Leaving aside the usual sycophantic nonsense, which applauds your continuing efforts to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East with missile attacks, trying to change the earth’s climate using beliefs, promising an unknown source of ‘green’ energy whilst promoting vaccines to save us from certain death from a dose of flu, here’s an alternative open letter.
As a UK citizen now retired, having recently returned to the UK after over a decade of living and working in Asia and the Far East I’m stunned by the stupification around me. Have I inadvertently fallen down an alternative universe Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole, or is there a hidden factory somewhere mass-producing stupid politicians?
As yet another British Prime Minister resigns following the resignations of two others before him producing a failing economy, soaring inflation, sky-high taxes, an energy crisis and a falling pound … The indoctrinated cheer on men with beards wearing dresses and it’s left to a dwindling minority to explain why carrots don’t grow on trees in a socially engineered ideological dystopia! The consequences of which you blame on the Russians, or the Chinese depending on who the US has currently fallen out with.
As you sit in your elitist tax payer funded ivory towers, let’s briefly detail the chaos and mayhem you’ve produced.
Did you think the outside world believed you were trying to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East and not trying to control the world’s major oil producers who just all happened to have abandoned the petrodollar? How many millions lost their lives in that failed adventure?
How many of you swooned over a 16-year-old autistic Swedish school drop out with Asperger’s syndrome, OCD and selective mutism whose mother said she had “special eyes” that could see carbon rising from a dying planet? As a self-inflicted energy crisis looms and both Britain and Germany re-open coal-fired power stations, are you still cheering for mentally ill Greta and her windmills?
How can you keep a straight face whilst telling millions that if they didn’t have the Covid vaccine they’d be passing on the flu they didn’t have onto others? How much of the vaccine scam profit disappeared into the pockets of pharmaceuticals, lobbyists and your own pockets? The whole country could hear the cash tills ringing as shares in the pharmaceuticals producing vaccines went through the roof amid crony contracts awarded to favoured companies. Are you listening former British Health Secretary Matt Hancock who resigned after being caught with his nose in the trough.
Predictably, as the manufactured hysteria wore off and attention spans waned, the advice from the British National Health Service was to open our windows and let the virus out. Apparently, it had been hiding in our homes the whole time? Moreover, the experiment of a “new normal” locked down muzzled population also failed, together with the attempt to introduce Covid passports as hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Britain and throughout Europe in mass demonstrations to protest against the implementation of virtual house arrest and freedom of movement. After this, what comes next, a climate change lock down?
Moving on, Russia, who just by coincidence is another major energy producer surrounded by NATO missile bases and sanctioned hoping its economy collapses and produces another “regime change.” Why does that produce a feeling of déjà vu? How long did you believe a nuclear power would tolerate an aggressive US led NATO advancing towards its border? The last time western armies gathered on Russian borders was in 1941 and that didn’t end well.
Oh the irony, as you cheer for the same Nazis your grandfathers fought against and vilify the Russians who are now having to fight them again. How many of you condemned the previous eight years of ethnic Russian murders in the Crimea and Donbass by Nazi militias who you helped arm and train, but turned a blind eye to the consequences. No crocodile tears and outraged comments from you when Russian civilians were being killed. Make no mistake, in another era the majority of you would be sitting in the same Nuremberg dock as the previous psychopaths!
For the last quarter century you are without doubt the most useless, corrupt and destructive political class in British history. In one generation you have dumbed down the British population to an idiocracy in your ‘Woke’ eagerness to remove the cultural traditions and values of centuries. As suicide statistics soar, mental health issues reach an all-time high and drugs become a lifestyle choice for many to block out the horror of reality, it’s not a diverse and equality multicultural utopia you’ve produced, it’s a nightmare!
And you, the US demagogues and liberal fascist European Commissioners; in two decades your ideologically warped quest for power has not only failed to make the world a safer place, you have brought us to the verge of a nuclear conflict. Between you, you’ve managed to wreck our economies, brought terrorism to our streets and created the worst energy crisis since the 1970s – whilst becoming fabulously wealthy yourselves. Yes, we have noticed. The sooner you’re removed from power, the sooner both we the western populations and the outside world can have a rest from your incompetence and murderous activities!
Meanwhile, as I write from England, outside my window another car with exhaust baffles removed and the window wound down emitting ear-splitting decibels of rap ‘music’ drives past, whilst on the pavement a silent E-scooter carrying a bald middle-aged man with expressionless eyes in short trousers and tattooed legs races by.
Asia Teacher is a UK citizen, retired teacher of English plus Social and Political Science.
US ambassador to Beirut, Dorothy Shea, has been donating 360,000 shots of Johnson & Johnson vaccine which was castigated by the national public health agency of the United States as a cause of blood clots.
While CDC (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has been advising the Americans to receive Pfizer and AstraZeneca anti-coronavius vaccines, the US ambassador to Beirut, Dorothy Shea, has been donating 360,000 shots of Johnson & Johnson vaccine which was castigated by the national public health agency of the United States as a cause of blood clots.
What is remarkable in this story is that the US did not offer Lebanon any help in its fight against the coronavirus along with the advent of the pandemic when the Lebanese were in need of any related aid, especially in the field of securing the vaccine shots.
However, Lebanon is nowadays capable of securing the needed anti-coronavius vaccines in cooperation with the World Health Organization.
Moreover, the US administration has imposed a strict economic siege which led Lebanon to an unprecedented inflation crisis, pushing most the Lebanese down under the verge of poverty.
Besieging Lebanon economically and offering the Lebanese an anti-coronavirus vaccine that is rejected in Washington is a mere rudeness condemned by the Lebanese social media users via the hashtag, #US_Deadly_Vaccine.
Vladimir Putin held talks, via videoconference, with President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping.
December 15, 2021, 11:20
Beginning of Russia-China talks
President of Russia Vladimir Putin:
President Xi, my dear friend,
I am delighted to see you. Greetings.
I am happy to have this opportunity to see you via videoconference. This allows us to hold in-depth discussions on the development of Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction. I regard these relations as a shining example of interstate cooperation in the 21st century.
We have maintained contact despite the sanitary and epidemiological restrictions, and in May [2021] we launched, via videoconference, the joint construction of four new power units for a nuclear power plant in China. In June, we held a videoconference on the 20th anniversary of the major Russia-China Treaty [on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation]. We also had telephone conversations about urgent international issues, in particular, the Afghan problem.
This year Russia-China relations have been dominated by the 20th anniversary of the Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation. It has been extended for another five years. The consistent implementation of this fundamental document, which comprehensively reflects the deep historical traditions of friendship and mutual understanding between the Russian and Chinese people, has helped us to take our relations to an unprecedentedly high level.
A new model of cooperation has developed between our countries, a model based, in part, on the principles of non-interference in each other’s affairs and mutual resolve to turn our common border into a belt of eternal peace and good-neighbourliness.
We are strengthening our trade and economic ties: from January to November this year, our mutual trade has increased by 31 percent to US$123 billion. We have beaten the record of the pre-pandemic year, 2019. In the near term, as agreed, we will pass the US$200 billion mark. We are implementing a number of large-scale joint projects in energy, including nuclear generation, industry and high technology.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, we have firmly joined forces in responding to the coronavirus infection. China has become an international centre for the production of the Russian vaccines Sputnik V and Sputnik Light. Contracts for more than 150 million doses have been signed with six Chinese manufacturers.
The multifaceted dialogue mechanism between the two countries’ governments and relevant agencies is working smoothly, and parliamentary cooperation is strengthening. The foreign policy and defence departments maintain ongoing contact.
Russia and China’s close coordination in the world arena, and their responsible joint approach to current global problems have become a significant factor of stability in international relations. We are active on platforms such as the UN Security Council, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the BRICS. We are both contributing to the formation of a just world order based on international law.
President Xi Jinping, my friend,
I do hope that next February, we will finally be able to meet in person in Beijing. As we agreed, you and I will talk, and then we will participate in the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Thank you for the invitation to attend this important event.
I would like to note that we invariably support each other in every aspect of international sports cooperation, including in condemning any attempts to politicise sports and the Olympic movement. I have no doubt that the upcoming Winter Games will be held at the highest level. They know how to do things in China.
By the way, to follow up on this high-profile sporting event, we plan to announce that 2022 and 2023 will be the Russian and Chinese years of cooperation in physical education and sports.
In a word, given the grand scale of interaction between our countries, we have a wide range of important matters to discuss today.
And of course, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and all our Chinese friends a Happy New Year, wish you happiness, good health and all the very best.
On the afternoon of 15 December, President Xi Jinping had a virtual meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing.
President Xi expressed his pleasure in meeting President Putin virtually at the year-end, their second virtual meeting in 2021 and their 37th meeting since 2013. President Xi noted that on multiple occasions President Putin has hailed Russia-China relations as a model of coordination between countries in the 21st century, firmly supported China in upholding core interests, and rejected attempts to sow discord between Russia and China. President Xi expressed his deep appreciation and readiness to work with President Putin to review the new progress made in bilateral relations this year, draw up new plans for cooperation across the board, and promote the sustained and high-quality development of bilateral ties.
President Xi stressed that the combined forces of changes in the world and the COVID-19 pandemic, both unseen in a century, have taken the world into a phase of fluidity and transformation. China-Russia relations have emerged from all kinds of tests to demonstrate new vitality. President Xi noted his regular communication and coordination in various forms with President Putin on major agenda items, through which they have jointly charted the course for China-Russia relations. The two sides have officially announced the renewal of the Treaty of Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation and made it more relevant in the new era. They have extended firm mutual support on issues concerning each other’s core interests, thus defending the national dignity and common interests of both countries.
President Xi pointed out the enormous political advantage and great opportunities in the all-round practical cooperation between China and Russia. Bilateral trade in the first three quarters of 2021 exceeded US$100 billion for the first time, and the year-round volume is expected to hit a new record. The China-Russia Year of Scientific and Technological Innovation has been a big success. A number of major projects with strategic importance have been successfully implemented. Smooth progress is being made in synergizing Belt and Road cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union. The two countries have actively fulfilled their responsibilities as major countries, promoted a united, global responseto COVID-19, communicated the true meaning of democracy and human rights, and acted as the bulwark of following true multilateralism and upholding fairness and justice in the world.
President Xi noted that next year, the Communist Party of China (CPC) will host its 20th National Congress while Russia will enter an important stage in implementing its national development goals by 2030. The two sides need to share opportunities in the process of opening-up, keep advancing the global development agenda, and play their roles in fostering a new type of international relations and building a community with a shared future for mankind.
President Xi underscored President Putin’s visit to China and attendance at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics in over a month’s time as a concrete action to support China’s work as the host. Beijing will become the first city in the world to host both Summer and Winter Olympics. Preparations are in full swing to present a streamlined, safe and splendid Games, and work on all fronts is mostly ready. The two Presidents will have exchanged visits to Olympic Games held in each other’s countries, and the two countries will hold the Year of Sports Exchange in the next two years. President Xi stressed the need to take these opportunities to turn sports exchange into a bridge and bond for greater mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples. President Xi expressed his hope that during President Putin’s upcoming visit to China,the first in-person meeting between the two leaders in two years, they will have in-depth discussions on bilateral relations and major international and regional issues, and reach more new, important common understandings. He said that he very much looks forward to this“get-together for the Winter Olympics” and stands ready to work with President Putin “for a shared future” to jointly open a new chapter inpost-COVID China-Russia relations.
