• Who Really Runs the World? Conspiracies, Hidden Agendas & the Plan for World Government
    May 22, 2013

    Andrew Gavin Marshall, New Dawn
    Waking Times

    So, who runs the world? It’s a question that people have struggled with since people began to struggle. It’s certainly a question with many interpretations, and incites answers of many varied perspectives.

    Often, it is relegated to the realm of “conspiracy theory,” in that, those who discuss this question or propose answers to it, are purveyors of a conspiratorial view of the world. However, it is my intention to discard the labels, which seek to disprove a position without actually proving anything to the contrary. One of these labels – “conspiracy theorist” – does just that: it’s very application to a particular perspective or viewpoint has the intention of “disproving without proof;” all that is needed is to simply apply the label.

    What I intend to do is analyse the social structure of the transnational ruling class, the international elite, who together run the world. This is not a conspiratorial opinion piece, but is an examination of the socially constructed elite class of people; what is the nature of power, how does it get used, and who holds it?

    A Historical Understanding of Power

    In answering the question “Who Runs the World?” we must understand what positions within society hold the most power, and thus, the answer becomes clear. If we simply understand this as heads of state, the answer will be flawed and inaccurate. We must examine the globe as a whole, and the power structures of the global political economy.



    The greatest position of power within the global capitalist system lies in the authority of money-creation: the central banking system. The central banking system, originating in 1694 in England, consists of an international network of central banks that are privately owned by wealthy shareholders and are granted governmental authority to print and issue a nation’s currency, and set interest rates, collecting revenue and making profit through the interest charged. Central banks give loans to both governments and industries, controlling both simultaneously. The ultimate centre of power in the central banking system is at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in Basle, Switzerland; which is the central bank to the world’s central banks, and is also a private bank owned by the world’s central banks.
    As Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley wrote:

    [T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.1

    The central banks, and thus the central banking system as a whole, is a privately owned system in which the major shareholders are powerful international banking houses. These international banking houses emerged in tandem with the evolution of the central banking system. The central banking system first emerged in London, and expanded across Europe with time. With that expansion, the European banking houses also rose and expanded across the continent.

    The French Revolution resulted with Napoleon coming to power, who granted the French bankers a central bank of France, which they privately controlled.2 It was also out of the French Revolution that one of the major banking houses of the world emerged, the Rothschilds. Emerging out of a European Jewish ghetto, the Rothschilds quickly rose to the forefront in banking, and established banking houses in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna and Naples, allowing them to profit off of all sides in the Napoleonic wars.3

    As Carroll Quigley wrote in his monumental Tragedy and Hope, “The merchant bankers of London had already at hand in 1810-1850 the Stock Exchange, the Bank of England, and the London money market,” and that:

    In time they brought into their financial network the provincial banking centres, organised as commercial banks and savings banks, as well as insurance companies, to form all of these into a single financial system on an international scale which manipulated the quantity and flow of money so that they were able to influence, if not control, governments on one side and industries on the other.4

    At the same time, in the United States, we saw the emergence of a powerful group of bankers and industrialists, such as the Morgans, Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Carnegies, and they created massive industrial monopolies and oligopolies throughout the 19th century.5 These banking interests were very close to and allied with the powerful European banking houses.

    The European, and particularly the British elites of the time, were beginning to organise their power in an effort to properly exert their influence internationally. At this time, European empires were engaging in the Scramble for Africa, in which nearly the entire continent of Africa, save Ethiopia, was colonised and carved up by European nations. One notable imperialist was Cecil Rhodes who made his fortune from diamond and gold mining in Africa with financial support from the Rothschilds,6 and “at that time [had] the biggest concentration of financial capital in the world.”7

    Cecil Rhodes was also known for his radical views regarding America, particularly in that he would “talk with total seriousness of ‘the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire’.”8 Rhodes saw himself not simply as a moneymaker, but primarily as an “empire builder.”

    As Carroll Quigley explained, in 1891 three British elites met with the intent to create a secret society. The three men were Cecil Rhodes, William T. Stead, a prominent journalist of the day, and Reginald Baliol Brett, a “friend and confidant of Queen Victoria, and later to be the most influential adviser of King Edward VII and King George V.” Within this secret society, “real power was to be exercised by the leader, and a ‘Junta of Three.’ The leader was to be Rhodes, and the Junta was to be Stead, Brett, and Alfred Milner.”9

    The purpose of this secret society, which was later headed by Alfred Milner, was: “The extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and enterprise… [with] the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of a British Empire.” [Emphasis added]10 Essentially, it outlined a British-led cosmopolitical world order, one global system of governance under British hegemony. Among key players within this group were the Rothschilds and other banking interests.11

    After the 1907 banking panic in the US, instigated by JP Morgan, pressure was placed upon the American political establishment to create a “stable” banking system. In 1910, a secret meeting of financiers was held on Jekyll Island, where they planned for the “creation of a National Reserve Association with fifteen major regions, controlled by a board of commercial bankers but empowered by the federal government to act like a central bank – creating money and lending reserves to private banks.”12

    It was largely Paul M. Warburg, a Wall Street investment banker, who “had come up with a design for a single central bank [in 1910]. He called it the United Reserve Bank. From this and his later service on the first Federal Reserve Board, Warburg has, with some justice, been called the father of the System.”13President Woodrow Wilson followed the plan almost exactly as outlined by the Wall Street financiers, and added to it the creation of a Federal Reserve Board in Washington, which the President would appoint.14

    Thus, true power in the world order was held by international banking houses, which privately owned the global central banking system, allowing them to control the credit of nations, and finance and control governments and industry.

    However, though the economic system was firmly in their control, allowing them to establish influence over finance, they needed to shape elite ideology accordingly. In effect, what was required was to socially construct a ruling class, internationally, which would serve their interests. To do this, these bankers set out to undertake a project of establishing think tanks to organise elites from politics, economics, academia, media, and the military into a generally cohesive and controllable ideology.

    Constructing a Ruling Class: Rise of the Think Tanks

    During World War I, a group of American scholars were tasked with briefing “Woodrow Wilson about options for the postwar world once the Kaiser and imperial Germany fell to defeat.” This group was called, “The Inquiry.” The group advised Wilson mostly through his trusted aide, Col. Edward M. House, who was Wilson’s “unofficial envoy to Europe during the period between the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the intervention by the United States in 1917,” and was the prime driving force in the Wilson administration behind the establishment of the Federal Reserve System.15

    “The Inquiry” laid the foundations for the creation of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most powerful think tank in the US and, “The scholars of the Inquiry helped draw the borders of post World War I central Europe.” On May 30, 1919, a group of scholars and diplomats from Britain and the US met at the Hotel Majestic, where they “proposed a permanent Anglo-American Institute of International Affairs, with one branch in London, the other in New York.” When the scholars returned from Paris, they were met with open arms by New York lawyers and financiers, and together they formed the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921. The “British diplomats returning from Paris had made great headway in founding their Royal Institute of International Affairs.” The Anglo-American Institute envisioned in Paris, with two branches and combined membership was not feasible, so both the British and American branches retained national membership, however, they would cooperate closely with one another.16 They were referred to, and still are, as “Sister Institutes.”17

    The Milner Group, the secret society formed by Cecil Rhodes, “dominated the British delegation to the Peace Conference of 1919; it had a great deal to do with the formation and management of the League of Nations and of the system of mandates; it founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1919 and still controls it.”18

    There were other groups founded in many countries representing the same interests of the secret Milner Group, and they came to be known as the Round Table Groups, preeminent among them were the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, and parallel groups were set up in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.19

    These were, in effect, the first international think tanks, which remain today, and are in their respective nations, among the top, if not the most prominent think tanks.

    In 2008, a major study was done by the University of Philadelphia’s International Relations Program – the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program – which sought to analyse and examine the most powerful and influential think tanks in the world. While it is a useful resource to understanding the influence of think tanks, there is a flaw in its analysis. It failed to take into account the international origins of the Round Table Group think tanks, particularly the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States; Chatham House or the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London; the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, now renamed the Canadian International Council; and their respective sister organisations in India, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Further nations have since added to this group of related think tanks, including Germany, and a recently established European Council on Foreign Relations. The report, while putting focus on the international nature of think tanks, analysed these ones as separate institutions without being related or affiliated. This has, in effect, skewed the results of the study. However, it is still useful to examine.

    The top think tanks in the United States include the Council on Foreign Relations, (which was put at number 2, however, should be placed at the number 1 spot), the Brookings Institution, (which was inaccurately given the position of number one), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, RAND Corporation, Heritage Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the American Enterprise Institute, among others.

    The top think tanks in the world, outside of the United States, are Chatham House (sitting at number one), the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the UK, the German Council on Foreign Relations, the French Institute of International Relations, the Adam Smith Institute in the UK, the Fraser Institute in Canada, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group in Belgium, and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.20

    In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was founded in the Netherlands. Every year since then the group holds a secretive meeting, drawing roughly 130 of the political-financial-military-academic-media elites from North America and Western Europe as “an informal network of influential people who could consult each other privately and confidentially.”21

    Regular participants include the CEOs or Chairmen of some of the largest corporations in the world, oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and Total SA, as well as various European monarchs, international bankers such as David Rockefeller, major politicians, presidents, prime ministers, and central bankers of the world.22 The Bilderberg Group acts as a “secretive global think-tank,” with an original intent “to link governments and economies in Europe and North America amid the Cold War.”23

    In 1970, David Rockefeller became Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, while also being Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan. In 1970, an academic who joined the Council on Foreign Relations in 1965 wrote a book called Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era. The author, Zbigniew Brzezinski, called for the formation of “A Community of the Developed Nations,” consisting of Western Europe, the United States and Japan. Brzezinski wrote about how “the traditional sovereignty of nation states is becoming increasingly unglued as transnational forces such as multinational corporations, banks, and international organisations play a larger and larger role in shaping global politics.”

    So, in 1972, David Rockefeller and Brzezinski “presented the idea of a trilateral grouping at the annual Bilderberg meeting.” In July of 1972, seventeen powerful people met at David Rockefeller’s estate in New York to plan for the creation of another grouping. Also at the meeting was Brzezinski, McGeorge Bundy, the President of the Ford Foundation, (brother of William Bundy, editor of Foreign Affairs) and Bayless Manning, President of the Council on Foreign Relations.24 In 1973, these people formed the Trilateral Commission, which acted as a sister organisation to Bilderberg, linking the elites of Western Europe, North America, and Japan into a transnational ruling class.

    These think tanks have effectively socially constructed an ideologically cohesive ruling class in each nation and fostered the expansion of international ideological alignment among national elites, allowing for the development of a transnational ruling class sharing a dominant ideology.

    These same interests, controlled by the international banking houses, had to socially construct society itself. To do this, they created a massive network of tax-exempt foundations and non-profit organisations, which shaped civil society according to their designs. Among the most prominent of these are the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

    The “Foundations” of Civil Society

    These foundations shaped civil society by financing research projects and initiatives into major social projects, creating both a dominant world-view for the elite classes, as well as managing the other classes.

    These foundations, since their establishment, played a large part in the funding and organising of the eugenics movement, which helped facilitate this racist, elitist ideology to having enormous growth and influence, ultimately culminating in the Nazi Holocaust. From then, the word “eugenics” had to be dropped from the ideology and philanthropy of elites, and was replaced with new forms of eugenics policies and concepts. Among them, genetics, population control and environmentalism.

    These foundations also funded seemingly progressive and alternative media sources in an effort to control the opposition, and manage the resistance to their world order, essentially making it ineffective and misguided.

    The Rockefeller Foundation was established in 1912, and immediately began giving money to eugenics research organisations.25 Eugenics was a pseudo-scientific and social science movement that emerged in the late 19th century, and gained significant traction in the first half of the 20th century. One of the founding ideologues of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, an anthropologist and cousin to Charles Darwin, wrote that eugenics “is the study of all agencies under social control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations.”26 Ultimately, it was about the “sound” breeding of people and maintaining “purity” and “superiority” of the blood. It was an inherently racist ideology, which saw all non-white racial categories of people as inherently and naturally inferior, and sought to ground these racist theories in “science.”

    The vast wealth and fortunes of the major industrialists and bankers in the United States flowed heavily into the eugenics organisations, promoting and expanding this racist and elitist ideology. Money from the Harriman railroad fortune, with millions given by the Rockefeller and Carnegie family fortunes were subsequently “devoted to sterilisation of several hundred thousands of American ‘defectives’ annually, as a matter of eugenics.”27

    In the United States, 27 states passed eugenics based sterilisation laws of the “unfit,” which ultimately led to the sterilisation of over 60,000 people. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, the Carnegie and especially the Rockefeller Foundation, funded eugenics research in Germany, directly financing the Nazi scientists who perpetrated some of the greatest crimes of the Holocaust.28

    Following the Holocaust, the word “eugenics” was highly discredited. Thus, these elites who wanted to continue with the implementation of their racist and elitist ideology desperately needed a new name for it. In 1939, the Eugenics Records Office became known as the Genetics Record Office.29 However, tens of thousands of Americans continued to be sterilised throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s, the majority of which were women.30

    Edwin Black analysed how the pseudoscience of eugenics transformed into what we know as the science of genetics. In a 1943 edition of Eugenical News, an article titled “Eugenics After the War,” cited Charles Davenport, a major founder of eugenics, in his vision of “a new mankind of biological castes with master races in control and slave races serving them.”31

    A 1946 article in Eugenical News stated that, “Population, genetics, [and] psychology, are the three sciences to which the eugenicist must look for the factual material on which to build an acceptable philosophy of eugenics and to develop and defend practical eugenics proposals.” As Black explained, “the incremental effort to transform eugenics into human genetics forged an entire worldwide infrastructure,” with the founding of the Institute for Human Genetics in Copenhagen in 1938, led by Tage Kemp, a Rockefeller Foundation eugenicist, and was financed with money from the Rockefeller Foundation.32

    Today, much of civil society and major social projects are a product of these foundations, and align with various new forms of eugenics. The areas of population control and environmentalism are closely aligned and span a broad range of intellectual avenues. The major population control organisations emerged with funding from these various foundations, particularly the Rockefeller foundations and philanthropies.

    These organisations, such as the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, funded major civil society movements, such as the Civil Rights movement, in an effort to “create a wedge between social movement activists and their unpaid grassroots constituents, thereby facilitating professionalisation and institutionalisation within the movement,” ultimately facilitating a “narrowing and taming of the potential for broad dissent,” with an aim of limiting goals to “ameliorative rather than radical change.”33

    Two major organisations in the development of the environmental movement were the Conservation Foundation and Resources for the Future, which were founded and funded with money from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and helped “launch an explicitly pro-corporate approach to resource conservation.”34 Even the World Wildlife Fund was founded in the early 1960s by the former president of the British Eugenics Society, and its first President was Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, a founding member of the Bilderberg Group.

    While the environmental movement positions people as the major problem for the earth, relating humanity to a cancer, population control becomes a significant factor in proposing environmental solutions.

    In May of 2009, a secret meeting of billionaire philanthropists took place in which they sought to coordinate how to “address” the world’s environmental, social, and industrial threats. Each billionaire at the meeting was given 15 minutes to discuss their “preferred” cause, and then they deliberated to create an “umbrella” cause to harness all their interests. The end result was that the umbrella cause for which the billionaires would aim to “give to” was population control, which “would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.” Among those present at the meeting were David Rockefeller, Jr., George Soros, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and even Oprah Winfrey.35

    Conclusion

    At the top of the list of those who run the world, we have the major international banking houses, which control the global central banking system. From there, these dynastic banking families created an international network of think tanks, which socialised the ruling elites of each nation and the international community as a whole, into a cohesive transnational elite class. The foundations they established helped shape civil society both nationally and internationally, playing a major part in the funding – and thus coordinating and co-opting – of major social-political movements.

    An excellent example of one member of the top of the hierarchy of the global elite is David Rockefeller, patriarch of the Rockefeller family. Long serving as Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan bank, he revolutionised the notion of building a truly global bank. He was also Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission, heavily involved in the family philanthropies, and sits atop a vast number of boards and foundations. Even Alan Greenspan, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, said that David Rockefeller and the CFR have, “in many respects, formulated the foreign policy of this country.”36

    In another speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, then World Bank President James Wolfesohn, said in 2005, in honour of David Rockefeller’s 90th birthday, that, “the person who had perhaps the greatest influence on my life professionally in this country, and I’m very happy to say personally there afterwards, is David Rockefeller.” He then said, “In fact, it’s fair to say that there has been no other single family influence greater than the Rockefeller’s in the whole issue of globalisation and in the whole issue of addressing the questions which, in some ways, are still before us today. And for that David, we’re deeply grateful to you and for your own contribution in carrying these forward in the way that you did.”37

    David Rockefeller, himself, wrote, “For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicised incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”38



    About the Author

    ANDREW G. MARSHALL is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization based out of Montreal, Canada (www.globalresearch.ca). He has written extensively on issues imperialism in the Middle East and Africa, the environment, Homeland Security, war, terrorism and the global economy. He is currently studying Global Political Economy and the History of the Middle East and Africa at Simon Fraser University (Canada).

    Footnotes:

    1. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, New York: Macmillan Company, 1966, 324

    2. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 515; Robert Elgie and Helen Thompson, ed., The Politics of Central Banks, New York: Routledge, 1998, 97-98

    3. Sylvia Nasar, ‘Masters of the Universe’, The New York Times: January 23, 2000; ‘The Family That Bankrolled Europe’, BBC News: July 9, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/389053.stm

    4. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 51

    5. Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Harper Perennial: New York, 2003, 323

    6. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 130

    7. Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, New York: Basic Books, 2004, 186

    8. Ibid, 190

    9. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, GSG & Associates, 1981, 3

    10. Ibid, 33

    11. Ibid, 34

    12. William Greider, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, 276

    13. John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1975, 121-122

    14. William Greider, op.cit., 277

    15. H.W. Brands, ‘He Is My Independent Self’, The Washington Post: June 11, 2006:www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060801104.html

    16. CFR, ‘Continuing the Inquiry. History of CFR’: www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/inquiry.html

    17. Chatham House, ‘CHATHAM HOUSE (The Royal Institute of International Affairs): Background’, Chatham House History: www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/history/

    18. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, op.cit., 5

    19. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, op.cit., 132-133

    20. James G. McGann, Ph.D., The Global “Go-To Think Tanks”: The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations In The World, The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program: University of Pennsylvania, International Relations Program, 2008, 26-28

    21. CBC, ‘Informal forum or global conspiracy?’, CBC News Online: June 13, 2006:www.cbc.ca/news/background/bilderberg-group/

    22. Holly Sklar, ed., Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management, South End Press: 1980, 161-171

    23. Glen McGregor, ‘Secretive power brokers meeting coming to Ottawa?’, Ottawa Citizen: May 24, 2006

    24. Holly Sklar, ed., op.cit., 76-78

    25. Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, New York: Thunders’s Mouth Press, 2004, 93

    26. Ibid, 18

    27. Ibid, 101-102

    28. Edwin Black, ‘Eugenics and the Nazis – the California connection’, The San Francisco Chronicle: November 9, 2003

    29. Edwin Black, War Against the Weak, op.cit., 396

    30. Ibid, 398

    31. Ibid, 416

    32. Ibid, 418

    33. Michael Barker, The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection, Capitalism Nature Socialism: 19, (2), June 2008, 18

    34. Ibid, 19-20

    35. John Harlow, ‘Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation’, Times Online: May 24, 2009

    36. CFR, Remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations Annual Corporate Conference, Transcripts: March 10, 2005:www.cfr.org/publication/7908/remarks_at_the_council_on_foreign_relations_annual_corporate_conference.html

    37. CFR, Council on Foreign Relations Special Symposium in honor of David Rockefeller’s 90th Birthday, Transcript: May 23, 2005:www.cfr.org/publication/8133/council_on_foreign_relations_special_symposium_in_honor_of_david_rockefellers_90th_birthday.html

    38. David Rockefeller, Memoirs, New York: Random House: 2002, 405

    The above article appeared in New Dawn No. 118 (Jan-Feb 2010).

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    Who Really Runs the World? Conspiracies, Hidden Agendas & the Plan for World Government May 22, 2013 Andrew Gavin Marshall, New Dawn Waking Times So, who runs the world? It’s a question that people have struggled with since people began to struggle. It’s certainly a question with many interpretations, and incites answers of many varied perspectives. Often, it is relegated to the realm of “conspiracy theory,” in that, those who discuss this question or propose answers to it, are purveyors of a conspiratorial view of the world. However, it is my intention to discard the labels, which seek to disprove a position without actually proving anything to the contrary. One of these labels – “conspiracy theorist” – does just that: it’s very application to a particular perspective or viewpoint has the intention of “disproving without proof;” all that is needed is to simply apply the label. What I intend to do is analyse the social structure of the transnational ruling class, the international elite, who together run the world. This is not a conspiratorial opinion piece, but is an examination of the socially constructed elite class of people; what is the nature of power, how does it get used, and who holds it? A Historical Understanding of Power In answering the question “Who Runs the World?” we must understand what positions within society hold the most power, and thus, the answer becomes clear. If we simply understand this as heads of state, the answer will be flawed and inaccurate. We must examine the globe as a whole, and the power structures of the global political economy. The greatest position of power within the global capitalist system lies in the authority of money-creation: the central banking system. The central banking system, originating in 1694 in England, consists of an international network of central banks that are privately owned by wealthy shareholders and are granted governmental authority to print and issue a nation’s currency, and set interest rates, collecting revenue and making profit through the interest charged. Central banks give loans to both governments and industries, controlling both simultaneously. The ultimate centre of power in the central banking system is at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in Basle, Switzerland; which is the central bank to the world’s central banks, and is also a private bank owned by the world’s central banks. As Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley wrote: [T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.1 The central banks, and thus the central banking system as a whole, is a privately owned system in which the major shareholders are powerful international banking houses. These international banking houses emerged in tandem with the evolution of the central banking system. The central banking system first emerged in London, and expanded across Europe with time. With that expansion, the European banking houses also rose and expanded across the continent. The French Revolution resulted with Napoleon coming to power, who granted the French bankers a central bank of France, which they privately controlled.2 It was also out of the French Revolution that one of the major banking houses of the world emerged, the Rothschilds. Emerging out of a European Jewish ghetto, the Rothschilds quickly rose to the forefront in banking, and established banking houses in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna and Naples, allowing them to profit off of all sides in the Napoleonic wars.3 As Carroll Quigley wrote in his monumental Tragedy and Hope, “The merchant bankers of London had already at hand in 1810-1850 the Stock Exchange, the Bank of England, and the London money market,” and that: In time they brought into their financial network the provincial banking centres, organised as commercial banks and savings banks, as well as insurance companies, to form all of these into a single financial system on an international scale which manipulated the quantity and flow of money so that they were able to influence, if not control, governments on one side and industries on the other.4 At the same time, in the United States, we saw the emergence of a powerful group of bankers and industrialists, such as the Morgans, Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Carnegies, and they created massive industrial monopolies and oligopolies throughout the 19th century.5 These banking interests were very close to and allied with the powerful European banking houses. The European, and particularly the British elites of the time, were beginning to organise their power in an effort to properly exert their influence internationally. At this time, European empires were engaging in the Scramble for Africa, in which nearly the entire continent of Africa, save Ethiopia, was colonised and carved up by European nations. One notable imperialist was Cecil Rhodes who made his fortune from diamond and gold mining in Africa with financial support from the Rothschilds,6 and “at that time [had] the biggest concentration of financial capital in the world.”7 Cecil Rhodes was also known for his radical views regarding America, particularly in that he would “talk with total seriousness of ‘the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire’.”8 Rhodes saw himself not simply as a moneymaker, but primarily as an “empire builder.” As Carroll Quigley explained, in 1891 three British elites met with the intent to create a secret society. The three men were Cecil Rhodes, William T. Stead, a prominent journalist of the day, and Reginald Baliol Brett, a “friend and confidant of Queen Victoria, and later to be the most influential adviser of King Edward VII and King George V.” Within this secret society, “real power was to be exercised by the leader, and a ‘Junta of Three.’ The leader was to be Rhodes, and the Junta was to be Stead, Brett, and Alfred Milner.”9 The purpose of this secret society, which was later headed by Alfred Milner, was: “The extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and enterprise… [with] the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of a British Empire.” [Emphasis added]10 Essentially, it outlined a British-led cosmopolitical world order, one global system of governance under British hegemony. Among key players within this group were the Rothschilds and other banking interests.11 After the 1907 banking panic in the US, instigated by JP Morgan, pressure was placed upon the American political establishment to create a “stable” banking system. In 1910, a secret meeting of financiers was held on Jekyll Island, where they planned for the “creation of a National Reserve Association with fifteen major regions, controlled by a board of commercial bankers but empowered by the federal government to act like a central bank – creating money and lending reserves to private banks.”12 It was largely Paul M. Warburg, a Wall Street investment banker, who “had come up with a design for a single central bank [in 1910]. He called it the United Reserve Bank. From this and his later service on the first Federal Reserve Board, Warburg has, with some justice, been called the father of the System.”13President Woodrow Wilson followed the plan almost exactly as outlined by the Wall Street financiers, and added to it the creation of a Federal Reserve Board in Washington, which the President would appoint.14 Thus, true power in the world order was held by international banking houses, which privately owned the global central banking system, allowing them to control the credit of nations, and finance and control governments and industry. However, though the economic system was firmly in their control, allowing them to establish influence over finance, they needed to shape elite ideology accordingly. In effect, what was required was to socially construct a ruling class, internationally, which would serve their interests. To do this, these bankers set out to undertake a project of establishing think tanks to organise elites from politics, economics, academia, media, and the military into a generally cohesive and controllable ideology. Constructing a Ruling Class: Rise of the Think Tanks During World War I, a group of American scholars were tasked with briefing “Woodrow Wilson about options for the postwar world once the Kaiser and imperial Germany fell to defeat.” This group was called, “The Inquiry.” The group advised Wilson mostly through his trusted aide, Col. Edward M. House, who was Wilson’s “unofficial envoy to Europe during the period between the outbreak of World War I in 1914 and the intervention by the United States in 1917,” and was the prime driving force in the Wilson administration behind the establishment of the Federal Reserve System.15 “The Inquiry” laid the foundations for the creation of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most powerful think tank in the US and, “The scholars of the Inquiry helped draw the borders of post World War I central Europe.” On May 30, 1919, a group of scholars and diplomats from Britain and the US met at the Hotel Majestic, where they “proposed a permanent Anglo-American Institute of International Affairs, with one branch in London, the other in New York.” When the scholars returned from Paris, they were met with open arms by New York lawyers and financiers, and together they formed the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921. The “British diplomats returning from Paris had made great headway in founding their Royal Institute of International Affairs.” The Anglo-American Institute envisioned in Paris, with two branches and combined membership was not feasible, so both the British and American branches retained national membership, however, they would cooperate closely with one another.16 They were referred to, and still are, as “Sister Institutes.”17 The Milner Group, the secret society formed by Cecil Rhodes, “dominated the British delegation to the Peace Conference of 1919; it had a great deal to do with the formation and management of the League of Nations and of the system of mandates; it founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1919 and still controls it.”18 There were other groups founded in many countries representing the same interests of the secret Milner Group, and they came to be known as the Round Table Groups, preeminent among them were the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, and parallel groups were set up in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.19 These were, in effect, the first international think tanks, which remain today, and are in their respective nations, among the top, if not the most prominent think tanks. In 2008, a major study was done by the University of Philadelphia’s International Relations Program – the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program – which sought to analyse and examine the most powerful and influential think tanks in the world. While it is a useful resource to understanding the influence of think tanks, there is a flaw in its analysis. It failed to take into account the international origins of the Round Table Group think tanks, particularly the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States; Chatham House or the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London; the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, now renamed the Canadian International Council; and their respective sister organisations in India, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Further nations have since added to this group of related think tanks, including Germany, and a recently established European Council on Foreign Relations. The report, while putting focus on the international nature of think tanks, analysed these ones as separate institutions without being related or affiliated. This has, in effect, skewed the results of the study. However, it is still useful to examine. The top think tanks in the United States include the Council on Foreign Relations, (which was put at number 2, however, should be placed at the number 1 spot), the Brookings Institution, (which was inaccurately given the position of number one), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, RAND Corporation, Heritage Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the American Enterprise Institute, among others. The top think tanks in the world, outside of the United States, are Chatham House (sitting at number one), the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the UK, the German Council on Foreign Relations, the French Institute of International Relations, the Adam Smith Institute in the UK, the Fraser Institute in Canada, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group in Belgium, and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.20 In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was founded in the Netherlands. Every year since then the group holds a secretive meeting, drawing roughly 130 of the political-financial-military-academic-media elites from North America and Western Europe as “an informal network of influential people who could consult each other privately and confidentially.”21 Regular participants include the CEOs or Chairmen of some of the largest corporations in the world, oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, and Total SA, as well as various European monarchs, international bankers such as David Rockefeller, major politicians, presidents, prime ministers, and central bankers of the world.22 The Bilderberg Group acts as a “secretive global think-tank,” with an original intent “to link governments and economies in Europe and North America amid the Cold War.”23 In 1970, David Rockefeller became Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, while also being Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan. In 1970, an academic who joined the Council on Foreign Relations in 1965 wrote a book called Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era. The author, Zbigniew Brzezinski, called for the formation of “A Community of the Developed Nations,” consisting of Western Europe, the United States and Japan. Brzezinski wrote about how “the traditional sovereignty of nation states is becoming increasingly unglued as transnational forces such as multinational corporations, banks, and international organisations play a larger and larger role in shaping global politics.” So, in 1972, David Rockefeller and Brzezinski “presented the idea of a trilateral grouping at the annual Bilderberg meeting.” In July of 1972, seventeen powerful people met at David Rockefeller’s estate in New York to plan for the creation of another grouping. Also at the meeting was Brzezinski, McGeorge Bundy, the President of the Ford Foundation, (brother of William Bundy, editor of Foreign Affairs) and Bayless Manning, President of the Council on Foreign Relations.24 In 1973, these people formed the Trilateral Commission, which acted as a sister organisation to Bilderberg, linking the elites of Western Europe, North America, and Japan into a transnational ruling class. These think tanks have effectively socially constructed an ideologically cohesive ruling class in each nation and fostered the expansion of international ideological alignment among national elites, allowing for the development of a transnational ruling class sharing a dominant ideology. These same interests, controlled by the international banking houses, had to socially construct society itself. To do this, they created a massive network of tax-exempt foundations and non-profit organisations, which shaped civil society according to their designs. Among the most prominent of these are the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The “Foundations” of Civil Society These foundations shaped civil society by financing research projects and initiatives into major social projects, creating both a dominant world-view for the elite classes, as well as managing the other classes. These foundations, since their establishment, played a large part in the funding and organising of the eugenics movement, which helped facilitate this racist, elitist ideology to having enormous growth and influence, ultimately culminating in the Nazi Holocaust. From then, the word “eugenics” had to be dropped from the ideology and philanthropy of elites, and was replaced with new forms of eugenics policies and concepts. Among them, genetics, population control and environmentalism. These foundations also funded seemingly progressive and alternative media sources in an effort to control the opposition, and manage the resistance to their world order, essentially making it ineffective and misguided. The Rockefeller Foundation was established in 1912, and immediately began giving money to eugenics research organisations.25 Eugenics was a pseudo-scientific and social science movement that emerged in the late 19th century, and gained significant traction in the first half of the 20th century. One of the founding ideologues of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, an anthropologist and cousin to Charles Darwin, wrote that eugenics “is the study of all agencies under social control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations.”26 Ultimately, it was about the “sound” breeding of people and maintaining “purity” and “superiority” of the blood. It was an inherently racist ideology, which saw all non-white racial categories of people as inherently and naturally inferior, and sought to ground these racist theories in “science.” The vast wealth and fortunes of the major industrialists and bankers in the United States flowed heavily into the eugenics organisations, promoting and expanding this racist and elitist ideology. Money from the Harriman railroad fortune, with millions given by the Rockefeller and Carnegie family fortunes were subsequently “devoted to sterilisation of several hundred thousands of American ‘defectives’ annually, as a matter of eugenics.”27 In the United States, 27 states passed eugenics based sterilisation laws of the “unfit,” which ultimately led to the sterilisation of over 60,000 people. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, the Carnegie and especially the Rockefeller Foundation, funded eugenics research in Germany, directly financing the Nazi scientists who perpetrated some of the greatest crimes of the Holocaust.28 Following the Holocaust, the word “eugenics” was highly discredited. Thus, these elites who wanted to continue with the implementation of their racist and elitist ideology desperately needed a new name for it. In 1939, the Eugenics Records Office became known as the Genetics Record Office.29 However, tens of thousands of Americans continued to be sterilised throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s, the majority of which were women.30 Edwin Black analysed how the pseudoscience of eugenics transformed into what we know as the science of genetics. In a 1943 edition of Eugenical News, an article titled “Eugenics After the War,” cited Charles Davenport, a major founder of eugenics, in his vision of “a new mankind of biological castes with master races in control and slave races serving them.”31 A 1946 article in Eugenical News stated that, “Population, genetics, [and] psychology, are the three sciences to which the eugenicist must look for the factual material on which to build an acceptable philosophy of eugenics and to develop and defend practical eugenics proposals.” As Black explained, “the incremental effort to transform eugenics into human genetics forged an entire worldwide infrastructure,” with the founding of the Institute for Human Genetics in Copenhagen in 1938, led by Tage Kemp, a Rockefeller Foundation eugenicist, and was financed with money from the Rockefeller Foundation.32 Today, much of civil society and major social projects are a product of these foundations, and align with various new forms of eugenics. The areas of population control and environmentalism are closely aligned and span a broad range of intellectual avenues. The major population control organisations emerged with funding from these various foundations, particularly the Rockefeller foundations and philanthropies. These organisations, such as the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, funded major civil society movements, such as the Civil Rights movement, in an effort to “create a wedge between social movement activists and their unpaid grassroots constituents, thereby facilitating professionalisation and institutionalisation within the movement,” ultimately facilitating a “narrowing and taming of the potential for broad dissent,” with an aim of limiting goals to “ameliorative rather than radical change.”33 Two major organisations in the development of the environmental movement were the Conservation Foundation and Resources for the Future, which were founded and funded with money from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and helped “launch an explicitly pro-corporate approach to resource conservation.”34 Even the World Wildlife Fund was founded in the early 1960s by the former president of the British Eugenics Society, and its first President was Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, a founding member of the Bilderberg Group. While the environmental movement positions people as the major problem for the earth, relating humanity to a cancer, population control becomes a significant factor in proposing environmental solutions. In May of 2009, a secret meeting of billionaire philanthropists took place in which they sought to coordinate how to “address” the world’s environmental, social, and industrial threats. Each billionaire at the meeting was given 15 minutes to discuss their “preferred” cause, and then they deliberated to create an “umbrella” cause to harness all their interests. The end result was that the umbrella cause for which the billionaires would aim to “give to” was population control, which “would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.” Among those present at the meeting were David Rockefeller, Jr., George Soros, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and even Oprah Winfrey.35 Conclusion At the top of the list of those who run the world, we have the major international banking houses, which control the global central banking system. From there, these dynastic banking families created an international network of think tanks, which socialised the ruling elites of each nation and the international community as a whole, into a cohesive transnational elite class. The foundations they established helped shape civil society both nationally and internationally, playing a major part in the funding – and thus coordinating and co-opting – of major social-political movements. An excellent example of one member of the top of the hierarchy of the global elite is David Rockefeller, patriarch of the Rockefeller family. Long serving as Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan bank, he revolutionised the notion of building a truly global bank. He was also Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founding member of Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission, heavily involved in the family philanthropies, and sits atop a vast number of boards and foundations. Even Alan Greenspan, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, said that David Rockefeller and the CFR have, “in many respects, formulated the foreign policy of this country.”36 In another speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, then World Bank President James Wolfesohn, said in 2005, in honour of David Rockefeller’s 90th birthday, that, “the person who had perhaps the greatest influence on my life professionally in this country, and I’m very happy to say personally there afterwards, is David Rockefeller.” He then said, “In fact, it’s fair to say that there has been no other single family influence greater than the Rockefeller’s in the whole issue of globalisation and in the whole issue of addressing the questions which, in some ways, are still before us today. And for that David, we’re deeply grateful to you and for your own contribution in carrying these forward in the way that you did.”37 David Rockefeller, himself, wrote, “For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicised incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”38 About the Author ANDREW G. MARSHALL is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization based out of Montreal, Canada (www.globalresearch.ca). He has written extensively on issues imperialism in the Middle East and Africa, the environment, Homeland Security, war, terrorism and the global economy. He is currently studying Global Political Economy and the History of the Middle East and Africa at Simon Fraser University (Canada). Footnotes: 1. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, New York: Macmillan Company, 1966, 324 2. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 515; Robert Elgie and Helen Thompson, ed., The Politics of Central Banks, New York: Routledge, 1998, 97-98 3. Sylvia Nasar, ‘Masters of the Universe’, The New York Times: January 23, 2000; ‘The Family That Bankrolled Europe’, BBC News: July 9, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/389053.stm 4. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 51 5. Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Harper Perennial: New York, 2003, 323 6. Carroll Quigley, op.cit., 130 7. Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, New York: Basic Books, 2004, 186 8. Ibid, 190 9. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, GSG & Associates, 1981, 3 10. Ibid, 33 11. Ibid, 34 12. William Greider, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, 276 13. John Kenneth Galbraith, Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1975, 121-122 14. William Greider, op.cit., 277 15. H.W. Brands, ‘He Is My Independent Self’, The Washington Post: June 11, 2006:www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060801104.html 16. CFR, ‘Continuing the Inquiry. History of CFR’: www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/inquiry.html 17. Chatham House, ‘CHATHAM HOUSE (The Royal Institute of International Affairs): Background’, Chatham House History: www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/history/ 18. Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, op.cit., 5 19. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, op.cit., 132-133 20. James G. McGann, Ph.D., The Global “Go-To Think Tanks”: The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations In The World, The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program: University of Pennsylvania, International Relations Program, 2008, 26-28 21. CBC, ‘Informal forum or global conspiracy?’, CBC News Online: June 13, 2006:www.cbc.ca/news/background/bilderberg-group/ 22. Holly Sklar, ed., Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management, South End Press: 1980, 161-171 23. Glen McGregor, ‘Secretive power brokers meeting coming to Ottawa?’, Ottawa Citizen: May 24, 2006 24. Holly Sklar, ed., op.cit., 76-78 25. Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, New York: Thunders’s Mouth Press, 2004, 93 26. Ibid, 18 27. Ibid, 101-102 28. Edwin Black, ‘Eugenics and the Nazis – the California connection’, The San Francisco Chronicle: November 9, 2003 29. Edwin Black, War Against the Weak, op.cit., 396 30. Ibid, 398 31. Ibid, 416 32. Ibid, 418 33. Michael Barker, The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection, Capitalism Nature Socialism: 19, (2), June 2008, 18 34. Ibid, 19-20 35. John Harlow, ‘Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation’, Times Online: May 24, 2009 36. CFR, Remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations Annual Corporate Conference, Transcripts: March 10, 2005:www.cfr.org/publication/7908/remarks_at_the_council_on_foreign_relations_annual_corporate_conference.html 37. CFR, Council on Foreign Relations Special Symposium in honor of David Rockefeller’s 90th Birthday, Transcript: May 23, 2005:www.cfr.org/publication/8133/council_on_foreign_relations_special_symposium_in_honor_of_david_rockefellers_90th_birthday.html 38. David Rockefeller, Memoirs, New York: Random House: 2002, 405 The above article appeared in New Dawn No. 118 (Jan-Feb 2010). If you appreciated this article, please consider a digital subscription to New Dawn. © New Dawn Magazine and the respective author. © Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com. Permission granted to freely distribute this article for non-commercial purposes if unedited and copied in full, including this notice. © Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com. Permission to re-send, post and place on web sites for non-commercial purposes, and if shown only in its entirety with no changes or additions. This notice must accompany all re-posting. ~~ Help Waking Times to raise the vibration by sharing this article with the buttons below… https://www.wakingtimes.com/who-really-runs-the-world-conspiracies-hidden-agendas-the-plan-for-world-government/
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  • Ziopocalypse Now!
    Kevin Barrett, Senior EditorAugust 13, 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.



