By Alexa Lardieri U.S. Deputy Health Editor Dailymail.Com

The U.S. government is spending $1million of American taxpayer money to fund gain-of-function experiments on dangerous bird flu viruses in collaboration with Chinese scientists. The research involves infecting ducks and geese with different strains to make them more transmissible and infectious, and study the viruses’ potential to ‘jump into mammalian hosts,’ according to the research documents.

It is being funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and will take place at sites in Georgia, Beijing and Edinburgh in Scotland. It comes despite such research being restricted in 2022 and growing concerns that dubious Chinese research may have started the Covid pandemic.

The documents were obtained by the campaign group, The White Coat Waste Project, and shared with DailyMail.com. The papers show funding for the avian virus research began in April 2021 and it is slated to continue through March 2026. The specific viruses the researchers will work with include H5NX, H7N9 and H9N2.

A 2023 study described H5NX viruses as ‘highly pathogenic’ with the ability to cause neurological complications in humans. The H7N9 strain first infected humans and animals in China in March 2013 and the World Health Organization said it is of concern ‘because most patients have become severely ill.’ The H9N2 strain has been found in dove in China and while it has a lower pathogenicity than the other strains, it can still infect humans.

The main collaborators on the project are USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute – a Wuhan lab partner. Additionally, one of the researchers being funded by the USDA is Wenju Liu, who is affiliated with the WIV – which is believed to have sparked the Covid pandemic – and a member of the board of a scientific journal, working with Zheng-Li Shi (pictured), who is known as the ‘bat lady’ for her extensive work on bat coronaviruses.

Different aspects of the research are slated to take place in multiple locations, including poultry research centers in Athens, Georgia, at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh and at the Chinese academy in Beijing.

Justin Goodman, senior vice president of the WCW, said in a statement to DailyMail.com: ‘It’s reckless and indefensible for… bureaucrats to bankroll dangerous avian flu gain-of-function studies involving virus experimenters from the notorious Wuhan animal lab that likely caused COVID and its CCP-run parent organization, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.’

He added: ‘Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for animal experiments with foreign adversaries that soup up viruses and can cause pandemics or create bioweapons.’

[…]

Via https://www.dailymail.co.uk/galleries/article-13091319/US-China-collaborate-making-bird-flu-strains-infectious.html

M. K. Bhadrakumar

Russian President Vladimir Putin (third from left) with Central Asian counterparts at a recent CIS summit, Kyrgyzstan, Oct 12, 2023  

Russia’s stunning victory in the battle of Avdeevka and the rout of the Ukrainian military, boosts the credibility of Russia as provider of security for the Central Asian region. The point is not lost on the erudite Central Asian mind that Russia has single-handedly put the NATO on the back foot.

This becomes a defining moment, as it complements the comfort level stemming out of the new normalcy in Afghanistan, thanks to Russia’s effective diplomatic engagement with the Taliban.

Yet another vicious cycle of western propaganda is petering out  — predicated on the false assumptions that Russia’s influence in Central Asia is in “decline” (Wilson Centre); that the Central Asian states are “are emerging from Russia’s shadow and asserting their independence in ways not seen since the collapse of communism in 1991” (Financial Times); that in the wake of the war in Ukraine, Central Asian leaders “might well be now considering how long Putin will be able to remain in power in Russia” (Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty).

In reality, the economic performance of the region in 2023  registered an impressive GDP growth of 4.8%. And Russia contributed to this success story. The Ukraine war led to the vacation of western firms from the Russian market, which created new opportunities for regional states. At the same time, the conditions under sanctions prompted Russian firms and capital and Russian citizens to relocate their businesses to the Central Asian region.

Central Asian entrepreneurs haven’t missed the lucrative opportunities to source Western goods and technology for the Russian market — walking a very tight rope by ensuring compliance with Western sanctions, while also nurturing their interdependence and integration with Russian markets. The recovery of the Russian economy and its 3.6% growth last year created business opportunities for Central Asian countries.

Moscow’s policies aim at a ‘Renaissance’ in the region’s relations with Russia. The new thinking in Moscow meant that Putin took a hands-on role to maintain a high momentum of contacts with the Central Asian leaderships at a personal level, making use of all available formats of interaction bilateral as well as regional. The Russian approach allowed space for the regional states to adopt a ‘neutral’ stance on the war.

