New US guidelines propose all women should start screening for breast cancer at age 40 instead of 50, but what does the evidence show?
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently changed its recommendations for all women to get screened for breast cancer every other year starting at age 40 instead of 50.
Wanda Nicholson, USPSTF Vice Chair and professor at George Washington University said the updated recommendations “will save more lives among all women.”
Sadly, it’s not that simple.
Time and time again, the evidence shows that screening healthy women using mammograms in fact, does not save lives.
In 2014, in a large study published in The BMJ, half of women underwent annual mammogram screening, and the other half did not.
At the end of the 5-year trial period, and after 25 years of follow-up (see graph), the probability of survival was similar in the two groups.
A Cochrane review in 2013 (and an unpublished update in Jan 2023) also found mammography screening had no impact on the most important outcome, i.e. overall (all-cause) mortality.
The imaging technology is so sensitive that it detects lumps, masses and cysts that are not cancerous, resulting in biopsies and follow-up procedures that can cause patients immense stress.
Also, it’s detecting abnormalities that would never lead to harm because they grow so slowly, or they don’t grow at all.
And because we’re not very good at distinguishing the difference between slow and fast-growing cancers, the standard is to treat them all – sometimes, unnecessarily.
Danish physician Peter Gøtzsche and lead author of the Cochrane review on mammography screening wrote a review in 2015 called “Mammography screening is harmful and should be abandoned.”
Gøtzsche explains why screening healthy women actually harms more than it helps. It’s a well-intentioned program that has unintended harmful consequences.
For example, while trying to reduce death from breast cancer, the treatments (e.g. radiotherapy) may cause death from other diseases like heart disease or lung cancer – so in the end – there is no improvement in lifespan.
Much of the difficulty lies with ~20% of breast abnormalities called “Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) – otherwise known as stage 0 cancer. Their detection is a direct consequence of the mammography screening, as they would not be detected otherwise.
Importantly, these are not cancers, but have the potential to progress.
The problem is, few clinicians are comfortable with the wait-and-see approach, and often encourage women to undergo invasive surgeries, radiation, or chemotherapy that they didn’t ultimately need.
For this reason, some oncologists have suggested changing the name of DCIS to avoid using words such as “stage 0 cancer” or “carcinoma” which cause fear and unnecessary psychological stress.
The question of whether patients benefit from immediate treatment of DCIS or from ‘active surveillance’, may be answered over the next few years by three ongoing trials – two in Europe and one in the US.
Lowering the screening threshold from age 50 to 40, means millions more people become eligible for treatments that they might not need, under the guise of “prevention is better than cure.”
Consequently, a huge number of scarce resources is diverted from the sick to the ‘worried well.’
Dr Iona Heath, past president of the UK Royal College of General Practitioners, once said to me, “Medicine should probably be leaving the well to be well, instead of constantly trying to find something wrong with them.”
Dr Heath was among several experts who featured in my documentary called “Too Much Medicine” which aired on ABC TV in 2015 (see it here). The program explored the issue of over-diagnosis and over-treatment in various areas of healthcare.
There are women at high risk of breast cancer – e.g. those with a genetic/family history – who might benefit from targeted detection tools, but screening women in the general population appears to cause more harm than good.
*15 of the 16 members of the US Task Force declared no conflicts of interest related to this recommendation. There was only one Task Force member who had a relevant conflict of interest, and he was recused from all activities related to this recommendation.
*Peter Gøtzsche, former head of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, published a book titled “Mammography Screening: Truth, Lies and Controversy” available here.
*Vinay Prasad, a practicing haematologist-oncologist and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco, has recently produced a video explaining the data.
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science |
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Buttar died in mysterious circumstances just days after claiming he’d been poisoned following a controversial interview with CNN
Covid pandemic disinformation; Covid conspiracy doctor claimed he was ‘poisoned after interview’ just days before death; IMO, I don’t put anything past the ‘dark unseen hand’, those behind COVID fraud.
‘A notorious conspiracy theorist doctor, known for his wild takes on the Coronavirus pandemic, claimed he had been poisoned just a few days before he died.
Dr Rashid Buttar, who was part of the group nicknamed the “Disinformation dozen”, died suddenly yesterday (Saturday, May 20) at the age of 57.
He was known for being a huge anti-vaxxer and became a cult figure during the pandemic.’
‘The medical community is mourning the loss of Dr. Rashid Buttar, a respected doctor known for his views on COVID-19 and vaccines.
He was named as one of the “Disinformation Dozen” by the far-left media along with Democrat presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Dr. Buttar, 57, a licensed physician and a retired Major in the US Army who served in special forces, died on Thursday at his home, while spending time with his family, according to an email sent by his family.’
“Every single one of you, independently, is a beacon of light for those around you. So set the example, stand up, continue to fight … let your children see what it means to be free.” — Dr. Rashid Buttar
The entire Children’s Health Defense (CHD) team is saddened to learn of the May 18 passing of renowned physician, humanitarian and children’s health advocate Dr. Rashid Buttar.
Dr. Buttar was born in England in 1966. He moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 10 years old. He graduated from Washington University with a double major in biology and theology, later obtaining a doctor of osteopathic medicine degree from the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Health Sciences, College of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery in Des Moines, Iowa.
