bondevik* Prime Minister of Norway (1997-2000; 2001-2005) Kim Campbell* Prime Minister of Canada (1993) Alfred Gusenbauer* Chancellor of Austria (2007-2008) Seung-Soo Han* Prime Minister of the Rep. of Korea (2008-2009) Mehdi Jomaa* Prime Minister of Tunisia (2014-2015) Horst Köhler* President of Germany (2004-2010) Rexhep Meidani* President of Albania (1997-2002) Mario Monti* Prime Minister of Italy (2011-2013) Francisco Sagasti* President of Peru (2020-2021) Jenny Shipley* Prime Minister of New Zealand (1997-1999) Juan Somavía* Ninth Director of the International Labour Organization Helen Clark** Former Prime Minister of New Zealand Micheline Calmy-Rey** Former President of the Swiss Confederation Baroness Lynda Chalker** Former Minister of Overseas Development of the UK Chester A. Crocker** Former Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, USA Marzuki Darusman** Former Attorney General of Indonesia Mohamed ElBaradei** Former Vice President of Egypt Gareth Evans** Former Foreign Minister of Australia Lawrence Gonzi** Former Prime Minister of Malta Lord George Robertson** Former Secretary General of NATO Gordon Brown Former Prime Minister of the UK 2007-2010 Vaira Vike-Freiberga*** Co-Chair, NGIC; President of Latvia 1999-2007 Ismail Serageldin*** Co-Chair, NGIC; Vice President of the World Bank 1992-2000 Kerry Kennedy*** President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Rosen Plevneliev*** President of Bulgaria 2012-2017 Petar Stoyanov*** President of Bulgaria 1997-2002 Chiril Gaburici*** Prime Minister of Moldova 2015 Mladen Ivanic*** Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2014-2018 Zlatko Lagumdzija*** Permanent Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the UN; Prime Minister 2001-2002; Deputy Prime Minister 1993-1996, 2012-2015 Rashid Alimov*** Secretary-General Shanghai Cooperation Organization 2016-2018 Jan Fisher*** Prime Minister of the Czech Republic 2009-2010 Sir Tony Blair Prime Minister of the UK 1997-2007 Csaba Korossi*** 77th President of the UN General Assembly Maria Fernanda Espinosa*** 73rd President of the UN General Assembly Volkan Bozkir*** 75th President of the UN General Assembly Ameenah Gurib Fakim*** President of Mauritius 2015-2018 Filip Vujanovic*** President of Montenegro 2003-2018 Borut Pahor*** President of Slovenia 2012-2022; Prime Minister 2008-2012 Ivo Josipovic*** President of Croatia 2010-2015 Petru Lucinschi*** President of Moldova 1997-2001 Boris Tadic*** President of Serbia 2004-2012 Mirko Cvetkovic*** Prime Minister of Serbia 2008-2012 Dumitru Bragish*** Prime Minister of Moldova 1999-2001 Emil Constantinescu*** President of Romania 1996-2000 Nambaryn Enkhbayar*** President of Mongolia 2005-2009 Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic*** President of Croatia 2015-2020 Gjorge Ivanov*** President of North Macedonia 2009-2019 Valdis Zatlers*** President of Latvia 2007-2011 Ana Birchall*** Deputy Prime Minister of Romania 2018-2019 Hikmet Cetin*** Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey 1991-1994 Jewel Howard Taylor*** Vice President of Liberia 2018-2024 Djoomart Otorbayev*** Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan 2014-2015 Julio Cobos*** Vice President of Argentina 2007-2011 Ouided Bouchmani*** Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2015 Abdul Rauf AlRawabdeh*** Prime Minister of Jordan 1999-2000 Jadranka Kosor*** Prime Minister of Montenegro 2009-2011 Milica Pejanovic*** Minister of Defense of Montenegro 2012-2016 Mats Karlsson*** Former Vice-President of the World Bank Laimdota Straujuma*** Prime Minister of Latvia 2014-2016 Eka Tkeshelashvili*** Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia 2010-2012, Minister of Foreign Affairs 2010 Moushira Khattab*** Former Minister of State for Family and Population of Egypt Raimonds Vejonis*** President of Latvia 2015-2019 Ilir Meta*** President of Albania 2017-2022 Edmond Panariti*** Former Minister of Foreign affairs, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Albania Andris Piebalgs*** European Commissioner for Development 2010-2014, European Commissioner for Energy 2004-2010 Manuel Pulgar Vidal*** Climate and Energy Global Leader at the World Wide Fund for Nature, Minister of Environment of Peru 2011-2016, President of COP20 Yves Leterme*** Yves Leterme, Prime Minister of Belgium 2008, 2009-201 Rovshan Muradov*** Secretary-General of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center Professor Erik Berglof London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Justin Lin Beijing University Professor Bai Chong-En Tsinghua School of Economics and Management Studies Professor Robin Burgess London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Shang-jin Wei Columbia University Professor Harold James Princeton University Ahmed Galal Former Minister of Finance, Egypt Professor Jong-Wha Lee Korea University Professor Leonhard Wantchekon African School of Economics, Benin Professor Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden Mannheim University Professor Kaushik Basu Cornell University Professor Bengt Holmstrom Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Mathias Dewatripont Université Libre de Bruxelles Professor Dalia Marin University of Munich Professor Richard Portes London Business School Professor Chris Pissarides London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Diane Coyle University of Cambridge Mustapha Nabli Former Governor, Central Bank of Tunisia Professor Wendy Carlin University College London Professor Gerard Roland University of California, Berkeley Professor Nora Lustig Tulane University Piroska Nagy-Mohacsi London School of Economics and Political Science Professor Philippe Aghion College de France Professor Devi Sridhar University of Edinburgh Yu Yongding Former President of China Society in the World Economy Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2006 Kailash Satyarthe, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2014 Sir Ivor Roberts Former UK Ambassador Sir Suma Chakrabarti Former EBRD President Sir Tim Hitchens Former UK Ambassador Alistair Burt Former Minister for Health/International Development Tom Fletcher Former UK Ambassador Julian Braithwaite Former UK Perm Rep to WHO John Casson Former UK Ambassador *indicates membership of Club de Madrid ** Indicates membership of Global Leadership Forum *** Indicates membership of NGIC (Visited 37 times, 3 visits today) FacebookTwitterWhatsAppEmailLinkedInTelegramCondividi 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Turkey expected to become US’ largest supplier of artillery shells Ahmed AdelAhmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher who regularly contributes to InfoBRICS. March 29, 2024 artillery shells VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. Turkey is set to become the United States’ largest supplier of artillery shells as NATO allies have exhausted their stocks and now struggle to ship ammunition to Ukraine. Turkey’s indirect support for Ukraine is also supplemented by direct support, such as producing drones and warships, yet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offers himself as a viable partner in searching for peace between Ukraine and Russia. “Turkish supplies of trinitrotoluene, known as TNT, and nitroguanidine, which is used as a propellant, would be crucial in the production of Nato-standard 155mm calibre ammunition — potentially tripling production, according to officials familiar with the discussions,” a Bloomberg report said, adding: “Turkey is already on track to becoming the biggest seller of the artillery shells to the US as early as this year.” The surge in demand has delayed global orders and has put pressure on defence supply chains, especially for components such as TNT. According to the outlet, to help alleviate this issue, Turkish defence company Repkon’s production lines are expected to produce about 30% of all US-made 155mm artillery shells by 2025. The Pentagon said in a statement about investment in Texas’ defence industry with Turkish counterparts that working with allies “is key to building a global defence industrial base.” Additionally, Washington purchased 116,000 rounds of battle-ready ammunition from Turkish company Arca Defense, with delivery expected later this year and further purchases believed to be concluding soon to be ready for delivery in 2025. As Bloomberg admitted, “The US and European efforts are part of a race to catch up with Moscow, whose war machine has put it in a position to produce or procure – according to some estimates – 4 million rounds this year, including shipments from North Korea. By contrast, the European Union expects to triple its production of artillery shells this year to around 1.4 million units.” It is unsurprising that Turkey has been awarded a lucrative contract, given the recent announcement that Erdogan will visit the White House on May 9, the first time since US President Joe Biden took office. The agreement with Ankara also reveals a delicate balance between the NATO allies, whose relations have been strained by the Russian military operation in Ukraine and Turkey’s months-long block on Sweden’s membership in the Atlantic Alliance. However, with Turkey greenlighting Sweden’s accession and plans to contribute to Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, the country is now being rewarded with export contracts and approval to upgrade its aging F-16 fighter jet fleet. The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used by the Ukrainian military against Russian forces. The drone maker, Baykar, has initiated the construction of a factory in Ukraine, and the company’s CEO said in February that they aim to complete the project within approximately 12 months and produce around 120 units a year. At the same time, it is recalled that in February, France, Greece, and Cyprus blocked financing for the supply of Bayraktar drones and artillery shells for Ukraine, which were to be purchased with European funds. Turkey was set to be financed from EU funds for some time, but once the order was confirmed, the three countries swiftly blocked the financing. Although the initiative failed, the US recognised Turkey’s rapprochement with the West and is now rewarding the country with imports and exports in the defence sector. This is despite the fact that the issue of the acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 is not resolved, which is the reason Turkey was booted from the F-35 fifth-generation fighter jet program to begin with. Erdogan announced his offer to host a peace summit between Ukraine and Russia earlier this month following a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. “Since the beginning, we have contributed as much as we could toward ending the war through negotiations,” Erdogan said. “We are also ready to host a peace summit in which Russia will also be included.” Although Erdogan claims to have contributed as much as possible to ending the war through negotiations, his country has also contributed to prolonging it. It is also recalled that during Zelensky’s visit to Turkey, he visited the shipyard where the two corvettes are being built for the Ukrainian Navy. At the same time, Turkey is providing drones to the Ukrainian military and is now replenishing the US’ artillery stocks. This is even though Ukraine has no chance of winning the war, meaning Turkey is not an honest broker for peace. ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/turkey-expected-to-become-us-largest-supplier-of-artillery-shells/

