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About stuartbramhall

Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.

Israel’s Proposal to Deport Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Desert

 

Manlio Dinucci

The Israeli Intelligence Ministry-which oversees the operation of the Mossad and Shin Bet (the external and internal intelligence services) under the direction of the prime minister-recommends the forced and permanent relocation of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai desert peninsula. Tent camps and later permanent settlements should be established there. An inaccessible strip several kilometers wide should be established in Egyptian territory to prevent Palestinians from approaching the border with Israel.

The plan, which the Netanyahu government is working on through negotiations with Egypt, also involves the Palestinian population of the West Bank. Emblematic is the image of an Israeli bulldozer in the West Bank Palestinian Territory knocking down the monument to Palestine’s historic leader Yasser Arafat.

The Netanyahu government’s goal is clear: to erase the Palestinian Territories. This is confirmed by the fact that the Israeli attack is not only exterminating the Palestinian population, but is making the Gaza territory uninhabitable, so that the deportation of Palestinians to the Sinai or elsewhere, disguised as an “international humanitarian operation,” is inevitable.

From this situation emerges the need to focus action against the war on precise political objectives.

In Italy there can be basically three:

1) The repeal of Law 94/2005, which institutionalizes full-scale military cooperation between Italy and Israel.

2) The demand that the United Nations immediately send an international peacekeeping force to Gaza, the territory of the State of Palestine, which since 2012 has been part of the United Nations with all rights except voting rights.

3) The indictment of Israel’s leaders for war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/israeli-ministry-intelligence-lets-deport-palestinians-sinai-desert/5841239

US-German ‘Peace Talks Plot’ Shows West on Brink of Losing Ukraine

Rally to support Ukraine's integration with Europe on Independence Square, Kiev. (File photo) - Sputnik International, 1920, 25.11.2023

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik

The two Western powers are reportedly trying to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into entering into talks with Russia, per German newspaper Bild. What’s behind the report and its timing?

Washington and Berlin have reportedly kicked off a plot to push Ukraine for negotiations with Russia by slashing military supplies to Kiev and leaving Volodymyr Zelensky with little if any options, according to the German publication.

According to Bild, there is also a plan B envisaging a frozen conflict that would solidify a new quasi-border between Ukraine and Russia along the contact line.

“First, [this report] should be seen in a specific temporal context,” Dmitry Evstafiev, a political scientist and High School of Economics (HSE) University professor, told Sputnik.

“This is not a statement, of course, this is a publicity stunt. It appeared in the media almost immediately after the end of the meeting of the notorious Ramstein group that has made an essential decision to create the [Ground Based] Air Defense coalition to strengthen air defense. Moreover, it is quite obvious that they will strengthen not so much the air defense of Ukraine, but the air defense of the countries bordering Ukraine. Therefore, this is a kind of first proposal that it is necessary to take certain political steps that would indicate that Ukraine is ready for negotiations.”

The second aspect is an interview given by the leader of the Servant of the People faction, Davyd Arakhamia, which is “clearly synchronized with the West.” According to Evstafiev, it is “even more indicative against the backdrop of problems at the front.”

Speaking to Western journalists, Arakhamia noted that Russia’s main condition during the March 2022 peace talks with Kiev was Ukraine’s neutrality and guarantees that the Eastern European country wouldn’t join NATO. (It was Arakhamia who headed the Ukrainian delegation during the negotiations with Russians in Belarus and Türkiye in 2022.) In addition, he debunked the Western media narrative that Russia does not want to negotiate peace with Ukraine by saying that Moscow is open to talks and it may start them when Kiev is ready.

“At the moment, [Western] support to Kiev is becoming more and more politically expensive/costly, or whatever you want to call it, for the key countries that provide assistance, these are, first of all: Germany and the United States,” said Evstafiev. “The United States has already almost halted aid [to Ukraine]. Of course, there will still be a revaluation through the Pentagon, but one can no longer expect large packages.”

“Assistance from the European Union will be largely aimed at maintaining the functionality of the public administration system and some kind of social support, but not so much for military support. Therefore, the first point is that support for Kiev has become toxic in terms of politics.

“The second point, which is absolutely clearly visible from the statements of Western sources, is that Kiev now faces the last moment when it can lay claim to more or less acceptable terms of a truce with Moscow. (…) The third point – which Westerners do not conceal – is that Russia will agree to any starting conditions for these negotiations. Arakhamia speaks about this directly, openly and without hesitation.”

