© Reuters / Yves Herman

McDonald’s restaurants across the world have been forced to temporarily close, and other branches around the world have reported a widespread technological issue which means customers cannot pay for food.

Internal systems in Australian restaurants were offline since about 3:10 p.m. local time, according to a report by News.com.au.

IT issues have also been reported online in China including Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan and Germany.

A spokesperson from McDonald’s U.S. told Newsweek: “We are aware of a technology outage, which impacted our restaurants; the issue is now being resolved. We thank customers for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Notably, the issue is not related to a cybersecurity event.”

In Australia, internal systems at some restaurants have been offline since about 3:10 p.m. local time. Some stores have been forced to close completely, while others are only taking cash orders, according to a report by news.com.au.

Posting on X, formerly Twitter, McDonalds Japan said there has been a “system failure,” and that the company apologizes “for any inconvenience this may cause and ask that you please wait for a while until the service is restored.” It does not give the reason for why the outage has occurred.

A McDonald’s employee in New Zealand told the New Zealand Herald that a computer server crash meant they couldn’t take any orders or serve any food, with screens used to take orders currently not working.

New Zealand based X user Germin van Royen said: “The Mcdonalds outage is crazy. Went in tonight and drive thru + all kiosks were down. A system that can fail nation wide is bad but across multiple countries too!? Bonkers.”

Customers in Hong Kong have been able to purchase food, but cannot use mobile and self-ordering kiosks, according to a Facebook post on Friday. It says the outage is down to a “computer system failure.”

“Please order directly at the restaurant counter,” the statement continues.

McDonald’s Taiwan has issued a similar statement, saying its “24hr Happy Delivery” and telephone ordering has been temporarily suspended due to the system undergoing maintenance.

Social media users in the U.K. have said they have been unable to order food, but this has not been confirmed by McDonald’s U.K. According to data from the Downdetector website, U.K.-based users of the McDonald’s app began reporting trouble with orders this morning at around 5:30 a.m. local time.

According to a statement issued by McDonald’s, and reported by British newspaper The Telegraph at 6:50 a.m. ET, the issue affecting the U.K. and Ireland has now been resolved.

Other problems from the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands have been reported by Reddit users. Issues in Germany have also been reported by X users.

[…]

Via https://www.sott.net/article/489844-McDonalds-suffers-GLOBAL-IT-system-failure-stores-from-Canada-to-Australia-forced-to-close

Reclaim the Net

Big Tech alliance Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFTC) research “partner” Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) has published an article revisiting the pandemic, always, of course, in the context of “misinformation.”

GIFTC has previously come under criticism for censorship practices without oversight, whereas GIFTC now goes after “Covid misinformation” – including by conflating it with extremism, and is urging “interventions to address the spread of problematic content.”

The piece claims that its goal is to understand the mechanisms that allow for “problematic information” to disseminate across platforms and then spread between the world’s regions, all for the sake of being able to stop that “diffusion.”

It looks into things like the geographical location of different participants in the “diffusion,” their cultural and linguistic similarities, as well as thematic similarity of content (such as religious and political themes).

The study also clearly positions itself ideologically when it, in passing, refers to former US and Brazilian presidents Trump and Bolsonaro as having “extremist predispositions.”

With that in mind, the choice of topics – the pandemic, misinformation, as well as “methodology and findings” become easier to understand.

Regarding the first, the authors chose to look into Facebook groups and organizations and individuals like Doctors for Truth and microbiologist Didier Raoult, collectively accused of sharing “false and misleading content” about coronavirus, vaccines, masks, hydroxychloroquine, etc., in one form or other.

And, the goal is to find out what helped this information travel from “Global North” to “Global South.”

Soon enough, what’s supposed to be countered thanks to the findings from this “research” is referred to as extremism in online networks, suggesting that Covid “misinformation” qualifies.

Because the “findings” show that interplay tied to language, culture, and themes covered by content shared by various groups is not easy to untangle and go after, the recommendation is to come up with “targeted network-informed interventions” that would prevent information flowing from one part of the world to another.

“By identifying key factors influencing tie formation, policymakers, and platform moderators can implement targeted interventions to mitigate the spread of extremist content,” those behind the article said.

[…]

Via https://reclaimthenet.org/big-tech-alliance-targets-covid-19-misinformation-links-it-to-extremism-calls-for-content-censorship

Episode 41 Napoleon’s Ambitions in the New World

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

Louisiana

During Napoleon’s reign, the Louisiana Territory extended from Mississippi to the Rockies. France ceded it to Spain in 1763 after the Seven Years War. In 1800, France regained title to Louisiana by trading it for some Italian territories. Observing Napoleon’s conquests in Italy, President Thomas Jefferson worried that France would form a new state west of the Mississippi with the support of Appalachian settlers wanting access to the Mississippi River for shipping (see French Revolution: The 1798 US War with France).

