Iran and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have started a formal process for Tehran’s accession to the major economic bloc.
A Saturday report by Iran’s IRIB News said that a document had been signed a day earlier in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent between representatives of the eight-member SCO and Iran to allow the organization to consider Iran’s accession bid.
Uzbekistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the signing of the protocol would practically allow the implementation of decision by SCO heads of state in Tajikistan last year to provide membership to Iran.
The next step in the process will be for Iran to sign a memorandum of commitment at an SCO summit in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand in September 2022, said the statement, adding that SCO heads of states will then decide to include Iran in the bloc.
Iran was an observer member of the SCO before applying to join the bloc that includes Russia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Experts says Iran’s accession to the SCO will be a major boost to the bloc’s influence in the region mainly because Iran’s massive transportation network can facilitate regional and international trade.
Iran is also expected to benefit economically from membership in the bloc. The Iranian customs office (IRICA) said on Saturday that Iranian exports to SCO members had increased by 41% year on year in the 11 months to late February to reach nearly $18.3 billion.
IRICA figures showed that Iran had imported $14.4 billion worth of goods from the SCO countries between March 2021 and February 2022, an increase of 31% against the previous similar period.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics | China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, SCO, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan |
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This past week saw two high-profile Australians – cricketer Shane Warne and Labour senator Kimberley Kitching – both die of sudden heart attacks aged 52.
As such, heart disease is back in the headlines. Again.
We predicted in our new-years post that explaining heart attacks would be a big part of 2022’s news cycle, and only three months in it has been a torrent.
It actually started in December of 2021, with medical doctors theorising that the stress and anxiety of dealing with Covid was going to cause a huge spike in heart problems due to “post-pandemic stress disorder”.
Before the end of January, the media were reporting that aortic stenosis was actually massively under-diagnosed and we could see up to 300,000 new cases of heart disease or damage in the near future.
At the beginning of February, a new reason was added to the list. As energy prices began to spike – do remember, that happened before the war – we were told the increased cold and stress could also cause heart disease.
Then, in mid-February scientific papers appeared claiming that “even a mild case of COVID” causes your “heart attack risk to soar”.
In short, and for many reasons, you’re much more likely to have a heart attack this year than you were last year.
Well, now the Sydney Morning Herald has joined in, with this article headlined “‘This is our biggest killer’: Shock deaths put spotlight on heart disease”, which warns:
The shock deaths of cricketer Shane Warne and Senator Kimberley Kitching should serve as a wake-up call to Australians about the prevalence of heart disease, doctors say, as a study shows COVID-19 may increase the risk for what was already one of the nation’s biggest killers.
Yes, having had covid – even if you just tested positive and had no symptoms – makes it more likely you’ll have a heart attack.
On top of that, warn the doctors quoted in the article, thousands of people will have missed their heart screenings due to lockdown, or have been sedantry and gained weight, not to mention the anxiety and stress.
All in all, Australians can expect a “rise in preventable heart disease deaths over the next five years”, according to health modellers.
But don’t worry, none of that is anything to do with the untested vaccines they’ve injected into literally millions of people.
Yes, all the major Covid vaccines are known to have “rare” side effects that impact the heart, such as blood clots and myocarditis, but clearly, that’s just a coincidence.
After all, the Sydney Morning Herald article doesn’t even use the word “vaccine”, not one single time. And they wouldn’t ignore anything that important, would they?
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine |
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Data is the foundation of scientific analysis. Without data, researchers are left unable to draw conclusions, which leaves public health experts unable to accurately make recommendations. But that appears to be exactly what the CDC1 and Health and Human Services (HHS)2 are doing. The CDC is hiding data and the HHS is no longer collecting data, which one U.S. official has called “incomprehensible.”3
Since the World Health Organization announced a pandemic, multiple organizations began tracking data, including the number of people who were sick with COVID-19, in the hospital with or had died from it. As I have written, later the number of “cases” was reported. These were people who had a positive PCR test and did not necessarily have symptoms.
Whistleblowers working with attorney Thomas Renz, who is investigating hospital abuses,4 have reported that hospitals are incentivized to admit PCR positive patients, prescribe remdesivir,5 place patients on ventilators and include COVID on death certificates. All told, some believe hospitals could receive up to $100,000 for each patient who meets all the incentivized criteria.6
Of course, “fact” checkers immediately jumped on that claim in an effort to “debunk” what they call “false” information.7,8 But they simply contradicted themselves in the “fact” checking by changing the semantics of how COVID deaths are counted and rewording of how hospitals are compensated for COVID patients from “paid more” to receiving a “bump” in payment. So what’s the difference? They’re still getting paid more for COVID patients.
