Tide Turning In Favour Of The Covid Conspiracy Theorists?

 

 

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has revoked authorization of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine after it was paused over rare blood clot concerns, which sent demand plummeting. 

The move was not unexpected because J&J’s parent company Jannsen had requested that federal regulators at the FDA withdraw authorization for its vaccine after it was revealed that the last tranche of doses – about 12.5 million – had expired.

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted on its website that the vaccine was no longer available in the US because the remaining government stock expired on May 7, 2023. According to CDC data tracking, about 31.5 million J&J vaccine doses had been delivered to states amid the pandemic, but only around 19 million were administered, leaving the remaining 12.5 million or so to expire.

The beginning of the end for the once-promising single-dose vaccine came just weeks after its FDA authorization on February 27, 2021. On March 13, 2021, the FDA and CDC paused the use of the J&J vaccine out of concern for an extremely rare clotting disorder, which was first noticed with a similar vaccine made by AstraZeneca. Both vaccines used an adenovirus vector-based design, though the AstraZeneca vaccine was never authorized for use in the US. The pause on J&J's vaccine lasted just 11 days, but the damage was done, and demand for the vaccine tumbled, never to recover.

As of year three of the Covid pandemic, nearly 231 million Americans have received either one J&J shot or two doses of an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna.

Vaccination fatigue has swept the US, with millions of Americans frustrated by the fact that a shot does not guarantee immunity from the virus but rather protects against severe illness, and all those who had planned on getting fully vaccinated are believed to have done so by now.

With a renewed wave of demand for J&J’s single-dose vaccine highly unlikely, coupled with a beleaguered history of production hiccups and health concerns that severely eroded public trust, the pharmaceutical company has opted to step away from the Covid vaccine field.

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was plagued by controversy since it entered the market in February 2021. By that time, more than 2.1 million mRNA shots had already been administered and those from Pfizer and Moderna became the gold standard.

Less than a month after the J&J vaccine was granted emergency use authorization from the FDA, it became mired in controversy over a small but growing number of severe blood clotting disorders called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) in people who got the shot.

Meanwhile British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, currently on a speaking tour of Australia, has called for the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines to be suspended until the risk of heart complications is better understood, saying prior vaccines “have been pulled for much less”.

                       

Dr. Malhotra said it was a “no-brainer” and accused the medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), of ignoring the clear safety signal from its own reporting system once the rollout was well under way.

“People can be forgiving if new information comes in, we know people make mistakes — but once you get that information back, them not acting on it… the problem is the cover-up is worse than the crime,”

Gradually, in baby steps we seem to be moving move closer to the the exposure of the pandemic and the mass vaccination programs as a hoax and a power grab by the global elites based on an unprecendented campaign of scaremongering propaganda. But while privileged idiots like King Charles III and President Joe Biden babble nonsensically about rich nations paying reparations to Africans for slavery, will there ever be any reparations for the millions of people harmedc by the ‘safe and effective’ Covid vaccine tragedy. It must be agonising for doctors who, like Malhotra, believed the jab would help protect patients against serious illness; for people harmed and bereaved by the jabs, and for researchers who have been telling us for more than two years (see here, for example) that vaccines based on preparing the body to deal with SARS-CoV-2’s toxic ‘spike’ protein might cause the same type of damage as the virus itself. Now, in a comprehensive nationwide South Korean study, an expert committee has confirmed 480 cases of vaccine-related heart inflammation (myocarditis), including 21 deaths, 12 of which were in young adults. Ninety-five of the 480 cases were classified as severe, most needing intensive care in hospital and one receiving a heart transplant. The whole 3 years of "Covid" has been nothing but a crime against humanity perpetrated by governments, the Big Pharma cartel, the medical professions and mainstream media. I am 75 years old, not vaccinated, never wore a mask or bothered with social distancing and violated lockdown restrictions in any way I possibly could, never had Covid or even a slight cold during the pandemic and perfectly healthy. In this county we were put under house arrest, discriminated and pressured worse than in any authoritarian regime but around 33% of us (according to Office of National Statistics figures) stood our ground and have not received one single dose of the dodgy vaccines. I, for one, am so happy we did because, with the unaccountable bureaucrats of the World Health Organisation and the billionaire psychopaths who sponsored the whole Covid hoax already talking about the next pandemic, it is a great enough number to dissuade our government from trying a repeat performance. Never can we let the bastards who forced these jabs on people, knowing they were not safe, nor the practitioners who did not care enough to advise their patients to avoid this injection, get away with saying “we didn’t know the harm they could cause”. We knew - they knew. Manufacturers admitted before their 'vaccines' would not grant immunity and it was known that the mRNA vaccines were unsafe because they were abandoned in the 1980s after tests on animals showed catatastrophic results. It’s very hard to keep your cool when you become aware of just how corrupt this whole episode has been and continues to be. It is unlikely there will ever be justice for the millions of people harmed by the vaccines or whose lives and businesses have been destroyed by lockdowns but we must never forgiv those who knowingly have done harm or those who nticipatedsupported measures which, would have been reasonably a to cause harm.And we must never again trust the drug and vaccine manufacturers, medical professions, scientists, politicians or the media. Question everything. RELATED:

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BRICS Bloc Moves To Add New Members and Create A New Currency To Challenge US Dollar

 

As we have reported on this blog and our other publications many times, while the west has been tearing itself apart with divisive and economically suicidal policies the BRICS bloc, consisting so far of founder members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa is  currentlt inundated with applications for membership and is moving to expand, both as its members grow in economic and geopolitical influence and by adding new members.

