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Russia, China have a shared vision for North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (R) and Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu at a pavilion displaying North Korea’s newest 3-stage solid-fuelled ICBM Hwasong-18, Pyongyang, July 26, 2023 

M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

The three-day state visit on July 25-27 by Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu, accompanied by a military delegation, to Pyongyang is the first-ever such high-level visit from Moscow in the post-Soviet era. Shoigu’s meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday altogether elevates what would have passed as a friendly gesture by the Kremlin on the 70th anniversary of the armistice that led to a cessation of Korean War hostilities to an altogether different universe.

At the most obvious level, it punctures a hole into the iron curtain of sanctions that the US built around North Korea. But Shoigu’s visit, coinciding with the Africa Summit in St. Petersburg chaired by President Vladimir Putin, needs to be seen as part of Russia’s message that it has returned with a bang on the centre stage of world politics.

The icing on the cake was a conducted tour of North Korea’s arsenal of missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, including its newest ballistic missile achievement Hwasong-18, which Kim personally undertook for the Russian military delegation.

The North Korean News Agency [NKNA] reported that Shoigu handed over a hand-written letter from Putin to Kim. It commented that “Recollecting with deep emotion the history of deep-rooted DPRK-Russia friendship, they at the talk exchanged the appraisal and opinions on the matters of mutual concern in the field of national defence and security and on the regional and international security environment and reached a consensus of view on them… [Emphasis added]

“The meeting between Kim Jong Un and Sergei Shoigu at an important time serves as an important occasion in further developing the strategic and traditional DPRK-Russia relations as required by the new century and further boosting in depth the strategic and tactical collaboration and cooperation between the two countries in the field of national defence and security to cope with the ever-changing regional and international security environment.” [Emphasis added.]

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Shoigu’s visit “would contribute to strengthening bilateral military ties and mark an important stage in the development of cooperation between the two countries.”

The accent in the North Korean readout is unmistakably on defence and security concerns, calling attention to the volatile environment in the Far East, and specifically on “strategic and tactical collaboration and cooperation.” Moscow refuted western reports about military cooperation with North Korea. A new page is possibly opening.

Shoigu’s visit took place alongside the visit by Li Hongzhong, vice chairman of China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee,  signalling Russia and China “stand close” to North Korea — to borrow from a Global Times commentary — in response to the Biden Administration accelerating the deepening of a trilateral alliance between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul.

Washington is taking advantage of the political transition in South Korea with the election of the pro-western South Korean president Yoon Suk-Yeol last year in May who reversed his predecessor Moon Jae-In’s independent foreign policy trajectory toward Moscow and Beijing and altogether gave up the efforts to work out a detente with Pyongyang.

The US approach to the Far East draws comparison with its strategy in the Middle East where also it used to whip up Iranophobia and block any regional security process from crystallising, which helped boost its military presence in the region and promoted massive scale of arms exports. The main difference lies in the thrust of Washington’s Far East strategy that lies in containing  China and Russia.

There is no question that the US is aggravating the situation in Asia by provoking Pyongyang and undermining the situation on the Korean Peninsula to keep it in a state of suspended animation that can be revisited anytime. The recent successive visits in July by two US nuclear submarines to the South Korean naval bases is a case in point.

In the recent period, the frozen confrontation between the two Koreas is constantly approaching escalation due to the deepening military cooperation between Washington and Seoul. A defining moment came in April when Biden and Yoon signed the Washington Declaration on deterring North Korea, which involves the creation of an advisory group on issues in the nuclear sphere and greater frequency of the appearance of American strategic weapons, as well as the visits of nuclear submarines to South Korea.

To be sure, the doubling down by Washington provoked a sharp reaction from Pyongyang and a vicious circle is forming in the absence of any interest on the American side to re-engage with Pyongyang. In effect, therefore, Americans are escalating the situation under the pretext of supporting South Korea.

Plainly put, this creates synergy for the US’ capacity to counter the Sino-Russian axis in the Asia-Pacific region. Izvestia newspaper reported last week quoting defence ministry sources in Moscow that a strengthening of Far East deployment is under consideration and that may include the basing of strategic missile carriers Tu-160 “White Swan” in the Amur region — a multi-mode supersonic strategic bomber with variable wing geometry, designed to hit in the deep rear at speed up to 2000 km/h.

The military expert Yuri Lyamin told Izvestia, “Special attention should be paid to Japan, with which we [Russia] still have territorial disputes over the Southern Kuril. Recently, this country [Japan] has been increasing its military spending, and also plans to develop shock weapons systems. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen our deterrence forces in order to neutralise the threat from this direction.”

However, the geopolitics of the Far East has other dimensions too. The commercial value of the Arctic shipping route is in the spotlight, “which is an important area where China and Russia have potential and should strengthen collaboration,” Global Times wrote this week.

Russia is currently testing the Arctic shipping route with a cargo of crude oil for China, which is expected to arrive on August 12 at Rizhao in East China’s Shandong Province. This route could reduce the maritime distance between Europe and Northeast Asia by almost one-third, compared with the Suez route, which is currently used for most of the Russian oil exports to China and India.

No doubt, climate change fuels interest in Arctic shipping. But this is also setting a new stage of global power competition, involving both political and economic interests for trade between Asia and Europe. The strategic significance is profound, since the Northern Route is not under American control, unlike Malacca Straits.

