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

Meta Refuses to Answer Questions on Gaza Censorship, Say Sens. Warren and Sanders Sam BiddleMarch 26 2024, 8:00 a.m. WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 03: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questions U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as he testifies at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the Fed's "Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress," on Capitol Hill on March 3, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images) Citing the company’s “failure to provide answers to important questions,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are pressing Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to respond to reports of disproportionate censorship around the Israeli war on Gaza. “Meta insists that there’s been no discrimination against Palestinian-related content on their platforms, but at the same time, is refusing to provide us with any evidence or data to support that claim,” Warren told The Intercept. “If its ad-hoc changes and removal of millions of posts didn’t discriminate against Palestinian-related content, then what’s Meta hiding?” In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent last December, first reported by The Intercept, Warren presented the company with dozens of specific questions about the company’s Gaza-related content moderation efforts. Warren asked about the exact numbers of posts about the war, broken down by Hebrew or Arabic, that have been deleted or otherwise suppressed. The letter was written following widespread reporting in The Intercept and other outlets that detailed how posts on Meta platforms that are sympathetic to Palestinians, or merely depicting the destruction in Gaza, are routinely removed or hidden without explanation. A month later, Meta replied to Warren’s office with a six-page letter, obtained by The Intercept, that provided an overview of its moderation response to the war but little in the way of specifics or new information. Most Read “Meta’s lack of investment to safeguard its users significantly exacerbates the political situation in Palestine and perpetuates tech harms on fundamental rights in Palestine and other global majority countries, all while evading meaningful legal accountability,” Mona Shtaya, nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, told The Intercept. “The time has come for Meta, among other tech giants, to publicly disclose detailed measures and investments aimed at safeguarding individuals amidst the ongoing genocide, and to be more responsive to experts and civil society.” Meta’s reply disclosed some censorship: “In the nine days following October 7, we removed or marked as disturbing more than 2,200,000 pieces of content in Hebrew and Arabic for violating our policies.” The company declined, however, to provide a breakdown of deletions by language or market, making it impossible to tell whether that figure reflects discriminatory moderation practices. Much of Meta’s letter is a rehash of an update it provided through its public relations portal at the war’s onset, some of it verbatim. Now, a second letter from Warren to Meta, joined this time by Sanders, says this isn’t enough. “Meta’s response, dated January 29, 2024, did not provide any of the requested information necessary to understand Meta’s treatment of Arabic language or Palestine-related content versus other forms of content,” the senators wrote. Both senators are asking Meta to again answer Warren’s specific questions about the extent to which Arabic and Hebrew posts about the war have been treated differently, how often censored posts are reinstated, Meta’s use of automated machine learning-based censorship tools, and more. Accusations of systemic moderation bias against Palestinians have been borne out by research from rights groups. “Since October 7, Human Rights Watch has documented over 1,000 cases of unjustified takedowns and other suppression of content on Instagram and Facebook related to Palestine and Palestinians, including about human rights abuses,” Human Rights Watch said in a late December report. “The censorship of content related to Palestine on Instagram and Facebook is systemic, global, and a product of the company’s failure to meet its human rights due diligence responsibilities.” Related Meta Considering Increased Censorship of the Word “Zionist” A February report by AccessNow said Meta “suspended or restricted the accounts of Palestinian journalists and activists both in and outside of Gaza, and arbitrarily deleted a considerable amount of content, including documentation of atrocities and human rights abuses.” A third-party audit commissioned by Meta itself previously concluded it had given the short shrift to Palestinian rights during a May 2021 flare-up of violence between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip. “Meta’s actions in May 2021 appear to have had an adverse human rights impact … on the rights of Palestinian users to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, political participation, and non-discrimination, and therefore on the ability of Palestinians to share information and insights about their experiences as they occurred,” said the auditor’s report. In response to this audit, Meta pledged an array of reforms, which free expression and digital rights advocates say have yet to produce a material improvement. In its December report, Human Rights Watch noted, “More than two years after committing to publishing data around government requests for taking down content that is not necessarily illegal, Meta has failed to increase transparency in this area.” Update: March 26, 2024, 1:11 p.m. ET This story has been updated to include a statement received after publication from Mona Shtaya, a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/

Ukrainian ‘Caliphate’: What the West prefers not to notice when blaming ISIS for the terrorist attack in Moscow Kiev’s connections with terrorist groups and Islamists are recognized even in the West. Could Ukrainians be behind the massacre in Crocus City Hall? Jonas E. Alexis, Senior EditorMarch 27, 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. On March 22, Russia suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks in recent history, in the course of which 137 people were killed and 182 others were injured. The four terrorists who carried out the attack chose one of the largest exhibition and concert venues in the country, Crocus City Hall, in the city of Krasnogorsk on the outskirts of Moscow, which hosts large events every day. Even though the investigation is still ongoing, the West has already claimed that the Islamic State (IS) is responsible for the tragedy. This was first reported by some media outlets, including Reuters and CNN, and was later picked up by Western officials. For example, on Monday, this was stated by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. However, when we compare this terrorist attack with other IS attacks, we notice more differences than similarities. How IS kills On that fateful Friday night, a concert by Picnic, a St. Petersburg rock band, was supposed to take place in Crocus City Hall. This fact gave rise to comparisons with the horrible terrorist attack in France in November 2015. Back then, terrorists broke into the Bataclan Theater in Paris, where a concert of the US band Eagles of Death Metal was taking place. IS claimed responsibility for the crime, which left 89 people dead. Weapon of mass distraction: Is the West scapegoating Islamic State over Moscow attack? Read more Weapon of mass distraction: Is the West scapegoating Islamic State over Moscow attack? In those years, IS became increasingly active throughout the world – but this was actually a sign of its decline. In its heyday, IS didn’t urge its supporters to carry out terrorist attacks, but instead called on them to “fulfill the hijrah” – i.e., move to the territories controlled by the organization. Over ten years ago, this was quite easy to do, since part of the Syrian border with Turkey was controlled by the jihadists, which allowed people to freely cross it and join their ranks. However, as the terrorists lost many of their territories, their rhetoric changed. Through its information resources, IS urged its followers to commit terrorist acts in places where they lived. This caused an upsurge in violence in Europe: a wave of terror swept through France, Belgium, Germany, the UK, and other countries. In Russia, the North Caucasus became a point of tension. The strategy was simple – anyone who supported the jihadists, wherever they lived, could record a video with an oath of allegiance to the “caliph,” send it via an automated feedback bot, and then commit a terrorist act. Often it was only the perpetrator who died, but for IS, this didn’t matter – it only cared about being mentioned in connection with the terrorist activity, which is why the organization occasionally took responsibility for crimes that it had nothing to do with. The terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk, however, doesn’t match this straightforward strategy usually adopted by IS. In fact, the choice of a rock concert as the site of the terrorist attack is almost the only common feature between this attack and other acts of terror it has committed. What preceded the events at Crocus City Hall Four people who had not previously known each other were recruited to carry out the terrorist attack. One of them, Shamsidin Fariduni, was in Türkiye in February, and from there he flew to Russia on March 4. He spent at least ten days in Türkiye and investigators are currently determining who he communicated with while there. According to unofficial information, he met with a certain “Islamic preacher” in Istanbul. However, it is also known that the terrorists corresponded with the “preacher’s assistant.” According to Fariduni, this anonymous person sponsored and organized the terrorist attack. RT After arriving in Russia, Fariduni visited Crocus City Hall on March 7 in order to see the site where the crime was to be committed. From this, we may conclude that the attack was to take place soon after his arrival from Türkiye. On the same day, the US embassy in Russia warned its citizens to avoid large gatherings “over the next 48 hours” due to possible attacks by extremists. The next concert at Crocus City Hall was given by the singer Shaman, who is known for his patriotism. However, his concert on Saturday, March 9 passed without incident. In the following days, there were other performances at the venue, but apparently the terrorists were forced to adjust their plans. As a result, they chose the concert by the band Picnic, scheduled for March 22. Although this band is not as popular as Shaman, it is also known for its patriotic stance and for donating funds for the needs of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. ‘The Moscow terror attack was an inside job!’ The strange and twisted world of the West’s political and media Russia haters Read more ‘The Moscow terror attack was an inside job!’ The strange and twisted world of the West’s political and media Russia haters What happened afterwards None of the terrorists planned to “join the Houris in paradise,” as is usual for IS followers. After shooting people in Crocus City Hall and setting the building on fire, they did not attack the special forces which arrived at the scene and instead got in a car and fled from Moscow. Neither did they wear “suicide belts” – a characteristic detail of IS followers who are ready to die after committing their crime. Another detail which is uncharacteristic for IS is the monetary reward promised to the terrorists. The payment was supposed to be made in two installments – before and after the attack. The terrorists had already received the first payment, amounting to 250,000 rubles ($2,700). The most important detail is the location where the terrorists were detained. Traffic cameras allowed intelligence services to monitor where they were headed. They were eventually detained on the federal highway M-3 Ukraine – a route which used to connect Russia and Ukraine but lost much of its international importance after the deterioration of relations between the two countries in 2014, and particularly after the start of Russia’s military operation in 2022. The terrorists were detained after passing the turn to route A240, which leads to Belarus. At that moment, it became obvious that there was only one place where they could be headed: Ukraine. Despite the fact that the terrorists were armed, only one of them, Mukhammadsobir Fayzov, put up resistance. All of the terrorists were detained alive, which was most likely an order given to the security forces involved in the operation. However, as we mentioned above, the terrorists themselves did not want to die. RT Moreover, they knew where to go to save their lives: to the Ukrainian border. Later, in his address to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a “window” for passage had been opened for them on the Ukrainian side. This, too, is uncharacteristic for IS, since someone who carries out a terrorist act, especially an outsider, is always considered “disposable.” Even if he makes it out alive, no one will help him. Moreover, in earlier years, IS usually didn’t take responsibility for an attack if the perpetrator remained alive, as this could harm him during the investigation. However, later the organization no longer cared about this due to the deplorable state in which it found itself. All this comes down to the fact that compared to other attacks carried out by IS in the past few years, this one is strikingly different when it comes to the level of preparation, detailed planning, and financial compensation. Dmitry Trenin: The American explanation for the Moscow terror attack doesn’t add up Read more Dmitry Trenin: The American explanation for the Moscow terror attack doesn’t add up What does Ukraine have to do with it? Having already mentioned Ukraine several times, we must note its links with terrorists. Since 2015, it has been known that the Security Service of Ukraine tried to recruit radical Islamists with the goal of carrying out sabotage and terrorist attacks, etc. on Russian territory. Ukraine’s intelligence services were also active among the terrorists in Syria. This cooperation was marked in particular by the arrival in Ukraine of Chechen terrorist Rustam Azhiev, who served in the International Legion controlled by the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. Azhiev participated in the second Chechen campaign against the Russian Armed Forces and eventually fled to Türkiye. In 2011, he moved to Syria, where he headed the terrorist group Ajnad Al-Kavkaz. Under his command, the militants participated in hostilities against the Syrian Armed Forces and were noted for terrorist attacks directed against civilians. Azhiev operated side-by-side with groups that are recognized as terrorist organizations not only in the United States, but throughout the world. The main ally of Ajnad Al-Kavkaz was Jabhat Al-Nusra in Syria. Over time, the Russian Armed Forces and Syrian Armed Forces liberated territories from terrorists and significantly reduced their supply base. As a result, Azhiev and his associates became involved in contract killings, extortion, torture, and racketeering. In 2019, Azhiev even had to publicly apologize for the actions of his associates, who kidnapped the wrong person. The terrorists had been “unemployed” for several years when in 2022, Azhiev and his associates were approached by Ukrainian intelligence services through an intermediary – field commander Akhmed Zakayev. Azhiev and his associates took part in combat operations against the Russian Armed Forces and as a reward, Azhiev was given a Ukrainian passport. RT In 2024, led by Azhiev, the terrorists participated in an attack on border settlements in Belgorod Region. In a video, Azhiev publicly admitted that the purpose of the operation was to destabilize the situation in Russia before and during the presidential elections. This was confirmed by the fact that the attacks stopped right after the elections. After the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall, the Austrian newspaper Heute discovered another link between Ukraine and radical Islamists. According to the publication, which cites information from intelligence services, many suspected terrorists had entered the EU from Ukraine. For example, in December 2023, a Tajik citizen and his wife, along with an accomplice, were detained in Vienna. They were preparing an attack on St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The couple had come to the EU from Ukraine in February 2022. *** Ukraine is the place of residence not only for many terrorists, but also IS administrators and those who sympathize with the terrorists. Some of these people are actively involved in raising funds for imprisoned IS fighters in Syria and Iraq. Some of this money goes to purchasing food and medicines. But quite often, it is spent on buying weapons to carry out attacks inside prisons, and for bribing guards. Since some of the terrorists are officially “employed” in Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and others work for the Security Service of Ukraine, they can both push their employers to organize a terrorist attack or do so on their own, without formally consulting the authorities. Currently, one of the versions is that an employee of the Ukrainian intelligence services could’ve been hiding under the guise of the “preacher’s assistant.” Moreover, Kiev has prior experience in carrying out terrorist acts on Russian territory – both directly, as in the case of Daria Dugina, and through intermediaries, as in the case of Vladlen Tatarsky. Therefore, using radical Islamists, such as IS followers, to carry out terrorist attacks fully corresponds to Ukraine’s strategy, which comes down to inflicting maximum damage on Russia and its residents. 