Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 534
July 27, 2022
Saudis Resell Russian Oil to EU
Drago Bosnic, independent geopolitical and military analyst
InfoBRICS
Ever since United States President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he’s been trying to bring Saudi Arabia back to the political West’s flock. The attempts to do so have escalated significantly after Russia launched its counteroffensive against NATO’s crawling encroachment. Biden made numerous futile attempts to contact Saudi leadership, culminating with a failed visit on July 15.
The reasons why Saudi Arabia has been reluctant are many, including the openly declared intention of the US leadership to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. With oil being the lifeblood of Saudi Arabia virtually since its inception as a modern country, it is quite clear why Saudi leadership is not too keen to help the US achieve such a goal.
Joe Biden engaged in a sort of quasi-Reaganian attempt to have Saudi Arabia significantly increase oil production, which should have accomplished at least two goals. First, bring down oil prices, alleviating the pressure on the US economy while it transitioned towards alternative energy sources, and second, help bring Russia’s economy to its knees, very much in the same manner late US President Ronald Reagan did during the 1980s, which many in the political West believe helped bring down the Soviet Union. However, it seems President Biden did not only fail to achieve either of the two, but has actually made things worse for the political West.
Naturally, all major oil-producing countries have used oil price hikes on the global market to profit exponentially more while having to pump virtually the same quantity of oil. This is especially true for Saudi Arabia, the world’s third-largest oil producer, right after Russia and the US. After the political West imposed sanctions on Russia, the markets went into a frenzy, which immediately caused an increase in the price of all energy products, including crude oil. However, now it was Russia that was selling the cheapest oil, making it extremely attractive for other countries which simply couldn’t afford anything more expensive. Soon, massive oil importing countries like China and India started buying more Russian oil than ever before.
At this point, Russia was starting to overtake Saudi market share in other countries, including China, one of the world’s largest oil consumers. At a glance, this should’ve made Saudis more open to the idea of ramping up oil production and causing a drop in prices. But again, why would they do that for the interests of the US, whose government takes an openly hostile approach toward the oil industry, including its own? Expectedly, Riyadh had to find an alternative. And that’s exactly what happened after it made a deal with Russia within the OPEC+ framework. Among other things, this deal also seems to include an increase in Saudi import of cheaper Russian oil. And indeed, according to Reuters, the Wahhabi monarchy doubled its Russian oil imports in the second quarter of this year.
Now, we might ask ourselves, why would the world’s third-largest oil producer and a net exporter want to import more oil? Although it might not have much sense at a glance, in reality, it is very convenient for the Saudis to do so. After the political West imposed the suicidal sanctions on Russia, effectively enforcing an oil embargo on itself, Saudi leadership realized how much of an opportunity this was for Riyadh to buy the cheaper Russian oil and then re-export it to the European Union and elsewhere. For Russia, this was not only acceptable but even desirable. The EU, which did just as much damage to Russia’s interests in the post-Soviet region as the US itself, is now effectively still buying Russian oil, just through a middleman, paying exorbitant prices to get the same amount of oil as before February.
This is weakening the EU, putting tremendous pressure on the already failing European economies, which haven’t even recovered from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also affecting the US, as oil prices are soaring, exacerbating the inflation problem, which is now at the highest point in over 40 years. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is profiting immensely, as it is now effectively a middleman, reselling Russian oil to the political West. This also alleviates the strain on the Saudi oil industry, making it possible to work less, while profiting more. In addition, it nullifies Saudi losses in other markets, particularly in China and India, both of which are now buying more Russian oil.
The only losing side in this situation is the political West, particularly the EU. As long as Brussels is locked in a confrontation with Russia, it will be forced to buy Russian oil through Saudi Arabia and other middlemen. This is weakening EU economies, making them less competitive on the global market while also draining the resources of the domestic market, bringing down demand and effectively causing a recession.
In the meantime, Washington DC is still importing Russian oil and removing other sanctions on essential Russian commodities to reduce pressure on its own economy. All the while, mindless Brussels bureaucrats, completely detached from reality, keep following the US diktat. This will inevitably further impoverish and weaken the EU.
