The Islamic Republic of Iran warns all states to act intelligently towards the behavior of the fake Israeli regime and not to allow Zionists to set their feet in the Caucasus region, Iran Foreign Minister underlined.
Hussein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday.
Amir-Abdollahian expressed his sympathy and solidarity with the Turkish people and government over the recent deadly earthquake.
From the first hours of the earthquake, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution and the President issued strict orders for solidarity and help to the Muslim people of Turkey, he said, adding that the Red Crescent of Iran, the Army, and the IRGC entered the earthquake-affected areas, and offered services and provide accommodation, and medical assistance.
“Today we had important talks about the importance of developing economic and trade relations,” Amir-Abdollahian said, adding that in the past years, Iran-Turkey trade volume has witnessed an increase due to the will of the leaders of the two countries.
“One of our main concerns is environmental and water issues, and we agree on the importance of continued access of Iran and the people of the western regions of the country to the Aras River,” he also noted.
“When it comes to regional transportation corridors, including the corridors between Iran and Turkey, we emphasize regional partnership instead of the regional competition,” he also said.
Iran, Turkey entitled to defend themselves against terrorists
Referring to the high-level security cooperation between Iran and Turkey regarding the issue of the fight against terrorism, Amir-Abdollahian said, adding, “We consider Turkey’s security as our security.”
Terrorists based in Iraq’s Kurdistan region and ISIL terrorists based in Afghanistan are among common concerns of Tehran and Ankara, he stressed.
Under international law, Iran and Turkey reserve the right to defend against any terrorist act or group, he noted.
Zionists serious threat to regional peace, stability
Amir-Abdollahian also reiterated Tehran’s position about Zionists’ presence in the Caucasus region, saying, “We consider the presence of Zionists in the region as a serious threat to the peace and stability of the region.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran warns all parties to act intelligently towards the behavior of the fake Israeli regime and prevent Zionists from setting their feet on the region, he underlined.
Referring to the recent agreement reached between Ankara and Baghdad, he said that Iran welcomes participation in any quadrilateral meeting of Iran, Russia, Turkey, and Syria.
“We also reached a consensus on holding the tripartite meeting between Iran, Turkey, and the Republic of Azerbaijan,” he also added.
Deputy FMs of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Russia to meet next week
Cavusoglu, for his part, said that his Iranian counterpart Amir-Abdollahian wanted to join the talks between Turkey, Syria, and Russia, and Turkey happily agreed.
“Astana is the only surviving format (to address) Syria anyway. Now we are planning a meeting between the four foreign ministers,” Cavusoglu added.
“Russia offered to host a preliminary meeting for the preparations of this four-way meeting. This meeting will be held at the level of deputy ministers next week in Moscow,” he also said.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Turkish diplomat thanked Iran and its people for their continuous support for the quake-hit people of Turkey.
After the earthquakes in Turkey, Iran acted quickly by sending tents, relief teams, and setting up field hospitals, he said.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr President, colleagues,
https://thesaker.is/speech-by-the-president-of-russia-at-an-expanded-meeting-of-the-sco-heads-of-state-council/I fully share the statements made by my colleagues and their positive assessments of the work of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and its growing prestige in international affairs. Indeed, the SCO has become the largest regional organisation in the world. As previous speakers have pointed out, over half of the world’s population lives in SCO member states, which account for about 25 percent of global GDP and have a powerful intellectual and technological potential and a considerable part of global natural resources.
At the same time, the SCO is not marking time but continues to develop and build up its role in addressing international and regional issues and maintaining peace, security and stability throughout the vast Eurasian space. Colleagues, this is especially important in the current complicated international situation, about which we have talked in detail during our restricted-attendance meeting.
However, I would like to repeat that global politics and economy are about to undergo fundamental and irreversible changes. The growing role of new centres of power is coming into sharp focus, and interaction among these new centres is not based on some rules, which are being forced on them by external forces and which nobody has seen, but on the universally recognised principles of the rule of international law and the UN Charter, namely, equal and indivisible security and respect for each other’s sovereignty, national values and interests.
It is on these principles, which are devoid of all elements of egoism, that the joint efforts of SCO member states are based in politics and the economy. This opens up broad prospects for continued mutually beneficial cooperation in politics, the economy, culture, humanitarian and other spheres.
Fighting terrorism and extremism, drug trafficking, organised crime and illegal armed formations remains a priority of our cooperation. Other key areas include providing assistance in the political and diplomatic settlement of conflicts along our external borders, including in Afghanistan.
Strengthening economic cooperation has traditionally been a critical part of the SCO’s activities. Our joint efforts are designed to expand trade and investment exchanges, carry out mutually beneficial business projects in various industries, and to increase the volume of settlements in national currencies.
As noted above, including by the President of Kazakhstan, we are open to working with the whole world. The SCO is a non-bloc association. We help addressing the energy and food problems that are growing globally as a result of certain systemic errors in the world’s leading economies in the field of finance and energy. Our policy is not selfish. We hope that other participants in economic cooperation will build their policies on the same principles and stop using the tools of protectionism, illegal sanctions and economic selfishness to their own advantage.
The European Commission’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian fertilisers is a vivid example of such selfish behaviour. We are aware of the fertilisers’ important role in overcoming the food problem. Of course, we welcome the decision to lift the sanctions. But it turns out that, in accordance with the clarification of the European Commission of September 10, these sanctions were lifted only for EU countries. It turns out that they are the only ones who can purchase our fertilisers. What about the developing poorest countries around the world?
Taking advantage of the presence of UN Under-Secretary-General [Rosemary] DiCarlo, I would like to ask the UN Secretariat – I discussed this matter with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres the day before yesterday – to use its influence on the European Commission’s decision not in word, but in deed and to demand that they, our colleagues from the European Commission, lift these clearly discriminatory restrictions on developing countries and provide access for Russian fertilisers to their markets.
Also, the day before yesterday I apprised Secretary-General Guterres of the fact that 300,000 tonnes of Russian fertilisers are stocked at the EU seaports. We are ready to make them available to developing countries for free.
I would also like to note that Russia is increasing its grain exports to international markets. This year, it is going to be 30 million tonnes, and next year it will be 50 million tonnes with 90 percent of our food exports going to the markets of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Undoubtedly, the ongoing summit’s decisions and documents to improve the efficiency of international transport corridors, to expand intraregional, to advance industrial and scientific and technical cooperation, and to introduce high-tech solutions in agriculture and healthcare will promote further development of business ties within the SCO.
It is also important to advance cultural and humanitarian cooperation within the SCO.
Agreements and memorandums on cooperation in tourism and museology that will be signed during today’s meeting will serve as the next step forward on this path.
It appears that opportunities are good for stepping up sports cooperation and potentially holding major sporting events with SCO sponsorship. To do this, we could think about creating an association of sports organisations under our association.
Friends,
It was noted earlier today during the restricted-attendance meeting that the SCO states focus on expanding cooperation with countries that seek to establish an open and equal dialogue with our organisation and are interested in joining it. In this context, Russia, no doubt, favours the earliest possible accession of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the SCO, which is what the documents and the memorandum that will be signed today are designed to accomplish. We are convinced that Iran’s full-fledged participation will be beneficial for the association, as that country plays an important role in the Eurasian region and the world at large.
We also fully stand behind the decision submitted for approval by the Heads of State Council to start the process of admitting the Republic of Belarus as an SCO member. Let me be clear that we have always advocated that Belarus, which is Russia’s strategic partner and closest ally, should participate fully in the SCO. This will undoubtedly improve our ability to advance unity in politics, the economy, security and humanitarian matters.
Of course, we welcome the granting of SCO dialogue partner status to Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as well as the commencement of the procedure for obtaining this status by the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Republic of Maldives, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, and the United Arab Emirates. Notably, there are more countries desirous of cooperating with the SCO in various capacities, and applications from other states and international associations deserve our utmost attention and favourable consideration.
In closing, I would like to thank President Shavkat Mirziyoyev for the hospitality and excellent organisation of our work, and to congratulate Uzbekistan on its successful SCO chairmanship. I would also like to wish every success to our Indian friends who are taking over the chairmanship today.
The FSB reported on the identification of the customers and perpetrators of the murder of Daria Dugina.
The murder was planned by the Ukrainian special services. The direct perpetrator of the murder was a citizen of Ukraine Natalia Vovk, born in 1979, who left Russia for Estonia on August 21. She arrived in Russia on July 23.
It is also reported that:
1. Vovk and her daughter Sofya Shaban rented an apartment in the house where Daria Dugina lived in Moscow. 2. A “Mini Cooper” was used to spy on Daria Dugina. The numbers were changed three times on it — the license plates of the DPR, Kazakhstan and Ukraine were used
As reported, Daria’s car was blown up using a remote detonation of an IED with a capacity of 400 grams of TNT.
The car was driven from the parking lot to the explosion site. The suspects’ phones have disappeared from the network.The investigation continues.
Documents and photos of the murderer of Daria Dugina – a “serviceman” of the terrorist organization “Azov Regiment” – Natalia Vovk (nee Shaban).
Roger Waters has been added to the infamous website “Mirotvorets” (peacemaker) which lists the so-called “enemies of the Ukraine” and publishes their personal information:
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry said its forces have arrested a notorious terrorist who has committed a litany of terrorist activities in regional countries, including Syria.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the ministry said its forces have captured a hardened and dangerous terrorist who had been involved in terrorist operations in foreign countries.
According to the statement, the arrestee has taken part in terrorist activities in four countries of the region, had joined Takfiri-terrorist groups in Syria at the height of the crisis in the Arab country, and had committed criminal acts in the cities of Aleppo, Hama, and Idlib.
After the defeat of Takfiri terrorists in Syria, the “member of the ring of cross-border terrorism,” who is also an expert in heavy weapons, shifted his criminal activities to two neighbors of Iran and joined another terrorist group with criminal records against the unity of the Islamic community to continue with acts of sabotage against the Iranian nation and its territorial integrity, the statement added.
Earlier this month, the Intelligence Ministry arrested ten members of Daesh [the Arabic acronym for terrorist ‘ISIL’/’ISIS’ group] who had plans to carry out acts of terrorism targeting mourning ceremonies marking the martyrdom anniversary of third Shia Imam Hussein [AS].
Moscow has warned its diplomatic ties with Washington could be broken off should the US brand Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
If the US Senate acts on announced plans to single out Russia as such, it would mean Washington has crossed the point of no return, badly damaging – and possibly severing – ties, said the head of Russian Foreign Ministry’s North American department.
Alexander Darchiyev said Friday if the Senate passes a legislation designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, it would cause “the most serious collateral damage for bilateral diplomatic relations, to the point of downgrading and even breaking them off.”
