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

More Proof mRNA Shots Edit Human Genome New Study Again Shows LINE-1 "Junk DNA" Does The Dirty Work Dr. Syed Haider Could the mRNA shots edit germline DNA? Honest scientists have always been worried about retrointegration of foreign mRNA from “vaccine” shots into our own cellular DNA. This fear should have been allayed by rigorous genotoxicity safety studies before the mRNA shots where rolled out, but those studies were waived by the Big Pharma controlled FDA (with the DoD behind the scenes pulling all the strings). Previous research showed that this could theoretically occur in a human liver cancer cell line inside a controlled laboratory setting utilizing our own bodies reverse transcriptase enzymes that are upregulated in cancer cells. Naysayers still argued that this situation was impossible or at least extremely unlikely to occur in our bodies. Unfortunately there is now further proof that this really does occur, either right away after vaccination, or if not, then it’s even more likely to occur once a vaccinated individual catches COVID-19, as long as vaccinal mRNA remains present in the body (so far we know it remains in circulation for weeks and in the lymph nodes for months - likely far longer, since all the studies had to be stopped, presumably due to lack of funding, or out of fear of creating unpublishable papers since the news wasn’t looking good). Thank you for reading Dr. Syed Haider. This post is public so feel free to share it. Share A new paper by Zhang et al, just released on Feb 13, 2023 proves that at artificially high concentrations in a lab setting, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can retrointegrate into our genome. Thankfully during natural infection such high levels of viral RNA do not typically occur, but … (you knew there had to be a “but”) … such high levels are induced by mRNA vaccination. So what the paper may actually prove in the roundabout way of most modern research (required for publication to ever happen in todays politically charged Big Pharma controlled publishing environment) is that the mRNA in the shots is in fact likely to retrointegrate into our cellular DNA. To dig into the details we need to start with a quick basic bio refresher: Understanding Genetics Nearly every cell in our bodies carries a full copy of our genetic code, or genome (the exceptions are red blood cells that have no genome, and sperm and egg cells that have half a genome since they are meant to combine with half of someone else's genome). Our genome is made up of individual genes encoded by DNA and bundled together into 46 chromosomes that are stored in a central compartment of our cells called the nucleus. In order to “read" the DNA code and convert it into the structure that makes up our bodies, it is first translated by a “reader” protein that writes it out into a new free floating molecule called mRNA for messenger RNA (the mRNA shots carry this messenger RNA, not modified RNA as some people think). The mRNA, unlike the DNA is not stuck inside the chromosome and it can exit the nucleus, going into the larger compartment called the cytoplasm of the cell, where its message is “read” and translated into an amino acid sequence that folds itself into a protein (either a body protein, or in the case of the shots the spike protein, or in the case of an RNA virus infection like SARS-CoV-2, all the proteins of the virus). Now going back to the nucleus: some of the individual DNA encoded genes can move around within their chromosomes and have therefore been described as "jumping genes" or technically speaking: transposable elements (TEs). Jumping genes! Some of these jumping genes (Class 1 TEs) use a copy and paste mechanism and others (Class 2 TEs), like the one in the cartoon depiction above, use a cut and paste mechanism. The Class 1 TEs (AKA retrotransposons) that use the copy and paste mechanism do so by translating their DNA into RNA and then converting the RNA back into DNA and inserting it somewhere else in the genome. The Class 1 TEs or retrotransposons, include within themselves the genetic code necessary to create their own protein enzyme to convert the DNA back into RNA, which is termed reverse transcriptase. Fun fact: retroviruses like HIV can be considered a special subtype of retrotransposon that can not only reinsert inside the same cell, but also travel to other cells “infecting” them and reverse transcribing into their genomes. In humans the only active jumping genes are from CLASS 1 TEs/retrotransposons and are called LINE-1 retrotransposons (LINE stands for Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements). LINE-1 retrotransposons were once considered to be junk DNA, they are usually inactivated, but can be turned on in aging cells, cancer cells, virus infected cells and in general in any cell subjected to significant stress. Junk DNA, which makes up 98.5% of our genome, is still little understood. It may help regulate the activity of the other 1.5% of the genome that does code for proteins, is likely involved in genome evolution, and has been implicated in disease states like cancer, autism and dozens of genetic diseases. So, what’s been shown in this new paper by Zhang et al, is that a lab clone of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, when present in very high levels, does turn on LINE-1, which means it also turns on the LINE-1 reverse transcriptase enzyme, which it then makes use of to reverse transcribe itself into our DNA. But even worse: genome sequencing found the viral genetic code transcribed into our DNA not only in cells where LINE-1 was actively turned on, or overexpressed above baseline, but even in cells where it was not. Is Sangamo's Gene-Editing Approach a Bust? | The Motley Fool Then, instead of studying the LNPs and spike protein RNA used in the shots, the researchers (who valued their careers) used a different mechanism of delivering low levels of nucleocapsid RNA into the cells in the lab to see if they also up regulated LINE-1 expression and were integrated into the cellular DNA. Turns out this handicapped experiment did not up regulate LINE-1, or get taken up in detectable quantities by healthy cells, though it did lead to genomic uptake in cells that already had LINE-1 upregulated - which again happens in aging cells, cancer cells, virus infected cells or simply in cells under stress (perhaps from LNP and spike protein induced inflammation?). The study authors addressed the discrepancy in retrointegration between the viral clone and their handicapped version of an mRNA shot by theorizing there were: "...several possible explanations for the differences in the levels of retrotransposition in infected and transfected cells: (i) The relative abundance of viral RNA is almost 2 orders of magnitude higher in infected than in transfected cells which would increase the probability of association with LINE1 proteins; (ii) virus infection, but not viral mRNA transfection, can induce endogenous LINE1 expression; (iii) multiple factors during SARS-CoV-2 infection can inhibit the antiviral/anti-retrotransposition function of stress granules (48–53), which could increase retrotransposition.” The first theory is the most concerning. Based on what we know from a 2020 study by Xie et al that showed the very high levels of intracellular viral RNA achieved by infectious clones, we can extrapolate that in the current study by Zhang et al the concentration of mRNA achieved by the SARS-CoV-2 viral clone was likely about 1000X greater than the low levels typically found during a natural infection. In fact the levels of mRNA in each cell achieved by the viral clone in the current study are actually far more likely to be achieved by transfection into cells of LNPs in the shots carrying spike protein mRNA than they are during a natural infection. Life finds a way. - Reaction GIFs So if the authors first theory is correct, that the difference in retrointegration rates simply depends on the intracellular concentration of foreign RNA, then retrointegration is very likely to occur due to exposure to mRNA in the shots, and it is likely to dramatically increase in case someone who has received the shot later becomes infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus - since we know it upregulates LINE-1 expression, or if they are put under other stressors including the development of cancer, or by the stress of long COVID, chronic vaccine injury, autoimmune disease, autonomic dysfunction, POTS, MCAS, etc - all of which are also sadly enough triggered by the shot. This is less likely to happen in germ cell DNA - our sperm and egg cells - and lets hope it doesn’t happen, since we already know that the shots likely do transmit altered immunity from mother to child, if they also pass on the mRNA coding the spike protein itself then huge swaths of humanity may be forever genetically altered. Heres hoping the label “junk DNA” actually applies in this case… But, if you’ve been vaccinated: don’t worry! At mygotodoc we routinely reverse vaccine injuries and sincerely believe every disease has a cure. Fear is more likely to kill you than the shot (but do stop getting the boosters), and I mean that literally: fear destroys the immune system. A healthy immune system can keep any illness in check even if from a retrointegrated virus or viral mRNA fragment. There are a lot of unknowns, but don’t let that scare you. Take your health into your own hands and start making positive changes today. https://blog.mygotodoc.com/p/more-proof-mrna-shots-edit-human https://telegra.ph/More-Proof-mRNA-Shots-Edit-Human-Genome-09-17-2

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/