A comprehension problem for outsiders is very often that the Central Asian attitudes are seldom in overt mode, and under specific circumstances (such as Ukraine war), they need to be discerned in terms of preferences. Thus, the political message out of the May 9 parade in Moscow last year when all the Central Asian presidents joined Putin at the ceremonies on the Red Square was a massive gesture of support for Russia — and for Putin personally.

Throughout 2023, the Central Asian states found themselves targeted in an unprecedented diplomatic effort by the West to uphold the sanctions against Russia. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French President Emmanuel Macron visited the region. Two historic summits in the ‘C5+1’ format were hosted by President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz respectively in Washington and Berlin.

But the western interlocutors refused to see the writing on the wall. Blinken’s Kazakh counterpart told him that Astana ‘does not feel any threats or risks from the Russian Federation.’ The joint statements issued after the two ‘C5+1’ summits did not even mention Ukraine!    

Putin’s new thinking puts the great game on the back burner and instead prioritises the accretion of content in Russia’s relations with the Central Asian states, especially in economic and humanitarian spheres. This approach has palpably dissipated the ‘Big Brother’ syndrome. Putin’s meetings with his counterparts from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in Kazan  on Wednesday took place in a palpably relaxed atmosphere. (here, here and here)

Interestingly, Emomali Rahmon, Tajik president, wished not only Putin’s success “in everything you do” but his “nerves of steel” as well. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kazakh president underscored meaningfully that “under your (Putin’s) distinguished leadership, Russia has achieved notable, impressive successes. In fact, your statements and actions are shaping the global agenda.” Tokayev’s remark is particularly noteworthy, as western analysts had spotted him as a potential mutineer against Putin in the steppes!

However, in the final analysis, if Russia’s security relationship with the Central Asian region has transformed during the past couple of years, it is because Moscow’s coordinated efforts to forge ties with the Taliban has gained traction lately. They helped diminish the threat perceptions regarding Afghanistan in the Central Asian region.

If the traditional pattern of addressing the threat perceptions was to resort to military means and by sequestering the region from Afghanistan, Russian diplomacy switched to a radically different approach by constructively engaging with the Taliban (although Taliban continues to be a proscribed organisation under Russian law) and strove to make the latter a stakeholder in building cooperative ties within a matrix of mutual interests. It paid off.

Moscow estimated that Taliban rule has stabilised the Afghan situation significantly and it is in Russian interests to help the Kabul administration to effectively counter the extremist elements in the country (especially the Islamic State, which is known to be a legacy of the US occupation of Afghanistan.) Russia leveraged its influence with the Central Asian states to ensure that western-backed anti-Taliban ‘resistance’ forces did not get sanctuaries.

Of course, the strategic objective is that the western intelligence will not be able to manipulate free-wheeling Afghan elements to destabilise the Central Asian region or the Caucasus all over again.

Taliban has been most receptive to the Russian overtures aimed at strengthening the Afghan statehood. Recently, Taliban went to the extent of boycotting a UN-sponsored conference on Afghanistan on February 18-19 in Qatar, which was, in reality, an invidious attempt by the US to re-engage the Taliban on the pretext of promoting “intra-Afghan dialogue” (which essentially meant the return of the West’s Afghan proxies living in exile in Europe and America.)

To be sure, the Taliban saw through the western game plan to rebuild their intelligence network in Afghanistan and countered it by setting conditions for its participation in the Doha conference, including that it be the sole representative of Afghanistan at the meeting. The Taliban also opposed the appointment of a UN special envoy to Afghanistan, whose main task would be to promote “intra-Afghan dialogue”.

The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement ahead of the Doha meeting, accused the international community of “unilateral impositions, accusations, and pressurisation.” The most interesting part of the pantomime playing out in Doha was that at the Taliban’s request, the Russian delegation that participated in the Doha meeting refused to meet the so-called ‘civil society representatives’ from Afghanistan. It signalled that Russia has begun working with the Taliban as the de facto rulers of Afghanistan.

Indeed, the Central Asian states heartily welcome this brilliant diplomatic initiative by Russia to strengthen regional security and stability. The region’s confidence level vis-a-vis the Taliban rulers has already reached a point that at the meeting with Putin in Kazan on Wednesday, Uzbek president Mirziyoyev raised the “important question” of Uzbekistan and Russia moving ahead with the construction of a new railway via Afghanistan connecting Central Asia with the adjacent regions and the world market.