Dr. Buttar trained in general surgery and emergency medicine and served as brigade surgeon and chief of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Moncrief Army Community Hospital at Ft. Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, during his time with the U.S. Army.
He was board certified in clinical metal toxicology and was the medical director for Advanced Concepts in Medicine in North Carolina and California clinics specializing in alternative treatments for patients with cancer, heart disease and autism.
Dr. Buttar distinguished himself among the families of children diagnosed with autism for his compassion and willingness to think outside the box in terms of treatment — even when his methodologies went against the grain of mainstream medicine.
He became an advocate for children who were injured by vaccines, testifying in 2004 before the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform on the topic of “Revolutionary New Treatment of Neurodevelopmental Diseases.”
Commenting on Dr. Buttar’s death, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD founder and chairman on leave, said:
“Rashid was an irreplaceable leader in the medical freedom movement. He was also my friend and physician. His early and courageous stand for his patients, for medical integrity and for evidence-based medicine cost him his career, relationships, income and his standing in his community and made him a pariah among his physician colleagues for decades.
“Rashid rarely spoke of his own sacrifices. His consuming focus was on healing the sick, comforting the afflicted and consoling the grief-stricken. I’ll always be grateful to him for the miraculous relief he provided me from mercury toxicity. He gave similar gifts to thousands. I’m grateful to God for giving me such a friend.”
A stalwart pioneer in innovative treatments for autism and other conditions, Dr. Buttar was considered a medical maverick by both his peers and his patients.
In 2010, he wrote the popular book, “The 9 Steps to Keep the Doctor Away: Simple Actions to Shift Your Body and Mind to Optimum Health for Greater Longevity.”
“Our community has lost a dear colleague, a caring physician and a steadfast friend,” said Laura Bono, acting president of CHD.
Bono added:
“Dr. Buttar treated my son’s environmental toxicity and heavy metal poisoning for many years. We drove four hours, round-trip, to his office three days a week. He listened to our views regarding our son’s needs and altered treatments as needed based on our input, a real rarity in medicine today.
“Dr. Buttar never doubted my son’s history of regression into autism after vaccines. After all, it was a story he had heard many times before. The key to his success in treating patients was that he listened to and trusted the parents.
“We can only hope that Dr. Buttar’s example of treating patients’ illnesses with individualized, effective protocols will become the standard for all physicians.”
Dr. Buttar applied the spirit of his experiences on the battlefield to his tireless work for truth and freedom on behalf of neurodevelopmentally injured children despite well-financed censorship of his efforts.
“The many people impacted by Dr. Buttar’s courage and determination will carry on his legacy by continuing to speak truth to power, even when the deck is so heavily stacked against them,” said Bono. “Our collective voices will ensure that truth triumphs in the end.”
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular |
4 Comments
From his first days in office, President Biden has promised — threatened — to activate the administrative state at every level to address and solve the “climate crisis.” In the orthodoxy of the Biden/Democrat climate cult, this is to be accomplished by reducing U.S. carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
Now, even if you believe that a little more CO2 in the atmosphere is some kind of a problem (it isn’t), there is nothing that the United States can do to have any meaningful impact on that situation, given that countries with populations a large multiple of ours (China, India, Africa) are building coal-fired power plants as fast as they can. Even if we closed our economy entirely and reduced ourselves to eating grass and bugs, the effect on the climate would be zilch.
Meanwhile we have waited through the first two plus years of Bidenism to find out exactly what punishments the administrative state has in mind for us for our sins of prosperity and enjoyment of life. In the last few weeks, we have learned at least part of the answer, in the form of a series of gigantic new regulatory proposals emanating from EPA and other agencies. The answer is, the federal government will become a suicide bomber seeking to blow up and destroy the American economy and the well-being of the American people.
Here are three major regulatory initiatives from the past few weeks, each one supposedly somehow addressing this “climate crisis” thing:
I previously covered the new vehicle rule, really an EV mandate, in this post on May 5. True to form of regulators who treat their subjects with contempt, the rule never explicitly states that the cars we now use are henceforth to be banned. Rather, it is some 262 pages of impenetrable text, which has buried somewhere deep inside a formula (82 g/mile CO2 emissions) that only an industry professional would know effectively bans internal combustion vehicles. All manufacturers are to be forced to comply, irrespective of whether they can do so profitably.
What is the probability that the new EV mandate will put all large U.S. and European automakers out of business in favor of Chinese competitors who have an advantage in the EV segment? The regulators neither know nor care. From Engineering & Technology, May 9:
According to insurers Allianz Trade, China’s decision to invest heavily in EV production over the last 15 years has made it the global leader in this sector. . . . Chinese brands have seen their global market shares climb from less than 40 per cent in 2020 to close to 50 per cent in 2022. This is heavily bolstered by an 80 per cent market share in their densely-populated home country.
In the world of dishwashers, we already have dishwashers that don’t work very well. The reason is regulator-imposed restrictions on use of energy and water. Today, due to these restriction, dishwashers run for more than two hours, and still don’t get the dishes very clean unless you pre-wash them by hand. Well, with the new Energy Department rule, it’s about to get a lot worse. From the WSJ, May 12:
The proposal requires manufacturers to slash water use by a third, limiting machines to 3.2 gallons per cycle, down from the current federal limit of five gallons. New appliances must simultaneously cut estimated annual energy usage by nearly 30%.