AI Prompt Ace Review | Discover the AI Marketing Secret AI Prompt Ace Review | Introduction The copywriting and marketing tool AI Prompt Ace, developed by marketing virtuoso Andrew Darius, provides distinctive, revolutionary signature prompts. By following these directions, consumers will be able to fully utilize GPT and differentiate themselves from the competitors. Your audience will be able to rise above the mundane monotony and capture the interest of potential customers like never before with this product. Users may easily include the app’s specialized signature prompt templates into their everyday routine to transform their marketing approach. It is intended for entrepreneurs, business owners, affiliates, and product developers. Regardless of your target audience, everyone can benefit from this game-changing information. AI Prompt Ace Review | What Is It? Are you sick of continually having to catch up to your rivals and falling behind them? It’s a tiresome cycle, but don’t worry—I have exciting news that will completely change the way you go about things. Presenting AI Prompt Ace, your much anticipated hidden tool. This ground-breaking program, which was developed in collaboration with marketing virtuoso Andrew Darius, skillfully combines the unmatched knowledge of industry titans with the strength of GPT technology. While GPT technology may be familiar to you, AI Prompt Ace elevates it to a whole new level. The invaluable knowledge and insight of Andrew Darius is what really sets it apart. Even if you’re not very good at copywriting or marketing, you can become an AI Marketing Maverick and unleash the full potential of GPT with AI Prompt Ace. AI Prompt Ace Review | Discover the AI Marketing Secret AI Prompt Ace Review - he copywriting and marketing tool AI Prompt Ace, developed by marketing virtuoso Andrew Darius, provided https://dilip-review.com/ai-prompt-ace-review/

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-denounces-anti-vaxxers-calls-covid-jab-refusal-an-almost-suicidal-act-of-denial/ I’m not among those who have ever paid attention to what the Pope says. But even with that routine indifference, I surely can’t be alone in thinking “Why are you even thinking about this at this point?” What a bizarre public statement from him. Obviously, the authorities have been lying about this from the off. But how is this even in his top five things to concern himself with? Best wishes Mike 👉 https://t.me/DrMikeYeadon

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 165: Israeli attacks escalate on Rafah, al-Shifa Hospital invasion enters second day Mustafa Abu SneinehMarch 19, 2024 A Palestinian man inspects a destroyed building following an Israeli air attack on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, March 19 2024. (Photo: © Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa via ZUMA Press APA Images) A Palestinian man inspects a destroyed building following an Israeli air attack on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, March 19 2024. (Photo: © Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa via ZUMA Press APA Images) Casualties 31,819 + killed* and at least 73,934 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 435+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.** Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147. 594 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.*** *Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 40,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** The death toll in West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to PA’s Ministry of Health on March 17, this is the latest figure. *** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Key Developments Palestinian Authority warns that Israel started offensive on Rafah without official announcement to avoid international pressure. Majed Al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, says Israeli attack on Rafah will negatively affect the ceasefire talks in Doha. Ansari says “it is still too early to talk about any breakthrough in the negotiations” between Israel and Hamas, but mediators remain “optimistic.” All communication with Palestinian medical staff trapped inside al-Shifa Hospital went silent on Monday evening Israel arrests Al-Jazeera correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul in al-Shifa Hospital. He says Israeli forces detained them for 12 hours, destroyed media tent, and seized smartphones, cameras, and laptops from journalists. WHO chief says, “hospitals should never be battlegrounds. We are terribly worried about the situation at al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, which is endangering health workers, patients, and civilians.” Israel bombs several houses on Al-Jalaa Street in north Gaza, close to al-Shifa Hospital, killing and injuring several Palestinians and causing immense damage. Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA chief, was barred entry by Israel to Rafah, while Tel Aviv says he did not follow “proper procedure.” Lazzarini says his visit “was supposed to coordinate and improve the humanitarian response. This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity.” Israeli settlers vandalize UNRWA’s headquarters in occupied Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and affix posters on main gate calling for its closure. In Jerusalem, only 25,000 Palestinians were allowed by Israeli forces to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque to perform Ramadan’s prayer on the ninth night. Ahmed Al-Tibi, Palestinian Knesset member, warns that the life of national figure and Fatah leader Marwan Al-Barghouti is at risk inside Israeli prison. PA warns that “Israel began to destroy Rafah” The Palestinian Authority (PA) warned that Israel has started an offensive on Rafah without an official announcement to avoid international pressure. Overnight, Israel heavily bombed Rafah, killing at least 14 Palestinians in the area where more than one million people are displaced, the majority of them living in tents. “Israel began to destroy Rafah on a daily basis and in a systematic manner through repeated attacks on homes, bombing them, and killing and wounding dozens of civilians,” the PA’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. It added that to avoid condemnation and international pressure to halt such attacks, “Israel… did not wait for permission from anyone, and did not announce” the operation publicly. The escalation of Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling in Rafah comes as the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting the region where talks between Israel and Hamas continue in Qatar, but has not seen any breakthrough to reach a ceasefire and hostages’ exchange deal. Israel has bombed several areas in Rafah overnight, targeting mainly Palestinian homes and residential blocks, according to Wafa, including the neighborhoods of Musabah, Khirbet Al-Adas, and Al-Jeneina. On Tuesday, Majed Al-Ansari, the spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, said that an attack on Rafah would negatively affect the ceasefire talks in Doha. “Any attack on Rafah will lead to a humanitarian catastrophe and will negatively affect the progress of the talks,” he said. Ansari added that mediators are working on a temporary ceasefire deal to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. “It is still too early to talk about any breakthrough in the negotiations, but we are optimistic about that,” he said, according to Al-Jazeera Arabic. Displaced Palestinians fleeing from the vicinity of Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital arrive at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on March 18, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images) Displaced Palestinians fleeing from the vicinity of Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital arrive at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on March 18, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images) Al-Shifa Hospital under Israeli control for second day In north Gaza, Israel forces storming of the al-Shifa Hospital has been ongoing since late on Sunday. All communication with medical staff trapped inside the hospital went silent on Monday evening. This is the second time Israeli forces stormed the al-Shifa Hospital since October, this time claiming that there were Hamas figures inside it, but has yet to provide evidence. A fire broke out in the al-Shifa’s specialized surgery building after the Israeli assault began. Around 25,000 Palestinians were sheltering in the medical complex, and Israel arrested 90 Palestinians, including journalists from inside al-Shifa. Among them was Al-Jazeera’s correspondent in north Gaza, Ismail al-Ghoul, who was released after 12 hours of detention. Al-Ghoul later said that Israeli forces destroyed the media tent inside the al-Shifa Hospital and seized smartphones, cameras, and laptops from journalists who were arrested and stripped of their clothes. “The [Israeli] occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us and interrogated all the journalists present in the place,” he told Al-Jazeera Arabic in a phone call on Monday. Al-Ghoul is one of the few journalists who report from north Gaza to a mainstream TV channel. He recently reported Israeli forces killing hundreds of Palestinians who gathered to get flour, aid and food near the Al-Nabulsi roundabout and Al-Rashid Street in Gaza City. “Hospitals should never be battlegrounds” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the chief of World Health Organization (WHO), said that “hospitals should never be battlegrounds. We are terribly worried about the situation at al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, which is endangering health workers, patients, and civilians.” Ghebreyesus added that the al-Shifa Hospital is partially operating. In November, Israeli forces stormed the complex following days of siege, claiming that Hamas hosted a “command center” underneath the facility and has yet to present a proof. Israel also bombed several houses on Al-Jalaa Street in north Gaza, which is close to the al-Shifa Hospital, killing and injuring several Palestinians and causing immense damage to the area. Some Palestinians were walking on Al-Jalaa Street at the time of the air raids, others came back from getting flour to find their apartments bombed while their families were inside. In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces committed several massacres in various areas of the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health on Telegram, killing at least 93 people and injuring 142. Thousands remain under the rubble of bombed buildings. Israeli bombing killed 16 Palestinians in north Gaza overnight. At least 15 people were killed in an Israeli air raid on a house of the Muqbel family in central Gaza City. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that 14 members have been killed since the Israeli aggression started on Gaza in October. In north Gaza, Israel bombed the house of the Al-Banna family in Jabalia, killing at least eight people, Wafa reported. Hundreds of Palestinians saw their tents sink or blown away as a result of strong wind and torrential rain in Deir al-Balah, Rafah, and the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis overnight, Wafa reported. Israel denies entry for UNRWA chief to Rafah Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), was barred entry to Rafah by Israel, as Tel Aviv claimed he did not follow “proper procedure.” Last month, Lazzarini accused Israel of aiming to destroy UNRWA and defended the organization’s relentless work in offering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. “I intended to go to Rafah today, but I have been informed an hour ago that my entry into Rafah is declined,” Lazzarini said during a press conference in Cairo on Monday alongside the Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry. Shoukry said that Lazzarini was barred by Israel. “You were declined by the Israeli government, refused the entry, which is an unprecedented move for a representative at this high position,” he said. Although the Rafah crossing is an entry point between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, Israel is in charge of who can enter or leave the enclave, according to the Israeli-Egyptian agreement. Lazzarini also accused Israel of creating a man-made famine in Gaza and said that UNRWA was “engaged in a race against the clock to try to reverse the impact of the spreading hunger and the looming famine in the Gaza Strip.” He added that his visit “was supposed to coordinate and improve the humanitarian response. This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity.” “Too much time was wasted, all land crossings must open now. Famine can be averted with political will,” Lazzarini said. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, wrote on X platform that “Israel wants no witnesses, no truth-tellers”, in a comment on Lazzarini’s entry denial. On Monday, Israeli settlers vandalized the headquarters of UNRWA in occupied Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. They have affixed posters on the main gate calling for the shutdown of UNRWA agency, which also provides humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Jerusalem’s refugee camps, and operate in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Muslims who managed to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque are seen performing tarawih and night prayers during holy month of Ramadan in Jerusalem on March 17, 2024. (Photo: Department of Islamic Awqaf in Jerusalem/APA Images) Muslims who managed to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque are seen performing tarawih and night prayers during holy month of Ramadan in Jerusalem on March 17, 2024. (Photo: Department of Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem/APA Images) Israeli settlers attack Deir Istiya village Overnight, Israeli forces arrested several Palestinians from the occupied West Bank towns of Hebron, Jenin, Qalqilya, Nablus, and the Balata refugee camp. In Jerusalem, only 25,000 Palestinians were allowed by Israeli forces to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque to perform Ramadan’s Al-Tarawih prayer on the ninth night. This is a sharp drop from the 60,000 Palestinians who performed Al-Tarawih on Saturday night. Israeli authorities are still limiting the number of Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Jerusalem. Last week, Israeli forces set up at least 30 makeshift checkpoints on the outskirts of the Old City, at the city’s gates and the entrances of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Since October, Israel has issued 100 deportation orders against Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel, barring 55 of them from entry to Jerusalem and 45 to Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to Wadi Hilweh Human Rights Information Center. Wadi Hilweh added that this has become a routine policy “to deprive Palestinians of their right to worship and visit Al-Aqsa,” especially around religious occasions such as Ramadan. In the north of the West Bank, Israeli settlers attacked Deir Istiya village near Salfit, stole contents from an agricultural room owned by Youssef Salman, and destroyed the solar panels, Wafa reported. Marwan Al-Barghouti’s life is in danger inside Israeli prison Ahmed Al-Tibi, the Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, warned that the life of Marwan Al-Barghouti is at risk inside Israeli prison. Barghouti, a popular national figure and Fatah leader was put in solitary confinement in Megiddo prison. Since October, he has moved between several detention centers, including Ofer, Ramla, and Rimonim. “Marwan Al-Barghouti’s life is in danger inside the prison due to the assault on him and other detainees. I hold Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for any harm caused to him, his life, or the lives of the prisoners,” Al-Tibi said in a video post on the X platform. He added that Barghouti was assaulted and bled as a result, and warned that since October, 13 Palestinians died inside Israeli jail, “some of them were found murdered, according to families and judges, due to violence and torture.” Barghouti is seen by Palestinians as a national figure who could bridge the schism between Fatah and Hamas and lead a future Palestinian state. Hamas insisted that Barghouti will be among the prisoners that will be released in any exchange deal with Israel. Last month, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the National Security Minister, said that he ordered the transfer of Barghouti to solitary confinement in prison “following information about a planned uprising” in the occupied West Bank. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-165-israeli-attacks-escalate-on-rafah-al-shifa-hospital-invasion-enters-second-day/ https://telegra.ph/Operation-Al-Aqsa-Flood-Day-165-Israeli-attacks-escalate-on-Rafah-al-Shifa-Hospital-invasion-enters-second-day-03-20

THEY LIED ABOUT EVERYTHING 🤥They lied about the origins of C0¥id 🤥They lied about covid death statistics 🤥They lied that there was no treatment (go home and if you turn blue then go to hospital) 🤥They lied about the ventilators & Remdesivir 🤥They lied that the hospitals were overflowing (while  they choreographed Tiktok dance routines) 🤥They lied about the masks 🤥They lied about the lockdowns 🤥They lied to prevent family visiting dying relatives  🤥They lied about outdoor transmission 🤥They lied about Ivermectin, HCQ, Zinc & Vit D 🤥They lied about the efficacy of the va<<ines 🤥They lied about the safety of the va<<ines 🤥They  lied to try and hide their data for 75 years 🤥They lied to hide the extent of the va<<ine injuries 🤥They lied by even calling the shots ‘va<<ines’ 🤥They  lied about the need for "va<<ine passports" 🤥They lied to try and justify human rights abusive va<<ine  mandates  🤥They lied about the rates of myocarditis SHARE EVERYWHERE ❗ Subscribe for more: https://t.me/BenjaminSECRETS

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“Let Them Eat Dirt”. Israel has Given Palestinians in Gaza Two Choices. Leave or Die. Chris Hedges The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it. 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. Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign *** There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term “absolute victory,” they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed. Israel, and its chief patron the United States, by attempting to shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides food and aid to Gaza, is not only committing a war crime, but is in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court found the charges of genocide brought by South Africa, which included statements and facts gathered by UNWRA, plausible. It ordered Israel to abide by six provisional measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe. The fourth provisional measure calls on Israel to secure immediate and effective steps to provide humanitarian assistance and essential services in Gaza. UNRWA’s reports on conditions in Gaza, which I covered as a reporter for seven years, and its documentation of indiscriminate Israeli attacks illustrate that, as UNRWA said, “unilaterally declared ‘safe zones’ are not safe at all. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.” UNRWA’s role in documenting the genocide, as well as providing food and aid to the Palestinians, infuriates the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused UNRWA after the ruling of providing false information to the ICJ. Already an Israeli target for decades, Israel decided that UNRWA, which supports 5.9 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East with clinics, schools and food, had to be eliminated. Israel’s destruction of UNRWA serves a political as well as material objective. The evidence-free Israeli accusations against UNRWA that a dozen of the 13,000 employees had links to those who carried out the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which saw some 1,200 Israelis killed, did the trick. It led 16 major donors, including the United States, the U.K., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Estonia and Japan, to suspend financial support for the relief agency on which nearly every Palestinian in Gaza depends for food. Israel has killed152 UNRWA workers and damaged 147 UNRWA installations since Oct. 7. Israel has also bombed UNRWA relief trucks. More than 27,708 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, some 67,000 have been wounded and at least 7,000 are missing, most likely dead and buried under the rubble. More than half a million Palestinians – one in four – are starving in Gaza, according to the U.N. Starvation will soon be ubiquitous. Palestinians in Gaza, at least 1.9 million of whom have been internally displaced, lack not only sufficient food, but clean water, shelter and medicine. There are few fruits or vegetables. There is little flour to make bread. Pasta, along with meat, cheese and eggs, have disappeared. Black market prices for dry goods such as lentils and beans have increased 25 times from pre-war prices. A bag of flour on the black market has risen from $8.00 to $200 dollars. The healthcare system in Gaza, with only three of Gaza’s 36 hospitals left partially functioning, has largely collapsed. Some 1.3 million displaced Palestinians live on the streets of the southern city of Rafah, which Israel designated a “safe zone,” but has begun to bomb. Families shiver in the winter rains under flimsy tarps amid pools of raw sewage. An estimated 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes. “There is no instance since the Second