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US universities losing hundreds of billions as top Chinese scientists and researchers go home

Inside China Business | September 29, 2024

Research and Development (R&D) is a major profit center for the top universities in the United States. Besides the nearly $100 billion they earn in grants from the US government and private sources, university-based researchers create patents and inventions that generate many more billions annually.

China is the largest foreign source of scientists and researchers, and they are concentrated in the hard sciences and in engineering, where over 95% of R&D spending takes place. But since 2018, Chinese scientists are increasingly deciding to return to China to set up new research departments. Of those who are still in the US, over 60% admit they are strongly considering moving, and over half now refuse to work on projects that involve funding by US government sources.

To American universities, the loss of these scientists, along with future contributions to scientific research and commercial applications and market value, are incalculable. But losses probably already exceed a trillion dollars, given the departures of so many top scientists in Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, medicine, biochemistry, materials science, nanotechnology, and quantum computing.

Resources and links:

More Chinese Students Are Staying in China to Study https://erudera.com/news/more-chinese…

Surge in Chinese Scientists Leaving US for Home Institutions https://erudera.com/news/surge-in-chi…

Caught in the crossfire: Fears of Chinese–American scientists https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas…

Scientists of Chinese descent leaving the US at an accelerating pace https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/s…

Reverse Brain Drain? Exploring Trends among Chinese Scientists in the U.S. https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-…

Resources on the Patent Revenue Budget Model https://financeandbusiness.ucdavis.ed…

R&D Expenditures at U.S. Universities Increased by $8 Billion in FY 2022 https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf24307

South China Morning Post, Nanotech pioneer Wang Zhonglin leaves US to work in China ‘full time’ https://www.scmp.com/news/china/scien…

SCMP, The Chinese scientists leaving top US universities to take up high-profile roles in China, boosting Beijing in its race for global talent https://www.scmp.com/news/china/scien…

Closing scene, Suzhou, Jiangsu

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , | Leave a comment

Germany Should Pursue Charges for Nord Stream Blasts & Point Out US Role – Bundestag MP

Sputnik – 30.09.2024

The German federal government should immediately bring charges for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines and point out the violation of anti-terrorism treaties by the United States or other countries involved, Bundestag member Steffen Kotre told Sputnik.

In a conversation on the sidelines of Russian Energy Week, he suggested that Washington had probably been involved in the destruction of the gas pipelines. Kotre does not know to what extent Kiev was involved, but, from his point of view, it is difficult to believe that Ukraine could have carried out such an action without outside help. Kotre also believes that the German authorities know who is guilty of what happened, and if not, then the information will certainly be found in the Swedish, Norwegian or US intelligence services.

“That is why the federal government must immediately press charges and, of course, point out that the United States or other countries have violated international treaties, namely agreements aimed at preventing terrorism. And anyone who helps and encourages this violates these international agreements aimed at preventing the spread of terrorism. And all this must be said. And, of course, claims for damages in international courts and much more,” the lawmaker emphasized.

The explosions on two Russian export gas pipelines to Europe — Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 — occurred on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark and Sweden have not ruled out deliberate sabotage. Nord Stream AG, the operator of Nord Stream, said that the destruction of the gas pipelines was unprecedented, and it was impossible to estimate the repair time. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office initiated a case on an act of international terrorism. Russia has repeatedly requested data on the explosions on Nord Stream, but has never received it, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The Russian Energy Week was held in Moscow from September 26 to 28. Sputnik acted as the forum’s media partner.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | , | Leave a comment

30 Lawmakers Sponsor Bill to End Liability Protection for Vaccine Makers

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 30, 2024

A bill introduced late last week in the U.S. House of Representatives would end the liability protections Congress gave vaccine makers under the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

Thirty Republican lawmakers signed on as co-sponsors to House Bill 9828, End the Vaccine Carveout Act. The proposed legislation would end the broad protection from liability for injuries resulting from vaccines listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Childhood Immunization Schedule.

“The … vaccine makers are criminal enterprises that have paid tens of billions in criminal penalties over the past decade,” Children’s Health Defense (CHD) founder and chairman on leave Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement on the bill.

Kennedy, who has long advocated for eliminating liability protection for vaccine manufacturers, added, “By freeing them from liability for negligence, the 1986 statute removed any incentive for these companies to make safe products. If we want safe and effective vaccines we need to end the liability shield.”

CHD, React19 and The American Family Project also supported the development of the bill, the press release said.

REACT19 founder Brianne Dressen, who experienced a debilitating COVID-19 vaccine injury as a volunteer in AstraZeneca’s clinical trial, announced the bill and its co-sponsors in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“People harmed are long overdue for a compensation process that actually works, and it’s time for the drug companies to pick up the tab,” she said.

‘Complex sham compensation program’ in place since 1986 act

Congress passed the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act to address the risks of vaccines — which Congress and vaccine makers acknowledged had “unavoidable” side effects.

The act set up a “no-fault” system whereby instead of suing the manufacturers, people injured by vaccines can file a claim with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which adjudicates the claims.

The VICP was meant to insulate vaccine makers from lawsuits that could bankrupt them while ensuring that injury victims had a straightforward, non-adversarial and fair path to compensation.

The program is funded by a 75-cent-per-dose tax, paid by vaccine makers, for every vaccine included in the program.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administers the VICP, also known as the “vaccine court.” Court-appointed “special masters” — typically lawyers who previously represented the U.S. government — manage and decide the individual claims.

The proceedings are more informal than a typical courtroom. There is no judge or jury, and the rules of evidence, civil procedure and discovery do not apply.

In practice, getting compensation through the VICP has been notoriously difficult. Critics say the program has devolved to protect government agencies and corporations rather than the health of vaccinated children.