[…]

Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/02/25/russias-victory-in-ukraine-resonates-in-central-asia/

Dr Eddy Betterman

A prominent medical doctor is warning that pregnant women especially need to stay as far away from electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) as possible to protect their unborn babies from radioactive harm.

Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, MD, PhD, says that microwave radiation from things like smartphones, Wi-Fi routers and other wireless devices that connect to the internet or otherwise emit microwaves have an inordinately damaging impact on children still in the womb.

According to Klinghardt, microwave radiation concentrates at a level 20 times higher than normal inside the pregnant mother, meaning her unborn child is being exposed to the equivalent of 20 times more radiation than the mother herself is from using a cellphone or sitting near a Wi-Fi router.

So-called “smart” meters are also a threat to unborn children who have no way to escape exposure while living inside a house that has one installed on one of its walls.

“Microwave radiation from cellphones, Wi-Fi routers and similar devices concentrate twentyfold in the womb, meaning whatever the reading is outside the womb, the measurement will be 20 times higher inside the mother,” explains Dr. Joseph Mercola.

(Related: Did you know that routine exposure to EMFs can cause headaches, fatigue, depression, anxiety and a host of other mental and physical ailments?)

Autism and EMFs

One of the many damaging effects of excess EMF exposure on the unborn is autism. Autistic children, Klinghardt says, have an average EMF exposure level that is 20 times higher than that of non-autistic children, this demonstrating the 20-fold impact of EMFs on unborn children compared to everyone else.

In addition to vaccines, EMFs are increasingly being shown to be a common cause of autism, as well Alzheimer’s and infertility, particularly in men.

Klinghardt, who hails from Germany, has been studying the disease-causing effects of EMFs for many years. Even going back many years, he discovered that simple exposure to high-magnetic fields and microwave signals from power lines is harming people, including and especially the unborn.

“We were made aware that we shouldn’t sleep next to an electric outlet; that we should not have any lights close to our bed or electric alarm clocks,” Klinghardt says. “That was already known in the 1960s.”

It was after Klinghardt moved to the U.S. and started working with autistic children that he ultimately discovered a link between EMF exposure and this now-highly prominent disease.

“I was looking at this incredible crisis in autism and I started treating autistic kids in the late ’90s and went to the medical meetings, the biomedical approaches to treat,” he adds. “What was entirely missing in those conferences was the aspect of electromagnetic fields that the child is [experiencing].”

Klinghardt conducted a pilot study to evaluate the effects of EMF exposure on pregnant women as they slept. Those who slept near EMF-emitting devices were much more likely to bear an autistic child compared to pregnant women who slept away from EMFs.

Now that mobile phones are the norm, this is another factor in EMF exposure that Klinghardt says is also damaging, not to mention much harder to get away from since cellphones are everywhere these days, and in almost every person’s hand, pocket or purse at all times.

“Unfortunately, the membranes around the womb have that strange effect in significantly concentrating the ambient EMFs that the mother is in, reaching levels that are not sustainable for human development,” Klinghardt warns.

While countries like Russia and Iran have strict rules surrounding EMFs that are designed to protect citizens from damaging exposure, the United States is something of a free for all.

“The U.S. is a dying nation, basically, because of the way we are fluoridating the water, the way we have adapted the vaccine program, the electro-smog,” Klinghardt says, gravely. “We’ve created a perfect storm to dumb down a whole nation.”

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2024/02/26/pregnant-women-minimize-emf-exposure-cellphones-wifi/

Pepe Escobar

February 24, 2022 was the day that changed 21^st century geopolitics forever.

Exactly two years ago last Saturday, on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the launching – and described the objectives – of a Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. That was the inevitable follow-up to what happened three days before, on February 21 – exactly 8 years after Maidan 2014 in Kiev – when Putin officially recognized the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

During this – pregnant with meaning – short space of only three days, everyone expected that the Russian Armed Forces would intervene, militarily, to end the massive bombing and shelling that had been going on for three weeks across the frontline – which even forced the Kremlin to evacuate populations at risk to Russia. Russian intel had conclusive proof that the NATO-backed Kiev forces were ready to execute an ethnic cleansing of Russophone Donbass.

February 24, 2022 was the day that changed 21^st century geopolitics forever, in several complex ways. Above all, it marked the beginning of a vicious, all-out confrontation, “military-technical” as the Russians call it, between the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, its easily pliable NATOstan vassals, and Russia – with Ukraine as the battleground.