“The American side has been warned,” Russia’s official Tass news agency cited the senior Russian as saying.
Two US senators seeking to pass such legislation visited Ukraine’s capital last month to discuss the bill with the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Russia’s neighboring country of Latvia passed a bill Thursday designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism over the persisting war in Ukraine, calling on its Western sponsors to impose more comprehensive sanctions against Moscow.
Late last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also warned against the Senate’s push to declare Russia as a sponsor of terrorism over the conflict in Ukraine after the senators unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution calling on Blinken to designate Russia as such.
Blinken, however, responded noncommittally to the request, saying any decision must be based on existing legal definitions.
“The costs that have been imposed on Russia by us and by other countries are absolutely in line with the consequences that would follow from designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Blinken said. “So the practical effects of what we’re doing are the same.”
Over the course of the war in Ukraine, the US and its Western allies have imposed unprecedented sanctions against Russia and supplied billions of dollars worth of weaponry to Ukraine.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov also warned last month that designating Russia as a state sponsor of terror would have “negative consequences” for the already fractured bilateral ties.
Zelensky, meanwhile, issued a fresh call on Friday for European Union member nations to impose a visa ban on Russian nationals, accusing them of being potential “killers or accomplices of state terror.”
“There must be guarantees that Russian killers or accomplices of state terror not use Schengen visas,” he said in a nightly address, referring to visas granting the holder access to the border-free Schengen Area that spans several EU states.
“Secondly, we must not destroy the very idea of Europe – our common European values,” he added. “Europe must therefore not be transformed into a supermarket where it is not important who walks in and where the main thing is that people just pay for their goods.”
Zelensky’s appeal was strongly slammed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who emphasized that “any attempt to isolate Russians or Russia is a process that has no prospects.”
The comedian-turned-president then went on to say that his proposal did not apply to Russians who needed help for risking their freedom or their lives by resisting Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s policies.
Zelensky initially called for a visa ban earlier in the week during an interview with the US-based Washington Post daily, insisting that Russians should live in their own world until they changed their philosophy.
His unprecedented demand, however, has yet to win support from the EU’s major players, according to European media outlets, though he praised the support of three ex-Soviet Baltic States and the Czech Republic, which currently serves as EU’s rotating president. Finland has also backed the idea.
Note: our “friends” from Commentary Magazine show their true agenda 🙂 It is quite comical to see US Zionists pointing fingers are others for “terrorism” when the USA is by far the biggest supporter and user or terrorists organizations on the planet, from Gladio to al-Qaeda… Andrei *******
“The security situation throughout Ukraine continues to be violent and unpredictable due to ongoing military attacks by Russia,” the U.S. State Department warned on July 14. “Avoid large gatherings and organized events as they may serve as Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine, including its western regions.” This was not the first time the American diplomatic mission in Kyiv warned civilians to avoid “gatherings and organized events,” but the atrocity that forced State to reissue this alert was horrific enough to take the admonition seriously.
Earlier that day, Russia fired three submarine-launched cruise missiles at targets in the Western Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, though it is unclear what the intended targets might have been. Those missiles fell on a populated shopping center, a dance studio, and a wedding venue, instantly killing 23 and wounding another 71 while burying scores more beneath the rubble. Some speculated that Russia’s intended target was a Ukrainian officer’s club, but the dubious military value of that target and the likelihood of collateral damage given the density of the city around it don’t do much to absolve Russia. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that collateral damage is deliberate and that terrorizing the Ukrainian public is the desired outcome.
If the United States has concluded that Moscow is deliberately targeting civilian “gatherings,” that should make academic any debate over whether to deem Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. And yet, the debate rages on.
According to Politico last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued an ultimatum to Secretary of State Antony Blinken: Either you label Russia a terror state, or we will. Resolutions that would brand Moscow a terrorist actor have been circulating in both federal legislative chambers since the spring, but Congress has not acted in deference to the Biden White House. Pelosi said the designation is “long overdue,” but the administration has been dragging its feet. The State Department insists the existing suite of sanctions against Russia is sufficient to isolate Moscow and reduce its capacity to project force in Ukraine. Additionally, the “secondary” sanctions a terrorism designation would trigger against nations and individuals with business ties to Russia could perversely weaken the existing sanctions regime.
“The sanctions we have in place and have taken are the same steps that would be entailed by the designation of a state sponsor of terrorism,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price insisted. But given that the State Department is in effect alleging that Moscow is prosecuting a campaign of terror, Congress may not accept this rationale much longer. Indeed, evidence of Russia’s wartime atrocities mounts by the day.
A Human Rights Watch report published this weekend alleged that Russian forces have engaged in a systematic campaign of torture. Detainees have been electrocuted, burned, and had their ribs and teeth broken. Reporting from occupied areas of Ukraine is replete with allegations of summary executions and forced abductions. Many thousands of Ukrainians have been “evacuated” to Russia where they are re-educated in “filtration camps.” Although Moscow and Kyiv reached a tentative deal to once again allow the export of grain through the country’s Black Sea ports, which would relieve some of the pressure this war has put on global food prices, a Russian cruise missile strike on the port city of Odessa’s shipping infrastructure this weekend calls into question Moscow’s commitment to humanitarianism.
The U.S. government does not deny that these atrocities are occurring. Indeed, officials warn that the worst is yet to come. Moscow intends to annex into the Russian Federation the territory it presently occupies in Ukraine, at which point it can proceed unmolested toward the goal of this war: breaking and eliminating the very idea of a Ukrainian identity.
Meanwhile, Russia proper has become intensely repressive and militaristic. Any expression of dissent against the war in Ukraine has been criminalized. Academics and journalists have been arrested. The number of “foreign agents” subject to punitive legal measures has exploded. Ominously, Jewish organizations can now count themselves among the many “foreign agents” Russia seems set on persecuting. “Multiple Jewish organizations in Russia have received threatening letters in recent weeks from the Russian Justice Ministry regarding their work,” the Jerusalem Post reported. The writing on the wall is legible from orbit.
The Biden administration has valid reasons for wanting to avoid the complications that would follow designating Russia a terrorist state, but Russia’s terroristic actions are rendering the White House’s resistance untenable. The administration’s hand may soon be forced. If so, it will be Russia, not Congress or the community of democratic nations, that forced it.
Question: Mr President, some would think the world has forgotten about Syria amid the numerous issues on the international agenda. But we have seen today that this is not so.
We would like to hear your views on the situation on the ground in Syria. A great deal has been said today about points of contact, but there are many differences as well. Have you discussed or coordinated any fundamentally new solutions today? I am referring primarily to these differences.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: What I would like to begin with is not the differences but the fundamental issues that allow us to work and continue our efforts in the trilateral format. All of us believe that it I necessary to guarantee the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and to eliminate all sorts of terrorists, which I will not enumerate here. This is the fundamental and the most important thing, as we have pointed out again in our joint statement. I believe that this is very important.
Yes, there are certain differences, which is obvious, but all of us support the constitutional process. Thanks to our efforts, we have brought together various conflicting parties at one negotiating platform, including the opposition and the official authorities of the Syrian Arab Republic, experts and representatives of public organisations, as well as the UN. I believe this is extremely important. This is the first point.
The second. Humanitarian aid is being provided to Syria, for which there is particularly great demand today, because the sanctions imposed on Syria and the Syrian people have produced a deplorable result: nearly 90 percent of people in Syria are living below the poverty line. The situation in Syria is extremely serious.
Of course, it would be unfair to give priority attention to certain groups, to politicise humanitarian aid.
Third. There are different approaches to organising humanitarian aid. We have always believed that it should be organised in full compliance with international humanitarian law. This means that all humanitarian aid must be provided through the official Syrian authorities, through Damascus. However, we have agreed to extend the existing procedure for six months, including for deliveries to the Idlib zone, so as to have more time for coordinating our positions.
There is some disagreement about what is happening in Northern Syria. Incidentally, we also have some common ground here: all of us believe that US troops should leave this area. This is the first point. And they should stop looting the Syrian state, the Syrian people, taking their oil illegally. But there is disagreement about how to organise and stabilise the situation in that region. As you know, Russian-Turkish observation convoys are working there together.
However, in our view, in order to ensure a long-term, stable situation there it is necessary to transfer the entire territory under the control of the official authorities in Damascus, under the control of the Armed Forces of the Syrian Arab Republic, and then it will be possible to hold a dialogue with those who are responsible – in this case the official Syrian authorities. I believe it would greatly stabilise the situation there.
But in general, it is work in progress. As I have said many times and would like to stress once again, the work of this tripartite group – Russia, Turkiye and Iran – this joint effort to search for compromises and find these compromises has led to the fact that over 90% of Syria is now under official government control and, as we say in such cases, we have broken the back of international terrorism there. This is a great result of this joint work.
Question: Mr President, you had three one-on-one meetings today, first with Mr Raisi, then with Mr Khamenei, and then with Mr Erdogan, and there were no news conferences after these meetings. All we know is the topic you were discussing, the official part.
In particular, you said that you discussed the grain issue with your Turkish counterpart, the issue of supplying Russian and Ukrainian grain to international markets. Could you tell us some more about that, please?
Vladimir Putin: There are no secrets here; in fact, almost everything is known. There are some subtleties; maybe I do not always have time to follow what is happening in the information field. I will tell you how I see it.
First, what was the highlight of the three meetings? At each meeting, there were issues that could be considered central to a particular bilateral meeting.
For example, as I said at the news conference, in my press statement, the main theme at the meeting with the Spiritual Leader of Iran was strategic issues, including developments in the region. This is natural, as it is the sphere of his activity. It was very important for me to hear his opinion, his assessment. I have to say that we have very similar views with Iran on many aspects. So, it was very important and very useful.
As for my meeting with President Raisi, we discussed primarily economic matters. I would like to note that Russian-Iranian trade has grown by 40 percent over the past six months. This is a very good indicator.
There are promising spheres for our cooperation, and there is a great variety of them, like infrastructure development. You may know that a deputy prime minister of the Russian Government chairs a group that is responsible for developing relations in the South Caucasus, including infrastructure projects in the South Caucasus, that is, in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia. A great deal can be achieved in this sphere in cooperation with Iran.
As you know, the first pilot train is travelling along the North-South Railway line. It is a short route to ports in the south of Iran, which further leads to the Persian Gulf and India.
There is a practical project: the Rasht-Astara railway is a short 146-kilometre line across Iran. Azerbaijan is interested in its construction. I recently met with President Aliyev during the Caspian Summit, and we discussed this matter. Iran is interested in this as well, as our Iranian partners have told us just now. Russia is interested in this, because it will connect Russia’s northern region, St Petersburg, directly to the Persian Gulf. It is a very interesting and promising project. The task now is to build this line, which is only 146 kilometres. Russia is ready to do this.