CHD CEO Mary Holland said the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act effectively left parents and children injured by vaccines with no substantive way to get any compensation while giving vaccine makers a free pass.

“For over 35 years, parents of children injured and killed by government-recommended vaccines have been left with no meaningful redress — only a complex, sham compensation program that pits grieving families against the government, while Big Pharma enjoys no liability,” she said.

“During that same time, chronic health conditions in children — autism, ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder], severe allergies, asthma — have skyrocketed,” Holland said.

In some cases, people who are dissatisfied with the outcome of their case in the VICP, or who don’t get a timely decision, can sue the manufacturer for limited causes of action, such as fraud — as is the case in many of the over 200 gardasil injury lawsuits currently being argued against Merck in federal court.

Special protections for COVID drugmakers

Vaccines administered under emergency use authorization (EUA), such as the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, aren’t covered by the VICP.

Instead, COVID-19 vaccine makers are protected from all liability by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which grants producers of vaccines, medications and medical devices total freedom from liability for any injuries arising from “countermeasures” used to address a public health or national security threat.

The PREP Act directs such “countermeasures” to be covered by the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

While the FDA fully licensed versions of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for people ages 12 and up, it’s unclear if the fully licensed formulations are being administered, or if some people are still receiving EUA formulations.

COVID-19 vaccines for infants and children ages 6 months through age 11 have not yet been fully licensed — however, they were added to the childhood schedule.

Still, all COVID-19 vaccine injuries  — whether from a fully licensed or EUA formulation — remain covered only through the CICP.

However, for the tens of thousands of people injured by the COVID-19 vaccine, compensation through this program has proven nearly impossible.

To date, the CICP has paid only 16 claims for COVID-19 vaccine injuries, totaling $425,301.55. Except for one payment, all of the claims resulted in compensation of $8,962 or less.

The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for people ages 12 and up, however those vaccines continue , and added to the childhood schedule, they are still not even included in the VICP process.

During the pandemic, Pfizer and Moderna generated the largest profits in history for a drug from their COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Pfizer made $37 billion in 2021, and slightly more in 2023 from the COVID-19 vaccine alone. Moderna generated over $18 billion in profits in 2021 and $19 billion in 2022.

The most current data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) show that between Dec. 14, 2020, and Aug. 30, 2024, a total of 1,602,516 total adverse events related to the COVID-19 vaccine were reported to VAERS, including 37,390 deaths. There were 311,544 serious injuries reported.

Research also shows that VAERS tends to provide an underestimation of vaccine injuries. Most people don’t report their vaccine injuries to VAERS. Research also has shown that many VAERS reports are delayed or deleted from public view for reasons that are not transparent.

Several lawsuits are currently challenging the constitutionality of the PREP Act, and others have made legal arguments that the PREP Act doesn’t apply in particular cases. However, recently many of these cases have been dismissed in state and federal courts.

Last week, after the Nevada Supreme Court dismissed a case against a man injured by remdesivir, a drug covered by the Prep Act, Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel for CHD, told The Defender the decision highlighted “that we need legislative action to undo the damage created by acts such as PREP and the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.”

What the ‘urgently needed’ legislation will do

Holland said the End the Vaccine Carveout Act is “urgently needed”:

“This legislation will help end Big Pharma’s reign over government. The corrupt public-private partnership of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act has suppressed science, stacked the deck against families, subverted the democratic marketplace of checks and balances, and removed citizens’ rights to a trial by jury.

“Americans deserve better.”

The bill proposes to remove the requirement for vaccine-injured people to pursue compensation in the vaccine court. Under the law, someone injured by a vaccine would be able to pursue civil action against a vaccine maker, and to seek compensation through the VICP or both.

However, once a person is awarded compensation in civil court, they will no longer be eligible for compensation through the VICP.

The 1986 law also set a short statute of limitations for seeking injury compensation to two or three years of the death or injury, respectively. However, it often takes longer than that for people to realize that a vaccine caused their injury or illness.

The proposed law would allow anyone injured since the program became effective in 1988 to file a lawsuit.

Finally, the bill would end the protection from liability for the COVID-19 vaccines, allowing people injured by the vaccine to sue the vaccine makers in court.

“COVID-19 vaccines must be redefined as vaccines and not ‘countermeasures,’ so that the PREP Act’s liability carveout can no longer apply,” according to a white paper that provided justification for the bill.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | 1 Comment

Another letter to the four Chief Medical Officers of the UK

Is it acceptable that 60% of young people with vaccine-induced myocarditis have cardiac damage?

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | September 30, 2024

Open letter to the Chief Medical Officers of the 4 nations of the UK

Professor Chris Whitty – CMO England: Email [email protected]

Sir Michael McBride – CMO Northern Ireland: [email protected]

Dr Gregor Smith – CMO Scotland: [email protected]

Dr Frank Atherton – CMO Wales: [email protected]

30th September 2024

Dear Professor Whitty, Dr McBride, Dr Smith and Dr Atherton,

Sixty doctors and scientists wrote to you on 6th September 2021 urging you against rolling out Covid-19 vaccines to healthy children. We had written previously to Professor Whitty in May and again in June of that year to flag up our concerns. As you know, the JCVI in their statement on 3rd September 2021, had decided against recommending these products for children’s direct benefit in view of the mild nature of SARS-CoV-2 infection for their age range coupled with concerns about the known and as yet unknown adverse effects.

They had held a conference call with cardiologists from the USA and also Israel, both countries which had started vaccinating children ahead of the UK. These groups had both reported on vaccine-induced-myocarditis, with the US group having studied a case series of 63 children and finding 89% of affected children showing Late Gadolinium Enhancement (LGE) on cardiac MRI scanning. This finding is known to be indicative of cardiac scarring and to be a predictor of deaths in the 5-years following. The group were planning a follow-up study and members of the JCVI specifically requested a delay of 6 months to await this data before making a decision.

