I had a discussion with Professor John Mearsheimer and Alexander Mercouris about the political West being on the brink of two major wars. Both Israel and Ukraine are fighting wars they cannot win, both are doubling down through reckless escalation, and neither is pursuing a diplomatic path to a peaceful resolution.
Consequently, both Israel and Ukraine are desperately seeking to drag the US into a wider war as the only solution. With incremental escalation, no diplomacy and the absence of serious discussions about the deep trouble we are now in – both Israel and Ukraine are successfully getting the US increasingly involved.
Japanese citizens were shocked on the morning of August 28 as their largest national broadcaster, NHK, decided to air a special feature on the COVID-19 vaccine relief system. This program highlighted real-life experiences of individuals who have suffered severe side effects, prompting an overwhelming public response with over 2000 messages received.
In a surprising turn of events, NHK’s popular Morning Show, Asaichi, has taken a bold step. Once dismissive of doubts about vaccine safety, the show recently focused on the challenges and realities faced by those affected by mRNA experimental vaccine side effects. This change in stance marks a pivotal U-Turn in the ongoing national conversation about the experimental mRNA’s safety and transparency.
The program’s new focus was echoed in the unexpected surge of viewer engagement. “We have received more than 2000 messages from viewers today. Thank you very much,” the host announced, signaling widespread public interest and concern.
One chilling account came from a viewer who detailed their struggle after the third vaccine dose: “My headaches became severe. Although they have lessened since the beginning, the symptoms have persisted for more than two years. It has been two and a half years of vaccine aftereffects.” Frustration with the bureaucratic hurdles in seeking relief was evident: “It’s difficult to go collect documents because of my leg pain, so I urgently wish the process to be simplified as soon as possible.”
Another viewer recounted a deeply personal tragedy: “Right after vaccination, my mother developed a serious illness and passed away.” Their story was not just about personal loss, but also about the social repercussions of questioning vaccine side effects. “During the period when I was collecting application documents after my mother’s illness and passing, I’ve been met repeatedly with heartless comments just for questioning the connection with the vaccine.”
The show also featured Misu from Ibaraki Prefecture, a former healthcare worker in her 40s, who shared her ongoing battle. Since receiving her third dose, she has struggled with “pain and numbness in the vaccinated arm, fatigue, and other symptoms.” Misu’s plea was simple yet profound: “I hope the government and media report this properly. Voices are being raised to spread awareness about the suffering caused by side effects.”
This feature on NHK’s Asaichi has not only brought attention to individual struggles but has also highlighted a broader societal issue: the difficulty in openly discussing vaccine side effects without backlash. It presents a call to action for society to foster an environment where sharing such experiences does not invite judgment but rather understanding and empathy.
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Japanese citizens were left stunned when NHK, Japan's largest national broadcaster, on 28th Aug aired an hour long comprehensive report on the harms of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.
The program received messages from over 2,000 viewers, revealing that the extent of the… pic.twitter.com/9vlH6LrYhm
Two days following the national broadcast, Japan’s Health Minister, Keizō Takemi, made an unexpected statement: “Regarding whether health damage from the COVID-19 vaccine constitutes drug-induced injury, our response at this point is that we would like to refrain from commenting.”
It looks like they are no longer saying that it is 100% safe and effective!
It is interesting to hear President Joe Biden claim that democracy is at stake in the upcoming national election when he and his Democratic Party colleagues have done so much to hinder the free discussion of issues that should be considered important by the electorate. Joe has operated by fiat in his opening of America’s southern border to mass invasion by illegal immigrants and has committed the US to participation in two wars without any declaration of war or credible justification for entering the conflicts in terms of the security of the United States. More to the point, in terms of how it affects every American, Biden and company have run electoral campaigns based on the premise that his opponents were being assisted by the interference of unfriendly governments in the process. In reality, if outside interference in one’s election is a real problem, it is a crime that is more true of Joe’s best friend Israel rather than anything coming from Russia, China or Iran.
But the one subject that is part and parcel of electoral corruption that is not being discussed sufficiently is the cooption of the national police and intelligence agencies to make them de facto operatives of the party in power, most recently the Democrats. After the 2016 election, the use of the so-called deep state to blacken Donald Trump through allegations that surfaced from federal law enforcement acting in collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign and some in the media was exposed. Due to that revelation, the concept of a deep state that operates independently of elections or elected officials began to take shape in the minds of many observers of the Washington scene.
The Biden administration has taken the incestuous relationship with its law enforcement and intelligence agencies even farther. It sought to establish a “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security which would have been empowered to denounce the credibility of citizens who were complaining about what the government was doing based on the fiction that what was taking place was deliberate disruption of the government using false information. This even applied to the increasingly heavy hand employed by the Bidens over education, where parents who expressed disagreement with Critical Race Theory and other woke content taught in the schools as well as the aggressive gender bending, were conveniently labeled “domestic terrorists.” In short, anyone who disagrees with government policy has become a “domestic” problem and will be confronted with the full employment of government resources to criminalize or create disincentives to such behavior which some might recall used to be referred to as “free speech.”