We need to coordinate the conditions of this construction project. We have discussed its general outlines with our Iranian partners and friends, and we have coordinated it with Azerbaijan. I hope we will get down to business now. And then, it will be an interesting job for us. It actually amounts to exporting the services of Russian Railways (RZD). This is one of the relevant examples.
There are other spheres. There are security issues relevant to Iran’s nuclear programme. It was very important for us to understand the sentiments of the Iranian party regarding this work. It also involves Russia, which is contributing to the joint efforts aimed at relaunching interaction between Iran and the IAEA. I will not speak about this now, but Russia is playing a considerable role in this.
The grain issue. It is what we discussed with the President of Turkiye. I have already said that the Republic of Turkiye and personally President Erdogan have done a great deal to facilitate the agreement on Ukrainian grain exports. But initially we suggested that it should be adopted as a package, that is, we would facilitate the Ukrainian grain exports provided all the restrictions on the potential exports of Russian grain are lifted. This is what we initially agreed upon with international organisations. They pledged to formulate this as a package solution. Nobody has so far raised any objections, including our American partners. We will see what comes of it in the near future.
As you know, the Americans have actually lifted restrictions, for example, on the delivery of Russian fertilisers to the global market. I hope this will also happen with regard to the export of Russian grain if they really want to improve the situation on the global food markets. As I have said, we are ready to do this right now. We can export 30 million tonnes of grain, and our export potential based on this year’s harvest will be 50 million tonnes.
Question: Mr President, a serious energy crisis is developing in Europe, which is discussing the possibility of Gazprom cutting off gas deliveries. The company has allegedly issued an official notification to one of its German clients, citing force majeure circumstances.
Are there grounds for accusing Russia of causing this energy crisis? Will Gazprom continue to honour its obligations
Vladimir Putin: First of all, Gazprom has always honoured, and will continue to honour its commitments.
There are no grounds at all for the attempts by our partners to shift or try to shift the blame for their own mistakes on Russia and Gazprom.
What is the situation with energy deliveries? In 2020, in the first half of 2020, gas cost 100 euros per 1,000 cubic metres in Europe. The price rose to 250 euros in the first half of 2021. Today it is 1,700 euros per 1,000 cubic metres of gas.
What is happening? I have spoken about this on numerous occasions, and I do not know if we should go into detail regarding the energy policies of European countries, which underrate the importance of traditional sources of energy and have put money on non-traditional energy sources. They are big experts on non-traditional relations, and they have also decided to make a bid for non-traditional energy sources like the sun and wind.
Last winter was long, there wasno wind, and that did it. Investment in the fixed assets of traditional energy producers has decreased because of previous political decisions: banks do not finance them, insurance companies do not insure them, local governments do not allocate land plots for new projects, and pipeline and other forms of transportation are not developing. This is a result of many years, probably a decade of this policy. This is the root cause of price hikes rather than any actions by Russia or Gazprom.
What is going on today? Until recently, we supplied gas to Europe without Turkiye: we supplied around 30 billion cubic metres a year to Turkiye, and 170 billion to Europe, 55 billion via Nord Stream 1, and, if memory serves me, 33 billion were supplied via Yamal-Europe, via the two strings that run through Ukraine. About 12 billion were delivered to Europe through Turkiye via TurkStream.
Ukraine suddenly announced that it was going to close one of the two routes on its territory. Allegedly because the gas pumping station is not under its control but on the territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic. But it found itself under the control of the Lugansk People’s Republic several months before, and they closed it just recently without any grounds. Everything was functioning normally there, no one interfered. In my opinion, they closed it simply for political reasons.
What happened next? Poland imposed sanctions on Yamal-Europe, which supplied 33 billion cubic metres of gas. They used to take 34, I think, 33–34 million cubic metres a day from us. They shut it down completely. But then we saw that they turned on the Yamal-Europe pipeline in reverse mode, and they started taking about 32 million a day from Germany. Where is the gas from Germany coming from? It is our Russian gas. Why from Germany? Because it turned out to be cheaper for the Poles. They used to get it from us at a very high price, closer to the market price, whereas Germany gets it from us 3–4 times cheaper than the market price under long-term contracts.
It is profitable for German companies to sell it to the Poles at a small premium. It is profitable for the Poles to buy it because it is cheaper than to buy it directly from us. But the volume of gas in the European market has decreased, and the total market price has gone up. Who has won? All Europeans only lost. This is the second point: Yamal-Europe.
So, first one of the routes in Ukraine was shut down, then Yamal-Europe was shut down, now Nord Stream 1, which is one of the main routes – we pump 55 billion cubic metres a year through it. There are five Siemens gas compressor stations working there, and one is on standby. One compressor had to be sent out for repairs. A repaired compressor was supposed to come from Canada, from the Siemens plant in Canada, to replace it. But it ended up under sanctions in Canada. So, one pumping station, just one piece of equipment was out of order because of scheduled maintenance work and it has not been returned from Canada.
Now we are being told that the unit will be delivered from Canada soon, but Gazprom does not have any official documents yet. We must certainly obtain them, because this is our property, it is the property of Gazprom. Gazprom should receive not only the hardware, not only the gas pumping unit, but also the accompanying documents, both legal and technical documentation. We must be able to see what Gazprom is taking – the turbine’s current condition as well as its legal status, whether it is under sanctions or not, what we can do with it, or maybe they are taking it back tomorrow. But that is not all.
The problem is that at the end of July, on July 26, I think – we can ask Gazprom – another turbine should be sent for routine maintenance, for repairs. And where will we get a replacement from? We do not know.
One more turbine is actually out of order because of some crumbling of its internal liner. Siemens has confirmed this. That leaves two operational units, which are pumping 60 million per day. So, if one more is delivered, fine, we will have two in operation. But if it is not, only one will be left, and it will pump only 30 million cubic meters per day. You can count how much time it will take to pump the rest. How is this Gazprom’s responsibility? What does Gazprom even have to do with this? They have cut off one route, then another, and sanctioned this gas pumping equipment. Gazprom is ready to pump as much gas as necessary. But they have shut everything down.
And they have fallen into the same trap with the import of oil and petroleum products. We hear all sorts of crazy ideas about capping the volume of Russian oil imports or the price of Russian oil. This is going to lead to the same situation as with gas. The result (I am surprised to hear people with university degrees saying this) will be the same – rising prices. Oil prices will spiral.
As for gas, there is another route we are ready to open, which is Nord Stream 2. It is ready to be launched, but they are not launching it. There are problems here as well, I discussed them with the Chancellor about six or maybe eight weeks ago. I raised this issue; I said that Gazprom had reserved the capacity, and that this capacity needed to be used, and it cannot be suspended in mid-air indefinitely.
The answer was that there were other issues on the agenda, more important things, so it is difficult for them to deal with this right now. But I had to warn them that then we would have to redirect half of the volume intended for Nord Stream for domestic consumption and processing. I raised this issue at the request of Gazprom, and Gazprom has actually already done it. Therefore, even if we launch Nord Stream 2 tomorrow, it will not pump 55 billion cubic meters, but exactly half that amount. And given that we are already halfway through this year, it would be just a quarter. Such is the supply situation.
But – I said this at the beginning of my answer to your question and I want to end with this – Gazprom has always fulfilled and will always fulfil all of its obligations, as long as, of course, anyone needs it. First, they themselves close everything, and then they look for someone to blame – it would be comical if it were not so sad.
Question: You spoke with Mr Erdogan today. He has repeatedly stated his readiness to arrange talks between you and Vladimir Zelensky. Has this issue surfaced today? Are you ready to meet with the President of Ukraine?
Vladimir Putin: President Erdogan is making a lot of efforts to create the necessary conditions for normalising the situation. It was during our talks in Istanbul that we actually reached an agreement, and it only remained to initial it. But, as you know, after that, when our troops, in order to create the right conditions, withdrew from central Ukraine, from Kiev, the Kiev authorities backed off on those agreements. These were agreements that had actually been achieved. So, you see that the final result depends, of course, not on intermediaries, but on the parties’ commitment to fulfil the agreements reached. And we can see today that the Kiev authorities have no interest in that.
As for Turkiye’s efforts, as well as other countries’ proposals – Saudi Arabia has offered its mediation services, and the United Arab Emirates, and they do have such capabilities – we are grateful to all our friends who are interested in resolving this crisis for providing their opportunities. Even their willingness to make some contribution to this noble cause is worth a lot. We are deeply grateful for that.
Siddiqui is a perfect example of what the US-led West truly thinks about terrorists in Pakistan. While their governments sometimes talk tough about them for political reasons, they secretly support their crimes whenever they target Chinese.
Twitter is known for its contentious moderation policies, but perhaps none are more controversial than its tolerance of Mainstream Media (MSM) journalists who glorify terrorism. Taha Siddiqui is one such journalist who just engaged in that shocking act on this platform earlier in the week. He describes himself on his account as a “Pakistani in exile” who’s reported for the New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and France 24. Accordingly, Twitter verified his account by giving him a blue check.
What he just did, however, should arguably get his account deactivated. Siddiqui went on a tweetstorm glorifying the suicide bomber who just blew up three Chinese teachers and their Pakistani driver in Karachi. Regardless of one’s position towards those separatists’ political cause, there’s never any justification for killing innocent people nor in blowing oneself up in order to do so. The female killer was a bonafide terrorist whose crime would have been universally condemned had she done it in the West.
Because she only killed Chinese and a Pakistani in Karachi, however, Siddiqui is able to glorify this suicide bomber with impunity. His partnership with the MSM, self-description as a “Pakistani in exile”, and blue check all mean that he’s untouchable by the platform. Siddiqui is a perfect example of what the US-led West truly thinks about terrorists in Pakistan. While their governments sometimes talk tough about them for political reasons, they secretly support their crimes whenever they target Chinese.
The “Balochistan Liberation Army” (BLA) that Siddiqui glorified in his tweetstorm was designated by the US as a terrorist group in 2019. Twitter is based in the US and must therefore comply with American law. It’s therefore of contentious legality for this platform to continue hosting Siddiqui’s tweetstorm. They’re arguably violating their own moderation policies and American law by keeping it up, though it’s unclear whether they’ll ultimately take it down, not to mention whether they’ll deplatform him as punishment.
One can only imagine the reaction if a Russian, Chinese, or Iranian journalist glorified a US-designated terrorist group that just carried out a suicide bombing attack in a Western country’s largest city. Not only would they be promptly deplatformed, but the MSM would turn their tweetstorm into a global scandal. They’d probably also speculate that the journalist in question was reflecting their homeland’s tacit support of whatever terrorist group it might be.