President Xi pointed out that at the sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC held not long ago, the CPC Central Committee adopted and released a new historic resolution to conduct a comprehensive review of the major achievements and historical experience of the Party over the past century. “As I often say, our goal is both big and simple. It is essentially about delivering a better life to all Chinese. Putting people first is our fundamental philosophy of governance,” said President Xi.Both China and Russia are major countries with global influence and both have found development paths that suit their national conditions. President Xi reaffirmed China’s commitment to firmly support Russia in maintaining long-term stability, and expressed his readiness to have regular, candid and in-depth exchanges on governance experience with President Putin so as to jointly provide guidance to the sustained and high-level development of China-Russia relations and lead the two countries toward national rejuvenation.
President Xi pointed out that certain forces in the world are trying to meddle in the internal affairs of China and Russia under the pretext of “democracy” and “human rights” and grossly trample on international law and universally recognized norms governing international relations. China and Russia need to launch more joint actions to uphold the security interests of the two sides more effectively. China and Russia need to step up coordination and collaboration in international affairs, be more vocal on global governance, come up with feasible solutions to the pandemic, climate change and other global issues, and firmly uphold international fairness and justice in the process of resolving international and regional hotspots. Efforts must be made to firmly reject hegemonic acts and the Cold War mentality under the disguise of “multilateralism” and “rules”.
President Xi pointed out that since last year, China and Russia have actively conducted cooperation against COVID-19. Such efforts provide good examples of solidarity and mutual assistance in this bilateral relationship. They also contribute significantly to promoting a united, global response to the pandemic and to building a global community of health for all. The two sides need to be more resourceful and work together to introduce more concrete measures aimed at unclogging “bottlenecks” while strictly preventing cross-border transmission. China is ready for closer cooperation with Russia on COVID-19 testing and on research and development of vaccines and drugs.
President Xi pointed out the need for the two sides to share in opportunities of development under the new circumstances and make the pie of cooperation bigger. It is important to seize opportunities of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and accelerate cooperation in frontier technologies. China and Russia have a strong foundation and great complementarity in energy cooperation. The two sides need to build on their traditional energy cooperation, pursue more cooperation in new energy, advance the cooperation package in nuclear energy, and explore new cooperation areas such as renewable energy.
President Xi talked about the Global Development Initiative he proposed at the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly in September. This is another global public good that China offers in response to market challenges facing all parties, especially emerging markets and developing countries, and in an effort to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. China will work closely with Russia to play a role in improving global governance and promoting global development.
On regional cooperation, President Xi said that over the past 20 years since the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China and Russia have maintained a high level of strategic coordination and worked with other SCO member states to firmly follow the Shanghai spirit, to keep enhancing solidarity and mutual trust, and to deepen cooperation in all fields. The two sides need to support SCO member states in steadily advancing important domestic political agenda, and reject interference in the domestic affairs of regional countries by external forces under whatever pretexts.The two sides need to keep the development of the SCO on the right course, and follow the path of solidarity and cooperation, common security, openness and integration, mutual learning, and fairness and justice. China will continue to carry out flexible and diverse cooperation with Russia and other member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to safeguard security and stability in the region.
On BRICS cooperation, President Xi pointed out that next year, China will take overthe BRICS presidencyand host the 14th BRICS Summit and other events. China will maintain a high level of strategic coordination with Russia, and encourage BRICS countries to deepen cooperation across the board. It is important to act on true multilateralism, support the multilateral trading system, and build an open world economy. It is important to focus on practical cooperation, deepen cooperation in public health, and expand the “BRICS Plus”model to benefit more through BRICS cooperation. President Xi shared his confidence that with the concerted efforts of China and Russia, next year’s BRICS cooperation will surely yield positive results.
On cooperation at the UN Security Council, President Xi pointed out that under current circumstances, it is necessary for the five permanent members of the Security Council to strengthen coordination on deepening cooperation against the coronavirus, upholding international peace and security and promoting economic recovery, and actively respond to the common expectation of the international community. China will stay in close communication with Russia.
The two sides exchanged views on major-country relations and on democracy. President Xi stressed that democracy is a lofty aspiration and common value of all humanity and also a right enjoyed by people of all countries. Whether a country is democratic or not and how to better realize democracy can only be left to its own people to decide. International affairs should be managed by all countries through consultation. Promoting greater democracy in international relations and upholding true multilateralism is the expectation of the people and the prevailing trend of the times. China will enhance communication and coordination with Russia to encourage the international community to take the right view on democracy and defend the legitimate democratic rights of all countries.
President Putin said that the Russia-China relationship is at its best in history with a high degree of strategic mutual trust. It has set an example for delivering mutual benefit on the basis of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs and mutual respect for each other’s interests. It can be hailed as a model of state-to-state relations in the 21st century. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, and the two sides have officially announced the renewal of the Treaty. Overcoming the impact of COVID-19, the two sides have maintained close interactions, made steady progress in practical cooperation in all areas including trade, energy and science and technology, and conducted communication and coordination on international and regional issues. The strategic coordination between Russia and China has served as a major positive factor in effectively resolving all sorts of international hotspots and in safeguarding world peace, playing an important role in maintaining the international order underpinned by international law. President Putin said he looks forward to visiting China soon and attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and reaffirmed Russia’s consistent opposition to attempts at politicizing sports. He expressed his hope of having an in-depth exchange of views with President Xi on major issues of mutual interest to promote the sustained and high-level development of Russia-China relations. Russia will continue to strengthen cooperation with China in such fields as economy and trade, oil and gas, finance, and aerospace and aviation and in major projects of strategic importance, and will promote greater synergy between the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative. Russia will work more closely with China to fight COVID-19 and oppose the politicization of the pandemic; and will further strengthen cultural and people-to-people exchanges with China and ensure the success of the Year of Sports Exchange in the next two years.Russia will be the most staunch supporter ofthe Chinese government’s legitimate position onTaiwan-related issues. It will firmly opposemoves by any force to undermine China’s interests using Taiwan-related issues, andmoves to form any type of “small groups” in the Asia-Pacific region. No attempt to sow discord between Russia and China will ever succeed. Russia will work with China to continue deepening close coordination in the SCO, the UN Security Council and other multilateral arena, and will support China’s BRICS presidency next year. Russia firmly rejects attempts to meddle in the internal affairs of Russia and China or to contain the legitimate development interests of the two countries. It is committed to upholding international fairness and justice and to maintaining strategic security and stability in the world. Russia is ready for more communication with China on defending true democratic rights and interests of all countries.
The two sides also exchanged views on other international and regional issues of mutual interest.
The two Presidents agreed to meet in Beijing in February next year.
Ding Xuexiang, Wang Yi and He Lifeng were present at the meeting.
Valentina Capurri is an Italian researcher with a Masters and Doctorate in history and a Masters in geography, living in Canada since coming here as a student in 2001.
She talks about her experience participating in an extended trial for medication for Multiple Sclerosis, comparing that experience to the recent roll-out of untested, experimental, Covid vaccines.
“When you’re testing a new medication, you cannot give it to people, arguing it is safe, if it has not gone through a very tight trial.
That’s why I knew, from the beginning, that with the vaccines, something was missing. Because lots of people in these 12 years where I was taking the medication, they had severe effects for MS, they would have benefited from the medication. And yet they were not able to access the medication for a reason: because you cannot give a medication whose effect—if everything goes wrong—can be worse than the cure.
This is something that happens with every medication. All vaccines go usually to a similar trial period. Once you allow people to take it, you test it on a select group of people for prolonged period of time. And none of this has been done in this particular case. So that’s what made me a little suspicious about what was going on.”
For the past nearly two years, she has not been able to see her neurologist, instead having phone consultations, essentially useless.
“In 2003, when we had SARS, I used to go once a month to the hospital. Despite the fact that SARS in 2003 had much higher mortality rate than Covid, we still were allowed to enter the hospital on a regular basis. None of our visits were cancelled back then as they are now.”
Like many others living under the new fascism in Canada and around the world, Valentina & her husband will lose their jobs for refusing, with good reason, to be injected with an experimental jab. And with that, they lose their incomes & ability to buy her MS medications.
“You are forcing me to lose my job, to lose my ability to support myself, just because I am exerting my right not to have an experimental medical procedure done on me.
This is worse than fascism, this is absolutely appalling.
I may actually remain without medication, because my husband is losing his job, I’m losing my job, we’ll have zero income. I have zero medical coverage, and I won’t be able to access my medication. That’s what you’re doing to save me?”
*
Do any of you still think these policies are about public health?
Filed under: Canada | Tagged: COVID-19 Vaccine, Forced Vaccination | Comments Off on Valentina Capurri: Canada imposing vaccine to ‘protect’ people will let her die without MS meds
First it was not even a university, but Seneca College. Then it was the University of Ottawa. Then Carleton University, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Toronto. Now it is almost every university in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The law faculty at McGill is also demanding it, presumably to save the university from expensive litigation (an implied threat, and one that strangely assumes that only one side of a debate can litigate in court). If it happens first in the United States, then almost immediately it is copied and pasted into policy in Canada. It is coming everywhere: mandatory vaccination for all faculty, staff, and students.
As a tenured, full Professor in Canada, it is my duty to encourage all faculty to be united in non-compliance with such measures.
Mandatory vaccination pressures are issued allegedly in accordance with “public health”. However, they are mandated through…
Segregating Canadians who choose not to get the experimental jab
Like many people around the world, as of mid-2021, I have had to come to terms with the sordid likelihood that the only way I will ever see my family again is online.
My country, Canada, has chosen to implement increasingly draconian and frankly unscientific policies in the name of ‘protecting’ people. What Canadian authorities are really doing is ensuring an uptake of the experimental jabs. Don’t want to take them? No worries, but you’re not welcome in Canada.
Recently, my RT colleague, Rachel Marsden, described her anguish at being forced to turn away from her country and family because Canada has decided it is the ‘science police’ and has decided which ‘science’ matters.
She wrote, “I committed the apparent violation of trying to re-enter my own country with proof of naturally acquired Covid-19 antibodies made by my own immune system post-recovery rather than those generated by the manmade Covid-19 vaccine about which much is still to be learned.” She noted that even her doctor had advised her against vaccination. But, for Canada, that is apparently irrelevant.
In an email, she explained that Canadian customs demand a positive PCR test taken more than two weeks ago and less than three months ago as proof of having had Covid, thus having immunity.
In her case, she didn’t have that positive PCR test because she didn’t notice symptoms at the time.
“Instead, my immunity was confirmed post-recovery via two laboratory tests for Covid antibodies taken nearly 5 months apart and proving that my Covid antibody levels are significant and also haven’t budged at all between the two tests. My doctor certified this result last month in a note with the heading, ‘Covid immunity certificate’.”
Marsden was ordered to comply with a three-day stay at one of Canada’s Covid internment hotels, costing roughly Can$2,000, plus two weeks’ quarantine. The other two options were to pay a roughly $6,000 fine if she simply walked out of the airport, or to book a flight back out of Canada – the cheapest option.