West Gives Nothing Short of Ultimatum to Zelensky

Per the German newspaper, the US and Germany are going to supply Ukraine with limited amounts of weapons that would be enough to hold the line but not enough to launch a new offensive. This, the publication claims, would force Zelensky to consider a peace deal.

“This proposed manipulation appears to be quite effective,” said the academic. “Where else could Zelensky get weapons? [Weapons] that had remained on the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR, in the warehouses of the Soviet army, had already clearly been exhausted. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are increasingly fighting with Western weapons. That is, the number of Soviet and Ukrainian weapons is decreasing, and at a very rapid pace, especially in the last four to five months. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to fight only with Western weapons, and (…) without logistical support from NATO, the armored forces of the Ukrainian Army would stop operations in about four to five weeks.”

Still, Evstafiev believes that the West wouldn’t waste time on convincing Zelensky to start talks. It’s more likely that they would give him an ultimatum: either he joins Russia at the negotiating table or his successor will. Zelensky is by no means indispensable in the eyes of the West, according to the professor.

The West “needs a person who is willing to buy time in exchange for territory,” said Evstafiev. Someone would stabilize the state system in Ukraine, carry out some reforms, ease the pressure on Ukrainians, “because the Zelensky regime has tightened the screws in terms of political and religious freedoms much deeper than is acceptable for the Americans and Germans,” per the expert.

When it comes to Zelensky, it would be very hard for him to reverse his months-long position on peace talks with Russia, according to Evstafiev. One should keep in mind that previously, the Ukrainian president issued a decree making bargaining with Moscow illegitimate. “This is absolutely unacceptable for Zelensky and his entourage,” the professor remarked.

The West is well aware of that and considering changing horses in midstream: “They have already indicated – it has already been openly written – that a new [Charles] de Gaulle is needed. Ukraine needs its own de Gaulle, who will abandon Ukrainian Algeria, which means the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and Crimea.” (During a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (1954-1962) then-French President Charles de Gaulle came to the conclusion that continuing to hold on to Algeria, then a French colony, would exhaust France’s resources and weaken its position in Europe. On July 5, 1962, Algeria won independence.)

Why Has West Started Pushing Ukrainian Peace Talks Narrative?

While some Western policy-makers apparently view Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny as Ukraine’s de Gaulle, the problem is that he is unlikely to give up ambitions of taking back the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, according to Evstafiev. Both regions voted in local referendums to join Russia and officially became Russia’s new territories starting from September 2022.

Given that hardliners within the Ukrainian civil and military leadership are still strong, the West has a limited number of options. Hence plan B – a “frozen conflict” – cited by the German newspaper.

“All these negotiations are just an attempt to gain time to stabilize the internal situation in the territory now controlled by the Kiev regime. In my opinion, this needs to be paid attention to,” Evstafiev pointed out.

What’s behind the West’s attempts to stabilize the situation at all costs? The answer is clear, per the academic:

“What scares Westerners the most is not even the defeat at the front. Most of all Westerners – and I think they have an adequate idea of what is happening in [Ukraine’s] rear – are frightened by the possibility of a quick and catastrophic collapse of the public administration system [in Ukraine]. That’s why they are putting so much pressure, I might say, somewhat hysterically, to freeze the situation and try to somewhat restore the stability inside, in the rear,” Evstafiev concluded.

[…]

Via https://sputnikglobe.com/20231125/us-german-peace-talks-plot-shows-west-on-brink-of-losing-ukraine–professor–1115207552.html

Ukrainians Fleeing Ukraine: Kiev Regime Trying to “Prevent Escapes” on Western Transcarpathian Border

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Ukraine is having difficulty in convincing its citizens to stay in the country.

According to a recent report, the regime’s soldiers are focusing their efforts on preventing citizens from leaving Ukrainian territory on the Transcarpathian border. The case clearly shows how Ukrainian citizens are dissatisfied with the situation in the country and do not support the war with Russia, trying to evade military obligations.

Ukrainian border service officials are located at the region of Transcarpathia trying to control the large flow of Ukrainian citizens who try to cross every day in order to avoid conscription. Many Ukrainian citizens want to enter neighboring nations, such as Hungary, Poland and Romania, as they believe this is the only way to save their lives from the devastating consequences of the conflict.