In analyzing this, it’s important to look at how data of all sorts are collected on you and everyone else in the world. For example:
Nearly everything people do is digitally recorded, analyzed and extrapolated for decision making. You leave a digital footprint each time you use your smartphone or computer. One study showed digital cookies may have lifetimes up to 8,000 years.9 In 2010, it was estimated there were 2 zettabytes (ZB) of data created.10
To put this into perspective, it would take 184 million football fields of 1 GB thumb drives laid end to end to contain the information. Data is so important that the organization that appears to be leading The Great Reset — the World Economic Forum — is also interested in data and estimates there would be 44 ZB of data collected in 2020.11
So, with all that in mind, in a world where data is king12,13,14 the HHS decision to hide COVID-19 data begs the question: What do they want to hide? Are they stopping the flow of data, as opposed to hiding data like the CDC, to reach the same end, where the data are not available for examination and analysis?
HHS Ends Hospital COVID Death Reports
January 6, 2022, the HHS announced15 changes to the reporting requirements for hospitals and acute care facilities. The new guidelines note “The retirement of fields which are no longer required to be reported,” which include the “previous day’s COVID-19 deaths.”
However, according to one news report, the guideline did not receive public attention until January 14, 2022, when it was tweeted by Dr. Jorge Caballero,16 who asked why the government no longer wanted these daily reports beginning February 2, 2022. By January 28, 2022, just like they did with the report on COVID-19 hospital reimbursements, fact-checkers were busy posting viral social media posts claiming Caballero’s conclusions were not correct.
Yet, as I mentioned, the announcement was published on the HHS website — so how could it be false? You can go to the website17 and read it for yourself. Under the section, “The retirement of fields which are no longer required to be reported,” it says: “previous day’s COVID-19 deaths.” So how could fact-checkers “debunk” that?
To create a fact check that claimed this was “false,” the fact-checkers simply changed the headline. So, while the HHS publicly announced they would no longer require hospitals to report deaths from COVID-19, fact-checkers reported the U.S. government was not ending daily COVID death reporting.
MSN18 fact-checkers reported that Nancy Foster from the American Hospital Association had suggested the change could “streamline data collection.” Yet, the HHS system used direct reporting from ICD medical diagnosis codes entered into the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system.
In an emailed statement, Foster reported that she believes the HHS was no longer collecting data because they were receiving comprehensive data from public health agencies, including death certificates reported to the National Center for Health Statistics and used by the CDC in its death data reporting. Despite supporting the HHS decision, the agency did not respond to a request by MSN on the reason for the change.
HHS had worked with major electronic medical records (EMR) manufacturers, so 85% of hospital reporting was programmed into their computer, and you can’t get more streamlined than that. January 2021, Alex C. Madrigal, co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project,19 wrote:20
“In a series of analyses that we ran over the past several months, we came to nearly the opposite conclusion of other media outlets. The hospitalization data coming out of HHS are now the best and most granular publicly available data on the pandemic. This information has changed the response to the pandemic for the better.”
An unnamed federal health official spoke with a reporter from WSWS,21 calling the move to stop reporting COVID-29 hospital deaths “incomprehensible.” The official added, “It is the only consistent, reliable and actionable dataset at the federal level. Ninety-nine percent of hospitals report 100% of the data every day. I don’t know any scientists who want to have less data.”
CDC Is Hiding Data on Booster Shots
February 20, 2022, The New York Times 22 reported that the CDC has not published large parts of the data they collected during the COVID pandemic. In fact, most of the information they collected in the past year on hospitalizations has not been made public.
The CDC published data on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 boosters in people younger than 65 in early February 2022. However, as The New York Times points out, the data did not cover individuals from 18 to 49 years old.23 This also is the group least likely to benefit from the genetic therapy shot, since CDC data24 demonstrate they have some of the lowest rates of severe disease and death.
The New York Post 25 notes that the FDA overruled an expert advisory committee and the CDC overruled their own experts to promote the boosters for all age groups. After ensuring the boosters would be open to all people, the CDC then did not release much of the data despite pleas from scientists.
A look at the published data for those 50 to 65 years shows the booster reduces the risk of death from 4 in 1 million to 1 in 1 million. Further analysis shows that 75% of the additional three people out of 1 million who are helped by the booster shot have at least four comorbidities.26
Unfortunately, since the CDC has not released the raw data, U.S. scientists have had to rely on Israeli data. One study27 published in The New England Journal of Medicine gathered information from 4.6 million people 16 years and older who had received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. They then compared severe illness and death between those who had had a booster dose and those who had not.
The data showed the group of individuals from 16 to 29 years had zero deaths whether they were boosted or not boosted. Likewise, the group from 30 to 39 years had one death whether they were boosted or not boosted. In fact, the difference in death rate did not rise until the participants were 60 to 69 years, at which point the non-boosted group had 44 deaths and the boosted group had 32 deaths.