The anti-science aspect of Canada’s policies in refusing her natural immunity indicates that Canada is more interested in pushing vaccinations than public health.
And, as she wrote, “The Canadian government, by behaving in this manner, is routinely criminalizing those with Covid antibodies that are not derived from a manufactured experimental vaccine.”
Why I might never be able to return to Canada
When all of this started early last year, I had just left Canada for what I thought would be a maximum two-month absence. That has turned into over a year and a half. Perhaps at Christmas I could have tried to return for a visit. But with Ontario (winner of the longest lockdown) so unpredictable, I was dissuaded by the thought of getting stuck there.
Ontario has the longest lockdown in Canada, the longest in North America & we believe now has the longest lockdown in the world. As an example, indoor restaurant dining in Toronto has been locked down for 382 days since the pandemic began.
Six months prior, I had given up my apartment and had my belongings put into storage. Being stuck in Ontario would have meant a whole slew of logistical problems. So, I opted to wait, hoping the lockdowns and quarantines would be lifted for a future visit.
That was my decision and I’ll have to live with it, and the realization that maybe I could have visited and seen my mother once more, but now I don’t see how that is going to be possible, the way Canada is heading.
Recently, travellers coming to Canada have been required, by law, to be vaccinated, which I have no intention of doing. My immune system is excellent. I spent half of last year walking around Damascus, including in extremely crowded marketplaces where there was no physical distancing and few masks. I did not get sick, and as such I am completely confident my own body could fight off Covid.
On the other hand, let’s assume I was exposed to Covid but did not suffer symptoms. According to Canada’s logic, and Rachel’s experience, my natural immunity would be void, because I did not obsessively get PCR tests every week in case I was positive (never mind that the test can give false positives).
Were I to be vaccinated, it would be with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. And although Sputnik V has been approved for use in 69 states and territories, Canada does not accept it, instead pushing Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. I have no intention of taking any of those anytime soon, for good reason. My choice is not about being anti-vaccines, it is about being properly informed on the potentially serious risks the rushed experimental jabs being pushed on Canadians could pose.
Even the CBC reported on Canadians who are concerned about safety and side effects of vaccines, particularly the long term effects of the mRNA Covid shots, as they haven’t been put through years-long clinical trials. Pfizer, for example, hasn’t even been fully okayed by the US Food and Drug Administration. A point not emphasized enough, but which CBC inadvertently shed light on with its inclusion of a particular photo in its article, is the exemption vaccine makers have from liability.
Aug 5, 2021, CNN:
"#Covid19#vaccines no longer prevent transmission, CDC director says"
We also learned in early August, according to the CDC, “Covid-19 vaccines no longer prevent transmission.” In Iceland, four out of five in intensive care for Covid-19 are fully injected. And around the world, there are examples of adverse reactions, injuries, and deaths post-jab that could at the very least give pause to many people, were these reactions covered in media in the same hysterical way everything else to do with Covid has been.
As reported (via data released by the CDC), “411,931 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 6,985 deaths and 34,065 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020 and June 25, 2021.” This doesn’t mean that everyone who gets the jab will experience side-effects, but some will, and wishing to avoid that risk is a choice I should be free to make.
Furthermore, we have incessantly been told to “trust the science,” but one doesn’t need to be an ‘anti-vaxxer’ to see the way government scientists have been elevated to the status of secular bishops, and those who disagree with them are spurned like heretics, and be a tad suspicious that their convictions might not be as indisputable as they claim. There are numerous experts speaking out against the experimental jabs, including epidemiologists, immunologists, virologists, vaccine researchers, and even the former vice president of Pfizer.
Those are enough reasons and concerns for me to make the decision to not take the jabs but, in a sane world, my refusal to not take a vaccine for a disease with a 99% survival rate should not bar me from the country in which I was born and raised. None of this is to say that anyone who wants to take the vaccine shouldn’t do so, but whatever happened to “my body, my choice?”
Filed under: Canada | Tagged: COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 Vaccine, Eva Bartlett | Comments Off on I’ll likely only see my family on a screen from now on, because I don’t want the Covid jab. What happened to ‘my body, my choice’?
Note by the Saker: considering the fact that the anti-COVID-Crusaders desperately want to peddle their theories on this blog (Ron Unz just got hit with over 1200 comments!!) I am not allowing comments under this (excellent) report by Mansoureh Tadjik. I apologize to Mansoureh and to all the sane readers: I am swamped with work, I am about to interview a very famous personality (in 2 weeks) and I have not time to deal with this paranoid Kindergarten. Kind regards, The Saker
A worldwide war against humanity has been waged with the help of lab-constructed silver biollets camouflaged as CoV and its progenies and biolistic missiles camouflaged as medicines and vaccines. To aid and abet in protecting the global public against health and life, the public itself was weaponized. The public was pitted against the public using fear as an affective device, ambiguity as non-random noise, intimidation of dissenting scientific voices to suppress signals, corrupt scientists as catalysts-synergists, and media as high-speed centrifuges. What an enriched world in which we live when we master the spin to deceive.
“Sometimes they would take us to wars; war against the people we did not know. And pulling our swords against those with whom we had no animosity, even against those who were our companions, our colleagues, and our fellow humans in faith and fate. These wars, as that sage once said, consisted of wars between two groups of people who were fighting without knowing one another for the benefit of those who were not fighting and knew each other very well.”[1]
-Ali Shariati in “Yah, Brother! This is How it Was.”
If I state the entire globe is now fully immersed in a grand anthropogenic fitna, I am not overstating. But there is silver lining and glad tidings: “They plot clever plots and God plots clever plots. Indeed, God is the Best Plotter.”[2]
More than a year ago, I submitted an article titled Calculated Assumptions and Prevention of “Scientifically Shattered” Societies to the Saker. In that article, I explained why initially assuming SARS-CoV-2 (CoV for short) as a bioweapon by decision-making bodies in the Islamic Republic of Iran was a prudent and necessary assumption. I also argued that a bioweapon need not be very lethal. It only needs to have enough destructive power to “scientifically shatter” public health, economic, and social infrastructures of the targeted nations. The Saker kindly posted that article with a note seasoned with clear warnings (see here).
Now, I would like to discuss how the Islamic Republic of Iran has solidly maintained the bioweapon assumption about CoV and broadened the scope to include additional components. Specifically, I would like to demonstrate: 1) How the view of bioweapon in Iran has evolved and expanded to include not only the CoV itself as a bioweapon but also medicines and vaccines that are linked to it. 2) How socio-political, economic, and public health complexities have necessitated the Iranians at various levels and organizations to adopt and implement a nuanced, multi-pronged, and complex approach in choosing the battles in which they engage within a rather complex global hybrid bio-media war.
1) Islamic Republic of Iran’s View on CoV, Drugs, and Vaccines as Bioweapons
Allow me to begin this section with a quote from Ayatullah Khamenei. It is extracted from a speech delivered last year on the occasion of 19th of Dey, to commemorate the Qom uprising against the Shah. The quote provides an overall framework for our discussion. He stated:
“Import of vaccines from [the US] America and Britain is forbidden. I have said this to the officials as well. Now, I am saying it in public. If [the US] Americans were able to produce vaccines, this disgraceful corona scandal would not have happened in their own country. A few days ago, in a span of 24 hours, they had 4,000 deaths. These people, if they knew how to make vaccines, if their Pfizer could have produced vaccines, why would they want to give it to us? Let them use it themselves so that they do not get so many excess deaths. The same goes for Britain.
There is absolutely no trusting them because they might send medicines to make the virus more widespread or more lasting. Or, they may even send some people under the cover of physicians/healers to find out the effects of this virus that it is said to have been partly engineered especially for Iran. This is how they compile and complete their information. Therefore, the [US] Americans’ words are unacceptable.”[3]
These words ring true to most Iranians. They are the words of a leader whose people have been the victims of nerve gas, mustard gas, cyanide, HIV-contaminated bloods, and an assortment of other nonconventional weapons courtesy of human-rights-loving countries such as the US, Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, and Italy, and others like India, Egypt, Brazil, Luxembourg, Singapore, and China, the countries which provided these weapons and means of delivering them to Saddam. These statements are also the words of a nation that is surrounded by more than 25 level 4 and level 3 US biological weapons labs in its neighboring countries.
These concerns are legitimate and deep worries are appropriate for sure. However, do they go beyond reasonable assumptions based on patterns of behavior by a sworn enemy to show something more is going on? I would like to explore just that and show how most Iranians have come to believe they have been specifically targeted by CoV and its prophylactics. Regardless of whatever spillover effects or independent attacks may have occurred elsewhere, there are unusual events that require great attention and rigorous investigation.
On multiple occasions during the past couple of years, Ayatullah Khamenei has publicly conveyed similar pointed concerns which are often meant to serve as warnings, reminders, and emphasis to the public without causing too much panic. On another occasion, for example, he said:
“These [the US & Britain] are not trustworthy. I truly do not trust them. I have doubts. Sometimes they want to test these vaccines on other nations to see if it is effective or not. Therefore, no vaccines should be obtained from [the US] America and England. Of course, I do not trust France either because of what they did with those [HIV] contaminated bloods. Surely, if they want to obtain vaccines from other places that could be trusted, it should not be a problem.”[4]
Those who closely follow Ayatullah Khamenei’s speeches know he never speaks based on hunches, random guesses, and empty rhetoric. On issues the general public must be made aware and warned without creating public panic and chaos but evidence and details cannot be publicized, that is exactly how he, the Leader, speaks. Those inside and outside of Iran who are in tune with his guidance know his style and would know what to do.
I would like to insert a side note and say that I am well aware a lot of information escapes the Western media due to their excellent policies on freedom of press, people, and parleys, but I find it rather curious that on the global scene and after a period of relative hush in the Western media, articles are now appearing in some mainstream circles in the West again that bring the bioweapon question to the fore and nudge it to gain more traction. It would be interesting to question and analyze the pattern and timing of these questions and the motives behind them.
Back to Iran. There is an agency in Iran called Sazmane Padafande Ghairs Amel, the Agency for Passive Defense. It was initially set up as a center within the armed forces in 1980s during Iraq-Iran war to deal with nonconventional attacks using biological and chemical agents after Saddam had used them on the Iranians. The center was later expanded to include other bio weapons (against crops and livestock), radioactive, environmental, cyber, economic, and more. It is now a full-blown agency. One of the responsibilities of the agency is to conduct non-armed operations to strengthen deterrence capabilities and reduce the nation’s vulnerabilities in case of above-mentioned unconventional threats and attacks, and to mitigate the outcomes should such attacks occur. Naturally, surveillance is a non-stop and ongoing responsibility of this agency.
The agency greatly intensified its activities several months prior to the first observed and verified corona cases and deaths in Qom on Bahman 30th 1398 [Feb. 19, 2020]. In fact, the agency had intensified its activities even before China officially announced their outbreak. About two weeks after the first hospitalizations and deaths in Qom, Sardar Jalali, the head of the Padafande Ghair Amel Agency explained, in an interview conducted by Fars News Agency, how they had been operating under an “alert” status since they had received reports of initial outbreaks in China and had sent written warnings to various organs including the Ministry of Interior. He further stated in the interview specific lab studies were required to determine if the virus was a biological weapon or not. Below is an excerpt of some key points he raised in his interview:
“Based on analytic, strategic, and intelligence indications and evidence, the source of spread of corona links back to the enemy. Technical proof of that, however, requires lab reviews and comparisons between the initial genome recorded for the virus and the results from studies of the new genomes in terms of the types of deliberate changes made on the virus.”