Finally, almost 3 years later, this study has been published and it does not make for happy reading, especially if you are a parent of a child or young person who was affected. Of the 333 children and young adults enrolled, and despite an apparently mild clinical course, 82% showed LGE on their initial cardiac MRI scans, and in 60% these changes were still present at the 6 months follow-up scan. Long-term data is still awaited and risk of cardiac failure sudden death is still unquantified. A new systematic review has confirmed that LGE is a risk factor for all cause mortality, cardiac deaths, arrhythmias and heart failure.

This letter is to put on record the failure of due diligence which you, as a group of chief medical officers, showed when recommending these products for use in healthy children. “The view of the UK CMOs is that the additional likely benefits of reducing educational disruption, and the consequent reduction in public health harm from educational disruption, on balance provide sufficient extra advantage in addition to the marginal advantage at an individual level identified by the JCVI to recommend in favour of vaccinating this group.” The argument that vaccinating children would reduce school disruption seemed to ignore the fact that most of the disruption was arising from the combined policy of (a) routine testing of asymptomatic children and (b) the quarantining of whole classes or in some cases even whole year groups if one child tested positive. In England, this policy had been discontinued on 19 July 2021 just 2 days before the end of the summer term and with no time to assess the likely improvement in school attendance. It was also admitted that the calculations of possible school time saved were not balanced against any potential for school time lost, even for the vaccination process itself, let alone any possible adverse events.

When you advised the rollout of the vaccines to children, did you also advise a prospective study of cardiac health to be carried out in any of the four nations?

If the answer is yes, we would be very grateful to see the results.

If the answer is no, this surely should be organised as a matter of urgency. 

Yours sincerely,

Dr Rosamond Jones, MBBS, MD, FRCPCH, retired consultant paediatrician, convenor of CCVAC

-Professor Anthony J Brookes, Department of Genetics & Genome Biology, University of Leicester

-Professor Richard Ennos, MA, PhD. Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Edinburgh

-Professor Karol Sikora, MA, MBBChir, PhD, FRCR, FRCP, FFPM, Dean of Medicine, Buckingham University, Professor of Oncology

–Professor David Livermore, BSc, PhD, Professor of Medical Microbiology, University of East Anglia

-Professor Keith Willison, PhD, Professor of Chemical Biology, Imperial, London

–Professor Angus Dalgleish, MD, FRCP, FRACP, FRCPath, FMed Sci, Emeritus Professor of Oncology, University of London, Principal, Institute for Cancer Vaccines & Immunotherapy

–Professor John Fairclough FRCS FFSEM retired Honorary Consultant Surgeon

-Professor Norman Fenton, CEng, CMath, PhD, FBCS, MIET, Professor of Risk Information Management, Queen Mary University of London

-Professor John Watkins, Consultant Epidemiologist Cardiff University

–Lord Moonie, MBChB, MRCPsych, MFCM, MSc, House of Lords, former parliamentary under-secretary of state 2001-2003, former consultant in Public Health Medicine

-Dr Theresa Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD, Director, Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd, Bath

-Dr Roland Salmon, MB BS, MRCGP, FFPH, Consultant Epidemiologist (retired), former Director, Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (Wales)

-Dr Alan Mordue, MBChB, FFPH. Retired Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiology

-Dr John Flack, BPharm, PhD. Retired Director of Safety Evaluation,Beecham Pharmaceuticals 1980-1989 and Senior Vice-president for Drug Discovery 1990-92 SmithKline Beecham

-Dr Gerry Quinn, PhD. Postdoctoral researcher in microbiology and immunology

-Dr Karen Horridge, MBChB(Hons), MSc, MRCP, FRCPCH, Consultant Paediatrician (Disability)

-Mr Anthony Hinton, MBChB, FRCS, Consultant ENT surgeon, London

-Dr Geoffrey Maidment, MBBS, MD, FRCP, retired consultant physician

-Mr Malcolm Loudon, MBChB, MD, FRCSEd, FRCS(Gen Surg), MIHM,VR, Consultant Surgeon

-Dr Christina Peers, MBBS,DRCOG,DFSRH,FFSRH, Consultant in Reproductive Health

-Dr Noel Thomas, MA, MBChB, DCH, DObsRCOG, DTM&H, MFHom, retired doctor

-Dr Elizabeth Evans MA(Cantab), MBBS, DRCOG, Retired Doctor

-Katherine MacGilchrist, BSc (Hons), MSc, CEO/Systematic Review Director, Epidemica Ltd.

-Dr Greta Mushet, MBChB, MRCPsych, retired Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy

-Mr James Royle, MBChB, FRCS, MMedEd, Colorectal surgeon

–Mr Ian F Comaish, MA, BM BCh, FRCOphth, FRANZCO, Consultant ophthalmologist

-Dr Helen Westwood MBChB MRCGP DCH DRCOG, General Practitioner

-Dr Jonathan Engler, MBChB, LlB (hons), DipPharmMed

-Dr Renée Hoenderkamp, General Practitioner

-Mr Colin Natali, BSc(hons) MBBS, FRCS (orth) ,Consultant Spinal Surgeon

–Dr Alan Black, MBBS, MSc, DipPharmMed, retired pharmaceutical physician

–Dr Mark A Bell, MBChB, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, Consultant in Emergency Medicine

-Dr Livia Tossici-Bolt, PhD, NHS Clinical Scientist

-Dr Zac Cox, BDS, LCPH, Holistic Dentist, Homeopath

-Dr Samuel McBride, BSc(Hons) Medical Microbiology & Immunobiology, MBBCh BAO, MSc in Clinical Gerontology, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, FRCP(Edinburgh), NHS Emergency Medicine & geriatrics