World War in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed,” writes Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and the author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine,” in the Guardian. “And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.” The United States, formerly UNRWA’s largest contributor, provided $422 million to the agency in 2023. The severance of funds ensures that UNRWA food deliveries, already in very short supply because of blockages by Israel, will largely come to a halt by the end of February or the beginning of March. Israel has given the Palestinians in Gaza two choices. Leave or die. I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs, scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not. The international community, as in Gaza, did little to intervene. The precursor to starvation – undernourishment – already affects most Palestinians in Gaza. Those who starve lack enough calories to sustain themselves. In desperation people begin to eat animal fodder, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from diarrhea and respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it. Soon, lacking enough iron to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1, they become anemic. The body feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs – brain, heart, lungs, ovaries and testes — atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands. It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates. I saw hundreds of skeletal figures, specters of human beings, moving forlornly at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never gotten up. Many were the remains of entire families. In the abandoned town of Mayen Abun bats dangled from the rafters of the gutted Italian mission church. The streets were overgrown with tussocks of grass. The dirt airstrip was flanked by hundreds of human bones, skulls and the remnants of iron bracelets, colored beads, baskets and tattered strips of clothing. The palm trees had been cut in half. People had eaten the leaves and the pulp inside. There had been a rumor that food would be delivered by plane. People had walked for days to the airstrip. They waited and waited and waited. No plane arrived. No one buried the dead. Now, from a distance, I watch this happen in another land in another time. I know the indifference that doomed the Sudanese, mostly Dinkas, and today dooms the Palestinians. The poor, especially when they are of color, do not count. They can be killed like flies. The starvation in Gaza is not a natural disaster. It is Israel’s masterplan. There will be scholars and historians who will write of this genocide, falsely believing that we can learn from the past, that we are different, that history can prevent us from being, once again, barbarians. They will hold academic conferences. They will say “Never again!” They will praise themselves for being more humane and civilized. But when it comes time to speak out with each new genocide, fearful of losing their status or academic positions, they will scurry like rats into their holes. Human history is one long atrocity for the world’s poor and vulnerable. Gaza is another chapter. * 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. Featured image: Let Them Eat Dirt – by Mr. Fish https://www.globalresearch.ca/let-them-eat-dirt-chris-hedges/5849245 https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/let-them-eat-dirt.html

The Truth About HPV Vaccination, Part 1: How Safe Is It, Really? This first installment in a multi-part series about the human papillomavirus, or HPV, vaccine explores peer-reviewed scientific literature that reveals serious safety concerns about a vaccine widely regarded as safe. The Epoch Times Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free. By Yuhong Dong The decline of public trust in COVID-19 vaccines significantly impacts vaccination rates against routine childhood diseases. This multiple-part series explores the international research done over the past two decades on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine — believed to be one of the most effective vaccines developed to date. Summary of Key Facts This multiple-part series offers a thorough analysis of concerns raised about HPV vaccination following the global HPV campaign, which commenced in 2006. In the U.S., the HPV vaccine was reported to have a disproportionately higher percentage of adverse events of fainting and blood clots in the veins. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges that fainting can happen following the HPV vaccine, and recommends sitting or lying down to get the shot, then waiting for 15 minutes afterward. International scientists found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) logged a substantial increase in reports of premature ovarian failure from 1.4 per year before 2006 to 22.2 per year after the HPV vaccine approval, yielding a Proportional Reporting Ratio of 46.1. The HPV vaccine is widely regarded as one of the most effective vaccines developed to date. Nevertheless, safety issues have been raised following its approval, and in response, additional research has been published and litigation has been brought on behalf of those with a vaccine injury. In this HPV vaccine series, Parts I and II explain how the vaccine works and the evidence suggesting there may be legitimate safety concerns. The remaining parts present questions about real-world vaccine effectiveness and identify specific ingredients which may pose harm. The information presented here is drawn from peer-reviewed scientific literature from the U.S., Australia, Denmark, Sweden, France and Japan, as well as statistics published by public health agencies in each of these countries. More than 100 hours of research and internal peer review among scientists with experience in infectious diseases, virology, clinical trials and vaccine epidemiology have been invested in presenting this summary of the evidence. Large registry-based studies have identified plausible associations between HPV vaccination and autoimmune conditions, including premature ovarian insufficiency or premature ovarian failure, Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and chronic regional pain syndrome. While it is easy to be enthusiastic about recent advances in human vaccine technology, we should keep in mind that achieving real and lasting good health is much more than just the absence of a certain virus. RFK Jr. and Brian Hooker Vax-Unvax RFK Jr. and Brian Hooker’s New Book: “Vax-Unvax” Order Now What is HPV? According to the CDC, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. HPV is a small DNA virus infecting human cutaneous epithelial cells in the mucosa and skin. More than 150 strains of the HPV virus have been identified. HPV infection is so common that the majority of sexually active people will get it at some point in their lives, even if they have only one or very few sexual partners. It can spread through sexual intercourse and oral sex. It can also pass between people through skin-to-skin contact, even by people who have no symptoms. HPV infection causes genital warts, some of which can turn into cancer. For the most part, however, HPV infection is benign. More than 90% of HPV infections cause no clinical symptoms and are self-limited, meaning the virus is cleared by the body via natural immunological defenses. HPV-associated cancers High-risk HPV types (types 16, 18 and others) can cause cervical cell abnormalities that are precursors to cancers. Type 16 is associated with approximately 50% of cervical cancers worldwide, and types 16 and 18 together are linked to 66% of cervical cancers. An additional five high-risk types, 31, 33, 45, 52 and 58, are linked with another 15% of cervical cancers and 11% of all HPV-associated cancers. Infection with a high-risk HPV type is associated with a higher chance of the development of cervical cancer but, by itself, HPV infection is not the sole risk factor to cause cancer. There are many other reasons, as discussed in this paper. Given the prevalence of infection, it is unsurprising that globally, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. In 2018, an estimated 570,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide and more than 300,000 died of the disease. In the U.S., nearly 50,000 new HPV-associated cancers occur annually, with women infected at a slightly higher rate than men. But in 9 out of 10 cases, HPV goes away within two years without causing health problems. Only persistent HPV infections may lead to cancer. These infections evade the immune system’s innate cell-mediated defenses. The incidence of cervical cancer can be controlled as a result of the implementation of routine testing and screening, including Pap and DNA tests. HPV vaccines Three HPV vaccines — bivalent HPV vaccine (Cervarix, 2vHPV), quadrivalent HPV vaccine (Gardasil, 4vHPV or HPV4) and 9-valent HPV vaccine (Gardasil 9, 9vHPV) — have been licensed by the FDA. The HPV vaccine uses recombinant technology to assemble the shell of the virus — L1 capsid protein. These viral-like particles do not contain the virus genome and are not infectious. Cervarix, developed by GlaxoSmithKline, is a bivalent vaccine against HPV types 16 and 18, that was pulled from the U.S. market in 2016 due to “very low market demand.” Merck’s original Gardasil vaccine was designed to prevent infections from four strains (types 6, 11, 16 and 18). On June 8, 2006, after the FDA’s fast-tracked review, Gardasil was approved for use in females ages 9 to 26 for the prevention of cervical, vulvar and vaginal cancers. According to the label accompanying the vaccine, the ingredients in Merck’s first Gardasil vaccine were proteins of HPV, amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate, yeast protein, sodium chloride, L-histidine, polysorbate 80, sodium borate and water for injection. On Oct. 16, 2009, the FDA approved Gardasil (HPV4) for use in boys ages 9 through 26 for the prevention of genital warts caused by HPV types 6 and 11, but not for cancer. In 2010, it approved Gardasil for the prevention of anal cancer in males and females ages 9 to 26. Four years later, the FDA approved an updated vaccine, Merck’s Gardasil 9, for use in girls ages 9 to 26 and boys ages 9 to 15 for the prevention of cervical, vaginal and anal cancers. Gardasil 9 contains the same ingredients as Gardasil, but offers protection against nine HPV strains, adding five additional types (HPV types 31, 33, 