[…]Via http://infobrics.org/post/36248
July 26, 2022
Toxic Chemicals to Blame for Decline in Kids’ IQs
By Barbara Demeneix and R. Thomas Zoeller
Every baby born in America is contaminated with industrial chemicals and many of those chemicals — especially endocrine disruptors — affect brain development.
Brain function, especially in children, is often evaluated by intelligence tests resulting in an Intelligence Quotient or “IQ.”
IQ scores, after having increased for most of the 20th century, have been going down since the mid-1990s.
The decline is well documented across Europe, the U.S. and Australia.
Is this trend for real?
Some technical issues related to IQ measurements may be playing a role. However, scientific studies show that chemical exposures harm brain function in our children.
Every baby born in America (and in the developed world) is contaminated with industrial chemicals and many professionals — including numerous medical and scientific organizations — are focusing on the soup of chemicals in which we raise our children.
Many of these chemicals affect brain development, especially endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
Reducing exposure to these mixtures of chemicals offers the single best approach to improving the mental and physical health of our children.
An assault on our children
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals interfere with our hormones. Newborn babies are pre-exposed to mixtures of more than 200 endocrine-disrupting chemicals. These include phthalates, perchlorate, fluoride, BPA (bisphenol-A) and its substitutes, parabens, legacy chemicals such as PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and DDT (dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane), and heavy metals including lead and mercury.
What is worse: these chemicals are in the amniotic fluid and surround the baby during the first nine months of its life when the brain is forming at an incredible rate with thousands of nerve cells born per second.
Contamination continues through the mother’s milk or formula, through the air the baby breathes, in the creams, lotions and baby wipes used on its small body and more. This is an assault on our children — our species’ next generation.
The major culprits in reducing IQ
Let’s go through some of the worst offenders.
Consider phthalates. These chemicals are included in many consumer products, personal care products, processed foods, food packaging materials and medical supplies.
Several studies have shown that exposure to these chemicals causes reductions in IQ. In addition, they have been found universally, from the Arctic to Antarctica, including in different species from ants to alligators.
Perchlorate is a thyroid disruptor and is found in rocket fuel, fireworks and airbags, as well as in food packaging.
It is present in groundwater and can be taken up through the food we eat. Perchlorate acts by reducing the ability of the body to use iodine — an essential ingredient in the formation of thyroid hormone. Perchlorate affects IQ by suppressing thyroid function and producing a state of thyroid hormone insufficiency.
Fluoride that is often added to drinking water is another problem for brain development. One of the most clear-cut demonstrations of the fluoride-lowering effect on IQ came from Canada.
A study led by Christine Till measured the IQ of Canadian children living in different cities. There was a stark contrast in IQ, equivalent to 10 points, with lower scores in children that had fluoride in their drinking water.
BPA is the poster child of endocrine disruption, and its substitutes like BPS and BPF are equally problematic. A recent study found an increase in BPS use in thermal paper by 153% in a single year.
Other studies on BPS exposure show decreases in psychomotor function at 2 years of age associated with increases in ADHD. Several studies have also shown that BPF decreases IQ, showing interference with the thyroid system, which is essential for normal brain development.
The chemicals PCBs and DDT are considered “legacy” because their production was banned, but they both remain in our environment. Both of these chemicals decrease IQ in children and adults that were exposed as children. They act by interfering with the thyroid system.
Mercury is known to damage brain development, including detrimental effects on IQ. An example is the 2.5 IQ points lost in the cohort of exposed South Korean children.
And the mixture of all of these chemicals — and more — contaminate our children from conception to adulthood.
Breaking this vicious cycle
So yes — we are getting dumber. And we are watching it happen, pretending that the regulatory system that has overseen this debacle can reverse the trend.
While focusing on IQ gives us a glimpse at what is happening, there are other trends that are just as disturbing: the rise in attention deficit disorder and autism, as well as other brain-based disorders.