-Dr Branko Latinkic, BSc, PhD, Reader in Biosciences

-Dr Kulvinder Singh Manik, MBBS, General Practitioner

-Dr Michael D Bell, MBChB, MRCGP, retired General Practitioner

-Dr Jason Lester, MRCP, FRCR, Consultant Clinical Oncologist, Rutherford Cancer Centre, Newport

-Dr Clare Craig, BMBCh, FRCPath, Pathologist

-Dr Scott McLachan, FAIDH, MCSE, MCT, DSysEng, LLM, MPhil, Postdoctoral researcher, Risk & Information Group

-Dr Franziska Meuschel, MD, ND, PhD, LFHom, BSEM, Nutritional, Environmental and Integrated Medicine

-Dr Emma Brierly, MRCGP, General Practitioner

-Dr Sarah Myhill, MBBS, Dip NM, Retired GP, Independent Naturopathic Physician

-Michael Cockayne, MSc, PGDip, SCPHNOH, BA, RN, Occupational health practitioner

–Dr Christopher Exley, PhD, FRSB, retired professor in Bioinorganic Chemistry

-Julie Annakin, RN, Immunisation specialist nurse

-Dr Charles Forsyth, MBBS, BSEM, Independent Medical Practitioner

-Dr Marco Chiesa, MD, FRCPsych, Consultant Psychiatrist & Visiting Professor, UCL

-Dr Paul Cuddon, PhD, Pharmaceutical Equity Research Analyst, Head of Healthcare and Life Sciences

-Margaret Moss, MA (Cantab), CBiol, MRSB, Director, The Nutrition and Allergy Clinic, Cheshire

-Prof Anthony Fryer, PhD, FRCPath, Professor of Clinical Biochemistry, Keele University

-Dr David Critchley, BSc, PhD, 32 years in pharmaceutical R&D as a clinical research scientist.

-Dr David Morris, MBChB, MRCP(UK), General Practitioner

-Dr Scott Mitchell, MBChB, MRCS, Associate Specialist in Emergency Medicine

-Dr Pauline Jones, MB BS, retired General Practitioner

-Sarah Waters, BA (Hons), MBACP, Psychotherapist, Therapeutic Parenting Practitioner

-Dr. Eashwarran Kohilathas, BMBS, GP Trainee

-Dr Rohaan Seth, Bsc (hons), MBChB (hons), MRCGP General Practitioner

-Dr Jessica Robinson, BSc(Hons), MBBS, MRCPsych, MFHom, Psychiatrist & Integrative Medicine

-Dr Dee Marshall, MBBS, MFHom, Nutritional Medicine

-Dr Jenny Goodman, MA, MB ChB, Ecological Medicine

-Dr Elizabeth Burton, MBChB, retired general practitioner

-Dr Sam White, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner, Functional medicine practitioner

-Dr Rachel Nicoll, PhD, Medical researcher

-Dr Ruth Wilde, MB BCh, MRCEM, AFMCP, Integrative & Functional Medicine Doctor

-Dr Damien Downing, MBBS, MRSB, private physician

-Dr Andrew Isaac, MB BCh, Physician, retired

-Jemma Dale, BSc (Hons), Biomedical Scientist

-Dr David Bramble, MD, MRCPsych, Consultant Psychiatrist, Child & Adolescent Learning Disability (Retired)

-Angela Chamberlain, Bsc (Hons), Midwife

-Alex Hicks, MEng, MCIPS, Compliance Director (Supply Chain)

-Sophie Gidet, RM, Midwife

-Helen Auburn, Dip ION, MBANT, CNHC, Registered Nutritional Therapist

-Dr Ali Haggett, PhD, Mental health community work, former lecturer in the history of medicine

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Facebook Gave CDC ‘Backdoor’ Access to Help Remove Millions of Social Media Posts

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 30, 2024

Facebook provided the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “backdoor” access to its platform so the CDC could submit requests to remove COVID-19 “misinformation,” according to an internal Facebook document made public for the first time as part of an ongoing legal case.

America First Legal filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in 2021, after then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki revealed the Biden administration was flagging purported “disinformation” on social media platforms, including content posted by members of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen.”

When the Biden administration didn’t comply with the FOIA request, America First Legal sued, leading to the release of the documents as part of the discovery process.

According to Reclaim the Net, in 2021, Facebook developed a “Content Request System” (see pages 54-72) — also called a “Government Reporting System” — accessible to CDC staff. The documents show Facebook “was operating as the de facto enforcement arm of the US government’s thought control initiative.”

The Facebook-CDC partnership helped Facebook remove millions of posts, the documents show.

Gene Hamilton, executive director of America First Legal, told The Defender, “These documents show precisely how one of the social media platforms facilitated the federal government’s engagement in unconstitutional censorship activities.”

“The federal government cannot violate the First Amendment by outsourcing censorship to the private sector, yet these documents clearly show that Facebook and the Biden-Harris administration collaborated and colluded on removing speech that did not comport with the federal government’s preferences,” Hamilton said.

Tim Hinchliffe, editor of The Sociable, told The Defender that following the release of the “Twitter Files,” it should not come as a surprise “that the government has been actively trying to censor citizens through back doors and loopholes.”

“This censorship effort is yet another example of a public-private collaboration that fuses corporation and state,” Hinchliffe said. “Where the government can’t legally censor, it has the private sector to do its bidding. The question here is how much coercion was needed for Facebook to provide the backdoor?”

These latest revelations come as other entities ramp up their own efforts to target purported “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) and TikTok announced a new partnership to promote “science-based information.” Meanwhile, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a Big Pharma lobbying group, this month urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “expand drug manufacturers’ powers to correct misinformation about their products.”