Nobody should expect that to happen with Siddiqui, however, since his tweetstorm reflects the West’s tacit support of the BLA’s anti-Chinese terrorist attacks. Twitter’s punishment of him would be the legally and morally right thing to do but the company remains close to the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) so it’s unlikely to do so unless activists across the world succeed in turning this into a global scandal.
Absent that scenario, the platform will likely keep Siddiqui’s tweetstorm up since it embodies the West’s undeclared support for the BLA’s Hybrid War on CPEC. Elon Musk, who just purchased Twitter, might even defend his new company’s decision if publicly challenged to do so as evidence of its support for free speech. The reality, however, is that Siddiqui’s tweetstorm is nothing but propaganda in support of a US-designated terrorist organization. It only remains up because of the West’s selective standards.
We speak to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s political advisor Bouthaina Shaaban. She alleges that the US has been working with ISIS to demographically change Syria and make way for a Syrian Kurdistan, the US’ theft of Syrian oil and natural resources, Israeli bombing of Syria, Syria’s inclusion into China’s Belt and Road Initiative and much more.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad discusses recent developments in Syria and the region with European Parliament Member, Thierry Mariani, and his accompanying delegation.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attributes spread of extremism to the European Union’s ‘failed policies’ in the Middle East.
SANA news agency tweets: Al-Assad delivered his speech after being greeted by Thierry Mariani, a member of the European Parliament and a member of the French National Rally party, as well as a delegation accompanying him.
الرئيس الأسد يستقبل تيري مارياني عضو البرلمان الأوروبي والوفد المرافق دمشق-سانا استقبل السيد الرئيس بشار الأسد تيري مارياني عضو البرلمان الأوروبي عضو حزب التجمع الوطني الفرنسي والوفد المرافق له.
During the meeting, a discussion on the developments of the situation in Syria and the region took place. Al-Assad answered the delegation members’ questions about the situation and the difficult conditions experienced by Syrians as a result of the sanctions and the unjust siege imposed on them. He noted that despite all the troubles this sieges afflicts on all aspects of life, the Syrian people are resilient.
President al-Assad considered it necessary to have a dialogue at parliamentary, intellectual and cultural levels to analyze and understand the developments and changes taking place in the region and the world. He emphasized the importance of parliamentary and cultural delegations visiting Syria and the region to see things as they are, and to be able to link political statements to the current situation. Such dialogue is important because as Europe grapples with the refugee crisis, terrorism and extremism seem to be the result of its failed policies in the Middle East.
The discussion touched on the role of nationalism in the Arab region, identity, and the relationship between religion and politics, as well as the major challenges confronting nations as a result of extremism that has infiltrated many societies, including European ones. This spread of extremism comes as a result of the EU’s failure to develop appropriate policies to ensure immigrants’ integration into Europe while preserving their original identity.
President Bashar al Assad welcomed China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi and his delegation, to Damascus on Saturday, 17 July. They discussed the “historic and distinguished relations binding the two friendly countries,” a relationship that dates back more than two thousand years.
President Assad thanked China for its ongoing support for the Levantine republic’s territorial integrity, support for Syria’s sovereignty in international forums, and for her support “to the Syrian people in various fields” (e.g., in 2018, the People’s Republic of China generously sent a 118 container cargo of transformers, cable, and other essentials to help the Syrian Arab Republic rebuild its electrical grid destroyed by NATO-supported terrorists; in 2019, the People’s Republic sent one-hundred public buses to enhance the transportation sector).
Gifts of transformers and buses from the People’s Republic of China, to the Syrian Arab Republic.
Syria and China discussed entering a new stage in bilateral relations, to open “wider horizons…to serve the interests of the two countries and peoples.”
President al Assad noted China’s “strong presence and its ethical policies which serve most countries around the world.” Minister Wang stated that China will continue to “support the Syrian people in the war against terrorism,” and in condemnation of the illicit sanctions imposed on the Syrian people and their inherent right to self-determination (which — of course — includes their right to elect the president of their choosing, despite NATO countries demanding the right to dictate their leader).
Wang Yi, Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China.
As expected, the two friendly nations discussed Syria’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative, sometimes referred to as The New Silk Road. The Belt and Road is the rebirth of the Ancient Silk Road, a 4,000 mile/6437 kilometer route of economic trade and cultural development ‘built’ around 139 BCE. The route lasted throughout the late 1300s, and also inspired Ibn al Nadim’s 10th century The Thousand Stories. Compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age, this work of literary art was a collection of stories and folk tales spanning the Asian continent during the period of great creativity and trade along the path of development.
That sound of werewolves howling and hyenas barking is actually coming from frustrated NATO imperialists and their peons at keyboards, enraged over the meeting; we can expect the shrieks to become increasingly loud.
Minister Wang stated that China opposes “any attempt to seek regime change in Syria,” and that “blatant foreign interventions in Syria have failed in the past, and will not succeed in the future.”
President Assad stated that “Syria unconditionally supports China on Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong issues.”
The visiting Chinese Minister Mr. Yi held another meeting with his Syrian counterpart Mr. Faisal Mekdad after which the ministers attended the signing of an agreement of economic and technical cooperation between Syria and China, a step toward practical work that will see China entering the Levant, properly after it entered through some investment in Israel, and Syria entering the route of the Belt and Road initiative.
Syria and China ink economic and technical agreement in Damascus
China, which vetoed a number of draft resolutions presented by NATO member states against Syria at the United Nations Security Council in a non-precedented diplomatic move in using its veto power for non-Chinese national security resolutions, and in which it was not required when the Russian veto was already there, is now challenging the US-led strangling blockade and sanctions against the Syrian people.
Postscript: Ibn al Nadim’s The Thousand Nights was the basis for the fairy tale of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp (set in China), and Prussian Christian Maximilian Habicht and Tunisian Mordechai ibn al Najjar co-authorship of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, via Antun Yosuf Hanna Diyab, a Syrian writer, cloth merchant, and famous storyteller, living in Paris in the 1600’s.
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We, foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member countries,
Advocating the development of Afghanistan as an independent, neutral, united, peaceful, democratic and prosperous state,
Realising that peace and stability in that country is one of the main factors in ensuring security in the SCO region,
Being convinced of the need to continue helping the Afghan people in their efforts to restore the country and return to the road of peace and national accord,
Declare the following:
As friendly neighbours and important partners of Afghanistan, the SCO member states are interested in its development as a peaceful, stable and prosperous country, and confirm their respect for the traditions and culture of all peoples living in Afghanistan.
In accordance with universally accepted principles and norms of international law, primarily the UN Charter, the SCO countries reaffirm their respect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Afghanistan. They intend to facilitate the development of Afghanistan as a country free from terrorism, war and drugs.
We condemn the violence and terror attacks that continue in Afghanistan, killing civilians and representatives of government bodies and call for their cessation as soon as possible. We note that the activities of international terrorist organisations remain one of the key factors of instability in that country. We express our deep concern over the escalation of tensions in the northern provinces of Afghanistan as a result of a sharp increase in the concentration of various terrorist, separatist and extremist groups. We consider it important for the SCO member states to enhance their joint efforts in order to counteract terrorism, separatism and extremism.
We urge all parties involved in the conflict in Afghanistan to refrain from the use of force and actions that may lead to destabilisation and unpredictable consequences near the Afghan borders with the SCO states.
The SCO member states reaffirm their willingness to continue developing cooperation with Afghanistan on countering security threats in the region, in particular, all forms and manifestations of terrorism and drug trafficking, and to jointly oppose double standards in resolving these tasks.
Emphasising the importance of long-term hospitality and effective aid for Afghan refugees, the SCO members consider it important for the international community to take active joint efforts to facilitate their proper, safe and sustainable return home.
We believe that reaching an early settlement in Afghanistan is a major factor in maintaining and strengthening security and stability in the SCO space. In this context, we emphasise the need for the Government and people of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to intensify their efforts to restore peace, promote national economic development and counter terrorism, extremism and drug-related crime. We confirm the position of the SCO members that the conflict in Afghanistan can only be settled by political dialogue and an inclusive peace process conducted and led by the Afghans themselves.
We urge all interested states and international organisations to strengthen their cooperation, with the UN playing a central coordinating role, in order to stabilise and develop the country. In this context, we note the activities of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General and the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy.
We welcome the diplomatic support for the peace process in Afghanistan by the international public, including the inter-Afghan peace talks in Doha, the extended Troika, the Moscow consultations format and the Tashkent venue. We note the outcome of the ministerial meeting of the Heart of Asia – Istanbul process in Dushanbe on March 29-30, 2021.
Respecting the Afghan people’s independent choice of their own path of development, we are convinced that the inter-Afghan negotiations must consider the interests of all ethnic groups living in the country.
We attach much importance to our cooperation in the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group. We consider it necessary to consistently implement the roadmap for further action by the Contact Group, which was adopted in Bishkek on June 14, 2019, with a view to strengthening regional stability and developing relations between the SCO states and Afghanistan.
We reaffirm the willingness of our countries to continue deepening cooperation with Afghanistan in politics and security, as well as in the economic and humanitarian spheres, including by maximising the potential of Afghanistan’s participation as an observer state in the SCO’s activities.
What ‘Q’ Would Never Tell You…The Shocking Truth Behind the Conspiracy Theories
Editor’s Note: The history of the Khazarians, specifically the Khazarian Mafia (KM), the World’s largest Organized Crime Syndicate that the Khazarian oligarchy morphed into by their deployment of Babylonian Money-Magick, has been nearly completely excised from the history books.
The present-day KM knows that it cannot operate or exist without abject secrecy, and therefore has spent a lot of money having its history excised from the history books in order to prevent citizens of the World from learning about its “Evil beyond imagination”, that empowers this World’s largest Organized Crime Cabal.
The authors of this article have done their best to resurrect this lost, secret history of the Khazarians and their large International Organized Crime Syndicate, best referred to as the Khazarian Mafia (KM) and make this history available to the World via the Internet, which is the new Gutenberg Press.
It has been exceedingly difficult to reconstruct this hidden secret history of the KM, so please excuse any minor inaccuracies or errors which are unintentional and are due to the difficulty in digging out the true history of Khazaria and its mafia. We have done the best we can to reconstruct it.
It was Mike Harris that connected the dots and made the actual discovery of the presence of the Khazarian Mafia’s secret history and blood oath to take revenge on Russia for helping Americans win the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and their blood oath of revenge against America and Americans for winning these wars and sustaining the Union.