In addition to the number of deaths rising in the boosted and non-boosted groups, the percentage of people in those age categories also declined, much like you would find in the general population where the death rate rises as people age.
CDC Claims Data May Be Misinterpreted
Kristen Nordlund is a spokeswoman for the CDC. In her comments to The New York Times,28 she said the data are being slowly released since, “basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” Another reason she cited was the information may be misinterpreted to mean the vaccines are ineffective.
Nordlund gave a third reason for not releasing the data, saying that the data they have is based on 10% of the U.S. population, which the Times reporter points out is the same sample size used to track influenza each year. Jessica Malaty Rivera is an epidemiologist. She spoke with the Times, saying,29 “We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years.”
She went on to say, “We are at a much greater risk of misinterpreting the data with data vacuums, than sharing the data with proper science, communication and caveats.” In an opinion piece, Staten Island Advance’s Tom Wrobleski characterizes the CDC’s decision, writing about what has happened to most people who have been willing to speak out:30
“We’re told to have faith in the CDC, in Dr. Anthony Fauci, in all the experts who are trained to handle public health crises. But we can’t have trust if vital information is withheld from us.
Because then it becomes a case of, “Shut up and do what we say. We’re the experts. You don’t need to know how we come to our decisions. We know what’s best.” And if you question the received wisdom, you’re suddenly a dangerous person. You’re likened to a terrorist. You’re told you want people to die. You get banned from social media.
If you dare protest, you can have your bank account frozen and your vehicle insurance suspended, as we saw during the Freedom Convoy protest in Canada. You can get trampled by police on horseback.
Withholding information only makes people more skeptical. It breeds suspicion. Or mere doubt. The CDC needs to do better if it wants our trust.”
The Jab Is Deadlier Than COVID if You’re Under 80
With the end of the HHS COVID death reporting system, the only means of tracking COVID deaths will now rely on the collection of data from death certificates at the state level. However, as the unnamed official told the WSWS reporter:31
“… deaths are reported by the counties/states but the process is very slow and many coroners are actually not wanting to cite COVID as the reason, while hospitals rely on diagnoses.”
This last part of the sentence may refer to the hospital incentives for a COVID diagnosis, which increases the potential it would be listed in the ICD codes that were communicated to the HHS. Although the CDC and HHS would like the data to remain hidden, a cost-benefit analysis32 by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and independent researcher Kathy Dopp revealed the jab is deadlier than the infection in anyone under the age of 80.
The analysis looked at publicly available official data from the U.S. and U.K. for all age groups and compared all-cause mortality to the risk of dying from COVID-19. Seneff and Dopp wrote:33
“As of 6 February 2022, based on publicly available official UK and US data, all age groups under 50 years old are at greater risk of fatality after receiving a COVID-19 inoculation than an unvaccinated person is at risk of a COVID-19 death.
All age groups under 80 years old have virtually no benefit from receiving a COVID-19 inoculation, and the younger ages incur significant risk. This analysis is conservative because it ignores the fact that inoculation-induced adverse events such as thrombosis, myocarditis, Bell’s palsy, and other vaccine-induced injuries can lead to shortened life span.”
Their analysis is upheld by OneAmerica’s announcement34 that the death rate in working-age Americans from 18 to 64 years in the third quarter of 2021 was 40% higher than prepandemic levels. This finding is stunning since one of the most reliable data points we have is all-cause mortality.
It is a very hard statistic to massage since people are either dead or they’re not. Their inclusion in the national death index database is based on one primary criterion — they’ve died — regardless of the cause. As noted in a (not peer-reviewed) study led by scientist Denis Rancourt, who looked at U.S. mortality between March 2020 and October 2021:35
“All-cause mortality by time is the most reliable data for detecting true catastrophic events causing death, and for gauging the population-level impact of any surge in deaths from any cause.”
Other Insurance Companies Recording Similar Results
Other insurance companies that are citing higher mortality rates36 include Hartford Insurance Group, which announced mortality increased 32% from 2019 and 20% from 2020 before the shots. Lincoln National also reported death claims have increased 13.7% year over year and 54% in quarter 4 compared to 2019. Funeral homes are posting an increase in burials and cremations in 2021 over 2020.37
Similar numbers are also being reported in other countries. A large German health insurance company reported38,39 company data were nearly 14 times greater than the number of deaths reported by the German government. The insurance data are gathered directly from doctors applying for payment from a sample of 10.9 million people.
Despite mass injection campaigns, Silicon Valley software engineer Ben M. (@USMortality) revealed that in the 13 weeks before November 28, 2021, about 107,700 seniors died above the normal rate, despite a 98.7% vaccination rate.40
He also used data from the CDC, census.gov and his own calculations to show excess deaths rising in Vermont, even as the majority of adults have been injected. “Vermont had 71% of their entire population vaccinated by June 1, 2021,” he tweeted. “That’s 83% of their adult population, yet they are seeing the most excess deaths now since the pandemic!”41
It is easy to see why the HHS and CDC would like to hide these numbers from scrutiny. It is becoming more difficult to ignore with each passing day that the infection didn’t kill the number of people health experts claimed and the vaccine is killing far more than the virus.