And then there is the new power plant rule. This one is 682 pages. Again, it never explicitly says that fossil fuel power plants are banned; it’s just that the emissions standards that they set cannot be met by any fossil fuel plant. The WSJ on May 11 calls the rule a “death sentence” for fossil fuel power plants.
Supposedly the fossil fuel plants can continue to operate if they adopt some means to capture the carbon emissions from their exhaust. I have previously described this idea of carbon capture as a “war against the second law of thermodynamics.” Trying to capture CO2 from power plant emissions requires energy, and the higher the percentage of the emissions you want to capture, the more energy it takes. If you insist on capturing all of the emissions and somehow storing them permanently, it’s going to take more energy than the power plant produces. There has been endless talk about carbon capture for more than a decade, and there is almost nothing in the way of functional carbon capture systems, because as they capture enough carbon to be meaningful, their cost soars out of control.
Will there be any functional replacement for the fossil fuel plants by the time they are forced out of business? This rule doesn’t trouble itself with such matters. That’s for the low status people to figure out. Over here at EPA, we are much too important for that. Our job is to save the planet.
So the regulatory onslaught continues. We are told to expect yet more such regulations, notably in the area of home appliances, in the near future.
Put it all together, and the term “war against the economy” no longer does justice to what is going on. This is a full-blown attack by suicide bombers. They are so crazed with the righteousness of their cause that they couldn’t care less about the destruction and devastation they might cause to the innocent people around them, let alone even about their own death. Who ever thought our federal government would get into such a role?
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Joe Biden, United States |
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American military-industrial complex firms are guilty of “price gouging,” amidst the exponentially rising demand for weapons systems to both bolster Taiwan as a counter to Beijing and support NATO’s proxy Kiev during its war with Russia, former Pentagon insiders told Newsweek.
The Ukraine policy of providing massive quantities of arms “no matter the expense,” in particular, is weakening America’s national security and combat readiness by depleting stocks which cannot be easily replenished due to the weapons firms’ skyrocketing prices, according to the former officials.
For four decades, Shay Assad worked as a contract negotiator at the Defense Department. He recently sounded off about these “astronomical price increases” and the resultant detrimental effect on the military, during a recent report on 60 Minutes, the CBS news program.
“The gouging that takes place is unconscionable,” Assad said. “There’s no doubt about it,” he continued, “You just can only buy so much, because you only have so much money. And that’s why I say, is it really any different than not giving a Marine enough bullets to put in his clip? It’s the same thing.” Assad previously worked for Raytheon as well, the arms industry giant on whose board Lloyd Austin sat before becoming the Pentagon chief.
According to Assad, the DOD overpays for “for radar and missiles … helicopters … planes … submarines… down to the nuts and bolts.” The report highlighted the fact that a shoulder-fired Stinger missile, produced by Raytheon, which cost $25,000 in 1991 is now priced at more than $400,000. Newsweek described the price rise as an “eye-watering increase,” even when taking inflation into account as well as interim technological advancements.
He went on to explain the Pentagon’s accountability system, such as it is, is completely “broken.” Assad said, “No matter who they are, no matter what company it is, they need to be held accountable. And right now that accountability system is broken in the Department of Defense.” Moreover, Assad cited two more instances of gouging on the part of arms industry behemoths Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon.
Lockheed and Boeing were found to have yielded an over 40 percent profit on sales of PAC-3 surface to air missiles to Washington and its allies. Assad explained the companies saw a windfall of hundreds of millions on the deals over seven years, and “based on what they actually made, we would’ve received an entire year’s worth of missiles for free.” Lockheed protested to 60 Minutes that the deals had been negotiated “in good faith.”
Both by overstating the cost and time needed to produce the radar equipment, Raytheon was also alleged to have taken obscene profits from the Patriot air defense system. The reporters were told by a company spokesman that Raytheon was working to “equitably resolve” the dispute. It is also noted that, in 2021, CEO Greg Hayes notified his investors that Raytheon schemed to put aside nearly $300 million for probable liability.
Assad demonstrated to the 60 Minutes host that an oil pressure switch was selling for over $10,000, when he claimed the switch should cost $328. The host asked Assad a question regarding the huge discrepancy, to which the former official responded “Gouging. What else can account for it?”
Assad went on to say that this widespread practice shows arms firms are hoodwinking and taking advantage of the American taxpayer. “We have to have a financially healthy defense industrial base. We all want that. But what we don’t want to do is get taken advantage of and hoodwinked […] We have nowhere else to go. For many of these weapons that are being sent over to Ukraine right now, there’s only one supplier. And the companies know it.”
Retired Air Force Lieutenant Gen. Chris Bogdan, who oversaw weapons purchases during his time in the military, further explained his concerns over the fact that when companies sell their weapons to the DOD, they retain the proprietary information required to fix the systems themselves, precluding the Pentagon, in some cases, from doing its own repairs.
“It’s not really a true capitalistic market because one company is telling you what’s going to happen. [It’s a] monopoly,” retired DOD auditor Mark Owen told CBS.