Fortunately, people are beginning to take notice of what is going on to create a world where governments actively conspire to eliminate criticism of what they do. It is all reminiscent of the torment of top journalist Julian Assange by the British and US governments over the course of over twelve years, five of which were in a top security prison, for the crime of having revealed details of questionable or even illegal official behavior by US soldiers in Iraq.
Two interesting uses of federal police resources to silence dissenters have occurred recently in the United States, involving politically prominent individuals who are being surveilled and harassed for little more than their expressed contrary views on America’s wars. They are Scott Ritter, a former Marine and weapons inspector, and Tulsi Gabbard, a former congressman from Hawaii and a reserve lieutenant colonel in that state’s National Guard. What has been done to them by the Biden Administration using as its tool of choice the nation’s security services is bizarre and almost unimaginable for those who still believe that the United States is a functioning democracy whose citizens’ rights are protected by a written constitution and a judicial system that enforces the laws without regard for who is in power or the pleading of special interests.
Ritter has had two recent encounters with the FBI. On June 3rd he attempted to fly to Russia to speak at an international conference when he was stopped at the airport and had his passport taken under orders of the State Department. No explanation was given for the action and he was not given either a receipt or a warrant explaining the grounds for the seizure of the document. It has not since been returned. On August 7th, 41 FBI agents arrived unannounced and proceeded to search Ritter’s New York state home. They confiscated documents and electronic communications devices. Interestingly, they had in their possession a thick file that contained copies of many of his email and phone messages, indicating that he had been under surveillance for quite some time. It is independently known that the FBI, NSA and CIA have global surveillance capabilities that enable them to monitor phones and emails for anyone, or, indeed, for everyone, in real time, so one might assume that Ritter was only one of their many victims.
The Gabbard case is even more bewildering because, though an active critic of the Ukraine war, Tulsi is a former Democratic Party congressman and army officer who was and is eminently respectable. She is reportedly being stalked by Transportation Security Administration’s air marshals, part of the agency’s Quiet Skies covert operation targeting suspected threats to aircraft and airports. Those who are under Quiet Skies surveillance have a printed SSSS on their airline boarding tickets, requires one to be taken aside before boarding for additional screening. Gabbard believes that placing her on the TSA Quiet Skies target list was “clearly an act of political retaliation. It’s no accident that I was placed on the Quiet Skies list the day after I did a prime-time interview warning the American people about… why Kamala Harris would be bad for our country if elected as President.” Gabbard observed that, despite her having served in the US Army for 21 years, “now my government is surveilling me as a potential domestic terrorist… forcing me to be forever looking over my shoulder, wondering if and how I am being watched, what secret terror watch list I’m on, and having no transparency or due process.” A commenter on Twitter noted that “The only thing Tulsi Gabbard blew up was Kamala’s earlier presidential run. That’s why she’s on a list.”
A former TSA agent explained that because of being listed on Quiet Skies Gabbard would have multiple air marshals on “every flight, every leg,” and canine teams will “maneuver over to the [boarding] gate area… floating around to try to pick up a scent of something… When she travels by air there is one or more sky marshals traveling with her. In some cases, she is met by a team of agents with sniffer dogs when she deplanes.” Tulsi believes that she might be targeted by the White House due to her antiwar position but she has also now endorsed Donald Trump for president and the government is therefore using law enforcement as its weapon to intimidate and discredit her.
Europe is also on board the death to free speech bandwagon. Another recent arrest is that of Pavel Durov in France on charges of permitting the use of his internet service to carry out illegal actions like collusion with organized crime, drug dealing, fraud and distribution of child pornography. He was temporarily released on a 5 million Euro bail on August 28th but cannot leave France. Durov is the Russian-born founder of Telegram, the world’s largest encrypted messenger service with over one billion users. He is a multi-billionaire with a flamboyant lifestyle and also holds the citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates. And there is inevitably an Israeli angle relating to Telegram’s airing of graphic videos of Israeli atrocities taking place in Gaza. The French prosecutors will no doubt say it is about allowing “hate speech,” but Durov’s has had French citizenship and has been traveling in and out of the country for years. The arrest, which can mean twenty years in prison, has only taken place after Israel complained. For what it’s worth the Chief Rabbi of France Haim Korsia has justified Israeli killing of Palestinians in Gaza during a French television interview and then urged the Israeli government to “finish the job”. He was not arrested for endorsing a war crime nor was he even rebuked by Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron.