In 1803 Jefferson bought Louisiana from Napoleon for $11.5 million.*

St Domingue (Haiti)

Under the 1801 St Domingue constitution:

• Revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture became governor for life.
• Slavery was abolished.
• Hierarchy and inequality were abolished.
• To keep the economy strong, slaves were required to remain on their plantations and work for a wage.

Under L’Ouverture, St Domingue never officially declared independence from France. In 1801, Napoleon sent his brother-in-law General Victor Emmanuel LeClerc with 50 ships and 20,000 solders to reign in the slave revolts. It proved impossible for the French to prevail against Toussaint’s guerilla warfare, especially after one-third of LeClerc’s troops got yellow fever.

Toussaint himself was captured and taken to France, where he died in prison. Jean-Jacques De Salines replaced him as governor.

In 1802, Napoleon repealed the abolition of slavery and reopened France’s slave trade.

After LeClerc, who called for total extermination of St Domingue’s Black population, died of yellow fever in 1803, the French withdrew their remaining 8,000 troops. Losses were twice as high among the former slaves.

In 1804 De Salines renamed St Domingue Haiti and declared an independent military dictatorship.

In 1802, a temporary peace treaty ended (for 14 months) the war between France, Spain and the UK (for 14 months), although British secret agents continued to organize French royalists to violently resist Napoleon.

*In 1805, Jefferson would buy East and West Florida from Spain for $10 million.

Film can be viewed with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149401

Edward Curtin

When Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, the American public fell into an hypnotic trance in which they have remained ever since. The overwhelming majority accepted what was presented by government authorities as an open and shut case that a young Palestinian American, Sirhan Sirhan, had murdered RFK because of his support for Israel, a false accusation whose ramifications echo down the years. That this was patently untrue and was contradicted by overwhelming evidence made no difference.

Sirhan did not kill Robert Kennedy, yet he remains in jail to this very day.  Robert Kennedy, Jr., who was 14 years old at the time of his father’s death, has visited Sirhan in prison, claims he is innocent, and believes there was another gunman.  Paul Schrade, an aide to the senator and the first person shot that night, also says Sirhan didn’t do it. Both have plenty of evidence.  And they are not alone.

There is a vast body of documented evidence to prove this, an indisputably logical case marshalled by serious writers and researchers. Lisa Pease is the latest.  It is a reason why a group of 60 prominent Americans has recently called for a reopening of, not just this case, but those of JFK, MLK, and Malcom X.  The blood of these men cries out for the revelation of the truth that the United States national security state and its media accomplices have fought so mightily to keep hidden for so many years.

That they have worked so hard at this reveals how dangerous the truth about these assassinations still is to this secret government that wages propaganda war against the American people and real wars around the world.  It is a government of Democrats, Republicans, and their intelligence allies working together today to confuse the American people and provoke Russia in a most dangerous game that could lead to nuclear war, a possibility that so frightened JFK and RFK after the Cuban Missile Crisis that they devoted themselves to ending the Cold War, reconciling with the Soviet Union, abolishing nuclear weapons, reining in of the power of the CIA, and withdrawing from Vietnam.  That is why they were killed.

The web of deceit surrounding the now officially debunked Democratic led Russia-gate propaganda operation that has strengthened Trump to double-down on his anti-Russia operations (a Democratic goal) is an example of the perfidious and sophisticated mutuality of this game of mass mind-control.

[…]

If anyone wishes to understand what has happened to the United States since this coup, and thus to its countless victims at home and throughout the world, one must understand these assassinations and how the alleged assassins were manipulated by the coup organizers and how the public was hoodwinked in a mind-control operation on a vast scale.  It is not ancient history, for the forces that killed these leaders rule the U.S. today, and their ruthlessness has subsequently informed the actions of almost all political leaders in the years since.  A bullet to the head when you seriously talk about peace and justice is a not so gentle reminder to toe the line or else.

[…]

Lisa Pease has long recognized the problem, and for the past twenty-five years, she has devoted herself to shedding light on the CIA’s culpability, particularly in the Robert Kennedy case. Few people possess the grit and grace to spend so much of their lives walking this path of truth. The extent of her research is dazzling, so dazzling in its voluminous detail that a reviewer can only touch on it here and there. She has written a book that is daunting in its comprehensiveness.  It demands focused attention and perseverance, for it runs to over 500 pages with more than 800 footnotes. This book will remain a touchstone for future research on the RFK assassination, whether one agrees or disagrees with all of her detailed findings and speculations.  For this book is so vast and meticulous in its examination of all aspects of the case that one can surely find areas that one might question or disagree with.