Sources and References
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | CDC, Covid-19, United States |
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15% of modern global warming (ocean) can be attributed to geothermal heat fluxes through the sea floor that persistently heat the ocean.
Evidence of more than 100,000 formerly or currently active volcanic vents permeate the Earth’s sea floor (Kelley, 2017).
Active volcanoes spew 380°C sulfuric acid and “metal-laden acidic fluids” into the bottom waters of the world ocean on a daily basis. Literal ocean acidification is thus a natural phenomenon.
The carbon dioxide concentrations present in these acidic floods reach “astounding” levels, dwarfing the potential for us to even begin to appreciate the impact this explosive geothermal activity has on the Earth’s carbon cycle.
Geothermal heating warms up the last 2000 m of the global ocean “by about 0.3°C to 0.5°C” (Emile-Gaey and Madec, 2009). The heat fluxes are systemically positive, span “the entire seafloor,” and the circulation is largely horizontal at these depths. Horizontal circulation allows the bottom waters “to feel the influence of geothermal heating for a long time.”
The rapidity of temperature changes near geothermal sources can be profound. Geothermal heating can induce warming rates of 0.02°C per year, or 0.2°C per decade, offsetting the abrupt (~0.25°C per year) cooling from “cold-seawater intrusions” (Becker et al., 2021).
Approximately 15% of modern global warming (ocean) can be attributed to geothermal heat fluxes through the sea floor that “persistently heat the ocean” (Gebbie, et al., 2021). The value attained for geothermal heating of the ocean, 87 mW/m², is similar to that which is required to end a glacial period (melt ice sheets) and transition into an interglacial.
Considering the ocean bottom waters warmed up 2°C from 19,000 to 17,000 years ago about 1,000 years before the surface warmed and CO2 began rising (Stott et al., 2007), geothermal heat fluxes could potentially explain a large portion of glacial-interglacial transitions – as well as millennial-scale global ocean temperature changes.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
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The huge $1.5 trillion US federal spending bill, that’s expected to be signed into law by President Joe Biden today, allocates over $2.6 billion to “Democracy Programs” and requires these programs to combat “the misuse of social media to spread disinformation or incite hate.”
This requirement is buried deep into the 2,741 page bill on page 1,408 and is part of the “Title VII General Provisions” of the “Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2022.”
The bill states: “Democracy programs supported with funds appropriated by this Act… should, as appropriate… include… efforts to combat weaponized technology, including the misuse of social media to spread disinformation or incite hate.”
While this is the main requirement in the bill related to disinformation, there’s also another reference to disinformation on page 1,848 that states:
“Funds appropriated by this title under the heading “Economic Support Fund” may be transferred to, and merged with, funds available under the heading “Diplomatic Programs” for activities related to public engagement, messaging, and countering disinformation.”
The “Economic Support Fund” heading makes $6.47 million available until September 30, 2024 while the “Diplomatic Programs” heading makes $125 million available until September 30, 2024 with the provisions that up to $15 million “may be transferred to, and merged with, funds available under the heading “‘Capital Investment Fund”’ for cybersecurity and related information technology investments” and that the funds “shall be made available, as appropriate, to enhance the capacity of the Department of State to identify the assets of Russian and other oligarchs related to the situation in Ukraine, and to coordinate with the Department of the Treasury in seizing or freezing such assets.”
We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.
The way the final text of this massive spending bill was released in the middle of the night, hours before a final vote, has been criticized by numerous US politicians.
The final text of the bill was published just before 3 am Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Wednesday morning and the final vote for the bill in the US House of Representatives was set for 1:30 pm EST on Wednesday, giving representatives less than 11 hours to read the final text before voting.
A day later, the final vote for the bill in the US Senate was held, giving Senators around 24 hours to read the nearly 3,000 pages in the bill.
“Literally in the DARK OF NIGHT, the Democrat controlled Rules Committee met at 1:30 am – 2:30 am and passed the HORRENDOUS $1.5 TRILLION Omnibus bill,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted. “They did NOT tell anyone or announce this debate on the bill until after midnight! We woke up to 2,741 pages and we vote today!”
Senator Rand Paul added: “Do you think there is a single person in the U.S. who believes that Congress is filled with speed readers capable of digesting thousands of pages in a matter of hours? The 2741-page omnibus with a $1.5 trillion price tag that was released in the middle of the night is a perfect example of why Congress needs time to read the bills.”