These reports come as tensions between Washington and Russia as well as China are growing at a rapid clip. The US is planning on fighting a hot war with China. Concurrently, the White House is committing billions of dollars in unprecedented military aid to Taipei, some of which is being drawn from the same dwindling DOD stocks used to prop up Kiev’s war against Moscow via the “Presidential Drawdown Authority.”
Since 2018, the Pentagon has been shifting its focus away from counterterrorism in the Middle East and North Africa, to focus primarily on so-called “great power competition” with China and Russia, pegged respectively as the number one and number two targets.
This has been reaffirmed in subsequent national defense strategies, as the shift in 2018 was codifying renewed Cold Wars against Russia and China launched by the US years and, in the case of Moscow, decades prior to the officially adopted national defense strategy.
It is also critical to note, that as the new Cold Wars get hotter, the nominal Pentagon budget is nearing a whopping $900 billion and will soon surpass the previously unthinkable $1 trillion mark. However, a closer look reveals the real national security state budget is already fast approaching $1.5 trillion.
This larger figure includes not only the mammoth War Department’s budget but – among a plethora of other expenses – the Department of Veterans Affairs, interest on the warfighting share of the national debt, nuclear weapons, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Congress recently simulated a Chinese attack on Taiwan and came to the conclusion that Taipei should thus be armed “to the teeth” by Washington. Center for a New American Security (CNAS), the ultra-hawkish think tank which has members and associates planted throughout the Joe Biden administration, carried out the exercise with the lawmakers on the House Select Committee on China.
CNAS is funded by Taiwan via the island’s de facto embassy in the United States, as well as the Pentagon, the State Department, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. In August 2021, investigative journalist Dan Cohen reported CNAS “has taken more money from weapons companies over the last several years than any other think tank in Washington… At least 16 CNAS alumni are now in key positions in the Biden Pentagon and State Department.”
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Boeing, CNAS, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Taiwan, United States |
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Former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland, who served for the first four months of the Trump administration under Michael Flynn, says that the deep state is going to rig the 2024 US election following their success in 2020.
“We now have black-and-white evidence that the FBI interfered in the 2016 election. When they failed to elect Hillary Clinton, they set out to destroy the Trump administration,” she told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo.
“Go back to 2020. This time, the CIA got involved in the election with those 51 former intel agents who said the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. So they’ve gotten away with it for two elections. They will surely try and get away with it in 2024, right?
Because there are no consequences…
“There is now hard evidence that there was election interference by the U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Justice. Those individuals must be terrified that a Republican president comes in with a Republican Attorney General, investigates them, and charges them with all of the crimes they have committed over the last eight years. Take it to the bank.
They will absolutely interfere in 2024…
These people are selling us out. Not only to foreign leaders, but they are interfering in our elections.
They are tearing up the Constitution… This is just a gut punch to the American people.”
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | CIA, FBI, NSA, United States |
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Most Americans believe the ‘Russiagate’ investigation of Donald Trump was based on lies and that President Joe Biden’s family engaged in influence-peddling crimes, a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll has shown, suggesting that legacy media outlets have failed to sway public opinion.
The poll, released on Friday, found that 56% of US voters believe the claim that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election was a “false story.” The same percentage believe the Steele dossier, which was the basis for an FBI investigation of Trump’s campaign, was false.
Nearly seven in ten respondents said they weren’t surprised that the Durham Report, released earlier this month, found that the FBI violated its own standards in starting the Trump-Russia investigation and became a funnel for “disinformation” from Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Likewise, 70% of voters are concerned about interference by the FBI and intelligence agencies in US presidential elections, and 71% believe the federal government needs “wide-ranging reform” to prevent such meddling.
CNN and other US media outlets hyped the Trump-Russia collusion allegations for three years and downplayed last week’s release of the Durham Report, calling the special prosecutor’s findings about the FBI a “whole big nothing.” Just before voters went to the polls in 2020, media outlets amplified claims by former US intelligence officials that a bombshell report on alleged influence-peddling by Biden’s family – sourced to a laptop computer that Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, had abandoned at a repair shop – was based on “Russian disinformation.”
The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that 63% of voters believe Hunter Biden engaged in illegal influence-peddling and tax evasion, while 53% think Joe Biden was involved in the alleged criminal operation when he was vice president, according to the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. Most voters (55%) also believe that the FBI and the US Department of Justice aren’t really investigating the Biden family’s alleged corruption, and 59% think the Russian disinformation claim was false.
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald said the poll illustrated how “radically out of touch” liberal corporate media was with the views of Americans. He added that major media outlets were not only pushing narratives that Americans didn’t believe, but also didn’t permit the majority’s views to be heard.
The poll found other troubling opinions on Biden’s 2024 election prospects. Nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) believe Biden is showing signs that he’s too old to be president, while 57% have doubts about his mental fitness, and 61% think he wouldn’t make it through a second term.
Trump is the current frontrunner for the Republican Party’s 2024 nomination and is widening his lead over Biden in a hypothetical rematch. Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that voters favor the former president over his successor by a 47%-40% margin, up from a five-point lead last month. If Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic Party’s nominee, Trump is favored by a 50%-39% margin.