At the Syrian Conference on Combating Terrorism and Religious Extremism December 1, 2014 — in his Keynote address, Veterans Today Senior Editor and Director Gordon Duff disclosed publicly for the first time ever that World Terrorism is actually due to a large International Organized Crime Syndicate associated with Israel. This disclosure sent shock-waves at the Conference and almost instantly around the world, as almost every world leader received reports of Gordon Duff’s historical disclosure that same day, some within minutes.
And the shock-waves from his historic speech in Damascus continue to reverberate around the world even to this very day. And now Gordon Duff has asked President Putin to release Russian Intel which will expose about 300 traitors in Congress for their serious serial felonies and statutory espionage on behalf of the Khazarian Mafia (KM) against America and many Middle East nations.
We now know that the Khazarian Mafia (KM) is waging a secret war against America and Americans by the use of False-flag Gladio-style terrorism, and via the illegal and Unconstitutional Federal Reserve System, the IRS, the FBI, FEMA, Homeland Security and the TSA. We know for certain that the KM was responsible for deploying an inside-job, Gladio-style False-flag attack on America on 9-11-01, as well as the Murrah Building Bombing on April 19, 1995.
The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia
100-800 AD – an incredibly Evil Society Emerges in Khazaria:
Khazarians develop into a nation ruled by an evil king, who had ancient Babylonian black arts, occult oligarchs serving as his court. During this time, Khazarians became known to surround countries as thieves, murderers, road bandits, and for assuming the identities of those travelers they murdered as a normal occupational practice and way of life.
800 AD – The Ultimatum is delivered by Russia and other surrounding nations:
The leaders of the surrounding nations, especially Russia, have had so many years of complaints by their citizens that, as a group, they deliver an ultimatum to the Khazarian king. They send a communique to the Khazarian king that he must choose one of the three Abrahamic religions for his people, and make it his official state religion and require all Khazarian citizens to practice it, and socialize all Khazarian children to practice that faith.
The Khazarian king was given a choice between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The Khazarian king chose Judaism and promised to stay within the requirements laid out by the surrounding confederacy of nations led by the Russian czar. Despite his agreement and promise, the Khazarian king and his inner circle of oligarchs kept practicing ancient Babylonian black-magic, also known as Secret Satanism. This Secret Satanism involved occult ceremonies featuring child sacrifice, after “bleeding them out”, drinking their blood and eating their hearts.
The deep dark secret of the occult ceremonies was that they were all based on ancient Baal Worship, also known as worship of the Owl. In order to fool the confederacy of nations led by Russia that were watching Khazaria, the Khazarian king melded these Luciferian black-magick practices with Judaism and created a secret Satanic-hybrid religion, known as Babylonian Talmudism. This was made the national religion of Khazaria and nurtured the same evil that Khazaria was known for before.
Sadly, the Khazarians continued their evil ways, robbing and murdering those from surrounding countries who traveled through Khazaria. Khazarian robbers often attempted to assume their identities after they murdered these visitors, and became masters of disguises and false identities — a practice they have continued even to this very day, along with their child-sacrifice occult ceremonies, which are actually ancient Baal Worship.
1,200 AD – Russia and the surrounding nations have had enough and take action:
About 1,200 AD, the Russians led a group of nations surrounding Khazaria and invaded it, in order to stop the Khazarian crimes against their people, which included the kidnapping of their young children and infants for their blood sacrifice ceremonies to Baal. The Khazarian king and his inner court of criminals and murderers came to be known as the Khazarian Mafia (KM) by neighboring countries.
The Khazarian leaders had a well-developed spy network through which they obtained prior warning and escaped from Khazaria to European nations to the west, taking their vast fortune with them in gold and silver. They laid low and regrouped while assuming new identities. In secret, they continued their Satanic child blood and sacrifice rituals and trusted Baal to give them the whole world and all its riches, as they claimed he had promised them, as long as they kept bleeding out and sacrificing children and infants for him.
The Khazarian king and his court Mafia plotted eternal revenge against the Russians and the surrounding nations that invaded Khazaria and drove them from power.
The Khazarian Mafia invades England after being expelled for hundreds of years:
To accomplish their invasion, they hired Oliver Cromwell to murder King Charles 1, and make England safe for banking again. This began the English Civil Wars which raged for nearly a decade, resulting in regicide of the royal family and hundreds of the genuine English nobility. This is how the City of London was set up as the banking capital of Europe and launched the beginning of the British Empire.
From David Icke’s website http://www.davidicke.com. David Icke was the first ever to courageously expose the Rothschilds publicly in front of hundreds. This, of course, makes him an international hero and we need more with his kind of courage to break open the coverup hiding the Khazarian Mafia and bring an end to their worldwide illegitimate power.[/caption]
The Khazarian Mafia (KM) decides to infiltrate and hijack all World Banking using Babylonian Black-Magick, also known as Babylonian Money-Magick or the secret art of making money from nothing also using the power of pernicious usury to accumulate interest:
The KM used their vast fortune to enter into a new system of banking, based on secret Babylonian black-magic money-magic that they claimed to have learned from the evil spirits of Baal, in return for their many child sacrifices to him.
This Babylonian money-magick involved the substitution of paper credit certificates for gold and silver deposits, which allowed travelers to travel with their money in a form that offered easy replacement should they lose the certificates or have them stolen.
Interesting how the very problem that was started by the Khazarians also had a solution provided by them. Eventually, the Khazarian king and his small surrounding court infiltrated Germany with a group that chose the name “the Bauers” of Germany to represent them and carry on their Baal-powered system of evil. The Bauers of the Red Shield, which represented their secret blood-based child sacrifices, changed their name to Rothschild (aka “child of the rock, Satan”).
The Rothschilds as the front Men for the Khazarian Mafia (KM) infiltrate and Hijack British Banking and then hijack the whole nation of England:
Bauer/Rothschild had five sons who infiltrated and took over European banking and the City of London Central Banking System through various crafty covert operations, including a false report of Napoleon winning against the British, when actually he lost. This allowed the Rothschilds to use fraud and deception to steal the wealth of the English nobility and the landed gentry, who had made business investments with the City of London Banking institutions.
The Rothschilds set up a private Fiat banking system that specialized in making counterfeit money from nothing — charging pernicious usury for the British people, using what should have been their own money.
This was the black art of Babylonian money-magick; they claimed to insiders that such technology and secret money power was provided to them by Baal, because of their frequent child bleeding-out and sacrifices rituals to Baal.
Once they had infiltrated and hijacked the British banking system, they interbred with the British Royals and infiltrated and completely hijacked all of England and all its major institutions. Some experts believe that the Rothschilds genocided the Royal Family members by staging secretly-managed illicit and adulterous breedings with their own Khazarian men in order to replace the Royals with their own pretenders to the throne.
The Khazarian Mafia (KM) wages an international effort to eradicate Kings who rule by the Divine Right of God Almighty:
Because the KM claims to have a personal partnership with Baal (aka the Devil, Lucifer, Satan) because of their sacrifices to him. They detest any kings who rule under the authority of God Almighty because most feel a responsibility to make sure their own people are protected from infiltrators and treasonous “Enemies within the Gates.”
In the 1600s, the KM murder the British Royals and substitute their own fakes. In the 1700s, they murder the French Royals. Right before WWI, they murder, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand to start WW1. In 1917 they assembled their KM army, the Bolsheviks, and infiltrate and hijack Russia, murder the Czar and his family in cold blood, bayonet his favorite daughter through the chest and steal all the Russian gold, silver and art treasures. Right before WW2, they murder the Austrian and German Royals. Then they get rid of the Chinese Royals and disempower the Japanese ruler.
The Khazarian Mafia’s intense hatred of anyone who professed faith in any God but their god Baal has motivated them to murder kings and royalty and make sure they can never rule. They have done the same with American presidents — running sophisticated covert operations to disempower them.
If that doesn’t work the KM assassinates them, as they did to McKinley, Lincoln, and JFK. The KM wants to eliminate any strong rulers or elected officials who dare to resist their Babylonian money-magick power or their covert power gained from the deployment of their human compromise network.
The Rothschilds create international narcotics trafficking on behalf of the KM:
The Rothschilds then covertly ran the British Empire and crafted an evil plan to recover the vast amounts of gold and silver the British had been paying to China for its high-quality silk and spices that were unavailable anywhere else.
The Rothschilds, through their international spy network, had heard of Turkish opium and its habit-forming characteristics. They deployed a covert operation to buy Turkish opium and sell it in China, infecting millions with a bad opium habit that brought back gold and silver into the Rothschild coffers, but not to the British People.
The opium addictions created by Rothschild opium sales to China harmed China so much that China went to war on two occasions to stop it. These wars were known as the Boxer Rebellions or the Opium Wars.
The money the Rothschilds gained from the sale of opium was so vast that they became even more addicted to the easy money than the opiate addicts were to the opium.
The Rothschilds were the funding source behind the establishment of the American Colonies, by incorporating the Hudson Bay Company and other trading companies to exploit the New World of the Americas. It was the Rothschild’s who ordered the mass extermination and genocide of the indigenous people of North America to allow for the exploitation of the vast natural resources of the continent.
The Rothschild’s also followed the same business template in the Caribbean and in the Asian sub-continent of India, resulting in the murder of millions of innocent people.The Rothschilds start the international slave trade, an enterprise that viewed these kidnapped humans as mere animals — a view that the Khazarians would impose on all the people of the world who were not part of their evil circle, which some called the “Old Black Nobility”:
The Rothschild’s next big project was to start the worldwide slave trade, buying slaves from crooked tribal chiefs in Africa who worked with them to kidnap members of competing tribes for sale as slaves.
The Rothschild slave traders then took these kidnapped slaves on their ships in cramped cells to America and the Caribbean where they were sold. Many died at sea due to bad conditions.
The Rothschild bankers learned early on that war was a great way to double their money in a short time by lending money to both warring sides. But in order to be guaranteed collections, they had to get taxation laws passed, which could be used to force payment.
The KM Rothschild private Fiat Counterfeit Banksters plot eternal revenge against the American Colonists and Russia who assisted them for losing the Revolutionary War:
When the Rothschilds lost the American Revolution, they blamed the Russian czar and the Russians for assisting the colonists by blockading British Ships.
They swore eternal revenge on the American colonists, just as they had when the Russians and their allies crushed Khazaria in 1,000 AD.
The Rothschilds and the English oligarchy that surrounded them plotted ways to retake America, and this became their main obsession.
Their favored plan is to set up an American central bank, featuring Babylonian money magic and secret counterfeiting.
The Rothschild KM attempts to retake America in 1812 on behalf of the Khazarian Mafia but fails, once again because of Russian interference:
This failure enraged the Rothschild KM, and they once again plot eternal revenge against both the Russians and the American colonists and plan to infiltrate and hijack both nations and asset strip, tyrannize and then mass-murder both nations and their populace.