Nevertheless, Pease fundamentally proves that Sirhan did not shoot RFK and that there was a conspiracy organized and carried out by shadowy intelligence forces that did so. These same forces worked with the Los Angeles Police Department, federal, state, and judicial elements to make sure Sirhan was quickly accused of being the lone assassin and dispatched to prison after a show trial.  And the mass media carried out its assigned role of affirming the government’s case to shield the real killers and to make sure the cover-up was successful.

[…]

Pease writes:

Anyone who has looked closely and honestly at the evidence has realized that more than one person was involved in Robert Kennedy’s death.  So why can’t reporters see this?  Why can’t the media explain this?  Because the media and the government are two sides of the same coin, and those who challenge the government’s version of history, as numerous reporters have found out, all too often lose status and sometimes whole careers.  Kristina Borjesson published an anthology of such stories in her book Into the Buzzsaw, in which journalists describe how they lost their careers when eachof them expressed a truth that the government did not want exposed.

[…]

The official story is that after giving his victory speech for winning the 1968 Democratic California Primary, Kennedy, as he was walking through a crowded hotel pantry, was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, who was standing to his left between 3-6 feet away.  Sirhan’s revolver held eight bullets, and as he was shooting, he was tackled by a group of large men who subdued him.  All witnesses place Sirhan in front of Kennedy and all claim he was firing a gun.

Fact: As the autopsy definitively showed, RFK was shot from the rear at point blank range, three bullets entering his body, with the fatal headshot coming upward at a 45-degree angle from 1-3 inches behind his right ear. Not one bullet from Sirhan’s gun hit the Senator.  In addition, an audio recording shows that many more bullets than the eight in Sirhan’s gun were fired in the hotel pantry that night. It was impossible for Sirhan to have killed RFK.

Let me repeat: More than one gunman, contrary to the government’s claims, equals a conspiracy.  So why lie about that?

What is amazing is that the obvious conclusion to such simple syllogistic logic (Sirhan in front, bullets in the back, therefore…) that a child could understand has been dismissed by the authorities for fifty-one years.  The fact that the government authorities – the LAPD, the Sheriff’s Office, the District Attorney, federal and state government officials, the FBI, the CIA – have from the start so assiduously done all in their power to pin the blame on “a lone assassin,” Sirhan, proves they are part of a coordinated cover-up, which in turn suggests their involvement in the crime.

The fact that Robert Kennedy was shot from the back and not the front where Sirhan was standing immediately brings to mind the Zapruder film that shows that JFK was killed from the front right and not from the 6^th floor rear where Oswald was allegedly shooting from.  That unexpected film evidence was hidden from the public for many years, but when it was finally seen, the case for a government conspiracy was solidified.

While no such video evidence has surfaced in the RFK case, the LAPD made sure that no photographic evidence contradicting the official lies would be seen.  As Lisa Pease writes:

Less than two months after the assassination, the LAPD took the extraordinary step of burning some 2,400 photos from the case in Los Angeles County General’s medical waste incinerator.  Why destroy thousands of photos in an incinerator if there was nothing to hide?  The LAPD kept hundreds of innocuous crowd scene photos that showed no girl in a polka dot dress or no suspicious activities or individuals.  Why were those photos preserved?  Perhaps because those photos had nothing in them that warranted their destruction.

While “perhaps” is a mild word, the cover-up of “the girl in the polka dot dress” needs no perhaps.  Dozens of people reported seeing a suspicious, curvaceous girl in a white dress with black polka dots with Sirhan in the pantry and other places. She was seen with various other men as well. The evidence for her involvement in the assassination is overwhelming, and yet the LAPD did all in its power to deny this by browbeating witnesses and by allowing her to escape.

Sandra Serrano, a Kennedy campaign worker and a courageous witness, was bullied by the CIA-connected police interrogator Sergeant Enrique “Hank” Hernandez.  She had been sitting outside on a metal fire escape getting some air when the polka dot dress girl, accompanied by a man, ran out and down the stairs, shouting, “We’ve shot him, we’ve shot him.”  When Serrano asked whom did they shoot, the girl replied, “We’ve shot Senator Kennedy.” Then she and her companion, both of whom Serrano had earlier seen ascending the stairs with Sirhan, disappeared into the night. A little over an hour after the shooting Serrano was interviewed on live television by NBC’s Sander Vanocur where she recounted this. And there were others who saw and heard this girl say the same thing as she and her companion fled the crime scene. Nevertheless, the LAPD, led by Lieutenant Manuel Pena, also CIA affiliated, who was brought out of retirement to run the investigation dubbed “Special Unit Senator,” worked with Hernandez and others to dismiss the girl as of no consequence.