Likewise, the United States’ moves to ban Chinese owned TikTok is in large part because it also allows videos from Gaza and Israel’s complaints have aroused a normally dormant US Congress to ban the site. It is all about creating an internet that does not harbor content that Jews dislike, and that rule also applies to individual journalists. On August 14th British independent journalist Richard Medhurst was detained by police at London’s Heathrow Airport and questioned while in solitary confinement for 24 hours. He also had his phone and laptop confiscated over possible violation of section 12 of the UK’s Terrorism Act, which allows a person to be convicted and jailed for up to 14 years for what is a thought crime—“express[ing] an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed [terrorist] organization.” Medhurst was guilty only of being a regular and outspoken critic of Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians. Also in the UK, on August 29th, independent journalist Sarah Wilkinson had her home searched by 12 policemen from the counter-terrorism force who took her papers and electronic devices. They told her she was under arrest due to “content that she had posted online” that was highly critical of Israel genocide of the Gazans.
The moves against internet providers have no doubt alerted billionaire Elon Musk and others to the possibility that they might be under attack soon, in the case of Musk over his X (Twitter) site. Referring to Durov’s arrest, Musk has described the current attacks on information sites as “dangerous times.” Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Ukrainian Jew by birth, who made waves as a key witness supporting the impeachment of former President Donald Trump, issued a thinly veiled warning after Durov’s arrest, praising the move to require censorship on internet information sources. Vindman attributed the development to “… a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano, has also been a recent victim of a possible attempt to silence him and the war critics appearing on his interview program by having an internet platform that he has used for years temporarily suspended. YouTube claimed the move was due to misinformation that surfaced in a session with internationally respected journalist Pepe Escobar, who takes a decisively antiwar stance. But nothing in the interview suggests that there was anything worthy of censure as deliberate disinformation. In reality, Napolitano’s willingness to provide a platform for many experts whose views are unwelcome in mainstream media outlets has led more such individuals to join his roster of guests, which the Biden administration appears to see as a threat.
The media broadly speaking have been the principal targets of illegal government pushback, but the effort to permit only acceptable speech is also advancing in other areas. Schools and colleges are hurrying to create protest-proof campuses for the upcoming academic year, but that all too often has only meant ending demonstrations critical of Israel and its policies. Pro-Israel demonstrators who openly support the genocide against the Palestinians will not be disturbed. New York University has, for example, declared that students and faculty who discriminate against or harass “Zionists” may be violating New York University’s hate speech policies and could be suspended or expelled. Groups supportive of Israel believe that use of the very word “Zionist” in a derogatory fashion serves as a cover for attacks on Jews or Israelis. Now, NYU, which like many universities became paralyzed by pro-Palestinian unrest during the last school year, appears to be the first college to take a position on the term’s use. “Using code words, like ‘Zionist,’ does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH [Nondiscrimination and Anti-Harassment] Policy” reads NYU’s new student community standards. In other words, if you call someone a “Zionist” you are still likely to be an antisemite! The NYU chapter of Jewish on Campus explained how the new policy “makes it abundantly clear: Zionism is a core component of Jewish identity.” Pro-Palestinian groups on campus, objected, observing how the new code of conduct “criminalizes Palestine solidarity.”
In another move to “protect” vulnerable Zionist students from the alleged surging college antisemitism, Hillel Foundation, the Jewish student support group that is active on numerous American campuses, has launched a campaign called “Operation Secure Our Campuses” at more than 50 US universities. Meetings have been arranged to coordinate with local college administrators, police and FBI to come up with at least ten steps that should be taken to eliminate pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the upcoming academic year. Pro-Israel manifestations will apparently not be affected by the new regulations.
And there’s more, coming this time from the Republicans. Five Senators, Joni Ernst, Kevin Cramer, John Thune, Roger Marshall and Marsha Blackburn signed off on a letter to Daniel Werfe, commissioner of the IRS, about an “insufficient and insulting” response to an “inquiry to review the legal compliance of nonprofit charities that support demonstrations opposing the Jewish state.” Two groups the senators noted as involved with anti-Israel protests were Students for Justice in Palestine and Alliance for Global Justice. “An entity’s tax-exempt status is a privilege, and it is your responsibility to ensure only those who abide by tax laws are granted this privilege,” the senators wrote. The letter concluded with the lawmakers requesting information on the number of post- October 7th organizations involved in pro-Palestinian protests and the identities of the groups that have actually lost their nonprofit status as a consequence. The senators are demanding that the IRS no longer offer special tax breaks to groups or organizations that are critical of Israel.