The KM’s attempts to set up a private American central bank are blocked by President Andrew Jackson, who called them Satanic and vowed to route them out by the grace and power of Almighty God.
The Rothschild banksters regroup and continue their covert attempts to install their own Babylonian money-magick bank inside America.
Finally, in 1913, the Rothschild KM succeeds in establishing a major beachhead inside America — and an evil enemy of all American enter the gates of America:
In 1913, the Rothschild KM was able to establish a beachhead by bribing crooked, treasonous members of Congress to pass the illegal, Unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act on Christmas Eve without a required quorum. The Act was then signed by a crooked, bought-off President, who was a traitor to America, like the members of Congress who voted for it.
The Rothschild KM then create an illegal taxation System in America:
The KM put an illegal, Unconstitutional tax system in place, in order to make sure that Americans would have to pay for high-level USG spending, approved by a bought-off, crooked Congress and Presidential puppets, put in place by corrupt KM campaign finance.
It is easy for the KM to garner enough money to elect anyone they want because when you control a bank that is a secret major counterfeiter, you have all the money made for you that you desire. At about the same time that they created their illegal tax system in America, they also bribed members of Congress to approve the Internal Revenue Service, which is their private collection agency incorporated in Puerto Rico.
Soon afterward, they set up the Federal Bureau of Investigation to protect their banksters, to serve their cover-up needs and prevent them from ever being prosecuted for their child sacrifice rituals, pedophile networks; and to also serve as a covert Intel operation on their behalf.
Note that the FBI has no official charter, according to the Library of Congress, and has no right to exist or issue paychecks.
The Rothschild KM deployed the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia to extract incredibly savage, bloody revenge on innocent Russians, which they had plotted for many years, ever since Khazaria was destroyed:
The Rothschild KM pre-staged and engineered the Russian Revolution by using its central banks to pay for the Bolshevik infiltration of Russia and their Revolution on behalf of the Khazarian Mafia (KM).
The Bolsheviks were actually created and deployed by the Khazarian Mafia (KM) as the essential part of their long-planned revenge on the Russian Czar and the innocent Russian people for breaking up Khazaria in about 1,000 AD for its repeated robbery, murder and identity theft of travelers from countries surrounding Khazaria. This little-known fact explains the extreme violence taken out on Russia as long-standing revenge by the Rothschild-controlled Khazarian Mafia (KM).[/caption]
In a well-planned savage and inhuman bloodletting that stunned the world, the Bolsheviks were unleashed in full fury on behalf of the KM to gain revenge on the Russians. This had been planned since the destruction of Khazaria.
The Bolsheviks, at the direction of the Rothschild KM, raped, tortured and mass-murdered approximately 100 million Russians, including women, children, and infants. Some of the torture and bloodletting were so extreme, we are not going to mention it here in this article.
But readers who want to know can do some in-depth internet research on the “Red Terror” or the “Bolshevik Cheka” or watch the classic movie “The Checkist (1992)”.
The Rothschild Khazarian Mafia (KM) once again decided to sheep-dip themselves and infiltrated and hijacked all Judaism:
The Rothschild KM created a master plan to control all of Judaism and mind-kontrol Judaics. The Rothschild KM has hijacked Judaism, patterned it off of Babylonian Talmudism (Luciferianism or Satanism), and gained control over the banking and Wall Street professions in general, Congress, the major mass media; along with most wealth and economic means of success.
Thus, the Rothschild KM could pass out wealth and success to those Judaics who drank their Kool-aide and use them as cutouts, assets, and Sayanims. In this manner, the Rothschilds hijacked Judaism.
Their financing of the Israeli Knesset and construction of it using Freemason occult architecture displayed their commitment to the occult and Babylonian Talmudism and all the evil accompanying it, including child sacrifice to their secret god Baal. They set up a NWO system called World Zionism which taught and inculcated susceptible Judaics with a paranoid group delusion of racial superiority, which assumed that all Gentiles were intent on mass-murdering all Judaics.
Freemasonry architecture was used in the building of the Knesset and the Israeli Supreme Court viewed through windows.[/caption]
They called this racially-paranoid mass Judaic delusion of world conquest, “World Zionism”, which is really a form of covert Babylonian Talmudism or Luciferianism that had been unknown to mainstream Judaics. The system was designed to use Judaics as cover, but also to anoint them with Babylonian money-power, in order to use them as cutouts, and to later be sacrificed to Lucifer in two stages.
The first stage would be their planned WWII in Nazi work camps, cut off from supplies, resulting in the deaths of about 200,000 Judaics from starvation and disease, along with about 90,000 non-Judaic inmates from the same causes, according to respected Red Cross official figures. This number is 5% of what the Khazarian Mafia (aka the World Zionists) claim.
The second great sacrifice would be a final one, when their New World Order Luciferian King would be placed into power, and when all three Abrahamic religions would be eradicated — especially Judaism, which would be blamed for all the wars and destruction of the world.
By then, the Rothschilds would once again morph themselves into a complete new identity not associated with Judaism in any form, not even World Zionism.
It is important to realize that the Rothschild KM took Germany down to nothing after WWI, created a vacuum for Fascism, and then rebuilt it, creating Naziism and installing Hitler as a counter-force to their Russian Bolshevism.
Hitler became a problem for the KM when he broke free and begin acting in the interests of the German people and the free people of the world, and developed his own banking system free of the Rothschilds.
Hitler introduced a financial system that was free of usury and beneficial to the working class. This mandated the utter destruction of Germany and the German people because the Rothschilds and the Khazarians could never allow an economic system that did not depend upon usury to exist.
We see the same thing today with the Khazarian war against Islam because Islam forbids usury. That is why Israel is so vocal and aggressive about destroying the Islamic people of the world.
The KM expected this to be a large WWII and when they supported both sides, this could be used to industrialize the whole world and maximize their bankster money-power.
The Rothschild KM then bribed and induced Members of Congress to send American Soldiers to their pre-stage and engineered WWI:
As a continuance of their well-proven pattern of financing both sides in any war to maximize profits, the acquisition of more federal tax monies and increased international power, the Rothschild Khazarians once again bribed, blackmailed and induced members of Congress to declare war against Germany in 1917.
This was facilitated by a KM false-flag attack with the sinking of the Lusitania.
The Rothschild KM has since developed the usual pattern of covertly staging false-flag attacks as a standard operating procedure for inducing Americans to fight wars for the Khazarian Mafia.
After WWII was finished, the Rothschild KM deployed the Cold War and used this as an excuse to bring Nazi scientists and mind-kontrol experts to America under Operation Paperclip.
This allowed them to set up a worldwide spying and espionage system that far exceeded any of their prior efforts.
Under this new system, they continue to infiltrate and hijack all American institutions, including the various American church systems, Freemasonry (especially the Scottish Rite and York Rite), the US military, US Intel, and most private defense contractors, the Judiciary and most agencies of the USG, including most State governments, and both major political parties as well.
The Rothschild KM sets up Nazi Work Camps as a pretext to later manipulate the Allies into granting them their own private colony in Palestine, using land stolen from the Palestinians:
The Rothschild KM was able to use their self mislabeled, so-called “holocaust” to serve as a mind-kontrol trigger to thwart and resist any criticism of their Zionist ways.
The truth of the matter was that the Rothschild KM set up the Nazi work camps to make huge profits for their corporations that ran their work camps and supplied their Nazi war machine.
Presentation at the London webinar ‘A Decade of War on Syria – Future Trajectories’, hosted by The European Centre for Extremism Studies [www.eurocse.org] in Cambridge’s #Syria Program.
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban is a political and media advisor to President AssadYOUTUBE/SCHILLER INSTITUTE
Good morning.
Allow me first to thank the Schiller Institute, and in particular, to thank Helga Zepp-LaRouche, for inviting me to this very important conference and for allowing me to contribute to this very important panel.
But before I begin my paper, I would like to pass on a few notes that lead me to the conclusion which I would love to conclude for this panel, and for this conference at large.
One of the major problems we face in our country, is that today, Western countries approach our countries with the feeling of exceptionalism or a feeling of righteousness, that whatever Western countries see appropriate or good, should apply to our countries without any question. The first action that was taken by Western countries, when the war on Syria started, was to withdraw their ambassadors from Syria. The question is, isn’t it the job of the ambassadors to convey the reality on the ground, and to help in opening channels of communication between countries instead of closing them?
This leads me to the role of corporate media during the war on Syria. Unfortunately, most Western media rely on Al Jazeera, Qatar-funded, and Al Arabiya, Saudi-funded, to report on events in Syria, even though both channels, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, withdrew their correspondents and relied on what are called “eyewitnesses,” which could be anybody, anywhere. This applies also to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is run by one person in Coventry, U.K., Rami Abdel Rahman.
These media outlets choose to focus on what they find which fits their agenda, ignoring the reality on the ground. For example, even the terrorist acts in Tartus and Jableh recently, which claimed the lives of 200 innocent civilians, were not noticed by Western media, and certainly did not therefore evoke any Western sympathy.
What I would like to say is that the false narrative propagated about Syria was as dangerous to the Syrian people and to the safety and security of Syrians, as the acts perpetrated by terrorists, because it isolated the reality in Syria from the public understanding in the West and in the world at large, and it prevented the creation of a level of understanding between Western countries and the Syrian people about what is going on.
Terrorism and ‘Democracy’
But before we can begin to talk about reconstructing Syria, we still face the monumental challenge of eradicating terrorism in Syria, Iraq, and the region. We have to eradicate this terrorism. And when I say “we,” I do not mean the Syrians or the Iraqis alone, but I mean the world at large, because, as we have seen, in Paris, Brussels, Orlando, and lastly, the U.K., terrorists can strike anywhere in the world; it’s a cancer that can spread anywhere in the world. However, is the world, and in particular, are Western powers, doing all they can to face this danger? This is the question that I would like to ask.
Of course if we separate out what is promoted in the media and look at actions and deeds, rather than words, we see that in the case of Syria, Western countries are not doing what needs to be done to eliminate this danger, both from Syria and from the world at large. And I would like to give you one example: On December 17, 2015, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2253, under Chapter 7, which dictates stopping the financing, arming, and facilitating of terrorists into Syria. The Vienna Group, afterwards, interpreted this resolution, that it should include closing the Turkish border and not allowing armaments and finances to cross to the terrorists. On December 18, the Security Council issued Resolution 2254, which calls for a political solution in Syria.
Now, you see that the entirety of humanity focusses on 2254, without dealing with 2253, which is a logical prerequisite for 2254, that is, for finding a political solution in Syria.