Lisa Pease covers all this and much more.  She shows how Sirhan was obviously hypnotized, how the trial was a farce, how the police destroyed evidence from the door frames in the pantry that proved more than the eight bullets in Sirhan’s gun were fired, how Officer DeWayne Wolfer manipulated the ballistic evidence, etc. Through years of digging into court records, archives, transcripts, the public library, and doing countless interviews, she proves without a doubt that Sirhan did not kill Kennedy and that the assassination and the cover-up were part of a very sophisticated intelligence operation involving many parts and players.  She shows how no matter what route Kennedy took in the hotel that night, the killers had all exits covered and that he would not be allowed to leave alive.

[…]When Bobby Kennedy was entering the kitchen pantry, he was escorted by a security guard named Thane Eugene Cesar, a man long suspected of being the assassin.  Cesar was carrying a gun that he drew but denied firing, despite witnesses’ claims to the contrary. Conveniently, the police never examined the gun.  He has long been suspected of being CIA affiliated, and now Pease says she has found evidence to confirm that.  She writes, “It’s hard to overstate the significance of finding a current or future CIA contract agent holding Kennedy’s right arm at the moment of the shooting.”

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/cia-takeover-america-1960s/5673387

By Tanvi Misra

Arivaca is a small, unincorporated community in Pima County, Arizona, around 11 miles north of the Mexican border. The closest big city is Tucson, 60 miles northeast. The town itself is barebones—a smattering of old buildings, some dating back to the 1800s. It is surrounded by swathes of yellow grassland.

To get groceries or cash a check at the bank, residents often have to drive north to Green Valley, or even further, to Tucson. And to do that, they have to pass by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoint, where they’re inevitably asked if they’re U.S. citizens.

“It sometimes feels like they’re trying to create a no man’s land,” says Arivaca resident Peter Ragan. “All the people who are living here, and may have lived here for generations, are now part of the problem because they’re in the way.”

While the weight of border patrol’s operations is felt heaviest along the southwest border of the U.S., the “no man’s land” Ragan is talking about actually extends much further into the country. In the “border zone,” different legal standards apply. Agents can enter private property, set up highway checkpoints, have wide discretion to stop, question, and detain individuals they suspect to have committed immigration violations—and can even use race and ethnicity as factors to do so.

That’s striking because the border zone is home to 65.3 percent of the entire U.S. population, and around 75 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population, according to a CityLab analysis based on data from location intelligence company ESRI. This zone, which hugs the entire edge of the United States and runs 100 air miles inside, includes some of the densest cities—New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. It also includes all of Michigan and Florida, and half of Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a prior rough analysis by Will Lowe, a data scientist at MIT. (Border Patrol considers the boundary of the Great Lakes to be the “functional equivalent” of the border, per government documents revealed in an ACLU lawsuit. Elsewhere, too, the agency interprets the international boundary in a way that concerns the ACLU.)

“It really is kind of a constitution-free zone,”says Patrick Eddington, a policy analyst who has been compiling data on border patrol’s internal checkpoints at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank. “I guess the best way to phrase it is that in this area, [border patrol agents] are being allowed to nullify people’s rights.”

According to critics, checkpoints and other internal operations in the 100-mile zone aren’t serving their intended purpose: Just 2 percent of CBP’s total arrests of deportable non-citizens happened at checkpoints. And since 2010, far more people who had legal status and weren’t eligible for deportation were arrested this way. Meanwhile, individuals in this zone—citizen or otherwise—are at risk of having their Fourth Amendment rights violated by border patrol, critics say.

The law within the 100-mile zone

On his ranch near Laredo, Texas, a man named Ricardo D. Palacios discovered a CBP surveillance camera and recently sued the agency—complaining of longstanding harassment and trespassing. The case gets to the heart of Border Patrol’s authority beyond the immediate border. At its core, the law allows immigration officers to access private lands—except “dwellings”—within the 25 air miles (28.7 miles) of the border.

Congress also authorized CBP to set permanent and temporary checkpoints, patrol highways, and board buses, trains, and other vehicles “within a reasonable distance” of the U.S. border, which regulations in 1953 set as “up to a 100 miles.”

These regulations were made to allow border officers to intercept unauthorized entrants who had bypassed checks at ports of entry.

“The vast majority of CBP personnel and assets are stationed at the border itself; however, in our mission to safeguard America’s borders, we have a responsibility to track routes into the interior of our country for those who evade capture,” CBP spokesperson Dan Hetlage told CityLab via email.