Australia challenged on ‘moral failure’ of weapons trade with Israel Regular protests have been taking place outside Australian firms making crucial components for the F-35 fighter jet. Ali MC Protesters sitting outside the HTA factory in the Melbourne suburbs,. There is a large placard reading 'Stop arming Israel" Weekly protests have been taking place for months [Ali MC/Al Jazeera] Melbourne, Australia – Israel’s continued assault on Gaza has highlighted a hidden yet crucial component of the world’s weapons manufacturing industry – suburban Australia. Tucked away in Melbourne’s industrial north, Heat Treatment Australia (HTA) is an Australian company that plays a vital role in the production of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters; the same model that Israel is using to bomb Gaza. Weekly protests of about 200 people have been taking place for months outside the nondescript factory, where heat treatment is applied to strengthen components for the fighter jet a product of US military giant Lockheed Martin. While protesters have sometimes brought production to a halt with their pickets, they remain concerned about what’s going on inside factories like HTA. “We decided to hold the community picket to disrupt workers, and we were successful in stopping work for the day,” Nathalie Farah, protest organiser with local group Hume for Palestine, told Al Jazeera. “We consider this to be a win.” “Australia is absolutely complicit in the genocide that is happening,” said 26-year-old Farah, who is of Syrian and Palestinian origin. “Which is contrary to what the government might have us believe.” More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in Gaza six months ago after Hamas killed more than 1,000 people in a surprise attack on Israel. The war, being investigated as a genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has left hundreds of thousands on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations. HTA – which did not respond to Al Jazeera for comment – is just one of an increasing number of companies in Australia engaged in the weapons manufacturing industry. Community organiser Nathalie Farah. She's wearing a Palestinian scarf and a black T-shirt saying Australia. Nathalie Farah has been organising regular protests outside HTA’s factory [Ali MC/Al Jazeera] According to Lockheed Martin, “Every F-35 built contains some Australian parts and components,” with more than 70 Australian companies having export contracts valued at a total 4.13 billion Australian dollars ($2.69bn). Protesters have also picketed Rosebank Engineering, in Melbourne’s southeast, the world’s only producer of the F-35’s “uplock actuator system”, a crucial component of the aircraft’s bomb bay doors. Sign up for Al Jazeera Weekly Newsletter protected by reCAPTCHA Defence industry push In recent years, the Australian government has sought to increase defence exports to boost the country’s flagging manufacturing industry. In 2018, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Australia aimed to become one of the world’s top 10 defence exporters within a decade. It is currently 30th in global arms production, according to the Stockholm International Peace Institute. It is an aspiration that appears set to continue under the government of Anthony Albanese after it concluded a more than one-billion-Australian-dollar deal with Germany to supply more than 100 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles in 2023 – Australia’s single biggest defence industry deal. Since the Gaza war began, the industry and its business relationship with Israel have come increasingly under the spotlight. Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles insisted that there were “no exports of weapons from Australia to Israel and there haven’t been for many, many years”. However, between 2016 and 2023 the Australian government approved some 322 export permits for military and dual-use equipment to Israel. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s own data – available to the public online – shows that Australian exports of “arms and ammunition” to Israel totalled $15.5 million Australian dollars ($10.1m) over the same period of time. Officials now appear to be slowing the export of military equipment to Israel. In a recent interview with Australia’s national broadcaster ABC, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy insisted the country was “not exporting military equipment to Israel” and clarified this meant “military weapons, things like bombs”. However, defence exports from Australia fall into two categories, items specifically for military use – such as Boxer Heavy Weapons vehicles for Germany – and so-called ‘dual use’ products, such as radar or communications systems, that can have both civilian and military uses. Australia’s Department of Defence did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests about whether the halt to defence exports to Israel also included dual-use items. What is certain is that companies such as HTA and Rosebank Engineering are continuing to manufacture components for the F-35, despite the risk of deployment in what South Africa told the International Court of Justice in December amounted to “genocidal acts“. In the Netherlands – where parts for the jet are also manufactured – an appeal court last month ordered the Dutch government to block such exports to Israel citing the risk of breaching international law. The Australian government has also come under scrutiny for its lax “end-use controls” on the weapons and components it exports. As such, while the F-35 components are exported to US parent company Lockheed Martin, their ultimate use is largely outside Australia’s legal purview. Lauren Sanders, senior research fellow on law and the future of war at the University of Queensland, told Al Jazeera that the “on-selling of components and military equipment through third party states is a challenge to global export controls. “Once something is out of a state’s control, it becomes more difficult to trace, and to prevent it being passed on to another country,” she said. Sanders said Australia’s “end use controls” were deficient in comparison with other exporters such as the United States. “The US has hundreds of dedicated staff – with appropriate legal authority to investigate – to chase down potential end-use breaches,” she said. “Australia does not have the same kind of end-use controls in place in its legislation, nor does it have the same enforcement resources that the US does.” A protester carrying a Palestinian flag at a picket outside an Australian arms company. They have wrapped a Palesinian scarf around their face so only their eyes are visible, Other protesters are behind them. They have placards. Some are sitting on the ground. The protesters say they will continue their action until manufacturing of F-35 components is stopped [Ali MC/Al Jazeera] In fact, under legislation passed in November 2023, permits for defence goods are no longer required for exports to the United Kingdom and the US under the AUKUS security agreement. In a statement, the government argued the exemption would “deliver 614 million [Australian dollars; $401m] in value to the Australian economy over 10 years, by reducing costs to local businesses and unlocking investment opportunities with our AUKUS partners”. International law This new legislation may provide more opportunities for Australian weapons manufacturers, such as NIOA, a privately owned munitions company that makes bullets at a factory in Benalla, a small rural town in Australia’s southeast. The largest supplier of munitions to the Australian Defence Force, NIOA – which did not respond to Al Jazeera for comment – also has aspirations to break into the US weapons market. At a recent business conference, CEO Robert Nioa said that “the goal is to establish greater production capabilities in both countries so that Australia can be an alternative source of supply of weapons in times of conflict for the Australian and US militaries”. Greens Senator David Shoebridge told Al Jazeera that the government needed to “publicly and immediately refute the plan to become a top 10 global arms dealer and then to provide full transparency on all Australian arms exports including end users. “While governments in the Netherlands and the UK are facing legal challenges because of their role in the global supply chain, the Australian Labor government just keeps handing over weapons parts as though no genocide was happening,” he said. “It’s an appalling moral failure, and it is almost certainly a gross breach of international law.” The Australian government also recently announced a 917 million Australian dollar ($598m) deal with controversial Israeli company Elbit Systems. A court in the Netherlands hearing a case brought in relation to military exports. The room is wood panelled and there is a portrait on the wall. The Dutch government has faced legal action over the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel [File: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters] Elbit has come under fire for its sale of defence equipment to the Myanmar military regime, continuing sales even after the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup, was accused of gross human rights violations – including attacks on civilians – by the United Nations and others. Despite a recent joint announcement between the Australian and UK governments for an “immediate cessation of fighting” in Gaza, some say Australia needs to go further and cut defence ties with Israel altogether. “The Australian government must listen to the growing public calls for peace and end Australia’s two-way arms trade with Israel,” Shoebridge said. “The Albanese government is rewarding and financing the Israeli arms industry just at the moment they are arming a genocide.” Protests have continued both at the HTA factory in Melbourne and their premises in Brisbane, with organisers pledging to continue until the company stops manufacturing components for the F-35. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/28/australia-challenged-on-moral-failure-of-weapons-trade-with-israel

Energy benchmarking, the practice of measuring a building's energy use over time and comparing it with its past performance or that of similar buildings, is no longer an optional enterprise luxury. It has metamorphosed into a statutory obligation in many regions, aiming to make energy consumption transparent and push for a greener economy. Click here to read more: https://otherarticles.com/business/industrial/288534-8-shocking-ways-energy-benchmarking-laws-are-changing-your-business.html

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937% Increase in Heart Failure among Vaccinated US Military Personnel Fabio G. C. CarisioMarch 19, 2024 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. In the cover image Pfc. Shaniah Edwards, Medical Detachment, prepares to administer the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to soldiers and airmen at the Joint Force Headquarters, February 12, 2021. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Leona C. Hendrickson – Source – particular) Introduction by Carlo Domenico Cristofori VERSIONE IN ITALIANO In the now very distant September 2021, a few months after the entry into force of the most massive mandatory vaccination campaign in the history of the “democratic” West, a doctor in surgery with experience of bacteriological weapons and lieutenant colonel of the US Air Force raised the alarm about the dangers of adverse reactions to mRNA gene sera with serious heart problems. Theresa Long made the complaint about her as a whistleblower in a long and detailed affidavit (sworn report) whichGospa News reported a few days after her diffusion in the USA. Not only. In the same document he communicated that he prohibited all vaccinated pilots of the wing of the 1st Aviation Brigade at the Fort Rucker base (NOW Fort Novosel in Alabama) of which he was the doctor in charge from flying. She was in fact forced to leave the army and is now among the 200 active or retired soldiers like her who have taken legal action against their superiors precisely for the imposition of mandatory vaccination. Declassified Department of Defense data now confirms the validity of her alarm… US Navy Medic Shut Down for Releasing Unclassified DOD Data Showing a 937% Increase in Heart Failure Among Vaccinated US Military Personnel Paul Craig Roberts – originally published on Global Research All links to Gospa News articles have been added aftermath, in relation to the topics highlighted Yesterday I provided examples (link below) of how the establishment, which can only lie, is trying to narrative manage the no longer deniable evidence that the Covid vax is deadly and harmful to health. One of the narrative management tricks is to admit the adverse effects of the “vaccine” but to sweep them under the rug as “rare.” If the dangers of the “vaccine” were rare, Big Pharma would not have its shills at work trying to discredit or dismantle the vaccine adverse events reporting system. That the deaths and health injuries are anything but rare is evident from the report by a US Navy medic that Department of Defense data show that US Navy pilots have suffered a: 937% increase in heart failure 152% increase in cardiomyopathy 69% increase in ischemic heart disease 36% increase in hypertensive disease 36% increase in hypertensive disease 63% increase in other forms of heart disease The corrupt US Department of Defense, a ramp for the excess profits of the armaments industry, tried to blame the events on the Covid virus itself. However, “according to information published by the US Army, 97% of active-duty U.S. troops are fully vaccinated, 90% of Army National Guard members are fully vaccinated, and 91% of U.S. Army Reserve members are fully vaccinated.” So, if the “vaccine” did not cause the deaths and health injuries, and the virus was responsible, obviously the “vaccine” was totally ineffective in protecting against the virus. In actual fact, according to independent medical scientists, the “vaccine” not only did not protect but caused more deaths and worst health injuries than the virus itself. This is the honest, documented, verified conclusion of medical scientists whose research and results are not financed by Big Pharma and the universities that rely on pharmaceutical industry grants. It is the independent scientists who are motivated by truth instead of profit and career who tell the truth and suffer for it. As the US Navy medic now suffers. Lt. Ted Macie met with the female Chief of Naval Operations and her aide, and afterward found that he was blocked from access to his computer. Charges are likely pending against him. So, we see how powerful Big Pharma is. Not even the US Navy is permitted to release unclassified data that show the devastating impact of the Covid “vaccine.” See this. Paul Craig Roberts – originally published on Global Research Note to readers: Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Fabio is investigative journalist since 1991. Now geopolitics, intelligence, military, SARS-Cov-2 manmade, NWO expert and Director-founder of Gospa News: a Christian Information Journal. His articles were published on many international media and website as SouthFront, Reseau International, Sputnik Italia, United Nation Association Westminster, Global Research, Kolozeg and more… Most popolar investigation on VT is: Rumsfeld Shady Heritage in Pandemic: GILEAD’s Intrigues with WHO & Wuhan Lab. Bio-Weapons’ Tests with CIA & Pentagon Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio, born on 24/2/1967 in Borgosesia, started working as a reporter when he was only 19 years old in the alpine area of Valsesia, Piedmont, his birth region in Italy. After studying literature and history at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, he became director of the local newspaper Notizia Oggi Vercelli and specialized in judicial reporting. For about 15 years he is a correspondent from Northern Italy for the Italian newspapers Libero and Il Giornale, also writing important revelations on the Ustica massacre, a report on Freemasonry and organized crime. With independent investigations, he collaborates with Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in important investigations that conclude with the arrest of Camorra entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians. In July 2018 he found the counter-information web media Gospa News focused on geopolitics, terrorism, Middle East, and military intelligence. In 2020 published the book, in Italian only, WUHAN-GATES – The New World Order Plot on SARS-Cov-2 manmade focused on the cycle of investigations Wuhan-Gates His investigations was quoted also by The Gateway Pundit, Tasnim and others He worked for many years for the magazine Art & Wine as an art critic and curator. VETERANS TODAY OLD POSTS www.gospanews.net/ ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/937-increase-in-heart-failure-among-vaccinated-us-military-personnel/

Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions Hekmat AboukhaterMarch 20, 2024 A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission. On the morning of March 7, as the US Capitol teemed with lobbyists securing earmarks ahead of appropriations week and activists decrying the Gaza genocide, one special interest group on the Hill stood out. In the corridors of the Rayburn building, a group of roughly 50 people prepared for a busy day of advocating for sanctions to be levied against their homeland. They were the Anti-Syria lobby — and had I infiltrated their influence campaign. Throughout the day, I watched as this group pushed US officials to accept their policy of starvation sanctions while cynically ignoring famished Palestinians in Gaza. Among the lobbyists was Raed Saleh, the head of the Syrian White Helmets, who were to propagandize for regime change from behind humanitarian cover. I attended a total of seven meetings with policy teams representing Senators Sherrod Brown, Maggie Hassan, Ben Cardin, Mark Kelly, Chris Van Hollen, John Fetterman, and Rick Scott. Throughout these sessions, I witnessed the anti-Syria Lobby attempt to bully and manipulate US officials into accepting their policy of starvation while cynically throwing starving Palestinians in Gaza under the bus. At one moment, Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian White Helmets, which was founded by British intelligence, and funded by NATO states, painted Israeli air strikes against Syria in a positive light. During a separate meeting, Wa’el Alzayat of the pro-Zionist Muslim outreach Emgage even demanded Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office support the approval of aid for Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria. “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he insisted, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, [and] the Qataris are doing it.” Purporting to be a voice for all Syrians, the anti-Syria lobby is spearheaded by the American Coalition for Syria (ACS), an umbrella organization representing opposition groups such as the Syrian American Council (SAC), the Syrian Forum, and a handful of others located in the US and Turkey. Emgage, meanwhile, has been credited with getting the diaspora vote out for then-candidate Joe Biden in November 2020. The group has since fallen under criticism for acting as a de facto extension of the Biden White House and Democratic Party within the Muslim community. Emgage board member Farooq Mitha formally went to work for the Biden Pentagon in March 2021. On March 7, Alzayat aimed to weaponize Emgage’s influence against Democratic Senators who seemed uncomfortable with an escalating sanctions policy. “I need a good story for my voters,” he explained to Senator Van Hollen’s team. Throughout their sanctions campaign on the Hill, Alzayat and his cohorts operated like a miniature version of their Israel lobby allies, supplying roughly 50 volunteers with folders outlining talking points and the biographies of congressional representatives. The bios included a comprehensive list of the Senator or Representative’s recorded stance on Syria, such as their votes on the extension of the AUMF, the US military withdrawal from Syria, and previous sanctions packages targeting the country. The handouts also laid out the lobby’s key legislative requests, which largely focused on securing development aid for militia-controlled territory in Syria — including that held by Al Qaeda’s local ally in the country — and ensuring passage of the ‘Assad Regime Anti Normalization Bill,’ which seeks to extend and expand sanctions targeting Damascus. The Anti-Syria Lobby’s resemblance to their Israeli counterparts was no mistake. As Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s chief of staff reassured us, “the Israelis want you guys in charge.” Syrian Civil War map|Syrian Civil War map (November 24, 2023) via Wikimedia Commons. Edited by author More Starvation Sanctions Ever since the US included Syria on its inaugural State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list over Damascus’ support for the Palestinian resistance in 1979, Washington has gradually ratcheted up its financial war on the Syrian people. When decades of covert hybrid war erupted into an all-out proxy battle for the country’s territory—and survival—in 2011, the Anti-Syria Lobby officially began to take shape in Washington. Syria is the unrivaled champion of the SST having never been delisted since the list’s inception in 1979. In 2019, as Syria’s government emerged victorious from a multi-year battle with foreign-backed militias, Washington decided that while Damascus may have won the war, it would not win the peace. That January, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, a recipient of $1.8 million in AIPAC donations, introduced a sanctions package known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Trump signed the bill as part of the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020. The US has a 45-year long tradition of sanctioning and isolating Syria economically in response to the country’s support of Palestinian resistance The bill was unprecedented in both the way that it sanctioned broad sectors of the Syrian economy rather than only specific individuals, and in its deployment of so-called “secondary sanctions.” Secondary sanctions are imposed on parties that do business with a sanctioned entity even if those exchanges occur outside of the sanctioning entity’s jurisdiction. Syria’s economy has been in free fall ever since the Caesar sanctions came into effect. Today, over 12 million Syrians representing more than half of the total population face food insecurity — a 51% increase from 2019. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. In 2019, the US dollar exchanged for 500 Syrian Pounds. Today, that number is more like 14,100— figures that represent a 2,720 percent devaluation. The Syrian currency has devalued by 35,150% since the initial exchange rate of 40 SYP to 1 USD early 2011 Though H.R. 3202 appears to be focused on addressing UN aid divergence, and sanctioning previously unsanctioned entities like Asma Al Assad’s Syria Trust for Development and the Syrian Red Crescent, the real agenda of the bill is found deep within its 22-page text. With the Caesar Sanctions set to expire by the end of 2024, H.R. 3202 seeks to quietly extend the aggressive financial measures until 2032. The new bill’s main aim, which received very little attention, is the extension of the Caesar Act for 8 more years. Having passed the House with overwhelming enthusiasm, H.R. 3202’s sister bill in the Senate can only pass with Democratic support. It was introduced by Israeli lobby-funded Republican Idaho Sen. James Risch last September and has since been co-sponsored by arch-neoconservative Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Because S. 2935 can only pass with Democratic sponsorship, the Anti-Syria Lobby chose Sen. Ben Cardin, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the anti-Russia Magnitsky Act, as a crucial target for influence. After meeting with Sherrod Brown’s office, Cardin’s Research and Legislative Assistant, Christopher Barr, hosted us in the Senator’s office. There, Raed Saleh of the White Helmets complained to Barr that USAID had slashed funding for his organization from $12 million to $3 million in recent years. Next, it was time to discuss the true purpose of our visit: the passage of S. 2935. Barr appeared uneasy from the outset and even expressed displeasure about the bill, complaining, “What passed the House was kind of a lot… the list of targets is vast.” “Syria has already been so heavily sanctioned,” he added. In response, Ghanem revealed a critical piece of information about the forces driving the dirty war on Syria, explaining that the impetus to expand and extend Caesar did not come from the Anti-Syria Lobby itself, but someone on Capitol Hill. Ghanem explained that the Hill source actually contacted the American Coalition for Syria to alert them to the fact that Caesar was set to expire, lamenting the fact that its sunset would amount to a loss of “US leverage over the Syrian regime.” This line echoed the disturbing language of officials representing both the Biden and Trump administration alike. In 2019, neoconservative operative Dana Stroul declared that thanks to Caesar, Washington “holds a card on preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back,” to Syria. She lauded the fact that the U.S. could weaponize that “leverage” to keep Syria in “rubble.” Two years later, she would take up post as Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East under Biden. Similarly, during an event at the neoconservative think tank, WINEP, the following year, the Special Envoy for Syria under Trump, Joel Rayburn, boasted that Caesar “lowers the bar” for evidence-based sanctions and allows for the broad targeting of any and all reconstruction projects in Syria. “We don’t have to prove, for example, that a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in the Damascus region is dealing directly with the Assad regime,” Rayburn explained. “We don’t have to have the evidence to prove that link,” he continued. “We just have to have the evidence that proves that a company or an individual is investing in […] the construction sector, the engineering sector, most of the aviation sector, the finance sector, energy sector, and so on.” These public confessions did not stop the Anti-Syria Lobby from lying to the faces of congressional staffers throughout their March 7 campaign. During a meeting with Sen. Mark Kelly’s office, Ghanem falsely stated that the Caesar Sanctions were “targeted,” “not sectoral,” and “not [an] embargo, nothing punishing to civilians.” Yet Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions who visited Syria to document the effects of Washington’s unilateral sanctions regime on Syria, disagrees. In her 19-page report she clearly states that the sanctions are both illegal and inhumane in the way they affect the average Syrian. Stabilization for me but not for thee The second legislative ask came in the form of a well rehearsed speech by Ghanem, Zayat, and others, outlining what US tax dollars do and don’t fund in Syria. US aid packages are typically divided into two categories: “humanitarian funding” earmarked for goods such as food, water, and basic medical supplies or “stabilization” funding designed to secure a country as it transitions out of a period of turmoil. Unlike humanitarian assistance, stabilization funding may be used to support major investment and infrastructure projects such as roads, schools, healthcare facilities, and government services. The US is the primary funder of humanitarian aid in both North East (NE) and NW Syria. However, while the US spends abundantly on stabilization needs in NE Syria, it spends $0 on the NW. That is because while Washington has long dreamed of establishing a secessionist Kurdish state in Syria’s Northeast, it neglected to send stabilization funds to the Northwest in order to avoid providing direct support to HTS, the Al Qaeda offshoot that governs the territory. The Anti-Syria Lobby was in Washington to change that. Leading the push for US funds to Al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Northwest Syria was Wa’el Alzayat, a Syrian expat who proudly served in Iraq’s Green Zone under George Bush’s State Department and more recently published a shocking Washington Post oped begging US officials not to “lift sanctions to help Syria earthquake victims.” In the office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Alzayat voiced his frustration with US hesitation in the Northwest. “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he demanded, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, the Qataris are doing it.” We’re missing out on a golden opportunity here to stabilize the region and leverage it for a political settlement,” he pleaded. In other words, Alzayat was openly lobbying US officials to strengthen Al Qaeda’s position in Syria in order to leverage the terrorist group against the country’s government. Alzayat then weaponized his six-figure salary as head of Emgage to bully Van Hollen’s office into bowing before the anti-Syria Lobby, falsely claiming that his AIPAC-linked organization was “behind” the “Uncommitted” vote campaigns that damaged Biden’s primary performance in Michigan and Minnesota. Towards the end of the meeting, the regime change lobbyist cynically invoked Israel’s slaughter of 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza to make the case for Al Qaeda in Syria one last time. He argued that although “his community” is up in arms about the Biden administration’s funding and arming of the Gaza genocide, they would gladly flock back to the Democratic Party if the US funded roads and schools in Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib. “I need a good story for my voters,” Alzayat explained, noting the Muslim community’s disapproval of the Biden Administration’s policy in Gaza and Yemen. “You’re upset about all these disappointments,” he continued, play-acting a scenario in which he convinced a Muslim constituent to vote for Biden, again. “Guess what? They’re pumping 50 million into the school sector in the North [of Syria]!” Overtures Towards Israel The Israel-Palestine crisis loomed large throughout the ACS lobbying trip. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s secretary happened to be a hijabi Muslim woman sporting a pendant outlining the map of Palestine around her neck. As she greeted us, Farouk Belal, the head of the Syrian American Council, grumbled to Ghanem and me: “I hope she’s not with the resistance.” When I asked him to clarify what he meant as we exited the office, he explained that people aligned with the Palestinian cause in Washington “don’t like us.” Meanwhile, in Sen. Cardin’s office, Raed Salah of the White Helmets painted Israeli strikes on Syria which have crippled Syrian infrastructure, regularly damaged the country’s International civilian airports, and killed hundreds of Syrian Soldiers and civilians alike in a positive light: “The situation in Syria is very complicated. Every day we hear of Israeli strikes on the dens, or the bases of the IRGC and its militias. Even we as Syrians did not know the extent to which the Iranians were entrenched in the country…” For Saleh, the Israeli strikes do nothing but highlight the presence of the Syrian government-invited Iranian military presence in Syria. Later that day, Ghanem attempted to capitalize on Sen. Fetterman’s fanatical pro-Israel antics by describing recent developments in Syria to a 20-something staffer. Referring to the Syrian government’s successful campaign to retake southern territory, he explained that the South is “where they lob missiles on Israel, by the way.” The aide dutifully transcribed this seemingly random piece of information in her notepad. Towards the end of the meeting, Fetterman was discussed as a potential Democratic sponsor of S. 2935 in the Senate. In Senator Rick Scott’s office, a Cuban American Government Relations Associate for ACS, Alberto Hernandez, accidentally said the quiet part out loud. When Senator Scott’s ultra-Zionist National Security Advisor, Paul Bonicelli, asked if our group had connected with our “counterparts” in the Israeli lobby so that they could “vet” our proposals — revealing that Scott has apparently outsourced his brain to Zionists — Hernandez remarked: “Formally? No. Informally.” He then turned to the rest of the ACS team in the meeting room and said: “You didn’t hear me say that.” That admission prompted Bonicelli to suggest that ACS directly coordinate with groups such as the Aramaic Church in Israel, which has supported regime change efforts in Damascus despite overwhelming Christian support of the government within Syria itself. As the meeting wound to a close, Bonicelli informed us that he agreed with ACS on the necessity to oppose Iran and Russia. “If Obama had done the right thing in 2012, we wouldn’t be here,” he lamented, adding: “the Israelis want you guys in charge.” At one point during the meeting in Rick Scott’s Office, Alberto Hernandez, and Sarah Salas, a Cuban American legislative aide, expressed full agreement with US use of unilateral sanctions as means to “push” governments that “we don’t like.” Starving Syrians Without A Mandate Though several ACS volunteers shared painful personal encounters with the Syrian government throughout the day, many were simply too far removed from Syria to truly represent the voice of Syrian people, especially the 12 million plus civilians currently living in Syrian government-controlled territory. One 24-year-old woman who did not speak Arabic and has not been to Syria since 2003 described the Syrian Army’s 2016 liberation of Aleppo from Al Qaeda-linked militants as “the fall of Aleppo.” Other Syrians like myself experienced the terror of the West’s proxy war in Syria firsthand. In 2012, my aunt and cousins watched in horror as the Turkish-backed Liwa’ Al Tawhid, an umbrella group of takfiri jihadist militias, arrived on their street in the Seryan El Jdideh neighborhood of Aleppo. The militants proceeded to execute a local pick-up truck driver and steal his vehicle, leaving his bleeding corpse on the street. Shahba, where my family lived up until 2015, was located just a stone’s throw away from these sectarian death squads during our final months there. The Syrian dirty war was bloody and gruesome, yet the picture that ACS paints is entirely one-sided. Unfortunately, while organizations like ACS have flocked to the Beltway swamp throughout the last 13 years, there are no Syrians present in Washington DC to counter them. While these groups claim to speak on behalf of the Syrian people, those of us who have lived and still live in areas controlled by Syrian government — regardless of our political affiliations—are rendered voiceless in the very center of power where our perspective should matter most. Even Syria’s embassy has been shuttered since 2014, while Syrian diplomats at the UN in New York are heavily monitored and restricted from traveling beyond the NYC metro area. As I witnessed on Capitol Hill, there are few obstacles to the anti-Syria lobby’s ruthless push to prevent the majority of Syrians from emerging from the ruins of war. https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/20/anti-syria-lobbys-capitol-hill-sanctions/

Avi Shlaim: ‘Three Worlds – Memoirs of an Arab – Jew’ This beautiful, inspiring, elegiac book is the story of the author’s journey – a journey from Baghdad to Israel in 1950, aged five, and from Israel to England. But Avi Schlaim’s journey was at different levels. It was geographical and it was cultural. It also became a political journey to his own position today. His personal experiences illustrate a bigger story of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel in 1950 following the creation of Israel in 1948. His story and his words speak more eloquently than any reviewer can, and so for the most part, I quote directly from his memoir. The book is “a glimpse into the lost and rich world of the Iraqi-Jewish community”. Perhaps, coming from what he describes as a prosperous, privileged family, he may see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But his memories are precious. “We belonged to a branch of the global Jewish community that is now almost extinct. We were Arab-Jews. We lived in Baghdad and were well integrated into Iraqi society. We spoke Arabic at home, our social customs were Arab, our lifestyle was Arab, our cuisine was exquisitely Middle Eastern and my parents’ music was an attractive blend of Arabic and Jewish…We in the Jewish community had much more in common, linguistically and culturally, with our Iraqi compatriots than with our European co-religionists. Of all the Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire, the one in Mesopotamia was the most integrated into local society, the most Arabised in its culture and the most prosperous… When the British created the Kingdom of Iraq…the Jews were the backbone of the Iraqi economy” Jewish lineage in Mesopotamia stretched as far back as Babylonian times, pre-dating the rise of Islam by a millenium. “Their influence was evident in every branch of Iraqi culture, from literature and music to journalism and banking. Banks – with the exception of government owned banks – and all the big markets remained closed on the Sabbath and the other Jewish holy days.” By the 1880s there were 55 synagogues in Baghdad. He describes how in Iraq there was a long tradition of religious tolerance and harmony. “The Jews were neither newcomers nor aliens in Iraq. They were certainly not intruders”. By the time of the First World War, Jews constituted one third of the population of Baghdad. He contrasts Europe and the Middle East. “Unlike Europe the Middle East did not have a ‘Jewish Question’. “Iraq’s Jews did not live in ghettos, nor did they experience the violent repression, persecution and genocide that marred European history. There were of course exceptions, notably the infamous pogrom against Jews in June 1941, for which the actions of British imperialism must take substantial responsibility. By 1941, antisemitism in Baghdad was on the increase but was more a foreign import than a home grown product. There was a violent pogrom against the Jewish community named the farhud. The Jews were seen as friends of the British. 179 Jews were murdered and several hundred injured. It was completely unexpected and unprecedented. There had been no other attack against the Jews for centuries. Avi gives many examples of Muslims assisting their Jewish neighbours. And yet he writes: “The overall picture, however, was one of religious tolerance, cosmopolitanism, peaceful co-existence and fruitful interaction.” The critical moment was the creation of Israel. “As a result of the Arab defeat, there was a backlash against the Jews throughout the Arab world. “What had been a pillar of Iraqi society was increasingly perceived as a sinister fifth column”, with Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists identifying the Jews in their countries with the hated Zionist enemy. Palestinians “were the main victims of the Zionist project. More than half their number became refugees and the name Palestine was wiped off the map. But there was another category of victims, less well known and much less talked about: the Jews of the Arab lands”. The sub-title of the book refers to ‘Arab-Jews’. “The hyphen is significant. Critics of the term Arab-Jew see it as… conflating two separate identities. As I see it, the hyphen unites: an Arab can also be a Jew and a Jew can also be an Arab…We are told that there is a clash of cultures, an unbridgeable gulf between Muslims and Jews… The story of my family in Iraq -and that of many forgotten families like mine – points to a dramatically different picture. It harks back to an era of a more pluralist Middle East with greater religious tolerance and a political culture of mutual respect and co-operation.” Yet the Zionists portray the Jews as the victims of endemic Arab persecution and this is used to justify the atrocious treatment of the Palestinians. Thus the narrative of the ‘Jewish Nakba’ to create a ‘false symmetry between the fate of two communities. This narrative is not history; it is the propaganda of the victors.” On 29th November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for the partition of mandate Palestine into two states: one Arab, one Jewish. The General Council of the Iraqi Jewish community sent a telegram to the UN opposing the partition resolution and the creation of a Jewish state. “Like my family, the majority of Iraqi Jews saw themselves as Iraqi first and Jewish second; they feared that the creation of a Jewish state would undermine their position in Iraq… The distinction between Jews and Zionists, so crucial to interfaith harmony in the Arab world, was rapidly breaking down”. Iraq’s participation in the war for Palestine fuelled tensions between Muslims and Jews. Iraqi Jews were widely suspected of being secret supporters of Israel. With the defeat of Palestine a wave of hostility towards Israel and the Jews living in their midst swept through the Arab world. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad shouting “Death to the Jews.” And the government needing a scapegoat did not simply respond to public anger but actively whipped up public hysteria and suspicion against the Jews. At this point official persecution against the Jews began. In July 1948 a law was passed making Zionism a criminal offence punishable by death or a minimum sentence of seven years in prison. Jews were fired from government jobs and from the railways, post office and telegraph department, Jewish merchants were denied import and export licences, restrictions placed on Jewish banks to trade in foreign currency, young Jews were barred from admission to colleges of education and the entire community was put under surveillance. The number of Jewish immigrants leaving Iraq to the end of 1953 numbered almost 125,000 out of a total of 135,000. The Jewish presence going back well over 2,000 years was destroyed. And yet for all this the mass exodus did not occur till 1950/1951 in what was known as the ‘Big Aliyah”. The majority of Iraqi Jews did not want to leave Iraq and had no affinity with Zionism. Most who emigrated to Israel did so only after a wave of five bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad. It has long been argued that the bombings were instigated by Israel and the Zionists to spark a mass flight of Iraqi Jews to Israel, needed as they were to do many of the menial jobs and to boost numbers in the army. The author makes a forensic examination of the evidence – based on examination of documents and on interviews – and concluded that three out of the five bombings were carried out by the Zionist underground in Baghdad, a fourth – the bombing of the Mas’uda Shemtob synagogue, which was the only one that resulted in fatalities – was the result of Zionist bribery and there was one carried out by a far right wing, anti-Jewish Iraqi nationalist group. When the Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel, their experience fell short of the Zionist myth. At the airport in Israel, many were sprayed with DDT pesticides “to disinfect them as if they were animals.” They were then taken to squalid and unsanitary transit camps. Some camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by policemen. The immigration and settlement authorities had no understanding of their customs and culture. “They thought of them as backward and primitive and expected them to take their place at the bottom of the social hierarchy and be grateful for whatever they were given… The lens through which the new immigrants were viewed was the same colonialist lens through which the Ashkenazi establishment viewed the Palestinians.” “We were Jews from an Arab country that was still officially at war with Israel. European Jews.. looked down on us as socially and culturally inferior. They despised the Arabic language…I was an Iraqi boy in a land of Europeans.” For his grandmothers, Iraq was the beloved homeland while Israel was the place of exile. “Migration to Israel is usually described as Aliyah or ascent. For us the move from Iraq to Israel was decidedly a Yeridah, a descent down the economic and social ladder. Not only did we lose our property and possessions; we also our lost our strong sense of identity as proud Iraqi Jews as we were relegated to the margins of Israeli society.” The experience was to break his father. “The unstated aims of the official policy for schools were to undermine our Arab-Jewish identity… A systematic process was at work to delegitimise our heritage and erase our cultural roots” It was a clash of cultures. The Mizrahim were earmarked to be the proletariat – the fodder to support the country’s industrial and agricultural development. As one author put it, “We left Iraq as Jews and arrived in Israel as Iraqis.” They were clearly, to borrow from current jargon, “the wrong kind of Israeli”. His journey was a political one too. His message and his warnings are unequivocally universalist. “The Holocaust stands out as an archetype of a crime against humanity. For me as a Jew and an Israeli therefore the Holocaust teaches us to resist the dehumanising of any people, including the Palestinian ‘victims of victims’, because dehumanising a people can easily result, as it did in Europe in the 1940s, in crimes against humanity.” He had previously argued that it was only after the 1967 war that Israel became a colonial power, oppressing the Palestinians in the occupied territories. However, “a deeper analysis… led me to the conclusion that Israel had been created by a settler-colonial movement. The years 1948 and 1967 were merely milestones in the relentless systematic takeover of the whole of Palestine… Since Zionism was an avowedly settler-colonial movement from the outset, the building of civilian settlements on occupied land was only a new stage in the long march… The most crucial turning point was not the war of 1967 but the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.” And more: “the two-state solution is dead or, to be more accurate, it was never born… The outcome I have come to favour is one democratic state… with equal rights for all its citizens regardless of ethnicity or religion.” He is absolutely right in my view. His family’s story “serves as a corrective to the Zionist narrative which views Arabs and Jews as congenitally incapable of dwelling together in peace and doomed to permanent conflict and discord… My experience as a young boy and that of the whole Jewish community in Iraq, suggests there is nothing inevitable or pre-ordained about Arab-Jewish antagonism… Remembering the past can help us to envisage a better future… Arab-Jewish co-existence is not something that my family imagined in our minds; we experienced it, we touched it.” Optimistic? Yes, perhaps over-optimistic. But towards the end of this masterpiece, Avi Schlaim justifies his message. “Recalling the era of cosmopolitanism and co-existence that some Jews, like my family, enjoyed in Arab countries before 1948 offers a glimmer of hope… It’s the best model we have for a better future.” https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/avi-shlaim-three-worlds-memoirs-of-an-arab-jew/

Avi Shlaim: ‘Three Worlds – Memoirs of an Arab – Jew’ This beautiful, inspiring, elegiac book is the story of the author’s journey – a journey from Baghdad to Israel in 1950, aged five, and from Israel to England. But Avi Schlaim’s journey was at different levels. It was geographical and it was cultural. It also became a political journey to his own position today. His personal experiences illustrate a bigger story of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel in 1950 following the creation of Israel in 1948. His story and his words speak more eloquently than any reviewer can, and so for the most part, I quote directly from his memoir. The book is “a glimpse into the lost and rich world of the Iraqi-Jewish community”. Perhaps, coming from what he describes as a prosperous, privileged family, he may see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But his memories are precious. “We belonged to a branch of the global Jewish community that is now almost extinct. We were Arab-Jews. We lived in Baghdad and were well integrated into Iraqi society. We spoke Arabic at home, our social customs were Arab, our lifestyle was Arab, our cuisine was exquisitely Middle Eastern and my parents’ music was an attractive blend of Arabic and Jewish…We in the Jewish community had much more in common, linguistically and culturally, with our Iraqi compatriots than with our European co-religionists. Of all the Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire, the one in Mesopotamia was the most integrated into local society, the most Arabised in its culture and the most prosperous… When the British created the Kingdom of Iraq…the Jews were the backbone of the Iraqi economy” Jewish lineage in Mesopotamia stretched as far back as Babylonian times, pre-dating the rise of Islam by a millenium. “Their influence was evident in every branch of Iraqi culture, from literature and music to journalism and banking. Banks – with the exception of government owned banks – and all the big markets remained closed on the Sabbath and the other Jewish holy days.” By the 1880s there were 55 synagogues in Baghdad. He describes how in Iraq there was a long tradition of religious tolerance and harmony. “The Jews were neither newcomers nor aliens in Iraq. They were certainly not intruders”. By the time of the First World War, Jews constituted one third of the population of Baghdad. He contrasts Europe and the Middle East. “Unlike Europe the Middle East did not have a ‘Jewish Question’. “Iraq’s Jews did not live in ghettos, nor did they experience the violent repression, persecution and genocide that marred European history. There were of course exceptions, notably the infamous pogrom against Jews in June 1941, for which the actions of British imperialism must take substantial responsibility. By 1941, antisemitism in Baghdad was on the increase but was more a foreign import than a home grown product. There was a violent pogrom against the Jewish community named the farhud. The Jews were seen as friends of the British. 179 Jews were murdered and several hundred injured. It was completely unexpected and unprecedented. There had been no other attack against the Jews for centuries. Avi gives many examples of Muslims assisting their Jewish neighbours. And yet he writes: “The overall picture, however, was one of religious tolerance, cosmopolitanism, peaceful co-existence and fruitful interaction.” The critical moment was the creation of Israel. “As a result of the Arab defeat, there was a backlash against the Jews throughout the Arab world. “What had been a pillar of Iraqi society was increasingly perceived as a sinister fifth column”, with Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists identifying the Jews in their countries with the hated Zionist enemy. Palestinians “were the main victims of the Zionist project. More than half their number became refugees and the name Palestine was wiped off the map. But there was another category of victims, less well known and much less talked about: the Jews of the Arab lands”. The sub-title of the book refers to ‘Arab-Jews’. “The hyphen is significant. Critics of the term Arab-Jew see it as… conflating two separate identities. As I see it, the hyphen unites: an Arab can also be a Jew and a Jew can also be an Arab…We are told that there is a clash of cultures, an unbridgeable gulf between Muslims and Jews… The story of my family in Iraq -and that of many forgotten families like mine – points to a dramatically different picture. It harks back to an era of a more pluralist Middle East with greater religious tolerance and a political culture of mutual respect and co-operation.” Yet the Zionists portray the Jews as the victims of endemic Arab persecution and this is used to justify the atrocious treatment of the Palestinians. Thus the narrative of the ‘Jewish Nakba’ to create a ‘false symmetry between the fate of two communities. This narrative is not history; it is the propaganda of the victors.” On 29th November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for the partition of mandate Palestine into two states: one Arab, one Jewish. The General Council of the Iraqi Jewish community sent a telegram to the UN opposing the partition resolution and the creation of a Jewish state. “Like my family, the majority of Iraqi Jews saw themselves as Iraqi first and Jewish second; they feared that the creation of a Jewish state would undermine their position in Iraq… The distinction between Jews and Zionists, so crucial to interfaith harmony in the Arab world, was rapidly breaking down”. Iraq’s participation in the war for Palestine fuelled tensions between Muslims and Jews. Iraqi Jews were widely suspected of being secret supporters of Israel. With the defeat of Palestine a wave of hostility towards Israel and the Jews living in their midst swept through the Arab world. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad shouting “Death to the Jews.” And the government needing a scapegoat did not simply respond to public anger but actively whipped up public hysteria and suspicion against the Jews. At this point official persecution against the Jews began. In July 1948 a law was passed making Zionism a criminal offence punishable by death or a minimum sentence of seven years in prison. Jews were fired from government jobs and from the railways, post office and telegraph department, Jewish merchants were denied import and export licences, restrictions placed on Jewish banks to trade in foreign currency, young Jews were barred from admission to colleges of education and the entire community was put under surveillance. The number of Jewish immigrants leaving Iraq to the end of 1953 numbered almost 125,000 out of a total of 135,000. The Jewish presence going back well over 2,000 years was destroyed. And yet for all this the mass exodus did not occur till 1950/1951 in what was known as the ‘Big Aliyah”. The majority of Iraqi Jews did not want to leave Iraq and had no affinity with Zionism. Most who emigrated to Israel did so only after a wave of five bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad. It has long been argued that the bombings were instigated by Israel and the Zionists to spark a mass flight of Iraqi Jews to Israel, needed as they were to do many of the menial jobs and to boost numbers in the army. The author makes a forensic examination of the evidence – based on examination of documents and on interviews – and concluded that three out of the five bombings were carried out by the Zionist underground in Baghdad, a fourth – the bombing of the Mas’uda Shemtob synagogue, which was the only one that resulted in fatalities – was the result of Zionist bribery and there was one carried out by a far right wing, anti-Jewish Iraqi nationalist group. When the Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel, their experience fell short of the Zionist myth. At the airport in Israel, many were sprayed with DDT pesticides “to disinfect them as if they were animals.” They were then taken to squalid and unsanitary transit camps. Some camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by policemen. The immigration and settlement authorities had no understanding of their customs and culture. “They thought of them as backward and primitive and expected them to take their place at the bottom of the social hierarchy and be grateful for whatever they were given… The lens through which the new immigrants were viewed was the same colonialist lens through