Syria’s Presidential Palace, now home to MI6

Kit Klarenberg

On July 19th, the Mail on Sunday revealed that Inter-Mediate, a shadowy firm founded by Jonathan Powell, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s National Security Advisor, brokered re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Damascus and London, and a heavily-publicised meeting between Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Syria’s self-appointed leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, two weeks prior. What’s more, the outlet exposed how Inter-Mediate – which is funded by the British state – operates a dedicated office in Syria’s Presidential Palace.

Britain’s opposition Conservative party has demanded a formal inquiry into this flagrant conflict of interest, Powell’s use of Inter-Mediate “to run back channels to terrorist groups”, and how his non-ministerial position means Starmer’s National Security Advisor – who reportedly wields “more influence over foreign policy than anyone in government after the Prime Minister himself” – isn’t accountable to parliament. A “Whitehall source” offered a scathing appraisal of Inter-Mediate to the Mail on Sunday:

Inter-Mediate’s central role in assisting HTS’ rise to power in Damascus was first revealed in May by Independent Arabia. This followed disclosures from Robert Ford, US ambassador to Syria 2011 – 2014, that in 2023 a British “non-governmental organisation” sought his personal assistance in transforming HTS – in particular Ahmad Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammad Jolani – from “terrorists” into politicians. Inter-Mediate was unnamed by Ford, and the company’s subsequent identification by Independent Arabia initially went entirely unremarked upon in the mainstream.

Now Inter-Mediate’s intimate embedment with Damascus’ post-Assad government has been confirmed, the media is unprecedentedly referring to the administration as comprised of barbarous extremists linked to Al Qaeda and ISIS. Nonetheless, deeper consideration of the grave ramifications of an MI6-connected private company maintaining a secret office in Syria’s Presidential Palace, and the degree to which that dark, clandestine alliance affords London unseen sway over Sharaa and his henchmen, has remained stubbornly lacking.

Moreover, the eerie coincidence of Jonathan Powell assuming his role as Starmer’s National Security Advisor mere days before his HTS clients violently seized power in Syria has gone unremarked upon. The British Prime Minister immediately declared Bashar Assad’s ouster meant “a more active role” for London in West Asia, before dispatching high-ranking diplomats to meet with HTS representatives in Damascus. The media acknowledged these summits were completely illegal, as HTS was a proscribed terror group under British law.

Since taking office, Sharaa has announced Syria’s once-independent economy is fully open for Western rape and pillage, carried out massacres of Alawites and other religious minorities, while seeking to normalise relations with Israel. Despite the Zionist entity routinely executing highly destructive airstrikes against government and military infrastructure since Assad’s fall, HTS appears undeterred. We are thus left to ponder whether the extremist government’s brutal internal repression, and concerted inaction over Tel Aviv’s military bombardments and incursions into its territory, are ultimately directed by MI6.

‘Deny Responsibility’

There is little hint of Inter-Mediate’s deep and cohering ties to British intelligence on its official website, beyond its staff and board being composed of Western diplomatic and military veterans. A section on the company’s “work” boasts of its nous in brokering “backchannels with hard-to-reach conflict actors” in environments where “direct negotiations are impossible or inadvisable.” Inter-Mediate supposedly “builds the foundations for dialogue between groups, mitigating active violence and creating space for political solutions in some of the world’s most intractable conflicts.”

Syria was quite some “intractable conflict” – not least because Assad’s popular government steadfastly refused to relinquish power to mass-murdering CIA and MI6-backed foreign elements that invaded the country in 2011. Leaked emails of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicate Inter-Mediate was active in Damascus from the first stages of the foreign-fomented “crisis”. In March 2012, Clinton’s senior aide Jake Sullivan contacted her, announcing Powell had “launched a new NGO that has already initiated some very interesting work below the radar.”

An attached email from Powell noted Inter-Mediate had “[set] up secret channels between insurgents and governments” in several countries, was preparing to start work in Burma, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, and sought to pitch its services to senior State Department officials. He added his firm “work closely” with the British Foreign Office, National Security Council, and MI6. At this time, it was well-understood in Washington that Syrian “insurgents” were affiliated with Al Qaeda, among other ultra-extremist entities.

The leaks amply suggest Inter-Mediate’s relationship with the same elements that went on to form HTS stretches back well over a decade, London’s plan to install them in Damascus long-predates Powell’s covert approaches to Robert Ford in 2023, and the firm’s dedicated office in the Syrian Presidential Palace has been long in the making. The influence granted by such a bond cannot be understated. Inter-Mediate is not the only British intelligence cutout that has insidiously inserted itself into foreign corridors of power in West Asia.