CBP can set up checkpoints anywhere it wants within the 100-mile zone and “can temporarily seize all vehicles that drive up to an immigration checkpoint… to conduct an immigration inspection,” a spokesperson said. If they feel they have probable cause, they can search the vehicles. Agents at checkpoints also have wide discretion to pull people aside for a secondary inspection, which could last, per some accounts, for up to 40 minutes.

Agents in patrol cars are permitted to stop motorists in the zone based on suspicion that they have committed an immigration offense, and can also check individuals’ papers on buses, trains, and airplanes. CBP says the transit checks are conducted “as consensual encounters.” That latter aspect of CBP powers has come to the fore in recent months, after videos surfaced showing CBP agents checking papers on Greyhound buses, Amtrak trains, and airports seemingly far from the Southern border. (The ACLU has recently launched a campaign asking Greyhound to deny CBP the permission to board their buses.)

But these sorts of checks aren’t new. In 2013, a study released by NYU Law’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic found that between 2006 and 2010, border patrol agents in Rochester regularly checked people at transit hubs, and in the process, had arrested 300 people with legal status—international students, refugees, and other immigrants included. (The report also mentioned that agents were promised Home Depot gift cards and other incentives in exchange for amping up arrests.)

As Vox’s Alexia Campbell explains, individuals are not required to answer CBP’s questions at checkpoints or other inspections, but may be detained for refusing. On YouTube, several videos have been posted documenting tense exchanges between agents and American citizens who have declined to answer questions.

“[U.S. citizens in these videos] don’t understand why their rights as Americans don’t encompass going from point A to point B in the U.S.—far from the border,” said Chris Rickerd, a policy counsel at the ACLU. “The checkpoints are very controversial, and not only from a civil liberties perspective.”

The law within the 100-mile zone allows for profiling

So what criteria do agents use to decide to stop a motorist or traveller? Can they use a person’s race or ethnicity? Yes, as long as it’s not the only factor, according to one Supreme Court ruling from the 1970s. In 2000, however, the 9 Circuit court of appeals, which covers the border states of California and Arizona, rejected “any reliance on Hispanic appearance or ethnicity” in making roving patrol stops, citing the changing demographics of the country. It remains to be seen whether this precedent will be applied elsewhere.

“That’s really significant because many of the border enforcement mechanisms just don’t catch up to the reality of life at the border,” ACLU’s Rickerd said.

CBP and DOJ guidance also allow border patrol agents to profile under certain conditions—a remarkable fact given that 72 percent of the U.S. minority population lives in the 100-mile zone. Some of the highest concentrations are in areas where the border patrol presence is the heaviest.

Border patrol maintains that checkpoints are “vital to fulfilling CBP’s immigration mission.” While the Trump administration has emphasized the need for expanding the border wall, some Border Patrol agents have complained that might draw resources away from internal checkpoints, which they say have been successful in stopping the smuggling of people and drugs.

“They’re taking money away from proven law enforcement systems to put it into this 14th century solution,” Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, Texas, told the Associated Press. He believes that more federal funds should go towards updating technology at the Laredo North checkpoint.

But CBP’s own data, government watchdog reports, and recent lawsuits have raised some questions about the efficacy of checkpoints. In 2017, the 6,595 deportable individuals arrested at checkpoints made up just 2 percent of the total CBP arrests of non-citizens that year. Between 2008 and 2018, many, many more people with legal status were taken into custody at the internal checkpoints—some years, almost twice as many. During the same period, apprehensions of people who are deportable dropped by 50 percent. CBP declined to comment on whether U.S. citizens were also taken into custody at these checkpoints, and if so—how many.

What checkpoints seem to be good for, however, is intercepting drugs—mostly marijuana—from people who are legally present in the U.S. Snoop Dogg, Armie Hammer, Willie Nelson, and Fiona Apple are among the American celebrities who’ve been ensnared at CBP checkpoints for this reason.

According to CBP’s data, agents seized 54,803 pounds of marijuana at internal checkpoints in 2017; 90 percent of this was from individuals who were lawfully present in the country. (CBP also seized cocaine and heroin, but in much, much lower quantities.)

A 2017 Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of checkpoints requested by Congress also found that arrests at these sites between 2013 and 2016 were a drop in the bucket—2 percent of total arrests of unauthorized entrants in that time. They also found that 40 percent of all drug seizures at checkpoints were for 1 ounce or less of marijuana from U.S. citizens.*

“There is a mentality operating that says these checkpoints are essential to countering illegal immigration and all the data of course says exactly the opposite,” CATO’s Eddington says. “It says that they’re completely ineffectual at actually stopping illegal immigration. Instead, they’re great at catching Americans with dime bags of weed.”