Unable to convince their compatriots to fight in the war, Ukrainian soldiers are using illegal and anti-humanitarian methods to prevent escapes. Real military operations are being conducted in the region and there is even the use of landmines on the border, showing the intention to injure or kill those who try to enter neighboring countries. Kidnappings of local citizens for forced recruitment have also become commonplace.

It is also important to remember that the Transcarpathian region is a repeated target of Kiev’s ethnic cleansing practices. Being a region of majority of Hungarian ethnicity, Transcarpathia has become a kind of “Western Donbass” in Ukraine. A process of genocide against the local people has been implemented in an increasingly open and public manner in recent years.

This genocide happens on both a cultural and physical level. Hungarian schools have been closed and the native language banned from official documents. In parallel, ethnic Hungarians are recruited en masse and taken without adequate training and poorly equipped to the front lines, where they become easy targets for Russian artillery and die in large numbers. Kiev is taking advantage of its martial law to use non-Ukrainian ethnic citizens as cannon fodder in NATO’s war of aggression against Russia, and there currently clearly appears to be a focus on using the situation to accelerate ethnic cleansing in Transcarpathia.

It is possible to understand the practices of the neo-Nazi regime by remembering its main political inspiration, which is Hitler’s Germany. During the war, Nazi Germany implemented the so-called “Volkssturm”, a mass recruitment measure with forced conscription to form a large national militia. In Ukraine, this is exactly what is being done, giving priority to ethnic groups that the Zelensky government wants to eliminate as quickly as possible, such as the Hungarians.

Militia units are being created in Transcarpathia and called “centers of national resistance”, where, in addition to the forced recruitment of local citizens, sabotage operations are also carried out against any type of resistance from the Hungarian people. Peaceful protests are quickly repressed and data from local anti-war activists is sent to Ukrainian intelligence to enable attacks. There is a clear objective on the part of the regime to eliminate any type of “Hungarian threat” in Transcarpathia, which is why these illegal practices are becoming gradually frequent.

These facts show that the Russians have always been right in their allegations. The current Ukrainian government is really a neo-Nazi junta that hates and persecutes ethnic minorities. Kiev does not respect the Hungarian people and their right to self-determination, in the same way that it never respected the Russians of Donbass, having always promoted violent acts against the local population. Racism, xenophobia and ultranationalism are a vital part of the ideology that became hegemonic in Ukraine in 2014, which is why crimes against non-ethnic Ukrainian citizens are recurrent.

In the same sense, it is clear that local citizens are fatigued of living under the terror of war and want to leave the country as quickly as possible. There is no patriotic motivation that convinces Ukrainians to remain in the country, simply because it seems increasingly clear that Kiev is not fighting for its own people or territory, but for foreign interests that in no way benefit the local population. This awareness is leading many young men of military age to flee the country across the border in Transcarpathia.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/mass-migration-depopulation-ukrainian-are-fleeing-ukraine-kiev-regime-trying-to-prevent-escapes-western-transcarpathian-border/5841139

 

Palestinian Christians, a history of oppression and displacement

Quinn Coffey – A final, and particularly striking comment was made by Rev. Ateek’s in his 2010 address to the Christ at the Checkpoint conference, ‘Jesus was a Palestinian who was born under occupation. Jesus lived under occupation. Everything he taught, everything he said was done under occupation, exactly the way we live today.’

I am going to be writing about the Christian Palestinian oppression by Zionist Christians in Palestine over the next few days but I wanted to share this movie about the fate of Palestinian Christians from 1947 onwards:

The Stones Cry Out Movie

Website here.

Christianity was born in Palestine two thousand years ago. From there it spread throughout the Middle East and to the rest of the world. Yet many are unaware Christians still live in the land.

For more than 60 years the Palestinians, Christians and Muslims, have suffered displacement, expulsion, wars, occupation and oppression.

The voices of Palestinian Christians have all too often been drowned out in the turmoil of events.

This is their story, in their voices, from the Nakba of 1948 until today.

About the film

In 1948, tens of thousands of Palestinian villagers were driven from their homes in what was officially dubbed “Operation Broom”, intended to literally sweep tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in the fertile hills and valleys of the Galilee, and make way for settlers in the newly created state of Israel.