which the Ashkenazi establishment viewed the Palestinians.” “We were Jews from an Arab country that was still officially at war with Israel. European Jews.. looked down on us as socially and culturally inferior. They despised the Arabic language…I was an Iraqi boy in a land of Europeans.” For his grandmothers, Iraq was the beloved homeland while Israel was the place of exile. “Migration to Israel is usually described as Aliyah or ascent. For us the move from Iraq to Israel was decidedly a Yeridah, a descent down the economic and social ladder. Not only did we lose our property and possessions; we also our lost our strong sense of identity as proud Iraqi Jews as we were relegated to the margins of Israeli society.” The experience was to break his father. “The unstated aims of the official policy for schools were to undermine our Arab-Jewish identity… A systematic process was at work to delegitimise our heritage and erase our cultural roots” It was a clash of cultures. The Mizrahim were earmarked to be the proletariat – the fodder to support the country’s industrial and agricultural development. As one author put it, “We left Iraq as Jews and arrived in Israel as Iraqis.” They were clearly, to borrow from current jargon, “the wrong kind of Israeli”. His journey was a political one too. His message and his warnings are unequivocally universalist. “The Holocaust stands out as an archetype of a crime against humanity. For me as a Jew and an Israeli therefore the Holocaust teaches us to resist the dehumanising of any people, including the Palestinian ‘victims of victims’, because dehumanising a people can easily result, as it did in Europe in the 1940s, in crimes against humanity.” He had previously argued that it was only after the 1967 war that Israel became a colonial power, oppressing the Palestinians in the occupied territories. However, “a deeper analysis… led me to the conclusion that Israel had been created by a settler-colonial movement. The years 1948 and 1967 were merely milestones in the relentless systematic takeover of the whole of Palestine… Since Zionism was an avowedly settler-colonial movement from the outset, the building of civilian settlements on occupied land was only a new stage in the long march… The most crucial turning point was not the war of 1967 but the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.” And more: “the two-state solution is dead or, to be more accurate, it was never born… The outcome I have come to favour is one democratic state… with equal rights for all its citizens regardless of ethnicity or religion.” He is absolutely right in my view. His family’s story “serves as a corrective to the Zionist narrative which views Arabs and Jews as congenitally incapable of dwelling together in peace and doomed to permanent conflict and discord… My experience as a young boy and that of the whole Jewish community in Iraq, suggests there is nothing inevitable or pre-ordained about Arab-Jewish antagonism… Remembering the past can help us to envisage a better future… Arab-Jewish co-existence is not something that my family imagined in our minds; we experienced it, we touched it.” Optimistic? Yes, perhaps over-optimistic. But towards the end of this masterpiece, Avi Schlaim justifies his message. “Recalling the era of cosmopolitanism and co-existence that some Jews, like my family, enjoyed in Arab countries before 1948 offers a glimmer of hope… It’s the best model we have for a better future.” https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/avi-shlaim-three-worlds-memoirs-of-an-arab-jew/

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

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

Whether pursuing entrepreneurial ventures or freelance opportunities, mastering these skills can significantly enhance one’s ability to make money online. https://countermarkets.com/5-essential-skills-digital-economy/

Scott Ritter: We are witnessing the bittersweet birth of a new Russia | VT Foreign Policy March 10, 2024 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. Tucker Carlson’s confused exasperation over Russian President Vladmir Putin’s extemporaneous history lesson at the start of their landmark February interview (which has been watched more than a billion times), underscored one realty. For a Western audience, the question of the historical bona fides of Russia’s claim of sovereign interest in territories located on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnieper River, currently claimed by Ukraine, is confusing to the point of incomprehension. Vladimir Putin, however, did not manufacture his history lesson from thin air. Anyone who has followed the speeches and writings of the Russian president over the years would have found his comments to Carlson quite familiar, echoing both in tone and content previous statements made concerning both the viability of the Ukrainian state from an historic perspective, and the historical ties between what Putin has called Novorossiya (New Russia) and the Russian nation. For example, on March 18, 2014, during his announcement regarding the annexation of Crimea, the president observed that “after the [Russian] Revolution [of 1917], for a number of reasons the Bolsheviks – let God judge them – added historical sections of the south of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine. This was done with no consideration for the ethnic composition of the population, and these regions today form the south-east of Ukraine.” Later during a televised question-and-answer session, Putin declared that “what was called Novorossiya back in tsarist days – Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev and Odessa – were not part of Ukraine then. These territories were given to Ukraine in the 1920s by the Soviet Government. Why? Who knows? They were won by Potemkin and Catherine the Great in a series of well-known wars. The center of that territory was Novorossiysk, so the region is called Novorossiya. Russia lost these territories for various reasons, but the people remained.” Novorossiya isn’t just a construct of Vladimir Putin’s imagination, but rather a notion drawn from historic fact that resonated with the people who populated the territories it encompassed. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was an abortive effort by pro-Russia citizens of the new Ukrainian state to restore Novorossiya as an independent region. Scott Ritter: Helping Crimea recover from decades of Ukrainian misrule is a tough but necessary challenge Read more Scott Ritter: Helping Crimea recover from decades of Ukrainian misrule is a tough but necessary challenge While this effort failed, the concept of a greater Novorossiya confederation was revived in May 2014 by the newly proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. But this effort, too, was short-lived, being put on ice in 2015. This, however, did not mean the death of the idea of Novorossiya. On February 21, 2022, Putin delivered a lengthy address to the Russian nation on the eve of his decision to send Russian troops into Ukraine as part of what he termed a Special Military Operation. Those who watched Tucker Carlson’s February 9, 2024, interview with Putin would have been struck by the similarity between the two presentations. While he did not make a direct reference to Novorossiya, the president did outline fundamental historic and cultural linkages which serve as the foundation for any discussion about the viability and legitimacy of Novorossiya in the context of Russian-Ukrainian relations. “I would like to emphasize,” Putin said, “once again that Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an integral part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space. It is our friends, our relatives, not only colleagues, friends, and former work colleagues, but also our relatives and close family members. Since the oldest times,” Putin continued, “the inhabitants of the south-western historical territories of ancient Russia have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians. It was the same in the 17th century, when a part of these territories [i.e., Novorossiya] was reunited with the Russian state, and even after that.” The Russian president set forth his contention that the modern state of Ukraine was an invention of Vladimir Lenin, the founding father of the Soviet Union. “Soviet Ukraine is the result of the Bolsheviks’ policy,” Putin stated, “and can be rightfully called ‘Vladimir Lenin’s Ukraine’. He was its creator and architect. This is fully and comprehensively corroborated by archival documents.” Putin went on to issue a threat which, when seen in the context of the present, proved ominously prescient. “And today the ’grateful progeny’ has overturned monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. They call it decommunization. You want decommunization? Very well, this suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine.” In September 2022 Putin followed through on this, ordering referendums in four territories (Kherson and Zaporozhye, and the newly independent Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics) to determine whether the populations residing there wished to join the Russian Federation. All four did so. Putin has since then referred to these new Russian territories as Novorossiya, perhaps nowhere more poignantly that in June 2023, when he praised the Russian soldiers “who fought and gave their lives to Novorossiya and for the unity of the Russian world.” The story of those who fought and gave their lives to Novorossiya is one that I have wanted to tell for some time now. I have borne witness here in the United States to the extremely one-sided coverage of the military aspects of Russia’s military operation. Like many of my fellow analysts, I had to undertake the extremely difficult task of trying to parse out fact from an overwhelmingly fictional narrative. Nor was I helped in any way in this regard by the Russian side, which was parsimonious in the release of information that reflected its side of reality. In preparing for my December 2023 visit to Russia, I had hoped to be able to visit the four new Russian territories to see for myself what the truth was when it came to the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. I also wanted to interview the Russian military and civilian leadership to get a broader perspective of the conflict. I had reached out to the Russian Foreign and Defense ministries through the Russian Embassy in the US, bending the ear of both the Ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, and the Defense Attache, Major-General Evgeny Bobkin, about my plans. While both men supported my project and wrote recommendations back to their respective ministries in this regard, the Russian Defense Ministry, which had the final say over what happened in the four new territories, vetoed the idea. This veto was not because they didn’t like the idea of me writing an in-depth analysis of the conflict from the Russian perspective, but rather that the project as I outlined it, which would have required sustained access to frontline units and personnel, was deemed too dangerous. In short, the Russian Defense Ministry did not relish the idea of me being killed on its watch. Under normal circumstances, I would have backed off. I had no desire to create any difficulty with the Russian government, and I was always cognizant of the reality that I was a guest in the country. Western ‘expertise’ on the Ukraine conflict could lead the world to a nuclear disaster Read more Western ‘expertise’ on the Ukraine conflict could lead the world to a nuclear disaster The last thing I wanted to be was a “war tourist,” where I put myself and others at risk for purely personal reasons. But I also felt strongly that if I were going to continue to provide so-called “expert analysis” about the military operation and the geopolitical realities of Novorossiya and Crimea, then I needed to see these places firsthand. I strongly believed that I had a professional obligation to see the new territories. Fortunately for me, Aleksandr Zyryanov, a Crimea native and director general of the Novosibirsk Region Development Corporation, agreed. It wasn’t going to be easy. We first tried to enter the new territories via Donetsk, driving west out of Rostov-on-Don. However, when we arrived at the checkpoint, we were told that the Ministry of Defense had not cleared us for entry. Not willing to take no for an answer, Aleksandr drove south, towards Krasnodar, and then – after making some phone calls – across the Crimean Bridge into Crimea. Once it became clear that we were planning on entering the new territories from Crimea, the Ministry of Defense yielded, granting permission for me to visit the four new Russian territories under one non-negotiable condition – I was not to go anywhere near the frontlines. We left Feodosia early on the morning of January 15, 2024. At Dzhankoy, in northern Crimea, we took highway 18 north toward the Tup-Dzhankoy Peninsula and the Chongar Strait, which separates the Sivash lagoon system that forms the border between Crimea and the mainland into eastern and western portions. It was here that Red Army forces, on the night of November 12, 1920, broke through the defenses of the White Army of General Wrangel, leading to the capture of the Crimean Peninsula by Soviet forces. And it was also here that the Russian Army, on February 24, 2022, crossed into the Kherson Region from Crimea. The Chongar Bridge is one of three highway crossings