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/krainian-caliphate-what-the-west-prefers-not-to-notice-when-blaming-isis-for-the-terrorist-attack-in-moscow/

‘Too big to fail’ was bad enough for the banks. Now we have ‘too many to fail.’ Last Updated: Feb. 13, 2024 at 1:20 p.m. ET People line up outside of the shuttered Silicon Valley Bank headquarters on March 10, 2023, in Santa Clara, Calif. Getty Images Almost a year after the mini banking crisis in the United States, it is worth revisiting the episode. Was it just a tempest in a teacup? Was there really a systemic threat, or was it just a problem with a few banks? Should the interventions by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury worry or comfort us? Recall that three mid-size U.S. banks suddenly failed around March 2023. The most prominent was Silicon Valley Bank, which became the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, after Washington Mutual in 2008. Roughly 90% of the deposits at SVB were uninsured, and uninsured deposits are prone to runs. Making matters worse, SVB had invested significant sums in long-term bonds, the market value of which fell as interest rates rose. When SVB sold some of these holdings to raise funds, the unrealized losses embedded in its bond portfolio started coming to light. A failed equity offering then triggered a classic bank run. It is convenient to think that these issues were confined to just a few rogue banks. But the problem was systemic. When the Fed engages in quantitative easing (QE), it buys bonds from financial institutions. Typically, those sellers then deposit the money in their bank, and this results in a large increase in uninsured deposits in the banking system. On the banks’ asset side, there is a corresponding increase in central-bank reserves. This is stable, since reserves are the most liquid asset on the planet and can be used to satisfy any impatient depositors who come for their money. Unfortunately, a number of smaller banks (with less than $50 billion in assets) moved away from this stable position as QE continued. Historically, smaller U.S. banks financed themselves conservatively, with uninsured demandable deposits accounting for only around 10% of their liabilities. Yet by the time the Fed was done with its pandemic-era QE, these banks’ uninsured demandable deposits exceeded 30% of liabilities. Though that level was still far below SVB’s, these institutions clearly had drunk from the same firehose. Smaller banks were also more conservative about liquidity in the past. At the outset of QE in late 2008, banks with less than $50 billion in assets had reserves (and other assets that could be used to borrow reserves) that exceeded the uninsured demandable deposits they had issued. By early 2023, however, they had issued runnable claims (in aggregate) that were one and a half times the size of their liquid assets. Instead of holding liquid reserves, their assets were now more weighted toward long-term securities and term lending, including a significant share of commercial real-estate (CRE) loans. Advertisement Thus, as the Fed raised interest rates, the economic value of these banks’ assets fell sharply. Some of the fall was hidden by accounting sleight of hand, but SVB’s sudden demise caused investors to scrutinize banks’ balance sheets more carefully. What they saw did not instill confidence. The KBW Nasdaq Bank Index duly fell by over 25%, and deposits started flowing out of a large number of banks, many of which lacked the liquidity to accommodate the sudden outflows. The risk of contagious runs across smaller banks was real, as was the possibly of the problem spreading more widely. The Treasury essentially took bank runs off the table, while the Fed provided banks the funds to accommodate the continuing — though no longer panicked — depositor outflows. Importantly, as private money flowed to large banks, very little flowed to small- and medium-size institutions. That is why the authorities had to come to the rescue. Soon after SVB’s demise, the Treasury signaled that no uninsured depositor in small banks would suffer losses in any further bank collapses. The Fed opened a generous new facility that lent money for up to one year to banks against the par, or face value, of the securities they held on their balance sheets, without adjusting for the erosion in the value of these securities from higher interest rates. And the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks) — effectively an arm of the U.S. government — increased its lending to stressed banks, with total advances to the banking system having already tripled between March 2022 and March 2023 amid the Fed’s policy tightening. Borrowing by small- and medium-size banks from these official sources skyrocketed. The Treasury essentially took bank runs off the table, while the Fed provided banks the funds to accommodate the continuing — though no longer panicked — depositor outflows. A potential banking crisis was converted into a slow-burning problem for banks as they recognized and absorbed the losses on their balance sheets. Just recently, New York Community Bancorp NYCB, -5.17%, which bought parts of one of the banks that failed in 2023, reminded us that this process is still underway when it announced large losses. With the Russell microcap index of small companies significantly underperforming the S&P 100 index OEX of the largest companies since March 2023, it appears that smaller banks’ troubles have weighed on their traditional clients: small- and medium-size companies. Where does that leave us? Although the situation could have been much worse if the Treasury and the Fed had not stepped in, the seeming ease with which the panic was arrested allowed public attention to move on. Apart from die-hard libertarians, no one seems to care much about the extent of the intervention that was needed to rescue the smaller banks, nor has there been any broad inquiry into the circumstances that led to the vulnerabilities. As a result, several questions remain unanswered. To what extent were the seeds of the 2023 banking stress sown by the pandemic-induced monetary stimulus and lax supervision of what banks did with the money? Did advances by the FHLBanks delay failed banks’ efforts to raise capital? Are banks that relied on official backstops after SVB’s failure keeping afloat distressed CRE borrowers, and therefore merely postponing an eventual reckoning? It is not good for capitalism when those who knowingly take risks — bankers and uninsured depositors, in this case — pay no price when a risk materializes. Despite sweeping banking reforms over the past 15 years, the authorities have once again shown that they are willing to bail out market players if enough of them have taken the same risk. “Too big to fail” was bad enough, but now we have “too many to fail.” The mini-crisis of March 2023 was much more than a footnote in banking history. We cannot afford to bury it. Raghuram G. Rajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the author, most recently, of Monetary Policy and Its Unintended Consequences (The MIT Press, 2023). Viral V. Acharya, a former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. This commentary was published with the permission of Project Syndicate — The Danger of Forgetting the 2023 Banking Crisis. More: Regional-bank bondholders seem unworried by New York Community Bank’s problems Also read: Recession in 2024? A quarter of economists think it will happen. 😎🇺🇸🦅 PAR-TY… 🎉. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/too-big-to-fail-was-bad-enough-for-the-banks-now-we-have-too-many-to-fail-d89dcdda

The project begins with a brief history of bitcoin, starting with its launch in 2009 by a person or group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto. The main events that shaped the course of development of this digital currency are highlighted. How Bitcoin works: The technological foundations of bitcoin's work are explained, including blockchain technology and how security and transparency are achieved through it. This also includes mining operations and how bitcoins are issued and traded. The impact of bitcoin on the economy: Emphasis is placed on the impact of bitcoin on the national and global economies, including issues related to inflation and monetary policies. Examples are given of countries that have adopted Bitcoin or have explored its applications in their economic system. Challenges and opportunities: The project addresses the challenges faced by bitcoin, such as price fluctuations and security issues. At the same time, opportunities for the development and application of blockchain technology in various fields are reviewed. Future developments: They talk about the expected future developments of the bitcoin project, including the developments of technologies and technology surrounding it, and how in the future this could affect the global financial system. Conclusion: The article concludes with a summary of the most important points of the project with the formation and impact on the digital world and the global economy. The conclusions also indicate the importance of understanding this project and following its developments for those who want to stay up to date with digital innovations.

The Committee of 300 - Dr. John Coleman (1994) RULERS OF OUR WORLD: The Committee of 300 is a small group of insidious people who control all aspects of our world. Through MI6 they ordered the murder of President Lincoln and President Kennedy. AIDS was created and WHO injected it into millions through the Smallpox vaccines. THEIR GOALS: 🔹 (1) A One World Government with a unified church and monetary system under their direction. 🔹 (2) The utter destruction of all national identity and national pride. 🔹 (3) The destruction of religion and more especially the Christian religion, with the one exception, their own creation mentioned above. 🔹 (4) Control of each and every person through means of mind control and nanotechnology which would create human-like robots and a system of terror. 🔹 (5) An end to all industrialization and the production of nuclear generated electric power in what they call "the post-industrial zero-growth society." 🔹 (6) Legalization of drugs and pornography. 🔹 (7) Depopulation of large cities. 🔹 (8) Suppression of all scientific development except for those deemed beneficial by the Committee. Especially targeted is nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 🔹 (9) Cause by means of limited wars in the advanced countries, and by means of starvation and diseases in Third World countries, the death of 3 billion people by the year 2050, people they call "useless eaters." 🔹 (10) To weaken the moral fiber of the nation and to demoralize workers in the labor class by creating mass unemployment. 🔹 (11) To keep people everywhere from deciding their own destinies by means of one created crisis after another and then "managing" such crises. 🔹 (12) To introduce new cults. 🔹 (13) To cause a total collapse of the world's economies and engender total political chaos. 🔹 (14) To take control of all Foreign and domestic policies of the United States. 🔹 (15) Give full support to supranational institutions such as the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the World Economic Forum(WEF) and the World Court. 🔹 (16) Penetrate and subvert all governments, and work from within them to destroy the sovereign integrity of nations represented by them. 🔹 (17) Organize a world-wide terrorist apparatus and negotiate with terrorists whenever terrorist activities take place. 🔹 (18) Take control of education in America with the intent and purpose of utterly and completely destroying it. ❇️ The Club of Rome, ❇️ The Venetian Black Nobility, ❇️ The Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA), Chatham House ❇️ The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), ❇️ The Bilderbergers, ❇️ Trilaterals, ❇️ The Zionists, Freemasonry, The Illuminati, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. 🔹 https://rumble.com/v26xzwy--1994-lecture-dr.-john-coleman-reveals-the-dark-secrets-of-the-committee-of.html 🔹 https://www.bitchute.com/video/9Nj36i6RgPvL/ Follow https://t.me/sgdefense and share 😇