45, 52 and 58). The current HPV vaccination schedule recommended by the CDC is two doses for both boys and girls aged 11 or 12. However, it is approved for children as young as 9. The second dose is given 6 to 12 months after the first. For those aged 15 and above, a three-dose schedule is implemented at one- to two-month and six-month intervals, although antibody-level studies suggest that two doses are sufficient. The vaccine prompts the body to produce neutralizing antibodies against HPV. Antibody responses appear to peak seven months after the first dose (or one month after the third dose). The vaccine-induced antibody levels appear to be 10 to 100 times higher than those after natural infection. The high vaccine effectiveness (90 to 98%) against the fast-growing, abnormal cells which may cause precancerous lesions in people ages 16 to 26 suggested that the best timing for vaccination was to give it to patients before they became sexually active. HPV VAERS reports from 2 large countries U.S. HPV vaccine adverse events On Aug. 19, 2009, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article authored by scientists from the FDA and CDC that reviewed the safety data for Gardasil for adverse events reported to VAERS between June 2006 through December 2008. During that time, there were 12,424 reports of adverse events. Of these, 772 (6.2%) were serious. VAERS is a passive surveillance system, which is subject to multiple limitations, including underreporting, unconfirmed diagnosis, lack of denominator data and no unbiased comparison groups. Nevertheless, it is a useful and important tool for detecting postmarket safety issues with vaccines. A disproportionately high percentage of Gardasil VAERS reports were of syncope (fainting) and venous thromboembolic events (blood clots in the veins) compared with other vaccines. There were 8.2 syncope events per 100,000 HPV doses and 0.2 venous thromboembolic events per 100,000 HPV doses reported, respectively. The Gardasil package insert includes a warning about fainting, fever, dizziness, nausea and headaches (page 1) and notes at least the following adverse reactions reported during postmarketing surveillance (section 6.2): Guillain-Barré syndrome, transverse myelitis, motor neuron disease, venous thromboembolic events, pancreatitis and autoimmune disorders. Australia HPV vaccines adverse events In 2007, Australia reported an annual adverse drug reaction rate of 7.3/100,000, the highest since 2003, representing an 85% increase from 2006. Per the analysis of the Adverse Drug Reactions System database by the Australian Department of Health and Aging, this increase was “almost entirely due to” reports following the national rollout of the three-dose HPV vaccination program for young females in April 2007; 705 of the 1,538 adverse drug reactions reported that year were from the Gardasil vaccine. 1 vaccine adverse events australia chart In Australia, the ADR increase in 2007 was almost entirely due to the three-dose HPV vaccination program for females aged 12 to 26 years in April 2007. Credit: Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. Moreover, though people may take different vaccines other than HPV, the HPV vaccine was the only suspected vaccine to cause adverse reactions in 96% of records. Twenty-nine percent had causality ratings of “certain” or “probable” and 6% were defined as “serious.” 2 vaccine types vaccine suspected chart In these HPV-induced ADRs, 674 were suspected to be related to HPV vaccines, 203 had causality ratings of “certain” or “probable,” and 43 were defined as “serious.” Credit: Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. Japan withdraws recommendation, vaccine acceptance plunged In 2013, the Japanese raised concerns about a variety of widely reported post-vaccination serious adverse events. This led the government to suspend recommending the HPV vaccine for six years. Vaccine acceptance of HPV in Japan plunged significantly after 2013, from 42.9% to 14.3%, or from 65.4% to 3.9%. Researchers around the world also started to investigate HPV safety. A World Health Organization (WHO) position paper released on July 14, 2017, concluded that the HPV vaccines were “extremely safe.” The same report estimated approximately 1.7 cases of anaphylaxis per million HPV doses, that no association with GBS was found, and that syncope (fainting) was “established as a common anxiety or stress-related reaction to the injection.” In the spring of 2022, Japan announced it was relaunching its HPV vaccination drive. Mainstream news outlets reported that for thousands of women, the cost of caution may have led to preventable HPV-induced cancers and an estimated 5,000 to 5,700 deaths. However, a true risk-benefit analysis would also consider the number of serious adverse events prevented by putting the program on hold. The question remains: Was Japan’s caution warranted, or should their national vaccination program have continued? Ovarian insufficiency Concerns that the vaccine may be negatively affecting fertility have been detailed in the scientific literature. In 2014, a peer-reviewed case series describing premature ovarian failure among Australian women following HPV vaccination was published in the Journal of Investigative Medicine. This prompted other researchers to systematically examine the VAERS data to see if there was a connection between premature ovarian failure and Gardasil. Their study found a “potential safety signal” and concluded that “further investigations are warranted.” VAERS analysis on ovarian failure Two recent publications based on VAERS reports (first study, second study) found that events with a probable autoimmune background were significantly more frequent after HPV vaccination compared to other vaccinations. The team of international scientists that did the second study evaluated reports between 1990 and 2018. They found that among the 228,341 premature ovarian failure reports, 0.1% was considered to be associated with HPV vaccination with a median age of 15 years and the time to onset was 20.5 days following vaccination. The primary symptoms were amenorrhea (80.4%) and premature menopause (15.3%). Most strikingly, the mean number of premature ovarian failure cases increased significantly from 1.4 per year prior to 2006 to 22.2 per year after the HPV vaccine was approved, with a proportional reporting ratio of 46. The investigators noted that the WHO and CDC declared the HPV vaccine safe regardless of lacking adequate research into safety concerns. For example, the authors note that in a CDC-sponsored VAERS study, 17 cases of premature ovarian failure were identified but 15 were excluded due to insufficient information to confirm the diagnosis. A separate observational study using the Vaccine Safety Datalink found no increased risk. But this study was too underpowered to detect a signal. In addition, a cross-sectional survey study using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data relied on an inaccurate measurement of premature ovarian failure and self-reported HPV vaccination. In summary, the researchers detected a strong safety signal even after accounting for a potential upswing in reports due to media coverage after the product launch (they refer to this as “notoriety bias”). Because VAERS is a passive reporting system, the data may be incomplete and are often unconfirmed by physicians. Therefore, this study cannot provide a definitive link between HPV vaccination and premature ovarian insufficiency or premature ovarian failure but does generate a hypothetical link. The authors of the second study conclude by insisting that “this signal warrants well-designed and appropriate epidemiological research.” They note that “if the signal is confirmed, the risk is small compared to the lifetime risk of cervical cancer.” However, the benefit-risk profile on an individual level is not uniform. Given the health impacts of premature ovarian insufficiency and premature ovarian failure — some of which may be irreversible — and the declining mortality rate for cervical cancer even in the prevaccine era, the risk-benefit profile for HPV vaccination remains unclear. 3 case reports on ovarian insufficiency In the 2014 investigation mentioned above, a general practitioner in Australia noticed that three girls developed premature ovarian insufficiency following HPV4 vaccination. As a result of vaccination, each of the girls (ages 16, 16 and 18) had been prescribed oral contraception to treat menstrual cycle irregularities. Typically, women present with amenorrhea (no periods) or oligomenorrhea (infrequent periods) as the initial symptom of premature ovarian insufficiency. One girl had irregular periods following three doses of HPV vaccination. She then became amenorrheic and was diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency. Another girl’s periods were “like clockwork” until after the third HPV dose, which she received at age 15. Her first cycle after being vaccinated for the third time started two weeks late, and her next cycle was two months late. The final cycle began nine months later. The patient had no family history of early menopause. She was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure at 16. Lab work found hormone levels consistent with those of postmenopausal women, but her bone mineral density was normal. The authors of this case series noted that in preclinical studies of HPV4, the five-week-old rats only conceived one litter and the only available toxicology studies appear to be on the male rodent reproductive system. However, only two of three doses were administered prior to mating, and the overall fecundity was 95%, slightly lower than the control rats (98%) that received no vaccination prior to mating. The dose tolerance recommendations were based on an average weight of 50 kilograms for an adolescent girl but failed to take into account that HPV4 is administered to girls ages 9 to 13 years, who range in weight from 28 to 46 kilograms. Danish retrospective cohort study finds no link A 2021 study also evaluated premature ovarian insufficiency in a nationwide cohort of nearly 1 million Danish females ages 11 to 34 years. The researchers used Cox proportional hazard regression to detect an increased risk of premature ovarian insufficiency diagnosis by HPV4 vaccination status during the years 2007-2016. The hazard ratio for premature ovarian insufficiency (vaccinated versus unvaccinated) was 0.96. One limitation was that data on age at menarche (first menstruation) and oral contraceptive use were not available. Girls who had not yet reached menarche would not be at risk for premature ovarian insufficiency, of course. The authors excluded girls under age 15 in a sensitivity analysis and still found no signal, concluding that no association was found between HPV4 vaccination and premature ovarian insufficiency. Reprinted with permission from The Epoch Times. Dr. Yuhong Dong, a medical doctor who also holds a doctorate in infectious diseases from China, is the chief scientific officer and co-founder of a Swiss biotech company and a former senior medical scientific expert for antiviral drug development at Novartis Pharma in Switzerland. If you or your child suffered harm after receiving the Gardasil HPV vaccine, you may have a legal claim. Please visit Wisner Baum for a free case evaluation. Click here to watch a Gardasil litigation update interview with Wisner Baum Senior Partner Bijan Esfandiari. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Children's Health Defense. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/hpv-vaccine-safety-concerns-part-1-et/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-truth-about-hpv-vaccination-part-1.html