The same thing can be said about humanitarian assistance. Instead of focussing on ending the war in Syria and restoring peace and security in Syria, we see that the entire corporate media is speaking about humanitarian assistance, as if this is the issue! Syria, before this war, was able to host 2 million Iraqis and to feed itself, and to export food to 84 countries in the world. It is since the 1970s that the Syrian people have adopted the motto, “We eat from what we produce, and we wear from what we manufacture,” which means that Syria does not need humanitarian help if there is peace and stability, and if the Syrian people are able to develop their crops and attend to their factories.
Today we hear a lot of talk from the Western alliance about “containing” ISIS, “limiting” ISIS; and lastly, you all heard the speech of CIA Director John Brennan, who said that we did not succeed even in limiting the influence of ISIS. Why? Because there is no real desire and wish, really, to get rid of ISIS. There were two elements: The Russian government had called on Western countries to join efforts to defeat ISIS both in Syria and Iraq, and the agreement in Vienna was that the Turkish borders should be closed. Neither of these two elements received a positive response from the United States or the Western powers. The question is, why?—if there is a real will to fight ISIS.
The other question is, that we in Syria feel that what is needed is a real will in the international community to fight terrorism and to build real bridges. When I say “real bridges,” I mean, on an equal basis, on a basis of parity. The problem with promoting “democracy”—in quotation marks—in our part of the world, is that Western countries believe that liberal democracy is the only issue, or the only copy, or the only formula that should be applied to our countries. And this is not true, because we all have different cultures.
We have different identities, we have different habits, we have different ways of life, and I can give an example: China, India, the Persian culture, Arab culture have contributed a great deal to the world, but on a human basis, and on a basis of parity. In fact, here I would like to make an important point, that the Western world believes in opening markets to the entire world, but only to export its own goods! But not to allow other countries to export to the West, on an equal basis. And every day they invent different formulas in order not to allow equal treatment—tariff constraints and other constraints.
Intellectual Silk Road
The same thing applies to politics. The concepts, values, and ideas, coming from the West should be respected and implemented in our countries, but there is no other road that takes our culture, and our values and our ethics to the West. If we need to create a world for all, if we need to create a peaceful world, if we need to create a prosperous world for all, we need to create a conceptual, intellectual concept of one world; we need to create a conceptual concept of a Silk Road. Not only an actual Silk Road, but an intellectual Silk Road. All of you know that Aleppo and Syria were extremely crucial in the ancient Silk Road that connected Asia to Europe. Syria and the Syrian people will be more than happy to be very active also in a New Silk Road and in a political, social, intellectual Silk Road that connects Asia to the West, that connects Eurasia to the West.
The other byproduct of this war on our countries, and the other byproduct of promoting only Western exceptionalism in our country, is the distortion of the image of Islam in Western eyes. Islam, like any other religion, is a religion of love, a religion of humanity. We, as Muslims, were hardly ever, if ever, addressed in our Quran as Muslims. We are addressed as “ye human beings”: We are part of the human community. And therefore, those who kill in the name of Islam, those who destroy in the name of Islam, are not Muslims at all. They have nothing to do with Islam.
We have to address the concept that the terrorists are promoting, and the lack of dialogue that the corporate media are causing, if we want to create a truly prosperous Silk Road, not only physical, but also intellectual, social, and political. And here, I would like to conclude by thanking Russia and China, who right from the beginning of the war on Syria, took four vetoes against Western attempts to try to strike Syria militarily. And Russia, and China, and Iran, continue to support the Syrian people, to try to find a political solution.
In brief, what I would like to say here is that, in order to build these Silk Roads, we have to deal with each other on an equal basis, on an equal human basis, and dealing otherwise, as superior and inferior, as white and black, as important and less important, is producing extremism, is producing racism which is striking not only in Syria, but in Brussels, in Paris, in Orlando, and last of all in the U.K. Thus, it is in the interests of humanity to think as human beings, to think of the world as truly a human village, where people live equally, and have mutual respect for each other, and deal on the basis of parity.
But this requires a huge change in the mindset of the West, that probably requires another conference, to speak not only about the very important idea launched by China, of building a Silk Road, but to speak about the intellectual, social, and political Silk Road, that thinks and deals with all of us, as human, as brothers and sisters, rather than as superior and inferior. Thus, we can build a new world, and one world, and a much better world than the one we live in. We have an obligation to our grandchildren, wherever they are born, to leave them a better world than this one in which we live now.
Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages
Threatening Syria’s First Lady – a national heroine – with prosecution for war crimes is NATO powers reaching into the gutter, Finian Cunningham writes.
This week marks the 10th anniversary since the United States and its NATO allies launched a devastating covert war of aggression for regime change in Syria. Ten years on, the Arab nation is struggling with war reconstruction, a struggle made all the more onerous because of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union.
Syria and allied forces from Russia, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon’s Hezbollah won the war, defeating legions of mercenary terrorist fighters who were armed and infiltrated into Syria by NATO. Nearly half a million Syrians were killed and half the pre-war population of 23 million was displaced.
But tragically the war is not over yet. It has moved to new hybrid phase of economic warfare in the form of Western sanctions and blockade on Syria.
The barbarity of Western sanctions on Syria have necessitated the cover of distractive media narratives.
This explains the sensation of British media reports that Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is being investigating by London’s Metropolitan police for war crimes. Asma (45) was born in London, was educated there and holds British nationality. Although she has Syrian heritage.
Now British authorities are mulling stripping her of nationality and seeking her extradition over charges that she aided and abetted war crimes, including preposterously, the use of chemical weapons against civilians. There is practically no chance of a prosecution, but that’s not the British aim. Rather it is all about smearing the Syrian leadership and distracting the world’s attention from the real issues: which are the criminality of NATO’s war on Syria and the ongoing economic warfare to destroy the nation into submission.
Irish peace activist and author Declan Hayes who has travelled extensively in Syria during the past decade commented: “Britain’s legally ludicrous accusations against Asma al-Assad have a number of objectives in mind. They are there to delegitimize Syria’s 2021 presidential elections; they are there to scare expatriate Syrians and British humanitarians; they are there to deflect from NATO’s well documented war crimes; and they are there to deflect from the mercenary collusion of a cast of media, political and NGO characters in NATO’s war crimes in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.”
Asma married Bashar in 2000. Before the war erupted in March 2011, she was eulogized in Western media as the “desert rose” owing to her feminine beauty and quietly spoken graceful persona. The daughter of a cardiologist and having had a career in investment banking before she become Syria’s First Lady, Asma al-Assad later showed herself to be no wilting flower. She refused to leave Damascus and go into comfortable exile with her children when the war was raging.
She remained loyally by her husband’s side and took on the role of consoling the nation, often visiting families of slain soldiers and civilian victims of NATO’s terror gangs.
No doubt the stress resulted in Asma suffering from breast cancer for which she was successfully treated in 2018.
President Assad and his wife stood by the Syrian nation when the jaws of defeat were looming during the early years of the war. When Russia intervened in support of its historic ally in October 2015, the tide of the war turned decisively against the NATO plan for regime change. Assad was singled out for regime change because of his anti-imperialist position against the U.S., Britain, France and Israel. His alliance with Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah put a target on his back for destruction, as former French foreign minister Roland Dumas disclosed. Dumas revealed that the British government had war plans on Syria two years before the violence erupted in March 2011. In this context, the so-called “uprising” was a carefully orchestrated false flag.
The mysterious shootings of police and protesters in the southern city of Daraa – which served to smear the Assad government internationally – were the same modus operandi used by NATO covert forces which carried out the sniper murders in Kiev’s Maidan Square triggering the February 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine.
Western media headlines this week marking the 10th anniversary since the beginning of NATO’s war on Syria have been ghoulish and nauseating.
There is a sense of gloating over the misery and hunger that the nation is facing.
A headline in Associated Press labels Syria as the “Republic of Queues”, reporting almost gleefully on how civilians are struggling with food and fuel shortages.
Nowhere in the media coverage is there a mention of how the American CIA and Britain’s MI6 ran Operation Timber Sycamore to arm and direct mercenaries to terrorize Syrians. Absurdly, Western media still claim that Syria’s war rose out of “pro-democracy uprisings” which were crushed by a “ruthless Assad regime”.
Barely acknowledged too is the fact that the United States, Britain and the European Union are strangling a war-torn nation with barbaric sanctions preventing reconstruction. The criminality of economic terrorism is the corollary of a failed criminal covert war of aggression.
The abominable reality of Western policy towards Syria has to be covered up. Threatening Syria’s First Lady – a national heroine – with prosecution for war crimes is NATO powers reaching into the gutter.
Less than a month away from the one-year anniversary of the pandemic’s official declaration, policy wonks at the Atlantic Council together with former and current government officials are dissecting the “lessons” of the Covid-19 epidemic to advise the Biden administration on the steps to take in order to avert the next disaster.
Following a report by the Atlantic Council’s “Forward Defense” program housed within the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security published in October, a panel comprised of the report’s author Franklin D. Kramer and others, including former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute and Jaclyn Levy, Director of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), discussed Kramer’s “key findings” and how these should influence White House policy moving forward.
Right from the top, Atlantic Council Vice President and Director of the Scowcroft Center, Barry Pavel introduced the proceedings by establishing that the American “homeland” is “a theater increasingly under threat,” which is facing a broad “spectrum of non-kinetic risks to U.S. critical infrastructure and national security, such as cyberattacks, industrial espionage [and] potentially bioweapons.”
The last point squares with Bill Gates’ prediction that the most imminent threat to the U.S. will come in the form of a bioterrorist attack – a topic he most recently broached during an interview with “Veritasium” in early February. “Somebody who wants to cause damage could engineer a virus,” Gates warned, adding that “the cost, the chance of running into [such a virus] is more than just the naturally-caused epidemics like the current one.”
Gates has been spreading the idea of a bioterrorist attack since 2017 when he revealed to a group of Redditors that he was “concerned about biological tools that could be used by a bioterrorist.” He also told The Telegraph that same year that engineering a new strain of the flu would be “relatively easy.”
Despite buttressing his image as a supervillain in popular Internet culture, such warnings did not originate with Gates and have been fueling the rise of the biosecurity state in the U.S. since the late 1960s, when the father of bioterrorist plots Joshua Lederberg and his cohorts in government were sounding the alarm over Soviet bioweapons and imminent bioterror attacks that called for more robust policies, laws, and new federal agencies to deal with the purported threat.
Not out of nowhere
Those efforts yielded significant changes, culminating in the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, which produced the first comprehensive policy directive to address these questions on a legislative level through the National Blueprint for Biodefense in 2015 and the establishment of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, co-chaired by former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former Senator Joe Lieberman.