‘Red-carpet treatment’ for government to ‘silence critics and manage dissent’

Calling it a “fast lane for speech suppression,” Reclaim the Net reported that Facebook “built a slick ‘end-to-end workflow’ tailored to the White House’s censorship needs,” which provided CDC staff with a four-step process to flag COVID-19 “misinformation” for removal.

“This was the red-carpet treatment for anyone in the Biden Administration looking to silence critics and manage dissent,” Reclaim the Net reported. “The system could handle up to twenty censorship requests simultaneously.”

The Facebook document stated, “We empower and safeguard users with policies that are: Principled, Operable, Explicable.” These policies were aligned with Facebook’s “community standards” and adopted “a multi-pronged approach to combating COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation.”

The policies — aimed at “bringing 50 million people a step closer to vaccinations” — included the removal of “false information that has been debunked by public health experts.”

Other types of content Facebook explicitly targeted include claims that COVID-19 is no more dangerous to people than the common flu or cold, and content discouraging “good health practices” — such as wearing a face mask, social distancing, getting tested for COVID-19 and getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Claims about the COVID-19 vaccines’ safety, side effects and efficacy also were targeted for removal, as were “widely debunked vaccine hoaxes” — including claims that vaccines cause autism.

The document also revealed that as of 2021, Facebook and Instagram had removed “more than 16 million pieces of content … for violating our COVID-19 and vaccine policies.”

Repeat offenders faced restrictions, including (but not limited to) reduced distribution, removal from recommendations, or “removal from our site.”

The platform also allowed government officials to bypass federal transparency laws.

“By using this specialized portal, and not email, the government could skirt those pesky federal record-keeping laws. FOIA requests? Public oversight? Forget about it. The new system made sure government actions were neatly tucked away in proprietary software,” Reclaim the Net reported.

‘The closest thing to a Ministry of Truth’

According to Reclaim the Net, Robert Flaherty, then-White House director of Digital Strategy and now a member of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, was “barking orders at Facebook to tighten the leash.”

“Twitter Files” documents have shown that Flaherty pressured social media platforms to censor the accounts of public figures such Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then-chairman and chief litigation counsel of Children’s Health Defense (now chairman on leave). Kennedy was one of the figures named in “The Disinformation Dozen” report.

“The bureaucratic whims of entrenched CDC personnel and leadership determined what Americans could and could not say — the closest thing to a Ministry of Truth you can imagine in the United States,” Hamilton said.

Author Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of DailyClout, told The Defender, “This shocking new revelation of still more unlawful pressure by the U.S. government on social media companies to strip Americans of First Amendment rights, also fails to shock as it is evidence added to a mountain of documentation of such collusion.”

According to Hamilton, these and other documents may affect several ongoing lawsuits against the Biden administration on First Amendment grounds.

“As more records are uncovered through our lawsuit and other open records requests, as well as discovery in litigation, we are confident that courts will have the definitive links necessary to show the government’s facilitation of an unconstitutional censorship enterprise,” Hamilton said.

The latest revelations came just a month after Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta — parent company of Facebook and Instagram — admitted that Biden administration officials pressured Meta to censor content related to COVID-19 during the pandemic.

“If the government can exert that much pressure on one of the largest platforms and its CEO, then it can do it to anybody,” Hinchliffe said.

In an interview earlier this month on “The Kim Iversen Show,” former U.S. State Department official Mike Benz, founder and executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, said the U.S. government coerced social media platforms to use “weapons of mass deletion” to censor content and as a workaround to the First Amendment.

According to Benz, this includes government coercion obliging these platforms to adopt automated censorship tools which employ artificial intelligence to sweep platforms for specific keywords or narratives. Benz said many of these tools were initially developed a decade ago for the fight against ISIS.

Benz said the U.S. government urged authorities in the United Kingdom and European Union (EU) to pass censorship laws, in order to then sidestep the First Amendment at home by obliging social media platforms to comply with more restrictive foreign laws.

Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst told The Defender the EU uses legislation such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) “to stop free speech outside EU borders.”

“According to the EU, the DSA prevents illegal and harmful activities online and protects fundamental rights,” Terhorst said. This means that the EU Commission can decide what is right and what is wrong, including ‘harmful disinformation.’”

TikTok ‘a propaganda arm’ of the United Nations?

TikTok and the WHO on Sept. 26 announced a new collaboration targeting health-related “misinformation.” The year-long partnership is “aimed at providing people with reliable, science-based health information.”

According to the WHO, the new collaboration will promote “evidence-based content and encourage positive health dialogues.”

The WHO quoted Chief Scientist Jeremy Farrar, who said, “This collaboration can prove to be an inflection point in how platforms can be more socially-responsible.”

Farrar collaborated with Dr. Anthony Fauci and key virologists to draft “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published March 2020 in Nature Medicine. The paper has been used by media and the U.S. government to debunk the lab-leak theory of the COVID-19 outbreak and accuse its proponents of being “conspiracy theorists.”

According to public health physician Dr. David Bell, partnerships like the one between the WHO and TikTok are inappropriate. He told The Defender :

“WHO, as an organization subject to member states and with no direct standing over their citizens, should not be involved in such direct messaging. This is a clear infringement of the rights, role and sovereignty of the states themselves.

“WHO acts increasingly like a tool of colonialist corporate interests as it pushes their messages over the top of legitimate authorities and interferes in the running of health systems within countries.”

According to Hinchliffe, this is not the first TikTok partnership with the United Nations (U.N.). As part of a previous project, Team Halo, “the U.N. trained scientists and doctors on TikTok and worked with TikTok to boost their profiles in an effort to combat ‘misinformation’ while promoting ‘authoritative sources’ during the pandemic.”