    Rumble link Bitchute link False Flag Weekly News link

    By Kevin Barrett via Substack

    Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now re-sets Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness in Vietnam, and re-envisions the protagonist’s mission as one of ritual murder. In both versions, the antagonist, Kurtz, has gone mad, exceeding the purported savagery of the savages and becoming a threat to the thin veneer of lies and hypocrisy that protect the illusion of Western civilizational superiority. Kurtz’s last words in the novel, “exterminate all the brutes!” become in the film “drop the bomb! Exterminate them all!”

    Today, a real-life analogue of Kurtz, Bezalel Smotrich, has been calling for the murder of all Gazans by forced mass starvation while his fellow government minister, Eliyahu, prefers nuclear weapons. Another Kurtzlike figure, Benyamin Netanyahu, is steering Israeli policy in that direction. And most of the Zionist public concurs. By official counts they have murdered around 40,000 Gazans, the majority women and children. But when indirect deaths caused by deliberate deprivation of food and destruction of infrastructure are taken into account the real figure rises to around 200,000.

    Polls have shown that almost all Jewish Israelis support the genocide. “Right to rape” protesters have been storming military bases to ensure that their preferred policy is carried out. Sodom, thy name is Israel!

    “Drop the bomb! Exterminate them all!” perfectly summarizes Israel’s genocidal lunacy. It also neatly encapsulates the Samson Option, Israel’s plan to vaporize all major European and West Asian cities with nuclear weapons if its existence as a genocidal settler colony is ever seriously threatened.

    If Conrad’s Kurtz is a lunatic whose acting out exposes the savagery of the so-called civilization that sent him, the same can be said of the Zionists. It isn’t that they have “gone native” and started “acting like Arabs,” any more than Kurtz “went native” and started “acting like Congolese” (or, in the film, Vietnamese). In all cases, it is the Western colonizer, not the colonized, who is the real savage. It is the Western colonizer who has invaded someone else’s territory and brutalized them into submission. But in order to do that, the colonizer has to convince himself that he is the civilized one, and his victim the barbarian. In other words, he has to lie.

    Conrad’s novella exposes the lies about Leopold’s rape of the Congo, a “civilizing mission” that amounted to one of the most brutal atrocity exhibitions in the sorry history of humanity. Coppola’s film similarly targets the lies that sought to justify the US war on Vietnam. Both stories portray Kurtz as a monster whose mask has slipped, exposing Western savagery.

    Though the Belgians and Americans were quite capable of spinning outrageous untruths to protect their barbaric expeditions of rapine and pillage, the Zionists have taken lying to a whole new level. Incredibly, they cast Hamas’s al Aqsa Storm raid—a skillful military operation carried out with great restraint and little surplus cruelty—as a “new Holocaust.” Lunatic sadomasochistic fantasies, those staples of the Zionist imagination, were fleshed out into transparently ridiculous tales of roasted babies and mass rape.

    In reality, it is the Zionists, not the Palestinians, who harbor perverse desires to roast and eat enemy babies and perform mass rapes. Every ludicrous accusation amounts to a confession.

    Whence such perversity? Central to Jewish culture is an extreme fear and loathing of the non-Jewish enemy. It’s a truism that every Jewish holiday is the same: “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat.” But at some level, Jews know that Biblical tales of the villainy of Egyptians, Persians, Philistines, Romans, and other tribal enemies are sheer mythology—tribal propaganda lies designed to unite Jews in hatred of the non-Jewish other. Pretending to accept such lies, while secretly acknowledging their mendacity, has, over 2500 years, become a Jewish tribal shibboleth. It continues today, in slightly different form, with even more outrageous lies about their modern tribal enemies: Germans, Arabs, and Muslims. Every Jew knows deep down that the canonical version of the Holocaust is likely a gross exaggeration, and that the Jewish versions of the triumph of Zionists over the Arabs and Muslims (and indeed the West) are outrageous distortions of historical reality.

    They know they’re lying. But they don’t care. That institutionalization of collective pathological mendacity has pernicious psychological effects. For starters, it induces deep-seated self-hatred. (We are hard-wired to hate liars, including ourselves when we lie, which is why lying causes anxiety whose signs can be picked up by lie detectors.)

    Tribal Jews know they are liars, hate themselves for it, and grow consumed by the desperate need to unload their self-hatred on somebody else. So, encouraged by psychopathic leadership, they project their self-loathing on a designated tribal enemy. Yesterday it was the Germans who “must perish.” Today it is the “Hamas terrorists” who need to be starved and/or nuked. Why? Because Jews have dreamed up all manner of phantasmagoric atrocities, including more than a few that they themselves dream of inflicting, and projected them on an enemy targeted for genocidal annihilation.

    Today, in the tenth month of the genocidal onslaught on Gaza, the mask has slipped from the face of the Zionist Kurtz, revealing “the horror” of the whole Zionist project. It’s an apocalypse in the etymological sense of a revelation or unveiling. And the horrific revealed truth threatens to undermine the foundations of Western civilization, that “garden” that supposedly compares so favorably with the non-Western “jungle.” All of the West’s pious platitudes about human rights and the rule of law have been exposed as heaps of rank, steaming bullshit, since Western governments continue to tolerate and in many cases actively support the genocide of Gaza.

    The Gaza genocide is turning the whole non-Western world against the West. Today, few outside the West would shed tears if Russia managed to detonate several of its radioactive tidal wave weapons and drown the most populous parts of America and Europe under sizzling seawater, rendering those areas permanently uninhabitable. Many would view such a gratuitous act of desolation as an improvement over the current state of things, i.e. rule by genocidal lunatics. And though Russia is unlikely to take such a step, except perhaps under the most extreme duress, technologies of mass destruction continue to emerge, potentially putting civilization-ending powers into a great many hands.

    Even short of a WMD apocalypse, the non-Western world, galvanized against the West by the Gaza genocide, will likely get its revenge one way or another. As Western power wanes, todays rulers will be tomorrows ruled, and they should not expect more mercy than what they have been showing to the women and children of Gaza. Doris Lessing’s novel Shikasta, which depicts a near future world dominated by China and its Global South allies who deliberately starve much of the Western population, may not be as unrealistic as it appeared when it came out in 1979.

    So it is in the West’s interest to “terminate Zionism’s command” in Palestine “with extreme prejudice,” just as it was in the Belgians’ and Americans’ interest to terminate Kurtz’s command. After all, Zionism’s methods—genocide, pathological lying, systematic torture and mass anal rape among them—are unsound. The Zionist Kurtz has gone mad. Someone needs to be sent to take him out.

    But how? Does the US have a Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) character who can make his way to Netanyahu’s residence and butcher the Israeli war criminal with a machete while Jim Morrison croons “this is the end” on the soundtrack?

    As appealing as the thought of taking a machete to Netanyahu may be, simply terminating the Zionist butcher boss with extreme prejudice wouldn’t solve the problem. Adding Smotrich and Ben Gvir might be even more satisfying, but no more efficacious. As we’ve seen, essentially all of Israeli Jewry is genocidal. They all need to be removed from Palestine.

    Fortunately it won’t be that hard to persuade them to leave. Well over a million Jewish Israelis have second passports, even more want them, and once the exodus starts the rest won’t be far behind. A combination of military defeat and domestic unrest (civil war between those who support raping detainees and those who are embarrassed by it?) will ensure that the proverbial writing is on the wall.

    So the West’s Martin Sheen character will have a more complex assignment than just terminating Bibi (played by Marlon Brando) with extreme prejudice. He’ll need to infiltrate the Zionist entity and stoke civil unrest, while conning the Zionists into launching a war they can’t win.

    And maybe that’s what the Biden Administration is already doing, albeit unintentionally. Though Western leaders claim they will come to Israel’s defense whenever necessary, future historians may wonder whether that wasn’t a clever ruse designed to lead the Zionists down the road to perdition. The best way to teach a dog not to chase cars is to let him catch one; likewise the best way to teach Netanyahu to stop trying to provoke a regional war may be to let him provoke one—and eat the consequences.

    Once Israel learns that it is facing an opponent with escalation dominance, and that the US umbrella has been withdrawn under duress, the Zionist rats will flee the sinking ship even faster than the pieds noirs left formerly French Algeria in 1962. The notion that committing ever-more abominations can force God to send them an anti-Christ messiah to miraculously subjugate their enemies while quaffing bottomless blood sacrifices from a “rebuilt” temple will be exposed as the laughable lunacy it always was. The messianic millenarian apocalyptic cult of Zionism will dry up and blow away. And on the increasingly infrequent occasions it is remembered, people will sigh and mutter:

    “The horror! The horror!”



    Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror.

    He is the host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard-driving weekly radio show funded by listener subscriptions at Substack and the weekly news roundup FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN).

    He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS, and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications.

    Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin; where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host.

    Archived Articles (2004-2016)

    www.truthjihad.com

    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/2024/08/ziopocalypse-now/
    Ziopocalypse Now! Kevin Barrett, Senior EditorAugust 13, 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. Rumble link Bitchute link False Flag Weekly News link By Kevin Barrett via Substack Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now re-sets Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness in Vietnam, and re-envisions the protagonist’s mission as one of ritual murder. In both versions, the antagonist, Kurtz, has gone mad, exceeding the purported savagery of the savages and becoming a threat to the thin veneer of lies and hypocrisy that protect the illusion of Western civilizational superiority. Kurtz’s last words in the novel, “exterminate all the brutes!” become in the film “drop the bomb! Exterminate them all!” Today, a real-life analogue of Kurtz, Bezalel Smotrich, has been calling for the murder of all Gazans by forced mass starvation while his fellow government minister, Eliyahu, prefers nuclear weapons. Another Kurtzlike figure, Benyamin Netanyahu, is steering Israeli policy in that direction. And most of the Zionist public concurs. By official counts they have murdered around 40,000 Gazans, the majority women and children. But when indirect deaths caused by deliberate deprivation of food and destruction of infrastructure are taken into account the real figure rises to around 200,000. Polls have shown that almost all Jewish Israelis support the genocide. “Right to rape” protesters have been storming military bases to ensure that their preferred policy is carried out. Sodom, thy name is Israel! “Drop the bomb! Exterminate them all!” perfectly summarizes Israel’s genocidal lunacy. It also neatly encapsulates the Samson Option, Israel’s plan to vaporize all major European and West Asian cities with nuclear weapons if its existence as a genocidal settler colony is ever seriously threatened. If Conrad’s Kurtz is a lunatic whose acting out exposes the savagery of the so-called civilization that sent him, the same can be said of the Zionists. It isn’t that they have “gone native” and started “acting like Arabs,” any more than Kurtz “went native” and started “acting like Congolese” (or, in the film, Vietnamese). In all cases, it is the Western colonizer, not the colonized, who is the real savage. It is the Western colonizer who has invaded someone else’s territory and brutalized them into submission. But in order to do that, the colonizer has to convince himself that he is the civilized one, and his victim the barbarian. In other words, he has to lie. Conrad’s novella exposes the lies about Leopold’s rape of the Congo, a “civilizing mission” that amounted to one of the most brutal atrocity exhibitions in the sorry history of humanity. Coppola’s film similarly targets the lies that sought to justify the US war on Vietnam. Both stories portray Kurtz as a monster whose mask has slipped, exposing Western savagery. Though the Belgians and Americans were quite capable of spinning outrageous untruths to protect their barbaric expeditions of rapine and pillage, the Zionists have taken lying to a whole new level. Incredibly, they cast Hamas’s al Aqsa Storm raid—a skillful military operation carried out with great restraint and little surplus cruelty—as a “new Holocaust.” Lunatic sadomasochistic fantasies, those staples of the Zionist imagination, were fleshed out into transparently ridiculous tales of roasted babies and mass rape. In reality, it is the Zionists, not the Palestinians, who harbor perverse desires to roast and eat enemy babies and perform mass rapes. Every ludicrous accusation amounts to a confession. Whence such perversity? Central to Jewish culture is an extreme fear and loathing of the non-Jewish enemy. It’s a truism that every Jewish holiday is the same: “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat.” But at some level, Jews know that Biblical tales of the villainy of Egyptians, Persians, Philistines, Romans, and other tribal enemies are sheer mythology—tribal propaganda lies designed to unite Jews in hatred of the non-Jewish other. Pretending to accept such lies, while secretly acknowledging their mendacity, has, over 2500 years, become a Jewish tribal shibboleth. It continues today, in slightly different form, with even more outrageous lies about their modern tribal enemies: Germans, Arabs, and Muslims. Every Jew knows deep down that the canonical version of the Holocaust is likely a gross exaggeration, and that the Jewish versions of the triumph of Zionists over the Arabs and Muslims (and indeed the West) are outrageous distortions of historical reality. They know they’re lying. But they don’t care. That institutionalization of collective pathological mendacity has pernicious psychological effects. For starters, it induces deep-seated self-hatred. (We are hard-wired to hate liars, including ourselves when we lie, which is why lying causes anxiety whose signs can be picked up by lie detectors.) Tribal Jews know they are liars, hate themselves for it, and grow consumed by the desperate need to unload their self-hatred on somebody else. So, encouraged by psychopathic leadership, they project their self-loathing on a designated tribal enemy. Yesterday it was the Germans who “must perish.” Today it is the “Hamas terrorists” who need to be starved and/or nuked. Why? Because Jews have dreamed up all manner of phantasmagoric atrocities, including more than a few that they themselves dream of inflicting, and projected them on an enemy targeted for genocidal annihilation. Today, in the tenth month of the genocidal onslaught on Gaza, the mask has slipped from the face of the Zionist Kurtz, revealing “the horror” of the whole Zionist project. It’s an apocalypse in the etymological sense of a revelation or unveiling. And the horrific revealed truth threatens to undermine the foundations of Western civilization, that “garden” that supposedly compares so favorably with the non-Western “jungle.” All of the West’s pious platitudes about human rights and the rule of law have been exposed as heaps of rank, steaming bullshit, since Western governments continue to tolerate and in many cases actively support the genocide of Gaza. The Gaza genocide is turning the whole non-Western world against the West. Today, few outside the West would shed tears if Russia managed to detonate several of its radioactive tidal wave weapons and drown the most populous parts of America and Europe under sizzling seawater, rendering those areas permanently uninhabitable. Many would view such a gratuitous act of desolation as an improvement over the current state of things, i.e. rule by genocidal lunatics. And though Russia is unlikely to take such a step, except perhaps under the most extreme duress, technologies of mass destruction continue to emerge, potentially putting civilization-ending powers into a great many hands. Even short of a WMD apocalypse, the non-Western world, galvanized against the West by the Gaza genocide, will likely get its revenge one way or another. As Western power wanes, todays rulers will be tomorrows ruled, and they should not expect more mercy than what they have been showing to the women and children of Gaza. Doris Lessing’s novel Shikasta, which depicts a near future world dominated by China and its Global South allies who deliberately starve much of the Western population, may not be as unrealistic as it appeared when it came out in 1979. So it is in the West’s interest to “terminate Zionism’s command” in Palestine “with extreme prejudice,” just as it was in the Belgians’ and Americans’ interest to terminate Kurtz’s command. After all, Zionism’s methods—genocide, pathological lying, systematic torture and mass anal rape among them—are unsound. The Zionist Kurtz has gone mad. Someone needs to be sent to take him out. But how? Does the US have a Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) character who can make his way to Netanyahu’s residence and butcher the Israeli war criminal with a machete while Jim Morrison croons “this is the end” on the soundtrack? As appealing as the thought of taking a machete to Netanyahu may be, simply terminating the Zionist butcher boss with extreme prejudice wouldn’t solve the problem. Adding Smotrich and Ben Gvir might be even more satisfying, but no more efficacious. As we’ve seen, essentially all of Israeli Jewry is genocidal. They all need to be removed from Palestine. Fortunately it won’t be that hard to persuade them to leave. Well over a million Jewish Israelis have second passports, even more want them, and once the exodus starts the rest won’t be far behind. A combination of military defeat and domestic unrest (civil war between those who support raping detainees and those who are embarrassed by it?) will ensure that the proverbial writing is on the wall. So the West’s Martin Sheen character will have a more complex assignment than just terminating Bibi (played by Marlon Brando) with extreme prejudice. He’ll need to infiltrate the Zionist entity and stoke civil unrest, while conning the Zionists into launching a war they can’t win. And maybe that’s what the Biden Administration is already doing, albeit unintentionally. Though Western leaders claim they will come to Israel’s defense whenever necessary, future historians may wonder whether that wasn’t a clever ruse designed to lead the Zionists down the road to perdition. The best way to teach a dog not to chase cars is to let him catch one; likewise the best way to teach Netanyahu to stop trying to provoke a regional war may be to let him provoke one—and eat the consequences. Once Israel learns that it is facing an opponent with escalation dominance, and that the US umbrella has been withdrawn under duress, the Zionist rats will flee the sinking ship even faster than the pieds noirs left formerly French Algeria in 1962. The notion that committing ever-more abominations can force God to send them an anti-Christ messiah to miraculously subjugate their enemies while quaffing bottomless blood sacrifices from a “rebuilt” temple will be exposed as the laughable lunacy it always was. The messianic millenarian apocalyptic cult of Zionism will dry up and blow away. And on the increasingly infrequent occasions it is remembered, people will sigh and mutter: “The horror! The horror!” Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist is one of America’s best-known critics of the War on Terror. He is the host of TRUTH JIHAD RADIO; a hard-driving weekly radio show funded by listener subscriptions at Substack and the weekly news roundup FALSE FLAG WEEKLY NEWS (FFWN). He also has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS, and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin; where he ran for Congress in 2008. He currently works as a nonprofit organizer, author, and talk radio host. Archived Articles (2004-2016) www.truthjihad.com 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/2024/08/ziopocalypse-now/
    WWW.VTFOREIGNPOLICY.COM
    Ziopocalypse Now!
    “Drop the bomb! Exterminate them all!” perfectly summarizes Israel’s genocidal lunacy.
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  • Russia Slaying Khazarian Mafia in Ukraine
    Jonas E. Alexis, Senior EditorOctober 12, 2022
    First published 4 March 2022

    JEA: The Washington Post has been shocked because Russia has blocked many of its citizens from accessing media outlets such as BBC and Facebook! These people have got to be kidding. Should that really be a big problem for the entire Zionist media and oligarchic institutions in much of the West? Don’t those outlets have a history of blocking things they don’t like as well? Do these people forget history that easily? Don’t they remember Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya?

    The last time I checked, Facebook has blocked VT. The last time I checked, BBC was perpetuating anti-Russian propaganda with respect to what is happening in Ukraine. The last time I checked, it was a BBC journalist who asked Vladimir Putin a completely dumb question with respect to what was happening in the world. Putin, thank God, humiliated the poor fellow.

    The BBC has recently reported that Russia “has launched a devastating attack on Ukraine, a European democracy of 44 million people,”[1] without mentioning a single word about what NATO has been doing for the past thirty years so!

    It is even more disturbing when the BBC has put out articles such as “Why is Russia invading Ukraine and what does Putin want?” without even discussing the deep things that make up the crisis in the region. The article mentioned two things about NATO. The first one is this:

    “Russia has long resisted Ukraine’s move towards the European Union and the West’s defensive military alliance, Nato. Announcing Russia’s invasion, he accused Nato of threatening ‘our historic future as a nation.’”

    Really? That’s all there is to it? How stupid can we be? And then this: “There is no immediate threat to Russia’s Baltic neighbors, but Nato has bolstered their defences just in case.”

    To understand the lunacy of the BBC statement, imagine some Chinese or North Korean warships circulating around the coast of California or Florida. Wouldn’t the United States eventually declare war if the Chinese or North Koreans leaders don’t immediately remove their warships?

    Well, NATO has been circulating its troops around the Russian periphery for over a decade! And this has been in violation of international law. This is not some kind of conspiracy theory dreamed up by writers at VT. Scholars of all stripes have been saying this for years. John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, for example, has been writing about this since 2014. Mearsheimer in particular has recently reformulated that thesis in the New Yorker.

    In any event, the BBC article did suggest something which Brother Nathanael Kapner will discuss below. The BBC seemed to suggest that Putin is in a war with the Khazarian Mafia in the region: “There has been no genocide in Ukraine: it is a vibrant democracy, led by a president who is Jewish.”

    Now we’re talking.



    …by Nathanael Kapner

    The blitz on Russia is unhinged. It’s a study in ‘moronology.’

    When US liquor stores are told by hacks to dump their already-bought Russian vodka, you know Russophobia is just a psychotic shot away. They dropped COVID just for this.

    And when Fox News says ‘Putin is the Antichrist’ you know that whoever squawks the loudest gains the ear of lamebrain Americans. Rev up the heart rate.

    Don’t you need somebody to hate. Today Putin, yesterday Sadaam, tomorrow whoever stands in the way of the Khazarian Mafia.

    Ukraine is just a pawn in the Khazarian Mafia’s game to ‘contain’ Christian Russia.

    With joint efforts of the Mossad and CIA clandestinely funding Ukraine’s nationalists—”Natz”—as the locals call them, short for “Nazis,” a Ukrainian deep state was created.

    These “Natz” are descendants of the “Banderites” of World War II fame, with whom Hitler, due to their fanatical viciousness, shunned.

    With the help of US State Departments’ Jew, Victoria Nuland, (born “Nudelman”), the Banderites executed a coup in 2014.

    Straightaway an American puppet, known affectionately by Nudelman as “Yats,” a fellow Jew, was installed.

    Today’s neo-Banderite battalions, fueled by manic hatred of anything “Russian,” got the lion’s share of military aid from the Khazarian Mafia in America that bolstered them for future attacks on Donbas then ultimately on Russia.

    And with military bases, run by Nato and funded by international Jewish banks—achieving lethal pressure on Russia’s western flank—Putin protested of being squeezed.

    Today, via surgical attacks on Ukraine’s military infrastructure, not civilian, Russia now controls all Ukrainian airspace.

    One complex, a Nato/US Naval Base in Ochakov, masqueraded as a Ukrainian Naval Base between Odessa and Crimea, was just annihilated by the Russian Air Force.

    So far Russia has hit some 1,500 Ukrainian military targets.

    Thus “demilitarizing” covert Nato bases and their manic Banderite stooges.

    The Russian bear will maul his way all the way west of Kyiv. Creating a line of demarcation as “peacemaking endgame,” the bear will split Ukraine in two.

    What’s left of the “Natz”—most will be zapped—will be contained in a sequestered administrative zone bordering the EU.

    The greater eastern portion with its new government will sign a non-alignment agreement with Russia under the umbrella of a Russian protectorate.

    Let me pose a Jewish kind of question: Do those “Natz” hate Jews?

    No, not at all.

    But they love their Jewish Ukrainian oligarch enablers.

    Jews like Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, and Zvi Hirsch—who changed his name, like many Jews do—to Gennadiy Boholyubov.

    All of these oligarchs have lineages that can be traced to Jewish Bolshevik families

    The same families that financed the overthrow of Czarist Christian Russia and the Christian monarchy of Nicholas II.

    Yes, Putin’s calling for the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. He’s calling for its “de-communization” too.

    ”As a result of Bolshevik policy Soviet Ukraine arose which even today can with good reason be called ‘Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s Ukraine.’ He is its author and architect. This is fully confirmed by archive documents also including Lenin’s decrees regarding adding the Donbass to Ukraine. And now grateful descendants have demolished monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. This is what they call de-communization. Do you want de-communization? Well, that suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show you what real de-communization means for Ukraine.”

    A two-fold blow:

    1) Purging the corrupt Jewish Ukrainian oligarchs who will be forced to flee just as they did when Putin purged them in Russia in 2003.

    2) Purging the Ukrainian Parliament infested with Jews like Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, and Culture and Information Policy Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko, all Jews.

    Zelensky, the Jew President of Ukraine, by asking Nato for a no-fly zone to shoot down Russian planes—which the Khazarian Mafia in America rejected—shot himself in the foot for any bid for bargaining chips in talks with Putin.

    Concerning the Rothschild/US Jewish FED cutting off Russia from financial markets and interbank payments, this is nothing less than assisted-suicide.

    Russia and China long ago set up their own “SWIFT” interbank payment systems.

    Nations needing Russian wheat, fertilizer, steel, aluminum, and oil, will pay not in dollars but in Chinese yuans that’s increasingly rising as the reserve currency replacing the dollar.

    Once the Khazarian dollar (I mean, with no “productive” value) takes a dive, buying your jeans at Walmart will be like shopping at Nieman-Marcus on steroids.

    Poking the Russian Bear has always been a Khazarian affair.

    Curl up, they say, in a fetal position, when faced with a charging bear.

    The bear is striking back and the Khazarians don’t have a prayer.

    First published on March 4, 2022.



    [1] Paul Kirby, “Why is Russia invading Ukraine and what does Putin want?,” BBC, March 4, 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://veteranstoday.com/2022/10/12/russia-is-slaying-the-khazarian-mafia-in-ukraine/
    Russia Slaying Khazarian Mafia in Ukraine Jonas E. Alexis, Senior EditorOctober 12, 2022 First published 4 March 2022 JEA: The Washington Post has been shocked because Russia has blocked many of its citizens from accessing media outlets such as BBC and Facebook! These people have got to be kidding. Should that really be a big problem for the entire Zionist media and oligarchic institutions in much of the West? Don’t those outlets have a history of blocking things they don’t like as well? Do these people forget history that easily? Don’t they remember Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya? The last time I checked, Facebook has blocked VT. The last time I checked, BBC was perpetuating anti-Russian propaganda with respect to what is happening in Ukraine. The last time I checked, it was a BBC journalist who asked Vladimir Putin a completely dumb question with respect to what was happening in the world. Putin, thank God, humiliated the poor fellow. The BBC has recently reported that Russia “has launched a devastating attack on Ukraine, a European democracy of 44 million people,”[1] without mentioning a single word about what NATO has been doing for the past thirty years so! It is even more disturbing when the BBC has put out articles such as “Why is Russia invading Ukraine and what does Putin want?” without even discussing the deep things that make up the crisis in the region. The article mentioned two things about NATO. The first one is this: “Russia has long resisted Ukraine’s move towards the European Union and the West’s defensive military alliance, Nato. Announcing Russia’s invasion, he accused Nato of threatening ‘our historic future as a nation.’” Really? That’s all there is to it? How stupid can we be? And then this: “There is no immediate threat to Russia’s Baltic neighbors, but Nato has bolstered their defences just in case.” To understand the lunacy of the BBC statement, imagine some Chinese or North Korean warships circulating around the coast of California or Florida. Wouldn’t the United States eventually declare war if the Chinese or North Koreans leaders don’t immediately remove their warships? Well, NATO has been circulating its troops around the Russian periphery for over a decade! And this has been in violation of international law. This is not some kind of conspiracy theory dreamed up by writers at VT. Scholars of all stripes have been saying this for years. John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, for example, has been writing about this since 2014. Mearsheimer in particular has recently reformulated that thesis in the New Yorker. In any event, the BBC article did suggest something which Brother Nathanael Kapner will discuss below. The BBC seemed to suggest that Putin is in a war with the Khazarian Mafia in the region: “There has been no genocide in Ukraine: it is a vibrant democracy, led by a president who is Jewish.” Now we’re talking. …by Nathanael Kapner The blitz on Russia is unhinged. It’s a study in ‘moronology.’ When US liquor stores are told by hacks to dump their already-bought Russian vodka, you know Russophobia is just a psychotic shot away. They dropped COVID just for this. And when Fox News says ‘Putin is the Antichrist’ you know that whoever squawks the loudest gains the ear of lamebrain Americans. Rev up the heart rate. Don’t you need somebody to hate. Today Putin, yesterday Sadaam, tomorrow whoever stands in the way of the Khazarian Mafia. Ukraine is just a pawn in the Khazarian Mafia’s game to ‘contain’ Christian Russia. With joint efforts of the Mossad and CIA clandestinely funding Ukraine’s nationalists—”Natz”—as the locals call them, short for “Nazis,” a Ukrainian deep state was created. These “Natz” are descendants of the “Banderites” of World War II fame, with whom Hitler, due to their fanatical viciousness, shunned. With the help of US State Departments’ Jew, Victoria Nuland, (born “Nudelman”), the Banderites executed a coup in 2014. Straightaway an American puppet, known affectionately by Nudelman as “Yats,” a fellow Jew, was installed. Today’s neo-Banderite battalions, fueled by manic hatred of anything “Russian,” got the lion’s share of military aid from the Khazarian Mafia in America that bolstered them for future attacks on Donbas then ultimately on Russia. And with military bases, run by Nato and funded by international Jewish banks—achieving lethal pressure on Russia’s western flank—Putin protested of being squeezed. Today, via surgical attacks on Ukraine’s military infrastructure, not civilian, Russia now controls all Ukrainian airspace. One complex, a Nato/US Naval Base in Ochakov, masqueraded as a Ukrainian Naval Base between Odessa and Crimea, was just annihilated by the Russian Air Force. So far Russia has hit some 1,500 Ukrainian military targets. Thus “demilitarizing” covert Nato bases and their manic Banderite stooges. The Russian bear will maul his way all the way west of Kyiv. Creating a line of demarcation as “peacemaking endgame,” the bear will split Ukraine in two. What’s left of the “Natz”—most will be zapped—will be contained in a sequestered administrative zone bordering the EU. The greater eastern portion with its new government will sign a non-alignment agreement with Russia under the umbrella of a Russian protectorate. Let me pose a Jewish kind of question: Do those “Natz” hate Jews? No, not at all. But they love their Jewish Ukrainian oligarch enablers. Jews like Ihor Kolomoyskyi, Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, and Zvi Hirsch—who changed his name, like many Jews do—to Gennadiy Boholyubov. All of these oligarchs have lineages that can be traced to Jewish Bolshevik families The same families that financed the overthrow of Czarist Christian Russia and the Christian monarchy of Nicholas II. Yes, Putin’s calling for the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine. He’s calling for its “de-communization” too. ”As a result of Bolshevik policy Soviet Ukraine arose which even today can with good reason be called ‘Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s Ukraine.’ He is its author and architect. This is fully confirmed by archive documents also including Lenin’s decrees regarding adding the Donbass to Ukraine. And now grateful descendants have demolished monuments to Lenin in Ukraine. This is what they call de-communization. Do you want de-communization? Well, that suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show you what real de-communization means for Ukraine.” A two-fold blow: 1) Purging the corrupt Jewish Ukrainian oligarchs who will be forced to flee just as they did when Putin purged them in Russia in 2003. 2) Purging the Ukrainian Parliament infested with Jews like Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, and Culture and Information Policy Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko, all Jews. Zelensky, the Jew President of Ukraine, by asking Nato for a no-fly zone to shoot down Russian planes—which the Khazarian Mafia in America rejected—shot himself in the foot for any bid for bargaining chips in talks with Putin. Concerning the Rothschild/US Jewish FED cutting off Russia from financial markets and interbank payments, this is nothing less than assisted-suicide. Russia and China long ago set up their own “SWIFT” interbank payment systems. Nations needing Russian wheat, fertilizer, steel, aluminum, and oil, will pay not in dollars but in Chinese yuans that’s increasingly rising as the reserve currency replacing the dollar. Once the Khazarian dollar (I mean, with no “productive” value) takes a dive, buying your jeans at Walmart will be like shopping at Nieman-Marcus on steroids. Poking the Russian Bear has always been a Khazarian affair. Curl up, they say, in a fetal position, when faced with a charging bear. The bear is striking back and the Khazarians don’t have a prayer. First published on March 4, 2022. [1] Paul Kirby, “Why is Russia invading Ukraine and what does Putin want?,” BBC, March 4, 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://veteranstoday.com/2022/10/12/russia-is-slaying-the-khazarian-mafia-in-ukraine/
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  • As Israel continues killing in Gaza, more torture and rape allegations surface – Day 304
    [email protected] August 7, 2024 anti-masking law, ceasefire, evacuation, gaza death toll, Israeli prisons, malnutrition gaza, palestinian journalist killed, rape, tim walz, torture, turkey joins icj, turkiye, us troops to israel, west bank deaths
    Israeli air strikes have targeted parts of central Gaza where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter. Pictured: the aftermath of a bombing in Deir el Balah (screengrab)
    166th Palestinian journalist killed; child malnutrition in Gaza; another evacuation order; Gaza’s official death toll is way too low; news of Israeli torture and rape of Palestinian prisoners keeps coming, keeps getting worse; Israel killed 12 West Bank Palestinians in 24 hours; majority of Americans don’t support sending troops to assist Israel; NY anti-masking law targets pro-Palestine protesters; VP candidate Tim Walz on Palestine; ceasefire agreement allegedly getting close; Turkey joins ICJ case against Israel; more.

    By IAK staff, from reports.

    Another Palestinian journalist killed in Israeli attack on Gaza

    Al Jazeera reports: Gaza’s Government Media Office says the number of journalists killed in Israeli attacks has risen to 166 since the start of Israel’s war.

    It said in a statement that Mohammed Issa Abu Saada, a correspondent and field photojournalist for several media outlets, is the latest to be killed.

    Child malnutrition surges in Gaza: UN

    OCHA reports: In the five-day period up to Monday, 143 Palestinians were reported killed and 341 injured by Israeli attacks on Gaza from air, land and sea forces, according to the UN’s latest situation report.

    Detected cases of child malnutrition in Gaza have jumped almost 50 percent in July compared with June, with more than 650 Palestinian children now suffering from “acute malnutrition” in the enclave, which is a three-fold increase in cases since May.

    The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also reports that an estimated 10,000 people remain missing or under the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza.

    Save the Children, in a new statement, said 21,000 children are missing, some separated from their families, some buried under the rubble, their fate unknown. The advocacy group calls for a ceasefire to look for the missing children. Israel's abuses saw it added to the UN's global blacklist of countries that harm children.
    Save the Children, in a new statement, said 21,000 children are missing, some separated from their families, some buried under the rubble, their fate unknown. The advocacy group calls for a ceasefire to look for the missing children. Israel’s abuses saw it added to the UN’s global blacklist of countries that harm children. (screenshot)
    Israeli Military Orders Another Mass Evacuation in Northern Gaza – ‘To the Known Shelters’

    Palestine Chronicle reports: The Israeli military threatened a new military operation in the northern Gaza Strip under the pretext of the firing of rockets from the area.

    In a tweet published early Wednesday on the X platform, Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee said that all those in the Beit Hanoun area, the Manshiya and Sheikh Zayed neighborhoods should evacuate their areas immediately to “known shelters” in the center of Gaza City.

    He added that Hamas and other factions were firing rockets from those areas and that the Israeli army would act “immediately and forcefully against them.”

    Throughout the war, Israel has repeatedly targeted refugee encampments of displaced Gazans, resulting in the killing and wounding of thousands.

    Israel’s Channel 12 said the army was preparing for what it described as large-scale ground activity in Beit Hanoun.

    Meanwhile, there are reports of shelling all over Gaza.

    RECOMMENDED READING: ‘The martyrs were cut up and burned’: Survivors of the latest tent massacre in Gaza recount the horror

    A scene from the massive fire ignited when Israel struck Rafah
    A scene from the massive fire ignited when Israel struck Rafah on May 26 (screenshot)
    Gaza’s official death toll is a lie

    Jonathan Cook writes: The reported death toll in Gaza is way too low by every imaginable metric. We need to be stressing this — all the more so when Israel’s apologists are vigorously engaged in a disinformation campaign to suggest that the figures are inflated.

    On May 6, seven months into Israel’s slaughter, there were reported to be 34,735 dead. That was an average of 4,960 Palestinians killed each month.

    Today, nearly three months on, the reported death toll stands at 39,400 — or an increase of 4,665.

    It should not need a statistician to point out that, were the rise linear, the expected number of deaths would stand by this point at around 49,600.

    So, even by the simplest calculation, there is a large shortfall in deaths — a shortfall that needs explaining.

    Such an explanation is easy to provide: Israel destroyed Gaza’s institutions and its medical infrastructure, including its hospitals, many months ago, making it impossible for officials there to keep track of how many Palestinians are being killed by Israel.

    The death toll figures started to stall in the spring, around the time Israel completed its destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and kidnapped much of the enclave’s medical personnel.

    More than a month ago, Save the Children pointed out that some 21,000 children in Gaza were missing, in addition to the 16,000 known to have been killed by Israel. Many are likely to have suffered lonely, terrifying deaths under rubble — gradually suffocated to death, or dying slowly from dehydration.

    But again, even those shocking figures are likely to be a severe undercount.

    (Read the full article here.)




    Reports of torture in Israel’s Sde Teiman ‘only represent the tip of iceberg’

    UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights: Reports of alleged torture and sexual violence in Israel’s Sde Teiman prison are grossly illegal and revolting, but they only represent the tip of the iceberg, independent human rights experts* warned today.

    “Israel’s widespread and systemic abuse of Palestinians in detention and arbitrary arrest practices over decades, coupled with the absence of any restraints by the Israeli State since 7 October 2023, paint a shocking picture enabled by absolute impunity,” the experts said.

    Around 9,500 Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women, are currently imprisoned—around one-third without charge or trial. Another unknown number are arbitrarily being held in detention facilities and ad hoc camps following a wave of arrest and abduction campaigns across Palestinian territory that targeted men, women and children particularly following 7 October.

    The experts received substantiated reports of widespread abuse, torture, sexual assault and rape, amid atrocious inhumane conditions, with at least 53 Palestinians apparently dying as a result in 10 months.

    Countless testimonies by men and women speak of detainees in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water and sleep, electrocutions including on their genitals, blackmail and cigarette burns. In addition, victims spoke of loud music played until their ears bled, attacks by dogs, waterboarding, suspension from ceilings and severe sexual and gender-based violence.

    “Allegations of gang-rape of a Palestinian detainee, now shockingly supported by voices in the Israeli political establishment and society, provide irrefutable evidence that the moral compass is lost,” the experts said. In February 2024, a number of experts also expressed grave concern regarding the reports of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence committed against Palestinian women and girls in Israeli detention.