The fact is that IRS exemptions are usually granted after careful review of the credentials of organizations that fit into various definitions as being religious, educational, or charitable. One such status is called 501(c)(3) and it enables the organization to solicit donations that are in most cases tax deductible, a major incentive when seeking funding. Again, Jewish “charitable” foundations supporting the Israeli army, or the creation of illegal settlements, or even the genocide of Palestinians, will not be subjected to such scrutiny or loss of IRS special status. Groups critical of US foreign policy will, however, be increasingly targeted by the IRS and punished for staking out a political position that differs from that of the White House and Congress, particularly if it relates to Israel. It is just one more step in the death of free speech in America!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
The unprecedented case of the attack on Telegram via the arrest of Pavel Durov – and the nature of the charges against him – has clearly emboldened not only the lovers of censorship (such as the EU) but also the enemies of encryption (the EU).
Encryption itself has long been in the crosshairs in the bloc, but also in various individual countries in Europe individually, and others around the world. This push to undermine encryption – despite it being the key component of security, and privacy online – is habitually justified as necessary for law enforcement to do its job.
Now EU member Denmark is trying to come for end-to-end encryption, and not only Telegram, but also Signal, WhatsApp, and others. In this particular instance, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard’s preferred course of action would be to just block these apps (perhaps as a stopgap measure) rather than taking the much longer path of building encryption backdoors.
Judging by reports in the Danish press, Hummelgaard wants to use this moment to further increase pressure on encrypted services, unsurprisingly giving “fighting crime” as the reason.
And while Hummelgaard considers such services as “safe havens” for criminals (it’s the same as saying states are safe havens for criminals because criminals operate in them), a large number of Danish MPs use encrypted apps – according to an investigative report in frihedsbrevet.dk, at least 70. (The country’s parliament has 179 seats).
To make matters even more absurd, Hummelgaard was (or still is) one of them.
And now those perplexed by his idea to block encrypted messengers are calling for him to “lead by example” and make his own messages publicly available – if that is, private communications are an evil that justifies resorting to blocking apps.
Reports quote Danish Reddit users making this suggestion, with one sarcastically noting that this shouldn’t be a problem – “surely he has nothing to hide, and therefore nothing to fear?”
The push around the world to get encrypted apps to “cooperate” by allowing the authorities to expand mass online surveillance to them as well, is defended by those sympathetic toward such policies as the need for “transparency” and “accountability.”
Absurd charges of complicity in crimes are a cover for closing down free speech and information critical of Western regimes. It’s as simple and as tyrannical as that.
Telegram owner Pavel Durov could be held in France for years while an investigation is carried out. If found guilty, he then faces 10 years in jail. There are sinister echoes of the persecution of Julian Assange in this case.
Telegram founder and owner, Pavel Durov (39) was arrested on August 24 by French police officers as he stepped off his private jet that had landed in Le Bourget airport, north of Paris. He had flown from Azerbaijan.
After four days in custody, Durov was released on Wednesday on condition of paying a €5 million bond and not leaving France for the duration of a cybercrime investigation. Durov lives in Dubai where he has Emirati citizenship, in addition to Russian and French nationality.
The French authorities charge him with complicity in crimes ranging from administering a social platform that permits criminal organizations to conduct drug trafficking and distribution of child pornography. He is also charged with not cooperating with law enforcement to curb criminal networks. His defense counsel denies all charges and maintains that Telegram has abided by all European regulations governing digital media.
The whole affair smacks of drama and a draconian clampdown by the French authorities to intimidate free speech and independent media. The alleged crimes are designed to make the wider public repudiate Durov and his rights to due process.
Suspiciously, French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken out in public twice over the past week, claiming that he had no advance knowledge of Pavel’s arrest and that he had nothing to do with his arrest. Macron went on to proclaim France to be a country that champions free speech and an independent judiciary.
Macron’s rush to distance himself sounds like an alibi. According to French media reporting, Durov told arresting officers that he was traveling to meet with Macron for dinner. It does seem strange that the Telegram owner took the risk of flying to Paris even though he would have known French investigators were probing the social network platform for a pretext to pressure him.
Did Macron set the Russian-born entrepreneur up by personally assuring him that he would be free to travel? It seems that the arrest warrant was hurriedly concocted after the private jet entered French airspace. Again, it all smacks of an entrapment.
It has been reported that Macron and Durov met on previous occasions. The French leader has been lobbying the entrepreneur to move his Telegram base of operations to France from Dubai. The bestowing of a French passport in 2021 is believed to be part of the enticement. It is well known that Macron is trying to reinvent France as a hi-tech global hub.
The charges against Durov are not only draconian but also absurd. The notion of holding the owner of a social network platform as being responsible for or complicit in the content of the network is preposterous.
Why not arrest the owners of telephone companies based on the same logic? It’s ridiculous and indicates an ulterior motive.
Telegram was founded in 2013-2014 by Durov (and his older brother). He left Russia in 2014 because he refused to comply with Russian authorities on allowing access to the privacy of users. Over the years, Telegram has grown worldwide to become one of the major messaging apps with nearly one billion monthly users. It has gained a reputation for secure communications and fierce independence from governments.