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | FBI, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, United States |
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China has slapped a ban on US chipmaker Micron, prohibiting it from selling to Chinese companies involved in key infrastructure projects. Beijing has mirrored Washington’s sanctions on the People’s Republic’s hi-tech technology, Asia-Pacific consultant Thomas W. Pauken told Sputnik, adding that there’s more to the development than meets the eye.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced on May 21, that a cybersecurity review indicated Micron Technology’s products “have relatively serious cybersecurity risks, which pose significant security risks to the country’s critical information infrastructure supply chain and would affect national security.” Thus, the CAC banned the US chipmaker from participating in the People’s Republic’s domestic critical infrastructural projects. In response, the US Commerce Department expressed its opposition to the restrictions, insisting that they “have no basis in fact.” Micron’s shares plummeted roughly 6% on Monday, given that the American company used to derive over 10% of its revenue from the People’s Republic.
“It’s rather interesting that the Washington side may be shocked or surprised by this news,” said Thomas W. Pauken II, the author of US vs China: From Trade War to Reciprocal Deal, consultant on Asia-Pacific affairs, and geopolitical commentator. “However, they have taken similar measures themselves to stop Chinese semiconductors and Chinese chips manufacturers or companies that are connected with the chips manufacturing and semiconductor manufacturing to be more involved with the supply chains in the United States as well. So this is not a case where there’s a shock or a surprise announcement. It’s actually basically China doing the same thing that the US has been doing to China.”
US President Joe Biden speaks about how the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will rebuild the US and the progress made since he signed the bill into law, in the South Court
Since October 2022, Washington has imposed sweeping export curbs on advanced chips and chip-making equipment to China, trying to cut off the nation’s access to critical technology. Prior to that, under the Trump administration, the US and its Western allies kicked off nothing short of a crusade against the People’s Republic’s telecom giants, including its flagship Huawei, citing “security” concerns.
“This is a very simple response for Beijing to make and say, ‘Well, has the US not acted similarly to what we’ve been doing?'” noted Pauken. “So it would be hypocritical on the US side to criticize Beijing for taking actions that are similar to Washington’s actions. This is hypocrisy at its finest, in regards to Washington and how they’re complaining and criticizing China when they’re doing the exact same thing that they’re criticizing China for. It’s laughable. It’s just absurd for them to make such an argument when they’re doing the same thing.”
The Asia-Pacific consultant suggested that Micron had not been caught off guard: Pauken revealed that when he visited Taiwan last month, he learned from his source that the Micron senior executive in the Kaohsiung office had started laying off employees in April.
As per Pauken, plausibly, the Taiwanese Micron branch had anticipated these instructions, so it could have been the case that they were alerted by Beijing that there was an investigation and they likely realized that the chances of continuing to sell their chip technologies to the mainland were slim.
They had already started to do layoffs even before this announcement happened, the commentator noted. Nonetheless, even if they were prepared for the CAC announcement, it had a devastating impact: “From what I heard, the layoffs in the Taiwan offices were very massive,” Pauken emphasized. “Definitely it’s a major problem for Micron.”
However, there is more to the development than meets the eye, continued Pauken: according to him, it clearly indicates that Beijing has made considerable advancements in chip-making despite the US trying to contain the country’s technological rise.
“You also have to think about this from a strategic level,” the author said. “There’s no way China would have blocked any chips from Micron if it would cause extreme damage to the Chinese economy. Obviously, they have probably set up supply chains in place and have chips made in China that are maybe not equal in quality to Micron, but close enough so that they could handle the impact of no more Micron chips coming to China.”
“So what I’m getting at is that there’s no way Beijing took this announcement all of a sudden. They have prepared for it well in advance in anticipation that, of course, the US and Micron would complain. But they, of course, also took the right steps to protect their economy from being severely damaged by this announcement,” Pauken concluded.
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | China, United States |
1 Comment
The revival of a classic work of journalism which exposes the gap between the official story and reality
By I. F. Stone and introduction by Tim Beal and Gregory Elich
At the height of the McCarthy era and the inception of the Cold War, the great journalist I.F. Stone released The Hidden History of the Korean War, a courageous work of investigative journalism that demolished the official story about America’s so-called “forgotten war.” As the war spiraled to its conclusion, Stone closely analyzed openly available U.S. intelligence narratives on the war’s official start, and the actions of key players like John Foster Dulles, General Douglas MacArthur, and Chiang Kai-shek. The result of his investigations was a controversial book that raised questions about the origin of the war, showed that the U.S. government had manipulated the United Nations, and gave evidence that the U.S. military and South Korean oligarchy dragged out the war by sabotaging peace talks. Stone made a strong case that there were those in the U.S. government and military who saw instability in the region as in the U.S. national interest.
Today, proxy wars are openly practiced for the sake of securing economic dominance — but when it came to news coverage of the Korean War, the story was purposefully buried at the very instant the war set the stage for relations with East Asia. When it was first published in 1952, The Hidden History of the Korean War met with a near-total press blackout and boycott—never receiving a single rebuttal, or answer, from official U.S. sources. First circulated during the long years of the Korean War, and then republished during the Vietnam War, much of what Stone wrote in The Hidden History of the Korean War was further validated forty years after its publication, when declassified documents from U.S., Soviet and Chinese archives illuminated this controversial period in history. With a new introduction by Tim Beal and Gregory Elich, 70 years after its initial publication The Hidden History of the Korean War remains a powerful dissemination of the ‘hidden history’ behind the dominant historical narrative. As we revisit I.F. Stone today, it further dawns on us that the tangled sequence of events leading to the Korean War were obfuscated in plain sight in order to prep the ground for a never-ending Cold War which aims to secure enduring American hegemony in East Asia, above all else.