This isn’t the first time a huge spending bill has been used to push new online rules. In December 2020, a controversial copyright reform that proposed up to 10 years in prison for “unauthorized streaming” was buried 2,540 pages deep in the 5,593 page “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.” Despite its huge length, this bill passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by then-President Donald Trump within six days.
The addition of requirements to fight online disinformation in this federal spending bill is the latest of many examples of the federal government targeting online speech. The Biden White House has admitted that it flags content for Facebook to censor and proposed that If you’re banned for “misinformation” on one platform, you should be banned from ALL platforms. Members of Congress have also threatened to hold Big Tech companies “accountable” if they don’t censor misinformation.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | United States |
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The United States government is busy banning and sanctioning virtually all things Russian. Meanwhile, big money media and social media are nearly uniformly proclaiming anti-Russia sentiment and working hard to limit Americans’ exposure of contrary information.
In this context, it is little surprise that last week RT America, with its connection to the government of Russia, ceased broadcasting. The silencing of the news organization arises from a Russia scare relentlessly fueled in America and several other countries in recent years that reached its highest manic level in the last few weeks.
The departure of RT America from television is a loss for free speech and diversity of information. And that loss comes within a larger scary progression in America — continual increasing of the muting of voices challenging narratives, such as the coronavirus scare of the last two years and the ascendant Russia scare, that are used to expand government power.
RT America has been a go-to place for news and commentary different from what is found at cable television stations such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Flipping the channel to RT, one would likely find a different topic being discussed than at those other stations, or the same topic being discussed but with the inclusion of different perspectives or additional important information. RT America thus helped Americans become more knowledgeable about what was happening in the world and helped them overcome tunnel vision approaches often presented elsewhere.
A big step in the suppression of RT America came in 2017 when the United States government required it to register as a foreign agent with the US Department of Justice. Writing then at Consortium News, investigative reporter Robert Parry explained the apparent chilling motive of silencing alternative views and controlling information that was behind imposing this requirement:
The U.S. government’s real beef with RT seems to be that it allows on air some Americans who have been blacklisted from the mainstream media – including highly credentialed former U.S. intelligence analysts and well-informed American journalists – because they have challenged various Official Narratives.
In other words, Americans are not supposed to hear the other side of the story on important international conflicts, such as the proxy war in Syria or the civil war in Ukraine or Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians. Only the State Department’s versions of those events are permitted even when those versions are themselves propagandistic if not outright false.
Five years later, the hammer came down with full force on RT America.
Goodbye, RT America. Americans will be worse off without you.
Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | United States |
2 Comments
Joint NATO-Georgia IT-based exercises will be conducted from March 20 to 25, the Georgian ministry of defense announced on Saturday.
The exercises, which have been planned since 2020, will take place in the Georgia-NATO Joint Training and Evaluation Center (JTEC) with representatives of 23 NATO member states set to take part.
“The exercises will help increase interoperability between the military of Georgia and NATO member and partner countries,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
It specified that the goal of the upcoming exercises would be to develop the skills necessary for planning operations by using computer simulations, as well as to share knowledge and experience.
The exercises would be the third of their type held since 2016 and are a part of the Substantial NATO-Georgia Package, which was approved at the 2014 Wales Summit.
In 2008, in the Bucharest Summit Declaration the alliance announced that NATO welcomed “Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO.” The summit participants agreed that eventually these countries would “become members of NATO.”
This decision was condemned by Moscow which consistently opposed NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders.
The possibility of Ukraine becoming a member of the bloc has been one of the reasons for Russia’s ongoing military offensive, despite numerous assurances from NATO that neither Ukraine’s and Georgia’s memberships are currently on its agenda.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Russia |
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Russia’s ambassador to Washington accused the Americans on Saturday of trying to “demonize” Moscow, rejecting a US State Department allegation that his country may deploy chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“The US official, as always, did not bother to provide any evidence. This is another attempt to demonize our country,” Anatoly Antonov said, adding that such claims were “not worth a penny.”
Citing a paper from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the official then suggested that Ukrainian “radical groups” – allegedly “[trained] under the control of the representatives of American special services” – could have themselves “prepared several potential scenarios of the use of toxic chemicals in order to carry out various types of provocations.”
“Our country, unlike the United States, eliminated all available stocks of chemical warfare agents in 2017. This fact has been documented by the OPCW. It is pointless to argue with this fact,” Antonov concluded, in reference to the fact that US chemical warfare stockpiles have yet to be completely decommissioned.
The Russian government has claimed that Ukrainian groups backed by the US could be preparing a false-flag chemical attack in order to “accuse Russia of the use of chemical weapons against the civil population and violating its obligations.” The US and Ukraine have denied such claims.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price suggested on Wednesday that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“Russia has a track record of accusing the West of the very crimes that Russia itself is perpetrating,” he said, calling Moscow’s warnings “an obvious ploy.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed this week that Russia could “use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine” or “create a false-flag operation” with such weapons. Psaki added that the world should “be on the lookout.”
