Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Hunter’s Associate: Biden Scion Planned Global Hedge Fund to Benefit Poppa Joe

Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 27.02.2024

As Hunter Biden braces for deposition in the US Congress on Wednesday, his former business associate has spilled the beans about the first family’s plan to build a global hedge fund.

US president Joe Biden’s son Hunter plotted to set up a shadowy fund to cash in on his influence — so says a former business partner.

Independent US media outlet Just the News has obtained a recent statement by Hunter Biden’s business associate Jason Galanis to the House impeachment inquiry.
He said Hunter and his business buddies planned to build a global hedge fund with Joe Biden as its “central asset.”

“The entire value-add of Hunter Biden to our business was his family name and his access to his father, Vice President Joe Biden,” Galanis told the House impeachment investigators. “Our objective was to build a diversified private equity platform, which would be anchored by a globally known Wall Street brand together with a globally known political name.”

Hunter Biden sought “strategic relationships to the venture” with tycoons from all over the world, including from post-Soviet space.

Just the News quoted emails from Hunter Biden’s infamous “laptop from hell” which allegedly confirm the ambitious plan.

“This is a global cooperation group that will assist each other in our respective regions in whatever manner possible,” Hunter’s other associate, Jeff Cooper, wrote in March 2014. The younger Biden proposed a list of billionaire investors for the new venture, including tycoons from China, Spain, Kazakhstan, Russia, South America, Africa and the Middle East.

One of Hunter’s partners, Chinese businessman Xuejun “Henry” Zhao, showed interest in the plan based on the prospect that Joe Biden would join the venture after his vice presidential term ended.

“Mr. Zhao was interested in this partnership because of the game-changing value add of the Biden family, including Joe Biden, who was to be a member of the Burnham-Harvest team post-vice presidency, providing political access in the United States and around the world,” Galanis said.

Galanis’s lawyer provided a draft email backing up the businessman’s testimony.

“Michael, please also remind Henry [Zhao] of our conversation about a board seat for a certain relation of mine,” Hunter reportedly wrote. “Devon [Archer] and I golfed with that relation earlier last week and we discussed this very idea again and as always he remains very very keen on the opportunity.”

According to Galanis, the “certain relation” was none other than Joe Biden. Even though the phrase was removed from the final email, it remained in Galanis’ records.

The group’s plan to assemble a “dream team” of international billionaires and create a global Biden business empire took a serious knock when Archer and Galanis were charged and convicted of a plot to steal $43 million in tribal bonds.

Hunter Biden avoided scrutiny despite “then-available documentation that we were partners, were involved in the decision making that involved illegal self-dealing, and all of us had financially benefited from these schemes,” Galanis claimed.

Galanis told House investigators that the illegal tribal bond scheme was part of a larger effort to create a financial platform for the Biden hedge fund.

“In an effort to build this financial platform, I engaged in unlawful conduct. Our companies were entrusted with $11 billion of union members’ pension fund money whose trust I betrayed,” Galanis stated. “I pleaded guilty. I have had eight years in federal custody to reflect on my actions and I am profoundly sorry for my role.”

Hunter Biden is expected to appear before the Oversight Committee on Wednesday and testify to the Republican-led impeachment hearing about his family’s business dealings and Joe Biden’s role in his son’s financial schemes.

Congressional investigators argue that Joe Biden was used by his son as a “brand” due to his vice presidential position. They say he not only knew about Hunter’s deals but participated in them, likely profiting. Biden has so far denied being aware of his son’s business operations.

House Republicans have been running their investigation into the Biden family’s apparent influence-peddling for several years.

According to US media, Hunter’s testimony will take place behind closed doors — even though he previously insisted on a public hearing — and will not be video-taped, although the transcript will be released to the public.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | | Leave a comment

Canada’s Liberal Government Advances “Online Harms” Censorship Bill

Trudeau wants new laws to censor online speech

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | February 27, 2024

Canada’s Justice Minister Arif Virani has advanced a highly controversial bill, named Bill C-63, proposing comprehensive new legislation aimed at addressing online “hate” speech.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The bill covers seven types of harmful material, from content sexually exploiting or re-victimizing children and survivors, to content promoting violence and extremism.

But it also outlaws online “hatred,” so-called “hate speech,” and forms of deepfakes.

In an attempt to decrease the prevalence of harmful content, this legislation puts the onus on online platforms to be accountable and transparent about how they handle such content.

Platforms like social media and live-streaming services are included under the legislation’s “online services” umbrella.

The bill would also create a new “standalone hate crime offense that would apply to every offence in the Criminal Code and in any other Act of Parliament, allowing penalties up to life imprisonment to denounce and deter this hateful conduct as a crime in itself,” – the briefing explained.

The proposed law would also raise the maximum punishments for the four hate offenses from five years to life imprisonment for advocating genocide and from two years to five years for the others when persecuted by way of indictment.