The WEF’s Obsession with AI and Brain Chipping. “We” Can Create an AI System “Where we Don’t even Need Democratic Elections” Klaus Schwab All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth” *** Remember Klaus Schwab’s interview of 2016 with a Swiss French TV moderator, in which Schwab said something to the extent, “Imagine by 2025 we may all have a chip implanted somewhere in our body or brain, and we may be able to communicate with each other without a telephone, even without using our voice…”? Klaus Schwab calls it a fusion between the physical, digital, and biological world. He also talks about having personalized “butlers” in the form of robots, that are not just slaves, but rather assistants, as they function with Artificial Intelligence (AI), and will learn from us…. Schwab’s obsession with the Fourth Industrial Revolution – the full digitization of everything, seems to be boundless. See this full 2016 interview (video 28 min.), with the chipped humans beginning at 00:02:30. This is all moving towards globalization and a One World Government, for which a drastically reduced world population is of the order. This remains the WEF’s number ONE objective, as per The Great Reset and UN Agenda 2030. Klaus Schwab’s dream of The Fourth Industrial Revolution, AI, and digitization of everything are just instruments to get there faster. Another tool was covid and the bio-weapons “vaccines”, and perhaps the WEF Davos24 propagated new virus “X” – not yet existing, but roaming somewhere out there (Gates, Tedros WHO) and, ludicrously, “vaxxes” are already being developed – and a foremost instrument for this globalist genocide is the tremendous climate hoax. The climate lie has been in the making, at least since the Club of Rome’s devastating Report of “Limits to Growth” which is still the blueprint for much of what is going on today, including population reduction. Under climate change every eugenist dream may be realized. If we, the People, let them. The Club of Rome, a Rockefeller invention, is also headquartered in Switzerland (Winterthur), as are the WEF, WHO, GAVI (the vaccination-pharma alliance) and – the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), also called the Central Bank of all Central Banks. All with full diplomatic immunity and tax-free. A coincidence? Klaus Schwab’s interview with Swiss TV was on 10 January 2016, just before the WEF Davos16, the 46th WEF, carried out under the theme “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Eight years later, the 54th WEF Davos24 which just ended 6 days ago, bore the title “Rebuilding Trust”. At the outset, one might be tempted believing the WEF realizes it is falling in ever deeper disarray with people around the world, including big business and previously proud WEF adherents, and indeed, needs to rebuilt trust. Nothing could be further from the truth. The very topics discussed at the WEF’s plenaries “Climate Change”, the coming of a new yet unknown disease “X” that is “already somewhere out there”, and the cult-like admiration of an ever more perfected AI – did not do much for “Rebuilding Trust”. Especially when looking at some secluded sessions, with a limited audience, where Klaus Schwab’s obsession with micro-chips implants, AI – and mindreading, come to the fore. Those are certainly some of the most terrifying moments of the WEF Davos24. For example, when he talks with Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google and former President of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. A net worth of US$ 118 billion (2024) makes Mr. Brin the world’s 9th richest person (Forbes). Klaus Schwab purports to fantasize: “Imagine we are sitting here ten years from now and have an implant in our brain, and I can immediately feel, because we all are having implants, I can measure your brain waves, and I can immediately tell you how the people react to your answers… is that imaginable?” Sergey Brin looks rather stunned by the question, visibly uncomfortable, does not know what to say, then rolling his eyes, then sort of embarrassed throwing his arms in the air and hesitantly saying …”I think that is imaginable…” It is a show for the circus. And it is reminiscent of Klaus Schwab’s 2016 Interview with Swiss French TV. * The WEF’s founder and chairman then takes his obsession a step further, suggesting, “We can create a system where we don’t even need democratic elections, because we can predict how you are going to be thinking and feeling….” Never mind that democratic elections are a thing of the far past. In the last twenty or so years there was hardly any election around the world that was not somehow manipulated by the Masters of the Universe… even in the homeland of the Masters and self-styled emperors. Interestingly, Schwab always refers to We, as in WE control you, your thoughts, your feelings, we put you in a “predictive” mode. What Mr. Schwab never says, though, it is strongly implicit, is that the “We’s” in control of the electronically geared brain waves will influence your thinking the way We want it to be. See below a 5 min video-clip for the full Terrifying Moments of crazy “predictive planning”. Because it is a cult ritual, Klaus Schwab – and others of his dark-age ilk, predicting, telling, and warning the people of what they are planning to do with us, We, the People, is a MUST, for them to be successful. In another WEF Davos24 session, somebody asked – “What can we do to avoid that the wrong President is being elected?” There were no names named, but it was obvious that the commentor was referring to Donald Trump, an anti-globalist, who would take the US in a landslide, If FAIR elections were held today. We are currently in the western world living under a Cult dictatorship, and most of us have not even noticed yet. Impregnated by thousands of years-old cult-thinking, dark actions will be successful only, if they are told in one way or another to the people who will be affected. Often it is done in disguise, or in a way of fantasizing, or by movies (Hollywood is part of the Cult Culture), so that people take it in stride and will not revolt. When it hits them, it is too late. The obsession of implanted chips and AI ruling our everyday lives, robots replacing humans in the labor markets, has been going on for a long time. The indoctrination or social engineering as one of the principal mind manipulation agencies, the UK-based Tavistock Institute calls it, has been carried out in perfection. Tavistock is likely working together, with Hollywood, taking the pulse in events like WEF-Davos, UN General Assembly and many more international, as well as local events, learning about people’s reactions and impulses. That is why today it is so difficult to see the hoax, for example, the climate farce and even recognize having been duped. Admitting to oneself and to others having fallen for the lie or mind manipulation is the most difficult hurdle to overcome – and to wake up. The social engineers know it. We are living in cognitive dissonance in a dystopian environment, where everything goes and becomes “normal”. We are far beyond George Orwell’s 1984 – where war is peace, and hatred is love. At the WEF Davos24, somebody was quoted as saying “We have to Bomb our Way to Peace”. Sorry, the reference is no longer available. It has become victim to “fact-checkers” eliminating “false information”. We MUST be aware and alert to what is going on around us. While they are scaremongering in Brussels about the coming implementation of Digital ID which would be linked to everything personal, health records, vaxx-records, bank records, and ultimately to the all controlling programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). When that happens, and we let it happen by neglect – then, we are cooked. The Digital ID, a misnomer because it is not just an ID, in a form of disguise, is being built up in reverse. In Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe, people are being coerced into QR-code / smartphone e-banking which is the first step to controlling money, what you are buying and where you are buying or making any monetary transaction, because you are being tracked through the smartphone. The QR-code collects all the data. The banking tyranny is already here. If you want to continue using your bank account, you must abide by the financial system’s rules. Nothing to do with laws – it is the rules-based order. The QR-code can hold an almost illimited amount of personal data, as well as data related to where and for what you spend your money – eventually knowing more about you, than you know yourself. Let us be alert and aware and ready to build an alternative monetary and banking system, one run by the People and for the People. It is no longer left or right. We MUST fight Globalism. * Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. Featured image is from The Libertarian Institute https://www.globalresearch.ca/wef-obsession-ai-brain-chipping/5847563 https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-wefs-obsession-with-ai-and-brain.html

Gaza Versus The Hague: The ICJ Failed Again – A Case of “Political Correctness”? All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth” *** The 17-judge panel of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) today (26 January 2024) found South Africa’s assertion that Israel is committing genocide “plausible.” This would indicate that South Africa won the case. Unfortunately, a closer look is much less optimistic. It shows again a hesitant judgment the ICJ, despite all indications for massive and brutal genocide. The judgment is weak and close to meaningless, when it comes to safe future Palestinian lives. First, the ICJ accepted that South Africa had jurisdiction in this case, because “some things that South Africa has alleged are certainly taking place and fall within the definition of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948.” See this. Al Jazeera summarized the ICJ’s ruling as follows: The court says it has jurisdiction to rule in the case. The court orders Israel to take measures to prevent acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip, must report back in one month. The court says Israel must prevent and punish incitement to genocide. The court says Israel must allow humanitarian aid into the Strip. The court obliges Israel to take more measures to protect Palestinians but does not order it to end military operations in the Strip. The Court evidently did not go far enough. What good does it do to “allow humanitarian aid and prevent the deaths of innocent citizens”, if Israel is permitted to continue killing hundreds if not thousands of innocent and defenseless Palestinians. The Court did not rule an immediate ceasefire or a ceasefire at all – nor did it issue a request for Peace negotiations. Of course, Israel would not have obeyed such a ruling, nor would the staunch supporters of Israel have stopped encouraging Israels “self-defense” killing, but it would have sent a message to the world, namely that ICJ is not afraid to fall “politically unpopular” judgments, and that Israel and genocide would be enshrined in Israels short 75-year history. PM Netanyahu’s and Co’s argument of “self-defense”, justified by “We are genocide victims” are the arguments of psychopaths. The extent of the Israeli atrocious and merciless killing of Palestinians, shows the truth to the world. * Ahead of the judgment the South African Foreign Minister, Naledi Pandor, had this to say: “The three letters ‘ICJ’ were not known to many people in South Africa until the case was filed”. And “Our aim was and is to highlight the plight of the innocent in Palestine” and “draw attention to the lack of justice and freedom.” She added that regardless of success or failure, “the real analysis and judgment is going to be on the court itself.” See this from RT 26 January 2024. The Israeli government does not accept the ICJ ruling, ordering preventing the genocide of the Palestinian people. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the very claim that Israeli is committing genocide is “not only false, it’s outrageous.” Where does this judgment leave the war? Unless the western support will falter rapidly, both morally and by monetary and weapon deliveries – perhaps because of some ethics that the Court’s decision may have awoken – Israel’s brutal genocide is likely going to continue. PM Netanyahu, practically from day one, anticipated that this would be a long war, intimidating that it was not just a war of retaliation for an [Israeli / Western planned] Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, but it was a war to conquer over the coming years much of the Middles East and its riches, by gradually establishing “The Greater Israel”, which would include 100% of Palestine, 100% Jordan, 100% of Lebanon, 70% of Syria, 50% of Iraq, 33% of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Nile. Netanyahu would, of course, not say tis, but it was implicit. To top it off, since about 1984, Israel has a ten Agorot coin, said to depict on its backside a map of Greater Israel. The sign on the coin could also resemble the ancient kingdom of Babylon in 539 BCE. The 10 Agorot coin is one of the New Israeli Sheqel (NIS) coin series, also known as simply the Israeli shekel (sign: ₪, code: ILS). Israeli agorot and shekel are the currency of Israel. undefined The depiction on the coin is full of controversy. Some Israeli say that the picture of this new coins was taken over form the original sheqel – and that, indeed, it represented Israel’s aspiration of expansion towards a Greater Israel. Israelis are proud of carrying “Greater Israel” in their pockets. See this. Without speaking much about it, most Israelis support the war against Gaza / Palestine, as it is supposed to pave the way towards Greater Israel. No time horizon is given to achieve this goal. However, a Greater Israel would be one of the resources richest nations in the world, especially in terms of hydrocarbons. It would also include the trillion-plus cubic feet of gas discovered in the 1990s off shore of Gaza, belonging today to Palestine. Back to the 26th of January 2024 weak ICJ judgment. It leaves room for Israel to pursue her course towards the Greater Israel, which is no doubt in the interest of the west. Having an almost endless supply of oil and gas from a secure source, Israel, would allow the west breaking any ties with Russia and the Arab world for energy supply. It also shows clearly the symbiotic relationship between Israel – an artificial western (UK) Zionist invented country, an interdependence that serves primarily those who created Israel in the first place and, on the other hand, gives Zionist Israel the grandeur of the Chosen People, plainly anchored in their bible, the Torah. To get there, much bloodshed would be the course of the conquest. This MUST be avoided by sensible people, and here is where an International Court of Justice – one that is neutral, not responding to any commands from globalist leaders, might and would have significant influence, by appealing to the conscience of those supporting the genocide. * Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. Featured image: Judge Joan Donoghue of the U.S., president of the ICJ, reading the Court’s ruling on Friday. (U.N. TV Screenshot) Related Articles from our Archives https://www.globalresearch.ca/gaza-versus-hague-icj-failed-again-case-political-correctness/5847838 https://telegra.ph/Gaza-Versus-The-Hague-The-ICJ-Failed-Again--A-Case-of-Political-Correctness-01-30 https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/gaza-versus-hague-icj-failed-again-case.html