The Global Times wrote: “From the perspective of geopolitics, early planning and precaution in terms of the diversification of shipping routes is paramount to China’s economic and trade security. Therefore, China needs to team up with Russia on the development of new shipping routes in the Arctic for their long-term strategic interests.”

Suffice to say, the deepening cooperation between the Chinese and Russian navvies, especially joint patrol, etc. — is a game changer in the geopolitics of the Far East and Western Pacific.

Where does North Korea come in? Simply put, Rajin Port, located on North Korea’s northeast coast, happens to be the most northerly ice-free port in Asia.

Rajin could become a “logistics hub” if it is linked into the Trans-Siberian Railway. Already, there is a railway connecting Russia and North Korea via the crossing at the Tumen River to reach the port at Rajin (as per a 2008 agreement signed between  the railways of the two countries.

A Special Economic Zone in Ranjin dovetails on the one hand into the the Arctic shipping network while on the other hand, falls squarely within the group of ports in Northeast Asia at which ships transiting the Norther Sea Route could arrive at or depart,  three of whom — Busan, Qingdao, and Tianjin — also being the world’s top 10 busiest container ports.

Indeed, the US plot to keep tensions high in the situation surrounding North Korea is self-evident. To really turn Rajin into a logistics hub would likely require massive changes to the political situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Shoigu’s pathbreaking visit to Pyongyang has a much bigger  agenda to integrate North Korea into the geoeconomics of Eurasia. To view it in zero-sum terms will not do justice to Russia’s intellectual resources to plan for the future with a far-sighted vision. Don’t be surprised if Shoigu’s talks in Pyongyang will figure in Putin’s forthcoming visit to China in October with focus on the Belt and Road Initiative.

[…]

Via https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-china-have-a-shared-vision-for-north-korea/

The Unsettling Rise of Microwave Syndrome (aka EMF Sensitivity)

A 1981 report prepared for NASA had already warned of adverse effects from microwave radiation. (Herr.Stock/Shutterstock)

Zero Hedge

Courtney Gilardi’s 10-year-old daughter never had problems sleeping. But in August 2020, the morning after a 5G cell tower was installed within 450 feet of their Pittsfield, Massachusetts, home, she woke up complaining of headaches, dizziness, a buzzing in her head, and general malaise.

Normally, she gets up at 8 a.m. But on that day, she didn’t come downstairs till the afternoon.

“She didn’t look well, and she said that she was headachy, dizzy, fuzzy. Those are not words that she has ever used to describe how she’s been feeling before,” Ms. Gilardi said.

The girl, her sister, and Ms. Gilardi herself, who said she started experiencing sleep disturbances, rapid heart rates, and migraines, were soon diagnosed with microwave syndrome, a condition known to develop after a person is exposed to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted by wireless technologies.

The doctor’s advice was simple: Stay away from your home.

Microwave Syndrome: What Is It and How Does It Harm You?

Microwave syndrome refers to sensitivity and symptom development caused by environmental microwave radiation. This type of radiation is used to heat food in microwave ovens.

People are primarily exposed to microwave radiation through wireless devices and antennas. Cell phone towers, Wi-Fi modems, phones, tablets, smart wearables, and smart home appliances continuously emit these waves 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Symptoms of microwave radiation exposure include insomnia, headaches, fatigue, stress, pain, and even skin rashes. Individuals with chronic diseases may experience a worsening of preexisting symptoms as part of microwave syndrome, according to research.

Microwave Radiation’s Health Effects: Current Findings

Microwave radiation’s health effects have long been debated, with industry-funded studies often concluding no link between exposure and health.

Randomized human studies are lacking due to ethical considerations, but prospective studies on humans, and animal and cell studies suggest potentially harmful biological effects.

Naval Medical Research

In 1971, researchers at the Naval Medical Research Institute published a report on the biological effects of electromagnetic fields, including radio frequency and microwave radiation (pdf). The report examined their effects on humans, animals, and cells.

Professor Martin Pall from Washington State University, who specializes in chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity, and the effects of low-intensity microwave frequency electromagnetic fields on the human body, summarized the biological effects as follows:

Forty neuropsychiatric effects, including changes in brain structure, brain function, psychological responses, and behavior.Eight hormonal effects, including hyperthyroidism and pituitary dysfunction.Cardiac effects, including decreased heart activity and changes in heart rhythm.Chromosome breaks and changes to chromosome structure.Histological changes to the testes.Cell death, an important process in neurodegenerative diseases.

Other biological effects included changes to metabolism and digestion.

The Bioinitiative Report

The Bioinitiative Report, coauthored by Dr. David Carpenter, professor of environmental health sciences at the University at Albany’s School of Public Health, investigated the correlation between EMFs and health. It found that adverse biological reactions can be triggered even at levels far below the industry standards of maximum body exposure, set at 1.6 watts per kilogram (pdf).

The current standard is based on the assumption that microwave radiation affects the body solely through heat, disregarding its nonthermal effects.

However, exposure to nonthermal EMF radiation at a chronic level of 0.00034 microwatts through mobile phones has been linked to a significant reduction in sperm count. Microwatts represent a millionth of a watt.

Furthermore, children and adolescents exposed to 0.02 microwatts for a short period reported symptoms like headaches, irritation, and difficulties with concentration in school, according to the report.

“There is really no level that you could say with absolute confidence that it was safe for everybody,” Dr. Carpenter told The Epoch Times.