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‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 115: Israel pushes Gazans further south; U.S threatens further regional violence The U.S. government threatens further regional violence on the heels of drone attack that killed three American troops in Jordan. Human rights groups slam countries for pulling funding for UNRWA as Palestinians in Gaza face famine and starvation. Leila WarahJanuary 29, 2024 Palestinians walk through the rubble of Gaza city, carrying bags of flour delivered on an aid truck Palestinians try to get bags of flour after 10 trucks loaded with flour arrived in Gaza City, Gaza strip, on January 28, 2024. (APA Images) Casualties 26,422+ killed* and at least 65,087 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 387+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147. 557 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.** *This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 33,000 when accounting for those presumed dead. ** This figure is released by the Israeli military. Key Developments Occupied West Bank: Israeli forces shoot dead a Palestinian child southeast of Bethlehem and Palestinian man west of Jenin. High-ranking Israeli politicians attend “Return to Gaza Conference” to plan re-settlement. Human Rights Monitor: Israeli forces kill 373 Palestinians, including 345 civilians, 48 hours after ICJ interim ruling. UNICEF: Over 16,000 children at risk of missing routine vaccinations, exposing them to illnesses like measles, pneumonia and polio. PCRS: Israeli shellings and heavy gunfire in the vicinity of besieged Al-Amal Hospital, Khan Younis. CENTCOM: Three US service members killed, 25 injured in drone attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq in northeast Jordan. Gaza Health Ministry: 7,000 wounded and sick people need to leave Gaza to access life-saving medical care. Jordan, Turkey, Amnesty International, and WHO call on countries to reinstate funds for UNRWA. UNRWA: Only 4 of 22 health centers in Gaza operational due to bombardment and access restrictions Yemen’s Ansar Allah send message of defiance to Israel and its allies via music video. Japan and Austria join about a dozen countries in suspending funds to UNRWA. Gaza’s Health Ministry: Al Nasser Hospital, Khan Younis medical and non-medical waste is piling up “everywhere” amid military siege. Since ICJ ruling, hundreds have been killed, hospitals under attack In the 48 hours after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) interim ruling on Israel, which placed the state on trial for genocide, the military has continued attacking Gaza with full force. Advertisement Follow the Mondoweiss channel on WhatsApp! Within the last two days, at least 373 Palestinians, including 345 civilians, have been killed and at least 643 wounded, reported Human Rights Monitor (HRM). The entire city of Khan Younis, located in the second-most southern district in the Gaza Strip, is being pounded by Israeli bombardment. The Al Amal Hospital in the city is being subjected to a military siege that has lasted several days, trapping medical staff, patients, and displaced people inside. “Israeli shelling and heavy gunfire continue in the vicinity of PRCS Al-Amal Hospital,” reported the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on Monday afternoon. PRCS also announced the burial of three people in the courtyard of the al-Amal Hospital due to the “difficulty of transporting them to an official cemetery due to the ongoing blockade imposed on the hospital.” On Sunday, PRCS shared a video from inside the Hospital, documenting two members of the medical charity distracting a child amid the sounds of clashes around them. In the video, the young girl shared with them her dreams of returning to her home and school as she expressed her determination to become a dentist. Meanwhile, Al Nasser Hospital, also located in the city of Khan Younis, is similarly being subjected to a brutal blockade where medical and non-medical waste is piling up “everywhere,” says Gaza’s Health Ministry. The medical waste, which could be toxic, may contribute to the spread of the diseases amid already deteriorating public health conditions in southern Gaza. To make matters worse, bodies are also piling up on hospital grounds due to Israeli military vehicles blocking people in, resulting in the inability of citizens to reach the cemeteries in the city, Al Jazeera reported. Staff and residents of the Hospital are digging a mass grave on hospital grounds to bury the bodies. At least one other mass grave has already been dug on the property. Palestinians pushed farther south in Gaza Growing numbers of Palestinians are being forced to flee their homes and shelters in Khan Younis as the army pushes them further south into Rafah, the last remaining place for Palestinians. “Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate and are going through security checkpoints with facial recognition technology. Women and children are separated from the men. A large number of people have been detained and dehumanized during the process,” reported Hani Mahoud from Rafah for Al Jazeera. “They are making different groups of people raise their ID cards as they pass through these military checkpoints. In many cases, Palestinian men have been abducted and arrested by the Israeli military, and others have been taken for investigations,” Al Jazeera added. The displaced civilians are fleeing Israeli attacks on Khan Younis only to arrive in the already overcrowded district of Rafah, where people are sleeping on the street and in tent camps flooded with sewage amid the harsh weather conditions. “Scenes of forcibly displaced people are a disgrace to humanity,” the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Over half a million Palestinians in Khan Younis were instructed by the occupying forces to evacuate their homes, including hospitals and health centres, in a cruel expansion and deepening of forced displacement from southern regions,” the ministry continued. “Israel has ramped up its efforts to starve [Palestinians] as well as forcibly displace them from their homes in the Strip,” Human Rights Monitor said. “In defiance of the ruling of the world’s highest court and in violation of its own international obligations, including to international law and principles, Israel persists in committing egregious violations that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide against the Palestinian people,” the humanitarian group continued. Gazans starve as world powers cut off funding to UNRWA Japan and Austria are the most recent countries to join the approximately dozen others who have announced plans to suspend funding to The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the main agency delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. The countries are awaiting the outcome of an investigation into allegations that 12 staff members participated in Hamas’s October 7 operation, collectively punishing Gaza’s population in the process. UNRWA, which has provided primary healthcare to Gaza’s nearly two million residents since before October 7, is already collapsing under Israel’s military attacks and struggling to provide social and primary care to the besieged enclave. According to the humanitarian organization, only four out of 22 of its health centers in Gaza are operational due to Israeli bombardment and access restrictions. “UNRWA is the lifeline for over 2 million Palestinians facing starvation in Gaza,” Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, said in a post on X, stressing that the potential participation of 12 staff does not justify measures to starve an entire nation. “It shouldn’t be collectively punished upon allegations against 12 persons out of its 13,000 staff. UNRWA acted responsibly and began an investigation. We urge countries that suspended funds to reverse the decision,” Safadi continued. Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, has called the cuts a “heartless decision” by some of the world’s richest countries “to punish the most vulnerable population on earth because of the alleged crimes of 12 people.” “Right after the ICJ ruling finding risk of genocide. Sickening,” Callamard added. Similarly, the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that “cutting off funding” to UNRWA at this “critical moment” will only “hurt the people of Gaza who desperately need support.” “We appeal to donors not to suspend their funding to UNRWA at this critical moment,” Ghebreyesus said. Israeli politicians discuss plans to ‘re-settle’ Gaza As Gaza’s population continues to be systematically wiped out by Israel, high-ranking Israeli cabinet ministers and parliament members are planning for the besieged enclaves’ re-settlement with Jewish Israelis. On Sunday, the politicians attended the “Return to Gaza Conference” in Jerusalem. At the conference, plans were made for the re-establishment of 15 Israeli settlements and the addition of six new ones on top of recently destroyed Palestinian communities. The fact that Israeli officials would “convene a high-level meeting to plan an act of aggression – the acquisition of occupied territory and its colonization – is an early indication of intent to breach the provisional measures order by the ICJ,” says Israeli humanitarian lawyer Itay Epshtain. Hamas has also released a statement saying the conference goes against the interim rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the war on Gaza by openly calling for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians at the conference. “We call on the international community and the UN to take a firm stance … and condemn it clearly as a fascist conference based on the idea of ethnic cleansing,” Hamas said. U.S. threatens to escalate regional violence The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced three service members were killed and and 34 were wounded on Sunday during a drone attack on US forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border, which is likely to cause further escalation in regional violence. “While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” President Joe Biden said shortly afterward but did not cite any evidence. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin says he is “outraged and deeply saddened” by the killing of the three troops. “The president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces, and we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our troops, and our interests,” he said in a statement. Iran later denied their involvement in the fatal drone attack. The country’s Foreign Ministry released a statement saying the “baseless accusations” connecting them to the attack are aimed at fanning the flames of war. “This is a conspiracy by those who see their interests in again dragging the US into a new conflict in the region,” Iranian spokesman Nasser Kanani said, as cited by Al Jazeera. “Resistance groups across the region do not take orders from the Islamic Republic of Iran in their decisions and actions. And even though Iran does not welcome expanding fighting in the region, it also does not interfere in the decisions of resistance groups on how they support the Palestinian nation, or defend themselves and their countries’ peoples against any violations or occupation,” Kanani continued. Later on Monday, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for the drone attack, explaining it was “in response to the massacres of the Zionist entity against our people in Gaza.” Al Jazeera analyst Marwan Bishara says that the US “recognizes” that it is in a sort of “proxy conflict with Iran,” noting that this is the first time American troops have been killed since the war on Gaza started. “This is important because this is another landmark day where we are seeing escalation, a widening of the war. Clearly America is slowly – but surely – getting stuck in the Middle East.” “This is the president who famously said we have to end the “forever wars,” and now he’s making threats about punishing the perpetrators and those who are responsible. America is already involved in a number – I’m not sure if we’ve reached a dozen strikes against Yemen. It has employed its most sophisticated aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean,” Bishara continued. Many right-wing hawkish US politicians have responded to the attacks by calling for military retaliation, including republican Tom Cotton. “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East. Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander in chief,” Cotton said in a statement. David Des Roches, former Pentagon director of Arabian peninsula affairs, told Al Jazeera that the US reaction to the drone attack that killed three service members “will be a significant one.” “I don’t think it will be directed solely against proxies; I think there will be something higher up the hierarchy of Iranian interests destroyed,” he said. “It’s a calculus that’s very hard to get right and it’s fraught with danger. The greatest danger is that both sides might create a sort of unwanted momentum towards a confrontation that neither side truly wants,” Roches concluded. However, Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, said it’s likely US interests will continue to be threatened without an end to the war in Gaza. “It’s important to note that there were zero attacks during the six days between November 24-30 when there was a ceasefire in Gaza,” Parsi told Al Jazeera, adding that the Biden administration appears willing to put US service members at risk to allow Israel to push on with the war. “In fact, the carnage in Gaza is increasingly clear now. It is posing a threat to US interests because we’re seeing how it’s threatening the US in the Red Sea,” Parsi said. “We’re seeing the casualties now on the Syrian border. There may be a war between Israel and Lebanon as well and, down the line, a new nuclear crisis with Iran. Biden is not pursuing US interests by allowing this to continue. If he really wants to end it and protect US troops, there needs to be de-escalation and de-escalation begins with a ceasefire in Gaza,” Parsi concluded. Similarly, the US National Iranian American Council (NIAC) says the US and Iran “are now closer to the brink of being pulled into a full-blown regional war by the vortex of violence” unleashed by the conflict in Gaza. “President Biden must show leadership and recognize that there is no military solution to this crisis that has only been expanded and prolonged by military escalation and a dearth of diplomacy,” NIAC concluded on X. BEFORE YOU GO – At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever. Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses. Support our journalists with a donation today. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-115-israel-pushes-gazans-further-south-u-s-threatens-further-regional-violence/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-115-israel.html

Propaganda Lies that Protect Israel’s Genocidal Maniacs | VT Foreign Policy January 24, 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. Let’s straighten out some of the nonsense that’s spread by Israel’s network of stooges to make the apartheid regime’s crimes against humanity seem justified. Chief amongst them is the insistence that Israel has a right of self-defence against Hamas in Gaza. This is designed to bolster the Israeli narrative and give the regime diplomatic ‘cover’ to commit any crime it wishes in Gaza. But UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese warns that “Israel cannot claim self-defence against a threat that emanates from the territory it occupies”. Common sense should tell us that, nevertheless the lie is repeated ad nauseam by Israel’s sympathisers among our MPs and ministers at Westminster. Ask any of them exactly where in international law Israel is given such a fantastic right and you won’t get a proper answer. You might wonder why people at the heart of our democratic system are telling lies in order to promote the interests of a thoroughly nasty foreign power. There’s an elaborate ‘grooming’ programme whereby serving MPs and parliamentary candidates, on the recommendation of their political party’s Friends of Israel group, are taken on propaganda trips to Israel as guests of the Israeli government and come back suitably brainwashed. Never mind that this is a breach of their Code of Conduct and the Seven Principles of Public Life (Nolan Principles) which state that “holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work”. Doesn’t such grooming amount to corruption? What we never hear from them is the Palestinians’ cast-iron right of self-defence against Israel. It doesn’t suit their purpose to tell us that UN Resolution 37/43 gives Palestinians an unquestionable right to resist Israeli aggression in their struggle for “liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means including armed struggle”. 37/43 also condemns “the constant and deliberate violations of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, as well as the expansionist activities of Israel in the Middle East, which constitute an obstacle to the achievement of self-determination and independence by the Palestinian people and a threat to peace and stability in the region”. So when Netanyahu rejects the idea of a Palestinian state and says all territory west of the Jordan River must be under Israeli security control, he collides head-on with international law. Furthermore, UN Resolution 3246 calls for all States to recognize the right to self-determination and independence for all peoples subjected to colonial and foreign domination and to assist them in their struggle. 3246 not only reaffirms the Palestinians’ right to use “all available means, including armed struggle”, but also demands full respect for the basic human rights of all individuals detained or imprisoned as a result of their struggle. And it requires strict respect for Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under which no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. So where is the UK Government’s concern for the thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including women and children, held hostage in Israel’s jails before 7 October and the 6,000+ more abducted and imprisoned since then? And when did the UK Government ever “recognize the right to self-determination and independence” for Palestinians, who have been left to suffer foreign domination and alien subjugation for over 75 years, or “assist them in their struggle” as required? Palestinians should not have to negotiate their freedom and self-determination – it’s their basic right and doesn’t depend on anyone else, such as Israel or the US, agreeing to it. The UK disrespects that, otherwise we would long ago have recognised Palestinian statehood and been among the vast majority of nations that have already done so. Legal opinion (Wilde) has it that when 138 of the world’s states at the UN General Assembly voted in 2012 to re-designate Palestine’s status from ‘non-member Entity’ to ‘non-member State’, this had the effect of establishing statehood. Britain’s refusal to recognise Palestine is a disgrace. We promised the Palestinian Arabs independence back in 1915 in return for their help in defeating the Turks but reneged in 1917 (in favour of the shameful Balfour Declaration). We should have granted Palestine provisional independence in 1923 in accordance with our responsibilities under the League of Nations Mandate Agreement, but didn’t. In 1947 the UN Partition Plan allocated the Palestinians a measly portion of their own homeland and, without consulting them, handed the lion’s share to incomer Jews with no ancestral connection to it… thanks