There is hardly any question Putin had calculated, before and during these three fateful days, that his decisions would unleash the unbounded fury of the collective West – complete with a tsunami of sanctions.

Ay, there’s the rub; it’s all about Sovereignty. And a true sovereign power simply cannot live under permanent threats. It’s even feasible that Putin had wanted (italics mine) Russia to get sanctioned to death. After all, Russia is so naturally wealthy that without a serious challenge from abroad, the temptation is enormous to live off its rents while importing what it could easily produce.

Exceptionalists always gloated that Russia is “a gas station with nuclear weapons”. That’s ridiculous. Oil and gas, in Russia, account for roughly 15% of GDP, 30% of the government budget, and 45% of exports. Oil and gas add power to the Russian economy – not a drag. Putin shaking Russia’s complacency generated a gas station producing everything it needs, complete with unrivalled nuclear and hypersonic weapons. Beat that.

Ukraine has “never been less than a nation”

Xavier Moreau is a French politico-strategic analyst based in Russia for 24 years now. Graduated from the prestigious Saint-Cyr military academy and with a Sorbonne diploma, he hosts two shows on RT France.

His latest book, Ukraine: Pourquoi La Russie a Gagné (“Ukraine: Why Russia has Won”), just out, is an essential manual for European audiences on the realities of the war, not those childish fantasies concocted across the NATOstan sphere by instant “experts” with less than zero combined arms military experience.

Moreau makes it very clear what every impartial, realist analyst was aware of from the beginning: the devastating Russian military superiority, which would condition the endgame. The problem, still, is how this endgame – “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine, as established by Moscow – will be achieved.

What is already clear is that “demilitarization”, of Ukraine and NATO, is a howling success that no new wunderwaffen – like F-16s – will be able to change.

Moreau perfectly understands how Ukraine, nearly 10 years after Maidan, is not a nation; “and has never been less than a nation”. It’s a territory where populations that everything separates are jumbled up. Moreover, it has been a – “grotesque” – failed state ever since its independence. Moreau spends several highly entertaining pages going through the corruption grotesquerie in Ukraine, under a regime that “gets its ideological references simultaneously via admirers of Stepan Bandera and Lady Gaga.”

None of the above, of course, is reported by oligarch-controlled European mainstream media.

Watch out for Deng Xiao Putin

The book offers an extremely helpful analysis of those deranged Polish elites who bear “a heavy responsibility in the strategic catastrophe that awaits Washington and Brussels in Ukraine”. The Poles actually believed that Russia would crumble from the inside, complete with a color revolution against Putin. That barely qualifies as Brzezinski on crack.

Moreau shows how 2022 was the year when NATOstan, especially the Anglo-Saxons – historically racist Russophobes –   were self-convinced thar Russia would fold because it is a “poor power”. Obviously, none of these luminaries understood how Putin strengthened the Russian economy very much like Deng Xiaoping on the Chinese economy. This “self-intoxication”, as Moreau qualifies it, did wonders for the Kremlin.

By now it’s clear even for the deaf, dumb, and blind that the destruction of the European economy has been a massive tactic, historic victory for the Hegemon – as much as the blitzkrieg against the Russian economy has been an abysmal failure.

All of the above brings us to the meeting of G20 Foreign Ministers this week in Rio. That was not exactly a breakthrough. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it very clear that the collective West at the G20 tried by all means to “Ukrainize” the agenda – with less than zero success. They were outnumbered and counterpunched by BRICS and Global South members.

At his press conference, Lavrov could not be more stark on the prospects of the war of the collective West against Russia. These are the highlights:

• Western countries categorically do not want serious dialogue on Ukraine.
• There were no serious proposals from the United States to begin contacts with the Russian Federation on strategic stability; trust cannot be restored now while Russia is declared an enemy.
• There were no contacts on the sidelines of the G20 with either Blinken or the British Foreign Secretary.
• The Russian Federation will respond to new Western sanctions with practical actions that relate to the self-sufficient development of the Russian economy.
• If Europe tries to restore ties with the Russian Federation, making it dependent on their whims, then such contacts are not needed.

In a nutshell – diplomatically: you are irrelevant, and we don’t care.