Elias Chacour, now the Archbishop of the Galilee, was just a little boy when Israeli troops ordered his family out of the Christian village of Kifr Bir’am. He left the village with a blanket on his shoulder, walking to his new home, a cave.

Today Kifr Bir’am is an Israeli national park, the houses of the village are crumbling, the church is abandoned.

After the Galilee came the expropriation of the West Bank in 1967, the settlements, the wall. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, is now hemmed in by the wall, cut off from Jerusalem, and robbed of much of its agricultural land.

All too often media coverage of the conflict in Palestine has framed it as a fight between Muslims and Jews, largely ignoring the fact that Palestine was the birthplace of Christianity, that Palestinians are both Muslims and Christians, and that Palestinian Christians have played a critical role in their land’s history and the struggle to maintain its identity.

From 1948 up to today, through wars and uprisings, leading Palestinian Christians, including the late President of Beir Zeit University Gabi Baramki, Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi, civil society activist Ghassan Andoni, Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah and others recount the unwavering and sometimes desperate struggle of all Palestinians to resist Israel’s occupation and stay on their land.

Watch:

[…]

Via https://beeley.substack.com/p/palestinian-christians-a-history

What Etruscan Funerals Tell Us About Their Culture

Etruscan funeral procession

Episode 6 Etruscan Burial and Mourning

The Mysterious Etruscans

Dr Steven L Tuck (2016)

Film Review

Tombs of Etruscan elites are decorated with detailed carved depictions of their burial ceremonies. In addition to lying in state and funeral processions, these often involved  athletic games, dancers, sacrifices and community-wide ritual meals.

During the processions, priests often dressed as underworld demons* while family members, joined by professional mourners, carried possessions to be buried with the deceased and led the animals to be sacrificed.

The late 4th century saw a marked increase in military and demon imagery in tombs, as the Etruscan continuously lost battles, first to the Greek city of Syracuse and subsequently to the Romans. The Romans began a protracted war against the Etrurian League in 476 BC and by 396 BC had conquered the city of Veii, the only city powerful enough to lead the other 11 city-states militarily.

While only priests engaged in funeral dancing, the funeral games were open to all serious athletes. Animal sacrifice was performed above the tomb to enable the blood to seep into the burial chamber and carry the deceased to the afterlife. Banquets from the meat of the sacrificed animal were shared with the wider community.

Etruscan funeral games

The painted frescoes in Etruscan tombs feature Greek-style figures, with the head appearing in profile with frontal eyes. The skin tone also follows the Greek convention, with white for women and red for men. Etruscan tombs also display Greek-style human sculptures, in terra cotta, rather than marble, to allow for greater detail in facial expression and hand movements.

Greek profile with frontal eyes

Occasionally the deceased was cremated and the remains stored in elegant ceramic and terra cotta urns. Towards the end of independent Etruscan rule, individualized death masks were fabricated for the deceased, a tradition borrowed by the Romans.

From the third century on (with the decline of the Etruscan aristocracy), women are less prominent in tomb decorations. According to Tuck, women tended to be more esteemed in dynastic monarchies owing to their ability to produce heirs.


*According to the Roman historian Livy.

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/239710/239617

Tiny Fraction Of Global Elites Emit As Much Carbon As Bottom Two-Thirds Of Humanity

Jets airplanes are parked at the Dubendorf Air Base, east of Zurich on Jan. 18, 2023. (Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images)

Critics who rail against the hypocrisy of wealthy global elites jet-setting on carbon-spewing private planes while pontificating about the need for the rest of us to cut our climate footprints just got a boost from a new study.

It turns out that the world’s richest 1 percent emit about the same amount of carbon as the world’s poorest two-thirds, according to an analysis from the nonprofit Oxfam International.

This means that a small sliver of global elites, or 77 million people, have produced as much carbon as the 5 billion people that make up the bottom 66 percent by wealth, per the study.

The study also estimates that it would take roughly 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99 percent to produce as much carbon as the wealthiest billionaires do in just one year.

The study was based on research compiled by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and examined the emissions of various income groups up to 2019. In summary, it suggested that the private jet-setting class of global leaders and policymakers, who take private planes to lead summits addressing the assumed dangers of climate change, may warrant charges of hypocrisy.