that connect Crimea with Kherson. It has been struck twice by Ukrainian forces seeking to disrupt Russian supply lines, once, in June 2023, when it was hit by British-made Storm Shadow missiles, and once again that August when it was hit by French-made SCALP missiles (a variant of the Storm Shadow.) In both instances, the bridge was temporarily shut down for repairs, evidence of which was clearly visible as we made our way across, and on to the Chongar checkpoint, where we were cleared by Russian soldiers for entry into the Kherson Region. At the checkpoint we picked up a vehicle carrying a bodyguard detachment from the reconnaissance company of the Sparta Battalion, a veteran military formation whose roots date back to the very beginning of the Donbass revolt against the Ukrainian nationalists who seized power in Kiev during the February 2014 Maidan coup. They would be our escort through the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions – even though we were going to give the frontlines a wide berth, Ukrainian “deep reconnaissance groups”, or DRGs, were known to target traffic along the M18 highway. Aleksandr was driving an armored Chevrolet Suburban, and the Sparta detachment had their own armored SUV. If we were to come under attack, our response would be to try and drive through the ambush. If that failed, then the Sparta boys would have to go to work. Our first destination was the city of Genichesk, a port city along the Sea of Azov. Genichesk is the capital of the Genichesk District of the Kherson Region and, since November 9, 2022, when Russian forces withdrew from the city of Kherson, it has served as the temporary capital of the region. Aleksandr had been on his phone since morning, and his efforts had paid off – I was scheduled to meet with Vladimir Saldo, the local Governor. RT Genichesk is – literally – off the beaten path. When we reached the town of Novoalekseyevka, we got off the M18 highway and headed east along a two-lane road that took us toward the Sea of Azov. There were armed checkpoints all along the route, but the Sparta bodyguards were able to get us waved through without any issues. But the effect of these checkpoints was chilling – there was no doubt that one was in a region at war. To call Genichesk a ghost town would be misleading – it is populated, and the evidence of civilian life is everywhere you look. The problem was, there didn’t seem to be enough people present. The city, like the region, is in a general state of decay, a holdover from the neglect it had suffered at the hands of a Ukrainian government that largely ignored territories that had, since 2004, voted in favor of the Party of Regions, the party of former President Viktor Yanukovich, who was ousted in the February 2014 Maidan coup. Nearly two years of war had likewise contributed to the atmosphere of societal neglect, an impression which was magnified by the weather – overcast, cold, with a light sleet blowing in off the water. As we made our way into the building where the government of the Kherson Region had established its temporary offices, I couldn’t help but notice a statue of Lenin in the courtyard. Ukrainian nationalists had taken it down in July 2015, but the citizens of Genichesk had reinstalled it in April 2022, once the Russians had taken control of the city. Given Putin’s feeling about the role Lenin played in creating Ukraine, I found both the presence of this monument, and the role of the Russian citizens of Genichesk in restoring it, curiously ironic. Vladimir Saldo is a man imbued with enthusiasm for his work. A civil engineer by profession, with a PhD in economics, Saldo had served in senior management positions in the “Khersonbud” Project and Construction Company before moving on into politics, serving on the Kherson City Council, the Kherson Regional Administration, and two terms as the mayor of the city of Kherson. Saldo, as a member of the Party of Regions, moved to the opposition and was effectively subjected to political ostracism in 2014, when the Ukrainian nationalists who had seized power all but forced it out of politics. Aleksandr and I had the pleasure of meeting with Saldo in his office in the government building in downtown Genichesk. We talked about a wide range of issues, including his own path from a Ukrainian construction specialist to his current position as the governor of Kherson Oblast. We talked about the war. But Saldo’s passion was the economy, and how he could help revive the civilian economy of Kherson in a manner that best served the interests of its diminished population. On the eve of the military operation, back in early 2022, the population of the Kherson Region stood at just over a million, of which some 280,000 were residing in the city of Kherson. By November 2022, following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the right bank of the Dnieper River – including the city of Kherson – the population of the region had fallen below 400,000 and, with dismal economic prospects, the numbers kept falling. Many of those who left were Ukrainians who did not want to live under Russian rule. But others were Russians and Ukrainians who felt that they had no future in the war-torn region, and as such sought their fortunes elsewhere in Russia. Fyodor Lukyanov: How does the Russia-Ukraine conflict end? Read more Fyodor Lukyanov: How does the Russia-Ukraine conflict end? “My job is to give the people of Kherson hope for a better future,” Saldo told me. “And the time for this to happen is now, not when the war ends.” Restoration of Kherson’s once vibrant agricultural sector is a top priority, and Saldo has personally taken the lead in signing agreements for the provision of Kherson produce to Moscow supermarkets. Saldo has also turned the region into a special economic zone, where potential investors and entrepreneurs can receive preferential loans and financial support, as well as organizational and legal assistance for businesses willing to open shop there. The man responsible for making this vision a reality is Mikhail Panchenko, the Director of the Kherson Region Industry Development Fund. I met Mikhail in a restaurant located across the street from the governmental building which Saldo called home. Mikhail had come to Kherson in the summer of 2022, leaving a prominent position in Moscow in the process. “The Russian government was interested in rebuilding Kherson,” Mikhail told me, “and established the Industry Development Fund as a way of attracting businesses to the region.” Mikhail, who was born in 1968, was too old to enlist in the military. “When the opportunity came to direct the Industry Development Fund, I jumped at it as a way to do my patriotic duty.” The first year of the fund’s operation saw Mikhail hand out 300 million rubles (almost $3.3 million at the current rate) in loans and grants (some of which was used to open the very restaurant where we were meeting.) The second year saw the allotment grow to some 700 million rubles. One of the biggest projects was the opening of a concrete production line capable of producing 60 cubic meters of concrete per hour. Mikhail took Alexander and me on a tour of the plant, which had grown to three production lines generating some 180 cubic meters of concrete an hour. Mikhail had just approved funding for an additional four production lines, for a total concrete production rate of 420 cubic meters per hour. “That’s a lot of concrete,” I remarked to Mikhail. “We are making good use of it,” he replied. “We are rebuilding schools, hospitals, and government buildings that had been neglected over the years. Revitalizing the basic infrastructure a society needs if it is to nurture a growing population.” The problem Mikhail faces, however, is that most of the population growth being experienced in Kherson today comes from the military. The war can’t last forever, Mikhail noted. “Someday the army will leave, and we will need civilians. Right now, the people who left are not returning, and we’re having a hard time attracting newcomers. But we will keep building in anticipation of a time when the population of the Kherson region will grow from an impetus other than war. And for that,” he said, a twinkle in his eye, “we need concrete!” I thought long and hard about the words of Vladimir Saldo and Panchenko as Aleksandr drove back onto the M18 highway, heading northeast, toward Donetsk. The reconstruction efforts being undertaken are impressive. But the number that kept coming to mind was the precipitous decline in the population – more than 60% of the pre-war population has left the Kherson region since the Russian military operation began. According to statistics provided by the Russian Central Election Commission, some 571,000 voters took part in the referendum on joining Russia that was held in late September 2022. A little over 497,000, or some 87%, voted in favor, while slightly more than 68,800, or 12%, voted against. The turnout was almost 77%. Sergey Poletaev: As the second anniversary of the Russia–Ukraine conflict approaches, who has the upper hand? Read more Sergey Poletaev: As the second anniversary of the Russia–Ukraine conflict approaches, who has the upper hand? These numbers, if accurate, implied that there was a population of over 740,000 eligible voters at the time of the election. While the loss of the city of Kherson in November 2022 could account for a significant source of the population drop that took place between September 2022 and the time of my visit in January 2024, it could not account for all of it. The Russian population of Kherson in 2022 stood at approximately 20%, or around 200,000. One can safely say that the number of Russians who fled west to Kiev following the start of the military operation amounts to a negligible figure. If one assumes that the Russian population of the Kherson Region remained relatively stable, then most of the population decline came from the Ukrainian population. While Saldo did not admit to such, the Governor of the neighboring Zaporozhya Region, Yevgeny Balitsky, has acknowledged that many Ukrainian families deemed by the authorities to be anti-Russian were deported following the initiation of the military operation (Russians accounted for a little more than 25% of the pre-conflict Zaporozhye population.) Many others fled to Russia to escape the deprivations of war. Evidence of the war was everywhere to be seen. While the conflict in Kherson has stabilized along a line defined by the Dnieper River, Zaporozhye is very much a frontline region. Indeed, the main direction of attack of the summer 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive was from the Zaporozhye region village of Rabotino, toward the town of Tokmak, and on towards the temporary regional capital of Melitopol (the city of Zaporozhye has remained under Ukrainian control throughout the conflict to date.) I had petitioned to visit the frontlines near Rabotino but had been denied by the Russian Ministry of Defense. So, too, was my request to visit units deployed in the vicinity of Tokmak – too close to the front. The closest I would get would be the city of Melitopol, the ultimate objective of the Ukrainian counterattack. We drove past fields filled with the concrete “dragon’s teeth” and antitank ditches that marked the final layer of defenses that constituted the “Surovikin Line,” named after the Russian General, Sergey Surovikin, who had commanded the forces when the defenses were put in place. The Ukrainians had hoped to reach the city of Melitopol in a matter of days once their attack began; they never breached the first line of defense situated to the southeast of Rabotino. Melitopol, however, is not immune to the horrors of war, with Ukrainian artillery and rockets targeting it often to disrupt Russian military logistics. I kept this in mind as we drove through the streets of the city, past military checkpoints, and roving patrols. I was struck by the fact that the civilians I saw were going about their business, seemingly oblivious to the everyday reality of war that existed around them. As was the case in Kherson, the entirety of the Zaporozhye Region seemed strangely depopulated, as if one were driving through the French capital of Paris in August, when half the city is away on vacation. I had hoped to be able to talk with Balitsky about the reduced population and other questions I had about life in the region during wartime, but this time Aleksandr’s phone could not produce the desired result – Balitsky was away from the region and unavailable. If he had been available, I would have asked him the same question I had put to Saldo earlier in the day: given that Putin was apparently willing to return the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to Ukraine as part of the peace deal negotiated in March 2022, how does the population of his region feel about being part of Russia today? Are they convinced that Russia is, in fact, there to stay? Do they feel like they are a genuine part of the Novorossiya that Putin speaks about? Saldo had talked in depth about the transition from being occupied by Russian forces, which lasted until April-May 2022 (about the time that Ukraine backed out of the ceasefire agreement), to being administered by Moscow. “There never was a doubt in my mind, or anyone else’s, that Kherson was historically a part of Russia,” Saldo said, “or that, once Russian troops arrived, that we would forever be Russian again.” But the declining population, and the admission of forced deportations on the part of