Psaki dismissed Moscow’s suggestions that the US and Ukraine could conduct a similar false-flag attack, calling them “false claims” and “conspiracy theories.”
The press secretary argued that Moscow’s claims were an “obvious ploy” to justify further military action in Ukraine.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed on March 6 that Russian forces had discovered evidence of Ukraine erasing traces of an alleged US-backed military biological program in the country. Washington has claimed it is working to prevent Russian forces from capturing biological research material.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
1 Comment
The collective post-West has been running amok for the last two weeks. The powers that be make believe that they did not expect that events would unfold the way they are unfolding now (though they did their best to make things happen as they are happening) and they make a show imposing sanctions on the aggressor and assuring the populace that the aggressor sooner or later will cave in. There is yet a third aspect to the phenomenon: the same powers that be want the people to forget that merely twenty years back they themselves assaulted Yugoslavia/Serbia, used missiles with depleted uranium, bombed cities and shot at civilians. Of course, that earlier event was a humanitarian action while the current one is a brutal act of aggression, but we digress.
Now there is a big misconception on the part of the post-West about Russia. If the Western media claim the Russian people are against the war or that the Russian people are about to rebel and overthrow President Putin, then they are either delusional or lying through their teeth. Reality is something that refuses to obey our wishes. The Russian people have rallied around their president and their authorities; the Russian people – unlike citizens of the post-Western countries – are patriotic and ready to sacrifice themselves in defence of their fatherland. Western sanctions? The post-West may withdraw businesses and impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs, which is music to the ears of the Russian people. They resented Western dominance anyway and they will be more than happy to see the oligarchs mopped up from their society. Russians view the hostilities as a repeat of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Contrary to what has been done to the Western collective mentality, the Russian authorities under Vladimir Putin took great efforts to raise Russia’s citizens in patriotic values. Russians are going to win because they do not care about money so much as the West does. That’s one big misconception that Western people have about their opponents from the East.
It is the West that cannot imagine a life without money and the resultant luxuries. Sanctions or no sanctions, Western companies will sooner or later (I bet: sooner) resume business with Russia because – as everybody in the West knows – “money makes the world go round”. No less a person than Comrade Lenin famously said: capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will make a noose to hang them. And so they will, make no bones about it.
Yes, the West is ready to go to war with Russia so long as it has… Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian, Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian soldiers at its disposal. The moment the West runs out of those soldiers, its leaders will go back to the negotiating table with the Kremlin. Do you want any evidence? Here you are.
A few days ago Americans tried to set Poland against Russia in that they suggested to Warsaw that it send Soviet-made MiG aircraft to Ukraine. Though the Polish authorities usually oblige the West’s wishes, this time they had second thoughts about the proposal and replied that they were ready to send the said aircraft to the American air base in Rammstein so that Americans could pass them over to Kiev. And you know what? Washington was beside itself with annoyance! You see? The dog was expected to bite the bear, with the dog’s owner watching from the sidelines and biding his time.
Just picture it to yourself. Warsaw sends the MiG aircraft to Ukraine, Moscow regards it (and rightly so!) as a hostile act and fires a couple of missiles against selected targets in Polish territory. What do you think the West would do? Yes, you guessed it right. The West would express its great indignation and impose a set of new sanctions… for a time.
Talking about President Putin, who – according to the Western analysts is about to be toppled either by the people closest to him or by the nation – his Christian name is Vladimir, and Vladimir was the name of the grand prince of Rus’ who united the many Slavic tribes and christened them. He went down in history as Vladimir the Great. The chances are – whether you like it or not – that Putin is going to be another Vladimir the Great.
The current war means the end of the world that we have been accustomed to. We are entering a new cold war period and a new division of the globe with the United States, Great Britain, and the European Union on the one side, and Russia and China on the other. This new world throws a monkey wrench into the plans forged by globalists of the Klaus Schwab ilk. Or, globalism will be reduced to the Western world. The international rules that all the countries have up to now tried to abide by are no more valid for Russia, and consequently sooner or later for others because of the domino effect. Being beleaguered by the West, Moscow will have no intention to play by the rules created in this West. Why should it?
Sanctions work both ways. Russia has a lot to offer, be it crude oil, natural gas, rare metals or what not. Look back into the past! The Bolsheviks that took reins of power after 1917 were hated by the West. Lo and behold, it did not take many years for the capitalists to resume business with the hated communists; similarly, after the Second World War the Soviet Union was regarded as a hostile empire and yet, and despite that, business between the West and the Soviets went as usual. How about China? It was Taiwan that was first supported by the West, yet slowly but surely Washington reversed course, left Taiwan to its own devices and resumed contacts with Beijing. Since – as said above – money makes the world go round, the greedy capitalists helped China develop in that they outsourced almost all production to the Middle Kingdom. Do you think it is going to be different now with regard to Russia?