The analysis was published as global leaders prepare to meet for climate talks at the COP28 summit in Dubai later in November, where, much like other climate conferences, some elite participants will likely pontificate on the need for ordinary folk to end their reliance on cheap fossil fuel energy to make their ends meet.

‘Ludicrous Hypocrisy’

Global leaders and policymakers fixated on fighting the supposed ills of carbon emissions because of models predicting dangerous climate change have often drawn criticism for their use of carbon-spewing private jets.

For instance, private jet use during last year’s meetings in Davos, Switzerland, pushed up carbon emissions by four times over the average week.

During the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos between May 22, 2022, and May 26, 2022, 1,040 private jets flew in and out of airports serving Davos, according to a January report by Greenpeace.
The number of jets going in and out of Davos doubled during that week, resulting in 9,700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, which is equivalent to roughly 350,000 average cars.

The majority of these jets were attributed to private flights undertaken by participants for the WEF meeting.

Klara Maria Schenk, a transport campaigner for Greenpeace’s European mobility campaign, called the private jet use at Davos a “distasteful masterclass of hypocrisy,” given that the WEF claims to be committed to the Paris Climate Target of keeping climate warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Davos has a perfectly adequate railway station, still these people can’t even be bothered to take the train for a trip as short as 21 [kilometers]. Do we really believe that these are the people to solve the problems the world faces?” Ms. Schenk said.

It was much the same story for the 2021 COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, where about 400 or so global leaders showed up on private jets, according to the Daily Mail.

“All this for ‘climate’ negotiations that obviously could have been done just as easily over Zoom or something similar for the negligible results that emerge,” award-winning novelist Roger L. Simon, a contributor to The Epoch Times, wrote in an op-ed titled “The Ludicrous Hypocrisy of Climate Conferences Continues.”

‘Climate Czar’ In Crosshairs

Private jets are estimated to emit 10 times more carbon dioxide per person compared to commercial flights and roughly 50 times when compared to trains. In total, aviation accounts for roughly 2 percent of carbon emissions globally.

Criticism over his use of a private jet to fly to climate summits may have been a factor in the decision of the family of John Kerry, special climate envoy of President Joe Biden, to sell the family’s private airplane.

Mr. Kerry drew criticism when, in 2019, he flew on a private jet to Iceland to accept an award for his climate leadership. According to some estimates, a round trip to Iceland by private jet would emit about 90 tons of carbon. By comparison, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that a typical passenger vehicle produces about 4.6 tons of carbon in a year.

Mr. Kerry’s family quietly sold off its Gulfstream G-IV jet last summer.

However, Mr. Kerry has defended his use of a private jet while being a prominent figure seeking to draw attention to climate change. In 2021, Mr. Kerry defended his decision to fly to Iceland to accept the climate change leadership award.

“If you offset your carbon, it’s the only choice for somebody like me, who is traveling the world to win this battle,” Mr. Kerry said at the time.

The president’s special climate envoy drew criticism from Republican lawmakers.

“I’m not sure flying across the world in a private jet while simultaneously trying to put the workers who supply your fuel out of a job is a winning strategy as climate czar,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) wrote in a post on X, referring to reports about Mr. Kerry’s remarks.
[…]

Excess deaths among children continue to soar across Europe following push of COVID jabs for kids

Excess deaths among children continue to soar across Europe following push of COVID jabs for kids

Dr Eddy Betterman

Up until the point when the European Medicines Agency (EMA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for the use of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “vaccines” in children, excess deaths among children throughout Europe were negative, new data shows. Then, once the EUA was granted for the jabs to go into children, excess deaths among children started to soar.

Put a different way, children across Europe were generally safe and healthy all throughout the “pandemic” – except for being forcibly kept away from their friends, in some cases where individual countries enforced stay-at-home and social distancing orders – and only started dying once the government began pushing kids to get jabbed for COVID along with the adults.

Once Operation Warp Speed was launched by the Trump regime, excess deaths among everyone began to skyrocket. In Europe, excess deaths in kids rose steadily up through the end of 2021, and have continued to rise ever since as long-term damage from the shots takes hold.

(Related: Pfizer’s newly approved COVID injection “booster” or whatever was never tested in humans, only in mice – and in just eight of them.)

COVID jabs kill kids

In 2020 during the early days of the “pandemic,” excess deaths among children aged 0-14 across Europe were -511, meaning 511 fewer children died than normal. This continued up through week 21 of 2021 when -330 excess deaths were reported.