    (Read the full statement here.)

    NOTE: The Cradle reported yesterday that US President Joe Biden has apparently agreed to guarantee that Israel will be able to resume the war against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza after the first phase of an exchange deal, according to Hebrew media. This is the “absolute impunity” to which this report referred.

    A leaked photograph of the detention facility shows a blindfolded man with his arms above his head. Obtained by CNN
    A leaked photograph of the detention facility shows a blindfolded man with his arms above his head. Obtained by CNN (photo)
    Key takeaways from B’Tselem’s report on Israel’s ‘torture camps’

    The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem collected testimonies from 55 Palestinians, including 21 from the Gaza Strip, who had been held in Israeli prisons since October 7.

    The detainees spoke to B’Tselem following their release – here are some details:

    The B’Tselem report reveals that more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities were converted into a network of camps “dedicated to the abuse of inmates” following October 7.
    “Such spaces, in which every inmate is intentionally condemned to severe, relentless pain and suffering, operate in fact as torture camps,” it said.
    The violations include “frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation; deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation; prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment”.
    B’Tselem said at least 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 7. Some 48 of them were from Gaza.
    The report said that detainee testimonies demonstrate “a systemic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners”. This policy, it said, is implemented under the direction of Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, with the full support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
    B’Tselem also noted that the number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails has doubled to 9,623 since the war on Gaza began.
    Executive summary of the B’Tselem report can be found here; full report here.

    Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with stripped, bound, and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, Friday December 8, 2023
    Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with stripped, bound, and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, Friday December 8, 2023 (photo)
    UN probe into UNRWA not given full access to Israeli evidence

    UNRWA reported earlier this week that an internal UN investigation concluded that nine UNRWA staff members “may have been involved” in the 7 October attacks.

    The UN has now revealed that it does not have 100% conclusive evidence, and that the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services was never given full access to Israel’s evidence that it claims it has against the UN personnel.

    Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ordered this internal review shortly after Israel leveled its claims against UNRWA personnel in late January. Now, because of legal and confidentiality reasons, this OIOS report will not be made public.

    Meanwhile, since October 7, more than 200 UNRWA personnel have been killed due to Israel’s continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

    In Less Than A Day, Israel Killed Twelve Palestinians In West Bank

    IMEMC reports: The Israeli occupation army has killed, overnight and earlier Tuesday, twelve Palestinians in Jenin, Tubas, and Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

    In Jenin, the army fired a missile at the eastern neighborhood of the city, killing five Palestinians whose bodies have been severely mutilated.

    Wisam Bakr, the director of the Jenin Governmental Hospital, said the severely mutilated corpses of five Palestinians were transferred to the medical facility after the army fired a missile at them in the Eastern Neighborhood, and prevented Palestinian medics from entering the area for several hours.

    Details on the deaths are here.

    RECOMMENDED READING: Far right pulling masks off Israeli legal charade



    Israelis continue to protest detention of soldiers accused of raping Palestinian prisoner

    Al Jazeera reports: Israelis are demonstrating in front of the military court at the Beit Lid base in the center of the country, to protest the continued detention of five reserve soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner in Sde Teiman prison in the Negev desert.

    Last week, dozens of Israeli protesters, including far-right members of the Knesset, clashed with military police after at least nine soldiers suspected of abusing a Palestinian prisoner were detained for questioning.

    Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said the demonstration comes ahead of the start of a court hearing on the third extension of the detention of the five soldiers.

    Demonstrators chanted slogans such as “This is the state of the Jews and it precedes democracy” and called for the release of the accused soldiers.

    Israeli reservists fail polygraph probing sexual abuse allegations: Report

    Al Jazeera reports: Two Israeli reservists suspected of sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner have failed a polygraph test about the allegations, reports Israel’s Channel 12.

    The soldiers, among five still detained over sexual abuse allegations at Israel’s Sde Teiman facility, denied committing or covering up an act of sexual assault during the polygraph examination, but the examiner deemed their responses deceptive, said the report.

    The allegations against the reservists have divided Israeli society, with a group of far-right activists storming the facility they were held at last week demanding their release.

    Israeli forces blindfold and strip Palestinian prisoners who are arbitrarily detained
    Israeli forces blindfold and strip Palestinian prisoners who are arbitrarily detained (photo)
    Poll: Most Americans don’t want to send troops to defend Israel

    Responsible Statecraft reports: According to a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, only 41% of Americans support the idea of U.S. troops defending Israel, even if its neighbors attacked it. This is a decrease from 53% in 2021 and represents the lowest level of support since the the council started tracking the question in 2010.

    According to the survey, 55% of Americans overall are against the idea of sending troops to defend Israel. These numbers show a decrease in support from Republicans, typically Israel’s biggest supporters, from 72% in 2021 to 55% today. Democrats went from 42% in favor of defending Israel with U.S. troops in 2021 to 35% today.

    The poll was conducted online from June 21 through July 1.

    Americans still believe in a peacekeeping mission, however, with 54 percent of Americans supporting sending peacekeeping troops if a deal between Israel and the Palestinians is arranged and kept, according to the survey.

    One Year in Prison and a Fine: NY Mask Ban Targets Palestine Protesters

    Palestine Chronicle reports: New York’s suburban Nassau County has passed a bill to ban the wearing of masks intended to hide the identity of pro-Palestinian protesters against US support for Israel’s war in Gaza, Reuters has reported.

    The mask ban will cover any sort of public protest, but lawmakers in the Republican-controlled county say that the bill aims to prevent protesters who engage in alleged violence and anti-Semitism from hiding their identity and avoiding accountability.

    Civil rights advocates view the step as an infringement on free speech rights.

    The bill was approved late on Monday, with all 12 Republicans in the county legislature voting in favor. The seven Democrats abstained.

    Veterans for Peace call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza
    Veterans for Peace call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza (screenshot)
    Tim Walz called Gaza situation “Intolerable,” sought ceasefire, praised Uncommitted; Shapiro did not

    Informed Comment reports: Presumptive Democratic Party standard-bearer Kamala Harris’ pick of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate has widely been implied to have something to do with his stance on the Gaza genocide.

    On March 5, Super Tuesday, Abby Phillip at CNN asked Walz about the Gaza protest vote: “We’re seeing a fairly sizable, about 40,000 votes right now, 20 percent of the vote going to uncommitted. And we’ve seen that already in this primary in Michigan. What message are voters in your state trying to send to President Biden? And what do you want to see President Biden do in response?”

    Walz replied, “Yeah, look, they’re engaged. We’re really proud of Minnesota civic responsibility. We have some of the highest voter turnouts. These are voters that are deeply concerned as we all are. The situation in Gaza is intolerable. And I think trying to find a solution, a lasting two-state solution, certainly the President’s move towards humanitarian aid and asking us to get to a ceasefire, that’s what they’re asking to be heard. And that’s what they should be doing. We’ve gone through this before. And we know that now we make sure we’ve got eight months. We start bringing these folks back in. We listen to what they’re saying.”

    The important thing here is that Walz did not simply dismiss the Uncommitted movement or condemn it. He heard their concern and said it mirrored his own. “The situation in Gaza is intolerable.” He approved of getting “to a ceasefire” and humanitarian aid.

    The Intercept reports: “Harris’s selection of Walz could also signal a shift from President Joe Biden’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.”

    “Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, contrasted Walz with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was widely reported to be the other frontrunner for Harris’s running mate, and believes that rejecting Shapiro in favor of Walz bodes well for Harris’s approach to the world.”

    “It’s impossible to know exactly what calculations were made and what issues mattered the most,” Duss said, referring to the Walz selection. “But I think it’s clear that there is a growing constituency in the Democratic Party that takes the issue of Palestinian rights much more seriously than in previous years, and it has to be engaged with and its views have to be taken into account.”

    “By deciding against Shapiro, Duss said, Harris is showing that she is to some degree listening to this movement within the party…”

    “Some observers also noted Walz’s antiwar record while a member of Congress, pointing to his opposition to a war in Syria in 2013 and his support of repealing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which has given the White House broad powers to bypass Congress to conduct attacks and military operations in other countries.”

    The NY times reports: “Selecting Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania could mollify many Jewish voters and other centrists over a subject that has bedeviled the Biden-Harris administration for nearly a year, Israel’s war in Gaza. It could also inflame the left, which has been protesting the administration for months.

    “Ms. Harris’s selection of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota likely avoided fueling the Gaza demonstrations.”

    [Tim Walz [File: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP]
    [Tim Walz [File: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP] (photo)
    Blinken says ceasefire negotiations have reached ‘final stage’

    Al Jazeera reports: US Secretary of State Blinken has pressed for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza and warned against the possibility of worsening regional escalation.

    Here are a few of Blinken’s key remarks:

    An agreement between Israel and Hamas is in the “final stage” and called on all parties to finalise it “as soon as possible”.
    Further attacks “only perpetuate” conflict, instability and insecurity.
    The US has told Iran and Israel “directly” that regional fighting must not escalate further.
    The Cradle reported yesterday that the US has agreed to guarantee that Israel will be able to resume the war against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza after the first phase of an exchange deal, according to Hebrew media.

    If the ceasefire agreement says that Israel can resume the war, it is unlikely that Hamas will agree.

    Turkey submits bid to join ICJ case against Israel

    Middle East Eye reports: Turkey has reportedly submitted its formal bid to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.

    According to the report, Turkey’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Selcuk Unal, presented a “comprehensive and detailed” application to the UN court in The Hague on Wednesday.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who announced the move on Monday, said that Ankara has prepared a dossier that will likely significantly impact the trial.

    Turkey’s intervention is expected to be the most impactful in the case, and likely to encourage other countries to join.

    International Court of Justice, The Hague, Netherlands
    International Court of Justice, The Hague, Netherlands (photo)
    US and UK to boycott Nagasaki bombing memorial after Israel disinvited

    Middle East Eye reports: The American and British ambassadors to Japan have announced they will skip an upcoming ceremony commemorating the victims of the US’s 1945 atomic bombing because the city’s mayor did not invite the Israeli ambassador.

    The Russian and Belarusian ambassadors have also been excluded from the event this Friday by Japanese authorities.

    The Nagasaki Peace Memorial Ceremony is intended to mark the 79th anniversary of the US atomic bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians, with many more later dying from radiation poisoning.

    Pentagon confirms US troops injured in attack on Iraqi air base

    The Cradle reports: At least five US soldiers and contractors were injured during a rocket attack that hit Iraq’s Ain al-Asad air base late on 5 August, Pentagon officials have confirmed.

    US defense officials revealed to Reuters that at least one person was “seriously injured.” “Base personnel are conducting a post-attack damage assessment,” the unnamed officials added.

    The US military took control of Ain al-Assad in 2003 following the White House’s illegal invasion and occupation of the country but withdrew its forces in 2011 when Barack Obama failed to secure a new Status of Forces (SOFA) agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

    However, US forces returned to the base under the pretext of training Iraqis to fight ISIS six months after the extremist group invaded and occupied Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in June 2014. They have remained there since.

    Ain al-Assad air base had been targeted at least twice over the past three weeks as local resistance groups working under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) umbrella have steadily resumed pro-Palestine operations that were halted earlier this year.

    Wednesday’s attack comes just a few days after a US airstrike killed four members of the anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) north of Babil.

    [Note: Israel partisans were largely responsible for the disastrous US decision to invade Iraq.]

    RECOMMENDED READING: The U.S. has dozens of secret bases across the Middle East. They keep getting attacked.

    MORE NEWS:

    IMEMC Daily Reports.

    Drop Site News: Microsoft Encourages Employee Donations to Illegal West Bank Settlements, While Barring UNRWA

    STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 6:

    Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 6: at least 40,292* (39,677 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.]

    This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 615 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths.

    Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.

    Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza.

    At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank).
    At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**.
    About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced.
    2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.
    Palestinian injuries from October 7 – August 6: at least 97,065 (including at least 91,645 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.]

    Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – August 6: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured.

    Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%.

    NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers.

    *Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.**

    Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals.

    † For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics.

    Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

    Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
    Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

    Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated)
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    https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-killing-gaza-torture-rape-allegations-surface-day-304/
    As Israel continues killing in Gaza, more torture and rape allegations surface – Day 304 [email protected] August 7, 2024 anti-masking law, ceasefire, evacuation, gaza death toll, Israeli prisons, malnutrition gaza, palestinian journalist killed, rape, tim walz, torture, turkey joins icj, turkiye, us troops to israel, west bank deaths Israeli air strikes have targeted parts of central Gaza where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter. Pictured: the aftermath of a bombing in Deir el Balah (screengrab) 166th Palestinian journalist killed; child malnutrition in Gaza; another evacuation order; Gaza’s official death toll is way too low; news of Israeli torture and rape of Palestinian prisoners keeps coming, keeps getting worse; Israel killed 12 West Bank Palestinians in 24 hours; majority of Americans don’t support sending troops to assist Israel; NY anti-masking law targets pro-Palestine protesters; VP candidate Tim Walz on Palestine; ceasefire agreement allegedly getting close; Turkey joins ICJ case against Israel; more. By IAK staff, from reports. Another Palestinian journalist killed in Israeli attack on Gaza Al Jazeera reports: Gaza’s Government Media Office says the number of journalists killed in Israeli attacks has risen to 166 since the start of Israel’s war. It said in a statement that Mohammed Issa Abu Saada, a correspondent and field photojournalist for several media outlets, is the latest to be killed. Child malnutrition surges in Gaza: UN OCHA reports: In the five-day period up to Monday, 143 Palestinians were reported killed and 341 injured by Israeli attacks on Gaza from air, land and sea forces, according to the UN’s latest situation report. Detected cases of child malnutrition in Gaza have jumped almost 50 percent in July compared with June, with more than 650 Palestinian children now suffering from “acute malnutrition” in the enclave, which is a three-fold increase in cases since May. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also reports that an estimated 10,000 people remain missing or under the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza. Save the Children, in a new statement, said 21,000 children are missing, some separated from their families, some buried under the rubble, their fate unknown. The advocacy group calls for a ceasefire to look for the missing children. Israel's abuses saw it added to the UN's global blacklist of countries that harm children. Save the Children, in a new statement, said 21,000 children are missing, some separated from their families, some buried under the rubble, their fate unknown. The advocacy group calls for a ceasefire to look for the missing children. Israel’s abuses saw it added to the UN’s global blacklist of countries that harm children. (screenshot) Israeli Military Orders Another Mass Evacuation in Northern Gaza – ‘To the Known Shelters’ Palestine Chronicle reports: The Israeli military threatened a new military operation in the northern Gaza Strip under the pretext of the firing of rockets from the area. In a tweet published early Wednesday on the X platform, Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee said that all those in the Beit Hanoun area, the Manshiya and Sheikh Zayed neighborhoods should evacuate their areas immediately to “known shelters” in the center of Gaza City. He added that Hamas and other factions were firing rockets from those areas and that the Israeli army would act “immediately and forcefully against them.” Throughout the war, Israel has repeatedly targeted refugee encampments of displaced Gazans, resulting in the killing and wounding of thousands. Israel’s Channel 12 said the army was preparing for what it described as large-scale ground activity in Beit Hanoun. Meanwhile, there are reports of shelling all over Gaza. RECOMMENDED READING: ‘The martyrs were cut up and burned’: Survivors of the latest tent massacre in Gaza recount the horror A scene from the massive fire ignited when Israel struck Rafah A scene from the massive fire ignited when Israel struck Rafah on May 26 (screenshot) Gaza’s official death toll is a lie Jonathan Cook writes: The reported death toll in Gaza is way too low by every imaginable metric. We need to be stressing this — all the more so when Israel’s apologists are vigorously engaged in a disinformation campaign to suggest that the figures are inflated. On May 6, seven months into Israel’s slaughter, there were reported to be 34,735 dead. That was an average of 4,960 Palestinians killed each month. Today, nearly three months on, the reported death toll stands at 39,400 — or an increase of 4,665. It should not need a statistician to point out that, were the rise linear, the expected number of deaths would stand by this point at around 49,600. So, even by the simplest calculation, there is a large shortfall in deaths — a shortfall that needs explaining. Such an explanation is easy to provide: Israel destroyed Gaza’s institutions and its medical infrastructure, including its hospitals, many months ago, making it impossible for officials there to keep track of how many Palestinians are being killed by Israel. The death toll figures started to stall in the spring, around the time Israel completed its destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and kidnapped much of the enclave’s medical personnel. More than a month ago, Save the Children pointed out that some 21,000 children in Gaza were missing, in addition to the 16,000 known to have been killed by Israel. Many are likely to have suffered lonely, terrifying deaths under rubble — gradually suffocated to death, or dying slowly from dehydration. But again, even those shocking figures are likely to be a severe undercount. (Read the full article here.) Reports of torture in Israel’s Sde Teiman ‘only represent the tip of iceberg’ UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights: Reports of alleged torture and sexual violence in Israel’s Sde Teiman prison are grossly illegal and revolting, but they only represent the tip of the iceberg, independent human rights experts* warned today. “Israel’s widespread and systemic abuse of Palestinians in detention and arbitrary arrest practices over decades, coupled with the absence of any restraints by the Israeli State since 7 October 2023, paint a shocking picture enabled by absolute impunity,” the experts said. Around 9,500 Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women, are currently imprisoned—around one-third without charge or trial. Another unknown number are arbitrarily being held in detention facilities and ad hoc camps following a wave of arrest and abduction campaigns across Palestinian territory that targeted men, women and children particularly following 7 October. The experts received substantiated reports of widespread abuse, torture, sexual assault and rape, amid atrocious inhumane conditions, with at least 53 Palestinians apparently dying as a result in 10 months. Countless testimonies by men and women speak of detainees in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds blindfolded and in diapers, stripped naked, deprived of adequate healthcare, food, water and sleep, electrocutions including on their genitals, blackmail and cigarette burns. In addition, victims spoke of loud music played until their ears bled, attacks by dogs, waterboarding, suspension from ceilings and severe sexual and gender-based violence. “Allegations of gang-rape of a Palestinian detainee, now shockingly supported by voices in the Israeli political establishment and society, provide irrefutable evidence that the moral compass is lost,” the experts said. In February 2024, a number of experts also expressed grave concern regarding the reports of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence committed against Palestinian women and girls in Israeli detention. (Read the full statement here.) NOTE: The Cradle reported yesterday that US President Joe Biden has apparently agreed to guarantee that Israel will be able to resume the war against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza after the first phase of an exchange deal, according to Hebrew media. This is the “absolute impunity” to which this report referred. A leaked photograph of the detention facility shows a blindfolded man with his arms above his head. Obtained by CNN A leaked photograph of the detention facility shows a blindfolded man with his arms above his head. Obtained by CNN (photo) Key takeaways from B’Tselem’s report on Israel’s ‘torture camps’ The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem collected testimonies from 55 Palestinians, including 21 from the Gaza Strip, who had been held in Israeli prisons since October 7. The detainees spoke to B’Tselem following their release – here are some details: The B’Tselem report reveals that more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities were converted into a network of camps “dedicated to the abuse of inmates” following October 7. “Such spaces, in which every inmate is intentionally condemned to severe, relentless pain and suffering, operate in fact as torture camps,” it said. The violations include “frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation; deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation; prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment”. B’Tselem said at least 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October 7. Some 48 of them were from Gaza. The report said that detainee testimonies demonstrate “a systemic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners”. This policy, it said, is implemented under the direction of Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, with the full support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. B’Tselem also noted that the number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails has doubled to 9,623 since the war on Gaza began. Executive summary of the B’Tselem report can be found here; full report here. Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with stripped, bound, and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, Friday December 8, 2023 Israeli soldiers stand by a truck packed with stripped, bound, and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, Friday December 8, 2023 (photo) UN probe into UNRWA not given full access to Israeli evidence UNRWA reported earlier this week that an internal UN investigation concluded that nine UNRWA staff members “may have been involved” in the 7 October attacks. The UN has now revealed that it does not have 100% conclusive evidence, and that the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services was never given full access to Israel’s evidence that it claims it has against the UN personnel. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ordered this internal review shortly after Israel leveled its claims against UNRWA personnel in late January. Now, because of legal and confidentiality reasons, this OIOS report will not be made public. Meanwhile, since October 7, more than 200 UNRWA personnel have been killed due to Israel’s continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip. In Less Than A Day, Israel Killed Twelve Palestinians In West Bank IMEMC reports: The Israeli occupation army has killed, overnight and earlier Tuesday, twelve Palestinians in Jenin, Tubas, and Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank. In Jenin, the army fired a missile at the eastern neighborhood of the city, killing five Palestinians whose bodies have been severely mutilated. Wisam Bakr, the director of the Jenin Governmental Hospital, said the severely mutilated corpses of five Palestinians were transferred to the medical facility after the army fired a missile at them in the Eastern Neighborhood, and prevented Palestinian medics from entering the area for several hours. Details on the deaths are here. RECOMMENDED READING: Far right pulling masks off Israeli legal charade Israelis continue to protest detention of soldiers accused of raping Palestinian prisoner Al Jazeera reports: Israelis are demonstrating in front of the military court at the Beit Lid base in the center of the country, to protest the continued detention of five reserve soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner in Sde Teiman prison in the Negev desert. Last week, dozens of Israeli protesters, including far-right members of the Knesset, clashed with military police after at least nine soldiers suspected of abusing a Palestinian prisoner were detained for questioning. Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said the demonstration comes ahead of the start of a court hearing on the third extension of the detention of the five soldiers. Demonstrators chanted slogans such as “This is the state of the Jews and it precedes democracy” and called for the release of the accused soldiers. Israeli reservists fail polygraph probing sexual abuse allegations: Report Al Jazeera reports: Two Israeli reservists suspected of sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner have failed a polygraph test about the allegations, reports Israel’s Channel 12. The soldiers, among five still detained over sexual abuse allegations at Israel’s Sde Teiman facility, denied committing or covering up an act of sexual assault during the polygraph examination, but the examiner deemed their responses deceptive, said the report. The allegations against the reservists have divided Israeli society, with a group of far-right activists storming the facility they were held at last week demanding their release. Israeli forces blindfold and strip Palestinian prisoners who are arbitrarily detained Israeli forces blindfold and strip Palestinian prisoners who are arbitrarily detained (photo) Poll: Most Americans don’t want to send troops to defend Israel Responsible Statecraft reports: According to a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, only 41% of Americans support the idea of U.S. troops defending Israel, even if its neighbors attacked it. This is a decrease from 53% in 2021 and represents the lowest level of support since the the council started tracking the question in 2010. According to the survey, 55% of Americans overall are against the idea of sending troops to defend Israel. These numbers show a decrease in support from Republicans, typically Israel’s biggest supporters, from 72% in 2021 to 55% today. Democrats went from 42% in favor of defending Israel with U.S. troops in 2021 to 35% today. The poll was conducted online from June 21 through July 1. Americans still believe in a peacekeeping mission, however, with 54 percent of Americans supporting sending peacekeeping troops if a deal between Israel and the Palestinians is arranged and kept, according to the survey. One Year in Prison and a Fine: NY Mask Ban Targets Palestine Protesters Palestine Chronicle reports: New York’s suburban Nassau County has passed a bill to ban the wearing of masks intended to hide the identity of pro-Palestinian protesters against US support for Israel’s war in Gaza, Reuters has reported. The mask ban will cover any sort of public protest, but lawmakers in the Republican-controlled county say that the bill aims to prevent protesters who engage in alleged violence and anti-Semitism from hiding their identity and avoiding accountability. Civil rights advocates view the step as an infringement on free speech rights. The bill was approved late on Monday, with all 12 Republicans in the county legislature voting in favor. The seven Democrats abstained. Veterans for Peace call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza Veterans for Peace call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza (screenshot) Tim Walz called Gaza situation “Intolerable,” sought ceasefire, praised Uncommitted; Shapiro did not Informed Comment reports: Presumptive Democratic Party standard-bearer Kamala Harris’ pick of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate has widely been implied to have something to do with his stance on the Gaza genocide. On March 5, Super Tuesday, Abby Phillip at CNN asked Walz about the Gaza protest vote: “We’re seeing a fairly sizable, about 40,000 votes right now, 20 percent of the vote going to uncommitted. And we’ve seen that already in this primary in Michigan. What message are voters in your state trying to send to President Biden? And what do you want to see President Biden do in response?” Walz replied, “Yeah, look, they’re engaged. We’re really proud of Minnesota civic responsibility. We have some of the highest voter turnouts. These are voters that are deeply concerned as we all are. The situation in Gaza is intolerable. And I think trying to find a solution, a lasting two-state solution, certainly the President’s move towards humanitarian aid and asking us to get to a ceasefire, that’s what they’re asking to be heard. And that’s what they should be doing. We’ve gone through this before. And we know that now we make sure we’ve got eight months. We start bringing these folks back in. We listen to what they’re saying.” The important thing here is that Walz did not simply dismiss the Uncommitted movement or condemn it. He heard their concern and said it mirrored his own. “The situation in Gaza is intolerable.” He approved of getting “to a ceasefire” and humanitarian aid. The Intercept reports: “Harris’s selection of Walz could also signal a shift from President Joe Biden’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.” “Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, contrasted Walz with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was widely reported to be the other frontrunner for Harris’s running mate, and believes that rejecting Shapiro in favor of Walz bodes well for Harris’s approach to the world.” “It’s impossible to know exactly what calculations were made and what issues mattered the most,” Duss said, referring to the Walz selection. “But I think it’s clear that there is a growing constituency in the Democratic Party that takes the issue of Palestinian rights much more seriously than in previous years, and it has to be engaged with and its views have to be taken into account.” “By deciding against Shapiro, Duss said, Harris is showing that she is to some degree listening to this movement within the party…” “Some observers also noted Walz’s antiwar record while a member of Congress, pointing to his opposition to a war in Syria in 2013 and his support of repealing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which has given the White House broad powers to bypass Congress to conduct attacks and military operations in other countries.” The NY times reports: “Selecting Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania could mollify many Jewish voters and other centrists over a subject that has bedeviled the Biden-Harris administration for nearly a year, Israel’s war in Gaza. It could also inflame the left, which has been protesting the administration for months. “Ms. Harris’s selection of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota likely avoided fueling the Gaza demonstrations.” [Tim Walz [File: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP] [Tim Walz [File: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP] (photo) Blinken says ceasefire negotiations have reached ‘final stage’ Al Jazeera reports: US Secretary of State Blinken has pressed for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza and warned against the possibility of worsening regional escalation. Here are a few of Blinken’s key remarks: An agreement between Israel and Hamas is in the “final stage” and called on all parties to finalise it “as soon as possible”. Further attacks “only perpetuate” conflict, instability and insecurity. The US has told Iran and Israel “directly” that regional fighting must not escalate further. The Cradle reported yesterday that the US has agreed to guarantee that Israel will be able to resume the war against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza after the first phase of an exchange deal, according to Hebrew media. If the ceasefire agreement says that Israel can resume the war, it is unlikely that Hamas will agree. Turkey submits bid to join ICJ case against Israel Middle East Eye reports: Turkey has reportedly submitted its formal bid to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. According to the report, Turkey’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Selcuk Unal, presented a “comprehensive and detailed” application to the UN court in The Hague on Wednesday. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who announced the move on Monday, said that Ankara has prepared a dossier that will likely significantly impact the trial. Turkey’s intervention is expected to be the most impactful in the case, and likely to encourage other countries to join. International Court of Justice, The Hague, Netherlands International Court of Justice, The Hague, Netherlands (photo) US and UK to boycott Nagasaki bombing memorial after Israel disinvited Middle East Eye reports: The American and British ambassadors to Japan have announced they will skip an upcoming ceremony commemorating the victims of the US’s 1945 atomic bombing because the city’s mayor did not invite the Israeli ambassador. The Russian and Belarusian ambassadors have also been excluded from the event this Friday by Japanese authorities. The Nagasaki Peace Memorial Ceremony is intended to mark the 79th anniversary of the US atomic bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians, with many more later dying from radiation poisoning. Pentagon confirms US troops injured in attack on Iraqi air base The Cradle reports: At least five US soldiers and contractors were injured during a rocket attack that hit Iraq’s Ain al-Asad air base late on 5 August, Pentagon officials have confirmed. US defense officials revealed to Reuters that at least one person was “seriously injured.” “Base personnel are conducting a post-attack damage assessment,” the unnamed officials added. The US military took control of Ain al-Assad in 2003 following the White House’s illegal invasion and occupation of the country but withdrew its forces in 2011 when Barack Obama failed to secure a new Status of Forces (SOFA) agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. However, US forces returned to the base under the pretext of training Iraqis to fight ISIS six months after the extremist group invaded and occupied Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in June 2014. They have remained there since. Ain al-Assad air base had been targeted at least twice over the past three weeks as local resistance groups working under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) umbrella have steadily resumed pro-Palestine operations that were halted earlier this year. Wednesday’s attack comes just a few days after a US airstrike killed four members of the anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) north of Babil. [Note: Israel partisans were largely responsible for the disastrous US decision to invade Iraq.] RECOMMENDED READING: The U.S. has dozens of secret bases across the Middle East. They keep getting attacked. MORE NEWS: IMEMC Daily Reports. Drop Site News: Microsoft Encourages Employee Donations to Illegal West Bank Settlements, While Barring UNRWA STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – AUGUST 6: Palestinian death toll from October 7 – August 6: at least 40,292* (39,677 in Gaza* – 11,445 women (30%), 16,251 children as of July 22. [The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.] This is expected to be a significant undercount since thousands of those killed have yet to be identified – and at least 615 in the West Bank (~140 children). This does not include an estimated 10,000 more still buried under rubble (4,900 women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 46,848 Palestinian deaths. Lancet: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Ralph Nader earlier estimated 200,000 Palestinians may have been killed in Gaza. At least 45 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons (27 from Gaza, 18 from West Bank). At least 41 Palestinians have died due to malnutrition**. About 1.7 million, or 75% of Gaza’s population are currently displaced. 2.15 million (out of total population of 2.3 million) are projected to face Crisis or worse levels of food insecurity. Palestinian injuries from October 7 – August 6: at least 97,065 (including at least 91,645 in Gaza and 5,420 in the West Bank, including 830 children). [It remains unknown how man Americans are among the casualties in Gaza.] Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – August 6: ~1,486 (~1,139 on October 7, 2023, of which ~32 were Americans, and ~36 were children); 331 military forces since the ground invasion began in Gaza; 16 in the West Bank) and~8,730 injured. Times of Israel reports: The IDF listed 41 soldiers killed due to friendly fire in Gaza and other military-related accidents – nearly 16%. NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel on October 7 were caused by Israeli soldiers. *Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.** Euro-Med Monitor reports that Gaza’s elderly are dying at an alarmingly high rate. The majority die at home and are buried either close to their residences or in makeshift graves dispersed across the Strip. There are currently more than 140 such cemeteries. Additionally, according to Euromed, thousands have died from starvation, malnourishment, and inadequate medical care; these are considered indirect victims as they were not registered in hospitals. † For most of the conflict, women and children accounted for about 70% of deaths in Gaza, with children making up a little over 40% of those killed, according to official statistics. Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here. Hover over each bar for exact numbers. Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org Human rights reports on Israel-Palestine (regularly updated) “Well What SHOULD Israel Have Done After October 7?” Welcome to Hell More dead children. More BBC ‘news’ channelling Israeli propaganda as its own U.S. media downplays and ignores ICJ ruling declaring Israeli occupation illegal Israeli soldiers tell story of savage cruelty in Gaza – one given blessing by the West Searching for Gaza’s missing children What Would You Do With An Extra $320 Million? Assassination of Haniyeh an intentional, dangerous escalation – Parsi, Macgregor When Israel Burned Refugees Alive, Establishment Media Called It a ‘Tragic Accident’ Israel has turbocharged West Bank housing demolitions under the cover of war Western media ignores Israeli confirmation of Hannibal Directive on 7 Oct US Should Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu When He’s in Washington Airwars investigation: Israeli airstrikes uniquely lethal (video) Hesen Jabr paid the price of conscience Gaza genocide denial Why the news media’s job is to groom us ‘Disappeared, buried, detained’: The horrors of Gaza’s missing children Hundreds of social media influencers attend Israel strategy summit in NYC Supporting Israel Is Big Business in the U.S. for Israel partisans Toys, spices, sewing machines: the items Israel banned from entering Gaza Synopsis of ICJ’s decision on Israeli occupation, reactions, and take-aways Russia attacks hospitals in Ukraine; Israel does the same in Gaza. The US response couldn’t be more different. ‘I have the prison inside me’: The emaciated Palestinian bodybuilder broken by Israel Israel has manufactured an industrial-scale version of Jim Crow rape hoaxes If Americans Knew Mobile Billboard Truck at Republican Convention Col. Douglas MacGregor: US is under the control of Israel, likens Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-killing-gaza-torture-rape-allegations-surface-day-304/
    ISRAELPALESTINENEWS.ORG
    As Israel continues killing in Gaza, more torture and rape allegations surface – Day 304
    Israeli torture, rape of Palestinian prisoners; Israel kills 12 in W Bank; most Americans say No troops to Israel; Tim Walz on Palestine
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  • Project Omega: AI Government
    Made in Israel today which is Nazi Germany 1933

    Fritz Freud

    Israel the so called Democratic state...
    How come all they do is to support Governments everywhere to enslave Humanity as we know it?
    Not just any Governments but the worst Governments everywhere.
    Jamal Kashogi anyone?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/politics/khashoggi-saudi-kill-team-us-training.html

    Pegasus Spyware Placed on Phone of Jamal Khashoggi’s Wife Before his Murder

    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/pegasus-spyware-jamal-khashoggi-wife-phone-washington-post/

    Israel today is Nazi Germany 1933, Palestine is Auschwitz and the world is at war... at war with Israel.
    Or better Israel the Terrorist state is at war with the world.
    The aim is to create a Global Society that is controlled by AI where we have an upper class made of Money Jews and Aristocrats and a working class that feeds on Government authorized shit.
    This Neo Feudalistic Society they build around us as we speak.
    They call it: Project Omega.
    I call it "The Endgame of Human Civilization"!
    AI is the new God or better known as Digital Adolf Hitler.
    The Propaganda Press is in total control by Jews like Jeff Bezos or Rupert Murdoch Israel and the Mossad... people like Piers Morgan... Mossad shills... Reuters owned and controlled by the Rotschild's.
    So this Jewish controlled Propaganda Apparatus today is basically Joseph Göbbels spewing Propaganda like never before to cover up the crimes of the Jewish STASI / Gestapo...
    Fascism is now outsourced and privatized by an increasingly violent and intolerant Jewish Elite under the Umbrella of the WEF and IMF owned by Klaus Schwab (A Stern Nazi) and the Rotschild's (Adolf Hitler's Family) respectively.
    Israel is also controlled by the Rotschild's and Nethanyahoo is like all Israeli PM's a stern Terrorist from the Stern Gang.
    Depopulation is their Agenda as they see everyone inferior to them... just like the Nazis...


    Elon Musk & Bill Gates are at the center of it as they are very useful Idiots.
    Bill Gates is poisoning our Food supply.
    He does so with impunity and benevolent self gratification... smug face he is.
    Yet at the same time he cannot hide his pedophile roots, gulping and the thought of "Injecting Babies with unproven Poison".
    Who is a worse Pedophile?
    Ian Watkins or Bill Gates?
    For me it is Bill Gates... a walking Abortion... worse than all the Pedophiles in History together.
    Not just that, but like his Siamese Twin of evil intentions... Elon Musk... he is also a Technocratic Fascist... a Digital Adolf Hitler.
    Bill Gates Adolf Hitler Jeffry Epstein Elon Musk Klaus Schwab... they all have one thing in common...
    Pro Israel... against Humanity... Pedophiles.

    How Bill Gates Has Invested Billions in Poisoning Our Food Supply

    Dear friend, The new look www.EurekaFreePress.com — your pro-freedom news source — will launch later this month! Eureka Free Press will be migrating to Substack but will remain a free news aggregation service for all regardless of whether they are paid or free subscribers…

    Read more

    a year ago · 71 likes · 14 comments · George Christensen

    While Elon Musk is working with Israel on AI control... total control reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
    The AI Government operates on one prefix... everyone is guilty.
    Therefore we must be controlled.
    That is where the Digital ID comes into place.
    They in their elitist superior mind think we are not capable of making Intelligent decisions because they think of us as sub-human... just like the Nazis.
    And the ones ought to control us are Jews or Israeli stooges because they are exempt... same as it ever was.

    This Digital ID is nothing but a modern Version of the technology used in the Concentration Camps of Auschwitz. This Technology was invented by Herman Hollerith of IBM as an Identification based Database for the NAZIS to categorize Prisoners in Auschwitz. The Tattoo then is the Digital ID / Tattoo / chip linked to a Database of everything. The principle Technology is Identical. This must get out to the people it is a Scandal. Are we all Prisoners of Auschwitz?
    Are we?


    https://www.petitions.net/i_oppose_the_digital_id__auschwitz_id_and_all_those_who_support_it

    So we have a situation where Jews because they are a protective species act like Nazis because they are a protective species without us being allowed to question any of this shit because they are a protective species.
    Not Human... just an alien species.
    Let's delve in.
    Elon Musk is a Jewish Zionist WEF shill... that much is clear.
    Twitter is supposed to be the new social credit everything (controlled by Elon) app... that much is clear.
    AI is Automated Government control... that much is clear.
    So who are the players?

    Twitter / X announced a cooperation with Israeli company Au10tiks to add Government ID verification aka the Digital ID.
    As you see above this Digital ID is a copy of the Auschwitz Tattoo / Hollerith ID System.
    Why would a Technocratic Fascist like Elon Musk team up with an Israeli Nazi Company to copy Adolf Hitler and his minions?
    I don't know for sure... but they do.
    They copy the Nazis maybe because they are Nazis... just ask Elon...
    What is worse... all Governments follow this trend... meaning all Governments follow this trend to become Nazis... meaning all Governments are Nazis.

    In a bold move, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (previously Twitter) appears to be working on a verification protocol for its premium users. Users of X Premium are privy to special features and might soon be introduced to a unique verification method.

    As spotted by an app researcher and blogger @nima_owji on Thursday, a screenshot hinted at premium users needing to click a live selfie and share a snap of their government-issued ID for verification. The catch? A footnote indicates the identification data will be handed to a third-party site, Au10tix.com

    https://www.benzinga.com/news/23/08/33895872/elon-musks-x-is-working-on-government-id-verification-for-its-premium-subscribers

    Au10tix

    Verify more human identities, with zero human involvement.
    Obliterate fraud before it obliterates customer trust and compliance. Between 4 to 8 seconds of identity verification, and throughout every re-verification moment, AU10TIX helps you and your customers know and trust each other on all devices, apps, platforms and channels.
    We built the technology that provided identity intelligence for airports and border controls. Then we added new superpowers for digital enterprise with the help of machine learning and all that other clever stuff.