The Liberal government states that the bill’s proposed regulations centre on the platforms most frequented by Canadians. However, the specifics will depend on whether these platforms meet the eventual user thresholds. Over time, the government may hold other platforms accountable, if these platforms end up posing “a significant risk of harm.”

Additionally, Bill C-63 proposes establishing a censorship organization, which will oversee digital “safety” issues. This organization is anticipated to include a five-member digital safety commission, an independent digital safety ombudsman, and a digital safety office. These will assist in addressing Canadians’ grievances about platforms’ content moderation decisions.

In a recent critique of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approach to regulating online speech, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre didn’t mince words. He accused Trudeau of labeling any speech he personally dislikes as “hate speech.” This accusation comes amidst discussions surrounding Canada’s proposed online harms bill, a legislation echoing similar efforts in other western democracies aimed at curbing hate speech, terrorist incitements, and violent content online.

Poilievre’s comments reflect a growing concern about the potential for such laws to be misused for broader censorship. This concern is not unfounded, given precedents in other countries where similar laws have veered into the realm of suppressing free speech. The Conservative leader’s stance suggests a keen awareness of these risks.

The term “woke authoritarian agenda” was used by Poilievre to describe the draft of the online harms bill, which he and his party are committed to opposing. He draws attention to the Trudeau administration’s handling of the 2022 “Freedom Convoy,” a protest against COVID-19 restrictions. Poilievre points out the government’s extreme measures, including freezing citizens’ bank accounts, as indicative of a mindset that easily conflates criticism with hate speech.

Highlighting the Trudeau government’s actions during the pandemic, Poilievre remarked, “Justin Trudeau said anyone who criticized him during the pandemic was engaging in hate speech.” This statement underscores a fear that the government might use the proposed legislation to silence dissent in various scenarios.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment

Tucker Carlson makes shocking revelation about Moscow trip

RT | February 27, 2024

Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday that US spies had monitored him while he was in Russia earlier this month, and leaked to a ‘friendly’ outlet that he had met with Edward Snowden. This is despite the American journalist’s claim that he had tried to keep his meeting with the NSA whistleblower a secret.

Carlson went to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin. During his eight days in Moscow, he also met with Snowden – and US spies found out about it, he told podcaser Lex Fridman in the course of a three-hour conversation.

“I was being intensely surveilled by the US government,” Carlson told Fridman, noting that US spies had thwarted his plans to interview Putin in 2021 and that he received confirmation that he was being intensely monitored ahead of his Moscow trip. “Then, I’m over there, and of course I want to see Snowden, whom I admire.”

Snowden allegedly accepted Carlson’s invitation to have dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel, but declined the interview as well as a photo request, saying that it would be better to tell no one.

“I didn’t tell anybody,” Carlson told Fridman, however the meeting was leaked. “Semafor runs this piece – reporting information they got from the US intel agencies, leaking against me, using my money, in my name, in a supposedly free country – they run this piece saying I met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something.”

“If you have a media establishment that acts as employees of the national security state, you don’t have a free country. And that’s where we are,” Carlson added.

Carlson revealed that he did not fear getting arrested in Russia at any point, but was warned by his lawyers that the US might arrest him depending on the content of the Putin interview.

“I felt not one twinge of concern for the 8 days that I was there,” he told Fridman about being in Moscow.

Before he left for Russia, his team of attorneys counseled him to “not do this… A lot will depend on the questions you ask of Putin. If you’re seen as too nice to him you could be arrested when you come back,” Carlson quoted the lead lawyer as saying, to which he said he replied, “You’re describing a fascist country, OK?”

In 2013, Snowden revealed that the NSA was systematically engaged in mass illegal spying on American citizens. Fearing for his safety, he fled to Hong Kong with the intent to reach Ecuador, which did not have an extradition treaty with the US, but was stopped during a layover in Moscow after Washington canceled his passport. Russia ended up granting him asylum and reportedly, eventual citizenship.

One of the founders of Semafor, the outlet to which Carlson claims US spies leaked his dinner with Snowden, is Ben Smith, a former editor-in-chief of the now defunct BuzzFeed newsroom. In 2017, Smith notoriously published the ‘Steele Dossier,’ a sham document leaked by US spies to discredit incoming President Donald Trump.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

Houthis Refute Claims They’ve Sabotaged Underwater Cables in Red Sea

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 27.02.2024

Israeli media reported on Monday that the Yemeni militia had targeted “four submarine communication cables” in the area between Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Djibouti.

The Houthis’ Telecommunications Ministry has denied reports by “Zionist-linked media” claiming that they have sabotaged major underwater telecommunications cables connection, Europe, Africa and Asia.

“The Ministry of Telecoms and Information Technology denies what has been published by the Zionist-linked media outlets and also what has been published by other media outlets and the social networks, on allegations as to what [has] been caused to Red Sea submarine cables,” the militia said in an English-language statement Tuesday, a day after an Israeli Hebrew-language newspaper reported that the militia had caused “serious disruption” to internet cables between Europe and Asia.