“But we must also pay strict attention that the foreign-supported media are trying to induce public panic and portray a non-functional public health system in order to make people feel helpless and beleaguered. Playing political games, playing with statistics, and false additions and subtractions, falsely placing religion in opposition to people’s health, and more are a few examples of operations in psychological war front in the enemy’s media that must be attended to by the people and media activists.”[5]
Gradually, additional findings were made public. They added to suspicions: The virus strain in Qom was different from the one in Wuhan, China.[6] So, the spread could not have occurred by travelers, Chinese scholars in Qom seminaries, or pilgrims. Besides, had that been the case, we should have also seen cases in Mashhad the city which similarly has travelers, scholars, and pilgrims from China. In addition, all airports and official border crossings were on high alert and were applying quarantine rules to anyone whom they suspected to be a carrier.
There was another interesting finding as well. In one of their early reports to the parliament, the Ministry of Health informed the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Majlis that several confirmed corona cases had been identified in Gilan, one of Iran’s northern provinces but that the strain of virus there was different from that of Qom and even different from that of Wuhan.[7] The probability the virus (regardless of it being natural or engineered) could evolve into three different strains at such rapid rate in normal populations is nil. In Hollywood perhaps. But not in the real world. So, the null hypothesis of no relationship between each two of these three virus strains would stand with high confidence.
On the political front, other events were occurring. On Esfand 12, 1398 [March 2, 2020], Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent two letters, one to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, and another to World Health Organization’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. In parts of the letter to Secretary General Guterres, he stated:
“Today it has become evident to everyone that the likes of mutated and smart corona virus 2019 that are engineered products of laboratories, or more appropriately they should be labeled arsenals for biological wars belonging to some global domineering powers, are far more inhumane, destructive, and terrorizing than other inhumane weapons like nuclear, chemical, and HARP.”
“It is expected from Your Excellency in the position of secretary general of the United Nations:
1) To vigorously condemn this anti-human action of the global criminals who have imposed a biologic war on nations with the aim of domination and you must not allow the agents of these crimes to realize their political and economic goals through cover ups and gain immunity from criminal justice investigation by the United Nations.
2) With special sensitivity, to identify and deal decisively with those who globally produce and use biological weapons. Indifference and lack of serious counter measures against them will lead to a destruction of relations among countries and nations and will critically threaten all nations’ existence.
3) To formulate and submit to the United Nations’ general assembly a reform plan to strengthen the convention in manufacturing and use of biological weapons with the aim of forbidding any research, development, and establishment of laboratories to manufacture, store, and use biological weapons at any level.”[8]
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds an official position in the Expediency Council (Shoraye Tashkhis Maslahat Nezam). However, he signed the letters to UN and WHO officials not as the member of that council but as ex-president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. At any rate, in his letter to the Director General of WHO he wrote (I quote):
“It is possible that weaknesses and shortcomings by officials in various countries in performing their duties to protect the health of their public greatly impact the spread of the disease and exact irreparable damages but that is up to the nations to judge. However, we must not allow the owners of labs that produce and spread this virus and t those who impose biologic wars on nations to be absolved of their culpabilities.”
“Today, the Iranian nation, despite selfless, diligent, and tireless work by the medial establishments and personnel who are fighting this aggressive and wild phenomenon, are suffering grave damages and incurring heavy costs. But we must anticipate and predict greater number of mortalities and heavy economic costs related to other nations in the near future. Therefore, it is of utmost importance and it is expected of Your Excellency and your organization to put the protection of human society at the forefront of your critical tasks. You must: 1) Provide immediate equipment, medical, and treatment assistance to the affected countries, especially the weaker nations, to prevent the spread; 2) Immediately identify the source, the production labs, and the spreading agents of this virus and other entities that support biological ward and expose them to the global society.”
“It is evident that public, transparent, and impartial information about the agents of these crimes against humanity play critically important role in control and use of this weapon against humanity. I have no doubt that with a mobilization of all nations and governments, the human society would isolate the perpetrators of these crimes and would cleanse the humanity of thoughts of aggression and oppression.”[8]
While I commend Mr. Ahamadinejad for his efforts, I think he must study the role the UN and WHO have historically played and are currently playing as vectors and catalysts for the very powers and interests he is asking them to hold accountable. They are the water-carriers for the Empire and its corrupt investors.
In a follow-up interview during a special news report conducted with Sardar Jalali, the head of Padafande Ghair Amel Agency (introduced above) on Esfand 20, 1398 [March 10, 2020], he provided an update and made additional information public:
“From the beginning to the end of Bahman [My note: about one month before the 1st case in Qom], we gave four commands to every single one of the provinces so that they conduct the operations commensurate with specific existing conditions. A mandate was issued by the head of armed forces every governor in every province was appointed as the commander of the bio base and the head of the revolutionary guard for each province as his vice commander.”
“At that time, around 5th to 10th of the month of Bahman, we sent special teams to the airports to monitor passengers to and from foreign destinations to verify and control the situation. We prepared and sent the reports to the Defense Ministry and put an order to produce thermometers.”
“In this area, 60 percent of the atmosphere is created by the media. Using the media, they influence and affect people and various industries. For example, a new network like BBC produces 120 programs altogether but 80 of those programs are related to Iran. Internally, too, a negative atmosphere has formed. Of course, to become certain this is a biological war, we must gain certainty through the studies conducted on the virus in the labs.”[9]
On Esfand 21, 1998 [March 11, 2020], a report published by the Center for Research in National Defense and Strategic Studies stated that “major parts of corona virus demonstrate unique characteristics of a biological war.”[10] On Esfand 28, 1398 [March 18, 2020], a letter was written to six heads of neighbor states of Iran signed by one hundred and two (102) Iranian physicians working in the fields of infectious diseases, asthma, allergies, upper and lower respiratory infections, and virology. The six heads of states addressed in the letter were those of Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan. In that letter, after providing background information on the United States bioweapon research, development, manufacturing, and use, these physicians asked these heads of states to take every action to destroy the United States Military’s Level 4 labs in their respective countries and to evict the United States from their soil before they have exacted more damage to the people of the entire region.[11]
A television interview was conducted by Sardar Pour Jamshidian, the vice commander in charge of coordinating military forces of the Revolutionary Guard on Farvardin 12, 1399 [March 31, 2020]. He had been asked if this disease was indeed due to a biological war why the Europeans and the [US] Americans themselves had been so badly affected by it. He provided a simple and straightforward answer:
“For questions of this nature, I have to say only this: the [US] American officials clearly and unambiguously state they are the creators of Daesh [ISIS]. Now, they themselves and the Europeans are pestered by these terrorists.”[12]
In other words, the cowboys have this propensity to shoot from the hip and in the process, they get others and themselves into trouble. On Farvardin 17, 1399 [April 5, 2020], Sardar Jalali participated in another extensive interview and brought of call for action on four areas:
“1) Establishment of a fact-finding committee consisting of independent nations and free of influence by the US and others to independently investigate the origin and spread of the virus.
2) Inspection and investigation into the suspected labs and preparing accurate and detailed reports.
3) Establishing protocols and international review and oversight committees to monitor the United States’ 25 level 3 and level 4 labs.
4) Formation of an international campaign to close down all biological weapons research labs that are currently operating without oversight and accountability in various countries. A sense of international threat regarding these labs should become a serious global demand.”[13]
Announcements, dynamic analytic discussions, and specific activities regarding high likelihood of CoV, related drugs and vaccines to be bioweapons abundant. Equally abundant are the closure of social media accounts and censorship of any claims in that regard. Persian-language Independent, bred, fed, and raised by Britain, had the following in its report on January 9, 2021:
“Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, yesterday, Friday the 19th of Dey, in a speech by name Pfizer vaccines produced by [US] America said that he does not trust the [US] America and Britain in the area of vaccine production. Not long after Ali Khamenei’s speech, the spokesperson for Iran’s Red Crescent announced that importing of 150 thousands doses of corona vaccine manufactured by Pfizer has been cancelled.”
“After the announcement by the leader of the regime ruling Iran regarding vaccines produced by the [US] America and Britain, Twitter removed his claim from all of his twitter accounts in English, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, and French. Ali Khamenei had claimed in that tweet that “if [US] America was able to produce vaccines, this corona disgrace would not have happened to it.”[14]
Okay. The English-, Arabic-, Spanish-, Russian-, and French-speaking Twitter account holders should now sleep peacefully. Twitter is awake and protecting their rights not to know. Discussions in Iran are diverse, vibrant, and in abundance. The sample I have presented should give you an overall sense about the themes on CoV, drugs, and vaccines.
2) Iran’s Choice of Battles in a Complex Bio-Media War
It is reasonable to assume that various independent socio-political nations and systems formulate (or at least should be able to formulate) their customized approaches to the question of CoV, drugs, vaccines, treatments, and various protocols based on factors that are best suitable for the health and wellbeing of their respective nations and institutions. Before I discuss the Islamic Republic of Iran as a case example in this regard, I must be transparent with my own assumptions since those assumptions greatly affect what and how I choose and discuss the evidences I present.
Personally and as a matter of professional practice, I remain open and critical of all information and evidence (old and new) about matters related to health and diseases – including CoV, vaccines, types of treatments, etc. Firstly, that is my job. Secondly, it is because science, like all other human endeavors and products, is incomplete, ever-changing (both evolving and devolving), ever-informing as well as “ever-dis-informing”, and extremely vulnerable to corruption. When there are solid evidence of corruption and unethical behavior, as it is with CoV and its vaccines, it becomes critically important to become more critical.
If the information presented about CoV, drugs, and vaccines were all true or all false, things would have been so much simpler and easier to discuss. What makes this matter extremely complicated, and a real global fitna, is the fact that true information and false information have been so skillfully and craftily interwoven and entangled that by the time one has demonstrated this mixing, one has lost the attention of a majority in the general public.
There is a sort of worrisome pattern here that could not have emerged randomly and haphazardly. The public for its part, regardless of the side any segment of the population has taken, was hurriedly ushered into isolated and controlled conditions. Under such conditions, having an affective visceral response instead of a patiently-examined-and-measured response was a foregone conclusion. So, this is another type of unconventional war that must be fought in a manner that the public is not fractured, divided, and pitted against one another for the benefit of a few corrupt entities. Doing this requires excellent leadership skills and padafande gheyre Amel.
In this section, I would like to highlight Iran’s experience with two specific areas of concern, a) Vaccines; and b) Risk Communication, as examples.
a) Vaccines.
Currently, there is valid, reliable, and disturbing evidence regarding several of the CoV et al vaccines as well as various drugs used as treatment on masses of people around the world at an alarming rate and quantity. To all these, we must add a legacy in Iran of the Western and West-supported atrocities of rather deadly kinds. Therefore, for the Iranians, you could triple and quadruple those worries.