“This latest partnership shows that TikTok is honored to once again be a propaganda arm for the U.N.,” Hinchliffe said.

The WHO previously established similar partnerships with other social media platforms, including YouTube, which last year revised its “medical misinformation” policy to allow for the deletion of content that contradicts WHO guidance.

The announcement of the TikTok partnership with the WHO — a U.N. agency — comes just days after U.N. member states passed the Pact for the Future.

The pact’s “Information Integrity on Digital Platforms” policy brief addresses “threats to information integrity,” such as so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation,” calling for the promotion of “empirically-backed consensus around facts, science and knowledge” — without clarifying how this “consensus” would be determined.

The TikTok partnership with the WHO also comes before the January 2025 legislative deadline for TikTok to divest its U.S. operations or face shutdown in the U.S.

Pharma wants expanded powers to ‘correct misinformation’

In another related development lobbyists for Big Pharma earlier this month asked the FDA “to expand drug manufacturers’ powers to correct misinformation about their products, including by allowing them to respond to opinions, value judgments or personal experiences and communications made offline,” Fierce Pharma reported.

The call was a response to the FDA’s draft guidance on “Addressing Misinformation About Medical Devices and Prescription Drugs.” Released in July and now open for public comment, the guidance would allow pharmaceutical companies to issue “tailored” responses to internet-based posts about their products, and “general medical product communications” that would address “misinformation.”

According to Fierce Pharma, “The FDA proposed prohibiting companies from posting tailored responsive communications in response to misinformation spread offline and in response to an individual’s posts about their own experience, opinion and value judgments. PhRMA wants the FDA to lift those restrictions.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

UN Official’s Battle With “Toxic Information” Raises Censorship Fears Ahead of US Election

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 30, 2024

United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Melissa Fleming’s focus is “disinformation” and “toxic information systems” – and she presents those as standing in the way of the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs).

SDGs are the UN’s plan that opponents say is “toxic” in itself since it seeks to promote such controversial things as censorship and digital ID and, to make matters worse, that’s supported by major countries.

Now, Fleming seems to be keen to add to the avalanche of pressure on Big Tech – even though the term she no doubt carefully uses instead is “domination of public discourse” in places where this alleged disinformation is most present.

Coincidentally or not this is coming right before a US presidential election, but Fleming is framing her parroting of the “disinformation” narrative in terms of the social platforms, as purely an “SDGs and UN” issue.

She is even trying to link this with the UN’s purpose, which is (rather, should be) peacekeeping and humanitarian missions, but from which the world organization has been disconnecting for a while.

Responding to a question lumping disinformation, climate change, and conflict resolution into one, Fleming asserted that disinformation and “toxic information systems” are damaging humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts, not to mention SDGs (she doesn’t quite explain this assertion).

Fleming’s official UN bio says one of her roles is “far-reaching efforts to address mis- and disinformation, and hate speech,” while supposedly simultaneously promoting “free and independent media.”

However, she started her career with an outlet that’s anything but free and independent: Fleming used to work for “Radio Free Europe,” funded by the US authorities (originally through the CIA).

Now, no doubt thanks to Fleming, the UN has something called DG Media Zone and it is there and during this year’s UN General Assembly that Fleming sounded her alarm bells, going as far as to say that “every single one” of UN’s priorities is these days under threat due to disinformation. (“Climate change” is now proudly listed among those priorities, in case you missed that.)

Fleming’s solution: collusion. This time (and publicly) “merely” with “civil society and people” who need to “work on our information ecosystems together.”

A word of warning about “civil society,” though: it’s often a moniker behind which groups implementing censorship through “fact-checking” etc, like to hide.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Reporters Without Borders’ Attack on Sputnik and RT Highlights NGO’s Status as ‘Media Wing of NATO’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 30.09.2024

Reporters Without Borders has published a sensationalist report on Russian media’s work in the Balkans as part of a new project known as ‘The Propaganda Monitor’, accusing Sputnik and RT of spreading “disinformation” and demanding a crackdown by the EU. Balkan affairs expert Stevan Gajic tells Sputnik why such fearmongering doesn’t work on Serbs.

Reporters Without Borders’ (French acronym RSF) new ‘Propaganda Monitoring’ multimedia minisite promises to “promote reliable journalism” by exposing “the many faces and tactics behind propaganda worldwide, bolstering the public’s understanding of the information space and helping them navigate it more safely.”

Russian media, including Sputnik and RT, have become the self-anointed Paris-headquartered media watchdog’s first target, with RSF rolling out a series of articles on Russian media’s ability to find evade censorship, custom-tailor content, and in Serbia’s case, transmit so-called “Kremlin propaganda in the Balkans despite EU sanctions.”

RSF wants the European Union and its members to “hold Serbia accountable for hosting Vladimir Putin’s factory of lies,” spending much of its investigation complaining about Russian media’s refusal to answer its loaded questions, whining about its successes captivating local audiences, and crying about Serbia’s receptiveness to hosting Russian outlets.

“Reporters Without Borders cannot be regarded as a reliable source because every line in this report is soaked with biased language,” Belgrade-based Balkan affairs expert and Institute of European Studies research associate Stevan Gajic told Sputnik, commenting on RSF’s report.

“The motivation” behind RSF’s demands for a crackdown comes down to its status as “a media wing of NATO, a media wing of the collective West. This is a pure Freudian projection. They are accusing others of what they are doing themselves,” Gajic stressed.

“Where were Reporters Without Borders when Radio Television of Serbia was bombed in 1999 and when 16 TV staff were murdered in cold blood?” the observer asked, referencing the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. There is no credibility from people like this who did not act when they should have,” the observer recalled.