Pavel told American journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview earlier this year that he has routinely been harassed by U.S. authorities to hand over the encryption keys of Telegram, which he has refused to do.
By contrast, Western-based competitor apps such as WhatsApp and Western-controlled internet companies are known to have relented to pressure from the U.S. and European authorities on allowing “backdoor access” to supposedly private communications between individuals and groups.
Having said that, however, the content of these Western apps is also tainted with crime networks and horrendously sordid material. Why shouldn’t Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk be arrested next on similar charges to those leveled at Pavel Durov?
The difference is that Telegram has refused to comply with Western state intelligence services as it previously did with Russian counterparts. A case can be made that the Telegram owner is a “free speech absolutist”.
Much more important than the marginal criminal use of Telegram (as all apps are prone to), is the preponderant use of the platform for disseminating independent news and analysis.
Telegram has gained an enviable reputation for its accurate information on the war in Ukraine. Numerous independent news channels have flourished on Telegram to bring reliable and critical information about the conflict. Unlike Western media and social network platforms that kowtow to Western governments and NATO propaganda, Telegram has enabled a much more informed view of the war that exposes the Western narratives as a sham. Defense of Ukrainian democracy? More like defense of a NeoNazi regime and defense of Western war economies.
The fact is Telegram has become a globally important independent media network that is not controlled by Western regimes. It is for this reason that it is in the cross-hairs for repression, not because of alleged criminal activity by its owner. The latter reason is a pathetic pretext.
At a time when the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia has entered a disastrous phase of defeat, the Western elite must shut down all and every critical media.
It is no coincidence that following the outrageous persecution of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange (five years in solitary confinement in a British dungeon) for exposing U.S. and NATO war crimes, we now see a surge in cases of cracking down on free media. American commentator Scott Ritter who has been a valued critic of the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, recently had his home raided by the FBI. Other independent journalists have been arrested or harassed in Britain, France, Germany and across Europe for their critical views on the war in Ukraine or the Western-supported Israeli genocide in Palestine. Western so-called democracies are increasingly using fascist jackboot attacks on independent journalism and freedom of thought.
The Western elites and their fascistic power cannot abide any criticism or dissent that is fatal to their charade of authority. Emmanuel Macron, with his pretensions of grandeur and brittle egotism, embodies the Western elite.
Pavel Durov is awaiting the outcome of a vague and nebulous cybercrime investigation that may take years to complete. After which he may be imprisoned for another 10 years and pay huge financial fines. France which claims to uphold the highest principles of free speech has just descended to hostage-taking of innocent people for the vile purpose of killing free speech and independence of thought.
The EU is putting additional pressure on Telegram, after one of its member countries, France, arrested the platform’s co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov.
The EU has launched an investigation into the number of users the platform has in the bloc, and whether the number reported by Telegram is correct.
The importance of this is the EU’s ability to censor using the Digital Services Act (DSA), which applies services with over 45 million users.
In February, Telegram said that their number is 41 million, but the EU has chosen precisely this moment to start looking for ways to determine if this reporting was accurate – or, more likely, try to prove that it isn’t.
The EU Commission’s Joint Research Center is tasked with the job, while there are “ongoing talks with the app” regarding the way it arrived at its figure, the Financial Times writes, without expanding on the “ongoing talks” point.
EU Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier is quoted as saying that the EU “has a way” to determine whether Telegram’s reporting is true, using “our own systems and calculations.”
If the result of the investigation is that Telegram had lied, that is, that the number of users is 45 million or more – the EU will “unilaterally” declare it a very large platform, subject to the sweeping censorship rules contained in the DSA.
Saying that the decision can be made unilaterally and based only on the EU’s own investigation using its own agency to audit these figures means that the bloc is giving itself the right to, in an untransparent way, declare a platform the subject of the DSA.
One of DSA’s key purposes is to enforce the EU’s policy of even more tightly controlling the social media space, and a provision in the law states that those considered to be very large platforms must “disclose” what they are doing to counter “disinformation” and “misinformation.”
The Financial Times says that globally, Telegram has close to 1 billion users, with Asia as the largest market, and that in an interview with the publication earlier in 2024, Durov said the number of users is “roughly proportionate” with the size of different markets or continents.
MOSCOW – The number of civilians wounded in the Ukrainian shelling of the Russian city of Belgorod and the Belgorod Region has risen to 46, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
On Friday evening, the governor said air defenses worked over Belgorod and the surrounding region, several air targets were shot down near the city. Later, he reported that the shelling had been carried out from the Vampire multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), five people were killed, 37 were wounded.
“We have again lost civilians as a result of shelling of the city of Belgorod by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Five civilians were killed… 46 civilians were wounded. There are currently 37 people in hospitals, seven of them are children. One child is in serious condition,” Gladkov said in a video published on Telegram.