The moment the EMA extended EUA for COVID jabs to go into children – this occurred on May 28, 2021 – excess deaths started to rise. By the end of 2021, there were 685 reported, which may not sound like much in the overall scheme of things but it is significant in that fact that the upwards trend has only continued ever since.

Throughout 2022, another 1,385 excess deaths were reported among kids in Europe, followed by another 753 or so in 2023, as of week 45.

“This means that 2,823 more children have died than expected across Europe ever since the EMA extended Emergency Use Authorisation of the COVID-19 vaccine to children,” reports The Exposé.

“But 841 fewer children died than expected during the entire alleged pandemic up until the point the EMA extended Emergency Use Authorisation of the COVID-19 vaccine to children, with minus-841 excess deaths being recorded.”

It is obvious just from these simple figures that something is very wrong with these shots, which are clearly killing children by the thousands. It is just that very few who hold positions of power are willing to acknowledge it, instead blaming other unrelated factors as an excuse.

“As someone said – the ‘vaccines’ are the gift that keeps on giving,” wrote one commenter, also referencing another recent article about the growing number of leprosy cases now being detected among the fully jabbed.

Another cited the following video in which Dr. John Campbell interviewed Andrew Bridgen about an Oct. 20, 2023, debate in the House of Commons about excess deaths.

“Sir Christopher Chope had a lot to do with getting the debate,” this commenter further wrote.

“It is only a half hour debate. Andrew Bridgen will speak for twenty minutes, leaving ten minutes for the minister to respond, but it will be a scripted reply and won’t answer any of his questions. He is confident of getting a three-hour debate.”

“Every MP who pushed the mandates and propaganda on the UK citizens should be in prison for life,” added another. “Deception and unlawfully with full knowledge of harm done to the population of our country.”

“It is tragic that we have almost no such representation in Canada,” commented someone else. “I am keeping hopeful that the UK will become an example that we can point to.”

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2023/11/25/excess-deaths-children-europe-eua-covid-vaccines/

Pfizer sues Poland over Covid-19 vaccine

Pfizer sues Poland over Covid-19 vaccineFILE PHOTO ©  Artur Widak / NurPhoto via Getty Images

The US drugmaker has escalated a dispute with Warsaw over unwanted doses

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has escalated its feud with Poland over excess Covid-19 vaccine doses that were ordered under a huge contract with the European Union. The company is suing the country over what it claims is an unfulfilled contract for Covid-19 vaccines.

Warsaw was locked into buying tens of millions of doses under a controversial contract the European Commission had signed with Pfizer in 2021 on behalf of EU nations. Pfizer is demanding 6 billion zloty ($1.5 billion) in compensation for 60 million doses that Poland’s government declined, after it stopped taking delivery of the jabs in April 2022.

The entire bloc wound up ordering 1.1 billion doses under the contract, saddling EU states with a vaccine glut as the Covid-19 pandemic waned. The EU prosecutor’s office has already announced an investigation into the procurement process amid allegations of corruption and secret backroom deals while Polish Health Minister Katarzyna Sojka has warned other EU states could be next to face prosecution.

Warsaw has questioned the controversial role of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the Pfizer deal after it emerged she had for weeks privately communicated with the company’s CEO Albert Bourla during the contract negotiations. However, the European Commission claimed last year that her text messages with the big pharma boss on deals worth multiple billions of dollars executive could not be found.

The first hearing in Pfizer’s lawsuit is scheduled to take place in Brussels on December 6. Earlier this year the pharma giant offered to give the EU more time to complete its minimum vaccine purchases under the binding contract, but insisted that the bloc must pay in full for the contractually specified number of doses. Poland since refused to sign a revised EU agreement with the drugmaker.

Sojka told broadcaster TVN24 on Wednesday that there is some hope of resolving the Pfizer lawsuit “in a positive way.”

A Pfizer company spokesman told Politico however that the company decided to go forward with the lawsuit “following a prolonged contract breach and a period of discussions in good faith between the parties,” .

Millions of Poles refused to receive Covid-19 vaccines, and Warsaw halted deliveries of the jabs as an influx of Ukrainian refugees in early 2022 strained the government’s finances.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/587887-pfizer-sues-poland-vaccine/

Biden’s America Now Losing Three Wars Simultaneously

When Did America Pull Out Of Vietnam? The 5 Detailed Answer ...