Moderna’s influence over the US and UK governments is more than most realise Rhoda WilsonJanuary 3, 2024 The sheer sprawl, corruption, influence and involvement of Moderna in politics and the wider medical industry is staggering. It is difficult to convey and harder to comprehend, The Underdog writes. Months before a pandemic was declared in 2020, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and CEO of Moderna Stéphane Bancel told his staff that there was going to be a pandemic and Moderna would need to manufacture a billion doses of vaccine the “next year,” being 2021. How did Bancel know? A recent article written by The Underdog may provide some insight which lays out his/her findings relating to Moderna infiltrating the USA and UK governments as well as academia. The Underdog is a non de plume for someone who self-describes as a citizen journalist and publishes articles on a Substack page titled ‘The Daily Beagle’. In the USA, Moderna took control of the FDA and Operation Warp Speed, and influenced NIH and BARDA, The Underdog says. Adding that Moderna controls the UK government through Installed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. As well as governments, The Underdog surmises that Moderna has compromised academics in universities in the USA and Canada. For previous articles we’ve published that relate to and complement The Underdog’s article, please see ‘Rishi Sunak, Thélème and Moderna’ and various other articles HERE. Let’s not lose touch…Your Government and Big Tech are actively trying to censor the information reported by The Exposé to serve their own needs. Subscribe now to make sure you receive the latest uncensored news in your inbox… Murderous Moderna’s Infiltration of Politics By The Underdog Murder, They Wrote Let us clarify murderous: a peer-reviewed study found that myocarditis in under 40-year-old males was higher in those who had taken all vaccines, and those who had taken a second dose of mRNA-1273, the Moderna covid injection. It was so bad that Sweden, Norway, and Finland suspended the use of the Moderna vaccine in young people, as noted in the British Medical Journal (“BMJ”). As previously known, the US National Institutes of Health (“NIH”) and their corrupt cohorts attempted to censor evidence that myocarditis has a fatality rate of 50% within 5 years. So it isn’t unreasonable to assert Moderna has in all likelihood murdered at least 50% of those with myocarditis caused by the Moderna injections; of which will include children. Like in an attempt to discourage people from getting the poisonous shots without declaring that they’re harmful and recalling them, Moderna recently jacked up the price of their injections to $130. A reminder Moderna produced injections that contained stainless steel contaminants. It cost only $2.85 to manufacture and despite this, the US government paid $15 to $26 a dose. Why? Moderna Have Infiltrated the Government Seems pretty incredulous, but no. Moderna Is Part of WEF Stéphane Bancel was “elected” 2009 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (“WEF”). Bancel was founding chief executive officer for Moderna and joined Flagship Pioneering in 2013. Noubar Afeyan, co-founder of Moderna and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, “received a Technology Pioneer 2012 award from the World Economic Forum”. Noubar also “served as Chairman of the Global Agenda Council on Chemicals, Advanced Materials and Biotechnology of the World Economic Forum as well as being a member of the Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies.” Moderna Took Control of Operation Warp Speed Moncef Slaoui, owning 82,508 Moderna shares on 21 February 2020, stepped down from Moderna, divested his stake, and went on to lead Operation Warp Speed. As it just so happened, the US government spent over $4 billion on Moderna, twice as much as any other pharmaceutical company: During this time of taking fat wads of government cash, Moderna also received heavy investment from hedge funds in September 2020. Moderna Influenced NIH, BARDA The NIH in December 2020 bragged how they worked with Moderna in a partnership, along with BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) and NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) Vaccine Research Centre to develop the myocarditis inducing mRNA-1273 injection: Factoring in that the NIH deleted evidence of the myocarditis fatality rate implicating firms such as Moderna and the NIH itself, this shouldn’t be surprising. Moderna ultimately got into a fight with NIH over mRNA patents, with Moderna insisting they did everything. Current NIH director Francis Collins remarked the NIH played “a major role in the development of the vaccine,” in which Moderna received approximately $10 billion in government funding. Moderna paid the NIH their bribe patent money, to the tune of $400 million, just under half a billion, but held dispute over another patent. To try to appease the NIH, Moderna offered co-ownership of the vaccine patent with NIH. Curiously, an NIH employee, Philip Leder, worked on mRNA research decades before NIH’s agreement with Moderna. They conveniently died in 2020. Moderna Took Control of the FDA Stephan Hahn Stephen Hahn, former FDA Commissioner who insisted he’d fast-track the covid-19 injections, left the FDA to go join Flagship Pioneering after approving the injections. He claimed Donald Trump told him “to authorise a covid-19 vaccine or go.” Flagship Pioneering are a venture capital firm that financed and kickstarted Moderna. The CEO of Flagship Pioneering, Noubar Afeyan, also co-founded Moderna. So, they’re essentially one and the same. Moderna LLC was the successor in interest to Moderna Therapeutics, Inc., a Delaware corporation incorporated in 2009 as Newco LS18, Inc. by Flagship Pioneering. SEC EDGAR filing on Moderna LLCnone One of the founding investors of Moderna, Bob Langer, also previously worked on the FDA’s advisory board according to his own biography, serving as both a member and later the chairman: It is likely Bob retained contacts within the FDA even after leaving. Moderna Control the UK Government This isn’t hyperbole. We wish it were. The UK government signed a memorandum of understanding with Flagship Pioneering: This includes a spin-off company called Quotient Therapeutics: The UK government also formed an unusually aggressive and expansive 10-year contract with Moderna, worth at least £1 billion for a “new vaccine centre” – despite the fact these are genetic modification injections. This was agreed during Rishi Sunak’s tenure as Prime Minister. Moderna de facto Control the Prime Minister The investment will benefit current unelected pharmaceutical bureaucrat Rishi Sunak, who is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (read as: Moderna have influence of the UK government). Unelected Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Rishi was also formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer (read as: controlled the UK government purse strings) back in 2020, and allocated even more funds to the vaccine industry during that time. He bragged how it was a “success.” For his bank account, we surmise. How will he benefit? Rishi Sunak co-founded a firm called Thélème Partners LLP (aka. Thélème) back in 2009, registered in the Cayman Islands, along with co-founder and former French Navy Patrick Degorce, after they previously met at The Children’s Investment Fund (“TCIF”). TCIF was run by billionaire Chris Hohn. Rishi Sunak appointed Thélème partner John Sheridan as an advisor to government during his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thélème started with an initial investment fund of £536m, and were early backers of Moderna. Thélème co-founder Degorce invested in Moderna over a decade ago, meaning their rise was also Rishi Sunak’s rise. Thélème are Moderna’s single largest hedge fund investor, despite Thélème cutting their exposure by 11%. On 30 September 2023, Thélème disclosed ownership of 6,897,612 shares of Moderna, Inc. (US:MRNA) valued at $712,454,343 USD, more than half a billion. The name Thélème is likely based upon the French ‘Abbaye de Thélème’, an idea invented by French monk Rabelais, who gives his vision of an “ideal and utopian abbey.” The “Thelemites of the Abbey” follow “do what thou wilt”. Occultist Aleister Crowley declared a so-called “Theleme religion” whose central belief was “do what thou wilt”, even remarking “There is no law beyond do what thou wilt.” Unsurprisingly, Moderna plant Rishi Sunak did whatever he wanted and declined to say that he did not profit from the Moderna injections. He claims to have left the firm in 2013 and that his finances are in a so-called “blind trust,” along with 10 other ministers. There’s no legal definition of a “blind trust” so this is pure theatre. Given he’s the original founder of Thélème, he no doubt has shares and investments and still stands to profit from Moderna’s success, explaining why he gave Flagship Pioneering favourable treatment and Moderna a 10-year contract on a plate. This is the same Rishi who tried to “break banks” during the 2008 collapse. On another note… Moderna Have Compromised Academia Bear in mind academic institutions are involved in peer-reviewed processes, clinical research and more, so this has wider, damning ramifications. Moderna were formed within the heart of academia. Moderna Have Control In MIT Noubar Afeyan Noubar Afeyan, CEO of Flagship Pioneering, studied at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He was recently installed in MIT Corporation’s board of trustees. The purpose of the trust? (Emphasis added): […] to see that the Institute adheres to the purposes for which it was chartered and that its integrity and financial resources are preserved for future generations as well as for current purposes. […] “About the Corporation”, MIT Corporation pagenone Control of the finances. And integrity. During the founding period of Moderna, Noubar Afeyan joined the likes of MIT Bob Langer. Langer, since investing in Moderna, has now become a billionaire as a result. MIT Mandates the Covid-19 Injection, That MIT Based Modern Just Happens to Sell Profitably for MIT-inspired Moderna, during Moderna’s rise, MIT adopted a vaccine mandate, one where MIT reported there were still covid-19 cases anyway and that they weren’t mild: They huffed the copium and tried to argue there were no Omicron-related hospitalisations (Omicron is deemed the mildest of the covid-19 set), but conveniently omitted Alpha, Delta, and the others, implying there were other variant hospitalisations (read as: The injections they mandated for profits, didn’t work). Noubar Afeyan and MIT’s Bob Langer are also joined by investor Derrick Rossi (Harvard), after they learn they can reprogram human cells and reverse them back into pluripotent stem cells based on Harvard Derrick Rossi’s research. Notice it involves using mRNA to change human cells (read as: Modify their DNA). Rossi is head of the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. Current Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel also studied at Harvard. Rossi approached Harvard faculty member Timothy Springer asking him to invest in Moderna, which he did so. In April 2021, Timothy Springer was declared a billionaire by Cord Magazine. Back patting their own, Timothy Springer went on to receive a Lasker award, and a Robert Koch prize. The Koch brothers also finances MIT Bob Langer’s lab: In a surprise to no-one, Harvard also mandated the injection from which they stand to profit. This included for Harvard staff, flushing out anyone critical of the financial abuses by the vaccine industry. Bearing in mind the majority of Moderna directed Operation Warp Speed financing went to Moderna, the majority of the injections that would have been available would have also been primarily Moderna, guaranteeing their selfish, harmful, murderous profit Remember: Those below the age of 40 are adversely affected by myocarditis, and the majority of students on campus would be below that age; 50% fatality rate within 5 years for myocarditis. University of Toronto, As Well – Maybe Even the Canadian Government? The Academia orgy was apparently not big enough, and the University of Toronto wanted some, giving Derrick Rossi an “honorary degree”. University of Toronto are particularly interesting because they’re one of a handful of “kingmaker universities” in Canada. When investigating Acuitas Therapeutics, The Daily Beagle remarked: The only University with more Canadian Prime Ministers is University of Toronto, with Arthur Meighen, W.L. Mackenzie King, Lester B. Pearson, and Paul Martin. It is very likely a lot of ministers for the Canadian government also come from the University of Toronto. So, the University of Toronto’s corrupt love-in with Moderna implies Moderna also has influence over the Canadian government. And in surprise to no-one, the University of Toronto also anti-competitively mandated the emergency authorisation injections: You know, the same injections Health Canada admitted contained plasmid DNA, the same kind Moderna used in partnership with Aldevron. What is it with academic universities mandating the injections from which they stand to benefit financially? Moderna are in Bed with Multiple Major Pharmaceutical Companies To give you an idea how deep this shell game goes, did you know that AstraZeneca are one of the key initial investors in Moderna and a major shareholder? So it doesn’t matter to them if their AstraZeneca injection becomes the fall guy for mRNA shots – they profit either way! And guess what they focused on? Heart disease and cancer (any time you see the word ‘oncology’, think cancer). Moderna Clearly Expects a Lot of Cancer Moderna went batshit and agreed a lot of partnerships with major pharmaceutical firms and fired up a lot of oncology (cancer) related spin-offs. Even in their own timeline, they spun-off ‘Onkaido Therapeutics’ to research cancer, partnered with Merck to advocate “personalised” cancer vaccines, and then produced mRNA injections, mRNA-4157, for tumours. They also launched ‘Caperna LLC’, again focusing on personalised cancer vaccines. Flagship Pioneering (Moderna) Gets into Bed with Pfizer Moderna love-in Flagship Pioneering got into bed with Pfizer to do a $100 million drug discovery jaunt in July 2023. What type of drugs, they mysteriously didn’t say. Pfizer said their breakthroughs would “change patients’ lives”. They didn’t say for the better. This isn’t forgetting that earlier in 2023 Pfizer bought out Seagan for a whopping $43 billion in order to develop cancer drugs. Flagship Pioneering (Moderna) Gets into Bed With Novo Nordisk The target? Heart disease and “rare diseases” (it’s only “rare”): Established in 2022, after it was found the Moderna injections cause myocarditis. Convenient. The Daily Beagle Smells a Rat – Merck Again Despite being rightly lambasted for making a harmful, murderous product and taking a beating with stocks and shares, on about 12 December 2023, Moderna started to mysteriously climb, and The Daily Beagle smelled a rat. And a rat it was. On the 14 December Moderna and Merck bragged their little jaunt into personalised cancer vaccines – vaguely worded as “a powerful new cancer therapy” – was “in the works.” We wonder if it’s as “safe and effective” as the myocarditis inducing covid-19 injections. What a great way to profit. Introduce DNA with transfection agents that cause insertational mutagensis (read as: Cause foreign DNA to enter your DNA and cause cancer), then profit from the resulting spike in cancer cases. Cancer, Cancer Everywhere Moderna’s entire theme seems to be primarily cancer focused. Besides the partnerships with AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Aldevron, NIH and more, it turns out Moderna is even more focused on cancer (somehow). Take former FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, for example, the man who betrayed the American public for a cushy job at Flagship Pioneering: He specialises in oncology (cancer), having been part of the National Cancer Institute, American Association for Cancer Research, and American Society for Radiation Oncology. Conveniently this also means Moderna has influence over cancer research (read as: No investigating any Moderna-related causes of cancer). University of Texas Cancer Corruption In another tangled web of cancer-related corruption, MD Anderson Cancer Centre are owned by the Koch brothers. Koch financed the likes of Moderna’s Bob Langer’s lab and gave Moderna investor Timothy Springer a monetary award. MD Anderson Cancer Centre, were involved in controversy when the President, Ronald DePinho, was found to own stocks in Aveo Oncology, a company whose drugs University of Texas would be assessing in clinical trial, at none other than… the MD Anderson Cancer Centre. We bet it is exciting … for your bank account. Unsurprisingly, the corrupt University of Texas investigated itself and found itself innocent, using the meaningless term “blind trust” with zero transparency on the arrangement. University of Texas wheeled out the usual nonsense that financial conflicts of interest were somehow in the patients’ best interests. Surely they mean the best interests of the investors, University of Texas itself! And what safeguards? You kept the stocks and the clinical trial. Any Cure for The Cancer That Is Corruption? Apparently not. Even now, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel is somehow selling off 40,000 shares a pop via automatic sells, without somehow reducing the total number of shares he holds (???): Apparently Moderna can just print itself as many shares for profit as it wants, on account of how many departments and institutions it controls. Oh, and to top it off, Moderna are even in bed with charities. Oxfam America (you know, of Oxfam child rapists fame) filed a SEC complaint that Moderna had committed fraud and misled investors (read as: Oxfam America is an investor in Moderna). Tip of the Iceberg Phew, that’s a lot to go over. No doubt there’s more, however we’ll be cutting it here for now as it is a lot to go over. It is surprising how much influence and control Moderna have consolidated in such a short space of time, and no doubt corruption is rife abounds elsewhere too. https://expose-news.com/2024/01/03/modernas-influence-over-the-us-and-uk