The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatullah Khamenei, and the health experts around him are very well aware of those data and findings. The data and the information that most people (including a lot of people who follow this blog) access that ring alarm bells are accessible to his health experts and advisors, too. Furthermore, the health experts that surround the leader are quite capable and astute in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data and they very well see the worrying signs that others see and more.
So, I would like to press this point that as a nation, we must consider three things simultaneously:
1) What we know to be true or about lies and deceptions are skillfully and systematically fed to the global public about CoV and vaccines.
2) What possible covert bio-attacks we, the Iranians especially the notable personalities, might be served on the side but billed as a “global thing”.
3) The realities on the ground, an assessment of what we can realistically and safely achieve with the least amount of social and political disruptions, chaos, costs, and insecurity in the public and among the populations.
The quantity and quality of global disinformation, of powerful and well-resourced army of dis-informers who are, as we say, shamelessly “darideh,” –that is, those have no reservation in tearing apart any and all moral and ethical codes of conduct and boundaries—are beyond any single country or leader to taken on single handedly.
I have said this before (elsewhere): under current circumstances, no world leader could socially and politically keep his population intact and prevent fracturing of his nation in face of a barrage of well-coordinated and well-crafted media attacks they would suffer from within and from without should he take concrete stance to question the CoV and vaccines at this climate. It does not matter who it is: Ayatullah Khamenei or some other leader. Why? Because majority of the populations around the world live on a diet of 24/7 fear that is scheduled to mutate at regular intervals in a non-desensitizing ‘waves’ and manners through media outlets. As I said at the beginning, the public has been weaponized.
I do not know about other countries media and propaganda capacities. But I do know that the Islamic Republic of Iran has difficulty keeping a single English-language TV news channel running seamlessly on the internet. The reason is quite obvious: a lack of independent cyber infrastructure. As I said in the previous section, even simple statements in that regard get purged from the Leader’s Twitter account. In return, 199 Persian language channels and multiple social media networks work around clock to bombard the Iranian public with disinformation.
The statement of Ayatullah Khamenei made (quoted in the previous section) that was removed by Twitter was not even about questioning CoV or vaccines. It was about untrustworthiness of specific manufacturers and countries who have really nasty track records and we have concrete proof of their criminal behavior.
It might be interesting for you to know that after that speech, nearly one hundred ninety nine 24-hour Persian language TV channels, a whirlwind of poisonous social media channels spewed lies non-stop. The Iranian public’s peace of mind went on a rollercoaster ride for weeks with false dichotomies such as “health” versus “politics”, “vaccination” versus “no vaccinations”, “science” versus “ignorance”, and you name it. Thanks to Nofoozies, the infiltrators and internal mouthpieces synchronized their messages with hostile foreign media.
So, what would be the wisest, most logical, and prudent steps be for countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran and leaders like Ayatullah Khamenei to take? Should they dedicate enormous amounts of resources to counter the flood of propaganda to ward off fear and insecurity? Or, should they use the circumstances to further develop their public health and Padafande Ghayre Amel infrastructure while maintaining unity among the people and gradually de-weaponizing the public? The whole truth (not bits and pieces of it) will eventually come out. Meanwhile, however, as I said, it is about choosing one’s battle while, of course, remaining alert and vigilant.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, by Grace of God, has chosen the latter track for now. Simplistic interpretation of things could be misleading. Less than a couple of months ago, the Iranian Leader received an Iranian vaccine, “CovIran Barakat,” which uses the inactivated virus (of the varieties that has circulated in the Iran) and is completely manufactured by the Iranian scientists inside Iran.
After receiving the 1st dose, Ayatullah Khamenei said,
“From long ago, they were insisting I get vaccinated. I was not interested in using non-Iranian vaccines and told so to friends and others who were insisting. I told them I would wait until Inshallah the country’s own vaccine is produced and I would use our own vaccine. We must appreciate this national honor in the truest sense of the word. It is very important when we have the possibility to prevent or heal an illness inside the country, to do so. why not?”
“That was one reason I did not agree to get vaccinated. Besides, I told them, I would like to get vaccinated in the allotted time; that is when the vaccine is being distributed in the country and is the turn for my age group. Well, Alhamdullilah, the old folks around my age – eighty years and above—most of them now have received the vaccine. Some may have still not received it but we are receiving it around the same time. That’s why it was delayed until today.”[15]
From within those few lines, one could extract a thousand lessons. But that would be beyond the scope of this article. As far as vaccines are concerned, nudge the public in the direction they are leaning (or are being directed). Give them a choice of vaccines that has the least amount of harm and unknown or worrying long-term effects.
b) Risk Communication
Risk communication is not as straightforward and easy task anywhere in the world. But in the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is particularly complex. To illustrate this, I would like to revisit a couple of segments from two separate interviews by Sardar Jalali’s statements of which I quoted earlier:
“In this area, 60 percent of the atmosphere is created by the media. Using the media, they influence and affect people and various industries. For example, a new network like BBC produces 120 programs altogether but 80 of those programs are related to Iran. Internally, too, a negative atmosphere has formed. Of course, to become certain this is a biological war, we must gain certainty through the studies conducted on the virus in the labs.”[9]
“But we must also pay strict attention that the foreign-supported media are trying to induce public panic and portray a non-functional public health system in order to make people feel helpless and beleaguered. Playing political games, playing with statistics, and false additions and subtractions, falsely placing religion in opposition to people’s health, and more are a few examples of operations in psychological war front in the enemy’s media that must be attended to by the people and media activists.”[5]
So, how do you, for instance, communicate to a nation that it may have been the target of a biological weapon that is transmitted like a flu but they should not panic? How would you advise them to take care of their ill family members but keep their distance? What do you suggest to them when their religious and cultural beliefs obligate them to provide care to parents, grandparents, close kin, neighbors, and more but you are following protocols that are devised by entities that have no sense of religious and cultural obligations, family and kinship, and duty to one’s neighbor? How do you tell them to hold together a severely-sanctioned economy and prevent it from shattering yet they should not leave their homes?
Well, for countries and nations that have strict hierarchies and rules in place, and their populations have been mostly conditioned to follow those strict rules, you impose coercive public health measures and you order everyone to follow. For those nations, it would not be viewed as coercive but as “how things are.”
However, for a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran which has a completely different worldview, values, and belief system, such approach is neither desirable nor acceptable. For us, a participatory public health and mass mobilization approach are appropriate and effective. So, you get the Basijies involved and you help people find a balance between competing obligations in the best way that is appropriate for them despite what poison the enemies spew from their loudspeakers.
Of course, watching how the whole CoV thing turned into a global phenomenon had a calming effect on many. Whatever this was/is, at least it caused the world systems to make a public spectacle of themselves.
Final Food for Thought
In the past few months, with the exception of around presidential election time, the topic most repeatedly requested of me to discuss has been CoV and vaccines. Each audience has been different from the other in terms of socio-economic background, profession, and education. Teachers, university students and professors, religious scholars in seminaries, and the general public.
Interestingly, regardless of the diverse audiences’ backgrounds, I have observed three different view clusters: Those who have positive views about vaccines (including CoV’s), those who have negative views, and those who are unsure. To keep peace and manage to finish my talk, I have had to adapt. I start with the basics and gradually build layer upon layers. Most in all three groups end up gaining a nuanced view which leads to a less divided crowd. If the public is to be pitted against the public, then passive defense dictates that we try to bridge the gap and patiently disentangle the truths from untruths.
This is where I have had to start: The first question to consider is this: are vaccines safe? The correct answer is “no.” No vaccine is ever safe. If anyone says otherwise, that means s/he does not know the science of vaccines. In fact, vaccines are used because they induce particular diseases. So, the real concern is never about the non-existing safety of vaccines but about a comparison between the harms caused by given infectious diseases should individuals be exposed to that actual disease versus short-, medium-, and long-term harms caused by their respective vaccines.
Is this in itself a bad thing? Not necessarily. Various human societies have known for millennia that weaker and “weathered” versions of some very frightening diseases could induce milder forms of that disease and they have used this experiential knowledge in traditional medicine. In the simplest form, for example, when someone had chicken pox, ordinary people would wait about a few weeks or so, get some of the dried-up blisters and rub it into the nose of their children who had not gotten small pox before. They knew this somehow would immunize their kids.
Iranians, especially those well-versed in traditional medicine, know and understand this well.
But, here is how things go astray: profitability and industrial production of vaccines have become the driving force behind both the quality and the quantity of vaccines as well as the number of diseases for which people are forcefully “educated” and “encouraged” to get vaccinated. At the global level, these industries have used apparently “international” organizations as tools and means to their own ends.
Regarding CoV vaccines, I provide the audience with information about different types of vaccines and evidence on which ones might cause the least harm, which might cause the most harm, and which ones are scientifically considered worldwide experiments. I add the trustworthiness and untrustworthiness of indigenous versus imported vaccines for the Iranians. Then, tease apart vaccines imported from hostile versus non-hostile nations. Then, I go into vaccines from non-hostile nations that sub-contract and manufacture vaccines for hostile nations and sell it to us as third parties. I then discuss the process of quality assurance and random tests (or lack thereof) for imported medicinal products.
At any rate, “…and pulling our swords against those with whom we had no animosity, even against those who were our companions, our colleagues, and our fellow humans in faith and fate,” is not constructive and it is, in fact, counterproductive. Sardar Mohammad Zahrai, the Head of the Construction Basij recently said,
“The soft dimension of passive defense is the biologic and bio-terrorism wars. Spreading of infectious diseases that the Global Domination system has leveled against the countries is of this type. Once it was HIV, anthrax, etc. They were saying, ‘we must maintain our economic edge. The Global Domination, to preserve that edge, must have a balance in human power in the form of cheap labor.’ So, they have no reservation. With these sorts of attacks with infectious diseases, they are after either killing the population of a nation or deactivate and inactivate its active people. So, from this perspective, too, in the types of diseases and attacks, in contaminating waters, in genetically manipulating agricultural crops, or in any other area, they can do this. For instance, they say, ‘We have created the vaccine.’ Then, when it is used not only does it not cure the disease, it creates additional problems.”
“The fabric of Padafand Ghire Amel [the passive defense] in the Islamic Republic system is of the resistance by people in all arenas and domains. We have specific capitals that belong and are unique to this holy system of Islamic Republic of Iran.”
I conclude this essay by a saying a few words about those whom I consider colleagues in this field of public health and health research. There is currently a worldwide war with parallel and inter-connected battles in many countries around the world especially in the West between 3 types of health experts and health research scientists: a) those experts and scientists who are observing some very disturbing data and speaking up about them and urging others to be very cautious at the cost of losing their jobs and being harassed; b) those exports and scientists who are part of and beneficiaries of the propagated view; and c) those experts and scientists who just want to mind their own business and do the best they can under the circumstances. Some among this last group state a lot of concerns in private but remain silent in public.
I personally do not believe this battle is between science and knowledge versus “un-science” and ignorance. Rather, it is about good and rigorous science versus corrupt and co-opted science, and the general public is forced to divide and fight a battle that is, by all accounts, the responsibility and obligation of the scientists to do.
