On October 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin met in St. Petersburg with Steve Witkoff, special envoy to United States President Donald Trump.

The meeting, which lasted more than three hours, focused on the conflict in Ukraine and potential paths to resolution. Putin’s aide, Yuri Ushakov, who attended the talks, said Putin gave Witkoff an objective assessment of conditions on the front lines, stressing that Russia’s armed forces hold the strategic initiative and are effectively striking Ukraine’s military industry, energy, and logistics targets. Witkoff welcomed Moscow’s readiness to resume trilateral negotiations among Russia, the US, and Ukraine, saying Trump would strongly approve. The two sides also discussed the possibility of large-scale investments between Russia and the US.

The meeting followed a series of public statements by Trump criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for refusing to pursue a negotiated end to the conflict. Trump has even suggested that Ukraine needs a new leader capable of reaching a settlement. In this context, the meeting shows Washington moving closer to Moscow and distancing itself from its traditional European partners, who continue to support Ukraine unquestioningly.

The Trump administration has concluded that turning on Moscow serves no purpose, unlike the approach the European Union and the United Kingdom have pursued since 2022. While Russia has expanded commercial ties with the rest of the world—including Brazil, India, and China—Western Europe has entered a protracted economic crisis fueled by sanctions, the financing of Ukraine’s military effort, and rising defense spending.

Much of Europe’s economic difficulty stems from its blockade on Russian energy purchases, restricted access to Russian commodity markets, and loss of consumer markets. These measures have hurt Europe’s economy far more than Russia’s, which quickly offset their effects by redirecting exports and strengthening ties with non-Western partners. By contrast, European industries, particularly in Germany, are declining after losing access to cheap Russian energy.

Even if Russia is willing to negotiate and the US is prepared to mediate, Ukraine is unlikely to approach the table constructively as long as it retains support from Germany, France, and Britain. Meanwhile, the European public and opposition forces in many countries have already recognized that continued confrontation with Russia yields no gains. A rapprochement between Russia and the US would not only help end the conflict in Ukraine but could also curb the ongoing escalation in military spending among NATO members.

Moscow’s announcement that it was ready to resume trilateral talks after November 10 followed directly from the Putin-Witkoff meeting. During the meeting, Putin also praised American mediation efforts.

Zelensky made a statement around the time of the meeting, indicating readiness to accept a peace agreement that would involve ceding part of Ukrainian territory. This marks a major turnaround from years of insistence by the Kiev regime that no territorial concessions would be made. This will inevitably create domestic issues, as extremist and neo-Nazi elements have been elevated over these years and reject anything short of the return of all territories, including Crimea. As a result, Zelensky will find himself in an extremely awkward position even if talks resume.

Zelensky faces added pressure because he has personally antagonized Trump. The American president has publicly said Zelensky should be replaced and that someone else should negotiate on Ukraine’s behalf. Intelligence sharing has also been visibly disrupted. Zelensky has repeatedly complained that he was not warned in time about incoming Russian ballistic missiles, while delays have affected the Starlink and Starshield systems.

Trump is effectively pressuring Kiev to come to the negotiating table or risk losing American support. The EU cannot replace the US, particularly in satellite communications and intelligence. Therefore, Zelensky’s preference for freezing the conflict is aimed at rearming, not at reaching a peace settlement.

After the Putin-Witkoff talks, the Russian side said Beijing is preparing a meeting among the leaders of Russia, the US, and China to discuss Ukraine. The meeting could take place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen on November 18–19, and all three leaders have already indicated they will attend. If Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping agree on the basic principles of a peace deal, it will make it nearly impossible for the EU to continue making extreme demands from a different position.

Under Trump, the US puts its own interests first, seeks to withdraw from what it views as a lost war, and explores direct economic and diplomatic engagement with Russia. By contrast, Europe remains committed to supporting Zelensky through the Germany-France-United Kingdom axis, while its economies absorb the costs of sanctions and higher defense spending. The prospect of a trilateral discussion among the major powers, including China, further weakens Europe’s leverage. The St. Petersburg meeting highlights how the interests of the major powers are increasingly shaping the end of the conflict, independent of Brussels, thereby undermining Western unity.