Video appearing to be from the attack posted on social media show civilian vehicles being hit and no military targets in the area.
Nothing to see here, just the Ukrainians rocketing a random intersection in Belgorod to kill and terrorize civilians.
If the Russians did this we'd have a week of international condemnation, sob-story news articles and deranged posts on this website.
MOSCOW – The Russian Foreign Ministry called on international organizations on Saturday to condemn the recent shelling of the city of Belgorod and its suburbs by Ukraine, which killed five civilians and injured 46 others.
“We once again urge all responsible governments and relevant international institutions to resolutely condemn this brutal act of terrorism and publicly distance themselves from the Kiev regime and its Western patrons, who commit such crimes,” the statement read.
“Silence in response to the unbridled barbarism of the Ukrainian nationalists and their puppeteers from ‘civilized democracies’ would be tantamount to complicity in their bloody deeds,” the ministry warned.
The Friday shelling was planned in advance and constitutes an act of intimidation of the civilian population, the ministry said. Ukrainian troops fired cluster munitions using Czech-made Vampire multiple launch rocket systems, in what it said was another attempt by the regime in Kiev to “kill as many Russians as possible.”
Ukraine is exerting pressure on staff at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in Russia, with threats to kill their family members if they refuse to cooperate with Kiev, senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik has claimed.
“A lot of families have been separated” during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and Kiev is trying to take advantage of this, Miroshnik, who is tasked by the Moscow’s Foreign Ministry with collecting evidence of Ukraine’s war crimes, told RIA Novosti on Saturday.
Kiev’s security agencies are deliberately looking for relatives of staff members at the power plant who remain on Ukrainian territory, Miroshnik said.
They then use threats against family members, “to put pressure [on the nuclear plant employees] or provoke them to commit a terrorist act or to pass on information in the interests of Ukraine,” he claimed.
There have been cases of people “quitting or changing jobs in order to ‘deprive’ themselves of the opportunity to commit a crime and make sure the blackmailers lose interest in them,” the diplomat noted.
“Unfortunately, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is not the only one” experiencing such problems, as employees of other Russian critical facilities are also being pressured in a similar manner, Miroshnik said.
According to the diplomat, Russian security agencies are aware of such practices by Kiev and are working to counter them.
The Zaporozhye nuclear plant, which is the largest in Europe, has been under Russian control since March 2022. Throughout the conflict, Moscow and Kiev have repeatedly accused each other of shelling the facility, and the Russian Defense Ministry has said that several attempts by Ukrainian assault units to retake it have been repelled.
In the fall of 2022, Zaporozhye Region officially joined the Russian state together with Kherson Region and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has a permanent monitoring mission at the Zaporozhye plant, said that since February the station had been hit by drone strikes, experienced loss of power lines, and had one of its two cooling towers damaged by fire earlier this month. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi, who is expected to visit the facility next week, described the security situation as “extremely challenging.”
UNITED NATIONS – Mali is alarmed that the weapons supplied to Ukraine by the collective West are ultimately fueling terrorism in the Sahel region, Malian Ambassador to the United Nations Oumar Daou said in Friday.
“The government of Mali would like to express its alarm with regard to the supply of weapons to Ukraine, because it’s been clearly established that a good part of the weapons … end up fueling terrorism and crime in the Sahel,” Daou said during a meeting of the UN Security Council.
The Malian ambassador also said that the weapons deliveries carry the risk of further destabilizing countries in Africa and exacerbate the suffering of the Malian people, who have already been “sorely tested by several years of conflict with dramatic consequences.”
French media, citing a Malian military source, reported in early August that terrorists from the Malian armed separatist groups traveled to Ukraine to receive training there.
Novavax is offering parents up to $3,000 to enroll their children in the vaccine maker’s Phase 2/3 COVID-19 vaccine trial for infants and children ages 6 months to 11 years. The offer also includes a stuffed animal for each child.
The “Hummingbird” trial is testing two primary shots and a booster shot of Novavax’s adjuvanted recombinant spike protein nanoparticle vaccine in children. The study, which began in 2022, is enrolling 3,600 children.
The study, which began in the U.S., is expected to run through 2025 and will be conducted in the U.S. and other countries.
The children will receive three injections and visit the clinic eight times. Parents will participate in three phone calls and keep an e-diary of the vaccine’s effects on their child. Some children will receive two additional injections, for a total of five shots.
The study website promises, “You will be compensated for your time and travel regardless of your immigration status. Transportation to the study site may also be provided, as available. No health insurance is required to participate.”
Recruitment materials from Be Well Clinical Studies, which is running one of the U.S. trials, state that compensation can be more than $3,000 over two years.