As this journalist has previously exposed, Lebanon’s security  and intelligence apparatus is heavily penetrated by London, to the extent British intelligence contractor Torchlight maintains a dedicated office within Beirut’s Military Intelligence Directorate. Leaked documents outlining this infiltration note the firm’s covert presence is a highly effective means of “rapidly developing relationships of trust” with the agency’s high-ranking staff, and ensuring they are “unlikely to say ‘no’” to further involvement of British personnel and technology in the Directorate’s sensitive operations.

Derrick Broze
July 24, 2025

While claiming to support the MAHA movement, the EPA under Trump has now taken steps to undo last year’s historic ruling which found that fluoride poses a risk to the neurodevelopment of children.

On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency officially appealed a federal court ruling which ordered the agency to take action against the risks posed by fluoridation chemicals.

The EPA staked their appeal on three main arguments, including a belief that the plaintiffs’ lack standing, the judge improperly considered new evidence, and the district court went beyond its authority in its management of the case.

The EPA’s appeal is the latest development in a nearly decade-long legal saga between the EPA, and parents of children impacted by water fluoridation, as well as the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). The lawsuit began following the EPA’s 2016 decision to deny the plaintiff’s petition under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). In September 2024, Judge Edward Chen found that fluoridation of water at 0.7 milligram per liter “poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children”.

Chen said the risk is sufficient to require the EPA to enact a regulatory response. However, he said that TSCA only granted him the authority to direct the EPA to take action against the risk, but not to prescribe the specifics of its response, which could range from a national warning to an outright ban.

In the final days of the Biden administration the EPA filed their appeal, and now, under leadership appointed by President Donald Trump, the EPA has decided to continue fighting the judge’s ruling.

The EPA contends that at least one of the plaintiffs’ water contains naturally occurring fluoride and thus they cannot prove injury as a result of community water fluoridation. The agency also claims that the Judge’s decision to allow studies which were published after the original 2016 TSCA petition violated the act.

“The district court violated TSCA Section 21 by permitting Plaintiffs to rely on evidence not first presented to EPA in the petition and reviewed by EPA in denying the petition. The court’s final merits ruling overwhelmingly relied on voluminous evidence that did not even exist at the time of the original petition,” the EPA and Department of Justice wrote in their appeal.

Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the Fluoride Action Network and plaintiffs, said the EPA is arguing the court should have ignored relevant science published after 2016.

“I think most people would find that to be at odds with the public interest at stake here. We should be having decisions made in 2024 that reflect the science that is in existence in 2024,” Connett told The Last American Vagabond (TLAV).

“The court should not have had to bury its head in the sand and act like all this new research didn’t exist.”

The EPA also argues that Judge Chen “commandeered” the trial by not ruling after the close of evidence during the first phase of the trial in 2020.

Supporters of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, spearheaded by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., have been critical of the EPA’s decision to appeal the federal court ruling. Especially after Kennedy and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin held a press conference in April announcing the agency’s decision to “expeditiously review” new scientific information on potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water. Kennedy also said he would instruct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop promoting water fluoridation.

Notably, Zeldin and Kennedy did not mention the fluoride lawsuit in their press release or during their press conference.

However, Michael Connett believes public pressure on the EPA and the Trump administration may have an impact.

“It’s important for us to know that they can withdraw this appeal any day, anytime. So it is worth it for people to express their anger and discontent to this administration and to ask them to stand down on this appeal,” Connett said. “If EPA was to announce that they are withdrawing this appeal, boom, the judge’s ruling is final, and then we would move to a rulemaking  proceeding where we could actually get a ban on water fluoridation.”

While some MAHA supporters may have been surprised by the EPA’s appeal, TLAV has previously reported on the Trump administration’s multiple requests for extension so they could decide if they would proceed with the appeal. In that reporting we noted that the final decision was in the hands of U.S. Solicitor General.

The U.S. Solicitor General is D. John Sauer, the former Solicitor General of Missouri from 2017 to 2023. Sauer is most well known for being the lawyer who represented Trump in his successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. United States. In that case, Sauer argued that U.S. Presidents have broad immunity for actions taken while in office, including ordering SEAL Team 6 to assassinate political rivals.

“Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?,” a judge asked Sauer in January 2024. Sauer responded with a “qualified yes”, noting that a President would first “have to be impeached and convicted”.

Unfortunately, the fact that Donald Trump’s EPA is deciding to appeal a court ruling rather than seek a ban or limiting of public exposure to fluoridation chemicals is only the latest in a recent string of betrayals for the MAHA movement.

In the 6 months since Donald Trump came into office, the Food and Drug Administration has approved three separate mRNA injections, most recently COVID injections for 6 month old children. HHS Secretary Kennedy has also sent mixed signals regarding his position on vaccines, calling for studying the connection between vaccines and autism, as well as promoting the MMR injection which he previously campaigned against. Just this week the House of Representatives approved a measure which would keep the EPA from labeling pesticides.

While each of these decisions are not directly the responsibility of Kennedy, they do highlight how the Trump administration is not united on the MAHA agenda. Unfortunately for the American people, that means continued exposure to toxins like pesticides and fluoride.

[…]

Via https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/trump-epa-fluoride-appeal/

How One Company Secretly Poisoned the Planet

Veritasium (2025)

Film Review

This documentary traces the invention of Teflon in 1934 and Dupont’s systematic efforts to conceal its toxic effects on human beings.

Dupont first began researching forever chemicals (PFAs) to find an alternative to flammable refrigerants like propane  and butane. The first PFA refrigerant they produced was Tetrafluorine Ethylene (TFE). Under heat and pressure, the latter forms polytetrafluoroethylene, which is practically indestructible owing to long, tightly bound carbon-fluorine chains that make it inert to chemical interactions. 

Initially Dupont produced Teflon exclusively for the top secret to line their pipes and coat their gaskets and seals. Once the war ended, the government released Dupont from their exclusive contract and the company commercialized it, using it to coat iron, pans, snow shovels and (as Scotchguard) waterproof carpet, coats and surgical implants.

The first public awareness of it health risks occurred in 1996, when a Vicksburg farmer living near a Dupont factory and a landfill began losing livestock from wasting disease. ping toxic chemicals. After Wilbur Tennant’s environmental attorney Robert Bilott filed suit against Dupont in 1999, he accessed company records records from 1961 (the same year Teflon-coated cookware hit the market) revealing that C-8 (aka PFOA) they were dumping in the landfill was causing cancer rats. Among other records was were test reports revealing that Dupont workers exposed to C-8 were dying of liver disease and C-8 was entering the public water supply.*

After Dupont settled with Tennant’s family, Bilott filed suit on behalf of 70,000 Parkersburg residents exposed to C-8 through their well water and the public water supply. After a eleven year process in which everyone downstream of the plant (many of whom had developed thyroid, kidney and testicular cancer) was tested for C-8, there was a massive settlement and federal regulators forced Dupont to discontinue Teflon production in West Virginia.**

Dupont responded by creating a spinoff company Temours, which produced GenX (C-6) PFAS, which turned out to be even more dangerous than C-8 and are still used in waterproof clothing, food wrappers and microwaveable popcorn bags.

When tested, 98% of the world’s population have PFAs in their blood, no matter where they live. Children tend to be at highest risk because they drink more water and play on carpets treated with it. As do firefighters exposed to firefighting foam. Most people are exposed to PFAs through their drinking water, especially if they live near a PFA factory, airport or military base (airports and the US military use PFA-containing firefighting foam in their fire drills).

Another source of PFA exposure if food packaging – cardboard and plastic take out containers are coated with it, as are microwaveable popcorn bags.***

Other countries are banning the use of PFAs in hygiene products, cosmetics and food processing.

At present there are no prospects of banning it in medical implants or semiconductors until an alternative is discovered.

* Records indicate Dupont discharged 10,000 tons of it into the Ohio river and 7,000 tons of it into an unlined landfill adjacent to the company

**3M was also forced to take Scotchguard off the market.

***The filmmakers claim it’s unnecessary to discard old Teflon cookware because long chain PFA’s are only released when heated to temperatures higher than those normally used in cooking.

Sputnik

Earlier on Thursday, there was an escalation of clashes between troops of Thailand and Cambodia on the border, which began with a shootout between ground forces in a disputed area.

The US sees the Thailand-Cambodia escalation “through the lens of divide and rule,” Brian Berletic, geopolitical analyst and former US Marine, told Sputnik.

He warned that if the conflict spirals out of control, it could add to regional conflicts the US is also playing a hand in.