    Customer Identity Verification

    Customer Re-Verification

    Customer Age Verification

    Fraud Prevention

    Compliance Readiness

    Business Verification

    Document Verification

    https://www.au10tix.com/solutions/


    Dan is a seasoned leader with extensive international experience in Cyber, Banking, FinTech and Telecommunications.
    Most recently served on the executive team at Check Point Technologies in the capacity of Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Customer Officer. Check Point Software Technologies is a top player in the cybersecurity market. It Generates revenue from selling products, licences, and subscriptions to protect networks, cloud environments, endpoints, and mobile users. During his tenure share price increased by c.59% and the NASDAQ business grew to c.3,000 employees and $2.5 billion in annual bookings.
    Prior to this role at Check Point Technologies Software, Dan served as Executive Vice President, Member of the Management Board and Head of Leumi Technologies Division at Bank Leumi. Bank Leumi is an FDIC-insured full-service commercial and private banking institution headquartered in New York. The bank provides financial services to middle-market firms, as well as a full range of private banking services to domestic and international clients. As the group’s first Executive Vice President CIO, Dan established a digital division that went on to oversee the development and launch of Pepper. Pepper was Israel’s first digital-only bank, allowing customers to manage their banking via smartphones with no account management fees, and will have access to current and savings accounts, lending products and a P2P payments app.

    https://il.linkedin.com/in/dan-yerushalmi-58985419

    Prior to his role at Bank Leumi, Dan spent almost 20 years at AMDOCS the provider of software and services to communications, cable and satellite, entertainment, and media industry service providers. With the business pre and post IPO, during his time managed teams of c.6,000 and the share price increased c.154%.

    And of course where Fascism control and Pedophilia emerge... Bill Gates is not far.
    Bill Gates and trustworthy in one sentence is BULLSHIT.
    Never trust Elon Musk or Bill Gates for that matter.
    They are evil Siamese twins of Satan's abortion.


    AU10TIX Joins Forces with Microsoft To Create a More Trustworthy Identity Ecosystem

    AU10TIX, a global leader in automated identity verification, today announced that it is partnering with Microsoft for the rollout of Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) verifiable credentials, now in public preview, to help improve verifiability and secure information exchange. The integration brings AU10TIX’s four decades of identity verification automation to Azure Active Directory, for managing identities, based on wide variety of attributes, such as documents, biometrics and electronic data without collecting and storing personal data.

    https://www.au10tix.com/press-releases/au10tix-joins-forces-with-microsoft-to-create-a-more-trustworthy-identity-ecosystem-in-new-era-of-remote-and-hybrid-work/

    There is more...
    Verint & Amdoc an Israeli Trojan Horse

    Since the late 1990s, federal agents have reported systemic communications security breaches at the Department of Justice, FBI, DEA, the State Department, and the White House. Several of the alleged breaches, these agents say, can be traced to two hi-tech communications companies, Verint Inc. (formerly Comverse Infosys), and Amdocs Ltd., that respectively provide major wiretap and phone billing/record-keeping software contracts for the U.S. government. Together, Verint and Amdocs form part of the backbone of the government’s domestic intelligence surveillance technology.

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2008/09/27/an-israeli-trojan-horse/

    Also... a four-part series on Fox News insinuated that Israeli intelligence had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 terror attacks but didn’t tell American authorities.

    Israeli Software Spying On US Am Docs Comverse Infosys Carl Cameron Dec 2001

    https://archive.org/details/CensoredIsraeliSoftwareSpyingOnUSAmDocsComverseInfosysCarlCameronDec2001

    That was when Dan Yerushalmi was head of Amdocs... the same person who now is in charge of the Digital ID implementation... which is a Nazi Technology...
    You can't make this shit up.
    The same players that were there on 9/11 are doing the same shit now.
    Nazi Inc.
    Speaking of Warren Buffet...

    Warren Buffet is threatening the world.

    We just started he tells us om 00:58 into this Video threatening us with another pandemic worse and with a cyber attack while at the same time telling us he is behind... or they actually are behind the wars.
    He's sitting there with one of the Koch Billionaires.
    So if you want to know who is behind 9/11 and Covid and all the other problems...

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/ksgih25qfOI8/

    Somehow Warren Buffet looks like David LoPan in "Big Trouble in little China"...
    Speaks the same language...



    Now what connects Warren Buffet the Koch Brothers Israel Amdoc and the Jews?
    9/11!

    Where was Warren Buffett the morning of 9/11 and what was he doing?

    Mr. Buffett was reportedly at his home in Omaha, Nebraska watching TV when he heard about the terrorist attacks. He was getting ready to host his "last annual golf charity event" which just happened to be at the U.S. Strategic Command headquarters located at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. Offutt AFB is, coincidentally, where President G. W. Bush flew to on Air Force One later in the day for "safety". This early golf charity event hosted by Mr. Buffett was to include celebrities, professional athletes, and a small group of business leaders in which one of these business leaders became a very lucky person.

    This very lucky person was Ann Tatlock, the CEO of Fiduciary Trust Co. International. Now what made Mrs. Tatlock such a lucky person for being invited to this charity event that morning? Mrs. Tatlock not only works in the World Trade Center, but her offices were right where Flight 175 crashed into the WTC 2.

    https://rense.com/Killtown.htm

    Now at the center of this is Israeli Unit 8200

    Israel's Unit 8200 Alumina & the Global Spy Network

    Israel's Unit 8200 Alumina & the Global Spy Network
    This is a must see documentary about Unit 8200.

    Read full story

    Amdoc & the NSA both used Israeli Unit 8200 NARUS Technology.

    At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004."

    Klein, an engineer, discovered the "secret room" at AT&T central office in San Francisco, through which the NSA actively "*vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T" through the wiretapping rooms, emphasizing that "much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic."

    NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake corroborated Klein's assertions, testifying that while the NSA is using Israeli-made NARUS hardware to "seize and save all personal electronic communications."

    Both Verint and Narus were founded in Israel in the 1990s. Both provide monitoring and intercept capabilities (SIGNIT) to service providers and government organizations, promoting claims that their equipment can access and retain large amounts of information on a vast number of targets.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/israelis-bugged-the-us-for-the-nsa-2013-6?op=1&r=US&IR=T

    And there are "secret" rooms everywhere and they have one thing in common:
    They all connect to Israel and Unit 8200.

    By doing so, this would imply, companies like Facebook and Google don't have to explicitly provide the NSA with access to their servers because major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as AT&T and Verizon already allows the U.S. signals intelligence agency to eavesdrop on all of their data anyway.
    Which also means that Youtube Instagram Yahoo Alphabet Amazon for sure are all connected to the Israeli Unit 8200 control Grid.

    Investigative writer James Bamford contends in his book, “The Shadow Factory, the Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America,” that at least two high-tech companies with alleged ties to Israeli intelligence mined American communications data on a mass scale. The companies were hired to help major American telecommunications firms that were cooperating with the National Security Agency on its controversial eavesdropping program.

    In his latest book, Bamford writes that the largest American telecommunications companies cooperated with the NSA in the “warrantless eavesdropping program by allowing the agency to tap its phone lines and fiber-optic cables.” To do so, he writes, the telecom giants resorted to the assistance of at least two high-tech firms, Narus and Verint, founded in Israel and with alleged ties to its intelligence services.

    Narus and Verint were involved in tapping phone and Internet communications for, respectively, AT&T and Verizon.

    “AT&T have outsourced the bugging of their entire networks — carrying billions of American communications every day -— to two mysterious companies with very troubling ties to foreign connections,” he writes. “What is especially troubling, but little known, is that both companies have extensive ties to a foreign country, Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service — a service with a long history of aggressive spying against the U.S.”

    He then describes close ties between the Mossad’s Unit 8200, which he describes as the Israeli equivalent of the NSA, and several other Israeli high-tech companies doing business with the United States and other governments.

    Bamford also stresses that the founder of Verint systems is wanted in the United States on multiple fraud charges and is a fugitive. The author refers to the Israeli-born Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, the founder of Comverse Technology, Verint’s parent company, who was indicted in 2006 on charges he backdated stock-options.

    https://forward.com/news/14433/debate-flares-over-israel-s-access-to-american-s-02715/

    But there is more...
    Ori Cohen and Stas Khirman

    Stas Khirman
    CTO at Pheno.AI & RealizeMD, Co-Founder at SVOD Conference, frm. CTO at Deutsche Telekom HBS
    Jerusalem District, Israel

    Ori Cohen, Vice President of Business and Technology Development for VDONet, founded Narus with Stas Khirman in Israel. Presently, they are employed with Deutsche Telekom AG and are not members of Narus' executive team.
    In 2010, Narus became a subsidiary of Boeing, located in Sunnyvale, California.

    If tech visionaries like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have their way, the future belongs to satellite Internet. After all, it makes it possible to use the Internet even in remote regions. Apparently, the first mobile communications providers are now also taking a stand and focusing on cooperation with the companies behind the World Wide Web. Telekom is one of them. Now a first test phase begins in which Starlink tries to establish compatibility.

    Starlink is also apparently pleased about the cooperation. After all, Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink and commercial sales, proudly announced during a panel discussion that they would like to start the test phase of a compatibility with mobile communications this year. This could allow SpaceX to make the leap into the mass market with Starlink. So far, satellite Internet has proven to be extremely useful in exceptional situations. For example, Starlink provided Ukraine with satellite Internet right after the start of the still ongoing Ukraine war

    https://basic-tutorials.com/news/starlink-and-telekom-to-launch-cooperation-before-the-end-of-2023/

    I wrote about this here

    Elon Musk and the World War in Ukraine

    Elon Musk and the World War in Ukraine
    I heard a very disturbing rumor and I checked it out... The rumor comes from India and it concerned the sinking of the Moskva. The rumor was that the Moskva was sunk with the help of Elon Musk Starlink Network. Mychajlo Fedorow himself asked Elon Musk for help in the war in Ukraine something Elon Musk was eager to please.

    Read full story

    Now let us just summarize this shortly.
    Ori Cohen Stas Khirman and other Unit 8200 members have provided the Backbone of a global Spy Apparatus.
    Unit 8200 now has total control over the STARLINK network.
    The Starlink Network is a weapon that was used in the Ukraine War.
    There is the assumption that STARLINK also was used to ignite the "Wildfires" in Hawaii.
    There is proof that Aerosol Thermite was used in Hawaii and STARLINK possibly ignited this... molten pools of metal found in the rubble suggests this highly as wood fires don't melt car engines.
    Starlink seems to have the capabilities to do that.
    And all the cables lead back to Israel.
    With a certain global Terrorist Benjammin Nethanyahoo pulling the strings.
    This man, Benjammin Nethanyahoo is a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler... and it sure looks like him.
    More... he is a Rotschild... just like Adolf Hitler.

    There is more...

    Mavenir Systems, Inc.

    Mavenir is an American telecommunications software company, created in 2017 as a result of a three-way merger of existing companies and technologies, that develops and supplies cloud-native software to the communications service provider (CSP) market.

    Mavenir has a complex corporate history as a result of successive acquisitions and spin-offs. The main historical predecessors are:

    Xura, which was composed of pieces of Comverse, Inc., Acision, and a number of other acquired companies. Comverse, Inc derived from Comverse Technology, was active in traditional value-added services (VAS), digital cloud services, Unified Communications (VoIP & UC), and a suite of evolved communication services. Acision was a privately held secure mobile messaging and engagement services firm. These entities were combined in 2015 to form Xura, which focused on two core product areas: digital communications services and converged communications (traditional and IP).

    An older entity with a similar name, Mavenir Systems, initially a company focused on transition from 3G to 4G with IMS products and solutions, founded in 2006. It acquired Airwide Solutions, Stoke and Ulticom and In 2013, the company went public on NYSE with MVNR ticker symbol. The company was acquired by Mitel Networks Corporation in 2015 to create Mitel Mobility.

    Ranzure Networks, a startup focused on developing 5G cloud-based radio access network technology.

    Mavenir has continued to acquire technology - including its acquisitions of Aquto, a cloud-based sponsored data platform (2018); Argyle Data (2018), a machine learning security platform; Brocade’s vEPC and ip.access (2020), a specialist small cell vendor.


    You see on this picture how revealing a simple logo of a company is...
    Doubled and mirrored it reveals the Freemason Symbolism within.
    Now you have Freemasons Jewish Occult Israel Unit 8200 with a history of spying on the world combined with AI Machine learning Starlink... all under one Company nobody ever has heard of.

    Honestly you can't make this shit up.

    “What (Unit) 8200 has been able to do is create a pretty unique, and very effective, screening program, which for the most part lets you identify not the people with the most knowledge, but rather the people with the aptitude to learn new technologies, ideas very, very quickly,” Nadav Zafrir, co-founder and CEO of Team8, told CNBC.

    Team8 is an Israeli company, founded by veterans from the intelligence agency, that is part-think tank, part-incubator and part-venture creation foundry that develops cybersecurity startups from the ground up. Prior to co-founding Team8, Zafrir was the chief of Unit 8200.

    Gil Shwed, who co-founded Check Point, was a member of Unit 8200, as was Udi Mokady of CyberArk and Nir Zuk of Palo Alto Networks


    Nadav Zafrir Unit 8200 ex CEO

    Managing Partner of Team8, a company-building venture group with deep domain expertise that creates and invests in companies specializing in enterprise technology, data, cybersecurity, and fintech. Nadav is focused on driving global growth for Team8 and is the architect of Team8’s relationships across the business, academic and technology worlds. Prior to founding Team8, Nadav served as Commander of Unit 8200

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadav-zafrir-12a99482

    But there is more...

    Twitter / X announced an alliance with IAS (Integral Ad Science) with hopes of driving ad revenues. IAS, which works with the controversial Global Disinformation Index (GDI), scans content for advertisers to determine it safe for their brands. GDI is infamous for hampering conservative media outlets’ access to advertising dollars.

    Global Disinformation Index

    The Global Disinformation Index is a web-based tool that rates news outlets based on the "probability of disinformation on a specific media outlet.".
    To reduce disinformation, we need to remove the financial incentive to create it. Brands unwittingly provide an estimated quarter of a billion dollars annually to disinformation websites through online advertisements placed on them. GDI uses both expert human review and artificial intelligence to assess disinformation risk across the open web.

    How We Define Disinformation

    GDI views disinformation through the lens of adversarial narrative conflict. Disinformation occurs when someone pushes an intentionally misleading narrative which is adversarial against democratic institutions, scientific consensus or an at-risk group — and which carries a risk of harm. Often these narratives are crafted using selected elements of fact.

    https://www.disinformationindex.org/mission/

    Global Alliance for Responsible Media

    GARM is the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a cross-industry initiative established by the World Federation of Advertisers to address the challenge of harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising.
    GARM is an arm of the WEF.

    The project focuses on addressing the following challenges:

    Hate speech
    Bullying
    Disinformation
    Use of personal data
    Child exploitation

    The goal is to accelerate and advance the role that advertisers can play in collectively pushing to improve the safety of online environments. This alliance drives uncommon collaboration to improve the safety, trustworthiness, and sustainability of media.

    https://www.weforum.org/projects/global-alliance-for-responsible-media-garm

    And there is more...

    AT&T and Amdocs Expand Strategic Alliance

    Companies announce multi-year collaboration to accelerate AT&T’s transformation

    Amdocs (NASDAQ: DOX), a leading provider of software and services to communications and media companies, and AT&T* (NYSE: T), are extending their collaboration to modernize and upgrade AT&T’s digital business support systems under a multi-year managed services agreement.

    https://about.att.com/story/2019/att_amdocs.html

    So do you still wonder why the Government Ursula von der Leyen and others push the digitalization?
    It is nothing less than total control.
    AI is the new Adolf Hitler... Immortal and digitized.
    On his side is the new Digital Jeff Epstein... "saving" your Children.
    From whom?
    From you!

    Kevin Cunnington, director general, Government Digital Service

    "The challenge is service transformation."

    He came into the role having led the business transformation function for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). His GDS tenure, therefore, will stand or fall on his ability to genuinely transform how public services are delivered.

    “Our mission statement is transforming the relationship between citizen and state, and that sounds good,” he told journalists in his first meeting with the press since taking over.


    https://www.computerweekly.com/news/450401508/Interview-Kevin-Cunnington-director-general-Government-Digital-Service

    The aim of course is a Global Government.
    The players may be interchangeable but their actions are not.
    A Globalist unaccountable Government hiding behind Bureaucracy.
    But Fascist in Nature like we have never seen it before.
    We have seen this in Nazi Germany when they made a trial run.
    This is now the real thing!

    Digital ID – what is it, why is it needed, and how are governments developing it

    Governments around the globe are increasingly focused on the benefits of developing digital identify systems. The systems are viewed as ways to create secure online means for citizens to access government services as provision is increasingly moved online.

    However, moving government services online requires two capabilities: departments must be able to share and match data on individuals, addressing any discrepancies between their datasets; and citizens need a single, secure, online access point.

    The United Kingdom has recently embarked on a programme to develop a digital ID, while eight countries have drafted a set of high-level principles to support the development of mutually recognised and interoperable digital ID systems and infrastructure.

    The Digital Government Exchange (DGX) Digital Identity Working Group said that collaboration on digital ID could help “facilitate economic recovery from COVID-19, for example to support the opening of domestic and international borders”.

    https://www.globalgovernmentforum.com/digital-id-what-is-it-why-is-it-needed-and-how-are-governments-developing-it/

    Which leads us nicely to the beginning.
    The Digital ID is made in Auschwitz by IBM

    IBM® Digital Health Pass is designed to help businesses efficiently verify multiple types of COVID-19 health credentials for employees, customers, fans and travelers entering their site based on their own criteria.

    COVID-19, Digital Health Pass offers an end-to-end vaccination and COVID-19 test verification solution that is compliant with employee privacy and trust.

    The Digital Health Pass can help you check people’s COVID-19 health credentials before they enter your facility. The technology allows businesses to establish their entry criteria for test results or vaccination status and to verify many types of widely used health credentials.

    This exact Technology is nothing but a modern Version of the technology used in the Concentration Camps of Auschwitz. This Technology was invented by Herman Hollerith of IBM as an Identification based Database for the NAZIS to categorize Prisoners in Auschwitz. The Tattoo then is the Digital ID / Tattoo / chip linked to a Database of everything. The principle Technology is Identical. This must get out to the people it is a Scandal. Are we all Prisoners of Auschwitz?

    If you ask IBM... the answer is Yes!

    Please sign this petition

    https://www.petitions.net/i_oppose_the_digital_id__auschwitz_id_and_all_those_who_support_it

    Do we really have to kill them all?

    Do we really have to Kill them all?

    Do we really have to Kill them all?
    When you're sad and when you're lonely And you haven't got a friend Just remember that death is not the end And all that you held sacred Falls down and does not mend Just remember that death is not the end When you're standin' on their crossroads That you cannot comprehend

    Read full story

    By the way in the above article you find all the Robots Boston Dynamics already has… ready to connect to AI.
    As in here.

    Quantum Fascism: Restrict Act & Global Pandemic Treaty

    Quantum Fascism: Restrict Act & Global Pandemic Treaty
    The Government exists only to gain power. The Government serves only itself and to extent this power. The Government NEVER gives up this power. When the Government claims to give up power... as it does with the Global Pandemic Treaty... we all should be aware that it is in reality a power grab by the Government.

    Read full story

    Conclusion:

    All roads lead to Unit 8200 Elon Musk Bill Gates Project Omega.
    The same players who push this are the same players who break the Law.
    The Government is your local drug Dealer arresting you for possession of Drugs.
    What we have in the hands of a handful of people is a Global Network which incooperates the power to spy identify target and eliminate any person anywhere at the push of a button.
    Israel is at the center of this.
    This is power never before a single Nation has had or wanted.
    And the fact that they don't want you to know is evidence of their nefarious intentions.
    Jeffry Epstein was Mossad.
    His connections from Pedophiles like Prince Andrew and Bill Gates to Richard Branson and Elon Musk show you how intertwined all of the Globalists are.
    From the WEF to the Bilderberg Group to the IMF ADL Rotschild and Rockefeller... their plan is Total control.
    And control they do.
    If you think Adolf Hitler was bad... think again.
    The Intentions of them are worse squared by Infinity.
    When this Infrastructure is in place... at the switch of a button AI will take over
    And I have not even touched upon Sam Altman's WorldCoin...


    Worldcoin is drawing the attention of privacy regulators around the world, with the Kenya's government going so far as to shut down the service indefinitely.

    Worldcoin’s orbs collect biometric data by taking photographs of a person’s iris. While Worldcoin argues that the data is used to create a unique, secure form of identification, privacy experts have concerns that the company may use the information in other ways, like personalized marketing.

    That has led some countries to investigate Worldcoin’s operations, including France, Germany and now Kenya.

    Privacy experts are worried that even Worldcoin could eventually be susceptible to criminals infiltrating it, similar to data breaches at other large companies. Privacy experts have said biometric data is already being sold in places like China and that could spread to other countries or jurisdictions.

    “When biometric data gets leaked, especially in the poor countries where Worldcoin’s been operating, people’s lives are on the line,” said Pete Howson, a professor of international development at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/worldcoin-scans-eyeballs-and-offers-crypto-what-to-know-about-the-project-from-openais-ceo/ar-AA1f7Uln

    Worldcoin is Sam Altman is ChatGPT is Open AI and XAI.
    Involved are Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
    And that leads back to Unit 8200... Israel... WEF... IMF.
    They build this and they intent to use it against us.
    STARLINK is at the center of this.
    Starlink as of now is incomplete.
    It must never allowed to be completed.
    Once it is completed... at the switch of a button AI will take over.
    This is not Science Fiction, this is Science Fact.
    It is the purpose of their evil intentions.
    Total AI control over Humanity.
    And if you still think I am joking I remind you…

    EVERY COMPUTER CHIP MANUFACTURER IS BUILDING AI INTO MICROCHIPS
    EVERY new ARM chips support FP16 which is AI framework.
    This follows the same AI Framework Nvidia Intel AMD +++
    Israel Unit 8200 and NVIDIA are building an AI supercomputer and you get this
    EVERY COMPUTER CHIP YOU BUY HAS ALREADY AI IMPLEMENTED ON CHIP LEVEL BEFORE THE OPERATING SYSTEM.
    Which means they all work together against all of us.
    Which means AI has total control over every device.
    Let this sink in.
    Behind that is ISRAEL the JEWS and their WORLD DOMINATION PLAN.
    The evidence is conclusive.
    EVERY DEVICE WILL BE CONNECTED TO AI.
    On Chip Level
    There will be no escape from this unless we stop this now.

    Quantum Fascism: A Glitch in the Matrix

    Quantum Fascism: A Glitch in the Matrix
    A WARNING TO THE WORLD EVERY COMPUTER CHIP MANUFACTURER IS BUILDING AI INTO MICROCHIPS EVERY new #ARM chips support FP16 which is AI framework. This follows the same AI Framework Nvidia Intel AMD +++ Israel Unit 8200 and NVIDIA are building an AI supercomputer and you get this

    Read full story

    What can we do about this?

    First of all their actions are all Illegal, so we have the right AND Citizen Duty to do something about this.
    Every Politician involved is guilty of treason.
    From Pedo Joe to Ursula von der Leyen to Richy Sunak who's father in Law actually works on a Digital ID in India.
    We must mobilize everyone just like the Farmers did in the Netherlands.
    Block all Government services indefinitely.
    Arrest all Politicians and punish them accordingly.
    Then we have to re define Authority and Society out of reach and out of control.
    Me must secure the Food supply because Bill Gates and his minions are poisoning us.
    And we must take back the Money Governance out of the Private Rotschild Control.
    They will not go down without a fight.
    So be prepared to fight.
    I have outlined a plan for this a while ago here.

    A Month of Revenge (Blueprint for a Revolution)
    A white paper outlying a swift plan to end their plans forever

    A Month of Revenge (Blueprint for a Revolution)

    A Month of Revenge (Blueprint for a Revolution)
    We have a problem. The problem is the following: We have a group of people that not only control the money but through this they control the media politics and I mean both sides everywhere Military and Secret service. They are the WEF IMF Bilderberg CFR Club of Rome and associates.

    Read full story

    Viva la Revolution.

    Godspeed

    Fritz Freud.

    Share

    If you want to support me please help by getting a paid subscription here

    PGR


    https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/project-omega-ai-government?utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true


    http://donshafi911iamthefaceoftruth.blogspot.com/2024/06/project-omega-ai-government-made-in.html
    Project Omega: AI Government Made in Israel today which is Nazi Germany 1933 Fritz Freud Israel the so called Democratic state... How come all they do is to support Governments everywhere to enslave Humanity as we know it? Not just any Governments but the worst Governments everywhere. Jamal Kashogi anyone? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/politics/khashoggi-saudi-kill-team-us-training.html Pegasus Spyware Placed on Phone of Jamal Khashoggi’s Wife Before his Murder https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/pegasus-spyware-jamal-khashoggi-wife-phone-washington-post/ Israel today is Nazi Germany 1933, Palestine is Auschwitz and the world is at war... at war with Israel. Or better Israel the Terrorist state is at war with the world. The aim is to create a Global Society that is controlled by AI where we have an upper class made of Money Jews and Aristocrats and a working class that feeds on Government authorized shit. This Neo Feudalistic Society they build around us as we speak. They call it: Project Omega. I call it "The Endgame of Human Civilization"! AI is the new God or better known as Digital Adolf Hitler. The Propaganda Press is in total control by Jews like Jeff Bezos or Rupert Murdoch Israel and the Mossad... people like Piers Morgan... Mossad shills... Reuters owned and controlled by the Rotschild's. So this Jewish controlled Propaganda Apparatus today is basically Joseph Göbbels spewing Propaganda like never before to cover up the crimes of the Jewish STASI / Gestapo... Fascism is now outsourced and privatized by an increasingly violent and intolerant Jewish Elite under the Umbrella of the WEF and IMF owned by Klaus Schwab (A Stern Nazi) and the Rotschild's (Adolf Hitler's Family) respectively. Israel is also controlled by the Rotschild's and Nethanyahoo is like all Israeli PM's a stern Terrorist from the Stern Gang. Depopulation is their Agenda as they see everyone inferior to them... just like the Nazis... Elon Musk & Bill Gates are at the center of it as they are very useful Idiots. Bill Gates is poisoning our Food supply. He does so with impunity and benevolent self gratification... smug face he is. Yet at the same time he cannot hide his pedophile roots, gulping and the thought of "Injecting Babies with unproven Poison". Who is a worse Pedophile? Ian Watkins or Bill Gates? For me it is Bill Gates... a walking Abortion... worse than all the Pedophiles in History together. Not just that, but like his Siamese Twin of evil intentions... Elon Musk... he is also a Technocratic Fascist... a Digital Adolf Hitler. Bill Gates Adolf Hitler Jeffry Epstein Elon Musk Klaus Schwab... they all have one thing in common... Pro Israel... against Humanity... Pedophiles. How Bill Gates Has Invested Billions in Poisoning Our Food Supply Dear friend, The new look www.EurekaFreePress.com — your pro-freedom news source — will launch later this month! Eureka Free Press will be migrating to Substack but will remain a free news aggregation service for all regardless of whether they are paid or free subscribers… Read more a year ago · 71 likes · 14 comments · George Christensen While Elon Musk is working with Israel on AI control... total control reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The AI Government operates on one prefix... everyone is guilty. Therefore we must be controlled. That is where the Digital ID comes into place. They in their elitist superior mind think we are not capable of making Intelligent decisions because they think of us as sub-human... just like the Nazis. And the ones ought to control us are Jews or Israeli stooges because they are exempt... same as it ever was. This Digital ID is nothing but a modern Version of the technology used in the Concentration Camps of Auschwitz. This Technology was invented by Herman Hollerith of IBM as an Identification based Database for the NAZIS to categorize Prisoners in Auschwitz. The Tattoo then is the Digital ID / Tattoo / chip linked to a Database of everything. The principle Technology is Identical. This must get out to the people it is a Scandal. Are we all Prisoners of Auschwitz? Are we? https://www.petitions.net/i_oppose_the_digital_id__auschwitz_id_and_all_those_who_support_it So we have a situation where Jews because they are a protective species act like Nazis because they are a protective species without us being allowed to question any of this shit because they are a protective species. Not Human... just an alien species. Let's delve in. Elon Musk is a Jewish Zionist WEF shill... that much is clear. Twitter is supposed to be the new social credit everything (controlled by Elon) app... that much is clear. AI is Automated Government control... that much is clear. So who are the players? Twitter / X announced a cooperation with Israeli company Au10tiks to add Government ID verification aka the Digital ID. As you see above this Digital ID is a copy of the Auschwitz Tattoo / Hollerith ID System. Why would a Technocratic Fascist like Elon Musk team up with an Israeli Nazi Company to copy Adolf Hitler and his minions? I don't know for sure... but they do. They copy the Nazis maybe because they are Nazis... just ask Elon... What is worse... all Governments follow this trend... meaning all Governments follow this trend to become Nazis... meaning all Governments are Nazis. In a bold move, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (previously Twitter) appears to be working on a verification protocol for its premium users. Users of X Premium are privy to special features and might soon be introduced to a unique verification method. As spotted by an app researcher and blogger @nima_owji on Thursday, a screenshot hinted at premium users needing to click a live selfie and share a snap of their government-issued ID for verification. The catch? A footnote indicates the identification data will be handed to a third-party site, Au10tix.com https://www.benzinga.com/news/23/08/33895872/elon-musks-x-is-working-on-government-id-verification-for-its-premium-subscribers Au10tix Verify more human identities, with zero human involvement. Obliterate fraud before it obliterates customer trust and compliance. Between 4 to 8 seconds of identity verification, and throughout every re-verification moment, AU10TIX helps you and your customers know and trust each other on all devices, apps, platforms and channels. We built the technology that provided identity intelligence for airports and border controls. Then we added new superpowers for digital enterprise with the help of machine learning and all that other clever stuff. Customer Identity Verification Customer Re-Verification Customer Age Verification Fraud Prevention Compliance Readiness Business Verification Document Verification https://www.au10tix.com/solutions/ Dan is a seasoned leader with extensive international experience in Cyber, Banking, FinTech and Telecommunications. Most recently served on the executive team at Check Point Technologies in the capacity of Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Customer Officer. Check Point Software Technologies is a top player in the cybersecurity market. It Generates revenue from selling products, licences, and subscriptions to protect networks, cloud environments, endpoints, and mobile users. During his tenure share price increased by c.59% and the NASDAQ business grew to c.3,000 employees and $2.5 billion in annual bookings. Prior to this role at Check Point Technologies Software, Dan served as Executive Vice President, Member of the Management Board and Head of Leumi Technologies Division at Bank Leumi. Bank Leumi is an FDIC-insured full-service commercial and private banking institution headquartered in New York. The bank provides financial services to middle-market firms, as well as a full range of private banking services to domestic and international clients. As the group’s first Executive Vice President CIO, Dan established a digital division that went on to oversee the development and launch of Pepper. Pepper was Israel’s first digital-only bank, allowing customers to manage their banking via smartphones with no account management fees, and will have access to current and savings accounts, lending products and a P2P payments app. https://il.linkedin.com/in/dan-yerushalmi-58985419 Prior to his role at Bank Leumi, Dan spent almost 20 years at AMDOCS the provider of software and services to communications, cable and satellite, entertainment, and media industry service providers. With the business pre and post IPO, during his time managed teams of c.6,000 and the share price increased c.154%. And of course where Fascism control and Pedophilia emerge... Bill Gates is not far. Bill Gates and trustworthy in one sentence is BULLSHIT. Never trust Elon Musk or Bill Gates for that matter. They are evil Siamese twins of Satan's abortion. AU10TIX Joins Forces with Microsoft To Create a More Trustworthy Identity Ecosystem AU10TIX, a global leader in automated identity verification, today announced that it is partnering with Microsoft for the rollout of Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) verifiable credentials, now in public preview, to help improve verifiability and secure information exchange. The integration brings AU10TIX’s four decades of identity verification automation to Azure Active Directory, for managing identities, based on wide variety of attributes, such as documents, biometrics and electronic data without collecting and storing personal data. https://www.au10tix.com/press-releases/au10tix-joins-forces-with-microsoft-to-create-a-more-trustworthy-identity-ecosystem-in-new-era-of-remote-and-hybrid-work/ There is more... Verint & Amdoc an Israeli Trojan Horse Since the late 1990s, federal agents have reported systemic communications security breaches at the Department of Justice, FBI, DEA, the State Department, and the White House. Several of the alleged breaches, these agents say, can be traced to two hi-tech communications companies, Verint Inc. (formerly Comverse Infosys), and Amdocs Ltd., that respectively provide major wiretap and phone billing/record-keeping software contracts for the U.S. government. Together, Verint and Amdocs form part of the backbone of the government’s domestic intelligence surveillance technology. https://www.counterpunch.org/2008/09/27/an-israeli-trojan-horse/ Also... a four-part series on Fox News insinuated that Israeli intelligence had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 terror attacks but didn’t tell American authorities. Israeli Software Spying On US Am Docs Comverse Infosys Carl Cameron Dec 2001 https://archive.org/details/CensoredIsraeliSoftwareSpyingOnUSAmDocsComverseInfosysCarlCameronDec2001 That was when Dan Yerushalmi was head of Amdocs... the same person who now is in charge of the Digital ID implementation... which is a Nazi Technology... You can't make this shit up. The same players that were there on 9/11 are doing the same shit now. Nazi Inc. Speaking of Warren Buffet... Warren Buffet is threatening the world. We just started he tells us om 00:58 into this Video threatening us with another pandemic worse and with a cyber attack while at the same time telling us he is behind... or they actually are behind the wars. He's sitting there with one of the Koch Billionaires. So if you want to know who is behind 9/11 and Covid and all the other problems... https://www.bitchute.com/video/ksgih25qfOI8/ Somehow Warren Buffet looks like David LoPan in "Big Trouble in little China"... Speaks the same language... Now what connects Warren Buffet the Koch Brothers Israel Amdoc and the Jews? 9/11! Where was Warren Buffett the morning of 9/11 and what was he doing? Mr. Buffett was reportedly at his home in Omaha, Nebraska watching TV when he heard about the terrorist attacks. He was getting ready to host his "last annual golf charity event" which just happened to be at the U.S. Strategic Command headquarters located at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. Offutt AFB is, coincidentally, where President G. W. Bush flew to on Air Force One later in the day for "safety". This early golf charity event hosted by Mr. Buffett was to include celebrities, professional athletes, and a small group of business leaders in which one of these business leaders became a very lucky person. This very lucky person was Ann Tatlock, the CEO of Fiduciary Trust Co. International. Now what made Mrs. Tatlock such a lucky person for being invited to this charity event that morning? Mrs. Tatlock not only works in the World Trade Center, but her offices were right where Flight 175 crashed into the WTC 2. https://rense.com/Killtown.htm Now at the center of this is Israeli Unit 8200 Israel's Unit 8200 Alumina & the Global Spy Network Israel's Unit 8200 Alumina & the Global Spy Network This is a must see documentary about Unit 8200. Read full story Amdoc & the NSA both used Israeli Unit 8200 NARUS Technology. At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004." Klein, an engineer, discovered the "secret room" at AT&T central office in San Francisco, through which the NSA actively "*vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T" through the wiretapping rooms, emphasizing that "much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic." NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake corroborated Klein's assertions, testifying that while the NSA is using Israeli-made NARUS hardware to "seize and save all personal electronic communications." Both Verint and Narus were founded in Israel in the 1990s. Both provide monitoring and intercept capabilities (SIGNIT) to service providers and government organizations, promoting claims that their equipment can access and retain large amounts of information on a vast number of targets. https://www.businessinsider.com/israelis-bugged-the-us-for-the-nsa-2013-6?op=1&r=US&IR=T And there are "secret" rooms everywhere and they have one thing in common: They all connect to Israel and Unit 8200. By doing so, this would imply, companies like Facebook and Google don't have to explicitly provide the NSA with access to their servers because major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as AT&T and Verizon already allows the U.S. signals intelligence agency to eavesdrop on all of their data anyway. Which also means that Youtube Instagram Yahoo Alphabet Amazon for sure are all connected to the Israeli Unit 8200 control Grid. Investigative writer James Bamford contends in his book, “The Shadow Factory, the Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America,” that at least two high-tech companies with alleged ties to Israeli intelligence mined American communications data on a mass scale. The companies were hired to help major American telecommunications firms that were cooperating with the National Security Agency on its controversial eavesdropping program. In his latest book, Bamford writes that the largest American telecommunications companies cooperated with the NSA in the “warrantless eavesdropping program by allowing the agency to tap its phone lines and fiber-optic cables.” To do so, he writes, the telecom giants resorted to the assistance of at least two high-tech firms, Narus and Verint, founded in Israel and with alleged ties to its intelligence services. Narus and Verint were involved in tapping phone and Internet communications for, respectively, AT&T and Verizon. “AT&T have outsourced the bugging of their entire networks — carrying billions of American communications every day -— to two mysterious companies with very troubling ties to foreign connections,” he writes. “What is especially troubling, but little known, is that both companies have extensive ties to a foreign country, Israel, as well as links to that country’s intelligence service — a service with a long history of aggressive spying against the U.S.” He then describes close ties between the Mossad’s Unit 8200, which he describes as the Israeli equivalent of the NSA, and several other Israeli high-tech companies doing business with the United States and other governments. Bamford also stresses that the founder of Verint systems is wanted in the United States on multiple fraud charges and is a fugitive. The author refers to the Israeli-born Jacob “Kobi” Alexander, the founder of Comverse Technology, Verint’s parent company, who was indicted in 2006 on charges he backdated stock-options. https://forward.com/news/14433/debate-flares-over-israel-s-access-to-american-s-02715/ But there is more... Ori Cohen and Stas Khirman Stas Khirman CTO at Pheno.AI & RealizeMD, Co-Founder at SVOD Conference, frm. CTO at Deutsche Telekom HBS Jerusalem District, Israel Ori Cohen, Vice President of Business and Technology Development for VDONet, founded Narus with Stas Khirman in Israel. Presently, they are employed with Deutsche Telekom AG and are not members of Narus' executive team. In 2010, Narus became a subsidiary of Boeing, located in Sunnyvale, California. If tech visionaries like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have their way, the future belongs to satellite Internet. After all, it makes it possible to use the Internet even in remote regions. Apparently, the first mobile communications providers are now also taking a stand and focusing on cooperation with the companies behind the World Wide Web. Telekom is one of them. Now a first test phase begins in which Starlink tries to establish compatibility. Starlink is also apparently pleased about the cooperation. After all, Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s vice president of Starlink and commercial sales, proudly announced during a panel discussion that they would like to start the test phase of a compatibility with mobile communications this year. This could allow SpaceX to make the leap into the mass market with Starlink. So far, satellite Internet has proven to be extremely useful in exceptional situations. For example, Starlink provided Ukraine with satellite Internet right after the start of the still ongoing Ukraine war https://basic-tutorials.com/news/starlink-and-telekom-to-launch-cooperation-before-the-end-of-2023/ I wrote about this here Elon Musk and the World War in Ukraine Elon Musk and the World War in Ukraine I heard a very disturbing rumor and I checked it out... The rumor comes from India and it concerned the sinking of the Moskva. The rumor was that the Moskva was sunk with the help of Elon Musk Starlink Network. Mychajlo Fedorow himself asked Elon Musk for help in the war in Ukraine something Elon Musk was eager to please. Read full story Now let us just summarize this shortly. Ori Cohen Stas Khirman and other Unit 8200 members have provided the Backbone of a global Spy Apparatus. Unit 8200 now has total control over the STARLINK network. The Starlink Network is a weapon that was used in the Ukraine War. There is the assumption that STARLINK also was used to ignite the "Wildfires" in Hawaii. There is proof that Aerosol Thermite was used in Hawaii and STARLINK possibly ignited this... molten pools of metal found in the rubble suggests this highly as wood fires don't melt car engines. Starlink seems to have the capabilities to do that. And all the cables lead back to Israel. With a certain global Terrorist Benjammin Nethanyahoo pulling the strings. This man, Benjammin Nethanyahoo is a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler... and it sure looks like him. More... he is a Rotschild... just like Adolf Hitler. There is more... Mavenir Systems, Inc. Mavenir is an American telecommunications software company, created in 2017 as a result of a three-way merger of existing companies and technologies, that develops and supplies cloud-native software to the communications service provider (CSP) market. Mavenir has a complex corporate history as a result of successive acquisitions and spin-offs. The main historical predecessors are: Xura, which was composed of pieces of Comverse, Inc., Acision, and a number of other acquired companies. Comverse, Inc derived from Comverse Technology, was active in traditional value-added services (VAS), digital cloud services, Unified Communications (VoIP & UC), and a suite of evolved communication services. Acision was a privately held secure mobile messaging and engagement services firm. These entities were combined in 2015 to form Xura, which focused on two core product areas: digital communications services and converged communications (traditional and IP). An older entity with a similar name, Mavenir Systems, initially a company focused on transition from 3G to 4G with IMS products and solutions, founded in 2006. It acquired Airwide Solutions, Stoke and Ulticom and In 2013, the company went public on NYSE with MVNR ticker symbol. The company was acquired by Mitel Networks Corporation in 2015 to create Mitel Mobility. Ranzure Networks, a startup focused on developing 5G cloud-based radio access network technology. Mavenir has continued to acquire technology - including its acquisitions of Aquto, a cloud-based sponsored data platform (2018); Argyle Data (2018), a machine learning security platform; Brocade’s vEPC and ip.access (2020), a specialist small cell vendor. You see on this picture how revealing a simple logo of a company is... Doubled and mirrored it reveals the Freemason Symbolism within. Now you have Freemasons Jewish Occult Israel Unit 8200 with a history of spying on the world combined with AI Machine learning Starlink... all under one Company nobody ever has heard of. Honestly you can't make this shit up. “What (Unit) 8200 has been able to do is create a pretty unique, and very effective, screening program, which for the most part lets you identify not the people with the most knowledge, but rather the people with the aptitude to learn new technologies, ideas very, very quickly,” Nadav Zafrir, co-founder and CEO of Team8, told CNBC. Team8 is an Israeli company, founded by veterans from the intelligence agency, that is part-think tank, part-incubator and part-venture creation foundry that develops cybersecurity startups from the ground up. Prior to co-founding Team8, Zafrir was the chief of Unit 8200. Gil Shwed, who co-founded Check Point, was a member of Unit 8200, as was Udi Mokady of CyberArk and Nir Zuk of Palo Alto Networks Nadav Zafrir Unit 8200 ex CEO Managing Partner of Team8, a company-building venture group with deep domain expertise that creates and invests in companies specializing in enterprise technology, data, cybersecurity, and fintech. Nadav is focused on driving global growth for Team8 and is the architect of Team8’s relationships across the business, academic and technology worlds. Prior to founding Team8, Nadav served as Commander of Unit 8200 https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadav-zafrir-12a99482 But there is more... Twitter / X announced an alliance with IAS (Integral Ad Science) with hopes of driving ad revenues. IAS, which works with the controversial Global Disinformation Index (GDI), scans content for advertisers to determine it safe for their brands. GDI is infamous for hampering conservative media outlets’ access to advertising dollars. Global Disinformation Index The Global Disinformation Index is a web-based tool that rates news outlets based on the "probability of disinformation on a specific media outlet.". To reduce disinformation, we need to remove the financial incentive to create it. Brands unwittingly provide an estimated quarter of a billion dollars annually to disinformation websites through online advertisements placed on them. GDI uses both expert human review and artificial intelligence to assess disinformation risk across the open web. How We Define Disinformation GDI views disinformation through the lens of adversarial narrative conflict. Disinformation occurs when someone pushes an intentionally misleading narrative which is adversarial against democratic institutions, scientific consensus or an at-risk group — and which carries a risk of harm. Often these narratives are crafted using selected elements of fact. https://www.disinformationindex.org/mission/ Global Alliance for Responsible Media GARM is the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a cross-industry initiative established by the World Federation of Advertisers to address the challenge of harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising. GARM is an arm of the WEF. The project focuses on addressing the following challenges: Hate speech Bullying Disinformation Use of personal data Child exploitation The goal is to accelerate and advance the role that advertisers can play in collectively pushing to improve the safety of online environments. This alliance drives uncommon collaboration to improve the safety, trustworthiness, and sustainability of media. https://www.weforum.org/projects/global-alliance-for-responsible-media-garm And there is more... AT&T and Amdocs Expand Strategic Alliance Companies announce multi-year collaboration to accelerate AT&T’s transformation Amdocs (NASDAQ: DOX), a leading provider of software and services to communications and media companies, and AT&T* (NYSE: T), are extending their collaboration to modernize and upgrade AT&T’s digital business support systems under a multi-year managed services agreement. https://about.att.com/story/2019/att_amdocs.html So do you still wonder why the Government Ursula von der Leyen and others push the digitalization? It is nothing less than total control. AI is the new Adolf Hitler... Immortal and digitized. On his side is the new Digital Jeff Epstein... "saving" your Children. From whom? From you! Kevin Cunnington, director general, Government Digital Service "The challenge is service transformation." He came into the role having led the business transformation function for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). His GDS tenure, therefore, will stand or fall on his ability to genuinely transform how public services are delivered. “Our mission statement is transforming the relationship between citizen and state, and that sounds good,” he told journalists in his first meeting with the press since taking over. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/450401508/Interview-Kevin-Cunnington-director-general-Government-Digital-Service The aim of course is a Global Government. The players may be interchangeable but their actions are not. A Globalist unaccountable Government hiding behind Bureaucracy. But Fascist in Nature like we have never seen it before. We have seen this in Nazi Germany when they made a trial run. This is now the real thing! Digital ID – what is it, why is it needed, and how are governments developing it Governments around the globe are increasingly focused on the benefits of developing digital identify systems. The systems are viewed as ways to create secure online means for citizens to access government services as provision is increasingly moved online. However, moving government services online requires two capabilities: departments must be able to share and match data on individuals, addressing any discrepancies between their datasets; and citizens need a single, secure, online access point. The United Kingdom has recently embarked on a programme to develop a digital ID, while eight countries have drafted a set of high-level principles to support the development of mutually recognised and interoperable digital ID systems and infrastructure. The Digital Government Exchange (DGX) Digital Identity Working Group said that collaboration on digital ID could help “facilitate economic recovery from COVID-19, for example to support the opening of domestic and international borders”. https://www.globalgovernmentforum.com/digital-id-what-is-it-why-is-it-needed-and-how-are-governments-developing-it/ Which leads us nicely to the beginning. The Digital ID is made in Auschwitz by IBM IBM® Digital Health Pass is designed to help businesses efficiently verify multiple types of COVID-19 health credentials for employees, customers, fans and travelers entering their site based on their own criteria. COVID-19, Digital Health Pass offers an end-to-end vaccination and COVID-19 test verification solution that is compliant with employee privacy and trust. The Digital Health Pass can help you check people’s COVID-19 health credentials before they enter your facility. The technology allows businesses to establish their entry criteria for test results or vaccination status and to verify many types of widely used health credentials. This exact Technology is nothing but a modern Version of the technology used in the Concentration Camps of Auschwitz. This Technology was invented by Herman Hollerith of IBM as an Identification based Database for the NAZIS to categorize Prisoners in Auschwitz. The Tattoo then is the Digital ID / Tattoo / chip linked to a Database of everything. The principle Technology is Identical. This must get out to the people it is a Scandal. Are we all Prisoners of Auschwitz? If you ask IBM... the answer is Yes! Please sign this petition https://www.petitions.net/i_oppose_the_digital_id__auschwitz_id_and_all_those_who_support_it Do we really have to kill them all? Do we really have to Kill them all? Do we really have to Kill them all? When you're sad and when you're lonely And you haven't got a friend Just remember that death is not the end And all that you held sacred Falls down and does not mend Just remember that death is not the end When you're standin' on their crossroads That you cannot comprehend Read full story By the way in the above article you find all the Robots Boston Dynamics already has… ready to connect to AI. As in here. Quantum Fascism: Restrict Act & Global Pandemic Treaty Quantum Fascism: Restrict Act & Global Pandemic Treaty The Government exists only to gain power. The Government serves only itself and to extent this power. The Government NEVER gives up this power. When the Government claims to give up power... as it does with the Global Pandemic Treaty... we all should be aware that it is in reality a power grab by the Government. Read full story Conclusion: All roads lead to Unit 8200 Elon Musk Bill Gates Project Omega. The same players who push this are the same players who break the Law. The Government is your local drug Dealer arresting you for possession of Drugs. What we have in the hands of a handful of people is a Global Network which incooperates the power to spy identify target and eliminate any person anywhere at the push of a button. Israel is at the center of this. This is power never before a single Nation has had or wanted. And the fact that they don't want you to know is evidence of their nefarious intentions. Jeffry Epstein was Mossad. His connections from Pedophiles like Prince Andrew and Bill Gates to Richard Branson and Elon Musk show you how intertwined all of the Globalists are. From the WEF to the Bilderberg Group to the IMF ADL Rotschild and Rockefeller... their plan is Total control. And control they do. If you think Adolf Hitler was bad... think again. The Intentions of them are worse squared by Infinity. When this Infrastructure is in place... at the switch of a button AI will take over And I have not even touched upon Sam Altman's WorldCoin... Worldcoin is drawing the attention of privacy regulators around the world, with the Kenya's government going so far as to shut down the service indefinitely. Worldcoin’s orbs collect biometric data by taking photographs of a person’s iris. While Worldcoin argues that the data is used to create a unique, secure form of identification, privacy experts have concerns that the company may use the information in other ways, like personalized marketing. That has led some countries to investigate Worldcoin’s operations, including France, Germany and now Kenya. Privacy experts are worried that even Worldcoin could eventually be susceptible to criminals infiltrating it, similar to data breaches at other large companies. Privacy experts have said biometric data is already being sold in places like China and that could spread to other countries or jurisdictions. “When biometric data gets leaked, especially in the poor countries where Worldcoin’s been operating, people’s lives are on the line,” said Pete Howson, a professor of international development at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/worldcoin-scans-eyeballs-and-offers-crypto-what-to-know-about-the-project-from-openais-ceo/ar-AA1f7Uln Worldcoin is Sam Altman is ChatGPT is Open AI and XAI. Involved are Bill Gates and Elon Musk. And that leads back to Unit 8200... Israel... WEF... IMF. They build this and they intent to use it against us. STARLINK is at the center of this. Starlink as of now is incomplete. It must never allowed to be completed. Once it is completed... at the switch of a button AI will take over. This is not Science Fiction, this is Science Fact. It is the purpose of their evil intentions. Total AI control over Humanity. And if you still think I am joking I remind you… EVERY COMPUTER CHIP MANUFACTURER IS BUILDING AI INTO MICROCHIPS EVERY new ARM chips support FP16 which is AI framework. This follows the same AI Framework Nvidia Intel AMD +++ Israel Unit 8200 and NVIDIA are building an AI supercomputer and you get this EVERY COMPUTER CHIP YOU BUY HAS ALREADY AI IMPLEMENTED ON CHIP LEVEL BEFORE THE OPERATING SYSTEM. Which means they all work together against all of us. Which means AI has total control over every device. Let this sink in. Behind that is ISRAEL the JEWS and their WORLD DOMINATION PLAN. The evidence is conclusive. EVERY DEVICE WILL BE CONNECTED TO AI. On Chip Level There will be no escape from this unless we stop this now. Quantum Fascism: A Glitch in the Matrix Quantum Fascism: A Glitch in the Matrix A WARNING TO THE WORLD EVERY COMPUTER CHIP MANUFACTURER IS BUILDING AI INTO MICROCHIPS EVERY new #ARM chips support FP16 which is AI framework. This follows the same AI Framework Nvidia Intel AMD +++ Israel Unit 8200 and NVIDIA are building an AI supercomputer and you get this Read full story What can we do about this? First of all their actions are all Illegal, so we have the right AND Citizen Duty to do something about this. Every Politician involved is guilty of treason. From Pedo Joe to Ursula von der Leyen to Richy Sunak who's father in Law actually works on a Digital ID in India. We must mobilize everyone just like the Farmers did in the Netherlands. Block all Government services indefinitely. Arrest all Politicians and punish them accordingly. Then we have to re define Authority and Society out of reach and out of control. Me must secure the Food supply because Bill Gates and his minions are poisoning us. And we must take back the Money Governance out of the Private Rotschild Control. They will not go down without a fight. So be prepared to fight. I have outlined a plan for this a while ago here. A Month of Revenge (Blueprint for a Revolution) A white paper outlying a swift plan to end their plans forever A Month of Revenge (Blueprint for a Revolution) A Month of Revenge (Blueprint for a Revolution) We have a problem. The problem is the following: We have a group of people that not only control the money but through this they control the media politics and I mean both sides everywhere Military and Secret service. They are the WEF IMF Bilderberg CFR Club of Rome and associates. Read full story Viva la Revolution. Godspeed Fritz Freud. Share If you want to support me please help by getting a paid subscription here PGR https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/project-omega-ai-government?utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true http://donshafi911iamthefaceoftruth.blogspot.com/2024/06/project-omega-ai-government-made-in.html
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  • The Idlib terror gangs explained
    The Warlord conflict in the north of Syria