He added that setting a standard with no biological effects is unrealistic given the rapid growth in wireless technology use since the report’s publication in 2007, leading to increased microwave radiation exposure for individuals.

While the report faced scrutiny for its lack of peer review, all of its included studies were subject to peer review.

The Moscow Signal

Before the introduction of cellphones and wireless devices, the Moscow Signal report documented microwave transmissions by the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1976, ranging from 2.5 to 4.4 gigahertz (GHz), which aligns with the frequency range of today’s Wi-Fi and 4G networks.

Although the U.S. government eventually determined the exposure was an espionage attempt with no significant health effects on embassy staff, this conclusion has been disputed.

In 1975, Walter Stoessel, the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, became sick, experiencing bleeding from the eyes and later succumbing to leukemia. Other embassy personnel also developed cancer, fueling the controversy surrounding the link between microwave radiation and cancer.

A year later, the U.S. Department of State commissioned a study comparing the health outcomes of Moscow embassy staff and their families to counterparts from Eastern European cities, who were assumed to have not been subjected to the same exposure. The study found that the staff in Moscow suffered no significant ill effects from the microwave exposure.

A 2019 review of the epidemiological study suggested that the original findings were toned down by the Department of State and that some key questions remain unanswered.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/unsettling-rise-microwave-syndrome

Raw Milk and Full Fat Dairy Protective Against Metabolic and Heart Disease

Dr Mercola

Story at-a-glanceSaturated fats do not clog your arteries or promote heart disease. On the contrary, these fats are important for optimal health, and actually combat many of today’s chronic diseases, including heart diseaseAnalysis of the blood fats in more than 2,900 adults revealed the mortality rate during a 22-year period was identical regardless of levels — a finding that exonerates whole milk as a health wreckerPeople with higher levels of heptadecanoic acid — a component of butterfat — had a 42 percent lower risk of stroke, the analysis foundA 2014 systematic review concluded current evidence does not support cardiovascular guidelines that discourage saturated fat consumptionResearch has also shown eating high-fat cheese raises your high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, which is thought to be protective against metabolic diseases and heart disease

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published July 30, 2018.

Whole milk, cheese and butter have long been demonized as unhealthy, their saturated fat content incorrectly identified as a driver of obesity, heart disease and related health problems. We now know eating fat does not make you fat. Science has also demolished the idea that saturated fats clog your arteries and promote heart disease. On the contrary, these fats are important for optimal health, and combat many of today’s chronic diseases, including heart disease.

While the low-fat myth still lives, the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans1 does recognize that reducing TOTAL fat intake has no bearing on obesity or heart disease risk.

Instead, the guidelines rightfully warn that sugar and refined grains are the primary culprits. Unfortunately, the guidelines fall far short by still suggesting a 10% limit on saturated fats especially, and the low-fat dairy recommendation remains. This, even though mounting research supports consumption of full-fat dairy products over low-fat ones.

Full-Fat Dairy Consumption Has No Influence on Mortality Rates

In a recent article in The Atlantic,2 senior editor Dr. James Hamblin discusses “the vindication” of full-fat dairy, and the research that’s tossing low-fat recommendations by the wayside. One of the most recent studies,3 which analyzed the blood fats in more than 2,900 adults, found the mortality rate during a 22-year period was identical regardless of their levels. “The implication is that it didn’t matter if people drank whole or skim or 2-percent milk …” Hamblin writes.

At the end of the day, consumption of dairy fats — either high or low — does not appear to influence your risk of death.

Corresponding author Marcia de Oliveira Otto, assistant professor of epidemiology, human genetics, and environmental science at the University of Texas School of Public Health, told Hamblin, “I think the big news here is that even though there is this conventional wisdom that whole-fat dairy is bad for heart disease, we didn’t find that. And it’s not only us. A number of recent studies have found the same thing.”

For example, a systematic review and meta-analysis4 published in 2014, which looked at 32 observational studies with well over half a million participants, concluded that, “Current evidence does not clearly support cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats.”

Otto did note, however, that whole milk is likely a healthier choice for the fact that low-fat products contain added sugars, and excessive sugar consumption, as you probably know, raises your risk of virtually all chronic disease.

Also, while dairy consumption overall had no impact on mortality, Otto’s team found certain saturated dairy fats did have specific health benefits. For example, those with higher levels of heptadecanoic acid — a component of butterfat — had a 42% lower risk of stroke. Other studies have found heptadecanoic acid may also help reverse prediabetes,5 and full-fat dairy such as whole milk has been linked to a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Raw Versus Pasteurized Milk

No discussion about dairy would be complete without mentioning there’s a big difference between pasteurized dairy products and raw ones. Milk can only be consumed in its raw, unpasteurized state if the milk comes from organically-raised, grass fed cows.

Animals raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are not only routinely fed antibiotics and other drugs, making their milk unsuitable for raw consumption, their living conditions promote disease that necessitates pasteurization to kill of pathogens.

From a nutritional perspective, the differences in diet also play a significant role. Raw, grass fed cow’s milk contains a number of health-promoting components that you simply cannot get from pasteurized CAFO milk.