In September of last year, the Commission announced the creation of the Apollo Program for Biodefense. As its name suggests, the promoters of the biosecurity state want to liken their renewed zeal to space missions by tackling the challenges “with the same ambition and ingenuity that put the first human on the moon in 1969,” in the words of co-chair Ridge.
Just this past January, the Commission published the program’s first report, subtitled “Winning the Race Against Biological Threats,” which closely aligns with the thrust of the Atlantic Council’s approach to its policy recommendations for the Biden administration, and uses the COVID-19 pandemic as the jumping-off point to push for things like a “national pathogen surveillance and forecasting center” and the full implementation of the 2015 Study Panel’s recommendations.
Pavel, who is also the Director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, echoed the sentiment by exhorting Biden to adopt what the think tank is calling strategies of “resilience” to safeguard the “health, economic and security sectors” of the United States, warning that “if the U.S. is to avoid and mitigate major systems shocks like Covid-19 in the future, the President will need to prioritize and expand its focus on resilience in the early days of this administration.”
They’re all in it together
The Forward Defense panel discussion centered on the requirements for a national strategy based on the findings of the October report, which the author summarized in the following five points: First, to “undertake major research and development programs”; second, to “enhance public health”; third, to use artificial intelligence “to predict epidemiological trends”; fourth was the development of “a national pandemic plan and, finally “prepare US biodefense for bioterrorism threats.”
Jaclyn Levy from the IDSA referred to the progress made in these matters over the years, conceding that “the U.S. government [had] developed already prior to 2020 a number of pandemic preparedness programs and resources. But, operationalizing them during the pandemic proved to be a challenge.” She further expressed her belief that “federal coordination and federal support are absolutely critical to mounting a successful response [to biological threats],” and going as far as attributing the spread of Covid-19 to “the lack of a coordinated, centralized testing strategy funded by federal dollars.”
Levy was also keen on expanding the collection of genomic data from the population, extolling the efforts to advance “precision medicine” through public-private partnerships like the All of Us Research Program which set out to collect and sequence the genomes of one million people “stored in a biobank, which is housed by the Mayo Clinic,” as well as other “true sort of public-private partnership[s]” with Google and it’s parent company Alphabet, cautioning against turning away from such endeavors over potential privacy concerns.
Franklin Kramer followed that with his own stamp of approval, stating that “with the right incentive… we really can bring the private sector and the innovation capacities, both in the United States and with allies and partners to work on these issues,” proposing that institutions like Fauci’s NIAID approach Congress with a five or ten-year plan, similar to how the Pentagon does to procure funding for public-private partnerships in regards to these programs.
The final piece
In 2008, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated the seed funding for the creation of the IDSA’s Center for Global Health Policy (CGHP), which bills itself as “a trusted leader in shaping and advancing international and national policies and investments in global HIV, TB, health security and antimicrobial resistance.”
Through the CGHP, IDSA is a regular “non-state” participant in World Health Organization executive board meetings and is a strong advocate for global immunization campaigns, which along with the vaccine development and surveillance, remains one of the top priorities of the Gates Foundation.
In a section titled “Lessons From The Pandemic— Underprioritizing Resilience” from his report, Kramer highlights the GAVI foundation – a Gates initiative – as an example of how the private sector was better prepared for a pandemic than most governments were, quoting from the organization’s own website describing it as “an elegant solution to encourage manufacturers to lower vaccine prices for the poorest countries in return for long-term, high-volume and predictable demand from those countries.”
It seems that as the COVID-19 pandemic approaches its first year anniversary, all of the previously scattered tactics and methods employed to deliver a true biosecurity state are consolidating. The only thing missing is the military defense component, which is the principal focus of the Scowcroft Center. Conveniently, Bill Gates’ bioterror prediction could put that final piece into place.
On July 14th, Syrian Arab Army (SAA) personnel detained 3 militants from Maghawir al-Thawra (Revolutionary Commando Army), who were allegedly tasked with collecting data on Russian military facilities.
According to the militants’ statements, they collected data on Syrian and Iranian military installations, in addition to Russian ones.
The extremists were taken to Tadmor, located near Syria’s Palmyra.
The group went on a mission, but wandered into a minefield. The explosions killed three people, including the commander and guide.
“We are part of Maghawir al-Thawra organization. Our group consisted of eight people: seven fighters and one guide, who was involved in drug trafficking and transported personnel. We went by motorbikes to fulfil missions and were trapped in a mine field. As a result, the group’s commander, a guide and another person were blown up by a mine. We lost our way and did not know where to go, because the guide died, and we started looking for the way out and continued moving. Then we were taken hostage and the Syrian forces brought us here,” Jasem al-Ali, one of the detained reportedly said.
The group was tasked with collecting data on military facilities al-Ali admitted:
“We were sent for fulfilling a mission in Raqqa province, in Al-Mansurah. The goal was to collect information. <…> We had to obtain data on Russian, Iranian and Syrian facilities,” the militant said, also adding that the mission began at Al-Tanf.
The militants were equipped with several AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, a large amount of ammunition, as well as money and drugs. They also received large sums of money “from their sponsors.”
Their training reportedly took place with American M-16 rifles, but they were still given AK-47s.
The militant also said that they had been trained under the supervision of instructors from the United States.
“We were taught to handle all types of weapons by American instructors. All weapons were American-made. I saw American instructors, they come to training, but the classes themselves are conducted by the Syrians. From afar, Americans observe, verify and evaluate the progress of preparation,” said Abdullah al-Mishuat, another detained militant.
al-Mishuat said that the curators gave the group “thousands of dollars” for the assignment.
“All the money was in the command of the Yazan group. He was blown up by a mine, and we lost everything,” the gunman said.
Turkey’s Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said there have been no violations registered in Syria’s northern province of Idlib since Thursday, 5 March, when Ankara sealed a ceasefire deal with Moscow in an attempt to contain the conflict that displaced nearly a million people in three months in north-west of the country.
As the situation around Idlib, escalated, threatening to drag all the conflicting sides into a deeper crisis, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Moscow last week to meet with his Russian counterpart and establish new rules of the game.
The measures, which entered into force on 6 March, include an agreement to establish joint patrols of one of Idlib’s two key highways (the M4), along which a Russian-Turkish security corridor will be established.
Pinning Hopes for Better Future
And this time around, thinks Yusuf Erim, a Turkish affairs analyst for TRT World who is close to governmental circles, the chances that both sides will adhere to the agreement are high.
“First of all, [the Idlib agreement presupposed that] Turkey is leaving behind a sizable deployment of troops to secure its area of control and be able to retaliate if Syrian forces violate the agreement. And, secondly, the Syrian army has absorbed huge losses so they don’t have the capability to deal with Turkish troops. Assad understands the repercussions that would follow if he breached the deal”, he said referring to Ankara’s claims that it has “neutralised” hundreds of Syrian soldiers.
In the end of February, 34 Turkish soldiers were neutralised by Syrian troops resulting in Turkey’s decision to launch a full-scale offensive – operation Spring Shield – that claimed the lives of more than two thousand Syrian soldiers and dealt a severe blow to Syria’s military equipment, Turkish sources said.
Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar has justified the operation by saying that Ankara aimed at “putting an end to the carnage” it blamed on Damascus and prevent radicalisation and migration – an opinion shared by Erim, who suggests that Ankara’s involvement in Syria was dictated by purely “national security concerns”.
“Ankara’s first cross border operation into Syria in 2016 was to push back Daesh militants, while the operations in 2018 and 2019 targeted the YPG (Kurdish fighters considered terrorist by Ankara – ed.),” adding that Turkey took great care to avoid skirmishes with the Syrian armed forces. “However, allowing Idlib to collapse and watch a humanitarian disaster unfold on its borders was not an option.”
Is Turkey a True Partner?
But not everyone agreed with this depiction of events. Dr. Nidal Kabalan, Syria’s last ambassador to Turkey, who held this post for more than a year after the eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011, argues that Ankara has successfully disguised its “expansionist intentions” under the preface of fighting for human rights and democracy.
“They didn’t come to Syria to protect civilians,” Kabalan said, adding that the real intention of Ankara was to fight President Assad. In doing so, the former diplomat thinks, Turkey supported various kinds of militants in the war-stricken country, ranging from moderates to extremists.
Since the eruption of the war in Syria nine years ago, Damascus has repeatedly stated that it was fighting terrorists who had flocked to the war-torn country from abroad to wage jihad.
Many, according to Syria, came from Turkey. In 2014, for example, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, a New York based think-tank, published research suggesting Ankara has not only turned a blind eye to its own citizens travelling to Syria to fight alongside the rebels linked to terrorist groups but has also helped foreign fighters to bypass the lax security on the Syrian border.
Ankara, for its part, denies these allegations: being one of the first countries that designated Daesh* and its branches as terrorist organisations, Turkey positions itself as a country that has eliminated over 6,000 Daesh-affiliated terrorists, more, it claims, than any other state.
In addition, Turkey has also collaborated with the international community to find political solutions to the ongoing crisis, participating in various talks that aimed at protecting civilians and helping millions of Syrian refugees who had entered the country since the beginning of the war.
Refugees as Means of Extortion?
But in the case of the Syrian refugees, as in other cases, Ankara and Damascus agree to disagree.
Recently, Ankara, which is said to be hosting the largest refugee population in the world, including more than two million from Syria, decided to open its borders for hundreds of asylum-seekers who have amassed at the Turkish-Greek border in a bid to cross into Europe.
Turkey justified its decision by its inability to cope with the growing number of asylum seekers and accused the EU of violating a 2016 agreement, under which Ankara agreed to host thousands in exchange for financial support from Brussels – cash that was too little and came too late.
Reaction of the European bloc was quick to follow. It pointed a finger of blame at Turkey for using the issue as a “bargaining chip” in talks with Brussels and Syria’s former ambassador believes Brussels couldn’t have formulated it better.
“Refugees are only a tool in the hands of Erdogan to extort money from the EU,” the former top diplomat said, while referring to the Turkish president’s comments that his country needs some $40 billion to handle the crisis.
But for the Turkish analyst, Erdogan’s demands made perfect sense.
“Turkey has almost single-handedly been forced to shoulder the migrant crisis with very little outside support. Migration is not Turkey’s problem, its an international issue. The EU has had many opportunities to address the root cause of the crisis but it chose to stay silent. The situation has now reached a point where Turkey can no longer handle it by itself. If the EU will not support Turkey in its initiatives to create solutions inside Syria to curb the displacement of people – then it will have to face the consequences of its inaction,” he summed up.
The EU, for its part, rejects Turkey’s claims, saying the bloc has stuck to its 2016 agreement with Ankara, injecting billions of Euro to assist Turkey to finance schools, housing and medical centres for the refugees it hosts on its soil.
The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 