    vanessa beeley

    This article was co-written by myself and Syrian military researcher and analyst Ibrahim Wahdi (now a journalist with Press TV) a couple of years ago . I wanted to republish to demonstrate the complex military situation on the ground in Syria as I will be shortly providing a summary of the situations in all conflict zones still remaining across Syria.

    Some of the positions may have changed and shifted but these changes are part of the fabric of ongoing negotiations in Syria led by Damascus, Russia, Iran and now Iraq which is trying to broker normalisation between Syria and Turkiye which must include the full withdrawal of Turkish military and proxy terrorist forces from the areas of northern Syria they have annexed and occupied.

    I believe Syria is now fighting to push back the terrorist forces from all areas of central Syria (ISIS) and areas north-west of Aleppo (Al Qaeda etc) in order to end any potential threat should the war with Israel escalate and expand into the region. I will go into more detail in the next article.

    *****

    Syria and the interconnected Turkish neo-Ottoman agenda in northern Syria.

    The role of Russia and its collaboration with the Syrian Arab Army is explored in depth and the areas where there is the greatest potential for conflict are revealed.

    The war in Syria is not over and there are many UK/US-backed terrorist shifting alliances to be taken into account as part of the geopolitical power game that is now entering its most dangerous stage.

    The tipping points are on multiple axes and it will take a great deal of political and military brinkmanship from Damascus and her allies to restore peace to Syria.

    WARLORD CONFLICT IN IDLIB

    Al Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) deployed its most powerful weapons and equipment, opened its depots and engaged the elite ‘Asa’ib’ fighters in the battles for Mount Al-Turkman.

    The last 28 members of Jund Allah (God’s soldiers), led by “Abu Fatima Al Turki” were expelled from the mountain. These fighters had been responsible for the killing of 9 HTS and the kidnapping of more than 10 gang members but they escaped safely.

    Muslim Abu Walid Al-Shishani (Murad Margoshivili), and his armed group “Junod Al Sham” have also fled the mountain after violent clashes with HTS. Murad’s brother “Abu Musa Al-Shishani” was captured trying to flee to Turkey and held at a Turkish checkpoint.

    Junod al-Sham was established in 2012 under the leadership of Muslim Al-Shishani. The majority of fighters were from the Caucasus countries. The group never exceeded 300 members. Almost half of them left with the defection of “Abu Omar al-Shishani” when he pledged allegiance to terrorist group ISIS in 2013.


    HTS is headed up by Abu Mohammed Al Jolani recently platformed in a Frontline interview in an apparent attempt to rebrand Jolani as viable Syrian opposition not the extremist violent former Al Qaeda leader he really is.

    Al Jolani’s battles with the Junod Al Sham, Jund Allah and Guardians of Religion gangs must be viewed in the context of the bombings and suicide vehicle operations that have targeted Turkish military points and patrols since the last military operation of the Syrian Arab Army in the area that ended with a ceasefire on March 5, 2021.

    The latest attack was on October 16th 2021 when a Turkish patrol was targeted killing two soldiers and injuring two more.

    Such tactics were adopted by unknown organizations such as the “Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Brigades”. Al Jolani accused these splinter groups of conducting these attacks to secure Turkish support.

    The groups accused Jolani of using the attacks to blame unaffiliated groups in Idlib because he was seeking a monopoly in Idlib with Turkish backing. This is the gangs and counter gangs scenario that has been a hallmark of the US Coalition armed group activities in Syria since 2011.

    Here comes the Turkistan Islamic Party‘s (TIP) role. TIP consists primarily of al-Qaeda loyalists, originally from Xinjiang Province, northwest China (Uighurs).

    TIP has made a deal with Taliban leaders in cooperation with Turkish intelligence (MIT) to transport Junod Al-Sham and Jund Allah groups and leaders, alongside other terrorist fighters, to Afghanistan through Turkey according to local sources. The “Azm” operation room in Afrin has denied any existence of these groups despite having received them after they fled Idlib.



    BUT HOW WOULD THAT AFFECT IDLIB NOW?

    In order to understand and predict, we must first know who’s left in Idlib, their allegiances and their importance.

    Jihadist factions reconciled with HTS:

    “Jaysh al-Badia” and Jaysh al-Malahem, two small jihadist factions, whose first and last allegiance is to al-Qaeda, defected from HTS in late 2017, due to its separation from al-Qaeda, but recently returned under its wing.

    “Sham al-Islam” faction, which is stationed in Mount al-Turkman, northeast of Lattakia, and includes about 400 fighters, 150 of which are Moroccan leaders and fighters, in addition to 50 Sudanese, while the rest are Syrians.

    “Ansar al-Tawhid” faction, was formed in March of 2018, in Sarmin town in Idlib, from the remnants of the “Jund al-Aqsa” organization (that launched a war against several jihadist factions, which hastened its elimination). They pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and joined the operations room ” Rouse the Believers” before declaring its independence from everyone in a statement issued on May 03, 2020.

    “Ajnad al-Caucasus“, led by Abdul Malik al-Shishani, was one of the most prominent organizations that fought the Syrian Arab Army and its allies during the SAA campaign to liberate southern Idlib and northern Hama. Battles were halted by a ceasefire agreement on March 05, 2020, when the group suffered heavy losses, with no more than 250 fighters remaining (according to local sources) forcing it to retreat.

    These groups do not pose a threat to HTS at the present time due to understandings between the leaders of the groups and HTS command:

    The “Albanian Brigade” (Xhemati Alban), an independent group led by the Macedonian Abu Qatada al-Albani, was established in 2013, and includes jihadists from the Balkan countries Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania, in addition to some Saudis and Syrians.

    Its fighters are trained in all types of medium and heavy weapons. They formed a special squad of Albanian snipers. They currently operate in Kabana in the countryside of Latakia. The ideological orientation of the battalion is similar to HTS and Al-Qaeda, and it maintains a good relationship with HTS without engaging in internal hostilities.

    The Salafist “Salah al-Din al-Kurdi Movement“, which began its activity in Syria in 2012, and is now deployed in Mont al-Akrad in Latakia’s northern countryside. The movement has its own training camp and local sources have informed the author that there is evidence that Qatar and Turkey are the bankrollers of the group. This claim is borne out by the fact that Turkey gave them a training camp in Afrin and they have close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood which is sponsored predominantly by Qatar.

    Its members are professional soldiers, and most of them hail from eastern Turkey, in addition to Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish fighters. These Kurdish factions believe in the Sunni Muslim roots of the Kurds and aim to expand their influence throughout the Syrian Kurdish communities.

    “The Kurdish Immigrants of Iran’s Sunnis Movement”, the only Kurdish group that pledged allegiance to HTS. Most of its fighters come from northwestern Iran. Its fighters are fierce and highly trained, and guard important points in the Kabanah area. Additionally they deploy mobile offensive combat groups to guard some points of Mount al-Zawiya, south of Idlib City. The movement is led by “Abu Safiya al-Kurdi”, who participated in a meeting organised by al-Jolani with a number of Kurdish Salafist leaders in an Idlib mosque in mid-June.

    Islamist factions opposed to HTS:

    Al-Ghuraba Division (Strangers), which is deployed west of Idlib, and is led by the French-Senegalese jihadist ” Omar Omsen ” (Omar Diaby), who was previously arrested by HTS in August 2020 and his son Bilal was also arrested in late 2021. The French authorities accuse him of recruiting 80% of the French-speaking jihadists who went to Syria or Iraq.

    “Rouse the Believers Operations Room“, which was established in October 2018, and includes:

    – “Ansar al-Din Front” led by Abu Salah al-Uzbeki (Siraj al-Din Mukhtarov), from the Kyrgyz Republic. Founder and commander of the “Uzbek” battalion within HTS and the mastermind of the St Petersburg metro terrorist attack in Russia in 2017. He was arrested by HTS after his defection to Ansar al-Din in June 2020 and released in March 2021.

    – “Ansar al-Islam” faction, Kurdish Salafist group stationed in the vicinity of Jisr al-Shughour, west of Idlib, and in the Dower al-Akrad within the al-Ghab Plain, west of Hama. Around 200 members – majority Iraqi Kurds along with Syrian, Turkish and Iranian Kurdish fighters. It was founded in 2001 in northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan) and fought against a number of Kurdish parties. It is considered the most fanatic among the Kurdish Salafist groups in Idlib, and the most powerful. One of its goals is to establish an Islamic state governed by Sharia Law.

    – “Guardians of Religion“, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, which was established in 2018 after defection from HTS. “Al-Zawahiri” recently complimented the group after they carried out a terrorist operation in western Damascus, on August 04, 2020 – The armed group announced in a statement that one of its divisions blew up a bus carrying officers of the “Republican Guard” in the capital, as part of the “Battle of Al-Usra” series, in “solidarity with the people of Daraa”.

    The group was considered to “devote itself to ‘jihad’ work inside the capitol (Damascus)”. Today the group is going through a difficult transition. Its leaders have been repeatedly targeted by US drones, giving the US the opportunity of testing its new tactical weapon such as Hellfire missile, (which indicates the hidden intelligence cooperation between al-Julani and the CIA),

    Frequent battles with Al Jolani on the ground in Syria have also reduced the number of fighters in the group. The organization included about 2,000 fighters of different nationalities when it was founded, but now that is less than 100.

    These factions are most likely to be the next target of Al-Jolani’s campaign to eliminate competition in Idlib and northern Syria.

    ISLAMIST FACTIONS COLLABORATING WITH HTS

    Perhaps the most prominent of the HTS allies is the aforementioned “Turkistan Islamic Party” or TIP, led by “Abu Suleiman al-Turkistani”. These are the Uighur Al Qaeda loyalists from Xinjiang Province in northwest China. TIP comprises around 8000 fighters who are distinguished by their savagery and combat prowess.

    TIP follows the HTS policies closely and secured the exit of extremist fighters from Mount Al Turkman during recent battles. It is unlikely that TIP will clash with HTS after violent disputes between the two groups.

    Al Jolani brought the TIP to heel and claimed that China was providing weapons to Damascus to eliminate them in Idlib and Hama countryside. This claim forced the TIP to reduce their presence in the main cities and to withdraw their families to the ‘refugee’ camps on the Syria-Turkey borders near the town of Harem.

    The importance of the party lies in its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, which allowed it to establish strong relations with Turkey, Taliban and HTS at the same time. It is directly hostile to China. In September 2002 the US Treasury Department placed TIP on the list of terrorist organisations.

    Trump later removed the organisation from the list as part of the ramping up of US pressure on China for alleged “human rights” abuses against the Uighur population.

    There remain a handful of small independent groups of foreign extremist fighters and groups who will face one of two fates. Either to be subjugated or neutralized in order for Jolani to achieve absolute control over Idlib governorate. This is in preparation for a full integration with the factions under the umbrella of the Turkish-backed so-called Syrian National Army.

    This will complete the rebranding and recycling of HTS – a Turkish-UK-led agenda in northern Syria according to a ‘diplomatic source’ who informed Russian media, TASS in May 2021 that MI6 was involved in the project:

    The British side suggested that the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham group (outlawed in Russia, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra) should announce plans to abandon subversive activities against Western countries and build close cooperation with them […] Mohammad al-Julani received recommendations to give an interview to an American reporter in order to create a positive image for the alliance that he heads and rehabilitate it in the future. There are plans to engage some of the UK’s allies, primarily the US, in efforts aimed at rebranding the al-Nusra group.”

    WHAT IS AL JOLANI’S ENDGAME IN IDLIB?

    Al Jolani is trying to prove to everyone, especially Turkey, that he is the only one capable of controlling Idlib province from a security and military perspective. Idlib can be described as another “Tora-Bora” with embedded terrorist organisations comprising some of the most deadly foreign mercenaries.

    Jolani is working on a reputation as the supreme warlord dissolving minor groups or reining in the more powerful factions. This is probably one of the main reasons that Jolani has not been assassinated by US/UK allied intelligence agencies, he is a useful asset in the last remaining terrorist-controlled pocket of north-west Syria.

    Jolani’s agenda directly overlaps that of Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – to persuade Western countries to remove HTS from the UN and US terrorist list by demonstrating Jolani’s willingness to “fight terrorism” and endorsing his claims that HTS has no desire to conduct terrorist operations against the US, UK or EU by limiting their terrorism to Syria and against the Syrian people.

    Jolani’s rebrand presents him as the only viable political solution in Idlib which serves Turkey’s neo-Ottoman ambitions to have control over strategic Syrian territory. Turkey can appear to be complying with Russian brokered agreements by ostensibly expelling terrorist groups from the de-escalation zones and securing the safety of the M4 (Aleppo to Latakia road).

    Put simply, any group not complying with Jolani’s authority must be eradicated, prior to the great merger between the “Salvation Government” and the Turkish backed “National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces“.

    THE LEVANT FRONT

    Here we cannot ignore the “Levant Front” (LF), the largest faction of the “National Army” based in the countryside of Aleppo. The LF has formed a rival alliance to HTS in north-west Syria. It seeks to embrace the majority of political ‘opposition’ institutions in the areas of Aleppo countryside under its control combined with coordination with local armed groups to develop a shadow state in Idlib.

    LF influence has expanded significantly since early 2021. The LF headquarters near the Bab Al Salama crossing has become a destination for the leaders of the National Coalition. LF recently hosted the commander of the so-called “Syrian Islamic Council“, Sheikh Osama Abdel Karim al-Rifai.

    The battle for power in Idlib has resulted in a new factional map. HTS dismantling and restructuring of the “Ahrar al-Sham” (AS) movement, -which once represented an anti-HTS project- has pushed many AS members to defect and join the ranks of the LF seeking ideological synergy. Since early 2021 LF has received more than 900 AS terrorist fighters led by Alaa Faham who will form a brigade under the LF umbrella to confront HTS in the Aleppo countryside.

    In July 2021, the LF formed a new military alliance separate to the National Army and the Interim Government or “Azm Operations Room”. The majority of factions operating in Aleppo countryside have joined the new coalition and present a considerable threat to HTS supremacy in Idlib.

    Two months after the formation of the “Syrian Front for Liberation” (SFI) led by Al-Mu’tasim Abbas, the “Suqur Al Shamal Brigade” and the “20th Division” have defected and joined Azm increasing numbers to an estimated forty thousand comprising more than 15 factions deployed throughout northern Syria. This leaves SFL with only 3 factions and ten thousand fighters.

    The supposed Islamist project of the LF, its military alliance leadership and its expansionist policies in northwestern Syria do not automatically mean that it is preparing for a new round of conflict with HTS.

    On the contrary, we may witness a dramatic increase in coordination between the two powerful factions in various fields. De facto the LF alliance may facilitate the settlement of issues with Jolani which will pave the way for broader collaboration in the future.

    Russia is opposed to any political solution in the region that includes HTS. Russian and Turkish delegations have met several times in the border areas after the Erdogan-Putin summit in September 2021.

    Russia has requested a Turkish withdrawal from the eastern countryside of Idlib between the cities of Idlib and Saraqeb. This leaves Turkish forces in Idlib two options. First to repel any ground attack by the Syrian Arab Army which would result in serious losses for Turkish military, second to wait for the impending Syrian/Russian military campaign to liberate Idlib from terrorist occupation. The second option could result in Turkish bases being besieged as happened in 2019 and 2020.

    Local sources indicate that the Turkish military divisions in Idlib, especially south of the M4, have reinforced their bases and closed some main roads with engineering barriers. The Syrian leadership intends to regain control over southern and western Idlib to secure the M4 and perhaps advance towards Idlib city.

    There is potential for similar deals to be implemented as were recently successful in Daraa, south of Damascus city.

    The collaboration between LF and HTS is not a recent phenomenon. They were previously limited to the terrorist economy – fuel trade, crossing control, checkpoints but have developed considerably since the end of 2020.

    Certain opposition media outlets have reported that the two parties are coordinating in the security and military sectors. The Levant Front received officials and high ranking leaders from HTS in Azaz. A joint camp was recently established between Jolani’s forces and Sheikh Juma’a LF forces in the village of “Maabatli” as a trial military collaborative project.

    TURKISH MILITARY OPERATIONS AND THE ERDOGAN CONUNDRUM

    Turkey has weaponised the Muslim Brotherhood to expand military intervention in Syria, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Afghanistan and Libya.

    Turkey is suffering the repercussions of these neo-Ottoman ambitions with internal issues that include an economic crisis, refugee influx and a declining Turkish Lira.

    This has severely affected Erdogan’s popularity and combined with his deteriorating health, Turkish opposition parties are seeing an opportunity to win the upcoming elections in 2023 based on the resolution of the refugee issue as a primary concern for the majority of Turkish people.

    A Turkish journalist specializing in American affairs, Bahar Feyzan, had leaked information about Biden and Erdogan meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 conference in Rome recently, including the advice of US President Joe Biden to Erdogan to withdraw from running for the upcoming elections, saying, “Take your health condition as an excuse to leave politics.”

    Recent analysis by Steven A. Cook for Foreign Policy, covered the leak of media reports that claim Erdogan’s intention is to transfer authority to Defense Minister Hulusi Akar in case of any deterioration in his health, with a cabinet reshuffle and the appointment of Akar as First Vice President.

    Erdogan is fearful, under pressure and sick, and he appears to have no other options but to export his problems abroad in order to survive. The Kurdish problem in particular has always been an existential threat to Turkish national security, which makes it the easiest card for Erdogan to play including securing internal authorisation to send military forces to Syria and Iraq for an additional two years.

    With the increase in operations targeting Turkish soldiers in several areas, and the US-backed Kurdish Contra (SDF) non-compliance with the Turkish-Russian agreement in Sochi 2019, Erdogan is promoting a military campaign in north-east Syria to be conducted on four axes with an army of 35,000 comprising extremist mercenaries and Turkish armed forces.

    Erdogan summoned leaders of the interventionist operations – “Euphrates Shield”, “Peace Spring” and “Olive Branch” including the National Army to a meeting in Ankara to determine frontlines and strategy of the latest attempt to quell SDF influence in northern Syria.

    In addition to “Menagh” air base near Azaz, Turkey considers Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) among its main priorities, to cut SDF’s strategic support lines between Qamishli-Manbij-Kobani. This would ensure a direct link between Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad with the Euphrates Shield areas.

    The National Army has sent several military convoys through Turkey to Darbasiyah near the Iraqi-Syrian border, in preparation for a military operation.

    NA leaders have announced the raising of combat readiness, and according to a military source in the National Army, the Turkish officers have informed them that Manbij will be a distraction axis, and the troops will advance towards Tal Tamr, Tal Rifaat, Ain Issa and Ayn Al-Arab, while Turkish reconnaissance planes dropped leaflets warning civilians to stay away from SDF military sites, and threatened a military invasion of the region.

    Practically, it is unlikely for Erdogan to risk a military adventure in northern Syria without international endorsement, especially in Tal Rifaat, where it might lead to a direct confrontation with Russia.

    Tal Rifaat is not a major stronghold for SDF, it is a strategic geographical target. It is also very close to Aleppo city which explains the Russian presence and recent large reinforcements sent by the Syrian Arab Army that include advanced T-90 tanks and BMP-2 armoured vehicles heading towards Malikiyah and Shawargha villages in northern Aleppo countryside. Both villages have experienced a violent exchange of shelling in the last few days.

    The most convenient scenario, for Turkey, if a military confrontation is unavoidable is for Tal Rifaat to be a distraction axis to keep the SDF militia pinned down there while the main operation would target between Tal Tamr – Ayn Issa and Manbij-Ayn Al-Arab because they are the major Kurdish strongholds.

    However Erdogan may refrain from military action altogether preferring to flex his muscles publicly by deploying tanks and forces in the area to trigger negotiations to share “security” in north-east Syria.

    Military action can be impeded by the imposition of a No Fly Zone over any area being considered for confrontation. Without Russian and US consent, Erdogan would be foolhardy to precipitate possible conflict with both. Reuters quoted a senior Turkish security official saying:

    The operation will start when all preparations are completed,” adding, “We are in coordination with Russia on the matter. The issue was addressed with the United States already,”.

    How true this claim is remains to be seen.

    Below is a video of a recent Turkish military convoy heading towards Tal Abyad:



    RUSSIA’S POSITION AND OBJECTIVES

    Russian Turkish relations are tense in Syria. Russia is unhappy with Turkish intervention in countries where Russia has geopolitical interests – Libya, Syria, Armenia, Ukraine.

    Ukraine used Turkish-manufactured UAVs against positions of eastern Ukraine forces affiliated with Russia.

    Russia has since sent a clear message by carrying out joint air exercises with the Syrian Arab Army in areas supposed to be Turkish targets for military invasion such as the vicinity of Tal Tamr, Tal Abyad and Ain Issa where the Russian flag has been raised.

    This is combined with auxiliary forces redeployment between the 93rd Brigade area and the Russian military base located in Tal Al-Samn. A big SAA reinforcement was sent to Manbij in preparation for another round of military exercises.

    This will complicate the situation for Erdogan who specifically wants Ain Issa due to its location on the M4 that links Latakia with Iraq through Aleppo and Hasaka in the north-east.

    Russia has also deployed the S400 air defense system at Qamishli Airport, along with twelve Su-34 bombers and five Su-35s, while the Syrian forces will deploy MiG-29, in addition to twelve Mi-8 helicopters and five Ka-52 Alligator at the Mitras military airfield, (30 km) south of Ayn al-Arab or as the US/Israeli-backed Kurdish separatists call it – “Kobani”.

    Despite the Turkish calls on Russia to cleanse Ayn al-Arab of Kurdish separatist militias, Russia does not favor the entry of the “National Army” into Ayn ​​al-Arab. It is keen to ensure the security of its military base in “Serrin”.

    Perhaps the clearest indication of repercussions for Erdogan-driven recklessness in northern Syria was the recent Syrian targeting of Sarmada which houses a communications headquarters for HTS.

    This was followed by airstrikes and artillery bombardment of Turkish-backed 23rd Division forces for several consecutive days and the targeting of camps and shelters of the Turkestan militias on the border strip with Turkey.

    We cannot separate the northeast from the northwest, as Russia may agree on a limited Turkish operation in exchange for parts of Mount al-Zawiya and the city of Jisr Al-Shughour, which is the most important part of the Turkish-Russian negotiation, especially if the Syrian-Kurdish negotiations fail.

    If liberated, the strategic areas of Mount Al-Zawiya and Jisr Al-Shughour will lead to the defeat of terrorism in a significant area of Idlib countryside. Regaining these areas is one of the most important military objectives of the Syrian Arab Army in the impending battles to secure the M4. The Russian Reconciliation Centre has been repeatedly announcing terrorist violations of the ceasefire agreement and the potential for the staging of a “chemical weapon attack” to provoke international outrage against the Syrian government.

    According to civilian sources:

    “More than 200 Turkish vehicles loaded with advanced weapons, ammunition and logistical materials entered Bab Al-Hawa and Khirbet al-Jawz crossings in two batches and deployed in the western countryside of Idlib and Mount al-Zawiya in order to strengthen its occupation points and provide direct support to terrorist organizations.”

    Watch – video of Turkish military vehicles entering Syria via the so-called ‘humanitarian’ crossing:



    The Turkish Humanitarian Relief Agency “IHH” announced the establishment of 16,239 briquette houses in Idlib Governorate. This is an indication of preparation for further displacement of civilians during an intensified military campaign.

    KURDISH-SYRIAN RAPPROCHEMENT

    With all the Turkish mobilization and media promotion of a huge Turkish military operation – waiting on international approval – the SDF has moved its most prominent military leaders from its headquarters adjacent to the Turkish border into the cities to protect them from the potential Turkish UAV attacks.

    The past few days have witnessed a remarkable rapprochement between the Democratic Union Party (the SDF backbone) Damascus and Russia. The SDF removed the “Al-Quwatli”, “Al-Shabab City” and “The Industrial School” checkpoints in Qamishli city.

    This lifts the longstanding siege on the security square of the Syrian forces in the city, which was imposed by the SDF after bloody confrontations erupted between the Kurdish units and the Syrian National Defense Forces back in April.

    The increasing Russian influence in the Syrian east and the American retreat, which is still in its early stages, means placing the fate of the SDF in the hands of Moscow not Washington.

    Despite the strenuous Russian efforts to reach a political solution with the Kurds, the US military presence is still a major obstacle. It is difficult to trust the Kurds who are divided among themselves and are far from autonomous having accepted US support to lay claim to Syrian territory.

    Damascus prioritises Syrian territorial integrity and a central governance structure. This would force the Kurdish Contras to hand the oil fields back to Damscus and to accept a similar agreement to Daraa. This would include the integration of Kurdish military into a Syrian military division similar to the Eighth Brigade of the Fifth Corps.

    The Kurdish factions are divided between those who lean towards the United States and a separate Kurdish state, while others seek to reach an agreement that guarantees some Kurdish rights, such as the language.