Although these trends will not be reversed overnight, we must find the political will to reduce these exposures.
The first step is for people to be aware of sources of contamination and avoid those sources; however, there is no face mask for endocrine disruptors. The next step is to empower regulatory agencies to effectively monitor and decrease exposure to the most common.
The science is established. We must prioritize our children’s health by reducing environmental contaminants.
[…]
Liberals and Conservatives Find Unity In Distrust of Mainstream Media
There Are No Sunglasses
A deeply polarized America is united in its ‘disdain and distrust’ of the media: Trey Gowdy“With this poll, we see confirmation that the majority of the American people do not trust corporate media, 85%. We the People have learned to see through big mA Gallup poll from early July showed a majority of Americans don’t trust print or television media.edia’s claim that they are the defender of Democracy, when it is now obvious that Big Media’s purpose is to manipulate Democracy, as the path to subverting real Democracy at the polls. Corporate control of the American electoral process through money and the media demonstrates most clearly that America is NO LONGER a Democracy, it is just another authoritarian dictatorship…complete totalitarianism is next.”
The media love to blame everyone but themselves: Gowdy
Fox News host Trey Gowdy tore into the country’s deteriorating trust in the media during his weekend show, ‘Sunday Night in America.’
“Sunday Night in America” host Trey Gowdy credited the media for managing to unite the country against them in a deeply polarizing political environment, citing a Gallup poll that found that 85% of the country has lost faith in print and television media.
POLITICO URGES READERS ‘DON’T BELIEVE POLLS SHOWING SINKING LEVELS OF TRUST IN THE MEDIA
TREY GOWDY: I want to congratulate the media, they have managed to do that which seemed impossible. A pandemic could not do it, natural disasters can’t do it, war can no longer do it. But the media has done it. In a country rife with vision torn asunder with political fights, the media has brought about a glimmer of unity. The media has united the country in believing that the media is untrustworthy, unfair, and biased.
Disdain and distrust for the media cross geographical and generational and ideological boundaries. In other words, having no confidence in the fairness of media may be the single most unifying thing we have going for us. And when everyone thinks you are wrong, that should be cause for self-reflection, but not for the media. They don’t blame themselves, they blame you and the internet and lack of diversity, except of course, a lack of political diversity. The public does not trust media and believe that media is fair, because the media is not fair. It’s not complicated. The media doesn’t speak truth to power, the media tries to influence whose in power. The media isn’t a societal referee, it’s an active participant in the contest.A country and a culture cannot survive without fairness. We need… an impartial, neutral detached judge… Americans know fairness is a virtue. And we salute the humility of those who can call the game without trying to influence the game.
[…]
New Four-Part Documentary “JFK: Destiny Betrayed” Leaves No Doubt That JFK Was Assassinated as Part of CIA Coup
John Potash
Covert Action Magazine
Oliver Stone film shows that JFK was trying to reorient U.S. foreign policy in more peaceful direction prior to his murder and that the Warren Commission was a fraud.
JFK: Destiny Betrayed presents convincing evidence confirming that U.S. intelligence orchestrated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Directed by Oliver Stone and written by Jim DiEugenio, the documentary series builds on Stone’s Oscar-winning 1991 film JFK.
It illuminates JFK’s opposition to the imperialist machinations of American oligarchs, who enlisted U.S. intelligence and the Mafia to orchestrate his assassination and then cover it up for decades.
The Shocking Presidential Assassination and Cover-up in a NutshellDebuting in May, JFK: Destiny Betrayed is now available on Amazon Prime and Vudu. Stone edited down the four-hour film to just under two hours for film festivals, titling the shorter version, JFK: Through the Looking Glass (previously reviewed in CAM by this writer).[1]
Destiny Betrayed gives more history regarding John F. Kennedy’s political career leading to his election as president in November 1960. The film also presents a bit more on Robert F. Kennedy in relation to his brother in the White House.