A 2023 video explaining the study also promises incentives for the children, including “a Covid stuffed animal.”
In the video, a pastor from Louisiana who has four children enrolled in the study said incentives like the stuffed animal made the kids even “more excited than the parents” to participate.
The video features Dr. Jibran Atwi who is running a Hummingbird trial in Lafayette, Louisiana. He encouraged people to participate in the study, because COVID-19 severely affected kids, particularly through lockdowns and lost schooling.
Atwi also said that COVID-19 can be “very disruptive” because if a child has to stay home from school, parents may not be able to go work and the child may have to be isolated from their grandparents.
“Prevention,” he said, “is the best medicine.” He added that there had been an “impressive response” from parents who wanted to participate.
Most of that funding came from Genzyme — a Sanofi subsidiary — and from Sanofi, which shares the co-exclusive licensing agreement with Novavax to commercialize its COVID-19 vaccine.
In 2022, Atwi received over $1 million, largely from AstraZeneca and Genzyme.
Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization to Pfizer and Moderna’s 2024-2025 mRNA COVID-19 shots, but Novavax’s 2024-2025 formula has not yet been authorized.
The FDA has authorized previous versions of the Novavax vaccine, but only for children ages 12 and up.
High payments place children ‘at risk of coercion’
Other pharmaceutical companies that have paid research subjects large sums of money have come under scrutiny. In the United Kingdom (U.K.), Moderna was criticized for initially offering children’s families 1,505 pounds ($1,984 dollars) to participate in its NextCOVE clinical trial, which is testing Moderna’s mRNA vaccine in children ages 12 and up.
The Children’s Covid Vaccine Advisory Council submitted a complaint to the U.K.’s Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) — an industry trade group that regulates ethical practices — raising concerns about “inappropriate financial inducement” offered to children and their parents to participate in the trial.
The council cited concerns raised by the research ethics committee (REC) that approved the clinical study. Regarding the 1,500-pound payment they wrote:
“This amount seems much higher than what would be considered a reasonable reimbursement and therefore would contravene clinical trial regulations. The Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations (2004) explicitly prohibit the giving of incentives or financial inducements to children… or their parents.”
The REC said the amount, “placed the children at risk of coercion,” and the organization required that Moderna reduce the offer before recruitment could begin. Moderna reduced the amount to 185 pounds ($244 dollars).
Yet, according to the complaint, at least one pediatrician continued to offer the high enrollment compensation.
The PMCPA sanctioned Moderna, and the case report on the issue is currently pending.
If the PMCPA determines a pharmaceutical company has breached the industry code, it can require the company to pay administrative charges or issue a corrective statement. Or, it may request a compulsory audit of the company.
In the U.S., Be Well is also advertising that it will pay parents $2,400 for enrolling their infants and toddlers, ages 5-23 months, in Moderna’s Rhyme Trial for an mRNA RSV and a human metapneumovirus (hMPV) vaccine.
According to the clinicaltrials.gov website, Be Well withdrew from the Moderna RSV study, but the website is still advertising to recruit participants.
Be Well is run by founder and director Dr. Mark Carlson, a geriatrician, who has taken nearly $3 million in research funding from Big Pharma, mostly from Moderna, since 2021.
Moderna did not respond to The Defender’s inquiry about compensation offered to children’s families to participate in these studies.
Five civilians have been killed and 37 wounded, including six children, in a Ukrainian missile attack on Russia’s Belgorod Region, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.
Belgorod is north of Kharkov. Russia’s second city. It has endured frequent attacks by long-range Ukrainian artillery, which often fire projectiles supplied by NATO.
“Our air defense system worked over Belgorod and several targets were shot down as they approached the city,” Gladkov said on Telegram on Friday evening. “To our great sorrow, one person died as a result of a direct hit on a passenger car.”
In addition to the vehicle, an apartment building and several commercial buildings were struck, Gladkov said.
The governor later updated the death toll to five.
“One woman and four men died on the spot from their injuries before the ambulances arrived,” he said. Among the injured, seven adults and three children are in serious condition.
According to Gladkov, the attack was carried out with cluster munitions launched by the Vampire multiple-launch rocket system. The same weapon, provided to Ukraine by the Czech Republic, was used in the Christmas market massacre last December, when 25 Russian civilians were killed and 100 more wounded by Ukrainian cluster munitions.
The attack also caused property damage to three apartment buildings in the city, as well as two commercial buildings. Two houses in the nearby village of Dubovoye were set on fire by the incoming missiles, but it was quickly extinguished by emergency services.
The attorney from the Department of Justice who defended the Food & Drug Administration in court admitted on undercover camera that the agency’s actions were an abuse of authority by the government during its public campaign against ivermectin to treat COVID-19.