“Yemen Telecom affirms its pivotal role to continue and build up and develop the international and regional telecom and internet networks which are provided by the submarine cables running within the Yemeni territorial waters and will keep up to facilitate the passage and implementation of the submarine cables projects through the Yemeni territorial waters, inclusive the projects into which the Yemen Republic participated, by Yemen International Telecom Co – TeleYemen,” the statement added.

The Ministry pointed to recent statements by Houthi movement leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi committing the militia to keeping underwater cables and its relevant services “away from any possible risks,” and said the militia’s campaign “to ban the passage of Israeli ships” through Red Sea waters “does not pertain [to] the other international ships which have been licensed to execute submarine works within the Yemeni territorial waters.”

Houthi Politburo member Khuzam al-Assad told Sputnik that the militia undertook “no actions… aimed at damaging internet cables, and we have repeatedly confirmed this.”

Al-Assad said the claims of Houthi attacks on the cables were insinuations being pushed by Tel Aviv, Washington and London to try to turn global public opinion against the Houthis instead of “stopping the crimes of genocide committed by the Israeli Army with the support of the United States and the West against Gaza residents.”

The Israeli media report said four major cables, including AAE-1 (connecting East Asia to Europe via Egypt), Seacom (linking Europe, Africa and India), EIG (linking India and the Gulf to Africa and Europe) and TGN (linking France to India) had been hit, with most of the immediate damage expected to be felt by India and the Gulf States.

Western reporting on possible Houthi operations to sabotage underwater internet cables began to surface in January, with the BBC running a story in early February saying the Houthis “almost certainly would” target the cables “if they could,” while admitting that “the fiber cables, which carry 17% of the world’s internet traffic, lie on the seabed mostly hundreds of meters below the surface – well below the reach of divers.” Only a handful of countries, including the US and Russia, have the capability to sabotage this infrastructure using deep sea submersibles, the outlet said.

The Houthis began a months-long maritime campaign of ship hijackings, drone strikes and missile launches targeting Israel-affiliated commercial vessels in the Red Sea in November in solidarity with Gaza amid Israel’s ground assault into the enclave. The US announced the creation of a naval ‘coalition of the willing’ against Yemen in December, and started bombing the country in January to try to degrade the militia’s missile and drone capabilities. The Houthis responded by banning all American and British ships from passing through the strategic waterway, and launching attacks on US and British warships operating in the area.

The Yemeni militia has effectively shut the Red Sea down to up to 40 percent of its normal commercial traffic, adding tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to global shipping costs and disrupting supply chains worldwide.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 1 Comment

US Official Admits Only 85 Aid Trucks Entering Gaza Per Day

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 27, 2024

The head of USAID said on Monday that only around 85 aid trucks were able to enter Gaza each day, under 10% of the prewar number. The White House has touted that it has leveraged US influence to get Israel to provide more aid to the Strip. However, Tel Aviv is deploying a myriad of tactics to strangle aid shipments in Gaza.

“More than 500 trucks should be entering Gaza daily. In the past week, only ~85/day managed to get through,” Samantha Power, the head of USAID, posted on X. Power, who considers herself an expert on genocide prevention, has not called for a ceasefire or an end to US weapons shipments to Israel even as the International Court of Justice concluded Tel Aviv was plausibly waging a genocide in Gaza.

Before October 7, about 500 trucks entered Gaza daily to sustain the people. The number of Palestinians in the Strip needing aid has skyrocketed over the past four months. Nearly all 2.3 million Palestinians are displaced and do not have access to clean water or food.

Since Israel went to war in Gaza, Tel Aviv has used a multitude of methods to stifle aid deliveries, including attacking shipments. CNN reports that the Israeli military attacked a UN aid shipment in Gaza on February 5 after approving the trucks to travel through the Strip.

Additionally, Israel is preventing a US-funded food shipment from being unloaded at the port. Tel Aviv has enacted an onerous inspection regime that slows deliveries and prevents lifesaving medication from reaching the Strip. Israeli government agencies have denied visas to international aid workers, limiting the activities of dozens of organizations.

Israeli civilian protesters are also interfering with shipments by blocking and delaying trucks carrying the aid. Once convoys enter Gaza, they are mobbed by starving Palestinians. Recently, Israeli forces began targeting the police force in the Strip, making it harder for the trucks to move through Gaza.

Jordan has airdropped aid in Gaza 16 times since October 7 to bypass the backup at the border inspection checkpoint.

The Israeli onslaught in Gaza has thrown the Palestinian people into a horrific humanitarian crisis. Most of the medical facilities have been destroyed or shut down, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have suffered serious burns, cuts, and amputations.

In the northern half of the Strip, one in six children are suffering from acute malnutrition, meaning they could soon die of starvation or other deprivation. A two-month-old child succumbed to starvation in central Gaza last week. Palestinians are eating animal feed, grass, and rotten food.