Klaus Schwab wants to stop the retreat of globalisation and global governance with a new form of globalisation and global governance Rhoda WilsonDecember 19, 2023 Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret’s book ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’ identified “the global governance free fall” as an existential challenge and if we do not collaborate “we are doomed.” “Nation states make global governance possible (one leads the other),” the book states. “The more nationalism and isolationism pervade the global polity, the greater the chance that global governance loses its relevance and becomes ineffective. Sadly, we are now at this critical juncture. Put bluntly, we live in a world in which nobody is really in charge.” The book defines “global governance” as the cooperation among transnational actors to respond to global problems and “globalisation” as a broad and vague notion that refers to the global exchange between nations of goods, services, people, capital and data. Although global governance is defined as a different concept, they are intertwined and the reasons for its “free fall” are the same as those for the retreat of globalisation. The solution to the retreat from globalisation, Schwab and Malleret said, was a new form of globalisation which required policies and effective global governance. Let’s not lose touch…Your Government and Big Tech are actively trying to censor the information reported by The Exposé to serve their own needs. Subscribe now to make sure you receive the latest uncensored news in your inbox… Earlier this month, the US deep state’s Council on Foreign Relations publicised what they proposed to do about the rise in anti-globalisation through two interviews. One was with Peter Trubowitz, an associate fellow at the UK deep state’s Chatham House. The other was with Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. The general outcome of both was that the plan was to counteract anti-globalisation with a different form of globalisation. Trubowitz suggested that what needs to be done is “to re-imagine the relationship between foreign and domestic policies” while Georgieva suggested “concentrating on the areas where, without working together, we are doomed.” The examples she gave as “we are doomed” without globalisation were “climate change,” the “green transition” and debt. Read more: Council on Foreign Relations tries to combat rise of anti-globalisation Not only were Trubowitz and Georgieva parroting each other in the ideas and some of the language they used, but both were parroting Klaus Schwab and his book ‘The Great Reset’. Plans to tackle Anti-Globalisation with a New Globalisation After having to admit that it is inevitable that “some deglobalisation will happen,” the authors of ‘The Great Reset’ attempted to instil fear about anti-globalisation. “A hasty retreat from globalisation would entail trade and currency wars, damaging every country’s economy, provoking social havoc and triggering ethno- or clan nationalism,” the authors claimed. (See The Great Reset pg. 81) They proposed “managing” the retreat of globalisation with a new form of globalisation. Written using the verbiage of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda, the new globalisation, according to Schwab and Malleret, will be “a much more inclusive and equitable form that … makes it sustainable, both socially and environmentally.” They said this requires policy solutions and some form of effective global governance. Their policy solutions were “addressed in the concluding chapter.” Taking these words literally, the concluding chapter is ‘Chapter 3: Individual Reset’. Chapter 3 suggests “redefining our humanness” and “changing priorities” as “solutions.” Under the heading ‘Redefining our Humanness’ is a section titled ‘Moral Choices’. It is a mystery why Schwab and Malleret think they have the authority to redefine our humanness and decide our moral choices. But in doing so they have made their ideology clear. Under “moral choices” the two discussed how to maximise the common good: [It is] a moral choice about whether to prioritise the qualities of individualism or those that favour the destiny of the community. It is an individual as well as a collective choice (that can be expressed through elections), but the example of the pandemic shows that highly individualistic societies are not very good at expressing solidarity. … If (but it is a big “if”) in the future we abandon the posture of self-interest that pollutes so many of our social interactions, we may be able to pay more attention to issues like inclusivity and fairness. The Great Reset, Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, July 2020, pg. 154 and 157none As we have said before, the term “the common good” and its ugly sister “the greater good” represent collectivism which is found in socialist, communist and fascist movements. These movements use “the common good” as a tool for social control. The authors don’t explain why there is a need for an “individual reset,” they simply assumed it was a consequence of the covid “pandemic.” However, as they did throughout the book, they used collectivism as a tool of social control. “If, as human beings, we do not collaborate to confront our existential challenges (the environment and the global governance free fall, among others), we are doomed,” they claimed. (See The Great Reset pg. 152) World Economic Forum’s Solution for the Precariat Class The threat of anti-globalisation to Globalists’ plans had been recognised long before Schwab and Malleret published their book. The Great Reset noted two “momentous markers” that demonstrated the retreat of globalisation. “The rise of nationalism makes the retreat of globalisation inevitable in most of the world – an impulse particularly notable in the West. The vote for Brexit and the election of President Trump on a protectionist platform are two momentous markers of the Western backlash against globalisation,” the two authors wrote. (See The Great Reset pg. 78) The EU or Brexit referendum which decided that the UK should leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as president of the USA both took place in 2016. The following year Schwab delivered the main address at the World Government Summit. “Let me give a short rundown on where we stand in our world and what directions we should choose,” he pontificated. First on his list was deglobalisation. “First, we are at historical crossroads. So, there’s one post sign, which directs us into what we called – to continue the way of what some people call neoliberalism – global cooperation. But we face a backlash of millions of people, particularly in the West, who feel that globalisation is not working to their advantage,” he said. In a self-defeating way, later in his speech after he mentioned some arbitrary benefits of globalisation, Schwab said that “globalisation has created a new economic equation; skills, labour is less in demand, which means if we look at the pie of GDP, the rent for labour is low and those who have capital, those who have new ideas have benefited more from globalisation.” This sort of sums up one of the reasons why billions, not millions, feel that globalisation is not working to their advantage. Effectively, globalisation means the self-proclaimed global elite get richer and own more while the poor get poorer and own less. Even Schwab had to admit it: “For this reason, what we have seen in the elections in the United States, in the Brexit vote, this anger of people against globalisation and against the elites, which they feel have profited from globalisation.” The second signpost of where the world was, according to Schwab, was the “re-erecting of walls, into, probably, a world which is more anchored in yesterday, and a world which probably is characterised by fragility and hostility.” What exactly Schwab meant when he used the term “re-erecting walls” perhaps only he knows. But in a broad sense, this again could be taken as referring to countries turning inward and so turning against globalisation. “I would suggest that we do not choose either of those two ways,” he declared. He then gave a sales pitch for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “The Fourth Industrial Revolution will change our lives, will change how we live, how we consume, and how we work,” Schwab said. He listed drones, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence and new methods to manipulate genes as no longer being just an idea but a reality. There is a new class of people, Schwab said, called the precariats; “people who feel in a precarious situation who do not know whether they have enough when they get older, whether they can pay the medical bills.” In a 2016 article, the World Economic Forum accused the precariat of being “the new global class fuelling the rise of populism.” According to the Oxford Review, modern-day “gig economy” workers, mainly freelancers without long-term or permanent contracts and people on short-term and zero-hours contacts are all considered to be precariats. We have to ask if the new class of people Schwab refers to has been created by the activities of the so-called global elites at organisations such as the World Economic Forum. To address the issues the precariat class are experiencing and those who don’t know what the purpose of their life is or how they fit into the world as “global citizens,” the self-styled global elite and saviour of the world Klaus Schwab proposed some paradigms. After rejecting neoliberalism and the dismantling of the current globalist system as options, Schwab suggested that “we should prepare ourselves for the Fourth Industrial Revolution” and integrate the multi-stakeholder concept on which his World Economic Forum was built. As another possibility, Schwab wanted the Summit’s attendees to embrace “the Eastern philosophy.” In the West, Schwab said, there is a concept which protects the individual against the collective. Conversely, in the East is a concept to protect the collective against the individual, he said. World Government Summit: WGS17 Session: The Challenges of Globalism, 9 March 2017 The problem with the “Eastern philosophy” as Schwab calls it, is who decides what the collective needs protecting from and the protection measures that should be taken? Elected Governments are “Old Fashioned” A few months earlier, Schwab showcased Google founder Sergey Brin’s dystopian ideas at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. Schwab introduced the topic of the predictive power of artificial intelligence (“AI”). “Digital technologies [now] have an analytical power … the next step could be to go into prescriptive mode, which means you do not even have to have elections anymore because you can already predict … and afterwards say: ‘Why do we need elections because we know what the result will be’.” “You might further ask, why do we need to have elected leaders because you might as well have all the decisions made,” Brin said. Schwab pressed the issue of the world being run by unelected decision-makers: He called the process of governments “old fashioned.” He cited the example of governments hearing about a technological development and then involving regulatory agencies, parliamentary commissions and then finally regulations being debated in and passed by parliaments. “This [process] is absolutely not suited anymore to our new technologies,” he said. “We need much more agile interaction between business, regulators, civil society and so on”. Brin added that he thinks the relationship between governments and business is often antagonistic, which, he said, is unhealthy. “Not only should we try to tackle things more quickly but also in a real collaborative way,” Brin said. World Economic Forum: Davos 2017 – An Insight, An Idea with Sergey Brin, 19 January 2017 This brings us back to the quote from The Great Reset noted at the beginning of this article. Collective choice, The Great Reset said, can be expressed through elections. “But the example of the pandemic shows that highly individualistic societies are not very good at expressing solidarity.” As with Schwab’s proposed use for predictive artificial intelligence, they are using jargon to accustom people to the idea of them removing our ability to make a choice and allowing self-appointed elites to make our choices – for the common good. Schwab’s version of “Eastern philosophy” is that business and like-minded profiteers, most likely through the World Economic Forum, will decide for “the collective.” In a nutshell, this is Schwab and his cronies’ plan for a new form of globalisation with its policy solutions and effective global governance. From the billions of us, no thanks, Schwab. The Expose Urgently Needs Your Help.. Subscribe now to make sure you receive the latest uncensored news in your inbox… . Can you please help power The Expose’s honest, reliable, powerful journalism for the years to come… Your Government & Big Tech organisations such as Google, Facebook, Twitter & PayPal are trying to silence & shut down The Expose. So we need your help to ensure we can continue to bring you the facts the mainstream refuse to… We’re not funded by the Government to publish lies & propaganda on their behalf like the mainstream media. Instead, we rely solely on our support. So please support us in our efforts to bring you honest, reliable, investigative journalism today. It’s secure, quick and easy… Just choose your preferred method to show your support belowV support The FDA Can Now Withhold COVID Vaccine Safety Records. Again, We Ask – Are The FDA, With Their Ties to Bill Gates, Fit For Purpose? CJ Hopkins: The Gestapo raided homes in New Normal Germany as part of the Third European Day of Action Against Hate Crimes Switzerland: Health insurance data shows 73% increase in people receiving cancer treatment since 2020 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Is Building A Massive Doomsday Bunker. https://expose-news.com/2023/12/19/klaus-schwab-wants-to-stop-the-retreat/