The four-part series begins with shocking and tragic footage of the multiple shots hitting JFK in the throat and head as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.[2]
Stone then shows Robert Kennedy, Jr., speaking about his father’s reaction: “My father’s first call [after the assassination] was to the CIA desk officer, asking ‘Did your people conduct this horror?!’”
Two aides to the president who had served in World War II drove in the car behind JFK’s car and said there was a crossfire of gunshots at the president.[3]
Slate founding publisher David Talbot wrote the book Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. He reported talking to Robert F. Kennedy’s aides who all thought the Warren Commission organized by Lyndon Johnson, JFK’s successor, produced a “fairy tale” report.
Two days after President Kennedy’s assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald’s arrest, Jack Ruby approached Oswald as he was being escorted in front of police and journalists in the police station garage, and fatally shot him.
JFK Evolved into a Civil Rights-Supporting Anti-Imperialist Leaving Vietnam’s OpiumAll four chapters of JFK: Destiny Betrayed present little-known aspects of JFK’s evolution toward positive work for the rights of the oppressed at home and abroad.
The first chapters discuss JFK’s opposition to CIA machinations.
JFK and RFK were arguably the most powerful people, outside of the Civil Rights movement itself, to lead the passage of the most comprehensive Civil Rights legislation since the Emancipation Proclamation, with their 1963-crafted Civil Rights Act.[4]
Chapter 3 presents Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stating his belief in the sincerity of the President and Attorney General as friends and advocates for Civil Rights.[5]
Regarding JFK’s political evolution, the series started with John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert’s visit to Vietnam in 1951 when he was a U.S. congressman and Robert was his campaign manager. JFK and RFK ended up finding that France’s war to continue colonizing Vietnam was futile and Vietnam deserved independence.
After becoming a senator in 1953, JFK opposed the advice of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to help the French in Vietnam by using nuclear weapons.
JFK also ended up giving a famous speech in the Senate in 1957 entitled “Imperialism: The Enemy of Freedom,” in which he called for supporting anti-colonialism in Africa and Asia.[6] This brought the wrath of both Democrats and Republicans on him.
Once in the White House, while President Kennedy and his brother waged war on the Cuban Revolution, they ultimately did not back a full-fledged military invasion of Cuba and forced CIA Director Allen Dulles’s resignation over the Bay of Pigs.
Allen and John Foster Dulles were lawyers representing various oligarchs’ interests. JFK further planned to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.”
While this documentary failed to mention it, President Kennedy also closed down Dulles’s CIA Project MK-Ultra twice, as people under Dulles kept it running behind JFK’s back.
As President Kennedy evolved toward wanting peace with the Soviet Union, Cuba and other leftist countries, he started back-channel correspondences with those countries’ leaders. Top JFK researchers such as James Douglas and Slate’s publisher, Talbot, published on the secret correspondence JFK and Khrushchev had behind their war-hawk generals’ backs.
JFK reportedly said to Norman Cousins that he was 100% committed to disabling all nuclear arms and he was ready to talk to the Soviet Khrushchev about that.
President Kennedy’s final blow against the war-mongering oligarchs came when he decided against sending American ground troops into Vietnam, and ordered an eventual complete pull-out of American involvement there.
RFK and Senate’s Church Committee Unveil CIA and Mafia Work in JFK’s AssassinationThe Warren Commission Report concluded that only Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
Author David Talbot referenced RFK’s aides saying Bobby Kennedy was determined to start an official inquiry into his brother’s assassination as soon as he entered the White House in 1969. RFK’s California 1968 presidential primary nearly assured that until gunmen assassinated RFK that primary night.[7]
Regarding the Warren Commission, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., summed up the fact that “commissions in this country anoint orthodoxies.”