Together, the current BRICS members represent more than 40% of the global population, and their share of the world economy (when measured in purchasing power parity) is larger than that of the G7.

The foreign ministers of the BRICS member states met in South Africa on June 1 and 2. There, in addition to offering new memberships of the group they discussed a series of issues, including plans to create a new global reserve currency to challenge the dominance of the US dollar.

Also present at the meeting in South Africa was a group of top diplomats from countries described as “friends of BRICS”, including Egypt, Iran, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates any of which is likely to figure in the first wave of BRICS expansion.

More than 20 countries have already shown interest in joining BRICS. At least 13 nations have formally applied.

South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS commented, “We are getting applications to join every day”.

Prospective future members not represented among the friends of BRICS include Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Belarus, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and the UAE. 

At the June foreign ministers meeting, Bloomberg reported, “BRICS nations asked the bloc’s specially created bank to provide guidance on a how a potential new shared currency might work, including how it could shield other member countries from the impact of sanctions such as those imposed on Russia”.

“The use of alternative currencies was among the prominent talking points” at the meeting, Bloomberg noted.

South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, explained at a press conference that BRICS members want to “ensure that we do not become victims to sanctions that have secondary effects on countries that have no involvement in issues that have led to those unilateral sanctions”.

It has already been universally acknowledged that the US led campaign of sanctions on Russia in the wake of Moscow's invading Ukraine have backfired, wreaking more economic havoc in the sanctioning nationsd than in those sanctioned.

Reuters acknowledged that the BRICS “ministers sought to focus attention on their ambition to build up their influence in a multi-polar world”.

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Ukraine’s Long-Term Plan To Blow-Up The Kakhova Dam Exposed

 Russian President Vladimir Putin has addressed the Nova Kakhovka dam blast in public comments on Wednesday for the first time, charging that it was a "barbaric act" of the Ukrainian government and its military forces. 

Ukraine has in its turn blamed Russian forces for blowing up the huge dam which holds back 18 cubic kilometers of water, along with the hydroelectric power plant, and unleashing flooding across the war zone, and President Volodomyr Zelensky condemned “Russian terrorists”. Russian officials claimed the dam was damaged by Ukrainian military strikes.

But as the two sides observe their usual ritual of pointing fingers at each other, The Washington Post which has supported Ukrainian propaganda throughout the war, broke ranks with the rest of mainstream media on this one. Great Game India reports:

A report from the Washington Post (WaPo) reveals that in late December 2022, information about a long-term Ukrainian  plan to blow up the Kakhova Dam, which had been exposed.

A day after Ukraine’s much-heralded counter-offensive appears to have failed, almost before it had even begun, a major dam in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson is suddenly bombed, prompting mass evacuations as floods spread across the region.

As we detailed earlier, both sides accuse each other of the attack that puts tens of thousands of homes at risk and might even threaten the safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

However, as Raul Ilargi Meijer writes, twice last year (here and here), Ukrainian officials discussed Kiev’s plans to blow up the dam.

 This comes as a second surprise from WaPo in the same week as the organisation produced a surprise report pointing to Ukrainian guilt in sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines after mainstream media in the west had spent almost a year screming "It wuz da Russians.".

The Ukrainian propagandists are claiming that the Russian blew up the dam. That is however unlikely.

On October 21 2022 Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, sent a letter to the UN Secretary General about the plans of the Kiev regime to destroy the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station.

In a report about last years Kherson counteroffensive the Washington Post reported of Ukrainian plans and attempts to blow up the dam:

[Maj. Gen. Andriy] Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages.

The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off.

Destroying its own infrastructure is nothing new for Ukrainian servicemen. In April 2022 the New York Times already noted this:

What happened in Demydiv was not an outlier. Since the war’s early days, Ukraine has been swift and effective in wreaking havoc on its own territory, often by destroying infrastructure, as a way to foil a Russian army with superior numbers and weaponry.

Demydiv was flooded when troops opened a nearby dam and sent water surging into the countryside. Elsewhere in Ukraine, the military has, without hesitation, blown up bridges, bombed roads and disabled rail lines and airports. The goal has been to slow Russian advances, channel enemy troops into traps and force tank columns onto less favorable terrain.

Another possibility is that neither side actually blew a breach in the dam this week. A contributor in the Moon of Alabama comment thread on this story offers this suggestion:

The road and top of the dam was breached on around May 29th and Meleleuca, another person that I cant remember and myself commented on it here about it at the time. I had seen a video purporting to be taken by Ukro troops and the water was already coming over the breach.

What was strange was that no one in the blogosphere or Russian official channels seemed to have noticed it or at least commented on it this last week. To my mind any breach or cut in the road even ,would have been significantly newsworthy. Was it purposefully downgraded and goven low news value for some reason? Noone seems to know about how it has become so large a breach or about the explosion .

Seems to me the dam probably simply gave way. And it seems to me it is for the best from the Allied point of view for it removes a potential threat.
When the allies move to regain Kherson they will now have a dried up flood plain to cross with no potential danger of a dam breach.
Crossing a flood plain to a citadel on high ground not a pleasant task but they quit the citadel so they must have anticipated. Perhaps they have no intention of taking Kherson itself but simply acquiring it as part of the whole parcel when they conquer Kiev in some other way.
IF they can fight at all.

It seems to us Boggart Bloggers that nobody really knows anything which is par for the course in this war.