When Ukraine is eventually conquered by Russia, what will the elites in such small countries like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – all bordering on Russia – think about their security and the ability of the collective West to help them? I want to see that man or that woman who really thinks that NATO will go to war with Russia over Estonia or Latvia.
Ukraine has been exploited by Western companies for thirty long years. All those contacts with democracies and capitalism did not benefit the country at all. It only benefited a handful of people, who fled Ukraine before the hostilities, leaving the rank and file behind. Rumour has it that President Zelensky is kept in the American embassy in Warsaw though we are all made to believe that he remains in Kiev. How much would you bet on President Zelensky residing in Kiev, a city that is about to be soon encircled?
The West could have further exploited Ukraine and teased Russia but it simply overplayed its hand. Precisely as it is described in this fable by Aesop where a goose laying golden eggs is killed by the greedy owners. The moral? Much wants more and loses all. Now that Moscow is taking retaliatory steps like shutting down media outlets that propagated Western ideas and Western lifestyle the West has lost its ideological bridgehead inside Russia that it has held for thirty years. The West really thought it was ready to make a killing. A big killing. Western elites really thought Russia would be withdrawing from its positions further and further; they really believed the Navalny kind of Russian dissenters that the Russian people were all against the authorities. Worse, the West still thinks that Russians will force their president to surrender because otherwise common people will be stripped of the opportunity to eat hamburgers and cheeseburgers in McDonald’s restaurants in Moscow and Petersburg! Sure, there are some such people who are ready to trade their country for ham- and cheeseburgers, but then it is a splinter from the large whole. The majority accustomed to Russia’s greatness are not willing to sell this greatness off. Plus, they are not attracted by the Western values of married homosexuals or the many sexes that are invented by the month. That’s also something that the post-West is not aware of. Remember also that millions of Russians have bitter recollections of the Yeltsin era during which western-style capitalism promised them well-being and brought poverty, unrest and humiliation instead. That’s one big reason why President Putin is appreciated by the vast majority of the population: he put an end to chaos and brought in stability. If you think Russians dream about homosexual parades in their cities or pregnant soldiers in their army or the many gender pronouns, you cannot be more delusional.
There is one more explanation to all what is occurring. The West went to great lengths to have Russia and Ukraine clash for the sheer purpose of weakening both countries. This is one sure way of preserving world preponderance, is it not? Lead nations to war the moment you see they have developed too much and too fast. The United States achieved its global dominance because the Second World War wreaked havoc with the economies of Germany, Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Japan – the world’s powerhouses. After the cessation of the hostilities all those countries needed American aid and American dollars and were compelled to accept almost all the dictates from Washington.
Look at the present political map of the world. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the countries of former Yugoslavia, the states that went through an array of all those colour revolutions: they are reeling under the blows of all manner of war, civil war, social upheaval and the attendant economic collapse. Which country emerges victorious? Yes, sure, the one that has not been directly engaged in the conflict. A classic case of two dogs fighting for a bone with a third running away with it.
Russia and Ukraine will lose a number of people (killed, wounded, displaced); Ukraine will have its economy ruined; Poland is already accommodating a million (and rising!) Ukrainians who somehow do not want to defend their country and prove their rights to it (If you say that women and children do not or should not take part in hostilities, then think again); Warsaw will have a lot of trouble with them. Who emerges victorious? You know who. Vice-President Kamala Harris visited Poland to reassuringly pat the Polish nation on the shoulder in recognition of Poland’s hospitality towards Ukrainians. She knows that such gestures work with Poles. The supranational elites hating ethnically monolithic countries are rubbing their hands in glee. At last Poland, this ethnically and religiously monolithic nation, is changing to a mix of Poles and Ukrainians, of Catholic and Orthodox Christians, to be later skilfully set off against each other like Croats and Serbs if Warsaw should fail to toe the Western party line.
GEFIRA – Global Analysis from the European Perspective. Preparing for the world of tomorrow.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Poland, Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States, Vladimir Putin |
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Recently, western political leaders and mainstream media have begun injecting a new talking point into their anti-Russian and wartime discourse: that Russia is planning an endless series of ‘false flag attacks.’
Never mind the fact that, historically speaking, Russia has no visible track record of false flag operations.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for either the US and Britain – both have an extremely long list of military and political deceptions which they’ve used to start and prolong various wars around the world.
Currently, in the Donbass region, formerly in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are firing indiscriminately into civilian towns and villages – and then attempting to blame their own violent actions on Russia. The shelling of civilian areas has been going on continuous there since the civil war began in 2014. This is extremely worrying, because in the current anti-Russian western media ecosystem, any accusations leveled at Russia are never questioned, before being beamed across all western global news networks. And that is exactly what is happening right now with mainstream media coverage in Ukraine.