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/putin-witkoff-talks-expose-broken-western-unity-on-ukraine/5944385

For more than a decade, one climate scenario exercised extraordinary influence over public policy, media reporting, corporate planning, and public consciousness.

Most people never heard of it. It was known simply as RCP 8.5.

Yet behind countless headlines predicting climate catastrophe, behind many of the studies cited by activists and politicians, and behind much of the urgency driving climate policy stood this single scenario.

Different RCP scenarios result in different predicted greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere (from 2000 to 2100).

RCP8.5 would result in the highest greenhouse gas concentration (measured as CO₂-equivalents). (CC BY-SA 4.0)

RCP 8.5 was developed as one of several emissions pathways used by the IPCC climate-modelling community.

Although originally intended as a high-end scenario, it gradually became treated throughout much of the scientific literature, media reporting, and policy discussion as a plausible “business as usual” future.

Thousands of studies employed it. Governments used projections derived from it. Journalists routinely cited forecasts based upon it. Yet in recent years a growing number of researchers involved in climate scenario development have argued that its assumptions do not represent a realistic pathway for the world economy. The debate has now become sufficiently prominent that even many mainstream climate scientists no longer describe it as the most likely future.

Now, with the development of the next generation of climate scenarios for CMIP7 and the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report, its role as a plausible baseline future is being quietly retired and pushed aside with remarkably little public discussion.

My attention was first drawn to this important development through the work of Dutch science journalist Marcel Crok, director of Clintel (Climate Intelligence), whose recent analysis highlighted the significance of the proposed changes to the IPCC’s next generation of climate scenarios. Crok has been documenting the problems surrounding RCP 8.5 and its successor SSP5-8.5 for many years, including in Clintel’s 2023 book The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC.

For years the public was told the world was heading toward catastrophe. Trillions of dollars of spending, regulations, taxes, subsidies, net-zero policies, ESG mandates, school curricula, media campaigns, and legal judgments were justified using projections heavily reliant on a scenario that many climate scientists now acknowledge was implausible.

The controversy is not that the IPCC has formally deleted RCP 8.5. It has not.

The controversy is that a scenario frequently presented to the public as a plausible “business as usual” future is increasingly being treated by many climate researchers as an extreme stress-test rather than a realistic forecast. The scenario itself remains available for modelling exercises, but its status has changed dramatically.

Roger Pielke Jr. has argued for years that RCP 8.5 was being misused as a “business as usual” future and that much climate-impact research came to rely upon an increasingly implausible emissions pathway. More recently, Detlef van Vuuren and more than forty scientists involved in developing the next generation of official CMIP7 climate scenarios concluded that the highest-emissions pathway should no longer be regarded as a plausible representation of the world’s likely future. The key passage is in Section 2.2.2:

“For the 21st century, this range will be smaller than assessed before: on the high-end of the range, the CMIP6 high emission levels (quantified by SSP5-8.5) have become implausible…”

Even scientists who strongly support climate action increasingly describe SSP5-8.5 as a high-risk stress-test scenario rather than a realistic baseline forecast.

In effect, one of the most influential scenarios underpinning the modern climate emergency narrative has shifted from “this is where we are heading” to “this is a highly adverse scenario that may never occur.”

An important question is what the rise and decline of RCP 8.5 reveals about the way modern societies increasingly govern themselves through models rather than reality. RCP 8.5 was never merely an obscure scientific exercise. It became the engine room of modern climate alarmism.

Newspaper headlines warning of climate catastrophe, studies predicting economic collapse, forecasts of mass migration, agricultural failure, and extreme weather frequently relied upon assumptions embedded within RCP 8.5.

Although originally developed as an extreme emissions pathway, it gradually came to be treated as something very different: the future we were supposedly heading toward if governments failed to act.

Schoolchildren were frightened with projections built upon it. Politicians cited it. Activists marched beneath its shadow. Courts referenced studies derived from it. Corporations restructured investment strategies around it.