 

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Gigantic Nova Kakhova Dam in Ukraine Blown Up - Each Side Blames The Other As The War Grinds On

 A day after Ukraine's much-heralded counter-offensive appears to have failed, almost before it had even begun, a major dam in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson is suddenly bombed, prompting mass evacuations as floods spread across the region.

both sides accuse each other of the attack that puts tens of thousands of homes at risk and might even threaten the safety of Europe's largest nuclear power plant.

However, as Raul Ilargi Meijer writes, twice last year (here and here), Ukrainian officials discussed Kiev's plans to blow up the dam.

Andrew Korybko lays out the real narrative here:

The partial destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on early Tuesday morning saw Kiev and Moscow exchange accusations about who’s to blame, but a report from the Washington Post (WaPo) in late December extends credence to the Kremlin’s version of events.

Titled “Inside the Ukrainian counteroffensive that shocked Putin and reshaped the war”, its journalists quoted former commander of November’s Kherson Counteroffensive Major General Andrey Kovalchuk who shockingly admitted to planning this war crime:

“Kovalchuk considered flooding the river. The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper’s water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off.”

Though all mainstream news organisations are running with the sabotage narrative (and of course the "it's the Russians" narrative,) some more considered commentaries are suggesting the dam, already damaged by previous attempts to blow it up, and under unusual levels of pressure since early May when the Ukraine government drained dams further upstream, thus causing water level in Nova Kakhovan to rise above the safe limit.  

from Telegram: https://t.me/rezident_ua/18140 

The dam was simply washed away by water, due to the destroyed spans, which any person with education understands, the resistance of materials has done its job. Moreover, the fact that the hydroelectric dam stood for so long after the HIMARS missile strikes confirms the qualitative approach of Soviet architects. Now in the information war, each side will try to blame each other, but the dam was filmed by cameras 24 by 7 and the explosion would have been filmed instantly, which means it did not exist. 

Sabotage or enthusiastic incompetence? Either way, loss of the dam and the hydro electric power plan it fed is a huge blow to Ukrainian infrastructure although Russia gains nothing from the destruction and will be seriousl inconvenienced by knock on effects as water from the dam supplies most of Crimea's industrial and domestic needs.

Having said that, military experts say the strategic dynamics in the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine still favor Russia. This assessment is based on the observation that Russia’s victory in the Battle of Artyomovsk shows that it’s able to hold its own against NATO in terms of technology and logistics.

Even the New York Times, having steadfastly trumpeted the Ukrainian propaganda line since the war began, has been forced to admit that the West’s sanctions failed to collapse Russia’s economy while endless injections of cash and military hardware from NATO members into the Ukrainian war effort have failed to change the course of the war since Russia's initial strike which Moscow hoped would force Kiev's surrender within days was blocked by unexpectedly fierce Ukrainian resistance. Worse (for the west,) it is impossible to deny the proliferation of multipolar processes in the 15 months since the special operation began. These include German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, former US National Security Council member Fiona Hill, and Goldman Sachs’ President of Global Affairs Jared Cohen.

Apparently these people don't realise that the ship has sailed on getting the Global South to comply with US and NATO diktat. The West’s economic and propaganda campaign failed to coerce the Global South to  support America's sanctions on Russia even among those states that voted in support of hostile resolutions against it at the UN General Assembly. Many of them were arguably inspired by fellow developing country India’s principled neutrality towards the NATO-Russian proxy war, which showed that they can indeed multi-align between the US-led West and the Sino-Russo Entente if they have the political will and diplomatic deftness to do so.

To be sure, most Global South states were already disinclined to support the West due to their resentment over being treated so unfairly by it over the decades, but India proved that it’s possible to defy their pressure without any serious consequences so long as they maintain balance between both sides. India's subsequent refusal to support the Biden administration's New Cold War and Washington's demands demands to unilaterally concede on their objective national interests represented a turning point in global affairs.

Meanwhile water continues to pour through the breached dam and the people of Ukraine, having been chosen for beatification as the sacrifice that would give up its life on the altar of American hegemonic ambitions. 

 

 

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De - Dollarisation: China, Brazil Make Deal To Ditch US Dollar For Bilateral Trades
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India Takes A Leading Role In De-Dollarization
Reuters reported last Wednesday that “India’s Oil Deals With Russia Dent Decades-Old Dollar Dominance”, which highlighted the growing tendency of those and many other using nations using national or or third-party currencies to settle cross border trades thus sidelining the US$ which has dominated international trade since the 1970s.

India Takes A Leading Role In De-Dollarization
Reuters reported last Wednesday that “India’s Oil Deals With Russia Dent Decades-Old Dollar Dominance”, which highlighted the growing tendency of those and many other using nations using national or or third-party currencies to settle cross border trades thus sidelining the US$ which has dominated international trade since the 1970s.

Status Report On That War Thing In Ukraine: Nordstream to Bakhmut, electricity and water - December 2022

In the wake of attacks on the on the Stream pipelines, that effectively halted the flow of natural gas which German industry, commerce, agriculture and society relies on, and the terrorist attack on the Kerch Bridge, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gloated that the attacks were a “tremendous opportunity” to weaken Moscow [...] And shortly after news of the Nord Stream sabotage broke on mainstream media, gas supply companies in the USA were offering to supply Europe with shipments of Liquid Natural Gas carried by supertanker to be sold to European nations at vastly inflated prices.