Independent journalist Patrick Lancaster is on the ground in Donbass region in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, and has recently interviewed local witnesses who have confirmed these very war crimes, carried out by NATO-backed Ukrainian Army and their Nazi-Azov Battalions.
Watch his stunning reportage here:
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Ukraine |
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RT | March 12, 2022
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has reportedly advised Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to Russia’s proposals to end the ongoing bloody conflict in his country, according to Israeli media on Friday. Top officials in Kiev and Israel have denied the reports, however.
“If I were you, I would think about the lives of my people and take the offer,” the Jerusalem Post quoted Bennett as having told Zelensky on Tuesday during a phone call, citing an unnamed senior Ukrainian official.
“Bennett told us to surrender,” the official said, according to the Post, which added that Kiev apparently had “no intention” of agreeing to President Putin’s demands.
However, a top official in Bennett’s office quickly denied that any suggestion to surrender had been made, saying the Israeli PM “doesn’t intend to give Zelensky any recommendations or advice at any stage,” Axios reported. … Full article
RT | March 12, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his readiness for negotiations with Russia. He requested that the Israeli prime minister convene peace talks in Jerusalem.
“A group of Ukrainians and Russian representatives are discussing certain issues. They began talking about something, and not just throwing out ultimatums,” Zelensky said on Saturday, during a press conference with foreign media.
Kiev is of the view that any high-profile talks with Russia should be held on neutral territory, Zelensky said, naming Israel as a potential host for such negotiations.
“We spoke with [Israeli Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett, and I said that today it is not right [to hold] meetings in Russia, in Belarus. I’m not talking about technical meetings – I’m talking about leaders’ meetings. Do I think that Israel can be such a land, and Jerusalem? Yes, I think so. And I told him that,” Zelensky stated.
However, the president said, if the outcome was to be successful, his country would need certain “security guarantees” that the ongoing conflict was settled not only from the perspective of Russia, but also from that of the West. Israel could act as a guarantor in that respect, he suggested. … Full article
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Israel, Ukraine |
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White House officials have held a special briefing on the conflict in Ukraine for some 30 social media creators, the US media have reported, adding that the Biden administration is increasingly exploring new means of communication to get its message across to younger audiences.
The briefing was held on Thursday by the White House National Security Council special adviser for communications, Matt Miller, and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. The officials explained the US “strategic goals in the region” and answered questions about US aid to Ukraine, about NATO and Washington’s potential reaction to a Russian nuclear strike, addressing the social media creators on a zoom call, The Washington Post has reported on Friday.
The list of those invited to the briefing included people creating “explanatory” content on the conflict on TikTok, YouTube and Twitter. According to the Post, the first to break the story, the Biden administration has cooperated with Gen Z For Change – a nonprofit group – to identify content creators for the briefing.
One of those invited was Aaron Parnas, the 22-year-old son of Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born American businessman and a former associate of Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York mayor and lawyer of then-President Donald Trump. Lev Parnas was convicted in October on campaign finance charges and pleaded guilty to conspiracy.
“We recognize this is a critically important avenue in the way the American public is finding out about the latest,” the White House director of digital strategy, Rob Flaherty, explained, adding that Washington wanted to “make sure” the social media influencers get “the latest information from an authoritative source.”
According to the Washington Post, some influencers said following the briefing they “felt more empowered to debunk misinformation and communicate effectively about the crisis.” “I’m here to relay the information in a more digestible manner to my followers,” 18-year-old Ellie Zeiler, who has 10.5 million followers, told the Washington Post after the briefing. “I would consider myself a White House correspondent for Gen Z,” the TikTok influencer added.
Others, however, appeared unimpressed by the event. “The energy of the call felt like a press briefing for kindergartners,” said Jules Suzdaltsev, a Ukrainian-born journalist who also operates a popular TikTok channel. The officials had dodged hard questions, he added.
The development comes amid an ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. Moscow has accused Kiev of failing to implement the Minsk Agreements – a set of accords regulating its relations with the then-rebel regions of the Donbass. The Kremlin also maintains it has launched the operation to protect the people of the Donbass republics, and to “demilitarize” Ukraine.
Kiev has blasted the operation as a completely unprovoked invasion and argues that, in the first instance, it had never planned to attack the two secessionist regions.
The US media have also claimed that a lot of misinformation has surfaced on TikTok and other social media amid the conflict, and that Moscow had reportedly paid Russian influencers to share videos promoting the Kremlin’s narrative.
TikTok blocked all new content and livestreaming from Russia altogether from March 6, citing Russia’s own ‘fake news law’ that prohibits the spreading of false information about the Russian military. The company insisted at that time it was putting the “the safety of our employees and our users” first.
March 12, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | United States |
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Aletho News 