Eric Zuesse 

Because of Joe Biden’s career-long consistent neoconservatism — he never met a U.S. invasion or coup that he didn’t didn’t like and didn’t assist to happen — he is losing all three of America’s current wars, and each one of them (each of which he inherited from the prior Administrations, because at least since 1980 all U.S. Presidents have been neocons) is a proxy-war by a U.S. client-state or “colony” against an enemy that the U.S. Government has long wanted to “regime-change” (i.e., to take control over):

ISRAEL’S WAR AGAINST PALESTINIANS

Oddly, the neoconservative candidate who pretends not to be, which is RFK Jr., actually gave the most coherent neocon defense of the U.S.’s basic policy regarding America’s 51st state — the undeclared U.S. state in the Middle East, which is Israel:

“Israel is critical, and the reason it’s critical is that it’s the bulwark for us in the mid-east; it’s almost like an aircraft carrier in the mid-east, Israel is our ambassador, it’s our presence, it’s our beachhead in the mid-east; it gives us ears, eyes in the mid-east, it gives us intelligence; it gives us the capacity to take influence in affairs in the mid-east. If Israel disappeared, Russia and China would be controlling and they’d control 90% of the world’s oil supply, and that would be cataclysmic to national security.”

The basic neocon position is that the top strategic objective of U.S. foreign polices isn’t to protect the American people, but instead to retain America’s position as being the world’s most powerful country, #1 in the global pecking-order, especially militarily, so that in any international disagreement, America’s billionaires — the individuals whom America’s Government serves and is controlled by — will have their way regardless of what international law says, and will stand above prosecution, never under prosecution, but instead under the U.S.-imposed “international rules-based order,” which must come to replace any international-law based order (from the U.N.). Irrespective of the truthfulness of RFK Jr.’s statement in that video-clip (and I think it is loaded with lies), the part of it that asserts “If Israel disappeared, Russia and China would be controlling and they’d control 90% of the world’s oil supply, and that would be cataclysmic to national security,” is wildly neocon and false; and here is why:

That 90% figure is exceedingly unlikely, not only because even under the highest estimates of the percentage of global oil (and gas) that Israel might control or even be able to affect, Israel can’t affect more than about 3% — nowhere near 90%. But furthermore: if Israel’s goal of ethnically cleansing all Gazans out of Gaza will succeed, then not ONLY Israel, but ALSO the United States (which provides Israel the weapons and the backup threats against Iran, etc.) will be so much hated in all Muslim-majority countries, so that no Arab potentate will any longer side publicly with the U.S. That international isolation of the U.S. would be vastly more of a danger to U.S. national security than any other outcome in this war (such as America abandoning Israel, and Israel failing to ethnically cleanse Gaza) could even possibly be.

Moreover: all neocons are rabid for regime-change in both Russia and China — and by that measure, RFK Jr.’s statement there (which falsely argues that continued success of China and of Russia would inevitably turn out to be “cataclysmic” — that international relations can’t possibly be win-win for all of mankind) likewise was archetypally neoconservative).

[…]

Joe Biden never speaks so well as RFK Jr. does; but, if ever he were to give a coherent statement of his policies regarding Israel, then this statement from RFK Jr. is as close as I can imagine it being. And, obviously, if Israel will succeed in annihilating or forcing out all Gazans (which is Israel’s policy), then America’s standing in the world will never recover from that.

[…]

And America’s siding now with Israel’s genocide against Gazans will mean that America is going to lose the war in the Middle East, because Israel will lose that war even if its genocide succeeds.

UKRAINE’S WAR AGAINST RUSSIA

Ukraine was neutral between Russia and America until Obama’s brilliantly executed Ukrainian coup, which his Administration started planning by no later than June 2011, culminated successfully in February 2014 and promptly appointed a rabid anti-Russian to impose in regions that rejected the new anti-Russian U.S.-controlled goverment an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” to kill protesters, and, ultimately, to terrorize the residents in those regions in order to kill as many of them as possible and to force the others to flee into Russia so that when elections would be held, pro-Russian voters would no longer be in the electorate.