Balitsky, suggests that there was a significant part of the population that had, in fact, taken umbrage at such a future. I would have liked to hear what Balitsky had to say about this question. Reality, however, doesn’t deal with hypotheticals, and the present reality is that both Kherson and Zaporozhye are today part of the Russian Federation, and that both regions are populated by people who had made the decision to remain there as citizens of Russia. We will never know what the fate of these two territories would have been had the Ukrainian government honored the ceasefire agreement negotiated in March 2022. What we do know is that today both Kherson and Zaporozhye are part of the “New Territories” – Novorossiya. Russia will for some time find its acquisition of the “new territories” challenged by nations who question the legitimacy of Russia’s military occupation and subsequent absorption of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions into the Russian Federation. The reticence of foreigners to recognize these regions as being part of Russia, however, is the least of Russia’s problems. As was the case with Crimea, the Russian government will proceed irrespective of any international opposition. The real challenge facing Russia is to convince Russians that the new territories are as integral to the Russian motherland as Crimea, a region reabsorbed by Russia in 2014 which has seen its economic fortunes and its population grow over the past decade. The diminished demographics of Kherson and Zaporozhye represent a litmus test of sorts for the Russian government, and for the governments of both Kherson and Zaporozhye. If the populations of these regions cannot regenerate, then these regions will wither on the vine. If, however, these new Russian lands can be transformed into places where Russians can envision themselves raising families in an environment free from want and fear, then Novorossiya will flourish. Novorossiya is a reality, and the people who live there are citizens by choice more than circumstances. They are well served by men like Saldo and Balitsky, who are dedicated to the giant task of making these regions part of the Russian Motherland in actuality, not just in name. Behind Saldo and Balitsky are men like Panchenko, people who left an easy life in Moscow or some other Russian city to come to the “New Territories” not for the purpose of seeking their fortunes, but rather to improve the lives of the new Russian citizens of Novorossiya. For this to happen, Russia must emerge victorious in its struggle against the Ukrainian nationalists ensconced in Kiev, and their Western allies. Thanks to the sacrifices of the Russian military, this victory is in the process of being accomplished. Then the real test begins – turning Novorossiya into a place Russians will want to call home. ATTENTION READERS We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully Informed In fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion. About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy Due to the nature of uncensored content posted by VT's fully independent international writers, VT cannot guarantee absolute validity. All content is owned by the author exclusively. Expressed opinions are NOT necessarily the views of VT, other authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, or technicians. Some content may be satirical in nature. All images are the full responsibility of the article author and NOT VT. https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/scott-ritter-we-are-witnessing-the-bittersweet-birth-of-a-new-russia/ https://telegra.ph/Scott-Ritter-We-are-witnessing-the-bittersweet-birth-of-a-new-Russia--VT-Foreign-Policy-03-11

Why Are Arab Regimes So Impotent in the Face of Zionist Barbarism? Kevin Barrett, Senior EditorMarch 9, 2024 VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel $ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State. By Kevin Barrett, for Crescent international As I write this in late February 2024 CE (mid-Sha‘ban 1445 Hijri) the official number of Palestinians murdered by zionist aggression in the al-Aqsa Storm war has risen to nearly 30,000. The real number is considerably higher, since many victims are still buried beneath layers of rubble. Nearly 70,000 have been injured. Most of those killed and maimed have been women and children. The martyrs dispatched quickly to paradise are luckier than the survivors, who are forced to endure almost unimaginable horrors. The zionists have blockaded food in a deliberate attempt to slowly starve Gazans to death. Social media videos abound showing crying mothers unable to find so much as a crumb for their famished children. Surviving families, many of whom have lost loved ones, lack housing, heat, and warm clothing in the midst of the cold, rainy winter. The demonic zionists have deliberately bombed water, sewage, electrical, fuel, and health care infrastructure. They have destroyed the majority of Gaza’s housing, in an effort to mass-murder Gazans and expel the survivors. The destruction of Palestinian homes and life support has forced 1.4 million people to take shelter in Rafah on the Egyptian border. Now the zionists are intensifying their bombing of Rafah in the latest episode of their “final solution to the Palestinian problem.” On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) agreed with South Africa’s contention that there is probable cause to believe that Israel is committing genocide (see also here). Any nation on earth could invoke the made-in-USA “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) doctrine and use military force in an effort to stop the #GazaHolocaust. The very first nations that might be expected to act are those that share Palestine’s Arabic language and culture. And yet only two relatively small and weak Arab nations have tried: Lebanon and Yemen. The larger, richer, and more powerful states, beginning with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have been missing in action. What explains this bizarre situation, in which the weak show courage while the strong reek of abject cowardice? Let’s begin with the cowardice. Egypt has basically been a zionist colony ever since the traitor Anwar Sadat “abnormalized” with Israel in 1979. Since then, the Egyptian military has been awash in American funding, with nearly $100 billion in bribes convincing junta leaders to continue betraying their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Today, Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi finds himself in a tight spot, as Israel pushes him to endorse genocide and open the border to Palestinian refugees, which would enable the complete erasure of the people of Gaza. To his credit, el-Sisi has thus far refused, saying that any expulsion of Palestinians to Egypt would cause Cairo to break off relations and return to an anti-Israel war footing. But ominously, Egypt is building a gigantic human cattle pen on the Gaza border, “just in case” or so el-Sisi says. Saudi Arabia, historically a source of both lip service and a degree of real support for Palestine, has gradually followed Egypt’s path of abject surrender. The current de facto ruler, Mohammad Bin Salman, implicitly endorsed zionist claims to al-Quds (Jerusalem) by acquiescing to Donald Trump’s “Abraham Accords” fiasco, setting the stage for the current catastrophe. Today, the Saudis are trying to make amends for that mistake by insisting on “no normalization without a Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders” and strengthening the Kingdom’s peace deal with Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, even in the face of US pressure to join Washington’s anti-Yemen “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” better known as “Operation Genocide Guardian.” It is ironic that Saudi Arabia is tacitly (though not actively) supporting Ansarullah’s blockade of Israeli-bound shipping. After all, it was the Saudis themselves who originally dragged the US into their war on Ansarullah in 2015. Now the tables are turned, and the Americans are trying to drag the Saudis into an anti-Yemen war, so far without success. Saudi Arabia has a nearly two-trillion-dollar adjusted GDP, while Yemen’s is a mere $0.2 trillion. By that measure, Yemen’s economy is one-hundredth the size of the Saudi economy. But despite its apparent weakness, Yemen was not only able to defeat the Saudis and their western backers in a nine-year war, but is now taking military action to try to stop the genocide of Gaza. Lebanon, too, boasts a mere $0.2 trillion GDP, one percent of Saudi Arabia’s and one-twentieth the size of Egypt’s. But like Yemen, Lebanon has distinguished itself by taking military action in support of Palestine. Throughout Israel’s genocide of Gaza, the Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah, the de facto main branch of the Lebanese military, has been pounding the zionists nonstop, puncturing Israel’s “Iron dome,” forcing 200,000 zionist settlers to flee the northern strip of Occupied Palestine, and diverting Israel’s forces from the Gaza genocide campaign. So why are mice like Yemen and Lebanon roaring, while lions like Saudi Arabia and Egypt whimper? There are two categorically different kinds of answers: political (dunyawi) and theological-spiritual (rouhani). Politically, most leaders feel constrained by circumstance; their choices are dictated by the limits of the possible. Caught between a proverbial rock (zionist power) and a hard place (their own people’s support for Palestine) they try to walk a fine line, careful not to anger the zionists too much lest they become targets, while offering sufficient lip service to the Palestinian cause to at least minimally placate their subjects. That balancing act has become more difficult since October 7. Any Arab leader who takes active steps to support Palestine will be painting a target on his back—and the stronger the steps, the bigger the target. Yet any Arab leader who is seen as complicit in the genocide risks being overthrown by his own people. The leaders of Hizbullah and Ansarullah already have zio-American targets painted on their backs. They have less to lose, are principled rather than merely pragmatic, and therefore are free to seek Allah’s good pleasure doing the right thing: actively resisting the zionist genocide of Gaza. Whereas leaders like Bin Salman and el-Sisi, presiding over states whose economies and militaries are intertwined with American and hence zionist money and power, would have to take huge risks in order to return their countries to forthrightly anti-zionist positions. And even if they did, and survived, there is no guarantee that, given the current balance of power, they would have much of a chance of succeeding in saving Gazans, much less fully defeating the zionist genocidaires. So, from a worldly political viewpoint, the situation is bleak. Arab leaders are simply acting within constraints imposed by the power of circumstance. But how did they, and their regimes, arrive in such circumstances? By way of a long process of cultural decline. Whole peoples, led by their elites, have repeatedly chosen expediency over ethics, laziness over diligence, egotism over islam (submission of the self to God). According to well-known ahadith, one of the signs of Yawm al-Qiyyama is that “the lowest and the worst man in the nation will become its leader.” The world may not quite have reached that point yet, but it isn’t far off. Today, leaders who represent the best of their nation, like those of Hizbullah and Ansarullah, are the exceptions. Most leaders are neither pious nor courageous nor brilliant. When an uncommonly good leader arises, like Imran Khan in Pakistan, he risks being assassinated or imprisoned. So, the deeper reason the Arab nation is so helpless today is that it, like much of the rest of the world, has declined in spiritual quality, allowing itself to be divided and conquered by the forces of evil. The mediocre-at-best leaders that predominate in today’s Arab lands, like the shattered and corrupted societies they preside over, are simply not a match for demonic energy of the zionist shayateen. But the seeds of better leadership, planted in places like Yemen and Lebanon and Iran and (insha’Allah) Pakistan, are beginning to sprout. As the secular-materialist west declines, and Zio-American power with it, the circumstances constraining Arab leadership will change, and the possibility of good leadership reviving united Arab and Islamic lands (rather like Putin’s leadership reviving Russia) will become manifest. Whatever worldly conquests the zionist dajjal acquires will be only temporary, and will bring the Occupation demons no real happiness nor any respite from their self-inflicted torment of hatred, greed, and cruelty. In the end, it will be seen that they were only digging their own graves—all the way to hell. For as the Qur’an tells us, “They plot and Allah plans; and Allah is the best of planners.” (Surat al-Anfal, 30). Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror. He is the host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard-driving weekly radio show funded by listener subscriptions at Substack and the weekly news roundup FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN). He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS, and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin; where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host. 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