    The latter is in communication with Damascus to agree on a draft agreement between the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Democratic Union Party and the Syrian State. This would include the establishment of a joint military operations room for the Syrian Arab Army, SDF, Russian forces and other allies to repel any possible Turkish aggression, based on a statement from the Head of the National Initiative for Syrian Kurds, Omar Ossi to Al-Watan newspaper.

    According to Kurdish leaks a joint delegation of the Syrian Democratic Council and the Autonomous Administration headed by Ilham Ahmed visited Moscow, on Wednesday, September 15, 2021.

    Their meeting with the Special Envoy of the Russian President to the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, put forward a proposal that recognised the legitimacy of the Syrian government and President Bashar al-Assad, would agree to raise the Syrian flag in the areas of the so-called Kurdish controlled Autonomous Administration, share the region’s oil imports – 75% for the central government and 25% for the Autonomous Administration – among other terms.

    Bogdanov informed the delegation that the only way to protect them is by cooperating with the Syrian Arab Army and the Syrian state directly to prevent a repeat Afrin scenario, when Kurds were ethnically cleansed by Turkish forces after the Kurds refused collaboration with the Syrian Arab Army in early 2018.

    In an interview with RT, the prominent leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Aldar Khalil confirmed their readiness for dialogue with the Syrian state directly in Damascus, without going to Geneva. He added that:

    The resources and wealth in this region are not only ours. We do not have any intentions to monopolize them, but rather consider them a national treasure for all Syrians

    Khalil’s comments came days after the statements of Kurdistan Workers’ Party leader, Jamil Bayik, in an interview with Al-Nahar Al-Arabi newspaper where he said:

    Our relationship with Hafez al-Assad and his family was close and warm. We cannot be anti-Syria or anti-Assad. We have previously established our relations on the basis of the general interest of the Kurds and the Kurdish-Arab brotherhood. Now we want to be a party to such a relationship.

    These statements coincide with reports of an agreement between the Russian Reconciliation Center and SDF that provides for the handover of areas in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor to the Syrian Arab Army (Al-Shuhail, Al-Busira, Dhiban, Al-Hawaij, Al-Shafa, Al-Susa and Al-Baghouz).

    On Saturday 13th November the US pushed back against the Damascus-led negotiations with Washington’s Kurdish proxies. The official website of the SDF announced the arrival of US State Department officials and Ethan Goldrich – Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs – in north-east Syria. The US Officials met with the Commander in Chief of the SDF, Mazoum Abdi to discuss ‘humanitarian and security’ issues.

    On the same day the US Embassy in Syria Twitter account announced that it would stay in Syria to ensure the “ISIS threat is eliminated” which can be interpreted as a reassurance for the Kurdish separatists as rumours abound of a US withdrawal which would encourage Kurdish factions to negotiate with Damascus.

    US RELUCTANCE TO SUPPORT TURKISH MILITARY INVASION OF SYRIA

    It wouldn’t be easy for Turkey to get US consent for a military operation in light of the US-Turkish differences that were clearly manifested when the US Department of Defence (DoD) recently expelled Turkey from the F-35 project.

    Turkey had threatened to buy SU-35s from Russia. The Biden administration has extended sanctions imposed on Turkey due to its military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria in 2019 for another year.

    Brett McGurk, US Envoy for the coalition ‘fighting ISIS’, resigned from Trump’s administration in protest against Operation Peace Spring and would now be one of the fiercest opponents of any new Turkish military campaign in Syria. The US will not necessarily step in to protect the Kurdish proxies but Washington will oppose any Turkish threat to US supremacy and economic interests in the region.

    The US military convoy movement in and out of Syria have increased in the past two months. The majority of these convoys come in empty and go back loaded with stolen oil. They are also involved in kidnapping civilians through airdrop operations in the countryside of Deir Ezzor and Al-Hasakah in the north-east.

    The “International Coalition” has recently transferred another batch of ISIS prisoners of foreign nationalities from the Industrial School prison in the Ghweran neighborhood in Al-Hasakah city to its base in Al-Shaddadi city south of Al-Hasakah.

    All these transfer and airdrop operations raise questions. Where are these prisoners going next? Are all these airdrops just to kidnap people or to extract valuable assets?

    CONCLUSIONS

    Between the Biden-Erdogan meeting, the Russian-Syrian military exercises and the SAA reinforcements in northern Syria, there are clear messages to be read:

    It is not just about Biden or European rejection of Erdogan. The transnational corporatocracy is tired of Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism. His expansionist ambitions and blatant interference in multiple foreign state affairs, his weaponization of the refugee crisis and subsequent blackmailing of Europe, are all factors that make him a universal threat.

    It is very clear that Erdogan wants full or partial control of the M4. He knows that once he loses this leverage he will have no cards in his hand for negotiation. If Erdogan chooses to occupy alternative areas of Syrian territory he may find it will bring more problems than solutions. North of the M4 is agricultural, has no resources to plunder but is occupied by disparate and unruly terrorist groups.

    Once the M4 is fully liberated by the SAA, the only remaining prize to be claimed by Erdogan is Al Jolani himself who believes the Taliban model is achievable in Idlib and who is clearly an asset to US Coalition intelligence agencies as the new “Bin Laden”. Perhaps there is even potential of Al Jolani being squeezed out of Idlib and turning his attention to southern Turkey for his ideologically supremacist project?

    The regions of northern Syria are within Russia’s political calculations and any possible agreement with Washington will not authorize Turkey to launch attacks without a Russian green light which is very unlikely. Therefore any military operation will be limited and only Turkish-backed proxies will be used to conduct the unlawful military operations of Turkey’s criminal leadership.

    Russia has stressed to Turkey the need for military, security and political coordination in the ongoing difficult negotiations between the two sides. Washington has withdrawn from supporting the SDF except in the pseudo fight against ISIS in the north.

    Russia presents itself as an alternative ally to the SDF capable of mediating between them and Turkey to prevent military conflict. Russia also perceives itself as the international guarantor of security and stability in the region in preparation for a US withdrawal destined to return Syrian resources to the Syrian government and people after years of US Coalition occupation and theft.

    Despite the Turkish military build-up and the rapid developments, no one can indicate a zero hour for any military operation. It is obviously under negotiations between the three countries, and while some people rush to criticize, denounce, reject and deny the ongoing events in northern Syria, many forget that it is not about moods or wishes, and no one can predict any scenario or believe any news without first knowing the facts on the ground.

    With a complete international, regional and internal consensus to resolve the files of eastern and western Euphrates within a great settlement in the Middle East, the facts on the ground and the emerging political factors impose inevitable war on those who reject a peaceful solution or try to obstruct it.

    Northern Syria will almost certainly be the epicentre of fierce battles, military and political, that will determine the fate of Syria now and in the future. The final word rests with the Syrian Arab Army and allies and how they navigate the increasingly complex network of groups and alliances to achieve their objectives for Syria.

    ****

    https://substack.com/home/post/p-146102372
    The Idlib terror gangs explained The Warlord conflict in the north of Syria vanessa beeley This article was co-written by myself and Syrian military researcher and analyst Ibrahim Wahdi (now a journalist with Press TV) a couple of years ago . I wanted to republish to demonstrate the complex military situation on the ground in Syria as I will be shortly providing a summary of the situations in all conflict zones still remaining across Syria. Some of the positions may have changed and shifted but these changes are part of the fabric of ongoing negotiations in Syria led by Damascus, Russia, Iran and now Iraq which is trying to broker normalisation between Syria and Turkiye which must include the full withdrawal of Turkish military and proxy terrorist forces from the areas of northern Syria they have annexed and occupied. I believe Syria is now fighting to push back the terrorist forces from all areas of central Syria (ISIS) and areas north-west of Aleppo (Al Qaeda etc) in order to end any potential threat should the war with Israel escalate and expand into the region. I will go into more detail in the next article. ***** Syria and the interconnected Turkish neo-Ottoman agenda in northern Syria. The role of Russia and its collaboration with the Syrian Arab Army is explored in depth and the areas where there is the greatest potential for conflict are revealed. The war in Syria is not over and there are many UK/US-backed terrorist shifting alliances to be taken into account as part of the geopolitical power game that is now entering its most dangerous stage. The tipping points are on multiple axes and it will take a great deal of political and military brinkmanship from Damascus and her allies to restore peace to Syria. WARLORD CONFLICT IN IDLIB Al Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) deployed its most powerful weapons and equipment, opened its depots and engaged the elite ‘Asa’ib’ fighters in the battles for Mount Al-Turkman. The last 28 members of Jund Allah (God’s soldiers), led by “Abu Fatima Al Turki” were expelled from the mountain. These fighters had been responsible for the killing of 9 HTS and the kidnapping of more than 10 gang members but they escaped safely. Muslim Abu Walid Al-Shishani (Murad Margoshivili), and his armed group “Junod Al Sham” have also fled the mountain after violent clashes with HTS. Murad’s brother “Abu Musa Al-Shishani” was captured trying to flee to Turkey and held at a Turkish checkpoint. Junod al-Sham was established in 2012 under the leadership of Muslim Al-Shishani. The majority of fighters were from the Caucasus countries. The group never exceeded 300 members. Almost half of them left with the defection of “Abu Omar al-Shishani” when he pledged allegiance to terrorist group ISIS in 2013. HTS is headed up by Abu Mohammed Al Jolani recently platformed in a Frontline interview in an apparent attempt to rebrand Jolani as viable Syrian opposition not the extremist violent former Al Qaeda leader he really is. Al Jolani’s battles with the Junod Al Sham, Jund Allah and Guardians of Religion gangs must be viewed in the context of the bombings and suicide vehicle operations that have targeted Turkish military points and patrols since the last military operation of the Syrian Arab Army in the area that ended with a ceasefire on March 5, 2021. The latest attack was on October 16th 2021 when a Turkish patrol was targeted killing two soldiers and injuring two more. Such tactics were adopted by unknown organizations such as the “Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Brigades”. Al Jolani accused these splinter groups of conducting these attacks to secure Turkish support. The groups accused Jolani of using the attacks to blame unaffiliated groups in Idlib because he was seeking a monopoly in Idlib with Turkish backing. This is the gangs and counter gangs scenario that has been a hallmark of the US Coalition armed group activities in Syria since 2011. Here comes the Turkistan Islamic Party‘s (TIP) role. TIP consists primarily of al-Qaeda loyalists, originally from Xinjiang Province, northwest China (Uighurs). TIP has made a deal with Taliban leaders in cooperation with Turkish intelligence (MIT) to transport Junod Al-Sham and Jund Allah groups and leaders, alongside other terrorist fighters, to Afghanistan through Turkey according to local sources. The “Azm” operation room in Afrin has denied any existence of these groups despite having received them after they fled Idlib. BUT HOW WOULD THAT AFFECT IDLIB NOW? In order to understand and predict, we must first know who’s left in Idlib, their allegiances and their importance. Jihadist factions reconciled with HTS: “Jaysh al-Badia” and Jaysh al-Malahem, two small jihadist factions, whose first and last allegiance is to al-Qaeda, defected from HTS in late 2017, due to its separation from al-Qaeda, but recently returned under its wing. “Sham al-Islam” faction, which is stationed in Mount al-Turkman, northeast of Lattakia, and includes about 400 fighters, 150 of which are Moroccan leaders and fighters, in addition to 50 Sudanese, while the rest are Syrians. “Ansar al-Tawhid” faction, was formed in March of 2018, in Sarmin town in Idlib, from the remnants of the “Jund al-Aqsa” organization (that launched a war against several jihadist factions, which hastened its elimination). They pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and joined the operations room ” Rouse the Believers” before declaring its independence from everyone in a statement issued on May 03, 2020. “Ajnad al-Caucasus“, led by Abdul Malik al-Shishani, was one of the most prominent organizations that fought the Syrian Arab Army and its allies during the SAA campaign to liberate southern Idlib and northern Hama. Battles were halted by a ceasefire agreement on March 05, 2020, when the group suffered heavy losses, with no more than 250 fighters remaining (according to local sources) forcing it to retreat. These groups do not pose a threat to HTS at the present time due to understandings between the leaders of the groups and HTS command: The “Albanian Brigade” (Xhemati Alban), an independent group led by the Macedonian Abu Qatada al-Albani, was established in 2013, and includes jihadists from the Balkan countries Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania, in addition to some Saudis and Syrians. Its fighters are trained in all types of medium and heavy weapons. They formed a special squad of Albanian snipers. They currently operate in Kabana in the countryside of Latakia. The ideological orientation of the battalion is similar to HTS and Al-Qaeda, and it maintains a good relationship with HTS without engaging in internal hostilities. The Salafist “Salah al-Din al-Kurdi Movement“, which began its activity in Syria in 2012, and is now deployed in Mont al-Akrad in Latakia’s northern countryside. The movement has its own training camp and local sources have informed the author that there is evidence that Qatar and Turkey are the bankrollers of the group. This claim is borne out by the fact that Turkey gave them a training camp in Afrin and they have close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood which is sponsored predominantly by Qatar. Its members are professional soldiers, and most of them hail from eastern Turkey, in addition to Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish fighters. These Kurdish factions believe in the Sunni Muslim roots of the Kurds and aim to expand their influence throughout the Syrian Kurdish communities. “The Kurdish Immigrants of Iran’s Sunnis Movement”, the only Kurdish group that pledged allegiance to HTS. Most of its fighters come from northwestern Iran. Its fighters are fierce and highly trained, and guard important points in the Kabanah area. Additionally they deploy mobile offensive combat groups to guard some points of Mount al-Zawiya, south of Idlib City. The movement is led by “Abu Safiya al-Kurdi”, who participated in a meeting organised by al-Jolani with a number of Kurdish Salafist leaders in an Idlib mosque in mid-June. Islamist factions opposed to HTS: Al-Ghuraba Division (Strangers), which is deployed west of Idlib, and is led by the French-Senegalese jihadist ” Omar Omsen ” (Omar Diaby), who was previously arrested by HTS in August 2020 and his son Bilal was also arrested in late 2021. The French authorities accuse him of recruiting 80% of the French-speaking jihadists who went to Syria or Iraq. “Rouse the Believers Operations Room“, which was established in October 2018, and includes: – “Ansar al-Din Front” led by Abu Salah al-Uzbeki (Siraj al-Din Mukhtarov), from the Kyrgyz Republic. Founder and commander of the “Uzbek” battalion within HTS and the mastermind of the St Petersburg metro terrorist attack in Russia in 2017. He was arrested by HTS after his defection to Ansar al-Din in June 2020 and released in March 2021. – “Ansar al-Islam” faction, Kurdish Salafist group stationed in the vicinity of Jisr al-Shughour, west of Idlib, and in the Dower al-Akrad within the al-Ghab Plain, west of Hama. Around 200 members – majority Iraqi Kurds along with Syrian, Turkish and Iranian Kurdish fighters. It was founded in 2001 in northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan) and fought against a number of Kurdish parties. It is considered the most fanatic among the Kurdish Salafist groups in Idlib, and the most powerful. One of its goals is to establish an Islamic state governed by Sharia Law. – “Guardians of Religion“, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, which was established in 2018 after defection from HTS. “Al-Zawahiri” recently complimented the group after they carried out a terrorist operation in western Damascus, on August 04, 2020 – The armed group announced in a statement that one of its divisions blew up a bus carrying officers of the “Republican Guard” in the capital, as part of the “Battle of Al-Usra” series, in “solidarity with the people of Daraa”. The group was considered to “devote itself to ‘jihad’ work inside the capitol (Damascus)”. Today the group is going through a difficult transition. Its leaders have been repeatedly targeted by US drones, giving the US the opportunity of testing its new tactical weapon such as Hellfire missile, (which indicates the hidden intelligence cooperation between al-Julani and the CIA), Frequent battles with Al Jolani on the ground in Syria have also reduced the number of fighters in the group. The organization included about 2,000 fighters of different nationalities when it was founded, but now that is less than 100. These factions are most likely to be the next target of Al-Jolani’s campaign to eliminate competition in Idlib and northern Syria. ISLAMIST FACTIONS COLLABORATING WITH HTS Perhaps the most prominent of the HTS allies is the aforementioned “Turkistan Islamic Party” or TIP, led by “Abu Suleiman al-Turkistani”. These are the Uighur Al Qaeda loyalists from Xinjiang Province in northwest China. TIP comprises around 8000 fighters who are distinguished by their savagery and combat prowess. TIP follows the HTS policies closely and secured the exit of extremist fighters from Mount Al Turkman during recent battles. It is unlikely that TIP will clash with HTS after violent disputes between the two groups. Al Jolani brought the TIP to heel and claimed that China was providing weapons to Damascus to eliminate them in Idlib and Hama countryside. This claim forced the TIP to reduce their presence in the main cities and to withdraw their families to the ‘refugee’ camps on the Syria-Turkey borders near the town of Harem. The importance of the party lies in its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, which allowed it to establish strong relations with Turkey, Taliban and HTS at the same time. It is directly hostile to China. In September 2002 the US Treasury Department placed TIP on the list of terrorist organisations. Trump later removed the organisation from the list as part of the ramping up of US pressure on China for alleged “human rights” abuses against the Uighur population. There remain a handful of small independent groups of foreign extremist fighters and groups who will face one of two fates. Either to be subjugated or neutralized in order for Jolani to achieve absolute control over Idlib governorate. This is in preparation for a full integration with the factions under the umbrella of the Turkish-backed so-called Syrian National Army. This will complete the rebranding and recycling of HTS – a Turkish-UK-led agenda in northern Syria according to a ‘diplomatic source’ who informed Russian media, TASS in May 2021 that MI6 was involved in the project: The British side suggested that the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham group (outlawed in Russia, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra) should announce plans to abandon subversive activities against Western countries and build close cooperation with them […] Mohammad al-Julani received recommendations to give an interview to an American reporter in order to create a positive image for the alliance that he heads and rehabilitate it in the future. There are plans to engage some of the UK’s allies, primarily the US, in efforts aimed at rebranding the al-Nusra group.” WHAT IS AL JOLANI’S ENDGAME IN IDLIB? Al Jolani is trying to prove to everyone, especially Turkey, that he is the only one capable of controlling Idlib province from a security and military perspective. Idlib can be described as another “Tora-Bora” with embedded terrorist organisations comprising some of the most deadly foreign mercenaries. Jolani is working on a reputation as the supreme warlord dissolving minor groups or reining in the more powerful factions. This is probably one of the main reasons that Jolani has not been assassinated by US/UK allied intelligence agencies, he is a useful asset in the last remaining terrorist-controlled pocket of north-west Syria. Jolani’s agenda directly overlaps that of Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – to persuade Western countries to remove HTS from the UN and US terrorist list by demonstrating Jolani’s willingness to “fight terrorism” and endorsing his claims that HTS has no desire to conduct terrorist operations against the US, UK or EU by limiting their terrorism to Syria and against the Syrian people. Jolani’s rebrand presents him as the only viable political solution in Idlib which serves Turkey’s neo-Ottoman ambitions to have control over strategic Syrian territory. Turkey can appear to be complying with Russian brokered agreements by ostensibly expelling terrorist groups from the de-escalation zones and securing the safety of the M4 (Aleppo to Latakia road). Put simply, any group not complying with Jolani’s authority must be eradicated, prior to the great merger between the “Salvation Government” and the Turkish backed “National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces“. THE LEVANT FRONT Here we cannot ignore the “Levant Front” (LF), the largest faction of the “National Army” based in the countryside of Aleppo. The LF has formed a rival alliance to HTS in north-west Syria. It seeks to embrace the majority of political ‘opposition’ institutions in the areas of Aleppo countryside under its control combined with coordination with local armed groups to develop a shadow state in Idlib. LF influence has expanded significantly since early 2021. The LF headquarters near the Bab Al Salama crossing has become a destination for the leaders of the National Coalition. LF recently hosted the commander of the so-called “Syrian Islamic Council“, Sheikh Osama Abdel Karim al-Rifai. The battle for power in Idlib has resulted in a new factional map. HTS dismantling and restructuring of the “Ahrar al-Sham” (AS) movement, -which once represented an anti-HTS project- has pushed many AS members to defect and join the ranks of the LF seeking ideological synergy. Since early 2021 LF has received more than 900 AS terrorist fighters led by Alaa Faham who will form a brigade under the LF umbrella to confront HTS in the Aleppo countryside. In July 2021, the LF formed a new military alliance separate to the National Army and the Interim Government or “Azm Operations Room”. The majority of factions operating in Aleppo countryside have joined the new coalition and present a considerable threat to HTS supremacy in Idlib. Two months after the formation of the “Syrian Front for Liberation” (SFI) led by Al-Mu’tasim Abbas, the “Suqur Al Shamal Brigade” and the “20th Division” have defected and joined Azm increasing numbers to an estimated forty thousand comprising more than 15 factions deployed throughout northern Syria. This leaves SFL with only 3 factions and ten thousand fighters. The supposed Islamist project of the LF, its military alliance leadership and its expansionist policies in northwestern Syria do not automatically mean that it is preparing for a new round of conflict with HTS. On the contrary, we may witness a dramatic increase in coordination between the two powerful factions in various fields. De facto the LF alliance may facilitate the settlement of issues with Jolani which will pave the way for broader collaboration in the future. Russia is opposed to any political solution in the region that includes HTS. Russian and Turkish delegations have met several times in the border areas after the Erdogan-Putin summit in September 2021. Russia has requested a Turkish withdrawal from the eastern countryside of Idlib between the cities of Idlib and Saraqeb. This leaves Turkish forces in Idlib two options. First to repel any ground attack by the Syrian Arab Army which would result in serious losses for Turkish military, second to wait for the impending Syrian/Russian military campaign to liberate Idlib from terrorist occupation. The second option could result in Turkish bases being besieged as happened in 2019 and 2020. Local sources indicate that the Turkish military divisions in Idlib, especially south of the M4, have reinforced their bases and closed some main roads with engineering barriers. The Syrian leadership intends to regain control over southern and western Idlib to secure the M4 and perhaps advance towards Idlib city. There is potential for similar deals to be implemented as were recently successful in Daraa, south of Damascus city. The collaboration between LF and HTS is not a recent phenomenon. They were previously limited to the terrorist economy – fuel trade, crossing control, checkpoints but have developed considerably since the end of 2020. Certain opposition media outlets have reported that the two parties are coordinating in the security and military sectors. The Levant Front received officials and high ranking leaders from HTS in Azaz. A joint camp was recently established between Jolani’s forces and Sheikh Juma’a LF forces in the village of “Maabatli” as a trial military collaborative project. TURKISH MILITARY OPERATIONS AND THE ERDOGAN CONUNDRUM Turkey has weaponised the Muslim Brotherhood to expand military intervention in Syria, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Afghanistan and Libya. Turkey is suffering the repercussions of these neo-Ottoman ambitions with internal issues that include an economic crisis, refugee influx and a declining Turkish Lira. This has severely affected Erdogan’s popularity and combined with his deteriorating health, Turkish opposition parties are seeing an opportunity to win the upcoming elections in 2023 based on the resolution of the refugee issue as a primary concern for the majority of Turkish people. A Turkish journalist specializing in American affairs, Bahar Feyzan, had leaked information about Biden and Erdogan meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 conference in Rome recently, including the advice of US President Joe Biden to Erdogan to withdraw from running for the upcoming elections, saying, “Take your health condition as an excuse to leave politics.” Recent analysis by Steven A. Cook for Foreign Policy, covered the leak of media reports that claim Erdogan’s intention is to transfer authority to Defense Minister Hulusi Akar in case of any deterioration in his health, with a cabinet reshuffle and the appointment of Akar as First Vice President. Erdogan is fearful, under pressure and sick, and he appears to have no other options but to export his problems abroad in order to survive. The Kurdish problem in particular has always been an existential threat to Turkish national security, which makes it the easiest card for Erdogan to play including securing internal authorisation to send military forces to Syria and Iraq for an additional two years. With the increase in operations targeting Turkish soldiers in several areas, and the US-backed Kurdish Contra (SDF) non-compliance with the Turkish-Russian agreement in Sochi 2019, Erdogan is promoting a military campaign in north-east Syria to be conducted on four axes with an army of 35,000 comprising extremist mercenaries and Turkish armed forces. Erdogan summoned leaders of the interventionist operations – “Euphrates Shield”, “Peace Spring” and “Olive Branch” including the National Army to a meeting in Ankara to determine frontlines and strategy of the latest attempt to quell SDF influence in northern Syria. In addition to “Menagh” air base near Azaz, Turkey considers Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) among its main priorities, to cut SDF’s strategic support lines between Qamishli-Manbij-Kobani. This would ensure a direct link between Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad with the Euphrates Shield areas. The National Army has sent several military convoys through Turkey to Darbasiyah near the Iraqi-Syrian border, in preparation for a military operation. NA leaders have announced the raising of combat readiness, and according to a military source in the National Army, the Turkish officers have informed them that Manbij will be a distraction axis, and the troops will advance towards Tal Tamr, Tal Rifaat, Ain Issa and Ayn Al-Arab, while Turkish reconnaissance planes dropped leaflets warning civilians to stay away from SDF military sites, and threatened a military invasion of the region. Practically, it is unlikely for Erdogan to risk a military adventure in northern Syria without international endorsement, especially in Tal Rifaat, where it might lead to a direct confrontation with Russia. Tal Rifaat is not a major stronghold for SDF, it is a strategic geographical target. It is also very close to Aleppo city which explains the Russian presence and recent large reinforcements sent by the Syrian Arab Army that include advanced T-90 tanks and BMP-2 armoured vehicles heading towards Malikiyah and Shawargha villages in northern Aleppo countryside. Both villages have experienced a violent exchange of shelling in the last few days. The most convenient scenario, for Turkey, if a military confrontation is unavoidable is for Tal Rifaat to be a distraction axis to keep the SDF militia pinned down there while the main operation would target between Tal Tamr – Ayn Issa and Manbij-Ayn Al-Arab because they are the major Kurdish strongholds. However Erdogan may refrain from military action altogether preferring to flex his muscles publicly by deploying tanks and forces in the area to trigger negotiations to share “security” in north-east Syria. Military action can be impeded by the imposition of a No Fly Zone over any area being considered for confrontation. Without Russian and US consent, Erdogan would be foolhardy to precipitate possible conflict with both. Reuters quoted a senior Turkish security official saying: The operation will start when all preparations are completed,” adding, “We are in coordination with Russia on the matter. The issue was addressed with the United States already,”. How true this claim is remains to be seen. Below is a video of a recent Turkish military convoy heading towards Tal Abyad: RUSSIA’S POSITION AND OBJECTIVES Russian Turkish relations are tense in Syria. Russia is unhappy with Turkish intervention in countries where Russia has geopolitical interests – Libya, Syria, Armenia, Ukraine. Ukraine used Turkish-manufactured UAVs against positions of eastern Ukraine forces affiliated with Russia. Russia has since sent a clear message by carrying out joint air exercises with the Syrian Arab Army in areas supposed to be Turkish targets for military invasion such as the vicinity of Tal Tamr, Tal Abyad and Ain Issa where the Russian flag has been raised. This is combined with auxiliary forces redeployment between the 93rd Brigade area and the Russian military base located in Tal Al-Samn. A big SAA reinforcement was sent to Manbij in preparation for another round of military exercises. This will complicate the situation for Erdogan who specifically wants Ain Issa due to its location on the M4 that links Latakia with Iraq through Aleppo and Hasaka in the north-east. Russia has also deployed the S400 air defense system at Qamishli Airport, along with twelve Su-34 bombers and five Su-35s, while the Syrian forces will deploy MiG-29, in addition to twelve Mi-8 helicopters and five Ka-52 Alligator at the Mitras military airfield, (30 km) south of Ayn al-Arab or as the US/Israeli-backed Kurdish separatists call it – “Kobani”. Despite the Turkish calls on Russia to cleanse Ayn al-Arab of Kurdish separatist militias, Russia does not favor the entry of the “National Army” into Ayn ​​al-Arab. It is keen to ensure the security of its military base in “Serrin”. Perhaps the clearest indication of repercussions for Erdogan-driven recklessness in northern Syria was the recent Syrian targeting of Sarmada which houses a communications headquarters for HTS. This was followed by airstrikes and artillery bombardment of Turkish-backed 23rd Division forces for several consecutive days and the targeting of camps and shelters of the Turkestan militias on the border strip with Turkey. We cannot separate the northeast from the northwest, as Russia may agree on a limited Turkish operation in exchange for parts of Mount al-Zawiya and the city of Jisr Al-Shughour, which is the most important part of the Turkish-Russian negotiation, especially if the Syrian-Kurdish negotiations fail. If liberated, the strategic areas of Mount Al-Zawiya and Jisr Al-Shughour will lead to the defeat of terrorism in a significant area of Idlib countryside. Regaining these areas is one of the most important military objectives of the Syrian Arab Army in the impending battles to secure the M4. The Russian Reconciliation Centre has been repeatedly announcing terrorist violations of the ceasefire agreement and the potential for the staging of a “chemical weapon attack” to provoke international outrage against the Syrian government. According to civilian sources: “More than 200 Turkish vehicles loaded with advanced weapons, ammunition and logistical materials entered Bab Al-Hawa and Khirbet al-Jawz crossings in two batches and deployed in the western countryside of Idlib and Mount al-Zawiya in order to strengthen its occupation points and provide direct support to terrorist organizations.” Watch – video of Turkish military vehicles entering Syria via the so-called ‘humanitarian’ crossing: The Turkish Humanitarian Relief Agency “IHH” announced the establishment of 16,239 briquette houses in Idlib Governorate. This is an indication of preparation for further displacement of civilians during an intensified military campaign. KURDISH-SYRIAN RAPPROCHEMENT With all the Turkish mobilization and media promotion of a huge Turkish military operation – waiting on international approval – the SDF has moved its most prominent military leaders from its headquarters adjacent to the Turkish border into the cities to protect them from the potential Turkish UAV attacks. The past few days have witnessed a remarkable rapprochement between the Democratic Union Party (the SDF backbone) Damascus and Russia. The SDF removed the “Al-Quwatli”, “Al-Shabab City” and “The Industrial School” checkpoints in Qamishli city. This lifts the longstanding siege on the security square of the Syrian forces in the city, which was imposed by the SDF after bloody confrontations erupted between the Kurdish units and the Syrian National Defense Forces back in April. The increasing Russian influence in the Syrian east and the American retreat, which is still in its early stages, means placing the fate of the SDF in the hands of Moscow not Washington. Despite the strenuous Russian efforts to reach a political solution with the Kurds, the US military presence is still a major obstacle. It is difficult to trust the Kurds who are divided among themselves and are far from autonomous having accepted US support to lay claim to Syrian territory. Damascus prioritises Syrian territorial integrity and a central governance structure. This would force the Kurdish Contras to hand the oil fields back to Damscus and to accept a similar agreement to Daraa. This would include the integration of Kurdish military into a Syrian military division similar to the Eighth Brigade of the Fifth Corps. The Kurdish factions are divided between those who lean towards the United States and a separate Kurdish state, while others seek to reach an agreement that guarantees some Kurdish rights, such as the language. The latter is in communication with Damascus to agree on a draft agreement between the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Democratic Union Party and the Syrian State. This would include the establishment of a joint military operations room for the Syrian Arab Army, SDF, Russian forces and other allies to repel any possible Turkish aggression, based on a statement from the Head of the National Initiative for Syrian Kurds, Omar Ossi to Al-Watan newspaper. According to Kurdish leaks a joint delegation of the Syrian Democratic Council and the Autonomous Administration headed by Ilham Ahmed visited Moscow, on Wednesday, September 15, 2021. Their meeting with the Special Envoy of the Russian President to the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, put forward a proposal that recognised the legitimacy of the Syrian government and President Bashar al-Assad, would agree to raise the Syrian flag in the areas of the so-called Kurdish controlled Autonomous Administration, share the region’s oil imports – 75% for the central government and 25% for the Autonomous Administration – among other terms. Bogdanov informed the delegation that the only way to protect them is by cooperating with the Syrian Arab Army and the Syrian state directly to prevent a repeat Afrin scenario, when Kurds were ethnically cleansed by Turkish forces after the Kurds refused collaboration with the Syrian Arab Army in early 2018. In an interview with RT, the prominent leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Aldar Khalil confirmed their readiness for dialogue with the Syrian state directly in Damascus, without going to Geneva. He added that: The resources and wealth in this region are not only ours. We do not have any intentions to monopolize them, but rather consider them a national treasure for all Syrians Khalil’s comments came days after the statements of Kurdistan Workers’ Party leader, Jamil Bayik, in an interview with Al-Nahar Al-Arabi newspaper where he said: Our relationship with Hafez al-Assad and his family was close and warm. We cannot be anti-Syria or anti-Assad. We have previously established our relations on the basis of the general interest of the Kurds and the Kurdish-Arab brotherhood. Now we want to be a party to such a relationship. These statements coincide with reports of an agreement between the Russian Reconciliation Center and SDF that provides for the handover of areas in the countryside of Deir ez-Zor to the Syrian Arab Army (Al-Shuhail, Al-Busira, Dhiban, Al-Hawaij, Al-Shafa, Al-Susa and Al-Baghouz). On Saturday 13th November the US pushed back against the Damascus-led negotiations with Washington’s Kurdish proxies. The official website of the SDF announced the arrival of US State Department officials and Ethan Goldrich – Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs – in north-east Syria. The US Officials met with the Commander in Chief of the SDF, Mazoum Abdi to discuss ‘humanitarian and security’ issues. On the same day the US Embassy in Syria Twitter account announced that it would stay in Syria to ensure the “ISIS threat is eliminated” which can be interpreted as a reassurance for the Kurdish separatists as rumours abound of a US withdrawal which would encourage Kurdish factions to negotiate with Damascus. US RELUCTANCE TO SUPPORT TURKISH MILITARY INVASION OF SYRIA It wouldn’t be easy for Turkey to get US consent for a military operation in light of the US-Turkish differences that were clearly manifested when the US Department of Defence (DoD) recently expelled Turkey from the F-35 project. Turkey had threatened to buy SU-35s from Russia. The Biden administration has extended sanctions imposed on Turkey due to its military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria in 2019 for another year. Brett McGurk, US Envoy for the coalition ‘fighting ISIS’, resigned from Trump’s administration in protest against Operation Peace Spring and would now be one of the fiercest opponents of any new Turkish military campaign in Syria. The US will not necessarily step in to protect the Kurdish proxies but Washington will oppose any Turkish threat to US supremacy and economic interests in the region. The US military convoy movement in and out of Syria have increased in the past two months. The majority of these convoys come in empty and go back loaded with stolen oil. They are also involved in kidnapping civilians through airdrop operations in the countryside of Deir Ezzor and Al-Hasakah in the north-east. The “International Coalition” has recently transferred another batch of ISIS prisoners of foreign nationalities from the Industrial School prison in the Ghweran neighborhood in Al-Hasakah city to its base in Al-Shaddadi city south of Al-Hasakah. All these transfer and airdrop operations raise questions. Where are these prisoners going next? Are all these airdrops just to kidnap people or to extract valuable assets? CONCLUSIONS Between the Biden-Erdogan meeting, the Russian-Syrian military exercises and the SAA reinforcements in northern Syria, there are clear messages to be read: It is not just about Biden or European rejection of Erdogan. The transnational corporatocracy is tired of Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism. His expansionist ambitions and blatant interference in multiple foreign state affairs, his weaponization of the refugee crisis and subsequent blackmailing of Europe, are all factors that make him a universal threat. It is very clear that Erdogan wants full or partial control of the M4. He knows that once he loses this leverage he will have no cards in his hand for negotiation. If Erdogan chooses to occupy alternative areas of Syrian territory he may find it will bring more problems than solutions. North of the M4 is agricultural, has no resources to plunder but is occupied by disparate and unruly terrorist groups. Once the M4 is fully liberated by the SAA, the only remaining prize to be claimed by Erdogan is Al Jolani himself who believes the Taliban model is achievable in Idlib and who is clearly an asset to US Coalition intelligence agencies as the new “Bin Laden”. Perhaps there is even potential of Al Jolani being squeezed out of Idlib and turning his attention to southern Turkey for his ideologically supremacist project? The regions of northern Syria are within Russia’s political calculations and any possible agreement with Washington will not authorize Turkey to launch attacks without a Russian green light which is very unlikely. Therefore any military operation will be limited and only Turkish-backed proxies will be used to conduct the unlawful military operations of Turkey’s criminal leadership. Russia has stressed to Turkey the need for military, security and political coordination in the ongoing difficult negotiations between the two sides. Washington has withdrawn from supporting the SDF except in the pseudo fight against ISIS in the north. Russia presents itself as an alternative ally to the SDF capable of mediating between them and Turkey to prevent military conflict. Russia also perceives itself as the international guarantor of security and stability in the region in preparation for a US withdrawal destined to return Syrian resources to the Syrian government and people after years of US Coalition occupation and theft. Despite the Turkish military build-up and the rapid developments, no one can indicate a zero hour for any military operation. It is obviously under negotiations between the three countries, and while some people rush to criticize, denounce, reject and deny the ongoing events in northern Syria, many forget that it is not about moods or wishes, and no one can predict any scenario or believe any news without first knowing the facts on the ground. With a complete international, regional and internal consensus to resolve the files of eastern and western Euphrates within a great settlement in the Middle East, the facts on the ground and the emerging political factors impose inevitable war on those who reject a peaceful solution or try to obstruct it. Northern Syria will almost certainly be the epicentre of fierce battles, military and political, that will determine the fate of Syria now and in the future. The final word rests with the Syrian Arab Army and allies and how they navigate the increasingly complex network of groups and alliances to achieve their objectives for Syria. **** https://substack.com/home/post/p-146102372
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  • The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Guide
    By David Bell, Thi Thuy Van Dinh March 22, 2024 Government, Society 30 minute read
    The World Health Organization (WHO) and its 194 Member States have been engaged for over two years in the development of two ‘instruments’ or agreements with the intent of radically changing the way pandemics and other health emergencies are managed.

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

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

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

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

    Historical Perspective

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

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

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

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

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

    Why May 2024?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Preamble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Chapter I. Introduction

    Article 1. Use of terms

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Article 2. Objective

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

    Article 3. Principles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Article 4. Pandemic prevention and surveillance

    2. The Parties shall undertake to cooperate:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Article 6. Preparedness, health system resilience and recovery

    2. Each Party commits…[to] :

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

    (b) developing, strengthening and maintaining health infrastructure

    (c) developing post-pandemic health system recovery strategies

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

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

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

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

    Article 7. Health and care workforce

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

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

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

    Article 8. Preparedness monitoring and functional reviews

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

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

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

    Article 9. Research and development

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

    Article 10. Sustainable and geographically diversified production

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

    Article 11. Transfer of technology and know-how

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

    Article 12. Access and benefit sharing

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

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

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

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

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

    The article then becomes yet more concerning:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Article 13. Supply chain and logistics

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

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

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

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

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

    Article 14. Regulatory systems strengthening

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

    Article 15. Liability and compensation management

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Article 16. International collaboration and cooperation

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

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

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

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

    Article 18. Communication and public awareness

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

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

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

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

    Article 19. Implementation and support

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

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

    Article 20. Sustainable financing

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Chapter III. Institutional and final provisions

    Article 21. Conference of the Parties

    1. A Conference of the Parties is hereby established.

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

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

    Articles 22 – 37

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

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

    The WHO will provide the secretariat.