The Biden administration has faced increasing pressure over its support for Tel Aviv as Israeli forces killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and annihilated most of the Strip. President Biden has touted that he has successfully pressed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to allow more assistance into Gaza. As with aid, Tel Aviv has ignored nearly all of Washington’s requests with no impact on US weapons shipments to Tel Aviv.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment

Leaked Gaza ceasefire proposal US ‘psychological warfare’: Hamas

The Cradle | February 27, 2024

Hamas official Ahmad Abdul Hadi stated on 27 February that a leaked proposal for a ceasefire deal in Gaza is part of a “psychological warfare” campaign being carried out by the US.

Details of the alleged proposal were leaked to Reuters on Monday, the same day US President Joe Biden said he hoped a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas could be reached by 4 March.

“My national security adviser tells me that they’re close. They’re close. They’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire,” Biden claimed during an appearance on a late-night US talk show.

But Abdul Hadi, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, stated that the resistance movement is not satisfied with the proposal and will not compromise on any of its demands, particularly “on a ceasefire and reaching an honorable, serious deal.”

Hamas is seeking a permanent end to the war and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel is seeking the release of the 136 captives held by Hamas in Gaza and a temporary ceasefire that would allow it to resume the war after a pause.

“We are open to any ideas posed by mediators but are also keen on preserving our key demands,” Abdul Hadi told Al-Mayadeen, adding that Israel is “seeking to hold Hamas accountable for any later failures in talks, planning to use this as an excuse to pave the way for the invasion of Rafah.”

He said the leaks were not part of the Paris negotiations but a US and Israeli attempt to give the public an illusion that Hamas had approved of them. He reiterated that “everything being shared is not serious, but a ploy to maneuver and press on the Resistance.”

The proposal leaked to Reuters outlined plans for a 40-day truce during which Hamas would free around 40 captives – including female soldiers, those under 19 or over 50 years old, and the sick – in return for about 400 Palestinians held captive in Israel.

Israel would withdraw its troops from populated areas of Gaza. Displaced Gaza residents, excluding men of fighting age, would be permitted to return to their homes. Israel would be required to allow additional humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the strip are on the verge of starvation.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also responded to leaked Paris proposal.

“The leaks are an attempt to pressure the Palestinians and incite them against the resistance.

They are pushing for a ceasefire before Ramadan in anticipation of what might happen in Al-Quds.

The enemy believes that it can deceive the resistance with different methods in order to achieve a victory it has failed to achieve on the ground,” PIJ Political Bureau member Ihsan Ataya told Al-Mayadeen.

In Gaza, residents speaking to Reuters expressed mixed feelings about possible outcomes.

“We don’t want a pause, we want a permanent ceasefire, we want an end to the killing,” said Mustafa Basel, a father of five from Gaza City, now displaced in Rafah.

“Unfortunately, people’s conditions are so grim that some may accept a pause, even [just] during Ramadan,” he said. “They want a permanent end to the war, but the dire conditions make them want a pause even for a month or 40 days in the hope it becomes permanent.”

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | 1 Comment

United against Israel: Time to end the world’s longest occupation

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | February 27, 2024

Left to its own devices, Israel would never grant Palestinians their freedom. In the past, though, some people, whether in ignorance or otherwise, claimed that peace in Palestine can only be achieved through “unconditional negotiations”. This mantra was also championed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he cared enough to pay lip service to the “peace process” and other US fantasies. Back then, he spoke about his readiness to hold unconditional negotiations, while arguing constantly that Israel does not have a partner for peace.

All of this, of course, was “doublespeak”. What Netanyahu and other Israelis were actually saying was that Israel should be freed from any commitment to international law, let alone international pressure. Worse, by declaring that Israel has no Palestinian partner for peace, the Israeli government has essentially cancelled the hypothetical and “unconditional negotiations” before they have even taken place.

For years — in fact, for decades — Israel has been allowed to perpetuate such nonsense, empowered, of course, by the total and unconditional support of Washington and its other Western allies. In an environment where Israel receives billions of dollars of US-Western aid, and where it has grown to become a thriving technological hub, as well as one of the world’s largest weapons exporters, Tel Aviv simply had no reason to end its occupation or dismantle its racist apartheid in Palestine.

But things must change now. The genocidal Israeli war in Gaza should completely alter our understanding, not only of the tragic reality in occupied Palestine, but of past misunderstanding as well. It should be made clear that Israel has never had any intention of achieving a just peace, ending its colonisation of Palestine — that is, the expansion of illegal settlements — or granting Palestinians an iota of rights. On the contrary, Israel has been planning to carry out genocide against the Palestinians all along.

It is a fact that Israel has already carried out many terrible war crimes against Palestinians, starting with the 1947/48 Nakba and in successive wars ever since. Such crimes, large or small, have always been accompanied by ethnic cleansing. Over 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, for example, when Israel was established on the ruins of Palestine 76 years ago. An additional 300,000 were ethnically cleansed during the Naksa, the war and “setback” of 1967.