References
[1] Shariati, Ali. “Yah, Brother! This is How it Was.” Speech in Husseinieh Ershad on 1350/8/18, in Electronic version (in Farsi), Page 5. ChapPakhsh Publishing, Available online at: http://Shariati.Nimeharf.Com
[5] Fars News Agency, “Sardar Jalali: Proof of corona being a biological weapon requires lab reviews.” Esfand 13th, 1398 [March 3, 2020]. Accessed online at: http://fna.ir/dfirqk
[6] Khabar Online: Analytical News Agency of Iran. “Corona Virus in Gilan and Qom Different from Wuhan’s/The Possibility of a US Biological Attack Gained Strength.” Esfand 19, 1398 [March 9, 2020] @14:32. News Code: 1362522.
[7] Tabnak Professional News Site. “Member of Parliament: Existence of two corona viruses with two different origins in the country.” Esfand 19th, 1398 [March 9, 2020] @ 15:05. News Code: 964666.
[8] Iranian Environments News Base. “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s letter to UN Secretary General about Corona. Second Letter Destined to WHO was written.” Esfand 12, 1398 [March 2, 2020] @ 5:15. News Code: 346262.
[9] Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA). “We do not know definitively the bioweapon status of corona.” Esfand 21, 1398 [March 11, 2020] @12:05. News Code: 98122116188.
[10] News Division for University and Leading Center for Research in National Defense and Strategic Studies, “Major parts of corona virus demonstrate unique characteristics of a biological war.” Esfand 21, 1998 [March 11, 2020], at 12:27pm. News Code: 315.
[11] Khabar Online News Site. “Letter by more than 100 physicians for the destruction of all [US] American biological weapons labs in the region.” Esfand 28, 1398 [March 18, 2020] @ 12:06. News Code: 1366487
[12] Paydari Melli, Center for Information on Padafand Ghayre Amel. “Using Modern War Tools to Combat Corona.” Farvardin 13, 1399 [April 1, 2020] @ 12:14. News Code 58031.
[13] Paydari Melli, Center for Information on Padafand Ghayre Amel. “The United States of America is the main accused in Biological Threats to the World/the Need for Establishment of a Fact-Finding Committee.” Farvardin 17, 1399 [April 5, 2020] @15:16. News Code: 58084.
[14] Independent-Persian. “Claim about possible “biologic attack” by use of foreign vaccines.” Saturday, Dey 20, 1399 or January 9, 2021 @22:15. Accessed online at: https://www.independentpersian.com/
[16] Paydari Melli, Center for Information on Padafand Ghayre Amel. “Passive Defense: the Strategy to Save Infrastructures at the Time of Crisis.” Aban 9, 1399 [October 30, 2020] @16:46. News Code: 61350.
This year’s forum, with the theme A Collective Reckoning of the New Global Economic Reality, is one of the biggest events since the start of the pandemic. Heads of state and government, heads of major Russian and international associations, companies and banks, leading experts and politicians are taking part in discussions at the SPIEF in person or via videoconference.
* * *
Stanislav Natanzon, plenary session moderator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I am happy to welcome you all at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
This is the first global event of this level that people are attending in person, or at least it is a ‘hybrid’ event, to use the new buzzword. In any case, it is good to see you again. I think we have quite a backlog of topics for discussion, and I really hope the conversation today will be vibrant, frank and intense.
By tradition, we will first give the floor to the leaders and then we will have a discussion.
Mr President, please, you are the first to have the floor.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Your Highness Emir Tamim, Mr Federal Chancellor Kurz, ladies and gentlemen, friends,
I welcome all the participants and guests of the 24th St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
As you know, since the beginning of last year, most meetings at many traditional venues have been cancelled or were attended remotely because of the pandemic. We are happy that after this long break, Russia is hosting the first major international business event and providing a platform for representatives of the global business community to communicate with each other, not only using modern telecommunications, but directly. At the same time, we have certainly done our best to ensure the participants’ safety and adopted the most stringent sanitary protocols.
I repeat, the very fact that this massive forum is being held is certainly a positive sign. This once again shows that partner-like ties and contacts between entrepreneurs, investors and experts are gradually becoming customary and normal once again.
We are also witnessing the same positive global economic trends. Despite the all-out 2020 slump that, according to experts, was the greatest since World War II, one can already safely say that the global economy is returning to normal. The global GDP is expected to post unusually high growth rates this year, the biggest rise since the 1970s. As you know, experts are talking about six percent growth.
This, of course, was an effect of the large-scale and extraordinary decisions made by economic authorities worldwide. By the way, practice showed that traditional monetary policy measures would not be enough to overcome the current crisis. The budgetary policy that was actively supported by central banks in developing countries for the first time has played a key role in the rapid economic recovery.
We should understand that leading economies have many resources and tools for stimulating business activity. The statistics speak for themselves: In 2020, industrial countries’ budget deficits increased by an average of ten percent of their GDPs, while in developing countries, the growth was about five percent. And we know that these budget deficits largely finance anti-crisis measures. Of course, it is good that such solutions are available, and this is, certainly, a positive aspect. Unfortunately, there are also some negative sides to this.
As a result, we can see that global economic recovery is proceeding unevenly, given the different capabilities of different countries. This is fraught with greater disproportions and wider gaps in living standards both within certain countries and between them. And this breeds serious political, economic and social risks for the development of the modern interdependent world and for our common security. I have already spoken about this at the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January.
A case in point is our efforts to fight the pandemic. Unless we ensure broad, universal access to coronavirus vaccines on all continents, the threat of the pandemic, its new outbreaks will remain with us. Pockets of infection will survive, posing a threat to the entire planet.
What do we see now? According to the IMF, countries with a high level of income and 16 percent of the world’s population have access to 50 percent of the vaccines produced. As the result, only 10 percent of the world’s population have been fully vaccinated or received the first jab, whereas hundreds of millions of people have no access to vaccines simply because their countries do not have the required technology, production facilities or money to buy the vaccines. And the assistance being provided to these countries by those who can afford to do it has been negligibly small so far.
Regrettably, as the saying goes, it is every man for himself in the fight against the coronavirus on the global scale. The necessary volume of assistance is not being provided where it is badly needed now, or, which is absolutely absurd, politically motivated bans are imposed on the purchase of tested and effective vaccines that have been proved to be completely reliable. In the current situation this looks like unwillingness to protect one’s own citizens from this threat. This is indeed taking place; we have seen this happen.
As you know, Russia is contributing to the efforts against the coronavirus. We have created four vaccines, and these achievements of our scientists have been recognised throughout the world. For example, Sputnik V has been registered in 66 countries with a combined population of over 3.2 billion.
I would like to point out specifically that we have not only created unique technologies and promptly launched vaccine production in Russia, but we are also helping our foreign partners localise their manufacturing as well. So far, Russia is the only country doing this.
As I have already mentioned, today every adult in Russia can receive a vaccine in maximally comfortable conditions, voluntarily and free of charge. I would like to use this occasion to once again urge our citizens to make use of this opportunity to protect themselves and their loved ones. As I have said, the Russian vaccine has been declared the safest and most effective vaccine in the world, with an efficacy of over 96 percent. According to our regulatory bodies, not a single death has been reported among those who received the vaccine. I have already said this, and I can judge from my own experience: you can get a small fever, and this is the only side effect, while the protection is very strong.
In addition, I would like to ask the Government, regions and business to work jointly on the vaccination of people who come to Russia as migrant labourers. Many of them work in our construction industry, in trade and services, as well as in housing and utilities.
The domestic pharmaceutical industry is ready to continue increasing the production of vaccines. We fully meet our own requirements and can give foreigners an opportunity to come to Russia for vaccination. Given the efficiency of our vaccines, I know that the demand for them is high. Moreover, it is now common practice for people from various countries, including entrepreneurs, heads of large European and other companies, to make special trips to Russia to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
In this context, I would like to ask the Government to analyse all aspects of this issue before the end of this month so as to organise paid vaccination for foreigners in this country, taking into account, of course, security requirements and sanitary control.
Colleagues,
Obviously now, at the stage of post-crisis recovery it is important not only to ensure sustainable growth but also to benefit from the emerging opportunities and effectively develop competitive advantages as well as the scientific and technological potential. In the process, it is very important to preserve and strengthen business and investment ties between countries.
Multilateral projects are primarily capable of reviving and developing the global economy and we are grateful to our partners for the cooperation that is continuing during the epidemic and despite the difficult situation in international relations.
Incidentally, I would like to tell you in this connection that the laying of the first line of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was completed today, two and a half hours ago. The work on its second line continues.
In fact, the line pipe, including the offshore section, has been laid. The pipe in Germany is in place. Now parts of the pipe must be lifted and welded on the Russian side. That is all. Anyway, pipe laying is over.
The readiness of the Russian line of the gas route to the Slavyanskaya compressor station was also ensured this week. Why am I talking about this? Because this station is one of the most powerful compressor facilities in the world and is a point of departure for the new gas pipeline. Slavyanskaya has been supplied with gas.
To sum up, Gazprom is ready to fill Nord Stream 2 with gas. This route will create direct links between the Russian and German systems and will ensure energy security and reliable gas supplies for the Europeans, like Nord Stream 1. I must add that this project is profitable economically and fully conforms to the most stringent environmental and technical requirements.
We are ready to implement similar high-tech projects with our European and other partners in the future, and we hope that the logic of mutual benefit and mutual profit will inevitably prevail over all sorts of artificial barriers in the current political environment.
Now allow me to say a few words about some of the priorities on our domestic business agenda.
Thanks to the prompt and timely measures taken, the Russian economy and labour market are already approaching their pre-crisis levels. We have managed to save millions of jobs and avoid a sharp drop in people’s incomes. True, we have encountered problems. Unemployment increased and real incomes declined; we all know this. But none of that was anywhere near the disaster that could have happened, given the circumstances. That, at least, we have managed to avoid.
We have prevented a sharp drop in incomes, as I said. Our decisions to support businesses, workers, and regions have worked. The targeted assistance provided to Russian families and people who lost their jobs also came highly useful.
Indeed, difficulties with employment remain. We will probably talk about this later. We also know that the pandemic is not the only reason for the challenges we are facing such as a relatively high unemployment rate among young people or strained regional labour markets. We know we cannot blame everything on the pandemic, and we understand that some of these problems have a systemic nature stemming from unresolved structural problems in our economy.
The Government should enhance its programmes to promote employment in those constituent regions where unemployment is still high. At the same time, I emphasise, we need to continue taking targeted action, and propose solutions that take into account the economic specifics in each region. Furthermore, I am instructing the government to launch a permanent nationwide programme to support employment of young people, including measures to promote youth entrepreneurship.
It is obvious that the main, systemic response to the employment problem, and the key condition for raising people’s incomes is economic growth. This is obvious, and everyone understands it. New, high-quality jobs are needed in all sectors and regions of Russia.
World history shows that the relaunch of the economy following serious shocks has always been connected to boosting investment in infrastructure, territorial development, new technologies and personnel training.