Who Blew Up The Nordstream Pipeline
So whodunnit? Sabotage of undersea gas pipe will escalate tension and move the world closer to nuclear war, but who is behind it, Russia in a bid to put more presure on Europe, Ukraine in an attempt to drag NATO into direct action, or the USA using a CIA false flag event to advance its own agenda.

Has Putin Has Pushed Europe Into Economic Depression, Hyperrinflation and Currency Collapse?
Though it was entirely predictable and indeed had been expected for some time, the news over the weekend that the Nord Stream 1 pipeline which feeds gas from Russia to northern Europe via The Baltic route had been shut down completely by The Kremlin in retaliation for the continued financial and military support given by NATO and EU member states to Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. The European Commission, governing body of the EU, immediately put the community on something close to a war footing, ...
Continue reading >>>

Do We Have A Winter Of Civil Disobedience Ahead?
As many people in Britain slap on the apres sun gloop in the wake of what passes for a heatwave in these cool cloudy climes, our inept politicians caught with their pants down by unusual weather as usual have heard that that winter is coming and are making plans for a coldwave. We are in the grip of an energy crisis at the height of summer. Last week, it was reported that the UK government is laying down plans for a “reasonable worst-case scenario” including blackouts for industry and even households. And this is as energy prices spiral out of control to new records every day.

Is Russia Selling Its Oil To The World Through An Obscure Egyptian Port?
As this blog predicted when NATO and EU member states shot themselves in the foot by reacting to Russia's invasion of Ukraine with sanctions that prevented Russia from selling oil, gas and vital raw materials to the countries that needed them most, the NATO and EU member states, the Russians have had no problems finding alternative customers for their gas and oil and no problem getting oil into the world's commodity markets through the back door.

Are US Supplied Long Range Missiles Really Winning The War For Ukraine?
Since very soon after the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine western powers, USA, UK, EU and NATO have been doing everything possible to prolong and escalate the war. The latest move is to provide the Ukrainian military with long range HIMARS missile. Mainstream media are claiming this has tilted the balance in Ukraine's favour. But for what? To prolong the slaughter? ...

Jingoistic Western Triumphalism Will Not End The War In Ukraine Or Cripple Putin, But It Is Crippling Western Nations

As the war in Ukraine grinds on and Russia steps up its economic war against the west and in particular The European Union, claims made recently by the idiotically 'woke' leaders of Europe's main economic and military powers that the West has a once-in-a–generation chance to severely weaken Russia’s capabilities, both militarily and geopolitically, look increasingly hollow. Putin's critics have cited 'Western unity' as one of the main reasons why Russia will be economically destroyed and politically humiliated when the Ukraine's military finally claim victory.

European Union Is Again Close To A Meltdown As Eurozone Economy Collapses
Once more we return to the political instability and economic fragility of the European Union as the conflict in Ukraine combined with loonytoons Climate Change mitigation policies, the failure of 'sustainables' to meet ever increasing demand for electricity, fod shortages and rampant price inflation put economic and social pressure on governments of member states ...

Russian Long Range Missile Test Fuels Nuclear War Fears As NATO Pushed Ukraine To Escalate Conflict
Russia tested its latest intercontinental ballistic missile yeserday, the Satan II has a range of 10,000 miles and can devastate an area of 250,000 square kilometers according to military experts. Bizarrely commentators in mainsteam and online news services portrayed this as a sign of weakness by Russia, though the same people cheered when Joe (Dementiaman) Biden threratened a nuclear response if Russia crossed his 'red lines' in Ukraine ...

We The Good Guys Versus They The Bad Guys Reporting Does Not Make Sense For The Ukraine Crisis
Mainstream media reporting of the conflict in Ukraine has disappointed. Perhaps I was naive to suppose that lessons might have been learned from the hits their print sales and online traffic rates took as a result of their handling the COVID pandemic But instead of focusing on the most obviously newsworthy aspect of the build up to and escalation of the war, Russia’s view of NATO expansion into Ukraine and even further to Georgia and Kazakhstan, news reports have simply demonised Russia and portrayed Ukraine as the good guys.

Boris and Biden Can't Blame Ukraine War For Energy Crisis
With typical arrogance and condescension towards the people who elected them Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and their respectiive presstitutes are trying to spin the energy crisis Europe and North America are currently facing as somehow being linked to the conflict in Ukraine and therfore blame is being attactched to Russia and Vladimir Putin. Do they really think we are stupid enough to believe such unmitigated bollocks? ...

Even If The War In Ukraine Ends, Sanctions Will Stay - So How Bad Will The Food Crisis Get?
Western leaders, desperate to show their own countries they were taking a firm stance on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, were quick to impose economic sanctions ... so quick in fact that they acted before they had though things through. While freezing Russia out of the global finance system they have exacerbated the wests energy crisis, while Russia's retaliatory ban on raw materials (fertiliser) exports will create extra problems on top of those we already had ...

News in Brief - June 5 2023

Lockdown sceptic Molly Kingsley: ‘I was cast as an extremist but I’ve since been proved right’

The mother of two wanted to stand up for parents and children during the pandemic, but was branded an anti-vaxxer

By Camilla TomineyDaily Telegraph, 5 June 2023

Molly Kingsley: 'The anti-vax slur is deliberately delegitimising' Credit: David Rose

For lockdown sceptic Molly Kingsley, the discovery that she was spied on by the Government in an attempt to curtail discussion of its controversial coronavirus policies has been nothing short of horrifying.

The mother of two, 44, was disgusted to find out articles she had written for this newspaper cautioning against school closures, the wearing of face masks in classrooms and the vaccination of children had been flagged by the Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU), set up by ministers to tackle supposed domestic “threats”.