The grain- and sugar-based diets of CAFO cows alter their digestive health and the nutritional composition of the milk. According to a 2015 study6 in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, children who drink raw milk have lower rates of viral and respiratory tract infections, including regular colds. According to the authors:

“Early life consumption of raw cow’s milk reduced the risk of manifest respiratory infections and fever by about 30% … [T]he public health impact of minimally processed but pathogen-free milk might be enormous, given the high prevalence of respiratory infections in the first year of life and the associated direct and indirect costs.”

As evidenced in other studies, they confirmed that raw milk boosts immune function and lowers inflammation, as revealed by reductions in C-reactive protein levels among raw milk drinkers. Raw milk also contains:

Healthy bacteria (probiotics) that nourish your gut microbiomeBeneficial raw fats, amino acids, and proteins in a highly bioavailable form, all 100% digestibleMore than 60 digestive enzymes, growth factors and immunoglobulins (antibodies). These enzymes are destroyed during pasteurization, making pasteurized milk harder to digestVitamins A, B, C, D, E and K in highly bioavailable forms. Also has a balanced blend of minerals (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron) the absorption of which is enhanced by live lactobacilliPhosphatase, an enzyme that aids and assists in the absorption of calcium in your bones, and lipase enzyme, which helps to hydrolyze and absorb fatsHealthy unoxidized cholesterolHigh amounts of omega-3 fats while being low in inflammatory omega-6Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which has a number of health-promoting benefits, including anti-cancer activityIs Raw Milk Dangerous?

While the authors suggest that raw milk may have health hazards that need to be overcome, such fears are vastly overblown, and their views are probably just reflecting the official propaganda against raw milk, which appears to be more about protecting the CAFO dairy industry than protecting consumers against truly dangerous products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) insist that raw milk will increase your risk of death and disease, but Europe — where raw milk consumption is far more common — is not experiencing this issue, and foodborne illness statistics offer no support for such fears whatsoever. In fact, research7 by Dr. Ted Beals shows you’re 35,000 times more likely to get sick from any other food than raw milk.

Both the FDA and USDA warn that raw milk can carry disease-causing bacteria — completely ignoring and overlooking the fact that these bacteria are the result of industrial farming practices that lead to diseased animals. Healthy animals raised on pasture simply will not harbor dangerous amounts of pathogenic bacteria. The only way their raw milk warning would make sense is if it specified that you should never drink unpasteurized CAFO milk, as that could indeed be disastrous.

Grass fed milk, on the other hand, rarely ever poses a health risk when consumed raw, provided the producer is following good, sanitary practices, and organic dairy farms are required to follow stricter protocols in this regard. An investigation by Mark McAfee, CEO of Organic Pastures Dairy — which included a FOIA request to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for data on deaths claimed to be related to raw milk — revealed:8

There have been no reported deaths from raw milk in CaliforniaThe two deaths the CDC lists as being related to raw milk were actually due to illegal Mexican bathtub cheese, and not raw milk produced in the U.S.The last people to die from milk died from contaminated pasteurized milkAccording to a Cornell study performed on CDC data, 1,100 illnesses were linked to raw milk between 1973 and 2009. Meanwhile, 422,000 illnesses were caused by pasteurized milk. While no one died from raw milk, there were at least 50 deaths from pasteurized milk or pasteurized cheeseResearch Exonerates High-Fat Cheese

As with whole dairy, research into the health effects of cheese have come to exonerating conclusions as well.

[…]

For example, research published in 2016 found eating high-fat cheese helps improve your health by raising your high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.10 Higher HDL levels are thought to be protective against metabolic diseases and heart disease. Nearly 140 adults were enrolled in the 12-week study to investigate the biological effects of full-fat cheese.

Divided into three groups, the first two were told to eat either 80 grams of high-fat or reduced fat cheese each day. The third group ate 90 grams of bread and jam each day, with no cheese. None of the groups saw any significant changes in their low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, but the high-fat cheese group increased their HDLs.

Another study11 published that same year showed that cheese consumption helps prevent fatty liver and improves triglyceride and cholesterol levels — parameters used to gauge your cardiovascular disease risk. Studies have also found that full-fat cheese can be useful for weight management.12 In one, they found it helps ramp up your metabolism, thereby reducing your obesity risk.13

Roquefort cheese in particular has been linked to cardiovascular health and improved longevity, courtesy of its anti-inflammatory properties.14,15 Cheese — especially when made from the milk of grass-pastured animals — is also an excellent source of several nutrients that are important for health, including:

High-quality protein and amino acidsHigh-quality saturated fats and omega-3 fatsVitamins and minerals, including calcium, zinc, phosphorus, vitamins A, D, B2 (riboflavin) and B12Vitamin K2 (highest amounts can be found in Gouda, Brie, Edam. Other cheeses with lesser, but significant, levels of K2: Cheddar, Colby, hard goat cheese, Swiss and Gruyere)CLA, a powerful cancer-fighter and metabolism booster

[…]

Via https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/07/28/do-dairy-products-promote-heart-disease.aspx

Freemason Elon Musk Rebrands Twitter to “X” – New “Everything App” is the Goal

 

by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

Last year I published an article about Elon Musk purchasing Twitter, and his desire to turn it into an “everything app” similar to the Chinese WeChat app, which is the main app China uses to combine social media, digital identity, vaccination and medical status, criminal history, tracking and surveillance, digital currency, shopping, carbon footprint, and other digital information.

A video had surfaced at that time of Musk stating his intentions for purchasing Twitter.