Texas AG sues Pfizer for allegedly selling medicine it knew was ineffective, manipulated quality-test results Pfizer and Tris manipulated quality-test results from 2012 to 2018 to obtain the Medicaid reimbursement for Quillivant, AG Ken Paxton claims Lawrence Richard November 21, 2023 8:06am EST ‘Pandemia’ author Alex Berenson shares how he is suing the Biden administration and Pfizer for their alleged role in his ban from Twitter during the pandemic on ‘The Bottom Line.’ video Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Pfizer and its drug manufacturer for allegedly providing medicine it knew to be ineffective. In a lawsuit unsealed Monday, Paxton sued Pfizer, Inc., Tris Pharma, Inc. and Tris CEO Ketan Mehta, accusing both companies of defrauding the state to get children's ADHD medicine Quillivant XR added to the state’s list of preferred drugs under the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people. The drug previously failed to meet quality standards, he said. According to Paxton, Pfizer and Tris "continually" manipulated quality-test results from 2012 to 2018 to obtain the benefit of taxpayer-funded Medicaid reimbursement for Quillivant. "For years, Tris altered the drug’s testing method in violation of federal and state laws to ensure Quillivant passed regulatory hurdles and could continue to be sold. Despite knowing about these serious problems, Pfizer misrepresented to the Medicaid program that Quillivant was in compliance with federal and state law," he claimed. "I am horrified by the dishonesty we uncovered in this investigation," said Paxton. "Pfizer and Tris intentionally concealed and failed to disclose the issues with Quillivant to receive taxpayer-funded benefits through Texas Medicaid, defrauding the state and endangering children. Our Civil Medicaid Fraud Division has done an outstanding job holding these pharmaceutical companies accountable." TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT WARNS CHINA'S GROWING INFLUENCE IS 'QUITE ALARMING' Hand holding pills, Pfizer logo In this photo illustration a Pfizer logo is seen on a screen and a hand holding pills. (Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images) Paxton alleged Pfizer knowingly distributed Quillivant to children despite it failing quality control tests and its flawed manufacturing practices. "At no point did Defendants warn Texas Medicaid providers or decision-makers that Quillivant had known manufacturing issues affecting its efficacy, thereby depriving the Medicaid program of the crucial information it relies on.… As a result, thousands of Texas children received an adulterated Schedule II Controlled Dangerous Substance," the filing explained. Pfizer logo, stocks The Pfizer company logo is displayed on a screen at the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading on Nov. 3, 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images / Getty Images) The Texas attorney general also said many Texas families complained that Quillivant was not effective. PFIZER SAYS IT'S EYEING A $110 TO $130 LIST PRICE FOR COVID-19 VACCINE IN U.S. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration previously warned Tris of manufacturing lapses in 2017, according to the filing. The complaint notes, however, "While these events are not necessarily connected, regulatory [agencies] must have confidence that they are not." The lawsuit stems from a whistleblower complaint by Tarik Ahmed, who worked as Tris' head of technology from 2013 to 2017, Reuters reported. Ken Paxton Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton unsealed the lawsuit on Monday, Nov. 20, 2023. (Emil Lippe for The Washington Post via Getty Images / Getty Images) Nextwave Pharmaceuticals developed Quillivant XR. The company was acquired by Pfizer in 2012. GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE The state of Texas is seeking monetary payments equal to any monetary or in-kind benefits Pfizer and Tris received due to the alleged violations as well as other civil penalties. Reuters contributed to this report. https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/texas-ag-sues-pfizer-allegedly-selling-medicine-knew-ineffective-manipulated-quality-test-results

The head of the IMF's International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, said the globalist organization is "working on a global CBDC (digital currency) platform" that will be mandatory for all citizens of the world.

The Age of Megathreats Nouriel RoubiniNov 4, 2022 op_roubini3_Getty Images_worlddisaster Getty Images NEW YORK – Severe megathreats are imperiling our future – not just our jobs, incomes, wealth, and the global economy, but also the relative peace, prosperity, and progress achieved over the past 75 years. Many of these threats were not even on our radar during the prosperous post-World War II era. I grew up in the Middle East and Europe from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, and I never worried about climate change potentially destroying the planet. Most of us had barely even heard of the problem, and greenhouse-gas emissions were still relatively low, compared to where they would soon be. Moreover, after the US-Soviet détente and US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in the early 1970s, I never really worried about another war among great powers, let alone a nuclear one. The term “pandemic” didn’t register in my consciousness, either, because the last major one had been in 1918. And I didn’t fathom that artificial intelligence might someday destroy most jobs and render Homo sapiens obsolete, because those were the years of the long “AI winter.” Similarly, terms like “deglobalization” and “trade war” had no purchase during this period. Trade liberalization had been in full swing since the Great Depression, and it would soon lead to the hyper-globalization that began in the 1990s. Debt crises posed no threat, because private and public debt-to-GDP ratios were low in advanced economies and emerging markets, and growth was robust. No one had to worry about the massive build-up of implicit debt, in the form of unfunded liabilities from pay-as-you-go social security and health-care systems. The supply of young workers was rising, the share of the elderly was still low, and robust, mostly unrestricted immigration from the Global South to the North would continue to prop up the labor market in advanced economies. Against this backdrop, economic cycles were contained, and recessions were short and shallow, except for during the stagflationary decade of the 1970s; but even then, there were no debt crises in advanced economies, because debt ratios were low. The kind of financial cycles that lead to crises were contained not just in advanced economies but even in emerging markets, owing to the low leverage, low risk-taking, solid financial regulation, capital controls, and various forms of financial repression that prevailed during this period. The advanced economies were strong liberal democracies that were free of extreme partisan polarization. Populism and authoritarianism were confined to a benighted cohort of poorer countries. Goodbye to All That Fast-forward from this relatively “golden” period between 1945 and 1985 to late 2022, and you will immediately notice that we are awash in new, extreme megathreats that were not previously on anyone’s mind. The world has entered what I call a geopolitical depression, with (at least) four dangerous revisionist powers – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – challenging the economic, financial, security, and geopolitical order that the United States and its allies created after WWII. There is a sharply rising risk not only of war among great powers but of a nuclear conflict. In the coming year, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine could escalate into an unconventional conflict that directly involves NATO. And Israel – and perhaps the US – may decide to launch strikes against Iran, which is on its way to building a nuclear bomb. Subscribe to PS Digital now to read all the latest insights from Nouriel Roubini. Digital subscribers enjoy access to every PS commentary, including those by Nouriel Roubini, plus our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content, including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More. For a limited time, save $15 with the code ROUBINI15. Subscribe Now With Chinese President Xi Jinping further consolidating his authoritarian rule, and with the US tightening its trade restrictions against China, the new Sino-American cold war is getting colder by the day. Worse, it could all too easily turn hot over the status of Taiwan, which Xi is committed to reuniting with the mainland, and which US President Joe Biden is apparently committed to defending. Meanwhile, nuclear-armed North Korea has once again been seeking attention by firing rockets over Japan and South Korea. Cyberwarfare occurs daily between these revisionist powers and the West, and many other countries have adopted a non-aligned posture toward Western-led sanctions regimes. From our contingent vantage point in the middle of all these events, we don’t yet know if World War III has already begun in Ukraine. That determination will be left to future historians – if there are any. Even discounting the threat of nuclear Armageddon, the risk of an environmental Apocalypse is becoming increasingly serious, especially given that most of the talk about net-zero and ESG (environment, social, and governance) investing is just greenwashing – or greenwishing. The new greenflation is already in full swing, because it turns out that amassing the metals needed for the energy transition requires a lot of expensive energy. There is also a growing risk of new pandemics that would be worse than biblical plagues, owing to the link between environmental destruction and zoonotic diseases. Wildlife, carrying dangerous pathogens, are coming into closer and more frequent contact with humans and livestock. That is why we have experienced more frequent and virulent pandemics and epidemics (HIV, SARS, MERS, swine flu, bird flu, Zika, Ebola, COVID-19) since the early 1980s. All the evidence suggests that this problem will become even worse in the future. Indeed, owing to the melting of Siberian permafrost, we may soon be confronting dangerous viruses and bacteria that have been locked away for millennia. Moreover, geopolitical conflicts and national-security concerns are fueling trade, financial, and technology wars, and accelerating the deglobalization process. The return of protectionism and the Sino-American decoupling will leave the global economy, supply chains, and markets more balkanized and fragmented. The buzzwords “friend-shoring” and “secure and fair trade” have replaced “offshoring” and “free trade.” But on the domestic front, advances in AI, robotics, and automation will destroy more and more jobs, even if policymakers build higher protectionist walls in an effort to fight the last war. By both restricting immigration and demanding more domestic production, aging advanced economies will create a stronger incentive for companies to adopt labor-saving technologies. While routine jobs are obviously at risk, so, too, are any cognitive jobs that can be unbundled into discrete tasks, and even many creative jobs. AI language models like GPT-3 can already write better than most humans and will almost certainly displace many jobs and sources of income. In due course, some scientists believe that Homo sapiens will be rendered entirely obsolete by the rise of artificial general intelligence or machine super-intelligence – though this is a highly contentious subject of debate. Thus, over time, economic malaise will deepen, inequality will rise even further, and more white- and blue-collar workers will be left behind. Hard Choices, Hard Landings The macroeconomic situation is no better. For the first time since the 1970s, we are facing high inflation and the prospect of a recession – stagflation. The increased inflation in advanced economies wasn’t “transitory.” It is persistent, driven by a combination of bad policies – excessively loose monetary, fiscal, and credit policies that were kept in place for too long – and bad luck. No one could have anticipated how much the initial COVID-19 shock would curtail the supply of goods and labor and create bottlenecks in global supply chains. The same goes for Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which caused a sharp spike in energy, food, fertilizers, industrial metals, and other commodities. Meanwhile, China has continued its “zero-COVID” policy, which is creating additional supply bottlenecks. While both demand and supply factors were in the mix, it is now widely recognized that the supply factors have played an increasingly decisive role. This matters for the economic outlook, because supply-driven inflation is stagflationary and thus increases the risk that monetary-policy tightening will produce a hard landing (increased unemployment and potentially a recession). What will follow from the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks’ current tightening? Until recently, most central banks and most of Wall Street belonged to “Team Soft Landing.” But the consensus has rapidly shifted, with even Fed Chair Jerome Powell recognizing that a recession is possible, that a soft landing will be “very challenging,” and that everyone should prepare for some “pain” ahead. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s model shows a high probability of a hard landing, and the Bank of England has expressed similar views about the United Kingdom. Several prominent Wall Street institutions have also now made a recession their baseline scenario (the most likely outcome if all other variables are held constant). History, too, points to deeper problems ahead. For the past 60 years in the US, whenever inflation has been above 5% (it is above 8% today), and unemployment has been below 5% (it is now 3.5%), any attempt by the Fed to bring inflation down toward its 2% target has caused a recession. Thus, a hard landing is much more likely than a soft landing, both in the US and across most other advanced economies. Sticky Stagflation In addition to the short-term factors, negative supply shocks and demand factors in the medium term will cause inflation to persist. On the supply side, I count eleven negative supply shocks that will reduce potential growth and increase the costs of production. Among these is the backlash against hyper-globalization, which has been gaining momentum and creating opportunities for populist, nativist, and protectionist politicians, and growing public anger over stark income and wealth inequalities, which is leading to more policies to support workers and the “left behind.” However well-intentioned, such measures will contribute to a dangerous wage-price spiral. Other sources of persistent inflation include rising protectionism (from both the left and the right), which has restricted trade, impeded the movement of capital, and heightened political resistance to immigration, which in turn has put additional upward pressure on wages. National-security and strategic considerations have further restricted flows of technology, data, and talent, and new labor and environmental standards, as important as they may be, are hampering both trade and new construction. This balkanization of the global economy is deeply stagflationary, and it is coinciding with demographic aging, not just in developed countries but also in large emerging economies such as China. Because young people tend to produce and save more, whereas older people spend down their savings and require many more expensive services in health care and other sectors, this trend, too, will lead to higher prices and slower growth. Today’s geopolitical turmoil further complicates matters. The disruptions to trade and the spike in commodity prices following Russia’s invasion were not just a one-off phenomenon. The same threats to harvests and food shipments that arose in 2022 may well persist in 2023. Moreover, if China does finally end its zero-COVID policy and begin