What people say about The Hidden History of the Korean War
I.F. Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War is investigative journalism at its best. While the war was raging, Stone drew on official government documents as well as newspaper reports to produce a devastating critique of US pronouncements about the origins and aims of the war. But the book is of more than historical importance. Stone’s investigation into US policy makers’ machinations also offers insights that help explain current US policy towards Korea. As a bonus, this edition includes a valuable new introduction by two Korea scholars who discuss Stone’s journalism and the continuing geopolitical ramifications of the Korean War. — MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG, author of Korea: Division, Reunification and US Foreign Policy
… highly explosive arguments and observations.—PARK SANG-SEEK, diplomat (1973)
This book-length feat of journalism… is a testament to Stone’s search for a way to strengthen his readers to think for themselves, rather than be overwhelmed by official stories and war propaganda.—JAY HAUBEN, Columbia University
Isidor Feinstein Stone (1907–1989), better known as I.F. Stone or Izzy Stone, published more than a dozen books and was considered one of the most influential investigative journalists of the postwar period. He was best known for his self-published journal, I.F. Stone’s Weekly, which in 1999 was ranked second in a poll of his fellow journalists of “The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century.” He started the weekly after working at the New York Post, The Nation (as editor from 1940 to 1946), and the newspaper PM, covering the New Deal, McCarthyism, the birth of Israel, and the Vietnam War. Tim Beal is a retired New Zealand academic with a special interest in U.S. imperialism mainly, but not exclusively, in respect of Asia. He first read Izzy Stone’s book as an undergraduate at Edinburgh University in 1970. Enthused, he wrote a long undergraduate essay based on it. Though not well-received at the time, the process initiated a journey of discovery that has resulted in two books and numerous articles on Korea and imperialism. Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute board member and also on the board of directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a contributor to the collection, Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy.
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Timeless or most popular | Korea, United States |
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China says it sees no reason to keep talking with the United States as long as it pursues a wholly disingenuous policy and continues to step up pressure on the country through sanctions.
“Where is the sincerity and sense of dialogue, when the US side talks about the need to maintain contacts only to use them as a means to put pressure on China and hamstring our country,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing on Monday.
The Chinese official called on Washington to “immediately lift sanctions” against China.
“It is necessary to create a favorable atmosphere and favorable conditions for dialogue and contact,” Mao explained.
Beijing maintains “necessary contact” with Washington, she stated.
“The United States applies sanctions against individuals and organizations of the PRC,” Mao reiterated.
“China is strongly against such unilateral restrictions, which are unlawful. We have strictly set forth Beijing’s stance on this issue to the American side,” she added.
The Chinese spokesperson called on the United States to have the right understanding of China, meet it halfway and bring bilateral relations back on track.
China views its relations with the US under the three principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation as proposed by President Xi Jinping, she said.
China to US: Stop interfering in our internal affairs
Elsewhere in her remarks, Mao urged the United States to immediately stop interfering in China’s internal affairs.
“We urge the US to form a correct perception of China, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and harming China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, and work with China to bring China-US relations back to the right track with concrete actions,” she added.
The spokeswoman made the remarks in response to US President Joe Biden suggesting that a shift in US-China relations could occur soon.
Biden said on Sunday during the Group of Seven (G7) summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, that he expected a thaw in Chinese-US relations in the near future.
“We should have an open hotline,” Biden stressed.
Biden has said he expects to see a “thaw” in US relations with Beijing, even as he concluded a G7 summit in Japan that made a concerted effort to counter alleged military and economic security threats from China.
The US president said in a news conference at the end of the three-day summit that talks between the two countries had shut down after a “silly balloon” carrying spying equipment flew over North America in February, before being shot down by the US military.
“Everything changed in terms of talking to one another. I think you’re gonna see that begin to thaw very shortly,” Biden said.
Biden added that his administration was considering lifting sanctions against Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu.
Beijing recently refused to agree to a meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin when the two men attended the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore next month due to the sanctions.
US officials had previously said privately that the Biden administration would not remove the sanctions.
Biden: US stands by ‘one China’ policy
Biden reiterated at the news conference that the US stood by the “one China” policy, which recognizes Beijing as the sole government of China, and Washington did not support any move by the self-ruled Taiwan to declare independence.
China has sovereignty over Taiwan. The US does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country and officially supports the “One China” policy, but regularly oversteps its own principles. The island nation has become China’s most sensitive territorial issue and a major bone of contention with Washington.
Washington continues to antagonize Beijing by siding with Taipei’s secessionist administration, engaging in frequent military missions around the island, and serving as its largest weapons supplier.
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | China, United States |
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A short verbal exchange recently between a TV presenter and a low-profile politician and former lawmaker from a small country on the periphery of the European Union laid bare a long-standing problem of non-transparent lobbying in the highest EU institutions in Brussels.
A TV host on a popular Croatian talk show asked a guest how she copes with the growing European inflation of 13 percent since she has savings of 700-800,000 Euros in publicly available bank accounts.
This financial data was known to him because the Croatian anti-corruption institutions require that leading Croatian politicians must make their assets publicly available online every year, in order to prevent conflict of interest.