Church Committee Senator Richard Schweiker (R-PA) stated that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had confirmed to him in a letter that Lee Harvey Oswald assassin Jack Ruby worked as an FBI informant.[8]
In April 1964, CIA-contracted Dr. Louis Jolyon West, who had regular correspondence with CIA Project MK-Ultra Director Sidney Gottlieb, interviewed Jack Ruby for 48 hours. Ruby reportedly had a sudden “acute psychotic break” during those interview hours. This barred any testimony from Ruby.[9]
Chapter 2 of JFK: Destiny Betrayed also linked Jack Ruby to the Mafia working with the CIA on removing President Fidel Castro in Cuba. The Church Committee exposed Johnny Roselli’s function as a liaison between the CIA and Mafia, which RFK Jr. claimed his father had been unaware of.[10]
The end of Chapter 1 presented several witnesses who confirmed that Lee Harvey Oswald was not on the 6th floor of the building from where the Warren Report said he fired fatal shots.
[…]
Revival of the Silk Road Under Kublai Khan
Episode 30: Pax Mongolica and Cultural Exchange
Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)
Dr Kenneth Harl
Film Review
Following Kublai Khan’s conquest of China, the Mongols imposed a Pax Mongolica* across the steppes, which ended centuries-long warring between nomad tribes. The resulting peace led to a revival of the Silk Road and renewed prosperity of both states and nomads involved in the Silk Road trade. It also resulted in unprecedented cultural exchange. Exchanges between Persia and China about geography and map-making enabled both kingdoms to produce maps that were far better than those Columbus used to explore the New World. The Persians also shared their knowledge of medicine (from Hindu sources) with China, as well as citrus and grape cultivation. While the Chinese shared their knowledge of tea, black pepper and cinnamon with the Muslim world.
Under Kublai Khan, the Mongols built great cities and set up lavish courts in many of the regions they conquered. He used captive Muslims and Christians to administer cities in northern China and captive Chinese to administer the Ilkhanate Empire (comprising modern-day Iran and parts of Azerbaijan and Turkey).
Most of the Golden Horde (northwestern sector of Mongol Empire – see Mongol Invasion of China) converted to Islam in the 13th century. Although the Ilkhanate abandoned Sunni Islam for Shi’a Sufism, Buddhism was also an important religion there until the empire collapsed in 1335.
Kublai Khan’s conversion to Buddhism (although he was equally tolerant of Daoism and Islam) resulted in its spread across the eastern steppes. The Uighurs, however, abandoned Buddhism for Islam. Most of Transoxiana also became Muslim.
Thanks to improvements in Silk Road security, it now became possible for European Christians to send envoys to Muslim courts for the first time, while Chinese porcelain became widely traded across the Muslim world. There was a simultaneous expansion in sea routes connecting Europe.
China shared their knowledge of block printing (invented under the Song Dynasty) with the Ilkhans, who used it to produce paper money. Under Kublai Khan’s Yuan Dynasty, gunpowder technology (discovered under the Han Dynasty) also spread across the steppes and into Europe.
This would be the first major eastern technology to take hold in Europe, leading the English to invent the cannon in the mid-14th century and hand held small arms in the 17th century. It was thanks to these technologies that they conquered the world over the next two centuries.
*Russian historians refer to the Pax Mongolica as the Mongol Yoke, owing to the massive slaughter of civilians during their conquest of the Russian principalities. 500,000 total were either killed or died of exposure and starvation (after the Mongols destroyed their homes and crops).
**Harl briefly discusses the Venetian explorer Marco Polo who traveled to China via the Silk Road in 1271 and served 23 years in Kublai Khan’s court. Because there are no references to the explorer in Chinese sources, Harl believes he likely served as a minor civil servant and exaggerated his role in his writings. His book The Travels of Marco Polo inspired Columbus’s voyage to the new world.
The film can be viewed with a library card on Kanopy.
July 25, 2022
To Be Awake is to Abandon Certainty for Uncertainty
By Martin Geddes
Questions Worth Pondering:
How “white” are the “white hats”?
There are people sacrificing everything in order to end human trafficking and take down those who commit this heinous crime. But given how the intelligence agencies have been bad systems with mostly good people, individual acts of honour and bravery can distract from the overall (less good) picture. Is the war really Black Hat Globalists vs White Hat Patriots, or it is more nuanced, with a “grey hat” alliance comprising anti-Satanist faction of the Cabal?