That was complementing Lavrov’s intervention during the summit, which defined once again a clear, auspicious path towards multipolarity. Here are the highlights:

• The forming of a fair multipolar world order without a definite center and periphery has become much more intensive in the past few years. Asian, African and Latin American countries are becoming important parts of the global economy. Not infrequently, they are setting the tone and the dynamics.
• Many Western economies, especially in Europe, are actually stagnating against this background. These statistics are from Western-supervised institutions – the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD.
• These institutions are becoming relics from the past. Western domination is already affecting their ability to meet the requirements of the times. Meanwhile, it is perfectly obvious today that the current problems of humanity can only be resolved through a concerted effort and with due consideration for the interests of the Global South and, generally, all global economic realities.
• Institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the EBRD, and the EIB are prioritizing Kiev’s military and other needs. The West allocated over $250 billion to tide over its underling thus creating funding shortages in other parts of the world. Ukraine is taking up the bulk of the funds, relegating Africa and other regions of the Global South to rationing.
• Countries that have discredited themselves by using unlawful acts ranging from unilateral sanctions and the seizure of sovereign assets and private property to blockades, embargoes, and discrimination against economic operators based on nationality to settle scores with their geopolitical opponents cannot be considered guarantors of financial stability.
• Without a doubt, new institutions that focus on consensus and mutual benefit are needed to democratize the global economic governance system. Today, we are seeing positive dynamics for strengthening various alliances, including BRICS, the SCO, ASEAN, the African Union, LAS, CELAC, and the EAEU.
• This year, Russia chairs BRICS, which saw several new members join it. We will do our best to reinforce the potential of this association and its ties with the G20.
• Considering that 6 out of 15 UN Security Council members represent the Western bloc, we will support the expansion of this body solely through the accession of countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

[…]

Via https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/02/24/two-years-after-start-smo-west-totally-paralyzed/

Episode 30: The Overthrow of Robespierre

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

Ironically the Republic’s war against both foreign and domestic enemies flourished under the Jacobin Rein of Terror. By mid-1794, the French had decisively thwarted the Austrian invasion and were about to march on Brussels.** The French army had also also thwarted a Spanish invasion via the Pyrenees, and a French naval flotilla had  flouted the British blockade with coffee, sugar and other foodstuffs from the Caribbean.

Within France, Republican troops had effectively put down the Vendée Rebellion and Federalist Revolt.

Yet instead of reducing the Terror attack on dissent, the Committee for Public Safety increased its repressive measures. On the the 22nd  of Prairiale (June 10, 1794), they required all Terror defendants to be tried in Paris. Whereas previously nearly all were found innocent, now 80% were declared guilty. In fact more than half the Terror executions (more than 1300) occurred during the last six weeks of the Terror.

With the growing split between the Jacobins and the Sans-culottes,* Robespierre became increasingly unpopular and there were rumors he wanted to make himself a dictator. In the National Convention, moderates proposing to shut down the Committee of Public Safety pushed through a vote recalling 18 extreme pro-Terror bureaucrats from the provinces for their violent attacks on dissenters. As a compromise the Convention formed the Committee of General Security as a counterbalance to the Committee to Public City.

After a bitter batte with two ultra-revolutionaries on the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre withdrew from public life for three weeks in the summer of 1794. When he returned to the Convention on July 26, 35 Thermadorians*** rose to denounce him. When they called for his arrest, along with four of his supporters, the Paris commune (which ran all the city prisons), refused to take him into custody. After temporarily imprisoning him in the town hall, his Jacobin opponents stormed the building, shattering his jaw with a bullet in the assault. He and 100 supporters would be guillotined that evening without trial.

Following Robespierre’s murder, the convention quickly dismantled the laws establishing the Reign of Terror, and restrict the role of the Committee for Public Safety to the conduct of war and diplomacy. After releasing the remaining 4300 Terror suspects prisoners from the Paris jails, they also arrested, tried and guillotined Jean-Baptist Carrier for his brutal treatment of 13,000 “counterrevolutionaries” in Nantes and deported several Committee of Public Safety members to Guyana.

*Although the Sans-culottes had pushed hard for the Terror legislation, the Jacobins’ moved to shut down all political clubs and women’s groups, while simultaneously restricting the activity and power of sections, made them extremely unpopular.

**Themadorians is short for the Thermadorian Reaction (named after Thermador, a summer month in the revolutionary calendar corresponding roughly to July) Reaction. This was a diverse group that formed a majority in the National Convention after removing Robespierre from power.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/149323/149381

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/texas-farmers-sue-forever-chemicals-sewage-sludge-fertilizer/