We also reported that several large foreign Twitter investors had received access to confidential information about the social network, possibly including its users’ personal data and financial statistics as part of Elon Musk’s deal on his Twitter acquisition. (Source.)

Musk’s plans to turn Twitter into an “everything app” that would provide new levels of tracking individuals is apparently becoming a reality, as Musk changed the name of Twitter to “X” earlier this week.

Forbes reported:

Elon Musk’s abrupt decision to do away with Twitter’s iconic blue bird and rebrand as “X” erased one of social media’s most recognizable brands overnight and potentially killed billions in brand value, but marketing and branding experts told Forbes the unconventional and seemingly reckless strategy signals the start of Musk’s promised “everything app” and could have more to it than meets the eye.

The change was unsurprising—Musk has been open about his ambition to build an “everything app” like China’s WeChat and has already changed the business name to X Corp—but it was sudden. (Full article.)

Greg Reese also published a video today titled:

Elon, X, and the Epitome of a Front Man

I have been warning readers since last year that Musk seemed to be courting the “Right” to come back on Twitter, probably so they could be more easily tracked.

Many on the Right now believe that Musk is some sort of “champion of free speech” simply because he now tweets out positions that are typically held by Conservatives on the Right political spectrum.

However, it was widely reported in several Tech publications earlier this year that Twitter’s track record of complying with government demands to turn over data on Twitter users has actually INCREASED dramatically since Elon Musk took over Twitter.

Twitter is complying with more government demands under Elon Musk

It’s been exactly six months since Elon Musk took over Twitter, promising a new era of free speech and independence from political bias. But Twitter’s self-reported data shows that, under Musk, the company has complied with hundreds more government orders for censorship or surveillance — especially in countries such as Turkey and India.

The data, drawn from Twitter’s reports to the Lumen database, shows that between October 27, 2022 and April 26, 2023, Twitter received a total of 971 requests from governments and courts. These requests included orders to remove controversial posts, as well as demands that Twitter produce private data to identify anonymous accounts.

Twitter reported that it fully complied in 808 of those requests, and partially complied in 154 other cases.

Most alarmingly, Twitter’s self-reports do not show a single request in which the company refused to comply, as it had done several times before the Musk takeover. Twitter rejected three such requests in the six months before Musk’s takeover, and five in the six months prior to that.

More broadly, the figures show a steep increase in the portion of requests that Twitter complies with in full. In the year before Musk’s acquisition, the figure had hovered around 50%, in line with the compliance rate reported in the company’s final transparency report.

After Musk’s takeover, the number jumps to 83% (808 requests out of a total of 971). (Full article.)

X-Out

As has been well-documented by many sources, both in the corporate media as well as in the alternative media, Elon Musk is NOT a self-made billionaire, but has very clearly become rich through government subsidies and by developing technology sold to the U.S. Military, including his rocket company, SpaceX, which is basically just an extension of NASA and the new Space Force military branch started under Trump.

He is a major Technocrat with access to modern surveillance and digital tracking technology being used not only by the U.S. Government, but by foreign governments as well.

Health Impact News received a Twitter letter last year inviting us to re-join and re-establish our account on Twitter after Musk bought it.

We declined to rejoin the platform, and I encourage everyone else to X-out of this new digital platform, no matter how enticing Elon makes it to join in the future.

Like Sam Altman’s WorldID and WorldCoin, the U.S. Government may soon be using “X” to distribute things like Universal Basic Income (“Free” money) in return for biometric scans of various parts of your body.

Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2023/freemason-elon-musk-rebrands-twitter-to-x-new-everything-app-is-the-goal/

Whistleblower Exposes Government Link to Mass Attacks on US Food Facilities

By Rair Foundation USA

In the United States, dozens of food processing plants suspiciously caught fire over the past year. Remarkably, no one was present at the time of the fires. The Eco Health Alliance whistleblower, bioterrorism expert, military veteran, and scientist Dr. Andrew Huff has a possible explanation for the food supply fires.

Huff has access to government information about simulating a food supply attack. The information comes from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Food and Agriculture Sector Criticality Assessment Tool (FASCAT). This also includes which places are particularly at risk.

According to Huff, who authorities have harassed due to the nature of his work since 2019, the U.S. government coordinated the attacks on the food facilities. But, in addition, something remarkable happened: the hard disk with the FASCAT data disappeared.

Since then, there have been about 200 food factory attacks around the world, most of them in the U.S., he explained.

Huff had another backup and analyzed the attacks. It turned out that the attacks exactly matched the most critical systems in his data set. He reported this to the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI but never received a response.

Huff knows that the FBI and the food industry have tried to investigate what he calls “terrorist attacks,” but they’re getting nowhere. He suspects that a government-funded actor or a globalist group like the World Economic Forum is behind it.

Watch Dr. Andrew Huff’s interview with journalist Emerald Robinson:

Via https://rairfoundation.com/whistleblower-reveals-what-is-behind-the-mass-attacks-on-us-food-facilities-video/

German deindustrialization continues unabated due to Berlin’s suicidal energy policies

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By Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst

InfoBrics

For close to a year and a half, the German economy has been going through a sort of unraveling, primarily due to suicidal subservience to its masters in Washington DC. Since the start of Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, Berlin has been experiencing a plethora of major economic problems that soon translated to societal and political ones, causing further instability in the country. In turn, this has started causing issues with investments and the overall business climate in Germany, as relevant people and companies started losing confidence in Berlin’s capacity to keep its economy stable.