Entire industries emerged to manage the risks of a future that increasingly appeared unlikely even to many climate researchers. In theory, RCP 8.5 represented only one possible future among several. Over time, however, it acquired a status far beyond that original role. It became the climate apocalypse scenario.

Again and again, dramatic forecasts of future warming, extreme weather, crop failures, economic disruption, and environmental catastrophe were built upon assumptions contained within RCP 8.5. Although often presented to the public as a likely future, critics increasingly argued that many of its underlying assumptions were detached from observable economic and technological trends.

Even scientists who broadly accepted mainstream climate theory began questioning whether the scenario represented a plausible future. The world envisioned by RCP 8.5 appeared increasingly unlikely.

Yet remarkably little attention has been paid to the implications of this shift. For years, some of the most alarming climate projections presented to the public were derived from assumptions that many experts now regard as implausible.

Under RCP 8.5, researchers projected everything from dramatic increases in heat-related mortality and economic damages to severe agricultural disruption, sea-level impacts, and more frequent extreme weather losses.

The scenario appeared in thousands of academic papers and became deeply embedded in climate-impact research. Studies based on RCP 8.5 were cited in climate litigation, adaptation planning, ESG investment frameworks, and government policy documents around the world.

Imagine a pharmaceutical company selling a drug using a risk assessment model that was later deemed unrealistic.

Imagine a bank restructuring the financial system using stress tests based upon assumptions later acknowledged to be implausible.

Imagine military planners justifying vast expenditures using threat projections their own analysts no longer considered credible.

There would be inquiries, investigations, and demands for accountability.

Yet when one of the most influential climate scenarios in history quietly falls from favour, the reaction is largely silence.

There are no front-page apologies.

No public reassessments by the media organisations that amplified the most alarming projections.

No serious discussion of whether citizens were given a balanced picture of the uncertainties involved.

Consider some of the consequences.

Governments across the Western world declared climate emergencies.

Net-zero commitments were embedded into law.

Pension funds and investment firms adopted ESG frameworks.

Courts increasingly entertained climate litigation.

Schoolchildren were told they faced an existential threat.

Entire sectors of the economy were reorganised around assumptions derived from climate projections.

Yet remarkably little attention is being paid to the fact that one of the most influential scenarios underpinning those projections is no longer regarded by many experts as a realistic representation of the future.

Instead, the climate emergency narrative simply moves on.

This should matter. Not because climate never changes. Not because environmental stewardship is unimportant.  But because policies affecting billions of people were often justified using projections built upon this framework.

The issue extends beyond climate science itself. RCP 8.5 illustrates a broader tendency that has become increasingly common throughout modern society.

Models are useful tools. They allow researchers to explore possibilities and test assumptions. Problems arise when hypothetical scenarios are transformed into political narratives and then presented as probable realities.

What remains is the conclusion.

Eventually, many people came to assume that its projections represented the future rather than one hypothetical future. As questions about RCP 8.5 accumulated, however, a curious thing happened.

There was no major public reckoning. No widespread media reflection. No serious discussion about whether the public had been misled regarding the likelihood of extreme climate outcomes. Instead, the scenario simply began fading from prominence.

The climate emergency narrative remained. The policy agenda remained. The rhetoric remained. Only the underlying scenario quietly changed. This should concern anyone who values scientific integrity.

The problem arises when institutions spend years promoting a particular narrative and then show little interest in examining whether the assumptions behind that narrative were sound.

Most importantly, it raises uncomfortable questions about how modern societies make decisions.  The central issue is whether governments, media organisations, corporations, and international institutions should build policy around increasingly speculative models while presenting their conclusions as settled reality.

This question extends far beyond climate. A new technocratic culture is emerging in which models often enjoy greater authority than direct observation.

The disappearance of RCP 8.5 should therefore serve as a warning. Not merely about climate science. About governance itself. A free society depends upon informed citizens capable of questioning assumptions and evaluating competing claims. It cannot function properly if speculative models are repeatedly transformed into unquestionable political truths.