Yet having endured three years of hatred and abuse for standing up for parents and children during the pandemic, she wasn’t surprised to read Saturday’s Daily Telegraph’s expose, revealing that as well as covertly monitoring lockdown critics with artificial intelligence – social media firms may have used technology to stop certain posts being promoted, circulated or widely shared after being pinpointed by the CDU or its counterpart in the Cabinet Office.

Some posts were even removed from social media altogether following meetings of the Counter-Disinformation Policy Forum, which brought together civil servants from the DCMS and technology giants – including Facebook and Google – as well as the BBC to discuss how to limit the spread of what was considered Covid-19 disinformation. ...

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Russia Says It Put Down Major Ukrainian Offensive Hours After It Began 

by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge

Monday, Jun 05, 2023 - 03:50 PM

Did Ukraine forces just attempt to kick off their much anticipated major counteroffensive, only to have it put down immediately after it began? 

That's what the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) suggested early Monday in announcing that Ukraine began a "large-scale offensive" in mounting attacks along five sections of the frontlines in the eastern Donbas region. But Russia said it thwarted the major attack and that some 250 Ukrainian troops were killed, which included Ukraine sending six mechanized and two tank battalions to Russian-controlled southern Donetsk.

"On the morning of June 4, the enemy launched a large-scale offensive in five sectors of the front in the South Donetsk direction," the MoD statement began. "The enemy has failed to reach its goals and was unsuccessful."

Illustrative: Ukrainian tanks previously near Chasiv Yar, Ukraine. via Reuters

It added that in total the attacking forces lost six tanks, three infantry vehicles, and 21 armored vehicles in what would mark a significant defeat if confirmed. "The enemy’s goal was to breach our defenses in what they assumed was the most vulnerable section of the frontline," the Russian military statement continued.  ... Continue reading >>>

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If You Stand In The Way Of Their Agenda, You Will Pay A Price

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

The cultural environment that we live in has become insanely oppressive, and I am about to share an example with you that perfectly demonstrates this.

A few days ago, a high school student in a rural area of Idaho told his fellow students that “guys are guys and girls are girls”, and the fallout from that statement proceeded to create a firestorm of controversy that is making headlines all over the nation.  Sadly, the truth is that we now live in a society where anyone that tries to resist the new culture that is being imposed on all of us must be severely punished. 

Dissent is simply not allowed, and Kellogg High School senior Travis Lohr found that out the hard way… ... Continue reading >>>

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Solar panels - an eco-disaster waiting to happen?

 BBC News

Image source, Laurent Julliand

By Daniel Gordon

The Climate Question podcast, BBC Sounds

While they are being promoted around the world as a crucial weapon in reducing carbon emissions, solar panels only have a lifespan of up to 25 years.

Experts say billions of panels will eventually all need to be disposed of and replaced.

"The world has installed more than one terawatt of solar capacity. Ordinary solar panels have a capacity of about 400W, so if you count both rooftops and solar farms, there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels.," says Dr Rong Deng, an expert in solar panel recycling at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

According to the British government, there are tens of millions of solar panels in the UK. But the specialist infrastructure to scrap and recycle them is lacking.

Energy experts are calling for urgent government action to prevent a looming global environmental disaster.

"It's going to be a waste mountain by 2050, unless we get recycling chains going now," says Ute Collier, deputy director of the International Renewable Energy Agency.

"We're producing more and more solar panels - which is great - but how are we going to deal with the waste?" she asks. ... Continue reading >>>

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World Health Assembly Cites Need to ‘Restrict Personal Liberties’ and Expand WHO’s Emergency Powers

 Childrens Health Defense

The World Health Organization this week concluded its 76th World Health Assembly without ratifying a new pandemic treaty or the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations, but members did issue new calls to “restrict personal liberties” during health emergencies.

                        

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The World Health Organization (WHO) this week concluded its 76th World Health Assembly (WHA) without ratifying a new pandemic treaty or the proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR).

However, the meetings, held May 21-30 in Geneva, Switzerland, did include announcements about new WHO bodies created to respond to pandemic threats and new calls to “restrict personal liberties” during health emergencies.

The meetings also included circulation of the new “bureau’s text” of the pandemic treaty, dated May 22, but the WHA did not make available an updated document for the proposed IHR amendments.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged member states to reach an agreement on both instruments by 2024.

Independent journalist James Roguski, who has extensively tracked the pandemic treaty and IHR amendment negotiations, described this year’s WHA as “a big theatrical production.”

“You can focus on a million details and forget that what they are doing is negotiating these documents,” Roguski told The Defender. “It’s a dog and pony show.”

Roguski said it was always the WHO’s plan not to ratify the treaty and amendments during the WHA meetings, despite warnings to the contrary by some analysts whom he accused of “fearmongering.” It was “always their schedule … they’ve been saying all along they’re shooting for 2024,” he said. ... Continue reading >>>

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BRICS Centralized Clearing To End Dollar Dominance

The status of vthe USDollar as global reserve currency has beeen under threat for some years now, initially because of the way the US government abused its position as issuer of the reserve currency to force unequal terms and conditions on its trading partners, and latterly also because of US militarism, meddling in the political affairs of sovereign nations.

Recently, as we have been  reporting regularly in our Cunnency Wars feature page, China has set up the Petroyuan, an alternative to the Petrodollar which since an agreement between the USA and Saudi Arabia has been the only vehicle for settling international oil trades, and Russia has set up a rival to US owned SWIFT, the electronic, inter - currency system for settling cross - border transactions.