to restart its economy, a surge in demand for many commodities will add to the global inflationary pressures. There is also no end in sight for Sino-Western decoupling, which is accelerating across all dimensions of trade (goods, services, capital, labor, technology, data, and information). And, of course, Iran, North Korea, and other strategic rivals to the West could soon contribute in their own ways to the global havoc. Now that the US dollar has been fully weaponized for strategic and national-security purposes, its position as the main global reserve currency could eventually begin to decline, and a weaker dollar would of course add to inflationary pressures in the US. More broadly, a frictionless world trading system requires a frictionless financial system. But sweeping primary and secondary sanctions have thrown sand in what was once a well-oiled machine, massively increasing the transaction costs of trade. On top of it all, climate change, too, will create persistent stagflationary pressures. Droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, and other disasters are increasingly disrupting economic activity and threatening harvests (thus driving up food prices). At the same time, demands for decarbonization have led to underinvestment in fossil-fuel capacity before investment in renewables has reached the point where they can make up the difference. Today’s large energy-price spikes were inevitable. The increased likelihood of future pandemics also represents a persistent source of stagflation, especially considering how little has been done to prevent or prepare for the next one. The next contagious outbreak will lend further momentum to protectionist policies as countries rush to close borders and hoard critical supplies of food, medicines, and other essential goods. Finally, cyberwarfare remains an underappreciated threat to economic activity and even public safety. Firms and governments will either face more stagflationary disruptions to production, or they will have to spend a fortune on cybersecurity. Either way, costs will rise. The Worst of All Possible Economies When the recession comes, it will not be short and shallow but long and severe. Not only are we facing persistent short- and medium-term negative supply shocks, but we are also heading into the mother of all debt crises, owing to soaring private and public debt ratios over the last few decades. Low debt ratios spared us from that outcome in the 1970s. And though we certainly had debt crises following the 2008 crash – the result of excessive household, bank, and government debt – we also had deflation. It was a demand shock and a credit crunch that could be met with massive monetary, fiscal, and credit easing. Today, we are experiencing the worst elements of both the 1970s and 2008. Multiple, persistent negative supply shocks have coincided with debt ratios that are even higher than they were during the global financial crisis. These inflationary pressures are forcing central banks to tighten monetary policy even though we are heading into a recession. That makes the current situation fundamentally different from both the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis. Everyone should be preparing for what may come to be remembered as the Great Stagflationary Debt Crisis. While central banks have been at pains to sound more hawkish, we should be skeptical of their professed willingness to fight inflation at any cost. Once they find themselves in a debt trap, they will have to blink. With debt ratios so high, fighting inflation will cause an economic and financial crash that will be deemed politically unacceptable. Major central banks will feel as though they have no choice but to backpedal, and inflation, the debasement of fiat currencies, boom-bust cycles, and financial crises will become even more severe and frequent. The inevitability of central banks wimping out was recently on display in the United Kingdom. Faced with the market reaction to the Truss government’s reckless fiscal stimulus, the BOE had to launch an emergency quantitative-easing (QE) program to buy up government bonds. That sad episode confirmed that in the UK, as in many other countries, monetary policy is increasingly subject to fiscal capture. Recall that a similar turnaround occurred in 2019, when the Fed, after previously signaling continued rate hikes and quantitative-tightening, stopped its QT program and started pursuing a mix of backdoor QE and policy-rate cuts at the first sign of mild financial pressures and a growth slowdown. Central banks will talk tough; but, in a world of excessive debt and risks of an economic and financial crash, there is good reason to doubt their willingness to do “whatever it takes” to return inflation to its target rate. With governments unable to reduce high debts and deficits by spending less or raising revenues, those that can borrow in their own currency will increasingly resort to the “inflation tax”: relying on unexpected price growth to wipe out long-term nominal liabilities at fixed interest rates. How will financial markets and prices of equities and bonds perform in the face of rising inflation and the return of stagflation? It is likely that, as in the stagflation of the 1970s, both components of any traditional asset portfolio will suffer, potentially incurring massive losses. Inflation is bad for bond portfolios, which will take losses as yields increase and prices fall, as well as for equities, whose valuations are hurt by rising interest rates. For the first time in decades, a 60/40 portfolio of equities and bonds suffered massive losses in 2022, because bond yields have surged while equities have gone into a bear market. By 1982, at the peak of the stagflation decade, the average S&P 500 firm’s price-to-earnings ratio was down to eight; today, it is closer to 20, which suggests that the bear market could end up being even more protracted and severe. Investors will need to find assets to hedge against inflation, political and geopolitical risks, and environmental damage: these include short-term government bonds and inflation-indexed bonds, gold and other precious metals, and real estate that is resilient to environmental damage. The Moment of Truth In any case, these megathreats will further contribute to rising income and wealth inequality, which has already been putting severe pressure on liberal democracies (as those left behind revolt against elites), and fueling the rise of radical and aggressive populist regimes. One can find right-wing manifestations of this trend in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, the US (under Donald Trump), post-Brexit Britain, and many other countries; and left-wing manifestations in Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and now Brazil (which has just replaced a right-wing populist with a left-wing one). And, of course, Xi’s authoritarian stranglehold has given the lie to the old idea that Western engagement with a fast-growing China would ineluctably lead that country to open itself up even more to markets and, eventually, to democratic processes. Under Xi, China shows every sign of becoming more closed off, and more aggressive on geopolitical, security, and economic matters. How did it come to this? Part of the problem is that we have long had our heads stuck in the sand. Now, we need to make up for lost time. Without decisive action, we will be heading into a period that is less like the four decades after WWII than like the three decades between 1914 and 1945. That period gave us World War I; the Spanish flu pandemic; the 1929 Wall Street crash; the Great Depression; massive trade and currency wars; inflation, hyperinflation, and deflation; financial and debt crises, leading to massive meltdowns and defaults; and the rise of authoritarian militarist regimes in Italy, Germany, Japan, Spain, and elsewhere, culminating in WWII and the Holocaust. In this new world, the relative peace, prosperity, and rising global welfare that we have taken for granted will be gone; most of it already is. If we don’t stop the multi-track slow-motion train wreck that is threatening the global economy and our planet at large, we will be lucky to have only a repeat of the stagflationary 1970s. Far more likely is an echo of the 1930s and the 1940s, only now with all the massive disruptions from climate change added to the mix. Avoiding a dystopian scenario will not be easy. While there are potential solutions to each megathreat, most are costly in the short run and will deliver benefits only over the long run. Many also require technological innovations that are not yet available or in place, starting with those needed to halt or reverse climate change. Complicating matters further, today’s megathreats are interconnected, and therefore best addressed in a systematic and coherent fashion. Domestic leadership, in both the private and public sector, and international cooperation among great powers is necessary to prevent the coming Apocalypse. Yet there are many domestic and international obstacles standing in the way of policies that would allow for a less dystopian (though still contested and conflictual) future. Thus, while a less bleak scenario is obviously desirable, a clear-headed analysis indicates that dystopia is much more likely than a happier outcome. The years and decades ahead will be marked by a stagflationary debt crisis and related megathreats – war, pandemics, climate change, disruptive AI, and deglobalization – all of which will be bad for jobs, economies, markets, peace, and prosperity.

The Age of Megathreats Nouriel RoubiniNov 4, 2022 op_roubini3_Getty Images_worlddisaster Getty Images NEW YORK – Severe megathreats are imperiling our future – not just our jobs, incomes, wealth, and the global economy, but also the relative peace, prosperity, and progress achieved over the past 75 years. Many of these threats were not even on our radar during the prosperous post-World War II era. I grew up in the Middle East and Europe from the late 1950s to the early 1980s, and I never worried about climate change potentially destroying the planet. Most of us had barely even heard of the problem, and greenhouse-gas emissions were still relatively low, compared to where they would soon be. Moreover, after the US-Soviet détente and US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in the early 1970s, I never really worried about another war among great powers, let alone a nuclear one. The term “pandemic” didn’t register in my consciousness, either, because the last major one had been in 1918. And I didn’t fathom that artificial intelligence might someday destroy most jobs and render Homo sapiens obsolete, because those were the years of the long “AI winter.” Similarly, terms like “deglobalization” and “trade war” had no purchase during this period. Trade liberalization had been in full swing since the Great Depression, and it would soon lead to the hyper-globalization that began in the 1990s. Debt crises posed no threat, because private and public debt-to-GDP ratios were low in advanced economies and emerging markets, and growth was robust. No one had to worry about the massive build-up of implicit debt, in the form of unfunded liabilities from pay-as-you-go social security and health-care systems. The supply of young workers was rising, the share of the elderly was still low, and robust, mostly unrestricted immigration from the Global South to the North would continue to prop up the labor market in advanced economies. Against this backdrop, economic cycles were contained, and recessions were short and shallow, except for during the stagflationary decade of the 1970s; but even then, there were no debt crises in advanced economies, because debt ratios were low. The kind of financial cycles that lead to crises were contained not just in advanced economies but even in emerging markets, owing to the low leverage, low risk-taking, solid financial regulation, capital controls, and various forms of financial repression that prevailed during this period. The advanced economies were strong liberal democracies that were free of extreme partisan polarization. Populism and authoritarianism were confined to a benighted cohort of poorer countries. Goodbye to All That Fast-forward from this relatively “golden” period between 1945 and 1985 to late 2022, and you will immediately notice that we are awash in new, extreme megathreats that were not previously on anyone’s mind. The world has entered what I call a geopolitical depression, with (at least) four dangerous revisionist powers – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – challenging the economic, financial, security, and geopolitical order that the United States and its allies created after WWII. There is a sharply rising risk not only of war among great powers but of a nuclear conflict. In the coming year, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine could escalate into an unconventional conflict that directly involves NATO. And Israel – and perhaps the US – may decide to launch strikes against Iran, which is on its way to building a nuclear bomb. Subscribe to PS Digital now to read all the latest insights from Nouriel Roubini. Digital subscribers enjoy access to every PS commentary, including those by Nouriel Roubini, plus our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content, including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More. For a limited time, save $15 with the code ROUBINI15. Subscribe Now With Chinese President Xi Jinping further consolidating his authoritarian rule, and with the US tightening its trade restrictions against China, the new Sino-American cold war is getting colder by the day. Worse, it could all too easily turn hot over the status of Taiwan, which Xi is committed to reuniting with the mainland, and which US President Joe Biden is apparently committed to defending. Meanwhile, nuclear-armed North Korea has once again been seeking attention by firing rockets over Japan and South Korea. Cyberwarfare occurs daily between these revisionist powers and the West, and many other countries have adopted a non-aligned posture toward Western-led sanctions regimes. From our contingent vantage point in the middle of all these events, we don’t yet know if World War III has already begun in Ukraine. That determination will be left to future historians – if there are any. Even discounting the threat of nuclear Armageddon, the risk of an environmental Apocalypse is becoming increasingly serious, especially given that most of the talk about net-zero and ESG (environment, social, and governance) investing is just greenwashing – or greenwishing. The new greenflation is already in full swing, because it turns out that amassing the metals needed for the energy transition requires a lot of expensive energy. There is also a growing risk of new pandemics that would be worse than biblical plagues, owing to the link between environmental destruction and zoonotic diseases. Wildlife, carrying dangerous pathogens, are coming into closer and more frequent contact with humans and livestock. That is why we have experienced more frequent and virulent pandemics and epidemics (HIV, SARS, MERS, swine flu, bird flu, Zika, Ebola, COVID-19) since the early 1980s. All the evidence suggests that this problem will become even worse in the future. Indeed, owing to the melting of Siberian permafrost, we may soon be confronting dangerous viruses and bacteria that have been locked away for millennia. Moreover, geopolitical conflicts and national-security concerns are fueling trade, financial, and technology wars, and accelerating the deglobalization process. The return of protectionism and the Sino-American decoupling will leave the global