in large part to the Balfour stitch-up. The following year Britain walked away from its mandate responsibilities leaving Palestinians at the mercy of Israel’s vicious plan for annexing the Holy Land by military force – “from the river to the sea” – which they’ve pursued relentlessly ever since in defiance of international and humanitarian law, bringing terror, misery, wholesale destruction and ruination to the Palestinians. And now genocide. The UK Government recognised Israeli statehood quickly enough in 1949 when Zionist gangs had already carried out several massacres and shown their terrorist hand, trashing 500 Palestinian towns and villages and driving 700,000 civilians out of their homeland. But we have cruelly rejected pleas for Palestinian recognition right up to the present day. Ours is a long history of betrayal. How can we claim to be brokers for peace when we’ve consistently worked against peace? The same goes for the US. It has to be said that Hamas, however we may feel about them, are the chosen and legitimate government in Gaza after winning fair and square the last election in 2006. Their 2017 Charter is reasonably in tune with international law while the Israeli government pursues policies that definitely are not. So, knowing Palestine’s right to assert its freedom and self-determination, and its right to use armed resistance against Israel’s endless military occupation, why did Britain proscribe Hamas’s political wing as a terrorist organisation? And what gives the UK and the US the right to encourage and assist Israel in bringing about coercive regime-change in Gaza and preventing Palestinians choosing their own government? Hamas Gaza Chief Yahya Al-Sinwar (R), Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (L) during a memorial service for Fuqaha, in Gaza City March 27, 2017. R Branding Hamas a terrorist organisation was indeed a propaganda masterstroke. It has allowed the Zionists and other pro-Israel elements within our Government to avoid having to explain Israel’s far greater terror record, and instead focus hatred on Hamas. So stories about atrocities committed by Hamas when they ‘broke out’ and went on the rampage on 7 October were eagerly absorbed and repeated by Western politicians and media even though the Israelis still haven’t been able to substantiate their claims about rape and beheaded babies. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed the Israeli army’s “ethics” chief about two major incidents that day – the order by an Israeli commander to a tank to open fire on an Israeli home knowing there were 14 Israeli civilians inside, and Israeli helicopters firing missiles at dozens of cars carrying Israeli hostages, killing them. The official narrative blamed Hamas for these “barbaric” acts which were then used to justify Israel’s frenzied onslaught against Gaza’s civilians. However Jonathan Cook, a prize-winning journalist writing from Nazareth, reports that Haaretz and the army’s ethics chief both ascribe these self-inflicted casualties to Israel’s Hannibal Directive, a classified policy requiring soldiers to prevent Israelis being taken hostage at all costs. Cook concludes that Western media outlets are deliberately hiding the truth about this story “because it directly conflicts with the West’s ideological and strategic agenda” while the Israeli media are full of it. What now? Just to show how ridiculous our Establishment has now become in its eagerness to carry on shielding Israel, a man has appeared in court charged with wearing a green headband with writing on it said to arouse “reasonable suspicion” that he supports Hamas. The writing is the ‘Shahada’, a declaration of faith stating that there is only one God (Allah) and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. Only a lunatic would try to make a criminal case out of it. Sadly, there’s no shortage of lunatics these days among our ruling elite. And according to Reuters US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken says in all seriousness that what’s needed to resolve the situation is a Palestinian state with a government structure “that gives people what they want and works with Israel to be effective”. So the Palestinians must co-operate with a neighbour that has for decades committed horrendous atrocities against the Palestinian people culminating in all-out genocide? And whose stated ambition is to rob the Palestinians of their entire homeland? Of course, Palestinians would be wise to work with a comprehensively reformed Israel, if such a thing is possible, when it has finally convinced the world it is committed to international and humanitarian law and worthy of being called ‘friend’. But not until then. In the meantime we have the depraved sadist, Netanyahu, insisting that when he’s done with committing genocide Israel’s security needs will leave ‘no space’ for a Palestinian state …. as if only Israel is entitled to security. Israel’s supporters have tried to persuade us that all this unpleasantness began when Hamas broke out of Gaza and caused havoc among the Israeli population nearby. But, as everyone and his dog knows, Israelis have been terrorising, slaughtering, ethnically cleansing, land-grabbing, and showing utter contempt for international law and United Nations resolutions ever since (and even before) they declared statehood nearly 76 years ago. For them, committing war crimes is routine. It began with the massacres by Zionist terror gangs at the King David Hotel, Deir Yassin, Lydda and elsewhere; and all are well documented. Yet Israel has been blessed with impunity throughout that time and now ‘escalates’ its savagery to the level of wholesale genocide. Is the international community still not sufficiently sickened to end its protection and instead proscribe the rogue regime as a terrorist state? What can we the public do? That’s where BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) comes in. This non-violent movement has been building over the years. It is now poised to become civil society’s devastating economic weapon for bringing Israel and its supporters to heel if the international community doesn’t do its job. And what happens to politicians who lie? In short, nothing. That is the conclusion of one of the most depressing articles I’ve read in a long time. We hear it said repeatedly that misleading Parliament is a serious matter. But, as Dr Alice Lilley from the Institute of Government says, “The convention has always been that ministers who mislead Parliament are expected to resign, and this is set out in the Ministerial Code. But enforcing this convention is more complicated. “It is ultimately up to the prime minister to decide what happens to ministers judged to have broken the Code. And Parliament has very few powers to punish a minister for misleading it.” So codes of conduct which mention honesty, like the Nolan Principles and the Ministerial Code, are only voluntary, the assumption being that politicians will choose to behave honourably. But in recent years we’ve been cursed with ministers – and even prime ministers – to whom honour, truthfulness and integrity are alien concepts. The sad fact is, there are few sanctions in place for dealing with those who defy the conventions. So self-regulation falls down and Parliament goes to the dogs. Again, it’s up to civil society to take over and name and shame these undesirables. Stuart Littlewood 22 January 2024 Stuart Littlewood After working on jet fighters in the RAF Stuart became an industrial marketing specialist with manufacturing companies and consultancy firms. He also “indulged himself” as a newspaper columnist. In politics, he served as a Cambridgeshire county councilor and member of the Police Authority. Now retired he campaigns on various issues and contributes to several online news & opinion sites. An Associate of the Royal Photographic Society, he has produced two photo-documentary books – Paperturn-view.com. Also, check out Stuart’s book Radio Free Palestine, with Foreword by Jeff Halper. It tells the plight of the Palestinians under brutal occupation and explains to me why the Zionists who control Israel should be brought before the International Criminal Court. Stuart’s Very Latest Articles: 2023 – Present – Archived Articles: 2010-2015 – 2016-2022 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/2024/01/propaganda-lies-that-protect-israels-genocidal-maniacs/

Excuse me but no, a country that routinely uses white phosphorous to burn and maim children, and send them to their early grave, to a life of handicap of to excruciating pain does not have a right to exist. Any country that practices systemic, deliberate, continual sadism and brutality against people does not have a right to exist. And in even broader terms: any political organization that does not have justice at its core not only does not have a right to exist, it is our right and duty to bring about its demise. This is because political organizations, which is what all countries are, are not divine entities that we must protect religiously. The opposite is true: the only reason for the existence of any political organization is promoting what is good and just for people. This is'nt just me saying: morality and justice are ingrained into the essence of what is human. We love fairness and hate injustice. This is how we are made (all complaints should be addressed to the manufacturer). This is why this genocidal campaign is a huge self-delegitimization move on behalf of the west: most people will hate what is perceived as unjust and those who enable it, and no amount of manipulation, false reasoning and shadowbanning can change it. - This does not only, and must not apply only to Israel. This is universal, and it is on all of us to channel the energy generated by this catastrophe into a global movement, or quest, for justice and humanity, rather than wasteful partisan nonsense. We must never go back to being asleep. This is also why South Africa's appeal to the ICJ is so commendable and pivotal: it forces a major international player to face justice, and it breaks the mold as part of which countries mutually forgive each other's inhumanity, for the sake of a status quo that only benefits respective elites. I guess when you have freed yourself from apartheid you can't be part of the corrupt game anymore; which is why I'm sure Palestinians will become global leaders on justice when they get finally get theirs https://twitter.com/alon_mizrahi/status/1750081880987258885?t=eyG5Mi9jlG80VI49hiTNwg&s=19