CBP maintains that checkpoints aren’t sites for general crime-control—that would be unconstitutional. But this month, a New Hampshire judge found that CBP had set up a checkpoint near a Cannabis festival in Woodstock, and colluded with local law enforcement to hand over individuals with small amounts of marijuana—violating the state and federal law. “This court finds that while the stated purpose of checkpoints in this matter was screening for immigration violations the primary purpose was detection and seizure of drugs,” the judge’s opinion reads.

“I suppose by their logic, we should just set up checkpoints all across the United States on every road and we’d be intercepting a lot more drugs,” Arivaca’s Ragan says. “But we won’t be much of a democracy anymore.”

[…]

Via https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-14/mapping-who-lives-in-border-patrol-s-100-mile-zone

BRICS doubled its membership at the start of 2024, and faces huge tasks ahead: integrating its newest members, developing future admission criteria, deepening the institution’s groundings, and most importantly, launching the mechanisms for bypassing the US dollar in international finance.

Pepe Escobar

Across the Global South, countries are lining up to join the multipolar BRICS and the Hegemon-free future it promises. The onslaught of interest has become an unavoidable theme of discussion during this crucial year of the Russian presidency of what, for the moment, is BRICS-10.

Indonesia and Nigeria are among the top tiers of candidates likely to join. The same applies to Pakistan and Vietnam. Mexico is in a very complex bind: how to join without summoning the ire of the Hegemon.

And then there’s the new candidacy on a roll: Yemen, which enjoys plenty of support from Russia, China, and Iran.

It’s been up to Russia’s top BRICS sherpa, the immensely capable Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, to clarify what’s ahead. He tells TASS:

We must provide a platform for the countries interested in rapprochement with the BRICS, where they will be able to work practically without feeling left behind and joining this cooperation rhythm. And as to how the further expansion will be decided upon – this should be postponed at least until the leaders convene in Kazan to decide.

The key decision on BRICS+ expansion will only come out of the Kazan summit next October. Ryabkov stresses that the order of the day is first “to integrate those who have just joined.” This means that “as a ‘ten,’ we work at least as efficiently, or, rather, more efficiently than we did within the initial ‘five.’”

Only then will the BRICS-10 “develop the category of partner states,” which, in fact, means creating a consensus-based list out of the dozens of nations that are literally itching to join the club.

Ryabkov always makes a point to note, in public and in private, that the twofold increase of BRICS members starting on 1 January 2024 is “an unprecedented event for any international structure.”

It isn’t an easy task, Ryabkov says:

Last year, it took an entire year to develop the admission, expansion criteria at the level of top officials. Many reasonable things were developed. And many of the things that were formulated back then got reflected in the list of countries that joined. But it would probably be improper to formalize the requirements. At the end of the day, an admission to the association is a subject of political decision.

What happens after Russia’s presidential elections 

In a private meeting with a few select individuals on the sidelines of the recent multipolar conference in Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke effusively of BRICS, with particular emphasis on his counterparts Wang Yi of China and S. Jaishankar of India.

Lavrov holds great expectations for BRICS-10 this year – at the same time, reminding everyone that this is still a club; it must eventually go deeper in institutional terms, for instance, by appointing a secretariat-general, just like its cousin-style organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The Russian presidency will have its hands full for the next few months, not only navigating the geopolitical spectrum of current crises but, most of all, geoeconomics. A crucial ministerial meeting in June – only three months away – will have to define a detailed road map all the way to the Kazan summit four months later.

What happens after this week’s Russian presidential elections will also condition BRICS policy. A new Russian government will be sworn in only by early May. It is widely expected that there will be no substantial changes within the Russian Finance Ministry, Central Bank, Foreign Ministry, and among top Kremlin advisers.

Continuity will be the norm.

And that brings us to the key geoeconomics dossier: the BRICS at the forefront of bypassing the US dollar in international finance.

Last week, top Kremlin adviser Yury Ushakov announced that BRICS will work towards setting up an independent payment system based on digital currencies and blockchain.

Ushakov specifically emphasized “state-of-the-art tools such as digital technologies and blockchain. The main thing is to make sure it is convenient for governments, common people, and businesses, as well as cost-effective and free of politics.”

Ushakov did not mention it explicitly, but a new alternative system already exists. For the moment, it is a closely, carefully guarded project in the form of a detailed white paper that has already been validated academically and also incorporates answers to possible frequently asked questions.

The Cradle was briefed on the system via several meetings since last year with a small group of world-class fintech experts. The system has already been presented to Ushakov himself. As it stands, it is on the verge of receiving a final green light from the Russian government. After clearing a series of tests, the system in thesis would be ready to be presented to all BRICS-10 members before the Kazan summit.