economy, supply chains, and markets more balkanized and fragmented. The buzzwords “friend-shoring” and “secure and fair trade” have replaced “offshoring” and “free trade.” But on the domestic front, advances in AI, robotics, and automation will destroy more and more jobs, even if policymakers build higher protectionist walls in an effort to fight the last war. By both restricting immigration and demanding more domestic production, aging advanced economies will create a stronger incentive for companies to adopt labor-saving technologies. While routine jobs are obviously at risk, so, too, are any cognitive jobs that can be unbundled into discrete tasks, and even many creative jobs. AI language models like GPT-3 can already write better than most humans and will almost certainly displace many jobs and sources of income. In due course, some scientists believe that Homo sapiens will be rendered entirely obsolete by the rise of artificial general intelligence or machine super-intelligence – though this is a highly contentious subject of debate. Thus, over time, economic malaise will deepen, inequality will rise even further, and more white- and blue-collar workers will be left behind. Hard Choices, Hard Landings The macroeconomic situation is no better. For the first time since the 1970s, we are facing high inflation and the prospect of a recession – stagflation. The increased inflation in advanced economies wasn’t “transitory.” It is persistent, driven by a combination of bad policies – excessively loose monetary, fiscal, and credit policies that were kept in place for too long – and bad luck. No one could have anticipated how much the initial COVID-19 shock would curtail the supply of goods and labor and create bottlenecks in global supply chains. The same goes for Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which caused a sharp spike in energy, food, fertilizers, industrial metals, and other commodities. Meanwhile, China has continued its “zero-COVID” policy, which is creating additional supply bottlenecks. While both demand and supply factors were in the mix, it is now widely recognized that the supply factors have played an increasingly decisive role. This matters for the economic outlook, because supply-driven inflation is stagflationary and thus increases the risk that monetary-policy tightening will produce a hard landing (increased unemployment and potentially a recession). What will follow from the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks’ current tightening? Until recently, most central banks and most of Wall Street belonged to “Team Soft Landing.” But the consensus has rapidly shifted, with even Fed Chair Jerome Powell recognizing that a recession is possible, that a soft landing will be “very challenging,” and that everyone should prepare for some “pain” ahead. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s model shows a high probability of a hard landing, and the Bank of England has expressed similar views about the United Kingdom. Several prominent Wall Street institutions have also now made a recession their baseline scenario (the most likely outcome if all other variables are held constant). History, too, points to deeper problems ahead. For the past 60 years in the US, whenever inflation has been above 5% (it is above 8% today), and unemployment has been below 5% (it is now 3.5%), any attempt by the Fed to bring inflation down toward its 2% target has caused a recession. Thus, a hard landing is much more likely than a soft landing, both in the US and across most other advanced economies. Sticky Stagflation In addition to the short-term factors, negative supply shocks and demand factors in the medium term will cause inflation to persist. On the supply side, I count eleven negative supply shocks that will reduce potential growth and increase the costs of production. Among these is the backlash against hyper-globalization, which has been gaining momentum and creating opportunities for populist, nativist, and protectionist politicians, and growing public anger over stark income and wealth inequalities, which is leading to more policies to support workers and the “left behind.” However well-intentioned, such measures will contribute to a dangerous wage-price spiral. Other sources of persistent inflation include rising protectionism (from both the left and the right), which has restricted trade, impeded the movement of capital, and heightened political resistance to immigration, which in turn has put additional upward pressure on wages. National-security and strategic considerations have further restricted flows of technology, data, and talent, and new labor and environmental standards, as important as they may be, are hampering both trade and new construction. This balkanization of the global economy is deeply stagflationary, and it is coinciding with demographic aging, not just in developed countries but also in large emerging economies such as China. Because young people tend to produce and save more, whereas older people spend down their savings and require many more expensive services in health care and other sectors, this trend, too, will lead to higher prices and slower growth. Today’s geopolitical turmoil further complicates matters. The disruptions to trade and the spike in commodity prices following Russia’s invasion were not just a one-off phenomenon. The same threats to harvests and food shipments that arose in 2022 may well persist in 2023. Moreover, if China does finally end its zero-COVID policy and begin to restart its economy, a surge in demand for many commodities will add to the global inflationary pressures. There is also no end in sight for Sino-Western decoupling, which is accelerating across all dimensions of trade (goods, services, capital, labor, technology, data, and information). And, of course, Iran, North Korea, and other strategic rivals to the West could soon contribute in their own ways to the global havoc. Now that the US dollar has been fully weaponized for strategic and national-security purposes, its position as the main global reserve currency could eventually begin to decline, and a weaker dollar would of course add to inflationary pressures in the US. More broadly, a frictionless world trading system requires a frictionless financial system. But sweeping primary and secondary sanctions have thrown sand in what was once a well-oiled machine, massively increasing the transaction costs of trade. On top of it all, climate change, too, will create persistent stagflationary pressures. Droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, and other disasters are increasingly disrupting economic activity and threatening harvests (thus driving up food prices). At the same time, demands for decarbonization have led to underinvestment in fossil-fuel capacity before investment in renewables has reached the point where they can make up the difference. Today’s large energy-price spikes were inevitable. The increased likelihood of future pandemics also represents a persistent source of stagflation, especially considering how little has been done to prevent or prepare for the next one. The next contagious outbreak will lend further momentum to protectionist policies as countries rush to close borders and hoard critical supplies of food, medicines, and other essential goods. Finally, cyberwarfare remains an underappreciated threat to economic activity and even public safety. Firms and governments will either face more stagflationary disruptions to production, or they will have to spend a fortune on cybersecurity. Either way, costs will rise. The Worst of All Possible Economies When the recession comes, it will not be short and shallow but long and severe. Not only are we facing persistent short- and medium-term negative supply shocks, but we are also heading into the mother of all debt crises, owing to soaring private and public debt ratios over the last few decades. Low debt ratios spared us from that outcome in the 1970s. And though we certainly had debt crises following the 2008 crash – the result of excessive household, bank, and government debt – we also had deflation. It was a demand shock and a credit crunch that could be met with massive monetary, fiscal, and credit easing. Today, we are experiencing the worst elements of both the 1970s and 2008. Multiple, persistent negative supply shocks have coincided with debt ratios that are even higher than they were during the global financial crisis. These inflationary pressures are forcing central banks to tighten monetary policy even though we are heading into a recession. That makes the current situation fundamentally different from both the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis. Everyone should be preparing for what may come to be remembered as the Great Stagflationary Debt Crisis. While central banks have been at pains to sound more hawkish, we should be skeptical of their professed willingness to fight inflation at any cost. Once they find themselves in a debt trap, they will have to blink. With debt ratios so high, fighting inflation will cause an economic and financial crash that will be deemed politically unacceptable. Major central banks will feel as though they have no choice but to backpedal, and inflation, the debasement of fiat currencies, boom-bust cycles, and financial crises will become even more severe and frequent. The inevitability of central banks wimping out was recently on display in the United Kingdom. Faced with the market reaction to the Truss government’s reckless fiscal stimulus, the BOE had to launch an emergency quantitative-easing (QE) program to buy up government bonds. That sad episode confirmed that in the UK, as in many other countries, monetary policy is increasingly subject to fiscal capture. Recall that a similar turnaround occurred in 2019, when the Fed, after previously signaling continued rate hikes and quantitative-tightening, stopped its QT program and started pursuing a mix of backdoor QE and policy-rate cuts at the first sign of mild financial pressures and a growth slowdown. Central banks will talk tough; but, in a world of excessive debt and risks of an economic and financial crash, there is good reason to doubt their willingness to do “whatever it takes” to return inflation to its target rate. With governments unable to reduce high debts and deficits by spending less or raising revenues, those that can borrow in their own currency will increasingly resort to the “inflation tax”: relying on unexpected price growth to wipe out long-term nominal liabilities at fixed interest rates. How will financial markets and prices of equities and bonds perform in the face of rising inflation and the return of stagflation? It is likely that, as in the stagflation of the 1970s, both components of any traditional asset portfolio will suffer, potentially incurring massive losses. Inflation is bad for bond portfolios, which will take losses as yields increase and prices fall, as well as for equities, whose valuations are hurt by rising interest rates. For the first time in decades, a 60/40 portfolio of equities and bonds suffered massive losses in 2022, because bond yields have surged while equities have gone into a bear market. By 1982, at the peak of the stagflation decade, the average S&P 500 firm’s price-to-earnings ratio was down to eight; today, it is closer to 20, which suggests that the bear market could end up being even more protracted and severe. Investors will need to find assets to hedge against inflation, political and geopolitical risks, and environmental damage: these include short-term government bonds and inflation-indexed bonds, gold and other precious metals, and real estate that is resilient to environmental damage. The Moment of Truth In any case, these megathreats will further contribute to rising income and wealth inequality, which has already been putting severe pressure on liberal democracies (as those left behind revolt against elites), and fueling the rise of radical and aggressive populist regimes. One can find right-wing manifestations of this trend in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, the US (under Donald Trump), post-Brexit Britain, and many other countries; and left-wing manifestations in Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and now Brazil (which has just replaced a right-wing populist with a left-wing one). And, of course, Xi’s authoritarian stranglehold has given the lie to the old idea that Western engagement with a fast-growing China would ineluctably lead that country to open itself up even more to markets and, eventually, to democratic processes. Under Xi, China shows every sign of becoming more closed off, and more aggressive on geopolitical, security, and economic matters. How did it come to this? Part of the problem is that we have long had our heads stuck in the sand. Now, we need to make up for lost time. Without decisive action, we will be heading into a period that is less like the four decades after WWII than like the three decades between 1914 and 1945. That period gave us World War I; the Spanish flu pandemic; the 1929 Wall Street crash; the Great Depression; massive trade and currency wars; inflation, hyperinflation, and deflation; financial and debt crises, leading to massive meltdowns and defaults; and the rise of authoritarian militarist regimes in Italy, Germany, Japan, Spain, and elsewhere, culminating in WWII and the Holocaust. In this new world, the relative peace, prosperity, and rising global welfare that we have taken for granted will be gone; most of it already is. If we don’t stop the multi-track slow-motion train wreck that is threatening the global economy and our planet at large, we will be lucky to have only a repeat of the stagflationary 1970s. Far more likely is an echo of the 1930s and the 1940s, only now with all the massive disruptions from climate change added to the mix. Avoiding a dystopian scenario will not be easy. While there are potential solutions to each megathreat, most are costly in the short run and will deliver benefits only over the long run. Many also require technological innovations that are not yet available or in place, starting with those needed to halt or reverse climate change. Complicating matters further, today’s megathreats are interconnected, and therefore best addressed in a systematic and coherent fashion. Domestic leadership, in both the private and public sector, and international cooperation among great powers is necessary to prevent the coming Apocalypse. Yet there are many domestic and international obstacles standing in the way of policies that would allow for a less dystopian (though still contested and conflictual) future. Thus, while a less bleak scenario is obviously desirable, a clear-headed analysis indicates that dystopia is much more likely than a happier outcome. The years and decades ahead will be marked by a stagflationary debt crisis and related megathreats – war, pandemics, climate change, disruptive AI, and deglobalization – all of which will be bad for jobs, economies, markets, peace, and prosperity.

Just here to ask very important questiones i can't find answers to at the moment. I have tried various sources. Sorry if this is not the correct place to ask it. Maybe you can direct me to an area where it is more proper to ask these kind of questiones. I assume this may be a proper place for this, since this is an area where Politics is discussed, and the Monetary system for it is the PAY token if i am not mistaken That being said, how is it that one curates nowadays with PAY Token? Or, is it that we recieve a certain percentage for Staking? Can any updated information be found on this? Do we also use the Hashtag PAY so our posts are ingested here?