 China and Russia have also been increasing their geopolitical influence in South East Asia, Africa and South America and having established the BRICS trading bloc in partnership with Brazil, India and South Africa. Since the election victory of the imperialistic Democrat Party in the US 2020 electionmany other nations have submitted applications to join BRICS.

With the massive populations of China, India and Brazil , and the vast reserves of natural resources in Russia, Brazil and South Africa BRICS is already a formidable bloc economically and should the bloc launch a coordinated bid to oust the US dollar as reserve currency it will be difficult for an already weakened US / NATO blog to hold the line.

If BRICS were to agreed on how to centralize financial clearing, then they’ve already agreed on their universal settlement medium. That is Gold

Last Friday (2 June) ZeroHedge, responding to latest moves in the far east in a story titled Massive: Gold Closer to Centralized Clearing in BRICS Solution to SWIFT commented

This is huge on many levels. We will gleefully break it down best we can in our Weekly post Sunday. It lies directly on the path of “things to do” when building an alternative to SWIFT.

As promised. This podcast unpacks why the BRICS nations are agreeing on Centralized Clearing as a solution to counterparty risk necessitates Gold as the medium of exchange in *all* future international trade.

With the USA always teetering on the brink of insolvency while American society disintegrates around the bewildered geriatric in The White House while Biden's loonytoons administration continues to focus on transgender and gay pride issues, and the EU suffocating under a blanket of bureucracy, the timing for setting up a rival reserve currency could not be better. 

MORE posts on Currency Wars

 

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As The US Debt Crisis Deepens, Jeffrey Sachs Offers Some Insight On HowSupport For Wars Is Killing American Prosperity

 https://www.democracynow.org/2023/5/24/jeffrey_sachs_defense_spending_us_debt

For the past few weeks the talk on international finance markets has mostly been about a debt default by the government of the USA. The United States faced a default on its debt, an eye watering $31,825,000,000,000 (rounded down to the nearest ten billion,)
in early June had a deal on the debt ceiling not been reached between the Biden administration and Republicans in Congress before then. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is pushing for sweeping budget cuts and new work requirements for recipients of government programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP. Notably, however, neither Republicans nor Democrats are proposing cuts to one of the biggest drivers of the nation’s debt: the massive U.S. military budget. “We’ve got to get this military-industrial lobby under control, but it’s hard to do, because it’s a bipartisan affair,” says our guest, economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose recent article is headlined “America’s Wars and the US Debt Crisis.”