“It will create regional instability, slow growth and development, and give the US an opportunity to reassert influence over the region,” Berletic pointed out.

The analyst noted that the standoff sets back the very economic and political unity China has encouraged across the region. That unity allowed many regional nations “to work out from under generations of Western primacy and outright colonialism,” according to him.

“While both the US and China see the region as a sphere of interest – China sees it through the lens of cooperation and joint development,” Berletic emphasized.

China enjoys close relations with both Cambodia and Thailand, he stressed, adding that Chinese authorities “will almost certainly encourage peace and stability and a quick resolution of the conflict.”

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20250724/thai-cambodian-sonflict-only-suits-america—ex-us-marine-1122485561.html

By Victor Nava
July 23, 2025

A House Oversight panel subcommittee voted to subpoena Bill and Hillary Clinton on Wednesday over their alleged ties to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) introduced the motion for subpoenas during a Federal Law Enforcement Subcommittee hearing, and it was approved by the Republican-led panel via voice vote, with no roll call taken.

The Clintons and several former top Justice Department officials — ex-FBI Director James Comey, one-time special counsel Robert Mueller and former Attorneys General Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions and Alberto Gonzales — were included in the list of subpoenas sought by Perry in order to “expand the full committee’s investigation into Ms. Maxwell.”

“Subpoenas will be issued in the future,” a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee told The Post.

The former president acknowledged in his 2024 book “Citizen: My Life After the White House” that he flew aboard Epstein’s private plane — nicknamed the Lolita Express — in connection to his work with his Clinton Global Initiative nonprofit.

“I wish I had never met him,” Clinton wrote of Epstein, adding that traveling on his plane was “not worth the years of questioning afterward.”

The former president, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the Epstein case, claimed that he had no idea Epstein and Maxwell were sex-trafficking minors.

According to visitor logs, Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times, beginning shortly after Clinton was sworn into office in 1993.

The subcommittee also approved a measure directing Comer to subpoena the Justice Department for the release of all communications between Biden administration officials — including former President Joe Biden — and the DOJ related to the Epstein case.

The subcommittee’s actions come after Comer subpoenaed Maxwell, who has been serving a 20-year prison sentence since 2022, to sit for a deposition with the Oversight Committee.

The deposition has tentatively been scheduled for Aug. 11, at the Federal Correctional Institution Tallahassee, where Maxwell has been incarcerated since her conviction on sex-trafficking conspiracy charges.

[…]

Via https://nypost.com/2025/07/23/us-news/house-panel-votes-to-subpoena-bill-and-hillary-clinton-over-possible-links-to-ghislaine-maxwell/

Sanstuti Nath

The report says Russian President Vladimir Putin knew Clinton was having “uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness,” but chose not to release it before that year’s election because he thought the Democrat would win. Clinton was reportedly also suffering from “Type 2 diabetes and Ischemic heart disease”

“Putin chose not to leak the most damaging and compromising material on Hillary Clinton prior to the election; instead planning to release it after the election to weaken what Moscow viewed would be an inevitable Clinton presidency,” it said.

Fox News reported that a section of the report also states that the material in Putin’s possession allegedly showed that some senior Democrat leaders, including Obama, found Clinton’s health to be “extraordinarily alarming”  and were worried that it could have a “serious negative impact” on her ability to beat Trump that November. Clinton eventually lost the election to Trump, sending the Republican to the White House in January.

“As of September 2016, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service had Democratic National Committee (DNC) information that President Obama and Party leaders found the state of Secretary Clinton’s health to be ‘extraordinarily alarming,’ and felt it could have ‘serious negative impact’ on her election prospects,” the report stated.

“Her health information was being kept in ‘strictest secrecy’ and even close advisors were not being fully informed,” it added.

Further the Russians also reportedly had information about a “campaign email discussing a plan approved by Secretary Clinton to link Putin and Russian hackers to candidate Trump in order to ‘distract the American public’ from the Clinton email server scandal,” per the Fox news report.

[…]

Via https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/russia-vladimir-putin-knew-of-hillary-clintons-psycho-emotional-issues-during-2016-polls-8938226

Brian Shilhavy

Epstein partner Ghislaine Maxwell is meeting with Trump’s DOJ right now before she appears in Congress in a couple of weeks. Is Trump offering her a deal to keep quiet?

Good video report from MeidasTouch.

I don’t think the Obama distraction is going too well, at least not with everyone outside of MAGA land. This story keeps growing..

Via https://t.me/healthimpact/2563