To what extent is this a war against the Deep State vs an internal ruling class power struggle?
Continuing this theme, are we seeing the “positive military” expend energy to take down the embedded crime networks, or have those crime networks been “divided and conquered” and set against each other? When “we have it all” comes into play, who is “we” and whose “all” is had? What are the real loci of power, and are they on-world or off-world? If there is covert power in benevolent hands, how is that different from a “deep state”?
Are mafias inevitable, and we just have to get rid of the genocidal supermafia?
Prostitution, narcotics, extortion, gambling, contraband — there’s a standard list of “difficult” stuff that is dealt with at the fringes of society. Most gangsters just want money, not absolute control over everything. They definitely are not engaged in a holy war against everything righteous; they know they are gangsters in it for an easy life and the excitement of danger. There are limits to the crimes they will commit. Do we have to make peace with this as a reality of life, or not?
How many of the “resistance” are criminals (just not into kiddie fiddling)?
In history there is a pattern of resistance movements attracting both the most noble and ignoble. After all, if you don’t fit into society, it could be because you’re too good, or too bad. If there is a supermafia threatening to take down all the other non-allied gangsters, how many of our “friends” fighting the Deep State are little more than everyday criminals looking to enrich themselves (and stay alive)? Or is this a mega clean out of all organised crime?
Who really put the Q drops out there and what’s their end goal?
To this day we don’t know who is really behind the Q drops, although we have hints. (Isn’t Virginia a nice place…) But given the complex fracturing of the military via infiltration, and the obscurity of its real command structure (given multiple coups over a century and more), we don’t ultimately know who is driving this project. Isn’t it curious that even anons show little drive to find out… or maybe we shy away from this classified subject for a reason?
Given how the public is disinformed and misinformed, what is the role of representative government?
The public has been brainwashed for decades with TV and movies, and longer via the “diseducation system” and “malorganised religion”. Given that many are completely deluded about their society, and most of us are still figuring it out, to what extent can we meaningfully engage in representative government? Is the answer different at a local, regional, national, and international level? Is the real problem with election and voter fraud, or the mindset and understanding of the electorate?
How do you tame the inevitable authoritarianism needed to keep people alive in the transition from dark to light?
If we accept for the sake of argument that humanity is in a rebirth process, then we are very vulnerable, and need some level of “parental” care and supervision during the transition back to independence and sovereignty. We will not always be in a position to make the best choices on our own behalf, for instance dealing with poisoned food and medicine. This implies some (benevolent) authoritarianism. But to whom are those authoritarians accountable, and how is this power made to diffuse rather than concentrate again?
[…]
Via https://newsletter.martingeddes.com/p/questions-worth-pondering
FDA: Arsenic, Other Toxic Heavy Metals Discovered in US Food
A new report * from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed the agency found significant levels of toxic heavy metals in the U.S. food supply. The FDA found lead in 15% of food samples, arsenic in 43% and cadmium in 61%.
Baby foods were among the most contaminated for arsenic and lead. The FDA analysis also found that out of 384 baby food samples collected, 51% had detectable levels of total arsenic. The highest levels of arsenic were found in infant cereals and items like teething biscuits and puffed snacks. Additionally, the FDA found 65% of the samples contained cadmium, 21% contained lead and 3% contained mercury. Toxic heavy metals endanger infants’ neurological development and long-term brain functioning.
Overall U.S. Food Supply containing toxic heavy metals
ARSENIC: The foods with the highest arsenic concentrations were seafood, including baked cod, canned tuna and fish sticks.
LEAD: According to the new FDA report, the highest lead concentrations were in baking powder, cocoa powder, baby food sweet potatoes, baby food teething biscuits and sandwich cookies. Products like ranch salad dressing, white wine and sweet potato based baby foods were all found to contain lead.
URANIUM: Uranium was detected in American cheese and chocolate chip cookies. These two snacks are commonly consumed by children.
CADMIUM: The foods with the highest cadmium concentrations were sunflower seeds and spinach. While cadmium was detected in most vegetable samples, many concentrations were low.