Watch Sachs Interviewed By Amy Goodman for Democracy Now

Full Transcript: AMY GOODMAN: Negotiations are continuing in Washington, D.C., over raising the debt ceiling. The United States faces a default on its debt in early June if a deal is not reached between the White House and Congress. On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy privately told Republican lawmakers he was, quote, “nowhere close” to an agreement with the White House. McCarthy and President Biden had met at the White House Monday after Biden cut short his trip to Asia. McCarthy is pushing for sweeping budget cuts and new work requirements for recipients of government programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The Republicans, however, are not proposing cuts to one of the biggest drivers of the nation’s debt: the massive U.S. military budget. According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University, U.S. wars since the September 11th attacks have cost over $8 trillion. A separate report by the group estimates 4.6 million people have died since 9/11 as a result of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. And over the past 16 months, Congress has approved more than $113 billion for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. We’re joined now by the economist Jeffrey Sachs. He is the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network, has served as adviser to three U.N. secretaries-general, currently serves as a sustainable development solutions advocate under Secretary-General António Guterres. He recently wrote an article headlined “America’s Wars and the US Debt Crisis.” Professor Sachs, welcome back to Democracy Now! Well, why don’t you lay it out for us? Talk about what’s happening in Washington, the historic possibility that the U.S. could renege on the — could possibly not lift that debt ceiling, and what that means, and how that fits into the budget that Republicans want cut and the budgets they not only want not to cut, but to increase. JEFFREY SACHS: Well, great to be with you. You know, it is startling that since the year 2000, the debt that the U.S. government owes to the public has gone from about 35% of our national income to nearly 100% of our national income, or GDP. That has been dramatic because we have been engaged in nonstop wars literally since the start of this new century — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and now Ukraine. And we have spent a fortune. But no president has said to us, “These wars are so important that we should pay taxes.” They’ve just put it on the borrowing. And as that Watson Institute study has shown, that you cited, the one at Brown University, these wars have cost us around $8 trillion. That’s direct military outlays. That’s ancillary costs. That’s the veterans’ medical expenses. This has been a very significant proportion of the rise of this debt. Another significant proportion was the financial sector, the Wall Street bailout in 2008 and the pandemic costs. But the wars have been a huge deal. And it’s bipartisan. This isn’t Republicans or Democrats. Neither party wants to talk about the elephant in the room, which is that we are currently at an incredibly destructive, disastrous and, I would say, avoidable war. The toll is rising, of course, in destruction and human lives, but also in outlays. You mentioned the $113 billion. And there’s more to come, if this administration gets its way. They’re not talking about this in these negotiations. They’re talking about cutting help for the poorest people in this country and to continue the warmongering and feeding the military-industrial complex. That’s why I wrote the article, because it’s shocking. It’s both parties that are not talking about the real issue here. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jeffrey Sachs, if you could talk, as well — you talk about these as wars of choice — what you mean by that, and also the issue of the pressure now to, quote, “modernize” the U.S. military to face potential conflicts with China as another strategic plan that will result in more military spending in the future? JEFFREY SACHS: These are not only wars of choice, the ones that I mentioned. They are wars of lies, because we’ve never been told the truth about what these fights are about, why we’re doing it. Of course, Iraq famously was on completely phony pretenses, but that’s not the only one. All of them have been based on lies. When it comes to Ukraine, we knew — our diplomats knew and warned that the continued pressure by the military-industrial complex to expand NATO to Ukraine would provoke war. But they never told the American people that. They never explained it. And 'til this day they haven't explained what this war is really about. You think about Libya. Again, lies. No explanation. Violation of the U.N. Security Council. You think about Syria. Not only was the whole Syrian effort a lie of the United States, it’s never even been explained to the American people that this was an operation that President Obama ordered the CIA to overthrow the Syrian government. It failed, but it was extremely costly and destructive. So, these have been wars of choice and wars of lies. They are pushed by the military-industrial complex. They are pushed by neoconservatives in both parties. Now we have new drumbeats of war, not only — as if Ukraine was not devastating and threatening enough with nuclear annihilation, now we’re talking war with China. Unimaginable. It could end the world. And yet this is normal discourse in what passes for grown-up discussion in Washington, which is not grown-up at all, in my opinion. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you — you mentioned Ukraine. You’ve written often about this whole way that the American — top officials in the U.S. government, as well as the media, talk about the Ukraine war and Russia’s entry, invasion as unprovoked, this whole issue of being an unprovoked war. JEFFREY SACHS: I noted that The New York Times has used the word “unprovoked” regarding this invasion 26 times in its editorials, its opinion columns and its invited guest op-eds. They don’t talk about the truth, which is that our own diplomats — I’m talking about U.S. diplomats, including CIA Director William Burns, who wrote a memo that was released by WikiLeaks in 2008. His 2008 memo said this is existential, from Russia’s point of view. If we continue to push NATO enlargement to Ukraine, this could have absolutely dire consequences. Our diplomats have known this all along. But it’s been the politicians, it’s been the military-industrial complex, it’s been the big companies that have been championing NATO enlargement. That’s a lot of weapons sales if you do that. Even though the risks are completely understood inside the government by serious people, they’re just not heeded. And this has been true about Ukraine all along. And up until the end of 2021, Vladimir Putin put on the table a draft U.S.-Russia security agreement that was based on don’t expand NATO to Ukraine. And that has been Russia’s refrain for 30 years, and yet we don’t heed it, and now we’re $113 billion into this. It is horrible for Ukraine. We’ve trapped yet another country in the middle of our lobbying campaigns, because this isn’t going to work out well for Ukraine. It’s a disaster. It’s like how it worked out for Afghanistan. So, this is what’s really going on. And I wish that The New York Times would carry some truth in this to explain what this is really about. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jeffrey Sachs, you also have been critical of Russia’s brutal invasion. And I’m wondering how you see this ending now. And also, as we started, if you could talk about how you see this debate on lifting the debt ceiling ending? JEFFREY SACHS: Well, this war is going very badly. There were tens of thousands of deaths in this Bakhmut battle just now that Russia has won and Ukraine has lost. And the estimates are that just this one narrow battle cost billions and billions of dollars, not to mention the disaster of how many deaths. So, they’re running through money like there is no tomorrow. And if we’re not careful, there will be no tomorrow. We need to negotiate a stop to this war, whether it’s an armistice or a real peace agreement. That is what China is saying. That’s what Brazil is saying. That’s what South Africa is saying. That’s what India is saying. Major countries around the world that aren’t part of this NATO-Russia conflict are saying, “Stop, before this completely engulfs the whole world,” which it is at risk of doing. So, I think that moving to negotiations now, whether it’s stopping the fighting and freezing the lines, whether it is really a peace agreement based on Russia leaves and NATO doesn’t go in — this has been the core issue from the very beginning — this is feasible, and the world is demanding it, outside of the so-called Western, what’s really NATO and U.S.-allied, world versus Russia. So, that, I think, is how we could spare lives, save the world and help the budget, by the way. When it comes to these negotiations on the debt ceiling, I really hope that these negotiators face up to the fact that our military budget, which is 40% of worldwide military spending, is brought dramatically under control, because that’s really how to save money. We are 40% of the world total military spending right now, and more than the next 10 countries combined. We’ve got to get this military-industrial lobby under control, but it’s hard to do, because it’s a bipartisan affair. The Congress and the White House, on both sides, is beholden to this seemingly all-powerful lobby. But this all-powerful lobby is driving us to ruin. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jeff Sachs, I have one final question about both the wars in Afghanistan that the United States — when the United States backed mujahideen forces against — when Afghanistan was occupied by the Soviet Army, many of those guerrillas that the U.S. backed ended up returning to their Arab and African countries and became the basis of jihadist groups like al-Qaeda. There was the unexpected blowback of that U.S. support of that war in Afghanistan. Are we potentially seeing a similar blowback from the war in Ukraine, which has been a country that’s become a magnet, even before the Russian invasion, for neo-Nazi and ultra-right groups from Europe and even the U.S.? Could these foreign fighters now battling Russia in Ukraine become a danger to European democracies in the future? JEFFREY SACHS: Of course. And it’s a very well-put point. But I would say something even more stunning about this. It used to be said, for decades, that the U.S.-backed the mujahideen in Afghanistan to confront the Soviets, who had invaded Afghanistan. But Zbig Brzezinski let us know the truth a few years ago, before he passed away. And that was that the U.S. supported the mujahideen first as bait to induce the Soviet Union to invade. We started it. We started arming an insurrection to help pull the Soviet Union into an invasion in Afghanistan. It’s shocking in its cynicism, and it left that country at nonstop war and destruction from 1979 until today, a completely ruined, wrecked, hunger-ridden, famine-ridden society more than 40 years, because the U.S. was playing a covert game, with all the backlash that you note rightly, that it created al-Qaeda. It created so many disasters down the road. But it started as a great game, as if this were a game. AMY GOODMAN: Jeffrey Sachs, we want to thank you for being with us, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network. We’ll link to his recent pieces, ”America’s Wars and the US Debt Crisis” and ”The War in Ukraine Was Provoked—ad Why That Matters to Achieve Peace.” 