Narratives by RSF and others about Sputnik and RT being threats that need to be silenced have a clear end goal: “to nullify any kind of information coming from the other side to hush, to silence everybody who is not playing along NATO’s narrative. And this is especially a problem for NATO and for these puppet organizations, such as journalists with Reporters Without Borders, during times of war,” Gajic said.

As for RSF claims about RT’s spreading of “Kremlin narratives” in Serbia, Gajic emphasized that “pro-Russian sentiment amongst the Serbs has nothing to with the Kremlin, and everything to do with Washington and NATO.”

“Serbs are now more militantly pro-Russian because we were in a war against NATO and actually NATO was conducting and still is conducting hybrid aggression against us. I think that this speaks volumes about the falsehood of the presumptions and of the conclusions [made by RSF, ed.]. You can see how unrealistic and completely detached these people are from the reality, and how they are not really conducting deep research to see what is going on and how come,” Gajic said.

RSF’s conclusions are patently ridiculous, the observer suggested, highlighting the absurdity of “the presumption… that if it weren’t for RT and Sputnik, everybody, I guess in the Balkans and in Serbia and amongst the Serbs especially would be thrilled with the EU and NATO and so forth.”

“The new wave of the pro-Russian sentiment in Serbia was primarily created by the West. It was created by the West systematically targeting the Serbs for the last 30 years, since the moment of the breakdown of the bipolar global system” in place during the Cold War. Serbs became “the prime target,” a “Voodoo doll” for the West to “sting the Serbs in order for the Russians to feel pain,” according to Gajic.

“They were always demonstrating on us what they would like to do with Russia. That’s why many Serbs in the past said that all the wars we had with NATO and their proxies in the Balkans were actually just a preparation for a war that we are now seeing against Russia. That’s why I think the conclusion [of the RSF’s report, ed.] is false, because it comes from the presumption that if there were no ‘Russian propaganda’, quote-unquote, somehow people would feel different toward NATO.”

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | Leave a comment

Free speech makes US ‘hard to govern’ – John Kerry

RT | September 30, 2024

The freedom for individuals to choose their sources of information makes it difficult to govern effectively, former US Secretary of State John Kerry has said.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel on Green Energy last week, Kerry criticized the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and the press.

“It’s really hard to govern today,” he remarked, arguing that social media poses challenges for building consensus in democracies.

“The referees we used to have to determine what is fact and what isn’t have kind of been eviscerated,” Kerry stated, adding that individuals now decide where to get their news.

“If people go to only one source… and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to simply hammering it out of existence,” added Kerry, who served as secretary of state under Barack Obama.

As long as Democrats can “win ground” and “win the right to govern,” they will be “free to implement change,” the former senator stated.

“I think democracies are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to address the challenges we face. To me, that is part of what this race, this election, is all about,” he added.

At another WEF event earlier this year, Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker lamented the loss of the corporate media’s monopoly on information.

“We owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well,” she said, noting that customers now have access to a broader array of sources.

Amid increasingly divisive election rhetoric, research suggests that Americans trust the media even less than they are willing to publicly admit. While 24% of Americans claim to trust the media to tell the truth, only 7% believe it privately, according to a study completed in June by the think tank Populace, in cooperation with Gradient and YouGov.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment

UK ministers tried to sway police to stifle anti-‘Israel’ activists

Al Mayadeen | September 30, 2024

Home Office ministers and staff attempted to influence UK police and legal prosecutors to take action against activists targeting the facilities of Elbit Systems, a major Israeli arms manufacturer, campaigners revealed after obtaining internal documents as proof, The Guardian reported.

Briefing notes obtained by Palestine Action through freedom of information requests reveal discussions held prior to October 7 and the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which aimed to “reassure” Elbit Systems UK, the main target of an action campaign by the network.

The prosecution of Palestine Action activists, who have relentlessly protested the Israeli genocide and war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, has resulted in some convictions for charges like burglary and criminal damage.

Briefing notes, though heavily redacted, reveal that Home Office ministers attended meetings with representatives from Elbit Systems, and one meeting included a director from the Attorney General’s Office reportedly representing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). These notes also indicate that Home Office officials reached out to the police regarding Palestine Action.

Tim Crosland, coordinator of Defend Our Juries, which argues that judges are undermining jurors’ absolute right to acquit based on conscience by restricting defendants from discussing their motivations, stated, “These disclosures, despite the extensive redaction, are the smoking gun on what has been obvious for a while: the government has been trying to put a stop to juries acquitting those who expose and resist corporate complicity in violations of international law and mass loss of life.”

He further asserted that the political intervention constitutes a “national scandal that implicates those at the highest levels”, indicating that the matter is also tantamount to the corruption of democracy and a breach of law by the UK’s elite.

Details

A private secretary note from March 2, 2022, detailing a meeting between then Home Secretary Priti Patel and Martin Fausset, CEO of Elbit Systems UK, noted, “Palestine Action’s criminal activity is for the police to investigate and though they are operationally independent of government meaning we cannot direct their response, my officials have been in contact with the police about PA.”

Another briefing from April 19, 2023, framing a session between Chris Philp, then a Home Office minister, and Elbit, revealed that a director from the Attorney General’s Office will attend to represent the CPS, as the CPS opted not to participate in the meeting to maintain their operational independence.

Meanwhile, the content of a section titled “past lobbying” was redacted.

A spokesperson for Palestine Action stated that claims of independence were undermined within the same sentences where they were made.

“What is happening behind closed doors is clear evidence of collusion between the government, a foreign private arms manufacturer, the CPS, the Attorney General’s Office, and the police,” they said, asserting that it was a flagrant abuse of power that asserts how the state prioritizes the interests of Elbit Systems “over the rights and freedoms of its own citizens.”