“The German economy is losing its DNA as a place to do business and foreign investors are keeping their distance, instead focusing their attention on developing markets as a result,” Toralf Haag, the CEO of German Voith Group, warned.

Haag, the head of the German technology company, gave an interview to Die Welt, in which he discussed the rapidly emerging economic problems affecting Germany. He told the newspaper that his Voith Group has been able to weather the storm so far and protect itself from the recession the German economy has been in since the last quarter. However, Haag also expressed worry regarding the German economy’s future, specifically in terms of competitiveness, energy security and foreign investment. He complained about “Germany’s aggressive energy transition away from traditional energy production such as coal and nuclear to renewables”, calling it “problematic”.

“There are ambitious goals, but only insufficient incentives and support to be able to achieve these goals. What we need is less bureaucracy, faster approval procedures and faster implementation. The way it is currently running, it will not work in the long run,” Haag stated.

When asked about the current state of business and investment opportunities in Germany, he wasn’t very optimistic, not only about the prospects for his company (based in Heidenheim, operating primarily in energy, automotive and paper industries), but the overall situation.

“Investment decisions in Germany are becoming increasingly difficult,” Haag said, adding: “To be honest, at the moment we tend to choose Eastern Europe, Asia or the USA when it comes to new production facilities because the costs for energy and personnel are particularly high in Germany while at the same time bureaucracy and regulation are increasing.”

He lamented that the Voith Group was forced to hire another 30 people in the management in the last year or two just to be able to handle all the new regulations and obligations introduced due to the ever-growing red tape.

“I would like to invite the employees from the ministries to check what effect their specifications have directly inside a company – whether they are practicable and sensible. In order for Voith to make significant investments in Germany again, the framework conditions must change fundamentally. Unfortunately, I don’t see that at the moment,” Haag stated.

He said that the danger of Germany’s further deindustrialization is “very great”, primarily because of the reduction of industrial activity due to the tendency of many German companies to relocate to other countries.

“We now see almost every day that industrial companies are no longer investing in Germany but in other regions of the world. Administration and engineering may remain in Germany, but production, which is particularly valuable for an economy, is increasingly taking place elsewhere,” Haag complained, further adding: “As a result, the German economy is not only losing its DNA but also any potential for the future. With its well-paid jobs, industry is the guarantor of prosperity. The prosperity achieved so far cannot be maintained with administrative jobs and the service sector alone.”

Indeed, Germany’s deindustrialization is an ongoing process that is virtually irreversible at this point. Haag’s concerns are backed by the official data and statistics on the actual state of Germany’s economy, particularly its industrial capacity. German industry has always been the main driving force of its economy, particularly its automotive and high-tech industries, all of which are highly dependent on stable energy supplies. However, while Haag blamed the obsessive transition to alternative energy sources (particularly renewables) for the major issues Germany is experiencing, he failed to mention Berlin’s subservience to Washington DC and the resulting halt in Russian energy imports.

The results have been catastrophic, to say the least. Last week’s survey by the BVMW (Federal Association of Medium-Sized Businesses) showed that over a quarter (26%) of all CEOs of medium-sized German companies are considering shutting down their businesses, while over a fifth (22%) have expressed readiness to move their companies abroad. The reasons cited for such decisions were largely the same as those mentioned by the Voith Group’s CEO. As a result, the country’s industrial output experienced a dramatic plunge in the first quarter, including a drop of nearly 11% in March alone, the largest monthly reduction in years. In addition, the growing inflation (currently standing at 6.8%) is exacerbating the problem.

By February this year, Germany has experienced a “price shock” of over 40% due to its anti-Russian sanctions policies, in what can only be described as perhaps the worst case of a boomerang effect in the history of Western sanctions warfare against the world. Russian energy imports were probably the best possible energy source for Germany, particularly as Berlin was trying to increase the share of renewables in its energy production. These imports made it possible to rely on natural gas as a relatively clean source, while renewables played an auxiliary role. However, with the suicidal anti-Russian sanctions in place, as well as the US terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, Germany’s energy security was gone virtually overnight.

Via https://infobrics.org/post/38938/

Plea deal for Hunter Biden collapses after judge questions probe

Counter Information

President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, agreed to plead guilty to charges that he willfully failed to pay federal income taxes.

Hunter Biden’s plea deal on misdemeanor tax charges is officially off after the presiding judge raised concerns about the ongoing investigation.

Negotiated over several weeks, the plea deal was expected on Wednesday to spare the US president’s son time behind bars but District Judge Maryellen Noreika said that she could not “accept the plea agreement today” and that she could not “rubber stamp the agreement.”

The judge, who was appointed by former president Donald Trump, threw doubt on a diversion deal when there is still an ongoing investigation underway, saying she was concerned about the language in the diversion agreement.

Noreika questioned whether the deal would also provide him with immunity from crimes he could be found liable for in the future, saying that it contained “non-standard terms” and that its proposed resolution for the gun possession offense was “unusual.”

In a plea agreement announced last month, younger Biden was to be charged with two misdemeanor counts for failing to pay his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018. Furthermore, he was also to confess that he had illegally possessed a gun while being a drug user.

Biden, 53, failed to pay between $1.1 million and $1.5 million in federal taxes before the legal deadlines.

“What if it is unconstitutional? I’m trying to exercise due deliverance and consideration to make sure we don’t make a misstep,” Noreika said at the court in Wilmington, Delaware,  during the three-hour hearing.