[…]
Australia’s COVID-19 Cases And Death Rates Currently Among World’s Highest
There were 5,450 patients in hospital with Covid on Monday, official figures show, eclipsing the previous record of 5,390 during the first Omicron wave in January.
Professor Mike Toole, an epidemiologist from the Burnet Institute, said Australia was probably in the worst phase of the pandemic.
Professor Toole has studied the latest international data and found that Australia had some of the highest COVID-19-related numbers per capita.
“In the past seven days, Australia has ranked number three in cases per million population,” Professor Toole said.
“We [also] ranked number three for deaths per capita, so much higher than the US, UK, France, Germany.”
Early Covid SuccessAustralia was hailed as a Covid success story early in the pandemic when it managed to keep cases at virtually zero by turning itself into a hermit state with repeated lockdowns and border closures.
But the brutal ‘Zero Covid’ policy — which it only ditched nearly two years into the pandemic — is thought to have left its population with subpar immunity.
Around 95 per cent of Australians have been double-vaccinated and 70 per cent boosted, but barely anyone had been exposed to the virus until this year.
The draconian lockdown strategy is also thought to have weakened people’s immunity to seasonal illnesses, and has been blamed for the current flu outbreak.
The Indian Express: “Australia, Europe and Japan see surge in COVID cases. WHO said that cases tripled across Europe in the past 6 weeks, accounting for ½ of all infections globally. Hospitalization rates in Europe have doubled”
https://t.co/t8dgFzLGRW
— Sputnik V (@sputnikvaccine) July 25, 2022
Australia’s flu season, which typically runs from June to September, started unusually early this year and caused infections to spike up to 10 times higher than the pre-pandemic level in some weeks.
[…]
Six Things to Know About Amazon Expanding into the Health Care Business
Posted on July 25, 2022 by Texans Jack & DodieClever JourneysAmazon plans to buy One Medical for $3.9 billion to expand their growing healthcare empire. One Medical’s parent company, 1Life Healthcare, Inc., closed Thursday at $17.25, just below Amazon’s offered price of $18.
The massive retailer first entered into healthcare in 2019.
Here are six things to know about the deal and Amazon’s previous endeavors to invade the healthcare industry:
One Medical is an app and website members use to book appointments, track health records and renew prescriptions.
One Medical has yet to turn a profit since going public in 2020. In the first three months of 2022, losses reached $90 million.
The acquisition of One Medical will pit Amazon against other companies such as UnitedHealth Group’s Optum, CVS Health and hospital systems that increasingly employ physicians.
Amazon’s previous forays into healthcare include a $1 billion deal for a business to ship prescriptions nationwide and a venture to remake healthcare that companies offer to U.S. workers. They haven’t met with much success so far.
In 2019, Amazon launched Amazon Care, a telehealth service it first offered to its employees. Last year, they indicated this would expand in offerings to other companies.
Amazon also launched its own pharmacy business after buying online pharmacy PillPack two years ago, but the service has failed to gain meaningful traction so far, critics and rivals say.
July 24, 2022
Serbs Bombed by NATO in 1999 Show Blood Uranium Levels Hundreds of Times Above Norm
Ilya Tsukanov
Sputnik News
The US and its allies spent 78 days bombing the now-dissolved nation of Yugoslavia in 1999, contaminating the Balkans with at least 15 tons of depleted uranium (DU) munitions. In the United States, troops who have been exposed to DU are eligible for generous disability benefits. Nothing of the kind has been offered to the people of Yugoslavia.
Medical testing of a Serbian soldier and civilian who came under fire during the 1999 NATO bombings has found that the level of radioactive uranium in their bloodstreams is “hundreds of times” above the norm, Serbian attorney Srdan Aleksic has told Sputnik.
Aleksic, who has spent several years filing lawsuits to try to ensure compensation for the victims of the DU bombings, said the testing was carried out in Turin, Italy, and that his legal team is now awaiting an official translation of the results into Serbian.