This all ties in with Ushakov publicly declaring that a specific task for 2024 is to increase the role of BRICS in the international monetary/ financial system.

Ushakov recalls how, in the 2023 Johannesburg Declaration, the BRICS heads of state focused on increasing settlements in national currencies and strengthening correspondent banking networks. The target was to “continue to develop the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, primarily regarding the use of currencies different from the US dollar.”

No single currency for the foreseeable future 

All of the above frames the absolute key issue being currently discussed in Moscow, within the Russia–China partnership, and soon, deeper among the BRICS-10: alternative settlement payments to the US dollar, increased trade among “friendly nations,” and controls on capital flight.

Ryabkov added more crucial elements to the debate, saying this week that the BRICS are not debating the implementation of a single currency:

As for a single currency, similar to what was created by the European Union, this is hardly possible in the foreseeable future. If we are talking about clearing forms of mutual settlements such as the ECU [European Currency Unit] at an early stage of development of the European Union, in the absence of a real means of payment, but the opportunity to more effectively use the available resources of the countries in mutual settlements to avoid losses due to differences in exchange rates, and so on, then this is precisely the path along which, in my opinion, BRICS should move. This is under consideration.

The key takeaway, per Ryabkov, is that the BRICS should not create a financial and monetary alliance; they should create payment and settlement systems that do not depend upon the shifty “rules-based international order.”

That’s exactly the emphasis of the ideas and experiments already developed by Minister of Integration and Macroeconomy at the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) Sergei Glazyev, as he explained in an exclusive interview, as well as the new groundbreaking project on the verge of being greenlighted by the Russian government.

Ryabkov confirmed that “a group of experts, led by the Ministries of Finance and representatives of the Central Banks of the respective [BRICS] countries,” is working nonstop on the dossier. Moreover, there are “consultations in other formats, including with the participation of representatives of the ‘historical west.’”

Ryabkov’s own takeaway mirrors what the BRICS as a whole are aiming at:

Collectively, we must come up with a product that would be, on the one hand, quite ambitious (because it is impossible to continue to tolerate the dictates of the west in this area), but at the same time realistic, not out of touch with the ground. That is, a product that would be efficient. And all this should be presented in Kazan for consideration by the leaders.

In a nutshell: the big breakthrough may be literally knocking at the BRICS door. It just depends on a simple green light by the Russian government.

Now compare the BRICS devising the contours of a new geoeconomics paradigm with the collective west mulling the actual theft of Russia’s seized assets to the benefit of the black hole that is Ukraine.

Apart from being a de facto declaration by the US and EU against Russia, this is something that carries the potential, in itself, of totally smashing the current global financial system.

A theft of Russian assets, would it ever happen, will render livid, to put it mildly, at least two key BRICS members, China and Saudi Arabia, who bring to the table considerable economic heft. Such a move by the west would completely destroy the concept of the rule of law, which theoretically underpins the global financial system.

The Russian response will be fierce. The Russian Central Bank could, in a flash, sue and confiscate the assets of Belgian Euroclear, one of the world’s largest settlement and clearing systems, on whose accounts Russian reserves were frozen.

And that on top of seizing Euroclear’s assets in Russia – which amount to roughly 33 billion euros. With Euroclear running out of capital, the Belgian Central Bank will have to revoke its license, causing a massive financial crisis.

Talk about a clash of paradigms: western robbery versus a Global South-based equitable trade and finance settlement system.

[…]

Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/03/15/will-brics-launch-a-new-world-in-2024/

Bradley Greer

The world’s leading meat producer, Tyson Foods Inc., announced the closure of its largest pork packing plant in Iowa this week as the company transitions towards insect farming to produce
“meat alternatives.”

The meat giant also indicated that four additional plants would close by mid-fiscal 2024, just days after announcing the closure of two major chicken plants.

“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close our Perry, Iowa pork facility,” spokesperson said in a statement.

“We understand the impact of this decision on our team members and the local community.”

The closure of the Perry, Iowa, pork-packing plant comes just weeks after the Biden administration announced plans to use American tax dollars to convince Americans to “eat more bugs” to help “save the planet” from “climate change.“

The new push for a “meatless future” is part of the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” agenda to not only eradicate meat and dairy from our diets, but also destroy farmers‘ livelihoods in the name of stopping global warming.

This comes as Tyson Foods recently announced it was partnering with a Dutch bug-protein company to implement “insect farming” infrastructure across the United States.

“Today, we’re focused on more of [an] ingredient application with insect protein than we are a consumer application,” Tyson Foods CFO John R. Tyson said in an Oct. 17 statement.