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/climate-scenario-changed-world-now-quietly-dropped/5930681

The sharp rise in cases of “turbo” (aggressive) cancer in the post-COVID-19 and mRNA vaccine era has sparked a debate.

While US and European-based cancer treatments rely on expensive and often futile chemotherapy regimens, claims are increasingly surfacing that inexpensive and effective drugs—such as Ivermectin and Fenbendazole—can cure patients with advanced-stage cancer.

Ivermectin is popularly known as a horse dewormer, while Fenbendazole is recognized as a dog dewormer.

However, the reality is somewhat different.

Ivermectin is a potent antiparasitic (anthelmintic) drug used to treat parasitic infections in both humans and animals.

The story of Ivermectin does not begin in a pharmaceutical company laboratory, but rather in the soil near a golf course in Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture. In the 1970s, while screening soil microorganisms, Japanese microbiologist Satoshi Ōmura discovered a previously unidentified bacterial species: *Streptomyces avermitilis*.

The compounds produced by this bacterium had a remarkable paralyzing effect on parasites. Ōmura sent his samples to American parasitologist William C. Campbell; Campbell and his team refined the compound, developing first “avermectin” and subsequently a safer, more effective form known as Ivermectin. It was launched as an antiparasitic drug by Merck in the 1970s.

The result was one of the greatest public health triumphs in medical history. River blindness (onchocerciasis)—which caused blindness in millions across Africa and Latin America—and elephantiasis (lymphatic filariasis)—which led to severe disabilities—were largely brought under control. Ōmura and Campbell shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Claims that ivermectin cures cancer first gained public attention following an interview with Mel Gibson.

It later garnered significant attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it was found to accelerate recovery times. However, it was consistently disparaged and dismissed by mainstream medicine and media, particularly in the United States.

The use of ivermectin as a systemic cancer treatment was pioneered by Dr. William Makis, a Canadian nuclear medicine specialist. While treating terminally ill cancer patients sent home in Alberta—using a regimen he developed involving ivermectin, fenbendazole, and mebendazole (alongside high-dose Vitamin C and other supplements)—Dr. Makis was branded a quack within a system dominated by major pharmaceutical companies and was prevented from practicing in Canada.

Subsequently, Makis continued his work in Florida, USA.

Dr. William Makis states that he can ultimately prove a phenomenon he observed during his cancer research: the fact that many different types of cancer may respond to ivermectin.

Makis’s argument hinges on a factor he considers particularly crucial: cancer stem cells.

According to him, while conventional chemotherapy can destroy vast numbers of rapidly dividing cancer cells, it may leave behind cancer stem cells, which can be more resistant due to their slower rate of proliferation.

Makis contends that these surviving cells can lead to disease recurrence and metastasis.

It is precisely at this juncture that he believes ivermectin could play a distinct role.

Makis highlights research revealing various potential anti-cancer mechanisms of ivermectin, including its effects on cancer stem cells. He holds the view that using Ivermectin alongside conventional (chemotherapy) treatment could target cancer cell populations that chemotherapy fails to effectively eliminate.

He also believes that Mebendazole could play a role in this strategy in the future.

This paves the way for his most significant claim: if future research confirms a meaningful clinical benefit, combining repurposed drugs with existing cancer treatments could shift the approach for certain advanced-stage cancers from being merely palliative (symptom-relieving) to curative.

However, this is not yet a confirmed clinical result; it remains merely a hypothesis.

This is because the mainstream medical establishment has not permitted human trials of Ivermectin for over 30 years. The lack of human studies is then cited as the reason for preventing the drug’s use.

Well, if the for-profit capitalist healthcare system—which controls all major funding—blocks research in this area, naturally no human studies get conducted!

It is a complete vicious circle.

Yet, Makis shares cases of recovery on his blog and social media accounts—such as a 59-year-old American male patient beating stage-four pancreatic cancer or a 73-year-old Turkish female patient recovering from stage-four breast cancer.

Makis alleges that the regulatory system, academia funded by wealthy interests, and giant pharmaceutical companies are lying to the public to protect the cancer industry, which has an annual volume of $233 billion.