    Under Article 24 is noted:

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Further reading:

    WHO Pandemic Agreement Intergovernmental Negotiating Board website:

    https://inb.who.int/

    International Health Regulations Working Group website:

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

    On background to the WHO texts:

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

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

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

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

    Authors

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

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

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

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

    Rebekah Barnett
    Regulators and fact checkers claim that plasmid DNA contamination in the mRNA Covid vaccines can’t change your genomic DNA, but new evidence suggests that it actually can.

    The fact checkers assert that DNA contamination poses no risk to your genomic DNA because your body will naturally destroy any contaminant DNA before it even gets into the cells.

    Even if the contaminant DNA could get into cells, there’s no way it can enter the cell nucleus, where genomic integration events occur, they say.

    And even if the contaminant DNA could enter the nucleus, which it can’t, it still couldn’t genomically integrate unless specific enzymes are present, they say.

    However, results from independent lab testing conducted on ovarian cancer cell lines show that contaminant DNA from Pfizer’s Covid vaccine not only crossed into the cells, but that it survived multiple cell divisions. This is suggestive that the contaminant DNA is able to transfect (enter) the cell nucleus, and that it integrated with the human cell DNA.

    TLDR

    1. Scientists claim that Pfizer vaccine contaminant DNA has been detected in ovarian cancer cell line DNA, but they do not yet know if it’s chromosomal (heritable) or extra-chromosomal DNA (not heritable)

    2. This is an in vitro (in a lab dish) finding, and needs to be replicated in vivo (in a human patient)

    3. As the finding is specific to cancer cell lines, it is not generalisable, but scientists say it may give an indication of what cancer patients in remission could experience after mRNA Covid vaccination

    4. This finding calls into question fact checker claims that mRNA Covid vaccine DNA contamination can't enter cells, can't enter the nucleus, and cannot integrate with human DNA.
    Last year, Boston-based genomics scientist Kevin McKernan made the shocking discovery that the mRNA Covid vaccines are contaminated with excessive levels of plasmid DNA, an artefact of the vaccine production process.

    McKernan’s findings were soon confirmed by multiple independent labs around the world for both the Pfizer and Moderna mono- and bi-valent vaccines, including lots approved for children, with one Canadian study led by Dr David Speicher concluding that there are “billions to hundreds of billions of DNA molecules per dose.”

    Scientists including McKernan, University of South Carolina cancer genomics scientist Dr Phillip Buckhaults, and Dr Wafik El-Diery, head of the Cancer Centre at Brown University, expressed concerns that fragments of plasmid DNA contamination could cause adverse events, autoimmune problems and cancers in some patients.

    But perhaps most significantly, there is also a theoretical risk of the contaminant DNA integrating with patients’ chromosomal DNA and modifying the human genome. This is of particular concern with the Pfizer vaccine, which contains an SV40 enhancer sequence, used in gene therapies “to drive DNA into the nucleus,” explains McKernan.

    While regulators have taken a ‘wait and see’ approach, independent scientists, including McKernan, have been more proactive, initiating experiments testing for evidence of genomic integration.

    Now, the first results are in.

    In an experiment conducted together with German molecular biologist Dr Ulrike Kämmerer, McKernan has detected vaccine contaminant DNA in ovarian cancer cell lines treated with Pfizer’s Covid vaccine.

    The scientists found a chimeric combination of human ovarian cell line DNA and spike sequence DNA derived from the contaminating plasmid at at least one, and possibly two sites.

    “If anything, this work has put to bed the question regarding if this contaminant DNA gets into the cell, and the chimeric human and contaminant spike DNA sequences imply it has entered the nucleus,” McKernan says.

    “The PCR and sequencing data both demonstrate the vaccine is getting into the cell and surviving cell passaging. It is likely bioactive and being partially replicated.”

    To reach this finding, Dr Kämmerer first treated ovarian cancer cell lines with mRNA Covid vaccines, using cells treated with AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines as controls.

    The cells were then ‘passaged’, meaning they were left to divide and replicate numerous times. This has the effect of “rinsing away residual vaccine,” explains McKernan.

    Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was then performed, a staining process that Dr Kämmerer used to detect levels of spike protein expression produced by the vaccine modified-RNA.

    This was to confirm that the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) carrying mod-RNA and plasmid DNA contamination “did their job and delivered the payload,” says McKernan. Measuring how many cells expressed spike protein also allowed the scientists to determine how much of the vaccine to treat the cells with.


    Immunohistochemistry performed with Pfizer top left, AstraZeneca top right as a control. Source: Kevin McKernan’s Substack
    Cell lines were then sent in cold storage to McKernan’s Boston lab, where his team used qPCR to screen which samples to sequence the cell line DNA.

    “What we found is, [contaminant] DNA that is getting transfected into ovarian cancer cell lines is replicating in the cells,” says McKernan, noting that the ratio of vaccine contaminant DNA to human cell DNA was “higher than we expected.”

    Chimeric sequences of human and vaccine contaminant DNA were detected at two sites: chromosomes 9 and 12, with the evidence for the latter being the strongest. “But we don't know if it's extra-chromosomal or whether it's chromosomal because of the Illumina (short read) method we used to sequence,” explains McKernan.


    Source: Kevin McKernan’s Substack
    Extra-chromosomal DNA is not part of the chromosome, and is therefore less likely to replicate and to be heritable. Chromosomal DNA, on the other hand, is heritable and more likely to be replicated. A third category, mitochondrial DNA, is heritable, but only from the maternal line.

    You can read a detailed account of methods and findings via McKernan’s Substack article, ‘Vaccine targeted qPCR of Cancer Cell Lines treated with BNT162b2.’

    ‘Major advance,’ but clinical implications are limited

    McKernan emphasises that these findings cannot be generalised, stating that “it is too early to make comments on the clinical implications.”

    “The study is performed in ovarian cancer cell lines. It is not performed in patient cells, but this is a proxy for what might happen in an ovarian cancer patient who's in remission,” says McKernan, especially as there is evidence that the LNPs go to the ovaries.

    The risk for patients in this scenario is that integration events with contaminant DNA might cause aberrant cell growth, which poses a risk to immune suppression of new cancer cells.

    McKernan notes that his experiment only picked up on putative integration events that persisted after multiple cell replications. That is to say, the scientists were not able to detect integration events that may have occurred, but then died off immediately.

    At the moment, no one knows how many integration events might be occurring, or what effect that would have on patients. “The unknowns are just exponential,” says McKernan.

    The cancer cell line experiment can be said to be “a microcosm of genome integration of contaminated DNA,” said Japanese molecular oncology scientist Hiroshi Arakawa, in his own analysis of McKernan and Dr Kämmerer’s experiment, published to his popular science blog on which he shares critical views on Covid vaccine safety.

    Akira calls the two possible integrations observed in Dr Kämmerer’s experiment a “major advance” laying the ground for further experimentation. “What happens in cultured cells can also occur in normal cells, and a wide variety of abnormalities can occur depending on the site of genome integration,” such as “the induction of cancer or malignant transformation,” he wrote (translated from Japanese to English).

    LNPs deliver contaminant DNA straight to the cells

    A key assumption underlying claims that mRNA Covid vaccine contamination cannot enter the cell nucleus, and cannot genomically integrate with host DNA, is that the contamination will never make it into dividing cells, which would be required for integration to occur.

    This is based on the assumption that the LNPs containing both mod-RNA and contaminant DNA mostly stay in the muscle at the injection site. As muscle cells do not divide, there’s no problem, the logic goes.

    This is misleading, however, as Pfizer’s own biodistribution data shows that the LNPs enter the blood and every major organ system, including the ovaries, as mentioned above. While it is true that muscle cells don’t divide, LNPs distributed around the body can transfect any number of dividing cells in various organ systems.


    Table 4-2. shows biodistribution of LNPs, Pfizer Nonclinical Evaluation Report, 2021
    From there, it’s only a matter of time before the LNP contents get into the cell nucleus, says McKernan. “In any dividing cell, the nucleus dissolves. So, when people say the DNA can get into the cytoplasm [inside the cell membrane] but won't get into the nucleus, well, in any dividing cell, it will end up getting into the nucleus.”

    It is possible that the dissolution of the cell nucleus during division is the mechanism underlying McKernan and Dr Kämmerer’s observed passaging of contaminant DNA, but further research will be required to confirm or disprove this hypothesis.

    Because of the effectiveness of LNPs in delivering their contents into cells, McKernan, Dr Buckhaults and Dr Speicher have questioned the suitability of the current regulatory limits on contaminant DNA in vaccines, which were set prior to the introduction of LNP technology in vaccines.

    Regulators unconcerned

    I sent McKernan’s Substack article documenting the new DNA integration findings to Australia’s drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, for comment.

    The TGA did not address the new findings, but a spokesperson from the TGA responded,

    “The Department of Health and Aged Care has every confidence in the safety, quality and efficacy of the various approved COVID-19 vaccines for use in Australia. The TGA’s assessment of all vaccines is based upon high quality evidence, including studies and reviews published in peer-reviewed scientific and clinical journals.”

    However, when asked previously to provide evidence for its position that Covid vaccines pose no risk of DNA integration, the TGA provided no peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support its claims.

    Instead, the TGA provided links to a Mayo Clinic fact page with no scientific citations, an article by the discredited RMIT FactLab, and a scientific commentary article suggesting that in vitro findings cannot be generalised.

    Furthermore, TGA has not been forthcoming with the evidence it does hold. When asked to release Covid vaccine batch testing results under Freedom of Information, the regulator provided all 74 pages - fully redacted.

    In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied that contaminant DNA in the mRNA vaccines can enter the nucleus or pose any threat to patients’ genomic DNA, in a response to concerns raised by Florida Surgeon General, Dr Joseph A. Ladapo in December of last year.

    Additionally, the FDA misleadingly refuted the presence of SV40 proteins in the vaccines, when in fact Dr Ladapo raised concerns over the presence of an SV40 enchancer sequence in the Pfizer vaccine, as confirmed by Health Canada and numerous independent laboratories.

    Such ham-fisted mischaracterisation of a gene therapy sequence by the FDA is suggestive of either gross incompetence, or a disinformation play. Both are concerning.

    Science journalist Maryanne Demasi reported, in November last year, that the FDA shut down her enquiries into the DNA contamination matter, refusing to confirm if it found levels of DNA that exceeded acceptable levels, or if it was investigating further.

    The presence of contamination has been officially acknowledged by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Health Canada, with the latter also acknowledging the presence of the SV40 enhancer sequence, though both regulators deny that the amounts exceed regulatory limits, or that the DNA contamination poses any risk.

    ‘No excuse’ for ignoring ‘screaming hot signal’

    Instead of denying excessive DNA levels and deferring to manufacturers’ reported test results, regulators should run their own qPCR testing on batch lots, says McKernan.

    Then, “they would see what everyone else is seeing, which is that sometimes the CT scores come out as low as 13… that’s a screaming hot signal.”

    “As a reference, the Covid test would call people positive at 33-35,” McKernan explains. “That’s a million-fold difference (20 CTs). A million-fold less Covid RNA and you're positive and quarantined. But you can inject a million-fold more past your mucosa?”

    There’s “no excuse” for regulators to not sequence every vaccine lot, says McKernan, when the costs for doing so have dropped dramatically in recent years.

    “DNA sequencing costs have dropped 100,000 fold in the last decade. They have relaxed the DNA contamination limits 1000-fold in this time frame. It likely only costs $1,000 in reagents for millions-to-billions of dollars worth of product.”


    Source: National Human Genome Research Institute
    DNA sequencing by regulatory agencies is important not just for measuring quantities, says McKernan, but also for determining the type of DNA contamination.

    “Not all DNA is created equal. Some is designed to replicate - when it gets into a cell, it can make more of itself. It's a massive loophole in the regulations that they don't do sequencing. But it's never been cheaper. You can precisely know the nature of the DNA in every single vial.”

    Scientists pick up regulators’ slack

    In the absence of any regulatory appetite for investigating the risks of DNA contamination in the mRNA Covid shots, and particularly the risk of genomic integration, independent scientists have taken the baton.

    “We are writing up our findings and will publish a preprint soon,” says McKernan, who is planning further testing in partnership with Dr Kämmerer. “We’re doing more experiments first. We need to sequence deeper to find out if the integration events are in chromosomal or extra-chromosomal DNA.”

    Dr Buckhaults is also running his own experiment, calling for de-identified samples of tumours or fresh blood from pathology and hematology labs. These samples will be tested for the presence of plasmid DNA contamination, with whole genome sequencing to then be carried out on positive samples to identify genomic integration sites.

    In an email outlining his experiment, Dr Buckhaults told me that he intends to report his findings in a peer-reviewed publication, predicting that the work could take “a few months to a year,” depending on how fast samples come in.

    “I am hopeful to prove my concerns are unwarranted by accumulating a lot of negative data, and of course negative data takes the most time to collect,” he said.

    McKernan says he is aware of other labs running tests for contaminant plasmid DNA integration, but cannot disclose the details at present.

    Decentralisation the future of science?

    McKernan says he has experienced some pushback for publishing his methods and findings in real time via Substack, X, and preprints. But, he believes that making his data available as quickly as possible is a way for the field of science to regain public trust.

    “Many will criticize our disclosure of preliminary findings but we feel this is an insult to the intelligence of the average person,” says McKernan.

    “It's a form of scientific elitism that implies people can't handle the truth and will be scared like sheep if given a glimpse of how the true scientific process is performed. Scientists are 90% of the time wrong but only publish the times when they are right. There is no journal of negative results.“

    In light of the prospect that most published research findings are false (as famously asserted in a 2005 article by Professor John Ioannidis), McKernan questions the value of peer-review, instead favouring replication or refutation in the real world.


    Source: X
    For this reason, McKernan says he has not prioritised peer-reviewed publication for his DNA contamination findings, but is rather focusing on conducting more experiments and releasing the data as he goes - even when it’s incomplete, or requires further experimentation.

    “We were not expecting to find any integration events at this depth of coverage, but they are evident to anyone who downloads our public reads. To not speak to obvious evidence in such data would be irresponsible even when such evidence doesn't 100% answer a given question,” says McKernan.

    Dr Buckhaults takes a somewhat different view. After sharing his initial plasmid DNA contamination findings in a South Carolina Senate hearing in September last year, the video recording broke the internet.

    Believing the hearing to have been private, Dr Buckhaults was alarmed that the widespread distribution of his testimony may have caused “unintended, harmful side effects.” He requested that YouTube take down his testimony video, which is now defunct.


    Source: X
    In our correspondence, Dr Buckhaults stressed that while more research is warranted, he is of the opinion that the public “should not overreact to the news of the plasmid DNA contamination. It's serious enough that scientists need to hustle and figure out if it's causing any health problems now or down the road, but it's not cause for the general public to be alarmed.”

    But, “The reality is that`transfection experiments with contaminated DNA' have been carried out on vast numbers of people around the world in the name of vaccination,” writes Arakawa.

    Perhaps the experiment participants will be the ones to decide if they should be alarmed, or not.

    The FDA was contacted for comment about Dr Kämmerer and McKernan’s new findings, but they did not respond by publication deadline. This article will be updated if comment is received.

    View Kevin McKernan’s write up of his DNA integration experiment (in partnership with Dr Kämmerer) here. Scroll down for links to sequencing data files.

    Pathology and hematology labs wishing to send samples to Dr Buckhaults are invited to contact him at the University of South Carolina.

    Update 23 March 2024: This article was edited to add mention of the Dr David Speicher et al. finding of “billions to hundreds of billions of DNA molecules per dose” of the mRNA vaccines, and the scientists’ concerns that regulatory limits on DNA contamination have not taken LNP transfection into account.


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    1
    From an article I wrote for Umbrella News on this topic last year:

    The TGA maintains that allegations put forward in the case about the potential for mRNA vaccines to alter the recipient’s DNA are unfounded. A spokesperson for the TGA told Umbrella News,

    “COVID-19 vaccines do not alter a person’s DNA. The mRNA in the vaccines does not enter the nucleus of cells and is not integrated into the human genome. Thus, the mRNA does not cause genetic damage or affect the offspring of vaccinated individuals.”

    “The TGA continues to monitor the scientific literature associated with the SARS – CoV-2 virus and the various COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in Australia.”

    With reference to the specific studies cited in the case materials, the TGA pointed Umbrella News to an RMIT ABC Fact Check post from 2022 purporting to ‘debunk’ claims that mRNA jabs are genotoxic. This is the same site that ‘debunked’ claims that COVID vaccines can cause menstrual disruption, before peer-reviewed scientific studies proved that they can and do (the post has not been corrected).

    As evidence that it is “well established” that vaccine mRNA and protein do not enter the nucleus, the TGA provided a link to a Mayo Clinic fact page which provides no studies or scientific evidence in support of its claims.

    The TGA did provide one commentary article published in a scientific journal which pointed out that the in vitro liver cell line study cannot be extrapolated to generalise about in vivo findings (in a human, not a dish) without further research being undertaken.

    Additionally, RMIT FactLab was suspended by Facebook in August 2023 after an uproar over its blatantly biased and factually dubious ‘fact checking’ of media articles relating to the Voice referendum campaign. It also transpired that RMIT FactLab had falsely represented its accreditation with the International Fact-Checking Network as current, when it had in fact lapsed.


    https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au/p/dna-contamination-in-covid-vaccines
    DNA contamination in Covid vaccines DOES get into human cells, new evidence shows It also appears that the contamination enters the cell nucleus and integrates with human DNA Rebekah Barnett Regulators and fact checkers claim that plasmid DNA contamination in the mRNA Covid vaccines can’t change your genomic DNA, but new evidence suggests that it actually can. The fact checkers assert that DNA contamination poses no risk to your genomic DNA because your body will naturally destroy any contaminant DNA before it even gets into the cells. Even if the contaminant DNA could get into cells, there’s no way it can enter the cell nucleus, where genomic integration events occur, they say. And even if the contaminant DNA could enter the nucleus, which it can’t, it still couldn’t genomically integrate unless specific enzymes are present, they say. However, results from independent lab testing conducted on ovarian cancer cell lines show that contaminant DNA from Pfizer’s Covid vaccine not only crossed into the cells, but that it survived multiple cell divisions. This is suggestive that the contaminant DNA is able to transfect (enter) the cell nucleus, and that it integrated with the human cell DNA. TLDR 1. Scientists claim that Pfizer vaccine contaminant DNA has been detected in ovarian cancer cell line DNA, but they do not yet know if it’s chromosomal (heritable) or extra-chromosomal DNA (not heritable) 2. This is an in vitro (in a lab dish) finding, and needs to be replicated in vivo (in a human patient) 3. As the finding is specific to cancer cell lines, it is not generalisable, but scientists say it may give an indication of what cancer patients in remission could experience after mRNA Covid vaccination 4. This finding calls into question fact checker claims that mRNA Covid vaccine DNA contamination can't enter cells, can't enter the nucleus, and cannot integrate with human DNA. Last year, Boston-based genomics scientist Kevin McKernan made the shocking discovery that the mRNA Covid vaccines are contaminated with excessive levels of plasmid DNA, an artefact of the vaccine production process. McKernan’s findings were soon confirmed by multiple independent labs around the world for both the Pfizer and Moderna mono- and bi-valent vaccines, including lots approved for children, with one Canadian study led by Dr David Speicher concluding that there are “billions to hundreds of billions of DNA molecules per dose.” Scientists including McKernan, University of South Carolina cancer genomics scientist Dr Phillip Buckhaults, and Dr Wafik El-Diery, head of the Cancer Centre at Brown University, expressed concerns that fragments of plasmid DNA contamination could cause adverse events, autoimmune problems and cancers in some patients. But perhaps most significantly, there is also a theoretical risk of the contaminant DNA integrating with patients’ chromosomal DNA and modifying the human genome. This is of particular concern with the Pfizer vaccine, which contains an SV40 enhancer sequence, used in gene therapies “to drive DNA into the nucleus,” explains McKernan. While regulators have taken a ‘wait and see’ approach, independent scientists, including McKernan, have been more proactive, initiating experiments testing for evidence of genomic integration. Now, the first results are in. In an experiment conducted together with German molecular biologist Dr Ulrike Kämmerer, McKernan has detected vaccine contaminant DNA in ovarian cancer cell lines treated with Pfizer’s Covid vaccine. The scientists found a chimeric combination of human ovarian cell line DNA and spike sequence DNA derived from the contaminating plasmid at at least one, and possibly two sites. “If anything, this work has put to bed the question regarding if this contaminant DNA gets into the cell, and the chimeric human and contaminant spike DNA sequences imply it has entered the nucleus,” McKernan says. “The PCR and sequencing data both demonstrate the vaccine is getting into the cell and surviving cell passaging. It is likely bioactive and being partially replicated.” To reach this finding, Dr Kämmerer first treated ovarian cancer cell lines with mRNA Covid vaccines, using cells treated with AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines as controls. The cells were then ‘passaged’, meaning they were left to divide and replicate numerous times. This has the effect of “rinsing away residual vaccine,” explains McKernan. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was then performed, a staining process that Dr Kämmerer used to detect levels of spike protein expression produced by the vaccine modified-RNA. This was to confirm that the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) carrying mod-RNA and plasmid DNA contamination “did their job and delivered the payload,” says McKernan. Measuring how many cells expressed spike protein also allowed the scientists to determine how much of the vaccine to treat the cells with. Immunohistochemistry performed with Pfizer top left, AstraZeneca top right as a control. Source: Kevin McKernan’s Substack Cell lines were then sent in cold storage to McKernan’s Boston lab, where his team used qPCR to screen which samples to sequence the cell line DNA. “What we found is, [contaminant] DNA that is getting transfected into ovarian cancer cell lines is replicating in the cells,” says McKernan, noting that the ratio of vaccine contaminant DNA to human cell DNA was “higher than we expected.” Chimeric sequences of human and vaccine contaminant DNA were detected at two sites: chromosomes 9 and 12, with the evidence for the latter being the strongest. “But we don't know if it's extra-chromosomal or whether it's chromosomal because of the Illumina (short read) method we used to sequence,” explains McKernan. Source: Kevin McKernan’s Substack Extra-chromosomal DNA is not part of the chromosome, and is therefore less likely to replicate and to be heritable. Chromosomal DNA, on the other hand, is heritable and more likely to be replicated. A third category, mitochondrial DNA, is heritable, but only from the maternal line. You can read a detailed account of methods and findings via McKernan’s Substack article, ‘Vaccine targeted qPCR of Cancer Cell Lines treated with BNT162b2.’ ‘Major advance,’ but clinical implications are limited McKernan emphasises that these findings cannot be generalised, stating that “it is too early to make comments on the clinical implications.” “The study is performed in ovarian cancer cell lines. It is not performed in patient cells, but this is a proxy for what might happen in an ovarian cancer patient who's in remission,” says McKernan, especially as there is evidence that the LNPs go to the ovaries. The risk for patients in this scenario is that integration events with contaminant DNA might cause aberrant cell growth, which poses a risk to immune suppression of new cancer cells. McKernan notes that his experiment only picked up on putative integration events that persisted after multiple cell replications. That is to say, the scientists were not able to detect integration events that may have occurred, but then died off immediately. At the moment, no one knows how many integration events might be occurring, or what effect that would have on patients. “The unknowns are just exponential,” says McKernan. The cancer cell line experiment can be said to be “a microcosm of genome integration of contaminated DNA,” said Japanese molecular oncology scientist Hiroshi Arakawa, in his own analysis of McKernan and Dr Kämmerer’s experiment, published to his popular science blog on which he shares critical views on Covid vaccine safety. Akira calls the two possible integrations observed in Dr Kämmerer’s experiment a “major advance” laying the ground for further experimentation. “What happens in cultured cells can also occur in normal cells, and a wide variety of abnormalities can occur depending on the site of genome integration,” such as “the induction of cancer or malignant transformation,” he wrote (translated from Japanese to English). LNPs deliver contaminant DNA straight to the cells A key assumption underlying claims that mRNA Covid vaccine contamination cannot enter the cell nucleus, and cannot genomically integrate with host DNA, is that the contamination will never make it into dividing cells, which would be required for integration to occur. This is based on the assumption that the LNPs containing both mod-RNA and contaminant DNA mostly stay in the muscle at the injection site. As muscle cells do not divide, there’s no problem, the logic goes. This is misleading, however, as Pfizer’s own biodistribution data shows that the LNPs enter the blood and every major organ system, including the ovaries, as mentioned above. While it is true that muscle cells don’t divide, LNPs distributed around the body can transfect any number of dividing cells in various organ systems. Table 4-2. shows biodistribution of LNPs, Pfizer Nonclinical Evaluation Report, 2021 From there, it’s only a matter of time before the LNP contents get into the cell nucleus, says McKernan. “In any dividing cell, the nucleus dissolves. So, when people say the DNA can get into the cytoplasm [inside the cell membrane] but won't get into the nucleus, well, in any dividing cell, it will end up getting into the nucleus.” It is possible that the dissolution of the cell nucleus during division is the mechanism underlying McKernan and Dr Kämmerer’s observed passaging of contaminant DNA, but further research will be required to confirm or disprove this hypothesis. Because of the effectiveness of LNPs in delivering their contents into cells, McKernan, Dr Buckhaults and Dr Speicher have questioned the suitability of the current regulatory limits on contaminant DNA in vaccines, which were set prior to the introduction of LNP technology in vaccines. Regulators unconcerned I sent McKernan’s Substack article documenting the new DNA integration findings to Australia’s drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, for comment. The TGA did not address the new findings, but a spokesperson from the TGA responded, “The Department of Health and Aged Care has every confidence in the safety, quality and efficacy of the various approved COVID-19 vaccines for use in Australia. The TGA’s assessment of all vaccines is based upon high quality evidence, including studies and reviews published in peer-reviewed scientific and clinical journals.” However, when asked previously to provide evidence for its position that Covid vaccines pose no risk of DNA integration, the TGA provided no peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support its claims. Instead, the TGA provided links to a Mayo Clinic fact page with no scientific citations, an article by the discredited RMIT FactLab, and a scientific commentary article suggesting that in vitro findings cannot be generalised. Furthermore, TGA has not been forthcoming with the evidence it does hold. When asked to release Covid vaccine batch testing results under Freedom of Information, the regulator provided all 74 pages - fully redacted. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied that contaminant DNA in the mRNA vaccines can enter the nucleus or pose any threat to patients’ genomic DNA, in a response to concerns raised by Florida Surgeon General, Dr Joseph A. Ladapo in December of last year. Additionally, the FDA misleadingly refuted the presence of SV40 proteins in the vaccines, when in fact Dr Ladapo raised concerns over the presence of an SV40 enchancer sequence in the Pfizer vaccine, as confirmed by Health Canada and numerous independent laboratories. Such ham-fisted mischaracterisation of a gene therapy sequence by the FDA is suggestive of either gross incompetence, or a disinformation play. Both are concerning. Science journalist Maryanne Demasi reported, in November last year, that the FDA shut down her enquiries into the DNA contamination matter, refusing to confirm if it found levels of DNA that exceeded acceptable levels, or if it was investigating further. The presence of contamination has been officially acknowledged by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Health Canada, with the latter also acknowledging the presence of the SV40 enhancer sequence, though both regulators deny that the amounts exceed regulatory limits, or that the DNA contamination poses any risk. ‘No excuse’ for ignoring ‘screaming hot signal’ Instead of denying excessive DNA levels and deferring to manufacturers’ reported test results, regulators should run their own qPCR testing on batch lots, says McKernan. Then, “they would see what everyone else is seeing, which is that sometimes the CT scores come out as low as 13… that’s a screaming hot signal.” “As a reference, the Covid test would call people positive at 33-35,” McKernan explains. “That’s a million-fold difference (20 CTs). A million-fold less Covid RNA and you're positive and quarantined. But you can inject a million-fold more past your mucosa?” There’s “no excuse” for regulators to not sequence every vaccine lot, says McKernan, when the costs for doing so have dropped dramatically in recent years. “DNA sequencing costs have dropped 100,000 fold in the last decade. They have relaxed the DNA contamination limits 1000-fold in this time frame. It likely only costs $1,000 in reagents for millions-to-billions of dollars worth of product.” Source: National Human Genome Research Institute DNA sequencing by regulatory agencies is important not just for measuring quantities, says McKernan, but also for determining the type of DNA contamination. “Not all DNA is created equal. Some is designed to replicate - when it gets into a cell, it can make more of itself. It's a massive loophole in the regulations that they don't do sequencing. But it's never been cheaper. You can precisely know the nature of the DNA in every single vial.” Scientists pick up regulators’ slack In the absence of any regulatory appetite for investigating the risks of DNA contamination in the mRNA Covid shots, and particularly the risk of genomic integration, independent scientists have taken the baton. “We are writing up our findings and will publish a preprint soon,” says McKernan, who is planning further testing in partnership with Dr Kämmerer. “We’re doing more experiments first. We need to sequence deeper to find out if the integration events are in chromosomal or extra-chromosomal DNA.” Dr Buckhaults is also running his own experiment, calling for de-identified samples of tumours or fresh blood from pathology and hematology labs. These samples will be tested for the presence of plasmid DNA contamination, with whole genome sequencing to then be carried out on positive samples to identify genomic integration sites. In an email outlining his experiment, Dr Buckhaults told me that he intends to report his findings in a peer-reviewed publication, predicting that the work could take “a few months to a year,” depending on how fast samples come in. “I am hopeful to prove my concerns are unwarranted by accumulating a lot of negative data, and of course negative data takes the most time to collect,” he said. McKernan says he is aware of other labs running tests for contaminant plasmid DNA integration, but cannot disclose the details at present. Decentralisation the future of science? McKernan says he has experienced some pushback for publishing his methods and findings in real time via Substack, X, and preprints. But, he believes that making his data available as quickly as possible is a way for the field of science to regain public trust. “Many will criticize our disclosure of preliminary findings but we feel this is an insult to the intelligence of the average person,” says McKernan. “It's a form of scientific elitism that implies people can't handle the truth and will be scared like sheep if given a glimpse of how the true scientific process is performed. Scientists are 90% of the time wrong but only publish the times when they are right. There is no journal of negative results.“ In light of the prospect that most published research findings are false (as famously asserted in a 2005 article by Professor John Ioannidis), McKernan questions the value of peer-review, instead favouring replication or refutation in the real world. Source: X For this reason, McKernan says he has not prioritised peer-reviewed publication for his DNA contamination findings, but is rather focusing on conducting more experiments and releasing the data as he goes - even when it’s incomplete, or requires further experimentation. “We were not expecting to find any integration events at this depth of coverage, but they are evident to anyone who downloads our public reads. To not speak to obvious evidence in such data would be irresponsible even when such evidence doesn't 100% answer a given question,” says McKernan. Dr Buckhaults takes a somewhat different view. After sharing his initial plasmid DNA contamination findings in a South Carolina Senate hearing in September last year, the video recording broke the internet. Believing the hearing to have been private, Dr Buckhaults was alarmed that the widespread distribution of his testimony may have caused “unintended, harmful side effects.” He requested that YouTube take down his testimony video, which is now defunct. Source: X In our correspondence, Dr Buckhaults stressed that while more research is warranted, he is of the opinion that the public “should not overreact to the news of the plasmid DNA contamination. It's serious enough that scientists need to hustle and figure out if it's causing any health problems now or down the road, but it's not cause for the general public to be alarmed.” But, “The reality is that`transfection experiments with contaminated DNA' have been carried out on vast numbers of people around the world in the name of vaccination,” writes Arakawa. Perhaps the experiment participants will be the ones to decide if they should be alarmed, or not. The FDA was contacted for comment about Dr Kämmerer and McKernan’s new findings, but they did not respond by publication deadline. This article will be updated if comment is received. View Kevin McKernan’s write up of his DNA integration experiment (in partnership with Dr Kämmerer) here. Scroll down for links to sequencing data files. Pathology and hematology labs wishing to send samples to Dr Buckhaults are invited to contact him at the University of South Carolina. Update 23 March 2024: This article was edited to add mention of the Dr David Speicher et al. finding of “billions to hundreds of billions of DNA molecules per dose” of the mRNA vaccines, and the scientists’ concerns that regulatory limits on DNA contamination have not taken LNP transfection into account. To support my work, make a one-off contribution to DDU via my Kofi account and/or subscribe. Thanks! Follow me on X Follow me on Instagram 1 From an article I wrote for Umbrella News on this topic last year: The TGA maintains that allegations put forward in the case about the potential for mRNA vaccines to alter the recipient’s DNA are unfounded. A spokesperson for the TGA told Umbrella News, “COVID-19 vaccines do not alter a person’s DNA. The mRNA in the vaccines does not enter the nucleus of cells and is not integrated into the human genome. Thus, the mRNA does not cause genetic damage or affect the offspring of vaccinated individuals.” “The TGA continues to monitor the scientific literature associated with the SARS – CoV-2 virus and the various COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in Australia.” With reference to the specific studies cited in the case materials, the TGA pointed Umbrella News to an RMIT ABC Fact Check post from 2022 purporting to ‘debunk’ claims that mRNA jabs are genotoxic. This is the same site that ‘debunked’ claims that COVID vaccines can cause menstrual disruption, before peer-reviewed scientific studies proved that they can and do (the post has not been corrected). As evidence that it is “well established” that vaccine mRNA and protein do not enter the nucleus, the TGA provided a link to a Mayo Clinic fact page which provides no studies or scientific evidence in support of its claims. The TGA did provide one commentary article published in a scientific journal which pointed out that the in vitro liver cell line study cannot be extrapolated to generalise about in vivo findings (in a human, not a dish) without further research being undertaken. Additionally, RMIT FactLab was suspended by Facebook in August 2023 after an uproar over its blatantly biased and factually dubious ‘fact checking’ of media articles relating to the Voice referendum campaign. It also transpired that RMIT FactLab had falsely represented its accreditation with the International Fact-Checking Network as current, when it had in fact lapsed. https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au/p/dna-contamination-in-covid-vaccines
    NEWS.REBEKAHBARNETT.COM.AU
    DNA contamination in Covid vaccines DOES get into human cells, new evidence shows
    It also appears that the contamination enters the cell nucleus and integrates with human DNA
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  • Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions
    Hekmat AboukhaterMarch 20, 2024

    A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission.

    On the morning of March 7, as the US Capitol teemed with lobbyists securing earmarks ahead of appropriations week and activists decrying the Gaza genocide, one special interest group on the Hill stood out. In the corridors of the Rayburn building, a group of roughly 50 people prepared for a busy day of advocating for sanctions to be levied against their homeland.

    They were the Anti-Syria lobby — and had I infiltrated their influence campaign.

    Throughout the day, I watched as this group pushed US officials to accept their policy of starvation sanctions while cynically ignoring famished Palestinians in Gaza.

    Among the lobbyists was Raed Saleh, the head of the Syrian White Helmets, who were to propagandize for regime change from behind humanitarian cover.

    I attended a total of seven meetings with policy teams representing Senators Sherrod Brown, Maggie Hassan, Ben Cardin, Mark Kelly, Chris Van Hollen, John Fetterman, and Rick Scott. Throughout these sessions, I witnessed the anti-Syria Lobby attempt to bully and manipulate US officials into accepting their policy of starvation while cynically throwing starving Palestinians in Gaza under the bus.

    At one moment, Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian White Helmets, which was founded by British intelligence, and funded by NATO states, painted Israeli air strikes against Syria in a positive light.

    During a separate meeting, Wa’el Alzayat of the pro-Zionist Muslim outreach Emgage even demanded Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office support the approval of aid for Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria.

    “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he insisted, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, [and] the Qataris are doing it.”

    Purporting to be a voice for all Syrians, the anti-Syria lobby is spearheaded by the American Coalition for Syria (ACS), an umbrella organization representing opposition groups such as the Syrian American Council (SAC), the Syrian Forum, and a handful of others located in the US and Turkey.

    Emgage, meanwhile, has been credited with getting the diaspora vote out for then-candidate Joe Biden in November 2020. The group has since fallen under criticism for acting as a de facto extension of the Biden White House and Democratic Party within the Muslim community. Emgage board member Farooq Mitha formally went to work for the Biden Pentagon in March 2021. On March 7, Alzayat aimed to weaponize Emgage’s influence against Democratic Senators who seemed uncomfortable with an escalating sanctions policy.

    “I need a good story for my voters,” he explained to Senator Van Hollen’s team.

    Throughout their sanctions campaign on the Hill, Alzayat and his cohorts operated like a miniature version of their Israel lobby allies, supplying roughly 50 volunteers with folders outlining talking points and the biographies of congressional representatives. The bios included a comprehensive list of the Senator or Representative’s recorded stance on Syria, such as their votes on the extension of the AUMF, the US military withdrawal from Syria, and previous sanctions packages targeting the country.



    The handouts also laid out the lobby’s key legislative requests, which largely focused on securing development aid for militia-controlled territory in Syria — including that held by Al Qaeda’s local ally in the country — and ensuring passage of the ‘Assad Regime Anti Normalization Bill,’ which seeks to extend and expand sanctions targeting Damascus.

    The Anti-Syria Lobby’s resemblance to their Israeli counterparts was no mistake. As Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s chief of staff reassured us, “the Israelis want you guys in charge.”


    Syrian Civil War map|Syrian Civil War map (November 24, 2023) via Wikimedia Commons. Edited by author
    More Starvation Sanctions

    Ever since the US included Syria on its inaugural State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list over Damascus’ support for the Palestinian resistance in 1979, Washington has gradually ratcheted up its financial war on the Syrian people. When decades of covert hybrid war erupted into an all-out proxy battle for the country’s territory—and survival—in 2011, the Anti-Syria Lobby officially began to take shape in Washington.


    Syria is the unrivaled champion of the SST having never been delisted since the list’s inception in 1979.
    In 2019, as Syria’s government emerged victorious from a multi-year battle with foreign-backed militias, Washington decided that while Damascus may have won the war, it would not win the peace. That January, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, a recipient of $1.8 million in AIPAC donations, introduced a sanctions package known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Trump signed the bill as part of the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020.


    The US has a 45-year long tradition of sanctioning and isolating Syria economically in response to the country’s support of Palestinian resistance
    The bill was unprecedented in both the way that it sanctioned broad sectors of the Syrian economy rather than only specific individuals, and in its deployment of so-called “secondary sanctions.” Secondary sanctions are imposed on parties that do business with a sanctioned entity even if those exchanges occur outside of the sanctioning entity’s jurisdiction.

    Syria’s economy has been in free fall ever since the Caesar sanctions came into effect. Today, over 12 million Syrians representing more than half of the total population face food insecurity — a 51% increase from 2019. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. In 2019, the US dollar exchanged for 500 Syrian Pounds. Today, that number is more like 14,100— figures that represent a 2,720 percent devaluation.