A trio of doctors recently won a major legal victory in a multi-year lawsuit sparked by the FDA’s viral 2021 public health guidance advising against the use of ivermectin for treating COVID-19. The most notable offending tweet stated, “You are not a horse. You are a not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
Department of Justice trial lawyer, Isaac Belfer, defended the FDA in this suit brought by Drs. Mary Talley Bowden, Robert L. Apter, and Paul E. Marik. On undercover camera, Belfer admits to a Project Veritas journalist that his client’s legal loss was deserved because the agency overstepped its statutory authority when it publicly tweeted medical advice.
Belfer told our journalist, “So, what the agency has done… [is] unquestionably beyond its authority. Making a recommendation of what drugs to take or not to take, that’s the practice of medicine. And FDA can’t practice medicine.”
The FDA’s public relations campaign also failed to inform the public that the award-winning antiparasitic medicine had a decades-long track record of successful medical usage in humans.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the doctors prescribed ivermectin to tens of thousands of patients and found the drug to be a cheap and effective treatment.
The doctors told Project Veritas that they suspect that the suppression campaign against ivermectin was motivated by the government’s interest in fast-tracking the experimental COVID-19 vaccination. This speedy vaccine roll-out could only be accomplished through the FDA’s emergency use authorization [EUA], and only if no other alternative medications existed to treat COVID-19.
The FDA’s tweets caused a deadly chain reaction. The agency’s pronouncements were swiftly enforced by national medical associations and regulatory agencies, pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions, insurance refused to pay for it, and doctors who prescribed it faced career ruin.
Drs Apter and Bowden told Project Veritas that suppression of ivermectin led to a prolonged pandemic, and potentially millions in excess COVID deaths.
Apter: “It’s not unreasonable to think that there have been a million unnecessary deaths from COVID in the United States because of the public health agency suppression of effective early treatment with repurposed inexpensive medications.”
Bowden: “If more people had access to early treatment in the form of ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, hydroxychloroquine… we could have nipped the pandemic in the bud.”
As a result of the lawsuit, the FDA was forced to delete its social media posts warning against the use of ivermectin for treating COVID-19. Though the FDA removed its public statements, the agency did not change its policy or directives. Because major state and national medical governing authorities look to the FDA as an authoritative source on the appropriate use of drugs, pharmacies still refuse to prescribe ivermectin, and doctors face professional repercussions for prescribing it.
Dr. Talley Bowden was forced to resign her privileges from Houston Methodist Hospital; Apter was referred to the Washington Medical Commission and Arizona Medical Board for disciplinary proceedings; and Marik was forced to resign from his positions at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Apter: “Because of my prescription of ivermectin for COVID I am still facing persecution by the medical licensing boards in spite of the fact that they have not been able to show a single adverse event in my care.”
Bowden: “I have a medical board coming after me because I tried to help a patient get ivermectin. We all had professional repercussions because of our use of ivermectin.”
Though the doctors continue to face professional consequences for their advocacy of ivermectin use for COVID-19, Belfer admits that the doctors dealt a significant blow to the government with their court victory. He told Project Veritas that the agency will think twice before issuing any misguided health advice in the future.
“I think going forward they’ll [FDA] probably be a bit more careful. They [the doctors] got an opinion that was good for them. That kind of limited FDA’s authority. It’s not okay to… actually tell people, ‘You should not take this drug.’”
Dr. Bowden says the fight against government overreach was worth it, because now doctors are vindicated in their years-long quest to protect the health of their patients.
Bowden: “One thing this case did is set a precedent. I think it permanently tarnished the reputation of the FDA. I think the public will takes the FDA little less seriously now, and it keeps them from making the same bold, reckless move in the future when it comes to telling patients what they can and cannot do. Like Isaac [Belfer] said, and we have all said, the FDA is not your doctor. The FDA has no business telling patients what they can take. And we proved in the court of law that they cannot do that.”
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | September 17, 2021
Back in the early 1990s, I spoke with John Marks, author of Search for the Manchurian Candidate. This was the book (1979) that helped expose the existence and range of the infamous CIA MKULTRA program.
Marks related the following facts to me. He had originally filed many Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests for documents connected to the CIA’s mind-control program. He got nothing back.
Finally, as if to play a joke on him, someone at the CIA sent Marks 10 boxes of financial and accounting records. The attitude was, “Here, see what you can do with this.”
I’ve seen some of those records. They’re very boring reading.
But Marks went through them, and lo and behold, he found he could piece together MKULTRA projects, based on the funding data.
Eventually, he assembled enough information to begin naming names. He conducted interviews. The shape of MKULTRA swam into view. And so he wrote his book, Search for the Manchurian Candidate.
He told me that three important books had been written about MKULTRA, and they all stemmed from those 10 boxes of CIA financial records. There was his own book; Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart; and The Mind Manipulators by Alan Scheflin and Edward Opton. … continue
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