Croatian MP Marijana Petir, the guest on the show, was visibly rattled by the unexpected question.
She was not disturbed by inflation and the loss of around one hundred thousand Euros, but by the fact that this little-known information was presented in an extremely popular show watched by over half a million people, roughly a quarter of the Croatian adult population.
So, instead of answering about inflation, she immediately changed the subject and stated that her savings are a private matter, that she earned everything fairly and that she regularly and transparently submits her financial data to the relevant institutions.
Public reactions
Her dark forebodings turned out to be correct because the information about the bank account overshadowed the rest of the interview and was a hot topic in the Croatian media and public for days.
Soon, many interesting data emerged like skeletons out of a closet.
For example, of the 151 representatives of the Croatian parliament, which includes prominent businessmen and wealthy heirs, Petir has the largest independent savings: roughly 700 thousand Euros.
Her savings are roughly twice as large as this year’s reported assets of Zoran Milanović, the incumbent Croatian president who has held coveted political positions for two decades, including the mandate of prime minister and the position of leader of the second largest party in Croatia.
Furthermore, the available property data show that Petir did not inherit anything, is not married and has no joint property, and has no loans or debts.
In other words, the entire amount is the result of her political career spanning only 17.5 years, in addition to less than two years of work in the real sector.
Calculations
Few investigative journalists have tried to reconstruct her career and the sum of all salaries, arriving at the same conclusion that her claims of “fair earnings” do not hold water.
The most fruitful period is certainly her mandate as a member of the European Parliament when she received a net salary of 4,500 Euros during the five years from 2014 to 2019.
This still constitutes approximately a third of her total savings.
Petir was also a member of the Croatian Parliament for six years, where her net salary was twice as low, giving a quarter of her savings. If we also include minor jobs in her younger days, we get an amount of barely two-thirds of her total savings.
This superficial calculation of course implies that she hasn’t spent a cent in two decades, which is simply impossible considering her well-known lavish lifestyle.
Despite the fact that these contradictions were made public, no one managed to answer the key question – where did the money really come from?
Concealments
Petir herself avoids answering the question – where do her staggering earnings come from?
“My savings come from 20 years of work in different workplaces, which were not only related to the European Parliament or the Croatian Parliament,” she was quoted as saying in the media.
“Salaries for official positions are public and available, while the amount of salaries for other positions, based on the contract, cannot be disclosed to the public,” she hastened to add.
Neither the Croatian nor the European Parliament provides an answer.
Although their rules dictate that they are required to report the amount of savings and interest group affiliations, they are apparently not required to report the full source of money and lobbying policies; for whom, and against whom.
The website of the EU Parliament only briefly reveals that she is chair of the Croatia-Israel friendship group, while the website of the Croatian Parliament lists her membership in the inter-parliamentary friendship groups with Hungary, Israel, North Macedonia, and the United States.
Finally, there is not a single Croatian or European media outlet, newspaper article, not even a blog, that writes about her true employers and lobbying activities.
Not only for Petir, but also for most of the dozens of similar cases in the EU Parliament.
Revelations
The answer to the question of how a little-known peasant politician accumulated hundreds of thousands of Euros is yet quite simple – it comes from anti-Iranian and anti-Palestinian lobbying for the Albania-based terrorist group MKO and the Israeli regime in the EU parliament.
Just two weeks after entering the EU parliament, she boasted on her private website that she is the only Croatian member of the delegation with close relations with the Israeli regime, and her Zionist rampage was evident throughout her five-year mandate, in the form of tens of examples.
In her speeches, she repeatedly promoted the lie that Palestinians use “human shields,” thus whitewashing the Israeli regime’s war crimes. She also claimed that the EU’s humanitarian aid to Palestine “finances terrorism”, equating criticism of Israeli policy viz a viz Palestine with anti-Semitism, and demanding that Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement be put on the EU terror list, etc.
She has traveled to the Israeli-occupied territories at least three times, from where she proudly opposed EU labeling of products originating from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Petir thus ardently defends the apartheid regime responsible for the ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinian Muslims and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Christians, but at the same time paradoxically presents herself as a great Catholic concerned about the violations of the rights of Christians in the world.
In one of her freaky rants, she named Iran, Syria and Turkey as allegedly “the most aggressive anti-Christian countries.”
MKO ties
There is also ample evidence that points to her close ties with the MKO, a notorious anti-Iranian terrorist organization based in Albania that is responsible for the killings of tens of thousands of Iranians, which Petir indirectly refers to as “Iran’s human rights organization” on her website.
She held meetings with Maryam Rajavi, promoted MKO propaganda on her Twitter page, and most importantly, used their disinformation for anti-Iranian presentations in the EU Parliament.
Among numerous anti-Iran speeches is a particularly bizarre one in which she says: “It is well known that the position of women has declined after the revolution,” and goes on to cite various fake data from MKO pamphlets, including the alleged “denial of education to girls.”
This is while, before the Islamic revolution, more than three-quarters of women were illiterate, while today literacy is almost 100 percent and the number of female university students is 50 percent higher than in Germany and some other European countries.
Astonishingly, no one among 700 EU representatives confronted Petir or her ignorance, while High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini said she was aware of the “worrying situation.”