I would like to thank the Russian regions that did not take a break or find excuses amid the most difficult pandemic environment that required great concentration of resources and attention, but continued to work on improving their business climate, maintaining dialogue with businesses and attracting investors. These regions have been rightfully distinguished by the National Investment Climate Ranking. Thus, Bashkortostan, Nizhny Novgorod Region and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area are listed among the ten best regions to invest in; Samara, Sakhalin and Chelyabinsk regions have shown good dynamics.
We will provide systemic assistance to the regions in improving the business environment. I would like to ask the Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoys to boost efforts in this area and the Government to focus on supporting the regions that have difficulties with raising investment. It is necessary to help them introduce the best management practices and improve the level and quality of work with investors.
This task is quite concrete: a transparent, predictable and comfortable environment must be provided for businesses, private investments and new projects in all Russian regions by 2024.
In particular, each region will need to outline priority development areas; this information will be open to businesses, as well as the region’s urban development and infrastructure plans for building utility lines, roads and communication systems, so that it would be easier for businesses to pick the best place for their new production site or other facility.
It is necessary to eliminate excessive links in the chain, various superfluous formalities and approvals, first of all, for the most sensitive areas such as connection to the grid, construction permits, and others.
We are consistently removing dated requirements at the federal level. Thus, starting September 1, almost 4,000 more building codes and regulations will no longer be mandatory. That will leave only 3,000 mandatory requirements in construction of the more than 10,000 we had previously. But there is still room for simplification.
I would like to note that this huge and painstaking work to streamline regulation took two years. Again, we will keep at this, while at the same time maintaining high requirements for the quality and reliability of construction.
I am asking the regional heads as well as the customers of major facilities at the federal and regional levels, and heads of our state-owned companies and private businesses to keep in mind that all construction permits will need to be prepared in line with the updated regulations and should take into account the rapid changes in construction technologies, and use advanced, highly sustainable building materials. All this will need to be considered.
In general, each region must offer an understandable, comprehensive algorithm for the investor to go all the way from project concept to the opening of a new industrial facility or a property as efficiently and quickly as possible, without wasting time or sustaining unnecessary costs.
I will once again stress the importance of cooperation between the Government and the regions. I would like to note that the performance of the federal ministers responsible for economic matters will also be evaluated by how quickly the situation improves in those regions where, as I said, there are still problems with the business and investment climate. Please do not pretend that this does not concern the federal government. This applies to everyone. We need a common result, and we need to work with the regions that need support.
Again, we should not have any so-called backward regions thrown on the sidelines of economic growth. Each constituent entity of the Russian Federation has investment and economic potential. We need to unlock and effectively use it in the interests of all Russians, for the good of all Russian families.
A programme of infrastructure loans that will give the regions an opportunity to attract long-term loans at a low interest rate will become a new instrument for their development. We have already spoken about this, discussed these matters and made public statements to the effect. In all, the actual investment in infrastructure under this programme must be no less than $500 billion in the next two and a half years.
I would like to ask regional governors to be very attentive to drafting projects for this type of funding. It is necessary to spend funds primarily on creating a comfortable environment for people and upgrading cities and other residential areas. This is a major factor of economic growth and investment appeal in the modern world, in the economy that surrounds people.
Based on the best international standards and the experience of rating the investment climate, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives drafted, in cooperation with experts and commissions of the State Council, a national rating of living standards in the regions of Russia. It is an important indicator and I would like to tell you about our first results in this respect.
Moscow, Tyumen Region, Tatarstan, the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area and St Petersburg are in the lead for obvious reasons. They are our traditional business centres. They have long invested serious funds in infrastructure for people. Importantly, more and more Russian regions are guided by high standards and are demonstrating good dynamics in many areas. Thus, the Republic of Mordovia has one of the best education systems; Udmurtia has very comfortable conditions for launching and running businesses, while Novgorod Region leads in social protection.
I would also like to mention such an interesting integral rating indicator as the commitment of people to their region, a desire to live and work there and link the future of their children with it. Sevastopol and Kaliningrad Region are at the top in this respect.
I would like to emphasise that the rating of the quality of life in the regions makes it possible to assess the situation objectively, to see which regions have the most experience and the best practices. Moreover, this rating is primarily based on the opinion of residents themselves. This feedback allows regional managerial teams to plan work better and to focus efforts on the most sensitive problems, such as, of course, more affordable housing.
I am aware that here, at the forum panels, and in the country in general, the issue is being discussed about what will happen next with reduced-APR mortgage lending, which, as you may recall, is now available at an APR of 6.5 percent. Indeed, this programme has become one of the key anti-crisis measures to support individuals and the economy. To date, over half a million households have applied for and received this loan. An additional 2 trillion rubles, approximately, have been attracted to housing construction.
As you may know, the programme will expire very soon, on July 1. To reiterate, this was an anti-crisis programme, meaning that it was temporary.
At the same time, abruptly terminating it is, of course, not an option. We must keep in mind the important role that easy-term mortgage lending is playing in the current circumstances for resolving our people’s housing problems and developing the construction industry, which, as we are aware, is the driving force behind related industries. Therefore, I propose extending this programme in all regions for another year, that is, until July 1, 2022. We will raise the rate slightly in doing so. Some changes will be made, including setting the easy-term mortgage rate at 7 percent APR. The maximum loan amount will be set at 3 million rubles and it will be applied throughout the country.
At the same time, I would like to let you know about a new decision designed to make mortgage loans more affordable for families with children. Here is what it is about. As you may be aware, a systemic special mortgage programme for families that had a second and subsequent child after January 1, 2018, is already in place. I propose expanding this to all families with children born after January 1, 2018, even if there is only one child in the family so far. That is, to reiterate, with the birth of their first child, a family will be able to take out a mortgage loan at a rate of 6 percent and buy housing on the primary market or refinance an existing mortgage loan. The maximum amount of such a loan for Moscow and St Petersburg, as well as the Moscow and Leningrad regions, where real estate prices are objectively higher, will be 12 million rubles, with 6 million rubles available in the other constituent entities of the Federation.
Colleagues,
We hope that a better quality of life and improved infrastructure in Russian regions will make them more attractive for promising projects, for more private investment, and will open up additional opportunities for large companies as well as small and medium-sized businesses, serving as an important support for the economy, and in many ways contributing to a modern, competitive business environment. Competition is the main driver of growth and, importantly, a market mechanism that keeps prices down.
Last year, we made a fundamental, systemic decision to support small and medium-sized businesses. We halved insurance premiums for small businesses from 30 to 15 percent. We will certainly not go back on this. Moreover, we are ready to take further steps to support entrepreneurship. I will mention some of them now.
Firstly, I propose launching a new mechanism to support SME lending as soon as this year – something we call umbrella guarantees.
Here is how it works. Our development institution, the SME Corporation, will issue guarantees for loans from partner banks. In fact, it will take on some of the risks and make loans more affordable for SMEs. According to estimates, this will allow entrepreneurs to attract additional resources for development, at least 600 billion rubles by 2024.
Secondly, I know that businesses, especially small ones, sometimes complain about the high bank charges on their trade and other operations.
We have already extended the faster payment system, which enables transactions with lower charges, for non-cash payments between individuals and entrepreneurs. However, so far, this system has not been as widely used by businesses as it could be.
As a reminder, by September 1, all the so-called systemically important, backbone banks in Russia must connect to the fast payments system. I also think it would be right if the largest of them do this in the very near future, by July 1.
In addition, I have one more proposal that I think will be a pleasant surprise for those who are involved in this type of business, small and medium companies. I am suggesting that they be fully reimbursed until the end of the year for the commission they pay for using the Fast Payments System (FPS) when they sell their services or goods to individuals, to people. I repeat: the cost of FPS will be zero for these companies.
I discussed this issue with my colleagues and the Governor of the Central Bank. It will be necessary to support financial institutions through the budget and avoid discouraging them.
My third point: companies that are now using the simplified taxation plan must transfer to the general tax schedule if they go beyond the employee limit or the revenue limit. Of course, in this case a business will have to shoulder an additional fiscal burden, and this can impede growth and compel entrepreneurs to use tricks, like the artificial division of a big company into small ones.
The restaurant business is a case in point in this respect. I suggest these companies participate in the pilot programme at the start of next year to work out the process for a more comfortable transition from the one tax schedule to the other.
With respect to some details, the companies in this programme will pay no VAT if their revenue is below 2 billion rubles a year. Importantly, they will retain the right to pay a reduced insurance premium rate of 15 percent even if their personnel count grows to 1,500 people. Currently the threshold is 250 people.
Colleagues, let us see what effect this has on keeping businesses legal and encouraging companies to grow. As for making businesses legal, I think all interested people understand what I am talking about: all cheques must go through the cash register; employment must be official and purchases must be legal as well, that is, recorded in the cash register. (Applause).
Thank you. I suppose we speak the same language. For my part, I will do all I can to see that the state meets its commitments.
I will add that we have already agreed to relieve of filing a tax declaration those entrepreneurs that are working under the simplified tax scheme and using cash registers. I would like to draw the attention of my colleagues in the Government and Parliament to the relevant draft law that was adopted in the first reading last year: it has stalled since then. Please finalise this as soon as possible.
Fourthly, small and medium-sized businesses must be relieved of antimonopoly oversight that is clearly excessive. Many existing threshold numbers have not been revised for a long time now and do not match today’s economic realities, since the economy and the companies keep growing.
For example, antitrust oversight covers all companies with annual revenue of over 400 million rubles. I propose doubling this amount to 800 million rubles, thus sparing a large number of growing companies burdensome and unnecessary reporting and paperwork. I propose setting a similarly higher threshold for oversight of mergers and acquisitions. That is, if a deal does not exceed 800 million rubles, it will not require the approval of antimonopoly authorities.
And, finally, my fifth point: measures to drive demand for the output of entrepreneurs across all sectors of the economy are especially relevant now. In this regard, I propose increasing the share of goods and services that our large companies, as well as state and municipal customers, must purchase from small and medium-sized enterprises, including non-profit organisations. It should be at least 25 percent.
We have held numerous discussions on this matter. I want to draw your attention right away to the fact that we are talking about companies that operate under Federal Law 223 and the companies that work with state and municipal authorities under Law 44. I am aware there are many subtleties here. And I know well that Russian industry does not even make certain products. However, the bar must be set where I said, and the Government will finalise the finer points.
In addition, it is imperative to cut the time it takes to pay for delivered goods and services from 30 to 15 business days, which is also important. Small businesses and socially oriented NGOs must see this time go from 15 to seven days.
Of course, real companies, not all sorts of sham or affiliated operations, should benefit from these preferences. I want the oversight authorities to keep this in mind. At the same time, I am instructing the Government to make sure that procurement for state needs involves mainly Russian manufacturers, of course, in compliance with internal competition rules, in this case.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As I have said earlier, international cooperation must be instrumental in overcoming the socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic. It is all the more important for us to pool our efforts in the face of common, systemic, long-term challenges that do not depend on the situation in the market or political disputes and setups, but determine the future of entire societies in a decisive way.
What am I talking about now? What am I referring to? Primarily, the climate agenda. Scientists estimate that over 2 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gases have accumulated in the Earth’s atmosphere because of human economic activity. Every year, the volume goes up by 50 billion tonnes, gradually warming up the planet.