Throughout the years, mainstream Western media outlets did their best to hide Israeli crimes, or minimise their impact; or even blame someone else for them.

This process of shielding Israel remains in place to this day, even when tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed since 7 October and most of the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, including hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, homes and shelters, has been destroyed by the occupation state.

Considering all of this, anyone who still speaks of “unconditional negotiations” — especially those conducted under the auspices of Washington — is, frankly, only doing so to help Israel escape international legal and political accountability. Fortunately, the world is waking up to this fact and, hopefully, this awakening will mature sooner rather than later, as Israeli massacres in Gaza continue to claim hundreds of innocent lives every single day.

This collective realisation that Israel must be stopped through international measures is also accompanied by an equally critical realisation that the US is not an honest broker for peace. Indeed, that it never was.

To appreciate the ruinous role of the US in this so-called conflict, just marvel at this fact. While practically every country that participated with a legal opinion and a political position in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) public hearings from 19 to 26 February formulated its position based on international law, the US did not.

“The Court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory,” the acting legal adviser for the US State Department, Richard Visek, said embarrassingly on 21 February. That’s right: 76 years after the Nakba and following 57 years of military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the position of the US — even in the ICJ — remains committed to defending the illegality of Israel’s conduct throughout Palestine.

Compare this US stance with the rounded, courageous and legally grounded position of almost every country in the world, especially the 50-plus countries which asked to speak at the ICJ hearings. Take China, for example. Its words and actions seem far more consistent with international law than many Western nations, especially now, and it went even further: “In pursuit of the right to self-determination, Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is [an] inalienable right well founded in international law,” Chinese representative Ma Xinmin told the ICJ on 22 February.

Unlike the cliched and non-committal position of the likes of UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron on the need to start “irreversible progress” towards an independent Palestinian state, the Chinese position is arguably the most comprehensive and realistic articulation. Ma linked self-determination to liberation struggle, to sovereignty, to the inalienable rights of people, which are all consistent with international laws and norms. In fact, it is these very principles that have led to the liberation of numerous countries in the Global South.

Given that Israel has no intention of freeing Palestinians from the grip of apartheid and military occupation, the Palestinian people have had no other option but to resist that occupation. According to the Geneva Conventions, resistance is an entirely legitimate response.

The question now is whether or not the international community will continue to defy the US position in words only, or if it will formulate a new approach to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, thus bringing it to an end by any means necessary.

In his statement to the ICJ on 19 February, British barrister Philippe Sands, who is a member of Team Palestine, offered a roadmap on how the international community can force Israel to end its occupation: “The right of self-determination requires that UN Member States bring Israel’s occupation to an immediate end. No aid. No assistance. No complicity. No contribution to forcible actions. No money. No arms. No trade. No nothing.”

Indeed. Now is the time to turn words into actions, especially when thousands of children are being killed for no other reason than that they were born Palestinian. It’s time to end the world’s longest military occupation.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 2 Comments

Israeli forces stop UN convoy, detain and strip-search paramedics

Press TV – February 27, 2024

Israeli regime forces in the Gaza Strip have stopped a UN ambulance convoy that was evacuating critically-ill patients from a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younes before detaining and strip-searching the paramedics in the convoy.

In a statement on Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that Israeli regime forces had stalled the UN convoy on Sunday detaining a paramedic and forcing others to remove their clothes.

The incident occurred during the evacuation of 24 critical patients from the city’s al-Amal Hospital, which has been under the continuous siege of Israeli regime forces, it said, adding that one pregnant woman and one mother and a newborn were among the patients.

“Despite prior coordination for all staff members and vehicles with the Israeli side, the Israeli forces blocked the WHO-led [World Health Organization] convoy for many hours the moment it left the hospital,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for OCHA, told reporters in Geneva.

“The Israeli military forced patients and staff out of ambulances and stripped all paramedics of their clothes,” Laerke added.

He added that Israeli forces had subsequently detained three Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedics, “although their personal details had been shared with the Israeli forces in advance,” while the rest of the convoy stayed in place for “over seven hours.”

One paramedic was released, said the OCHA spokesman as he appealed for the immediate release of the other two, and all other detained health workers in Gaza.

OCHA’s statement said that the UN relief agencies operating in war-torn Gaza face “unacceptable security conditions” for humanitarian aid delivery.

“This is not an isolated incident. Aid convoys have come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need,” it said.

“Humanitarian workers have been harassed, intimidated or detained by Israeli forces, and humanitarian infrastructure has been hit.”

That comes as the US-Israeli genocidal war against the defenseless Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated.

Nearly 30,000 people, including 14,000 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its aggression on Gaza in early October.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | 1 Comment

From Bouazizi to Bushnell

By Ashraf W. Nubani | The Libertarian Institute | February 27, 2024

Twenty-five-year-old Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty member of the United States Air Force, died on Sunday after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC as an act of protest against the slaughter in Gaza. Unfortunately, the act is noteworthy not because of the resulting suicide but for the underlying motivation behind it. That underlying motivation—and his last words, “Free Palestine”—was initially missing in American media coverage of the tragic incident until social media prompted mainstream coverage.