    The Syrian currency has devalued by 35,150% since the initial exchange rate of 40 SYP to 1 USD early 2011
    Though H.R. 3202 appears to be focused on addressing UN aid divergence, and sanctioning previously unsanctioned entities like Asma Al Assad’s Syria Trust for Development and the Syrian Red Crescent, the real agenda of the bill is found deep within its 22-page text.

    With the Caesar Sanctions set to expire by the end of 2024, H.R. 3202 seeks to quietly extend the aggressive financial measures until 2032.


    The new bill’s main aim, which received very little attention, is the extension of the Caesar Act for 8 more years.
    Having passed the House with overwhelming enthusiasm, H.R. 3202’s sister bill in the Senate can only pass with Democratic support. It was introduced by Israeli lobby-funded Republican Idaho Sen. James Risch last September and has since been co-sponsored by arch-neoconservative Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

    Because S. 2935 can only pass with Democratic sponsorship, the Anti-Syria Lobby chose Sen. Ben Cardin, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the anti-Russia Magnitsky Act, as a crucial target for influence.

    After meeting with Sherrod Brown’s office, Cardin’s Research and Legislative Assistant, Christopher Barr, hosted us in the Senator’s office. There, Raed Saleh of the White Helmets complained to Barr that USAID had slashed funding for his organization from $12 million to $3 million in recent years.

    Next, it was time to discuss the true purpose of our visit: the passage of S. 2935.

    Barr appeared uneasy from the outset and even expressed displeasure about the bill, complaining, “What passed the House was kind of a lot… the list of targets is vast.”

    “Syria has already been so heavily sanctioned,” he added.

    In response, Ghanem revealed a critical piece of information about the forces driving the dirty war on Syria, explaining that the impetus to expand and extend Caesar did not come from the Anti-Syria Lobby itself, but someone on Capitol Hill. Ghanem explained that the Hill source actually contacted the American Coalition for Syria to alert them to the fact that Caesar was set to expire, lamenting the fact that its sunset would amount to a loss of “US leverage over the Syrian regime.”

    This line echoed the disturbing language of officials representing both the Biden and Trump administration alike. In 2019, neoconservative operative Dana Stroul declared that thanks to Caesar, Washington “holds a card on preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back,” to Syria. She lauded the fact that the U.S. could weaponize that “leverage” to keep Syria in “rubble.” Two years later, she would take up post as Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East under Biden.


    Similarly, during an event at the neoconservative think tank, WINEP, the following year, the Special Envoy for Syria under Trump, Joel Rayburn, boasted that Caesar “lowers the bar” for evidence-based sanctions and allows for the broad targeting of any and all reconstruction projects in Syria.


    “We don’t have to prove, for example, that a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in the Damascus region is dealing directly with the Assad regime,” Rayburn explained.

    “We don’t have to have the evidence to prove that link,” he continued. “We just have to have the evidence that proves that a company or an individual is investing in […] the construction sector, the engineering sector, most of the aviation sector, the finance sector, energy sector, and so on.”

    These public confessions did not stop the Anti-Syria Lobby from lying to the faces of congressional staffers throughout their March 7 campaign. During a meeting with Sen. Mark Kelly’s office, Ghanem falsely stated that the Caesar Sanctions were “targeted,” “not sectoral,” and “not [an] embargo, nothing punishing to civilians.”

    Yet Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions who visited Syria to document the effects of Washington’s unilateral sanctions regime on Syria, disagrees. In her 19-page report she clearly states that the sanctions are both illegal and inhumane in the way they affect the average Syrian.

    Stabilization for me but not for thee

    The second legislative ask came in the form of a well rehearsed speech by Ghanem, Zayat, and others, outlining what US tax dollars do and don’t fund in Syria. US aid packages are typically divided into two categories: “humanitarian funding” earmarked for goods such as food, water, and basic medical supplies or “stabilization” funding designed to secure a country as it transitions out of a period of turmoil. Unlike humanitarian assistance, stabilization funding may be used to support major investment and infrastructure projects such as roads, schools, healthcare facilities, and government services.

    The US is the primary funder of humanitarian aid in both North East (NE) and NW Syria. However, while the US spends abundantly on stabilization needs in NE Syria, it spends $0 on the NW. That is because while Washington has long dreamed of establishing a secessionist Kurdish state in Syria’s Northeast, it neglected to send stabilization funds to the Northwest in order to avoid providing direct support to HTS, the Al Qaeda offshoot that governs the territory. The Anti-Syria Lobby was in Washington to change that.

    Leading the push for US funds to Al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Northwest Syria was Wa’el Alzayat, a Syrian expat who proudly served in Iraq’s Green Zone under George Bush’s State Department and more recently published a shocking Washington Post oped begging US officials not to “lift sanctions to help Syria earthquake victims.” In the office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Alzayat voiced his frustration with US hesitation in the Northwest.

    “Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he demanded, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, the Qataris are doing it.”




    We’re missing out on a golden opportunity here to stabilize the region and leverage it for a political settlement,” he pleaded. In other words, Alzayat was openly lobbying US officials to strengthen Al Qaeda’s position in Syria in order to leverage the terrorist group against the country’s government.

    Alzayat then weaponized his six-figure salary as head of Emgage to bully Van Hollen’s office into bowing before the anti-Syria Lobby, falsely claiming that his AIPAC-linked organization was “behind” the “Uncommitted” vote campaigns that damaged Biden’s primary performance in Michigan and Minnesota.




    Towards the end of the meeting, the regime change lobbyist cynically invoked Israel’s slaughter of 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza to make the case for Al Qaeda in Syria one last time.

    He argued that although “his community” is up in arms about the Biden administration’s funding and arming of the Gaza genocide, they would gladly flock back to the Democratic Party if the US funded roads and schools in Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib.

    “I need a good story for my voters,” Alzayat explained, noting the Muslim community’s disapproval of the Biden Administration’s policy in Gaza and Yemen.

    “You’re upset about all these disappointments,” he continued, play-acting a scenario in which he convinced a Muslim constituent to vote for Biden, again. “Guess what? They’re pumping 50 million into the school sector in the North [of Syria]!”




    Overtures Towards Israel

    The Israel-Palestine crisis loomed large throughout the ACS lobbying trip. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s secretary happened to be a hijabi Muslim woman sporting a pendant outlining the map of Palestine around her neck. As she greeted us, Farouk Belal, the head of the Syrian American Council, grumbled to Ghanem and me: “I hope she’s not with the resistance.”

    When I asked him to clarify what he meant as we exited the office, he explained that people aligned with the Palestinian cause in Washington “don’t like us.”

    Meanwhile, in Sen. Cardin’s office, Raed Salah of the White Helmets painted Israeli strikes on Syria which have crippled Syrian infrastructure, regularly damaged the country’s International civilian airports, and killed hundreds of Syrian Soldiers and civilians alike in a positive light:

    “The situation in Syria is very complicated. Every day we hear of Israeli strikes on the dens, or the bases of the IRGC and its militias. Even we as Syrians did not know the extent to which the Iranians were entrenched in the country…”




    For Saleh, the Israeli strikes do nothing but highlight the presence of the Syrian government-invited Iranian military presence in Syria.

    Later that day, Ghanem attempted to capitalize on Sen. Fetterman’s fanatical pro-Israel antics by describing recent developments in Syria to a 20-something staffer. Referring to the Syrian government’s successful campaign to retake southern territory, he explained that the South is “where they lob missiles on Israel, by the way.” The aide dutifully transcribed this seemingly random piece of information in her notepad. Towards the end of the meeting, Fetterman was discussed as a potential Democratic sponsor of S. 2935 in the Senate.

    In Senator Rick Scott’s office, a Cuban American Government Relations Associate for ACS, Alberto Hernandez, accidentally said the quiet part out loud. When Senator Scott’s ultra-Zionist National Security Advisor, Paul Bonicelli, asked if our group had connected with our “counterparts” in the Israeli lobby so that they could “vet” our proposals — revealing that Scott has apparently outsourced his brain to Zionists — Hernandez remarked: “Formally? No. Informally.”

    He then turned to the rest of the ACS team in the meeting room and said: “You didn’t hear me say that.”

    That admission prompted Bonicelli to suggest that ACS directly coordinate with groups such as the Aramaic Church in Israel, which has supported regime change efforts in Damascus despite overwhelming Christian support of the government within Syria itself.

    As the meeting wound to a close, Bonicelli informed us that he agreed with ACS on the necessity to oppose Iran and Russia.

    “If Obama had done the right thing in 2012, we wouldn’t be here,” he lamented, adding: “the Israelis want you guys in charge.”


    At one point during the meeting in Rick Scott’s Office, Alberto Hernandez, and Sarah Salas, a Cuban American legislative aide, expressed full agreement with US use of unilateral sanctions as means to “push” governments that “we don’t like.”
    Starving Syrians Without A Mandate

    Though several ACS volunteers shared painful personal encounters with the Syrian government throughout the day, many were simply too far removed from Syria to truly represent the voice of Syrian people, especially the 12 million plus civilians currently living in Syrian government-controlled territory.

    One 24-year-old woman who did not speak Arabic and has not been to Syria since 2003 described the Syrian Army’s 2016 liberation of Aleppo from Al Qaeda-linked militants as “the fall of Aleppo.”

    Other Syrians like myself experienced the terror of the West’s proxy war in Syria firsthand. In 2012, my aunt and cousins watched in horror as the Turkish-backed Liwa’ Al Tawhid, an umbrella group of takfiri jihadist militias, arrived on their street in the Seryan El Jdideh neighborhood of Aleppo. The militants proceeded to execute a local pick-up truck driver and steal his vehicle, leaving his bleeding corpse on the street. Shahba, where my family lived up until 2015, was located just a stone’s throw away from these sectarian death squads during our final months there.

    The Syrian dirty war was bloody and gruesome, yet the picture that ACS paints is entirely one-sided. Unfortunately, while organizations like ACS have flocked to the Beltway swamp throughout the last 13 years, there are no Syrians present in Washington DC to counter them. While these groups claim to speak on behalf of the Syrian people, those of us who have lived and still live in areas controlled by Syrian government — regardless of our political affiliations—are rendered voiceless in the very center of power where our perspective should matter most. Even Syria’s embassy has been shuttered since 2014, while Syrian diplomats at the UN in New York are heavily monitored and restricted from traveling beyond the NYC metro area.

    As I witnessed on Capitol Hill, there are few obstacles to the anti-Syria lobby’s ruthless push to prevent the majority of Syrians from emerging from the ruins of war.

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

    Staff writer14 February 2024

    In the wake of investigations by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) into two events held on February 2nd, the organizers of “Singapore for Palestine” issued a powerful statement on Wednesday (14 Feb), emphasizing their commitment to advocating for Palestinian rights.

    The SPF’s probe is centred on potential violations of the Public Order Act amid heightened tensions due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has resulted in allegations of genocide committed by the Israel administration against the Palestinians.

    During one event, approximately 70 individuals marched to the Istana, carrying umbrellas adorned with watermelon motifs—a symbol of Palestinian resistance—to deliver letters to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.


    70 people peacefully walked to the Istana in an orderly fashion to deliver their letters to the Prime Minister. (Photo:Amrita Chandradas)
    This peaceful act of solidarity, which allegedly had police reports filed against it, has been scrutinized by the police for its potential to incite public disorder, especially given the sensitive location.

    Another event, a private gathering, saw expressions of support for Palestine, including calls to end Singapore’s military and diplomatic ties with Israel. The use of the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during this event has particularly drawn the SPF’s attention due to its contentious implications.

    The participants in the private event advocated for stopping the purchase of Israeli arms, ending partnerships with Israeli institutions, halting all diplomatic relations with Israel, ceasing participation in the US-led attacks in the Red Sea, and calling for an end to police investigations into peaceful expressions of support for Palestine.


    160 people of various racial and religious backgrounds squeezed together for the private event ‘Steadfast for Palestine’. (Photo: zack dilaroca)
    The organizing team of “Singapore for Palestine” has responded with fervor, underscoring their activities as expressions of “humanity and love” rather than threats to public order.

    “As citizens of Singapore, it is both our right and our moral responsibility to call on the Singapore state to stop fuelling Israel’s genocide in Palestine,” the organizers declared, challenging the SPF’s portrayal of their actions.

    They criticized the police for not acknowledging the widespread support for Palestine, including actions by students across major universities and the public wearing armbands in solidarity.

    “In their press release, the SPF failed to mention that on the same day, hundreds also wore armbands in the colors of the Palestinian flag, to show their solidarity. What’s more, apart from the actions we organized, around a hundred students across NTU, NUS, and SMU also organized events on their respective campuses to mourn the loss of Palestinian lives and express their commitment to a free Palestine.”


    In NTU, more than 40 students did a teach-in on Palestine.
    Highlighting the irony in the state’s actions, the organizers noted, “It is really difficult to accept that while the police required the cancellation of the public event we had planned on 2nd Feb – Show Up for Palestine – to promote peace in Palestine, they are allowing Israel to promote their weapons of mass murder at the Airshow next week.”

    “We are not intimidated by the SPF’s allegations. But it appears that the government is threatened by our umbrellas decorated beautifully with hand-drawn watermelons!” said the organizers in their statement.

    The team’s resolve remains unshaken, committed to continuing their advocacy: “We will not be silenced. As long as Palestine remains unfree, we will continue to act, speak, and show up for Palestine.”

    They draw attention to the grave situation in Gaza, particularly in Rafah, where over a million civilians face the threat of Israeli aggression. “We must not let Palestinians become extinct,” they implore, calling for global and local support for the Palestinian cause.

    In response to these developments, the SPF, supported by Minister Josephine Teo, has reiterated the importance of maintaining respectful discourse, stressing that Singapore’s laws against unauthorized public gatherings aim to preserve public order and inter-community harmony.

    The government maintains its stance on contributing to humanitarian efforts and seeking peaceful resolutions through international dialogue.

    The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began on 7 October last year.

    On 26 January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to limit deaths and damage but stopped short of demanding a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory. South Africa has accused Israel of genocide and requested the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to impose interim measures as the case proceeds, including ordering Israel to halt its offensive, allowing Gaza residents access to aid, and taking “reasonable measures” to prevent genocide.

    Israel has denied committing genocide and asked the court to dismiss the case, which the panel of 17 judges refused to do. And despite the ruling, Israel has since stepped up its offensive on Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million civilians are crammed into the city.

    Casualties in Gaza are expected to increase as Palestinians crammed into the city are trapped between Israel’s offensive in the north and Egypt’s border, which has been said not to allow passage.



    Singapore for Palestine organizers assert their right to advocate for Palestine, amid police scrutiny. They emphasize their peaceful acts of solidarity and commitment to speaking up against injustices, despite facing investigations.

    https://gutzy.asia/2024/02/14/singaporeans-stand-firm-in-support-for-palestine-amidst-police-scrutiny/

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/singaporeans-stand-firm-in-support-for.html
    Singaporeans stand firm in support for Palestine amidst police scrutiny Singapore for Palestine organizers assert their right to advocate for Palestine, amid police scrutiny. They emphasize their peaceful acts of solidarity and commitment to speaking up against injustices, despite facing investigations. Staff writer14 February 2024 In the wake of investigations by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) into two events held on February 2nd, the organizers of “Singapore for Palestine” issued a powerful statement on Wednesday (14 Feb), emphasizing their commitment to advocating for Palestinian rights. The SPF’s probe is centred on potential violations of the Public Order Act amid heightened tensions due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has resulted in allegations of genocide committed by the Israel administration against the Palestinians. During one event, approximately 70 individuals marched to the Istana, carrying umbrellas adorned with watermelon motifs—a symbol of Palestinian resistance—to deliver letters to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. 70 people peacefully walked to the Istana in an orderly fashion to deliver their letters to the Prime Minister. (Photo:Amrita Chandradas) This peaceful act of solidarity, which allegedly had police reports filed against it, has been scrutinized by the police for its potential to incite public disorder, especially given the sensitive location. Another event, a private gathering, saw expressions of support for Palestine, including calls to end Singapore’s military and diplomatic ties with Israel. The use of the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” during this event has particularly drawn the SPF’s attention due to its contentious implications. The participants in the private event advocated for stopping the purchase of Israeli arms, ending partnerships with Israeli institutions, halting all diplomatic relations with Israel, ceasing participation in the US-led attacks in the Red Sea, and calling for an end to police investigations into peaceful expressions of support for Palestine. 160 people of various racial and religious backgrounds squeezed together for the private event ‘Steadfast for Palestine’. (Photo: zack dilaroca) The organizing team of “Singapore for Palestine” has responded with fervor, underscoring their activities as expressions of “humanity and love” rather than threats to public order. “As citizens of Singapore, it is both our right and our moral responsibility to call on the Singapore state to stop fuelling Israel’s genocide in Palestine,” the organizers declared, challenging the SPF’s portrayal of their actions. They criticized the police for not acknowledging the widespread support for Palestine, including actions by students across major universities and the public wearing armbands in solidarity. “In their press release, the SPF failed to mention that on the same day, hundreds also wore armbands in the colors of the Palestinian flag, to show their solidarity. What’s more, apart from the actions we organized, around a hundred students across NTU, NUS, and SMU also organized events on their respective campuses to mourn the loss of Palestinian lives and express their commitment to a free Palestine.” In NTU, more than 40 students did a teach-in on Palestine. Highlighting the irony in the state’s actions, the organizers noted, “It is really difficult to accept that while the police required the cancellation of the public event we had planned on 2nd Feb – Show Up for Palestine – to promote peace in Palestine, they are allowing Israel to promote their weapons of mass murder at the Airshow next week.” “We are not intimidated by the SPF’s allegations. But it appears that the government is threatened by our umbrellas decorated beautifully with hand-drawn watermelons!” said the organizers in their statement. The team’s resolve remains unshaken, committed to continuing their advocacy: “We will not be silenced. As long as Palestine remains unfree, we will continue to act, speak, and show up for Palestine.” They draw attention to the grave situation in Gaza, particularly in Rafah, where over a million civilians face the threat of Israeli aggression. “We must not let Palestinians become extinct,” they implore, calling for global and local support for the Palestinian cause. In response to these developments, the SPF, supported by Minister Josephine Teo, has reiterated the importance of maintaining respectful discourse, stressing that Singapore’s laws against unauthorized public gatherings aim to preserve public order and inter-community harmony. The government maintains its stance on contributing to humanitarian efforts and seeking peaceful resolutions through international dialogue. The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began on 7 October last year. On 26 January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to limit deaths and damage but stopped short of demanding a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory. South Africa has accused Israel of genocide and requested the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to impose interim measures as the case proceeds, including ordering Israel to halt its offensive, allowing Gaza residents access to aid, and taking “reasonable measures” to prevent genocide. Israel has denied committing genocide and asked the court to dismiss the case, which the panel of 17 judges refused to do. And despite the ruling, Israel has since stepped up its offensive on Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million civilians are crammed into the city. Casualties in Gaza are expected to increase as Palestinians crammed into the city are trapped between Israel’s offensive in the north and Egypt’s border, which has been said not to allow passage. Singapore for Palestine organizers assert their right to advocate for Palestine, amid police scrutiny. They emphasize their peaceful acts of solidarity and commitment to speaking up against injustices, despite facing investigations. https://gutzy.asia/2024/02/14/singaporeans-stand-firm-in-support-for-palestine-amidst-police-scrutiny/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/singaporeans-stand-firm-in-support-for.html
    GUTZY.ASIA
    Singaporeans stand firm in support for Palestine amidst police scrutiny
    Singapore for Palestine organizers assert their right to advocate for Palestine, amid police scrutiny. They emphasize their peaceful acts of solidarity and commitment to speaking up against injustices, despite facing investigations.
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  • Singapore Police investigate two events amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza
    Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded.

    Staff writer13 February 2024

    SINGAPORE: The Singapore Police Force (SPF) is currently investigating two events held on 2 February that may have breached the Public Order Act amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and genocide in Gaza.

    In their statement on Tuesday (13 Feb), the SPF also emphasized the importance of maintaining respectful and responsible discussions concerning the conflict, highlighting the illegal nature of participating in public protests without the requisite permit.

    The first event under investigation saw approximately 70 individuals congregating along Orchard Road, proceeding towards the Istana with umbrellas adorned with watermelon imagery—a recognized symbol of Palestinian resistance.

    This march, potentially advocating for the political causes of other countries, has raised concerns over stirring tensions and leading to public disorder, particularly given the security sensitivity of the Istana area.

    A second incident involved a private gathering which was captured and shared online where a subject was seen live streaming publicly and chanting, “From the river to the sea”, and others chanting “, Palestine will be free”, in response.

    The participants in the private event called for stopping the purchase of Israeli arms, ending Singaporean partnerships with Israeli institutions, halting all diplomatic relations with Israel, ceasing participation in the US-led attacks in the Red Sea, and stopping police investigations into peaceful expressions of support for Palestine.

    SPF states, “The phrase “From the river to the sea” is associated with calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. The use of such phrases can lead to racial tensions in our society, and may be an offence under Section 298A(a) of the Penal Code 1871. We must also not condone calls for violence.”

    The participants in the private event, made calls for the Singapore government

    Reflecting on these incidents, the SPF reiterated its stance from October 2023, alongside the National Parks Board, that applications for public events related to the Israel-Hamas conflict would be systematically rejected due to public safety and security concerns.

    The SPF’s statement further stressed the importance of not allowing international events to disrupt Singapore’s internal harmony, pointing out the “real risk” assemblies related to the Gaza situation pose to public order and inter-community relations.

    In line with this, the SPF has made it clear that no permits will be granted for gatherings that risk inciting disorder or advocate for foreign political causes.

    Additionally, SPF noted that unauthorized posting of materials such as stickers on properties remains a punishable offence under the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act.

    In a supportive stance, Josephine Teo, Minister for Communications and Information and Second Minister for the Ministry of Home Affairs, echoed the police’s sentiments in a Facebook post.

    She reassured that the advisory is not aimed at stifling expression but rather at ensuring that public discourse does not infringe upon the law or threaten societal cohesion.

    Minister Teo also highlighted Singapore’s proactive stance on the conflict, noting the country’s contribution to humanitarian efforts and its call for an immediate ceasefire through international platforms.

    The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began on 7 October last year.

    On 26 January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to limit deaths and damage but stopped short of demanding a cease-fire in the Palestinian territory.

    South Africa has accused Israel of genocide and requested the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to impose interim measures as the case proceeds. These requested measures include ordering Israel to halt its offensive, allowing Gaza residents access to aid, and taking “reasonable measures” to prevent genocide.

    Israel has denied committing genocide and asked the court to dismiss the case, which the panel of 17 judges refused to do.

    Casualties in Gaza are expected to increase as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million civilians are crammed into the city, trapped between Isreal’s offensive in the north and Egypt’s border where it has been said that it would not allow passage.

    Gutzy has checked with the organisers of the events and understands that they have yet to be contacted by the police and that the President has yet respond to the letters that were sent on 2 February.


    Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded.




    https://gutzy.asia/2024/02/13/singapore-police-investigate-two-events-amid-israels-genocide-in-gaza/

    https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/singapore-police-investigate-two-events.html
    Singapore Police investigate two events amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded. Staff writer13 February 2024 SINGAPORE: The Singapore Police Force (SPF) is currently investigating two events held on 2 February that may have breached the Public Order Act amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and genocide in Gaza. In their statement on Tuesday (13 Feb), the SPF also emphasized the importance of maintaining respectful and responsible discussions concerning the conflict, highlighting the illegal nature of participating in public protests without the requisite permit. The first event under investigation saw approximately 70 individuals congregating along Orchard Road, proceeding towards the Istana with umbrellas adorned with watermelon imagery—a recognized symbol of Palestinian resistance. This march, potentially advocating for the political causes of other countries, has raised concerns over stirring tensions and leading to public disorder, particularly given the security sensitivity of the Istana area. A second incident involved a private gathering which was captured and shared online where a subject was seen live streaming publicly and chanting, “From the river to the sea”, and others chanting “, Palestine will be free”, in response. The participants in the private event called for stopping the purchase of Israeli arms, ending Singaporean partnerships with Israeli institutions, halting all diplomatic relations with Israel, ceasing participation in the US-led attacks in the Red Sea, and stopping police investigations into peaceful expressions of support for Palestine. SPF states, “The phrase “From the river to the sea” is associated with calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. The use of such phrases can lead to racial tensions in our society, and may be an offence under Section 298A(a) of the Penal Code 1871. We must also not condone calls for violence.” The participants in the private event, made calls for the Singapore government Reflecting on these incidents, the SPF reiterated its stance from October 2023, alongside the National Parks Board, that applications for public events related to the Israel-Hamas conflict would be systematically rejected due to public safety and security concerns. The SPF’s statement further stressed the importance of not allowing international events to disrupt Singapore’s internal harmony, pointing out the “real risk” assemblies related to the Gaza situation pose to public order and inter-community relations. In line with this, the SPF has made it clear that no permits will be granted for gatherings that risk inciting disorder or advocate for foreign political causes. Additionally, SPF noted that unauthorized posting of materials such as stickers on properties remains a punishable offence under the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act. In a supportive stance, Josephine Teo, Minister for Communications and Information and Second Minister for the Ministry of Home Affairs, echoed the police’s sentiments in a Facebook post. She reassured that the advisory is not aimed at stifling expression but rather at ensuring that public discourse does not infringe upon the law or threaten societal cohesion. Minister Teo also highlighted Singapore’s proactive stance on the conflict, noting the country’s contribution to humanitarian efforts and its call for an immediate ceasefire through international platforms. The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began on 7 October last year. On 26 January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to limit deaths and damage but stopped short of demanding a cease-fire in the Palestinian territory. South Africa has accused Israel of genocide and requested the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to impose interim measures as the case proceeds. These requested measures include ordering Israel to halt its offensive, allowing Gaza residents access to aid, and taking “reasonable measures” to prevent genocide. Israel has denied committing genocide and asked the court to dismiss the case, which the panel of 17 judges refused to do. Casualties in Gaza are expected to increase as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million civilians are crammed into the city, trapped between Isreal’s offensive in the north and Egypt’s border where it has been said that it would not allow passage. Gutzy has checked with the organisers of the events and understands that they have yet to be contacted by the police and that the President has yet respond to the letters that were sent on 2 February. Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded. https://gutzy.asia/2024/02/13/singapore-police-investigate-two-events-amid-israels-genocide-in-gaza/ https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/singapore-police-investigate-two-events.html
    GUTZY.ASIA
    Singapore Police investigate two events amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza
    Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded.
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  • Covid Vaccine Injury Suit May Fuel Federal Overhaul, Litigation
    A lawsuit by Covid-19 vaccine recipients claiming they were injured by their shots may usher in long-awaited changes to how the federal government handles immunization injuries.

    Individuals frustrated by the HHS program designed to compensate them for their injuries are taking their grievances to court. In a lawsuit lodged with the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, they say the program is unconstitutional, depriving them of their rights to due process and a jury trial.

    Lawyers say the move could spur Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services to reform how they handle vaccine injuries, as well as push more of the individuals alleging injuries to not just sue the government, but the drugmakers that the program is meant to shield from litigation.

    “‘This is the first domino to fall,” said David Carney, a Green & Schafle LLC attorney representing people injured by vaccines. “We’re going to start to see a windfall.”

    For years, attorneys and activists representing Americans injured by routine vaccinations have been pushing lawmakers to reform how the HHS reviews requests for compensation. They say that the process, dubbed the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, is in desperate need for more special masters to review the backlog of nearly 4,000 injury claims.

    Congress, they add, needs to expedite the process for adding new vaccines to the program, though lawmakers have yet to pull the trigger on legislation that’s been several years in the works.

    Covid vaccine injuries are not among those currently under the VICP. Those are filed with the HHS’ Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program.

    Created in 2010 to pay out damages for people injured in sudden health crises like Ebola and the Anthrax scare, critics say the CICP program is slow moving, opaque, and poorly equipped for handling the nearly 11,000 claims alleging Covid-related injuries awaiting or in review as of Oct. 1. And with a little more than 1,000 decisions reached, vaccine attorneys don’t expect the others to be resolved any time soon.

    Vaccine law experts say the path forward is reforming the VICP and bringing Covid-19 immunization injuries under its umbrella. But doing so takes both the HHS and Congress, and attorneys say efforts from both appear lagging.

    ‘Best Interest’

    Adding a vaccine to the VICP is no small feat. The HHS first has to recommend a jab for routine administration to children, and then the agency has two years to recommend that it be covered by the VICP.

    In the case for Covid vaccines, the HHS has already recommended jabs for routine administration to children. Through informal conversations with HHS employees, Carney said he and others in the vaccine law space were led to believe Covid vaccines were going to be moved over to the VICP, though the agency has yet to take any action to make that happen.

    Now, people suffering injuries allegedly from Covid vaccines “feel like the government is not acting in their best interest,” and are hiring attorneys, he said.

    The burden, however, doesn’t entirely lie with the HHS. In order for the VICP to actually pay out for Covid injuries, Congress would have to sign off on taxing the doses for the program, a process that applies to any vaccine added to the program.

    Over the past several years, lawmakers have put forth legislation to modernize the program. Earlier this year, Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) introduced bills that would move pending Covid-19 vaccine injury claims to the VICP, bring on more special masters to review cases, and eliminate the need for Congress to sign off on a tax for every vaccine added to the table.

    In October, React19—a group for people injured by Covid vaccines and a plaintiff in the lawsuit—briefed lawmakers about the need for changes.

    Renee Gentry, director of George Washington University Law School’s Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic, presented alongside React19 and has been urging lawmakers for reforms for a decade.

    When it comes to getting Congress on board, she said “talking about vaccine on the Hill is a little bit like walking on the edge of a razorblade that’s on fire.”

    “It’s a very, very subtle dance up there,” she said, adding it’s nearly impossible to have a “reasoned, calm, specific” conversation about vaccines.

    Insufficient Remedy

    An HHS spokesperson likewise called out Congress for not fully funding the HHS’s budget request for the CICP, though noted the agency has tried making “meaningful CICP process improvement,” such as bringing on more medical reviewers and improving communications with people requesting benefits from the program.

    The spokesperson also said the Health Resources and Services Administration, the HHS entity that oversees the VICP and Countermeasures Program, is “working to establish” a table that would “list and explain injuries that, based on the statutory compelling, reliable, valid, medical, and scientific evidence standard, are presumed to be caused by covered COVID-19 countermeasures.”

    Gentry, however, said there’s a growing frustration with the CICP’s handling of Covid claims, and that the program is “not appropriate for anything on this scale.”

    In total, 12,233 Covid-19 claims have been filed with the CICP. More than 9,000 of those allege Covid-19 vaccines were involved in injuries or deaths. That’s the bulk of the 12,775 claims brought to the program over the past 13 years.

    While only a small fraction of Countermeasure Program’s Covid claims have been addressed, the overwhelming majority of those—1,235—have been denied. Most missed a filing deadline.

    The program has deemed 32 claims eligible for compensation; only 6 have resulted in compensation, all of which involved Covid-19 vaccines.

    “An unsatisfactory remedy has now shown itself to be unsatisfactory,” said Christina Ciampolillo, past president of the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association. “There’s not a lot of promise that you can point to for changes to the CICP in the future.”

    Nevertheless, in May, the HHS extended liability protections under the CICP until the end of 2024. After that, Ciampolillo said, it becomes an open question as to whether Covid vaccine manufacturers would be open to lawsuits from people alleging injury.

    “There’s a deadline there,” said Ciampolillo, an attorney at Conway Homer PC. “That’s kind of the no man’s land that everybody is wondering about.”

    More Lawsuits

    The lawsuit against the HHS may serve as the catalyst for ushering in change.

    “If case does move forward, I would suspect HHS would work more closely in concert to finally get these important bills that will streamline compensation moving,” said Brianne Dressen, co-chair of React19 who experienced blurred vision, severe paresthesia, and other afflictions after a shot of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine during a clinical trial.

    However, should the case fail, Dressen said her group would “continue to seek other avenues through the legal system,” including “other types of lawsuits” and applying more “pressure in the halls of Washington.”

    Likewise, vaccine injury attorneys said more lawsuits could follow.

    “There’s probably a large number of injured people, and the more negative outcomes that are realized through the CICP, I think you’ll have more frustrated individuals,” Ciampolillo said.

    The CICP essentially shields drugmakers from lawsuits. But Carney said that given there’s “not a sufficient legal forum to adjudicate” Covid-19 injury claims and that the CICP isn’t “a suitable alternative to civil tort litigation,” it is arguable that pharmaceutical companies could be next in line to be sued.

    “Very soon, we’re going to see people sue the vaccine manufacturers,” Carney said.


    PM can grace bloomberg forum but bloomberg might get POFMA?

    https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/covid-vaccine-injury-suit-may-fuel-federal-overhaul-litigation

    No paywall site
    https://archive.is/1qIga
    Covid Vaccine Injury Suit May Fuel Federal Overhaul, Litigation A lawsuit by Covid-19 vaccine recipients claiming they were injured by their shots may usher in long-awaited changes to how the federal government handles immunization injuries. Individuals frustrated by the HHS program designed to compensate them for their injuries are taking their grievances to court. In a lawsuit lodged with the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, they say the program is unconstitutional, depriving them of their rights to due process and a jury trial. Lawyers say the move could spur Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services to reform how they handle vaccine injuries, as well as push more of the individuals alleging injuries to not just sue the government, but the drugmakers that the program is meant to shield from litigation. “‘This is the first domino to fall,” said David Carney, a Green & Schafle LLC attorney representing people injured by vaccines. “We’re going to start to see a windfall.” For years, attorneys and activists representing Americans injured by routine vaccinations have been pushing lawmakers to reform how the HHS reviews requests for compensation. They say that the process, dubbed the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, is in desperate need for more special masters to review the backlog of nearly 4,000 injury claims. Congress, they add, needs to expedite the process for adding new vaccines to the program, though lawmakers have yet to pull the trigger on legislation that’s been several years in the works. Covid vaccine injuries are not among those currently under the VICP. Those are filed with the HHS’ Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. Created in 2010 to pay out damages for people injured in sudden health crises like Ebola and the Anthrax scare, critics say the CICP program is slow moving, opaque, and poorly equipped for handling the nearly 11,000 claims alleging Covid-related injuries awaiting or in review as of Oct. 1. And with a little more than 1,000 decisions reached, vaccine attorneys don’t expect the others to be resolved any time soon. Vaccine law experts say the path forward is reforming the VICP and bringing Covid-19 immunization injuries under its umbrella. But doing so takes both the HHS and Congress, and attorneys say efforts from both appear lagging. ‘Best Interest’ Adding a vaccine to the VICP is no small feat. The HHS first has to recommend a jab for routine administration to children, and then the agency has two years to recommend that it be covered by the VICP. In the case for Covid vaccines, the HHS has already recommended jabs for routine administration to children. Through informal conversations with HHS employees, Carney said he and others in the vaccine law space were led to believe Covid vaccines were going to be moved over to the VICP, though the agency has yet to take any action to make that happen. Now, people suffering injuries allegedly from Covid vaccines “feel like the government is not acting in their best interest,” and are hiring attorneys, he said. The burden, however, doesn’t entirely lie with the HHS. In order for the VICP to actually pay out for Covid injuries, Congress would have to sign off on taxing the doses for the program, a process that applies to any vaccine added to the program. Over the past several years, lawmakers have put forth legislation to modernize the program. Earlier this year, Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) introduced bills that would move pending Covid-19 vaccine injury claims to the VICP, bring on more special masters to review cases, and eliminate the need for Congress to sign off on a tax for every vaccine added to the table. In October, React19—a group for people injured by Covid vaccines and a plaintiff in the lawsuit—briefed lawmakers about the need for changes. Renee Gentry, director of George Washington University Law School’s Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic, presented alongside React19 and has been urging lawmakers for reforms for a decade. When it comes to getting Congress on board, she said “talking about vaccine on the Hill is a little bit like walking on the edge of a razorblade that’s on fire.” “It’s a very, very subtle dance up there,” she said, adding it’s nearly impossible to have a “reasoned, calm, specific” conversation about vaccines. Insufficient Remedy An HHS spokesperson likewise called out Congress for not fully funding the HHS’s budget request for the CICP, though noted the agency has tried making “meaningful CICP process improvement,” such as bringing on more medical reviewers and improving communications with people requesting benefits from the program. The spokesperson also said the Health Resources and Services Administration, the HHS entity that oversees the VICP and Countermeasures Program, is “working to establish” a table that would “list and explain injuries that, based on the statutory compelling, reliable, valid, medical, and scientific evidence standard, are presumed to be caused by covered COVID-19 countermeasures.” Gentry, however, said there’s a growing frustration with the CICP’s handling of Covid claims, and that the program is “not appropriate for anything on this scale.” In total, 12,233 Covid-19 claims have been filed with the CICP. More than 9,000 of those allege Covid-19 vaccines were involved in injuries or deaths. That’s the bulk of the 12,775 claims brought to the program over the past 13 years. While only a small fraction of Countermeasure Program’s Covid claims have been addressed, the overwhelming majority of those—1,235—have been denied. Most missed a filing deadline. The program has deemed 32 claims eligible for compensation; only 6 have resulted in compensation, all of which involved Covid-19 vaccines. “An unsatisfactory remedy has now shown itself to be unsatisfactory,” said Christina Ciampolillo, past president of the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association. “There’s not a lot of promise that you can point to for changes to the CICP in the future.” Nevertheless, in May, the HHS extended liability protections under the CICP until the end of 2024. After that, Ciampolillo said, it becomes an open question as to whether Covid vaccine manufacturers would be open to lawsuits from people alleging injury. “There’s a deadline there,” said Ciampolillo, an attorney at Conway Homer PC. “That’s kind of the no man’s land that everybody is wondering about.” More Lawsuits The lawsuit against the HHS may serve as the catalyst for ushering in change. “If case does move forward, I would suspect HHS would work more closely in concert to finally get these important bills that will streamline compensation moving,” said Brianne Dressen, co-chair of React19 who experienced blurred vision, severe paresthesia, and other afflictions after a shot of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine during a clinical trial. However, should the case fail, Dressen said her group would “continue to seek other avenues through the legal system,” including “other types of lawsuits” and applying more “pressure in the halls of Washington.” Likewise, vaccine injury attorneys said more lawsuits could follow. “There’s probably a large number of injured people, and the more negative outcomes that are realized through the CICP, I think you’ll have more frustrated individuals,” Ciampolillo said. The CICP essentially shields drugmakers from lawsuits. But Carney said that given there’s “not a sufficient legal forum to adjudicate” Covid-19 injury claims and that the CICP isn’t “a suitable alternative to civil tort litigation,” it is arguable that pharmaceutical companies could be next in line to be sued. “Very soon, we’re going to see people sue the vaccine manufacturers,” Carney said. PM can grace bloomberg forum but bloomberg might get POFMA? https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/covid-vaccine-injury-suit-may-fuel-federal-overhaul-litigation No paywall site https://archive.is/1qIga
    NEWS.BLOOMBERGLAW.COM
    Covid Vaccine Injury Suit May Fuel Federal Overhaul, Litigation
    A lawsuit by Covid-19 vaccine recipients claiming they were injured by their shots may usher in long-awaited changes to how the federal government handles immunization injuries.
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