Arguing that this system has now collapsed, Makis continues:

“There are currently seven clinical trials (involving human subjects) investigating the use of Ivermectin for cancer; one is being conducted in California (NCT05318469), while six are taking place in Florida (including NCT07487805). This makes Ivermectin one of the most exciting and actively researched approaches in the field of cancer today—far more compelling than any studies currently underway in mainstream oncology. There are also five clinical trials examining the use of Mebendazole (which is nearly identical to Fenbendazole) for cancer; these include two studies conducted by Johns Hopkins, as well as research by international centers in Sweden, Egypt, and India.”

The discovery of the similarity between cancer and parasites traces back to the USSR.

In 1946, wife and husband scientists Nina Kliueva and Grigorii Roskin observed that a serum derived from *Trypanosoma cruzi* dissolved tumors in mice. Based on their initials, the drug was named the “KR Preparation.” (Source: *The Cure: A Story of Cancer and Politics from the Annals of the Cold War* – Nikolai Krementsov)

Preclinical trials suggested that this substance—named KR after its developers’ initials—might also be effective in humans. Intense media interest surrounding KR prompted the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union to seek US-Soviet cooperation in developing this potential treatment. However, the escalating Cold War turned this interest from the American side into a double-edged sword.

While this interest enabled Kliueva and Roskin to secure significant research support from the Soviet leadership—Stalin included—it also thrust the pair into the very center of the ideological conflict between the superpowers. Accused of revealing “state secrets” to America, the couple was subjected to a show trial; their “anti-patriotic sins” were even condemned in Soviet theater and film productions.

Leveraging their newfound fame to secure further funding, Kliueva and Roskin continued their research; however, jealous colleagues discredited their work and seized control of their institutes. Work on KR was stalled for years and came to a complete halt upon the deaths of Kliueva and Roskin.

CIA Document: Is Cancer a Parasitic Disease?

A CIA document from 1951, declassified in 2011, also indicates that Soviet scientists (likely Kliueva and Roskin)… …contained the abstract of a scientific paper examining the similarities between parasitic worms and cancerous tumors.

THE CIA’S SECRET CANCER FILE REVEALED! | Soviet Professor Alpatov’s 75-year-old “parasite” discovery: Do cancer cells feed like parasites? | World News

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According to the report, researchers posited that both structures develop under similar metabolic conditions and accumulate large amounts of glycogen, a form of energy storage.

During the Cold War, the CIA’s regular monitoring of foreign scientific research was considered a standard intelligence activity.

The statement “This is unevaluated information” clearly appears at the top of the document. This statement indicates that the CIA did not confirm or endorse the findings contained therein.

The author of the article was Professor V.V. Alpatov, who published his work in 1950 in the Leningrad-based journal *Priroda*. Alpatov argued that endoparasites living within a host organism and malignant tumors shared a similar metabolic profile, suggesting a possible biological kinship.

One of the substances mentioned in the CIA report was a drug named Myracyl D, developed by German chemist H. Mauss in 1938. This compound was effective in treating bilharzia (a parasitic disease) and, according to the Soviet research, had also demonstrated certain effects on tumors.

Dr. Thomas Seyfried, a cancer biologist at Boston College, argues that parasites and cancer cells share certain energy-production pathways, which is why antiparasitic drugs can sometimes affect tumors as well.

It appears that—much like how Royal Raymond Rife’s 1920s method of destroying cancer via resonance techniques using his “super-virus microscope” was viewed as a major threat by the profit-driven Rockefeller medical establishment—drugs such as Ivermectin and fenbendazole (costing between $200 and $2,000 annually) were also perceived as threats by the industry and subsequently suppressed.

In addition to the profit motive, in 2019, Covid-19… The “world population reduction” plan that has come to light is yet another proof of just how heartless capitalists are.

If Cuba—a country groaning under embargoes and even facing power cutoffs—has managed to develop cancer vaccines and drugs over the last 30 years, I am certain that had the USSR not collapsed, a real cure for cancer would have been found.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/does-cancer-resemble-parasitic-disease/5940376