“The insect lifecycle provides the opportunity for full circularity within our value chain, strengthening our commitment to building a more sustainable food system for the future,” Tyson’s CFO said.

The shift from meat to insect protein aligns with the WEF’s so-called “environmental concerns,” as it claims that insect consumption uses less water and land than traditional meat farming.

Moreover, insects would be fed livestock waste to help reduce pollutants emitted into the atmosphere, before ultimately being sold for human consumption.

“As one of the largest food companies in the world, we look to create value in what is not consumed as human food,” a Tyson Foods spokesperson told Fox News last year.

“We see the partnership with Protix as an extension of that.”

“No or low footprint protein is the goal and we see the partnership with Protix as another way to accelerate progress towards that goal.”

The announcement of the meat plant closure comes days after Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos confirmed he was plowing $60 million into research and development of “alternative proteins,”

“Alternative proteins are an imperative if we are to stay within planetary boundaries, if we are to feed 10 billion people within those boundaries,” Andy Jarvis, the director of the BEF’s “Future of Food” initiative, told Bloomberg.

Tyson Foods food quality closed its facilities over the last few years, including two in Virginia and Arkansas in May 2023.

It also planned to eliminate about 10% of corporate jobs and 15% of senior leadership roles.

Tyson President and CEO Donnie King announced the closure of the following plants in 2024:

• North Little Rock Arkansas
• Corydon Indiana

[…]

Via https://disswire.com/tyson-foods-closes-major-meat-plant-as-it-transitions-to-insect-farming/

Rhoda Wilson

US intelligence agencies are claiming that they “expect” protests to bring down the Israeli government and replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been an obstacle to President Joe Biden’s plans for the Middle East.

A year ago, it was revealed that the US State Department funded a left-wing organisation in Israel that is helping to promote anti-government protests aimed at bringing down Netanyahu and his judicial reforms.

Many observers have long suspected the Biden administration of working to bring down the Netanyahu government through a “colour revolution.”

The following is the article ‘Coup Plot: Biden’s Intel Agencies “Expect” Protests to Topple Netanyahu for “Moderate” Leader’ written by Joel B. Pollak originally published by Breitbart on 11 March 2024.

US intelligence agencies are claiming that they “expect” protests to bring down the Israeli government and replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been an obstacle to President Joe Biden’s plans for the Middle East.

The claim emerged in the latest ‘Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community’, and was published by both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Monday evening, suggesting a coordinated leak to the media.

The assessment says:

• Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has publicly stated his opposition to postwar diplomacy with the Palestinian Authority (“PA”) toward territorial compromise.
• Netanyahu’s viability as leader as well as his governing coalition of far-right and ultraorthodox parties that pursued hardline policies on Palestinian and security issues may be in jeopardy. Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections. A different, more moderate government is a possibility.

Netanyahu was elected to his current term in office in November 2022 with a right-wing coalition that had the largest majority of any Israeli government in decades. His approval dropped during nationwide protests over his proposed judicial reforms, and in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October terror attacks, but recent polls suggest that his support has recovered, as he has led Israel to the edge of victory over Hamas while resisting international pressure.

Most importantly, there is no sign of division among the right-wing parties forming Netanyahu’s coalition. While some opposition parties have called for early elections, Netanyahu has successfully pushed back against the idea, noting that there is nothing Hamas and its Iranian sponsors would like more than to see Israel divided politically during the war. The next elections are scheduled for 2026 if the current government completes its allotted four-year term in office.

Netanyahu has withstood US pressure to accept the Iran nuclear deal; to accept a Palestinian state as the outcome of the war – which he says would be a massive reward for Hamas; and to retreat from its own border in the face of missile attacks from Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in northern Israel. As Breitbart News noted earlier Monday, reports have already emerged that the Biden administration is seeking Israeli consultants to help topple Netanyahu’s coalition.

Many observers have long suspected the Biden administration of working to bring down the Netanyahu government through a “colour revolution.” A State Department-funded group was at the core of opposition to Netanyahu’s judicial reform, and then-Ambassador Tom Nides was described as the “arsonist-in-chief,” as he openly supported the Israeli opposition movement and the protests. President Biden also froze Netanyahu out, refusing to meet him for months.

Polls suggest that the vast majority of Israelis support Netanyahu’s positions – opposing a Palestinian state; backing the continuation of the war until Hamas’s complete defeat; and preparing for possible war against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. Polls also indicate that the vast majority of Americans support Netanyahu’s approach to the war – and oppose Biden’s approach, which has sought to appease terror and dissenting left-wing and Muslim-American voters.

[…]

Via https://expose-news.com/2024/03/15/us-intelligence-agencies-claim-protests/