Most of Petir’s other activities in the EU Parliament are limited to marginal agricultural and Balkans-related regional issues, so the possibility that she profited from other types of lobbying can be ruled out.
Lobbying octopus
Petir is not an isolated case. Out of a total of 11 representatives from Croatia in the EU Parliament from 2014 to 2019, three more participated in pro-MKO anti-Iranian activities: Jozo Radoš, Željana Zovko and Ruža Tomašić. Tomašić’s replacement Ladislav Ilčić has also been active since 2021.
A similar phenomenon exists in neighboring Slovenia, which also has five representatives who have actively lobbied for MKO terrorist group in recent years: Franc Bogovič, Ljudmila Novak, Patricija Šulin, Romana Tomc and Milan Zver.
Overall, there are between 40 and 50 individuals who have participated in such activities in the EU Parliament in recent years. More than half come from the Eastern EU countries, the rest mainly from the marginal parties of the Western EU.
The MKO’s purchasing a prominent MEP of a major Croatian party obviously represents an issue, not only due to the accompanying cost but also international repercussions. On the other hand, dealing with cheap marginal figures from the European periphery does not pose any problem.
The Petir case is also reminiscent of the well-documented case from Spain where the MEK financed the European campaign of the radical right-wing party Vox with several hundred thousand Euros.
Again, everything happened discreetly and legally, without an anti-corruption process or major controversies.
So, with the relatively cheap cost of a few million Euros given by their Zionist sponsors, the anti-Iranian terrorist group managed to gather the same number of representatives in the EU Parliament as Poland.
This is not an Iranian problem alone, but also a European problem.
European citizens, experts believe, should ask themselves if the highest EU institution is so vulnerable to the lobbying influence, how prone is it to ultra-rich corporations, let alone an overseas master?
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Islamophobia | European Union, Zionism |
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Another whistleblower has reportedly come forward to corroborate the theory that last year’s terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines were carried out by the US government.
Internet entrepreneur and political activist Kim Dotcom was reportedly contacted by an anonymous whistleblower who alleges the US government has long had the technical capabilities to covertly sabotage underwater pipelines, and even maintains sophisticated simulators to train military personnel how to do so.
In an open letter now published on Twitter, the anonymous figure says that they reached out to Dotcom in an effort to “give a clearer picture” of what happened in the early hours of September 26 of last year, when the Nord Stream pipelines which once pumped cheap Russian gas into the heart of Europe were suddenly blown up in what world leaders quickly identified as an intentional act of sabotage.
While “working with contractors at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Maryland” over twenty years ago, the alleged whistleblower claims, “we were working on the Advanced Seal Delivery System (ASDS), a covert mini-submarine designed for the Navy Seals to carry out stealthy clandestine missions.”
“This submarine is transported on the back of nuclear submarines and detaches to execute its missions. I was chosen to work on this project, and my role was to assist in the programming of the full-sized, temperature-controlled simulator for the submarine on which the Navy Seals would train,” the whistleblower continued.
The simulator in question “featured screens that displayed a 3D simulation of the ASDS undocking from a nuclear submarine, executing its mission, and then returning to dock,” they wrote.
Having “spent countless hours in the simulator” and “piloted the simulator on simulated missions — just like the Navy Seal pilots would before their actual missions,” the whistleblower says mock pipeline sabotage mission were programmed into the software.
“Although I did not pilot a simulated mission specifically for the Nord Stream pipelines, I did simulate scenarios of covertly sabotaging pipelines” and “can confirm that the United States has had this capability for decades” and was “fully capable of executing the Nord Stream Sabotage.”
“Although speculation remains as to the exact method of explosives placement, I believe that the modern Advanced Seal Delivery System (ASDS) was utilized with Navy divers,” the whistleblower claimed.
Sputnik is unable to independently verify the claims contained in the letter, but the information presented appears to align with a shocking report detailing the Biden administration’s involvement which was published by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in February.
Data from flight tracking service FlightRadar24 seems to confirm a Boeing P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane and a Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopter were both hovering just a few miles away from the pipelines at the time of the explosions. Both aircraft are outfitted with the “sonobuoy” technology needed to remotely detonate the C-4 charges allegedly placed on the pipelines by US forces.
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | United States |
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BUDAPEST – Hungary is waiting for explanations from Ukraine and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen concerning reports on a possible stop of oil supplies from Russia to the European Union via the Druzhba pipeline, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.
Last week, media reported that von der Leyen had offered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to suspend the Druzhba pipeline, which transits Russian oil to Hungary among other EU countries, as part of the 11th package of sanctions against Moscow. A British business newspaper later reported that the EU was considering expanding Russian oil embargo by cutting transit through Druzhba, adding that the European Commission refused to provide any comments.
“We have received no explanations concerning this from Kiev. I think this is an issue of such importance that the European Commission’s president should personally present explanations as energy security is a question of sovereignty,” Szijjarto told a Hungarian radio station.
If someone attempts to make a secure energy supply impossible for a country, it can be considered an infringement on the country’s sovereignty, he explained.
International treaties guarantee Hungary transit oil supplies from Ukraine, the minister said, going on to accuse Ukraine and Croatia of taking advantage of conflict to raise the transit fee by five to six times.
May 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | European Union, Hungary, Ukraine |
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