The war in Ukriane started in 2014, as both NATO’s Stoltenberg and Ukraine’s Zelensky have said; but Russia responded militarily on 24 February 2022 in order to prevent Ukraine from allowing the U.S. to place a missile there a mere 317 miles or five minutes of missile-flying-time away from The Kremlin and thus too brief for Russia to respond before its central command would already be beheaded by America’s nuclear strike.

However, even after at least $360 billion in support to Ukraine’s war against Russia after Russia’s invasion, from the U.S. and its colonies and their IMF, Ukraiine’s prospects of winning against Russia have been declining not increasing throughout the course of the war and are now close to nil.

AMERICA’S WAR AGAINST CHINA

Whereas in 2015, America was, by a margin of 0.29%, larger an economy than China was, China now is, by a margin of 3.4%, a larger economy than America is; and China’s economic dominance on the basis of economic size is increasing every year because each and every year, China grows its economy by a bigger and bigger percentage than America’s does, as a consequence of which, China is leaving the U.S. farther and farther behind each and every year.

Furthermore, whereas in 1980, the EU, which America’s CIA had created, was 4.54% larger an economy than the U.S. itself was, the EU’s economy in 2015 was 1.07% smaller than #1 America’s was, and 0.78% smaller than #2 China’s was: the EU was #3.

Whereas the U.S. was 21.32% of the world’s economy in 1980, it became 15.42% in 2023 — a 28% decline: clearly a declining economic power. So: by the time of 2015, the U.S. decided for war against China, but also against Europe — despite Europe’s declining faster than the U.S. did. That’s the reason why the U.S. Government, which is controlled by America’s thousand-or-so billionaires, sharply ratcheted-up their anti-China propaganda at that time. And it’s also the reason why America’s sanctions against Russia harmed also America’s European ‘allies’: America’s billionaires aim to be #1 again.

[…]

Via https://theduran.com/bidens-america-is-now-losing-three-wars-simultaneously/

Western brands hit hard by boycott campaign against Israeli goods

US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) talks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a rally with fellow Democrats before voting on H.R. 1, or the People Act, on the East Steps of the US Capitol on March 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

Workers work at an empty Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant as a result of the boycott of Western brands in Egypt due to the Israeli bombardment in Gaza amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, in Cairo, Egypt, November 20, 2023. (Photo by Reuters)

Press TV

A boycott campaign against Israeli products over the occupying regime’s war on the Gaza Strip has severely affected Western fast-food giants in several Arab countries, with the move having the potential to spread to other countries across the globe.

Weeks after Israel waged a brutal war on the besieged Gaza Strip, a boycott campaign against Israeli goods started to gain momentum in Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, significantly hitting Western fast-food giants like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and KFC.

The impacted companies are either perceived to have taken pro-Israeli stances in the war or are alleged to have financial ties to Israel or investments there.

According to the Gaza-based health ministry, at least 14,532 Palestinians, including 6,000 children and 3,920 women, have been killed and more than 35,000 others injured by Israeli strikes since October 7, when the Israeli regime launched a full-scale war on the densely-populated enclave.

“I feel that even if I know this will not have a massive impact on the war, then this is the least we can do as citizens of different nations so we don’t feel like our hands are covered in blood,” said 31-year-old Cairo resident Reham Hamed, who is boycotting US fast food chains and some cleaning products.

As the global pressure is mounting on Tel Aviv over its atrocities in the Palestinian sliver, there are signs that the boycott campaign is also spreading in some other Arab countries, including Kuwait and Morocco.

The boycott calls of the protest campaign have already circulated on social media and expanded to include dozens of companies and products, urging shoppers to shift to local alternatives.

In Jordan, citizens who support the protest campaign sometimes enter McDonald’s and Starbucks branches in the country to encourage a few customers to take their business elsewhere.

“No one is buying these products,” said Ahmad Al-Zaro, a cashier at a large supermarket in the capital Amman where customers were choosing local brands instead.

The current boycott campaign could be considered the latest part of the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the Israeli regime.

The BDS movement, which is modeled after the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations that were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”

Thousands of volunteers worldwide have since joined the BDS movement, which calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural, and academic ties to Tel Aviv to help promote the Palestinian cause.

The movement has been so successful in causing economic damage to the Tel Aviv regime that pro-Israel groups have labeled it “an existential threat.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/11/23/715125/Western-brands-hit-hard-boycott-campaign-against-Israeli-goods