She declined to ink the deal, giving the two parties two weeks to hash out a new deal and brief her.

After the discussion, Biden, who initially offered to enter a guilty plea, ended the hearing by pleading not guilty for the time being.

[…]

Via https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2023/07/26/plea-deal-for-hunter-biden-collapses-after-judge-questions-probe/

New Poll Rates Kennedy’s Favorability at 47%

Nick Reynolds

Newsweek

For so-called “longshot” candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott among Republicans and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. among Democrats sure are popular in recent polling for the 2024 presidential nominations.

Their likeability with voters, however, has so far failed to translate to tangible support for their campaigns.

When he entered the race this year, Kennedy was seen as a legitimate threat to siphon support from President Joe Biden, who wasn’t receiving full support for reelection within his own party.

Going off recent Harvard/Harris polling released last week, for example, Kennedy’s net favorability rating of +21 (meaning his favorable numbers are 21 percentage points higher than his unfavorable numbers) was 35 points higher than Biden’s as the president remained dogged by an anemic -53 favorability rating among the more than 2,000 registered voters polled.

[image error]A Flourish chart

But Kennedy has struggled to gain any momentum against a president whose job approval has regularly sagged well below lows seen by Trump, Barack Obama or George W. Bush in polls conducted during their presidencies. While 16 percent of Democratic voters in last week’s poll said they would support Kennedy over Biden, the president still enjoys the backing of 62 percent of Democratic voters.

And it’s not just against Biden. In a hypothetical matchup against Vice President Kamala Harris, Kennedy would get only about 22 percent of the vote.

Newsweek reached out to Kennedy’s campaign via email for comment. However, the answer for Kennedy’s inability to break through is, seemingly, simple: Biden, despite his unpopularity with Republicans and independents, is still very popular within his own party.

Though some two-thirds of voters said they didn’t want Biden to run for a second term (including 38 percent of Democrats) in a poll of 922 registered voters by The Messenger/Harris released Tuesday, Biden still enjoys a 78 percent approval rating among members of his own party while Kennedy, for the most part, has enjoyed most of his public-facing support from conservative groups and donors eager for a challenger to Biden.

[…]

Via https://www.newsweek.com/robert-kennedy-jr-would-winning-2024-if-it-was-popularity-contest-1815284

India’s Early Mughal Empire

Episode 19 The Early Mughal* Empire

A History of India

Michael Fisher (2016)

Film Review

In 1526, Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur led his troops out of Kabul (Afghanistan) to conquer the Delhi Sultanate in north India. The Mughal empire lasted three centuries before being crushed in 1858 by the British.

Born in the central Asian kingdom of Ferghana, Babur was distantly related to both the Mongol Genghis Khan and the Turkman Timur (aka Tamerlane).

He made four unsuccessful attempts (starting in 1505) before ultimately capturing the Delhi Sultanate from a much larger army. The sultan had 100,000 men and 100 elephants lined up against Barbar’s 12,000. However the latter’s troops were much more mobile, using mounted warriors to surround enemy lines, as well as muskets and small canon in common use by the Ottoman Turks.

Maharam Sengram Singh led a major coalition of Hindu Rajput, Indian Muslim and Indo-Afghan troops against the invaders, which Babur ultimately defeated in 1527 to occupy all Muslim and Hindu cities of North India.

After constructing a string of watchtowers and postal rests along the highway to Kabul (which remained his home base). Barbur, who found north India oppressively hot and humid, sealed himself off in Delhi in walled-off water cooled gardens. When he died, his body was returned to Kabul for burial.

After taking up his father’s throne in Delhi in 1530, his oldest son Humayun declared himself divine and made an unsuccessful attempt to conquer south India. Sher Khan, who ruled the Bengal sultanate, united the Indo-Afghans from Bengal and Gujarat against him and eventually drove him out of India. In 1540 Sher Khan replaced him in Delhi as Sher Shah.

In 1555 Humayun recaptured the Mughal lands from Sher Shah’s son Isam Shah. He died a few days later after a fall, leaving his 13-year old son Akbar to reestablish the empire.

*Mughal is a Persian world for a warrior of mixed Mongul/Turkic origin.

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

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/366254/366209

Health Program or Military Program? Military Official to Lead New Pandemic Policy Office

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Retired Major General Paul Friedrichs, a military combat surgeon who strongly supported COVID-19 vaccine mandates and countermeasures, will lead the new Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, the White House announced last week.

Just weeks after ending the COVID-19 national and public health emergencies and the resignation of COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha, the White House launched its Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR).

Retired Major General Paul Friedrichs, a military combat surgeon, will lead the office, the White House said.

According to the White House, the OPPR will be “a permanent office in the Executive Office of the President (EOP) charged with leading, coordinating, and implementing actions related to preparedness for, and response to, known and unknown biological threats or pathogens that could lead to a pandemic or to significant public health-related disruptions in the United States.”

The OPPR will take over the duties of President Biden’s COVID-19 and monkeypox response teams, including “ongoing work to address potential public health outbreaks and threats from COVID-19, Mpox, polio, avian and human influenza, and RSV [respiratory syncytial virus],” the announcement stated.

The OPPR also will oversee efforts to “develop, manufacture, and procure the next generation of medical countermeasures, including leveraging emerging technologies and working with HHS [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] on next generation vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 and other public health threats.”