There is a growing sense that corporate America and our politicians just don’t care about our youth, especially those who serve in the military. This extreme form of protest took the life of a serviceman, not in combat abroad, but here at home in defiance of American foreign policy.

For those politicians who profess to genuinely care about our men and women in the armed services, answer this: How many active-duty personnel and veterans took their own lives since 1980 when the U.S. started documenting military suicides? Some estimate it’s in the six figures. That’s double the fifty-eight thousand killed in combat in Vietnam. America’s enemies don’t have to go to war to kill American soldiers. We are doing it to ourselves when we send our boys and girls to go fight in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan under false pretenses. They come back with PTSD, moral quandaries, and a host of other issues that prevent them from successfully reintegrating into society. Urinating on dead Taliban bodies doesn’t make America great.

If things are not bad enough with growing economic disparities between the rich and the poor, the opioid epidemic, the $34 trillion national debt, mass shootings, a growing divide in American society that are turning into battle lines, our best and brightest are killing themselves over a failed foreign policy that is polarizing the world against us. And Aaron is not the first to set himself on fire over the carnage in Gaza. Last December, a woman did something similar in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta.

It’s almost thirteen years to the date that Tunisian vendor Tarek Bouazizi self-immolated, igniting the “Arab Spring” in March 2011. He was harassed and humiliated, and had his wares confiscated by municipal officials. Many Arabs and Muslims live under corrupt authoritarian regimes that oppress their people. Those same broken promises of wealth, freedom, and democracy are robbing Americans of their dignity.

Before engaging in such an extreme act of protest documented on social media, Aaron said, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people are experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” Indeed, AIPAC-bought politicians have decided death and destruction, even at home, is the new norm.

All these acts are born of desperation. If young American men are willing to die in their pursuit of freedom and justice, our politicians should take heed. Yet the Joe Biden administration and Congress continue to green light Israel’s atrocities as it fails to achieve any of its stated goals like destroying Hamas, returning the captives, or bringing security to Israelis.

The entire world is fearful of a wider regional conflict. The worse it gets for Israel the more it will want the United States to get involved militarily on its behalf. Israel is drowning, and it has no problem in taking us down with it. America cannot afford more wars, especially in the Middle East.

All too often our elected officials have been hearing from their constituents, “How many Palestinians have to die before you call for a ceasefire?” The question now is, “How many Americans have to die before you call for a ceasefire?”

Ashraf W. Nubani is a Palestinian-American attorney based in the Washington DC area. He holds a Master’s degree in history and writes on Muslim issues and the West.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | 1 Comment

Here’s How Russia Could Hit Back If West Seizes Assets

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 27.02.2024

Some $300 billion in Russian assets were trapped abroad in 2022 after the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis into a full-on NATO-Russia proxy war. Western officials have threatened to seize these funds and transfer them to Ukraine for “reconstruction.” A pair of leading Russian economists tell Sputnik why that’s a very bad idea.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called on nations of the Western “coalition” against Moscow to “find a way to unlock the value of [Russia’s] immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction.”

“I believe there is a strong international law, economic and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russia’s unprecedented threat to global stability,” Yellen said at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Tuesday.

Tackling the question of the potential threats to the dollar’s status as the de facto world reserve currency that such an unprecedented move would entail, Yellen said that it it’s “extremely unlikely” that the greenback would be negatively affected. “Realistically there are not alternatives to the dollar, euro and yen,” she assured.

Yellen is the latest senior Western official to propose moving forward with the seizure of Russian assets as Western countries’ own desire to continue fueling the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia falters. Earlier this month, the European Union adopted a law allowing Brussels to bank windfall profits from Russian assets trapped in European banks and use them in Ukraine, a move characterized by Moscow as blatant “theft” which will be met with legal action.

Russian officials and independent economic observers alike have warned of the possible consequences stemming from what Yellen is proposing, with Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov saying Moscow has the means to issue a “symmetrical” response to this form of Western financial aggression.

“We have no fewer frozen [assets than Western countries],” Siluanov said in an interview with Sputnik on Monday. “Any actions taken against our assets would receive a symmetrical response.”

Mechanism for Tit-For-Tat Response Already Exists

“Russia has already taken conservatorship of assets of a number of foreign companies which refused to operate in Russia,” Dr. Andrei Kolganov, a professor of economics at Moscow State University and chief researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Economics, told Sputnik, commenting on the folly of the West’s asset seizure plans.
This instrument was already used against foreign investors with an ownership stake in the Baltika Beer Company, as well as the assets of Finnish energy concern Fortum, the professor noted.

“So in principle, the mechanism for the confiscation of foreign assets has already been worked out. Moving from conservatorship to confiscation is, in principle, a fairly simple technical procedure. The amount of assets that are ‘frozen’ on the territory of the Russian Federation, or which may be frozen, is now estimated at approximately $288 billion,” Kolganov explained.