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De - Dollarisation: China, Brazil Make Deal To Ditch US Dollar For Bilateral Trades
China and Brazil this week concluded a deal to conduct trade between their nations in their own in their own currencies, ditching the established reserve currency for global trade, US dollar as an intermediary, the Brazilian announced said on Wednesday. This is Beijing’s latest strike against the almighty greenback in its currency war aimed at shifting the balance of geopolitical and economic power from west to east.

U S Regional Bank First Republic Crashes As America's Banking 'Crisis In Confidence' Becomes Contagious
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Negative Interest Rates - Final Nail In The Coffin Of Neoliberalism? Negative interest rates, in plain terms a situation in which we pay bankers for holding our money, are the latest ruse of politicians and economists to make uis start spending our investments and savings, thus kickstarting the global economy thy have screwed up.

Pupils Shut Out Of School Because They Refuse To Wear Gender Neutral Uniforms
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War On Cash. If You Want To Buy A Car Or Appliance From A Friend For Cash, You Will Not Be Able To.

A geopolitical move by the globalist control freaks that began as a seemingly innocuous hypothetical discussion several years ago now appears to have become a deep state / corporate policy backed by a propaganda campaign involving some of the most powerful commercial and government agencies in the industrialized world. Throughout this omnibus web page we have called it the War on Cash.

War On Cash. If You Want To Buy A Car Or Appliance From A Friend For Cash, You Will Not Be Able To.

A geopolitical move by the globalist control freaks that began as a seemingly innocuous hypothetical discussion several years ago now appears to have become a deep state / corporate policy backed by a propaganda campaign involving some of the most powerful commercial and government agencies in the industrialized world. Throughout this omnibus web page we have called it the War on Cash.

Lord Rothschild: The New World Order Is At Risk
In the RIT Capital Partners 2014 annual report, the head of Rothschild family banking empire warned that the geopolitical situation is most dangerous since WWII. A year later, Baron Jacob Rothschild repeated his warning about the outcome of "the greatest experiment in monetary policy in history". Little did he know that, they would keep rising, but related to that, he also made another warning which the market has so far ignored:

Government Whistleblower admits Labour Opened Borders to Eastern Europe to ‘Lower Wage Growth’
It should be no surprise then that it was under a Labour government led by Tony Blair, our borders agencgy was ordered to open the door to uncontrolled mass immigration from eastern Europe. The move came folowing a series of secret meetings between Blair and then Bank of England governor Mervyn King in which King “pressed the case” that mass immigration would “lower wage growth” by creating a pool of cheap workers, a former senior diplomat has claimed.

Could Italy’s Banking Crisis Drag Down Mario Draghi?
The latest banking crisis in Italy risks focusing scrutiny on the leadership of both the Bank of Italy and Italy’s financial markets regulator Consob. The decision to give the central bank’s current Chairman Ignazio Visco a fresh six-year mandate despite his having presided over one of the worst banking crises in living memory ...

Cutting Food Stamps for Over 45 Million Americans: The Ruthlessness of the American Ruling Class
The USA's Obama Administration (remember him, Mr. Hope'n'change) has cut the food stamps allocation that supports many millions of America's poorest people. In five years of a disastrously failed Pesidency Obama has alread engineered America's fall from Superpower status. Now the seems to be set on turning it into Ethiopia.

Outbreak Of Democracy In The US Senate
I usually write my own stuff, either off the top of my head or by putting my own perspective to a topical news story. For once however I think it is appropriate to bring you this, seen on Pakalert. It...

Obama Will Sign U.N. Firearms Treaty After It Was Rejected by Senate
Once again The Emperor Obama has ignored Amerca's democratically elected congress and done what he wanted to in spite of the measure having been voted down.

Obama Stabs Britain In The Back Again
Barack Hussein Obama does not even try to hide his hatred of the british or his contempt for democracy. The latest stab in the back from Obama comes in his support for Agentina's claim to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. We hoipe our leaders will remember Obama's disloyalty when he comes looking for support for his latest war

When Lefties Tell You They Are Liberals Look For The Nazi In The Closet
The left have always been quick to shout Nazi whenever a conservative or libertarian was getting the better of the argument. but socialism is the parent of fascism and the authoritarianism of modern liberals and 'proressives'is far closer to the politics of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung than either Benjamin Disraeli or Margaret Thatcher ever were.

So Why Is Nobody Happy
Americans love to tell us they are the greatest country on the planet, American exceptionalism places them above other nations, theirs is the most powerful economy, the mightiest military (yet in ten years they cannot defeat a bunch of beared ragheads with AK47s and IEDs), they have the most advanced technology and the highest living standards. So why