According to The New York Times, Friedrichs, set to take office Aug. 7, will have the authority to “oversee domestic biosecurity preparedness.” He will work on the development of next-generation vaccines, ensure adequate supplies in the Strategic National Stockpile and “ramp up surveillance to monitor for new biological threats.”

Several medical, biosecurity and civil liberties experts questioned the selection of a career military and biosecurity individual to head a new office charged with pandemic preparedness.

They also told The Defender they saw parallels between the White House’s establishment of the OPPR and ongoing United Nations (U.N.) efforts to draft a global declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR).

‘Is OPPR a health program or a military program?’

Friedrichs, a board-certified physician, is currently a special assistant to the president and senior director for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the National Security Council.

He previously served as joint staff surgeon at the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and as medical adviser to the Pentagon’s COVID-19 task force.

Throughout his career, the White House said, Friedrichs worked closely with federal, state, tribal, local and territorial government partners, as well as industry and academic counterparts.

[…]

In his previous roles at the National Security Council and DOD, Friedrichs was a strong proponent of COVID-19 vaccines and countermeasures.

The Times reported that, in a February speech, Friedrichs said, “The military health system became the pinch-hitter that stepped in to help our civilian partners as we collectively struggled to work through that pandemic.”

In a February 2022 podcast, Friedrichs praised the COVID-19 vaccines and also appeared to blame those who were unvaccinated for placing “stress on our system.”

And in remarks shared in January 2022 with the Association of the United States Army, Friedrichs asked military families to continue holding off on gatherings so that service members are “able to do the things that our nation depends on them to do.”

Does Friedrichs’ appointment signal more vaccine mandates?

Describing Friedrichs’ appointment as “a joke and a fraud,” Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., a bioweapons expert and professor of international law at the University of Illinois who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, told The Defender:

“DOD has routinely enforced experimental medical vaccines on U.S. Armed Forces, in gross violation of the Nuremberg Code on Medical Experimentation — that is, a Nuremberg crime against humanity — from today’s COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ and going all the way back in recent history to the ‘vaccines’ that produced Gulf War sickness starting in 1990-1991, when Friedrichs was a U.S. Military medical doctor.

“Of 500,000 U.S. troops inoculated, 11,000 died and 100,000 were disabled. I do not recall that Friedrichs was among the handful of courageous and principled military medical doctors who refused, as a matter of principle, to inflict Nuremberg crimes on our own troops. Did he? That needs to be investigated.”

Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom,” said the selection of Friedrichs, who supported military vaccine mandates, may signal similar future mandates for the general public.

[…]

And writing on her blog, Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist, biological warfare epidemiologist and member of the Children’s Health Defense scientific advisory committee, questioned if the OPPR plans “to use the military’s OTA [other transaction] authority again to bypass the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] and vaccinate us with untested junk that turned out to be poison, like it did for COVID.”

[…]

Similarly, Dr. David Bell, a public health physician, biotech consultant and former director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund, told The Defender:

“COVID-19 demonstrated that the sort of interventions envisioned by the pandemic preparedness lobby such as lockdowns and coerced mass vaccination, have poor public health outcomes.

“Public health should be concentrated on informing the public to make personal decisions about health, rather than the population-control approaches we saw for COVID-19 that are most profitable to the corporate world. We must hope this new health bureaucracy is more independent of vested interests, and will take an evidence-based approach.”

Nass suggested that Friedrich’s selection belies a broadly encompassing biosecurity agenda, which would include censorship of non-establishment medical information, surveillance and mass, or mandatory, vaccination, tied to U.N. and World Health Organization (WHO) “pandemic preparedness and response” efforts.

A ‘WHO globalist worldwide medical and scientific police state’ here in the U.S.?

Other experts also noted the similarities between the name of the OPPR, the U.N.’s draft PPPR and a similar recent agreement among WHO member states.

Still in “zero draft” form, the PPPR is scheduled to be discussed by the U.N. General Assembly in September 2023. It would also be tied to the WHO’s proposed pandemic treaty and amendments to the International Health Regulations.

Similarly, a June 28 document from the WHO said, “Member States … have agreed to a global process to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”

And a separate but similar set of proposals — part of the U.N.’s “Pact for the Future” and “Our Common Agenda” — would give the U.N. secretary-general unprecedented emergency powers not only for pandemics but seemingly for an unlimited range of other potential crises. The U.N. will discuss these proposals in September 2024.

Boyle told The Defender the OPPR is “obviously being coordinated with the U.N. [and] the Biden administration to establish the effective functioning of a WHO globalist worldwide medical and scientific police state here in the United States.”

“You need the mentality of an unprincipled military medical major general to do that,” Boyle said. “All the trains will run on time.”

[…]

Notably, proposals for a government “pandemic preparedness” office date at least as far back as October 2020, when the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) issued an extensive set of recommendations calling upon the U.S. government to “adopt a robust strategy for domestic and global pandemic preparedness.”

The report recommended that the U.S. “finally treat pandemics as a serious national security threat, translating its rhetorical support for pandemic preparedness into concrete action.”

According to the CFR, this would entail “bolstering the White House’s leadership role in preparing for and responding to pandemics, improving congressional input into and oversight over executive branch efforts, reforming the CDC so that it can perform more effectively, and clarifying the often confused division of labor across federal, state, and local governments in pandemic preparedness and response.”