“So I will not delve into the medical details. But the results are frightening, not only for southern Serbia, Kosovo and Metohija and the ground-based security zone between them, where our first plaintiff served for 200 days,” Aleksic said.
“The second analysis was taken from a woman in Belgrade… Her results are a little better. We will file a lawsuit on the basis of the results,” he added. Serbian media indicated that the woman was exposed to DU after finding herself near the bombed out Ministry of Defense building in the Yugoslav capital in 1999.
Turin-based forensic scientist Dr. Rita Celli, a DU analysis expert who assisted multiple Italian legal cases seeking compensation for Italian troops who fell ill or died following their exposure to the deadly substance, characterized the pair of Serbians’ test results as “dramatic.”
She indicated that the levels of uranium-238 found in their tissue was as much as 500 times above normal, and that such high levels of DU contamination have not been established in any other civilians or military personnel that she knows of.
Celli’s approach involves blood testing and biopsies, and a search for aluminum, barium, antimony, lead, molybdenum, and other metals.
“All of the detected metals contain traces of U-238, which comes from the shells used by NATO during the bombing of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and especially Kosovo and Metohija. Its effects have almost certainly also affected surrounding countries, such as Albania and Macedonia,” Celli told Serbian outlet Vecherne Novosti in an article published Saturday.
Under normal conditions, Celli said, the maximum amount of aluminum in a liter of blood is 3.3 micrograms. But in Italian and Serbian troops suffering from DU contamination, it runs from 500, 2,000, or even 3,000 micrograms. Among civilians, the safe level of uranium is 0.0053 units per liter of blood, while among those who have been contaminated, it can reach up to 10 micrograms.
Aleksic is working with Italian lawyer Andel Fiore Tartaglia, who has spent decades fighting for compensation for DU exposure suffered by Italian troops and their families, including among those who served in Kosovo during NATO’s ground-based occupation of the breakaway Serbian territory. In 2021, the lawyers filed a lawsuit in the High Court of Belgrade to demand that NATO provide financial [compendsation] for Serbian victims of the DU bombings.
Hearings in the case are expected to begin in October, but NATO has already preemptively declared that the bloc has “full immunity” from prosecution under Serbian jurisdiction on the basis of agreements signed in 2005 and 2006.
Aleksic told Sputnik Serbia earlier this year that the immunity claims are rubbish, since such immunity can’t be applied retroactively – i.e. to the 78-days which NATO spent bombing the country between March and June of 1999.
Tartaglia similarly told Vecherne Novosti in its Saturday article that “there is no immunity for war crimes and the principle of retroactivity does not apply.”
In 2000, a Belgrade court found former US General Wesley Clark and NATO chief Javier Solana guilty of war crimes for the 1999 bombings. However, the ruling was overturned in 2001 following the color revolutionary overthrow of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his detention at The Hague, where he died in custody in 2006.
Serbia suffers from one of the highest cancer rates in Europe, with close to 60,000 oncology diagnoses made each year, and cancers among children as much as two-and-a-half times above the European average. In the decades since the 1999 bombings, local doctors and scientists have also recorded an alarming rise in infertility, autoimmune diseases, and mental disorders.
The NATO war machine has used DU munitions in many of its campaigns since the end of the Cold War, sowing up to 2,300 tons of DU across Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion, and using the weapons in Afghanistan and Syria on a smaller scale. Military drills and accidents involving US aircraft are also said to have contaminated parts of Okinawa, Japan, Sardinia, Italy, and Remscheid, Germany.
As many as 20 nations, including Russia, France, Japan, China, South Korea, and South Africa are confirmed or suspected of having depleted uranium tank shells, armor piercing bullets, and air-dropped projectiles in their arsenals, but the United States and Britain are the only two countries confirmed to have used the substance in combat. DU’s potential for use as a weapon was first discovered in the 1970s, and it has been integrated into projectiles – particularly anti-tank rounds, due to its incredible density, comparatively low aerodynamic drag, and ability to penetrate deeper into targets than conventional shells.
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