On the other hand, a police spokesperson said, “We fully respect the operational independence of the police and the independent judiciary, which remains the bedrock of our policing model. These meetings took place under the previous government.”

Previous documents obtained through FoI requests indicated that Israeli embassy officials in London sought to have the Attorney General’s Office intervene in UK court cases involving the prosecution of protesters.

Labour continues arming ‘Israel’

Since its election, the new Labour government has been at the center of demands to halt all arms sales to “Israel”.

Although it announced that it would continue funding UNRWA following a baseless global defunding campaign and that it would not contest the International Criminal Court’s authority to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Security Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes, the government was yet to completely commit to the more significant shift that the public is calling for, which is the cessation of arms shipments to “Israel”.

Mark Smith, a counterterrorism official at the British Embassy in Dublin, relayed to his colleagues after submitting his resignation, “Each day we witness clear and unquestionable examples of War Crimes and breaches of International Humanitarian Law in Gaza perpetrated by the State of Israel.”

“There is no justification for the UK’s continued arms sales to Israel, yet somehow it continues. I have raised this at every level in the organization … As a fully cleared officer raising serious concerns of illegality in this Department, to be disregarded in this way is deeply troubling. It is my duty as a public servant to raise this,” he added.

Earlier this month, the British government announced the immediate suspension of 30 out of its 350 arms export licenses with the Israeli occupation, citing concerns that the equipment might be used in ways that violate international humanitarian law, Foreign Minister David Lammy announced after a review of arms sales to the occupying regime, particularly in the context of the ongoing war on Gaza.

Lammy emphasized that this suspension does not amount to a blanket ban or an arms embargo but is a targeted measure. “It is with regret that I inform the House of Commons today that the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain UK arms exports to Israel, there exists a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” Lammy stated.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Journalist Wafa al-Odaini and her family martyred in Israeli airstrike in Gaza

Palestinian Information Center – September 30, 2024

GAZA – Noted Palestinian journalist and activist Wafa al-Odaini was martyred along with her family following an Israeli airstrike on her home at dawn Monday in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, according to local media reports.

Her husband, Munir al-Odaini, and her two children, Balsam and Tamim, were also killed in the airstrike.

“The occupation forces assassinated journalist Wafa al-Odaini, a prominent activist in conveying the Palestinian narrative to the foreign media. She and her family (her husband and two children) were killed in a treacherous Israeli attack on their home in Deir al-Balah City in the central Gaza Strip,” the Forum of Palestinian Journalists (FPJ) said in a statement on Monday.

According to FPJ, journalist Odaini devoted her life and time to conveying the suffering of her oppressed people through international and Palestinian media, especially through her involvement in writing English articles, conducting interviews with foreign activists, and holding online conferences and different activities in English language.

“With her martyrdom, the Palestinian national media has lost a free voice full of love for Palestine and her people — who fight for freedom and self-determination,” the forum said.

Since the war on Gaza started, the Israeli occupation army has killed 174 journalists and media workers.

For its part, the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) mourned journalist Odaini, saying she wrote distinguished articles for its English website.

The following are links to articles she wrote recently for PIC :

There is no such thing as protective attire for journalists in Gaza

What does Back-To-School look like in battered Gaza?

A Lifeline in Starving Gaza: The role of Tekiyyah amidst the ongoing Israeli genocide

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation authority razes seven commercial facilities in northern Jerusalem

Palestinian Information Center – September 30, 2024

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – The Israeli occupation authority demolished on Monday seven commercial facilities belonging to Palestinian citizens in Shuafat refugee camp, north of Jerusalem, at the pretext of unlicensed construction.

Eyewitnesses said that bulldozers escorted by police forces stormed at dawn Shuafat camp and embarked on knocking down seven commercial structures with no prior notice.

They added that the Israeli police did not allow the storekeepers to remove the contents of their facilities, which were four construction supply stores, one café, one restaurant and one grocery store.

Meanwhile, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Jerusalem said that the Israeli police closed the road barrier that connects Shuafat camp with the holy city and obstructed the movement of local residents as they tried to reach their workplaces and schools in the morning.

In a separate incident, employees from the Israeli municipality delivered demolition and stop-work orders against a number of Palestinian homes in the east Jerusalem district of Issawiya.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran won’t deploy forces to Lebanon to help Hezbollah – foreign ministry

RT | September 30, 2024

Iran will not send troops to Lebanon or Gaza to confront Israel, the Foreign Ministry in Tehran announced on Monday. The statement comes amid Israel’s intensified attacks against the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen.

Tehran does not seek war but is not afraid of it and stands for a safe and stable Middle East, the ministry stressed.

“There is no need to send extra or volunteer forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told a weekly news conference. Lebanon and fighters in the Palestinian territories “have the capability and strength to defend themselves against the aggression,” he added.

In the past several weeks, Israel has been conducting heavy airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon and other militant groups in the region, including in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, raising fears the conflict could engulf the entire Middle East and draw in Iran and the US, Israel’s main ally.

“We have not received any request in this regard from any side, on the contrary, we are informed and are sure that they do not need the help of our forces,” Kanaani told reporters.

He nonetheless pledged that Israel “will not remain without reprimand and punishment for the crimes it has committed against the Iranian people, military personnel and the resistance forces.”

During the past week alone, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) significantly ramped up airstrikes on Lebanon, killing more than 1,000 people and wounding over 6,000 according to local health officials. The escalation also triggered a mass exodus from the areas most affected by the Israeli bombing.

The Israeli military also conducted a series of strikes against senior Hezbollah commanders, killing most of them, including the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visited Hezbollah’s office in Tehran on Monday to pay tribute to Nasrallah, according to the government’s website.

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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