In other words, the professor said, Russia has control over a big chunk of Western assets which, if the US and its allies proceed with confiscation, “will not escape to the West, but will work here in Russia, because we are talking about investment, first and foremost, in the manufacturing sector.”

From there, these assets could become the property of the Russian state, or be transferred to Russian private owners and continue to work as before.

Confiscation of assets of Western companies in Russia would seriously impact their respective bottom lines, meaning they could try to put pressure on governments, both in their home countries and in Russia, to try to avoid having their capital seized.

“We have a lot of foreign companies working in Russia, including those from so-called unfriendly countries. We have more than 50 decently-sized American firms alone working here, and plenty of European companies,” Dr. Georgy Ostapkovich, director of the Center for Market Research at the Institute of Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, told Sputnik.

Sorry Yellen, Seizing Assets Won’t Crash Russian Economy

Kolganov says that as unpleasant as a seizure of Russia’s assets abroad might be it would not serve to tank the country’s economy, with Moscow able to continue its international payments using its sizable and healthy foreign exchange earnings after reorienting its trade toward developing countries. The money frozen in Western banks constitutes reserves, which “were not actively used for international trade and international payments” anyway, the professor explained.

“For private businesses, the confiscation of assets would create a pretty big hole in their earnings and budgets. Therefore, it would be a rather sensitive measure if Russia had to resort to it in response to the confiscation of its assets,” the economist added.

Dr. Ostapkovich emphasizes that Moscow will have to be strategic and precise in the foreign assets it may choose to seize, to avoid the risk of friendly countries and companies doing business in Russia feeling threatened.

“Every operation” on Russia’s part “must take place with the help of legal services, that is, through the courts,” the veteran economist said. “We are a state based on the rule of law, and cannot just go ahead and close them, because they will naturally go to court. Moreover, they will file in the London court, which judges according to Anglo-Saxon law. This is case law. They will look for a precedent.”

In other words, Ostapkovich stressed, Moscow should expect a tug of war on the international stage regarding the seizure of assets by the West and Russia’s tit-for-tat response.

Pandora’s Box of Damage to the Dollar

In his interview with Sputnik, Russia’s finance minister mentioned the promising transition away from Western currencies in favor of new currencies among the world’s rising economies, especially China.

“The Chinese are reducing their holdings of American securities. This is a consequence of what’s happening [to Russia, ed.] The reliability of the dollar and the euro has been undermined,” Siluanov said.

And while it may be too early to speak about the collapse of the dollar or euro as a result of a decision to seize the assets of a sizable economy like Russia, Kolganov confirmed that it has the potential to seriously undermine Western reserve currencies’ reputation in a big way.

“The yuan’s share in international transactions has doubled over the past two years, but doubled to only about 4.6 percent of the total. This is not a huge amount, but still, an upward trend exists. The share of rubles in international payments has also increased, mainly in the form of payments with our country… Nevertheless, a gradual move away from the dollar will of course take place. Because here we’re talking not only about the confiscation of assets, which will undermine confidence in payments made in reserve currencies. Because any country and any central bank may feel threatened that if the geopolitical situation changes, they could be treated in a similar way.”

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the United States and Europe are facing a loss of economic confidence at home, with the former facing debt levels that are off the charts, which in the future could cause serious shocks to the entire global dollar system, Kolganov noted.

Recipe for Action

Russia can already move forward with tit-for-tat measures against the Europeans over Brussels’ law allowing the seizure and use of the interest earned on Russian assets frozen in Western banks, Ostapkovich says, noting if the EU moves forward with the seizures, Moscow could similarly start shaving dividends and interest on European companies operating in Russia.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

EU’s Russia sanctions ‘massively circumvented’ – study

RT | February 27, 2024

The EU’s sanctions on Russia are being “massively circumvented” via third countries, Euractiv reported on Monday, citing a study by the IESEG School of Management. The bloc has introduced 13 rounds of restrictive measures against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.

The research found statistical evidence that the sanctions have been hugely dodged for so-called “high priority items,” which are subject to EU export restrictions and include manufacturing equipment and electrical components with potential military applications.

According to the report, EU exports of such items to Türkiye, the UAE, Kazakhstan, and other “Kremlin-friendly” countries skyrocketed by €2.9 billion ($3.2 billion), or over 80%, in the period from October 2022 through September 2023 compared to the previous twelve-month span. The data shows that at the same time EU exports of such goods to Russia decreased by $3.5 billion, or more than 95%.

The decline in EU sales of advanced technology and dual-use items to Moscow was seen as almost entirely compensated for by a sharp increase in exports of the same goods to countries in West and Central Asia, according to Euractiv.

“The surge of these purchases by third countries is too huge to be entirely caused by an increase in local demand, so that it can be suspected that a big part was thereafter exported to Russia,” the IESEG report claimed.

A senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Janis Kluge, told Euractiv that “Russia’s economy is resilient because it is, for the most part, still a market economy.”

The country adjusted to the sanctions through a “decentralized effort” by “thousands of [businesses] managers” to find their ways around the restrictions and “keep things working” – thus proving to be one of the key factors behind Russia’s relative “resilience” to Western sanctions, according to Kluge.

“There were new traders popping up who specialized in importing these goods through third countries. There’s a whole industry that has appeared, which is dedicated to the circumvention of sanctions – because it’s a billion-dollar business,” he stated.

The EU adopted its 13th package of sanctions against Russia last week ahead of the second anniversary of the start of the Ukraine conflict. The measures target 106 individuals and 88 entities and also further restrict trade in technologies and components that could be used by Russia’s defense industry. Components for the development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles have also been added to the blacklist. Some of the sanctioned entities are located in third countries, such as India, China, and Türkiye.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Time magazine begrudgingly admits “Ukraine Can’t Win the War”

By Ahmed Adel | February 27, 2024

The Ukrainian counteroffensive failed, and Russia’s liberation of Avdeyevka signalled a new reality that Volodymyr Zelensky was forced to recognise, the American magazine Time wrote on February 24. Yet, despite the acknowledgement of the impossibility of Ukraine’s victory growing day by day, the Kiev regime insists on begging for more weapons from Western countries.

“The long-awaited counteroffensive last year failed,” Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in an editorial, adding that Washington’s rhetoric had changed accordingly.

“The Biden Administration’s strategy is now to sustain Ukrainian defence until after the US presidential elections, in the hope of wearing down Russian forces in a long war of attrition,” Lieven continued.

According to the author, the hope now is that Kiev’s forces will achieve the long-awaited breakthrough in 2025 or perhaps the following year, but “Russia will never agree at the negotiating table to surrender land that it has managed to hold on the battlefield.”

“Many Ukrainians in private were prepared to accept the loss of some territories as the price of peace if Ukraine failed to win them back on the battlefield and if the alternative was years of bloody war with little prospect of success. The Biden Administration needs to get America on board too,” he added.

However, Lieven explains that those who believe in Ukraine’s final victory “have engaged in hopes that range from the overly optimistic to the magical,” with an example being the delusional retired US Army General, Ben Hodges, who pushes the false idea “that Russia can be defeated, and even driven from Crimea, by long-range missile bombardment.”

It is obviously ludicrous to believe that a long-range missile bombardment will drive out Russian forces from liberated territories, including Crimea. This does not stop the likes of Hodges from selling this delusion, which also plays into the hands of the Kiev regime, which continues their humiliating begging for more weapons from the West.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba declared on the same day as the publication of the Time article that Kiev is “pressuring” its allies to obtain more weapons.

When asked on local television about Plan B if Ukraine stops receiving military aid from Washington, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, who is also a top regime propagandist, stressed that he is focusing on implementing Plan A.

“When a Plan B is created in times of war, you need to be sure that Plan B will not occur because, in a war, you have to always be focused on Plan A,” he stated, detailing that this plan consists of “maximum consideration of their interests.”

“We are not in a position to make concessions on military supplies,” Kuleba added.

In this context, the minister stated that if they do not receive projectiles from the US, “we will go around the world and bring projectiles from other parts of the world.”

It is recalled that Zelensky warned on February 23 that his country could only “defeat Russia” with military help from the US and that it would certainly fail without this financial help.

Meanwhile, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov urged Western countries to hand over to the country’s Armed Forces all the weapons and military equipment they have because, in his opinion, in the future, “the bet will be on something else, the war will be completely different.”

“[This weaponry] will be scrap that they won’t need because there will be a completely different war,” he said.

The Kiev regime refuses to acknowledge that its professional armed forces no longer exist and that no amount of Western weaponry, if it even does arrive, can reverse the tide of Russia’s victory. Effectively, the regime continues to send thousands of Ukrainians to be slaughtered all because it holds onto the faux belief that the lost oblasts and Crimea can be recovered.

But as Lieven writes, “there is no realistic chance of total Ukrainian victory next year, or the year after that,” even if US military aid continues.

He concludes his article by stating: “The lost Ukrainian territories are lost, and NATO membership is pointless if the alliance is not prepared to send its own troops to fight for Ukraine against Russia. Above all, however painful a peace agreement would be today, it will be infinitely more so if the war continues and Ukraine is defeated.”

Lieven is not the sole voice, and there is a crescendo growing in the West affirming the reality that Ukraine cannot win the war, no matter how much support it receives short of direct intervention. It is unsurprising that this corresponds with Donald Trump’s growing popularity over Joe Biden, who claims he can quickly resolve the war in Ukraine in the run-in to the US elections in November. As the months pass and we approach the US elections, it can be expected that scepticism about Ukraine’s victory will increase, especially as Russia is expected to liberate more territories once the winter snow and early spring mud dissipate.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | | Leave a comment