I often hear that Russia is not that interested in resolving global environmental problems. I can say that this is nonsense, a myth, and sometimes outright distortion. Like other countries, we feel the risks and threats in this area, including desertification, soil erosion and melting permafrost. Many of those here work in the Arctic and know that we have entire cities built on permafrost in the Arctic. If it all starts to thaw, what consequences will Russia face? Of course, we are concerned.
We are consistent supporters of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement. I must emphasise that there is no separate Russian, European, Asian, or American climate. All our countries bear a common responsibility for today’s world and for the lives of future generations. We must set aside political and other differences and avoid turning the transition to “hydrocarbon neutrality” into an instrument of dishonest competition where attempts are made to change investment and trade flows in someone’s specific interests under the pretext of the hydrocarbon footprint, and where limited access to advanced ‘green’ technology becomes a factor in deterring individual countries and manufacturers.
How do we see Russia’s contribution to countering climate change? I am sure environmental and climate projects in our country will play a leading role in global efforts in climate conservation by virtue of Russia’s size, place and role in the world. We have set a goal: in the next 30 years the accumulated amount of pure greenhouse emissions must be lower in Russia than in Europe. This is an ambitious goal, but I am confident that it is feasible. I would like to ask the Government to draft a detailed plan of action on this before October 1 of this year. We will discuss this issue at a separate meeting.
What are our areas of focus?
The first one includes projects designed to reduce emissions throughout the economy. I have already mentioned that the Russian energy sector is increasing its share of low-carbon sources primarily through building nuclear and hydroelectric power plants and using renewable sources of energy. We have the world’s largest gas reserves, and while gas – we will probably discuss this later – is, of course, carbon, it is the purest kind of carbon, and we will be unable to do without it during the transition period.
Incidentally, using its nuclear industry as the foundation, Russia is already creating infrastructure for the production of hydrogen to be used as a raw material, fuel and energy source in metallurgy, the production of cement, and transport, among other areas.
We will also keep reducing emissions from hydrocarbon production and utilising associated gas. By the way, we probably utilise more gas this way than any other oil-producing country. We will thoroughly modernise the thermal power industry and electrify gas transport infrastructure. We also plan to further improve energy efficiency in the residential sector and heat supply systems, to switch public transport to natural gas, electric and hybrid engines, and to reduce material consumption in construction. In a word, we are talking about end-to-end technological retrofitting of our entire economy and infrastructure.
Clearly, such projects need market incentives in order to be launched successfully. To this end, we are starting to issue state-subsidised ‘green bonds.’ Also, we have developed performance criteria for environmental projects or a ‘green taxonomy’ in the parlance of experts.
Of course, reducing emissions is not enough to overcome the challenge of global warming. Greenhouse gas sequestration is essential if we want to achieve carbon neutrality. It is important to reduce existing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and our main goal is to learn to capture, store, and make productive use of carbon dioxide coming from all sources.
Now, regarding a second area in this context: an entire industry, a fundamentally new market for so-called ‘carbon units’ is being created almost before our eyes. Many people, especially those in power production, are aware of this, but I will explain. This is the amount of harmful airborne emissions that can be absorbed by a section of land or forest. So, if you have done some additional work on your land to increase its ability to absorb the emissions in the air, you have created a number of carbon units. Many countries and associations are already planning to accept these units from exporters to offset the emissions from the production of imported goods.
Russia has enormous potential for emission absorption with its forests, tundra, agricultural lands and marshlands. Our country has a fifth of the world’s forests; they occupy almost 10 million square kilometres. Specialists and scientists believe that they are already absorbing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents every year.
I repeat, the importance of Russia’s potential in natural compensation is enormous, simply huge in terms of the planet’s climate sustainability. Clearly, by virtue of its natural advantages, Russia can maintain a special place in the global market for carbon units. To achieve this, we need to use the forests and lands more effectively and enhance their absorption capacity. We must increase reforestation areas, fight wildfires, and expand pristine nature reserves, sanctuaries and national parks. In effect, we are now doing all this and intend to continue to do this in the future while introducing new soil-recovery agro-technology.
Importantly, we can work towards three objectives at the same time. Firstly, by investing in technology, the protection of forestry and land improvement, we will enhance the environmental wellbeing of our people, and the cities and territories they live in. Secondly, we will create jobs in the new high-tech industry of greenhouse emissions mitigation, and third,ly we will provide our exporters with an additional dimension for competitiveness in foreign markets.
This concerns many of you here in this hall. I would like you to see this as a direct message to Russian companies that are buying or starting to buy carbon units abroad or are planning to do this in the future. Instead, it is better to invest funds in climate projects in our country. Eventually, those who engage in this will receive many benefits, economic benefits. This effort will be more effective and oriented towards the future.
I would like to note that, based on our estimates, revenue from this new climate industry in the Russian market could soon surpass $50 billion a year, which is another important figure. In a word, this is a good, beneficial destination for investment by both domestic and foreign companies. We invite our interested partners to take part in this work. We will create the necessary conditions for this.
I would like to discuss several issues that are of critical importance for climate projects in Russia. It is necessary to work through in detail the criteria underlying these projects, to determine the sites and areas that are best suited for launching them, and the kind of technologies to use.
It is also imperative to create a transparent and objective system for assessing the outcome of climate projects. This is a critical part of what I am saying now – that is, to identify the current absorbing capacity of the sites and what it will be after the project is implemented. Actually, it is about calculating the delta in the form of the “carbon units” that I just mentioned.
All the while, it is important to monitor the emission and absorption of greenhouse gases based, among other things, on observations from outer space, digital technologies, and AI methods.
The construction of such a national system that makes use of the potential of Russian science is already underway in Russia. We are creating a network of “carbon testing grounds” to monitor carbon dioxide emission and absorption in real time, as well as the state of environmental systems, the quality of water resources and other variables.
We are also creating a pilot carbon market in Sakhalin Region. This experiment will come as a step towards achieving carbon neutrality and creating a nationwide carbon unit market.
I am aware that a system of this kind is about to be launched in other countries as well. Here is another important matter, which concerns mutual recognition of greenhouse gas emission and sequestration. This requires a transparent climate statistics system, mutual understanding between states and, of course, joint scientific research. We are open to this cooperation.
I am instructing the Government, by July 2022, to fully form the regulatory framework for implementing climate projects in Russia at the level of federal laws and departmental bylaws and guidelines, so that businesses, domestic and international alike, can draw up and implement their plans in this area relying on clear and easy-to-follow rules and criteria.
Colleagues, let me close by saying again that, despite the challenges presented by the global pandemic, life is gradually returning to normal. To reiterate, our meeting in St Petersburg is a case in point. Next week, St Petersburg will be hosting matches of the 2021 UEFA European championship which is getting underway.
On this note, I would like to convey my greetings to our great friend, the Emir of Qatar. It was his birthday yesterday. Our best wishes to you, Your Highness. I am confident that Qatar will host the FIFA World Cup 2022 with great success.
Such major events and forums truly unite and bring people from different countries closer. Businesspeople, of which there are many here, are well aware that in-person contacts based on mutual trust move forward, in many respects, business projects and initiatives, and, therefore, the global economy.
Russia will do its best to create every opportunity for these contacts to take place, for sharing experience and demonstrating the latest achievements in science and technology.
Thank you for your patience and your time, and I wish the forum every success.
By continuing to push for lockdowns to ‘protect hospitals’, authorities worldwide are denying millions of cancer sufferers and other seriously ill people essential treatment. This will lead to many unnecessary deaths.
It is shocking that in 2021, surgeries for cancer and other critical ailments are being delayed. But thanks to the hysteria over overcrowded ICUs, staggering numbers of patients are being denied life-saving treatments for up to one year.
UK media recently reported a drop of around 350,000 urgent cancer referrals between March last year and January this year, compared to the same period in the previous 12 months. A researcher described the situation as a “ticking time bomb.” There has also been a decrease in surgeries and chemotherapy and radiology treatments, “with 44,000 fewer patients diagnosed with cancer starting treatment.”
This problem is not unique to Britain. Canadian provinces face similarly unacceptable numbers of delayed surgeries and treatments. As of April, Ontario has a backlog of 245,367 “medically necessary procedures.” A 60% drop in cancer surgeries was reported when the pandemic struck last March , leaving over 36,000 Ontario cancer patients in agonizing limbo.
During stay-at-home orders in 2020, some patients chose to avoid hospitals, either out of worry about becoming ill or through fear of being forcibly estranged from family and loved ones. But also, then and now, elective surgeries and treatments have been halted under the premise that ICUs are overwhelmed.
Ontario recently went into a new lockdown, and with it we saw an increase in alarmist reports of ICUs being crowded. And so elective surgeries have been stopped again. It’s worth bearing in mind that these are not necessarily cosmetic or trivial procedures, but refer to surgeries scheduled in advance, including those to treat cancer.
However, some Ontario doctors are now speaking out, providing anecdotal evidence that there are plenty of ICU doctors, and even that most are “underemployed.”
As I wrote last week, every year in flu season, we’ve had reports of overcrowding in hospitals, with some bursting at the seams.
But Ontario politicians and medical officers continue to claim that locking down is necessary to allow hospitals to cope with the influx of Covid patients.
Even if the figure of 109 new ICU hospitalizations of Covid cases between April 4 and 10 is correct, it’s worth pointing that Ontario’s population is just under 15 million. The province is locked down and surgeries are being halted because of a rise in ICU hospitalizations that equates to 0.007% of the population.
And while the media makes constant reference to the number of Covid cases, if you look at deaths attributed to the virus, the number is actually very low. As of April 13, Health Canada lists that number (for the last 14 days) as two in Ontario.
In my opinion, the reason for stopping elective surgeries has more to do with the ensuring the incessant alarmism around “rising cases” continues. Talk of “cases” is meaningless, as I’ve written about before, noting that the testing gives false positives. This was demonstrated by Tanzania’s late president when fruit he had tested for Covid came back positive.
A climate of fear also helps with the vaccine rollout and persuading the public into accepting rushed, potentially dangerous vaccines so that life can “go back to normal” and people can have the life-saving surgeries they are otherwise being denied.
On top of all this, there are also suggestions that the lockdowns are actually causing health issues. Common sense dictates that the lack of exercise and sunshine people have experienced, plus the increased stress and anxiety, despair, and loneliness, will affect their health and immune systems.
But there’s more.
In a tragic irony, some of the globally pushed measures to fight Covid have been shown to be dangerous. In addition to other negative results of prolonged mask wearing, there are types of face covering that potentially cause lung cancer. Canada’s state media highlighted the danger of some, noting: “One model of mask distributed to Quebec schools and daycares may be dangerous for the lungs as they could contain a potentially toxic material, according to a directive sent out by the provincial government.
“Health Canada conducted a preliminary risk assessment which revealed a potential for early lung damage associated with inhalation of microscopic graphene particles.”
Further, the goop people have been obsessively slathering on their hands can be toxic, containing cancer-causing benzene.
A recent Newsweek article spoke of “dangerous levels of benzene in 21 of 260 batches of hand sanitizer.” It stated, “In the case of hand sanitizers, benzene can enter the body through inhalation or absorption through the skin and is known to cause blood cancers such as leukemia.”
This is hugely concerning when you consider that, among the disturbing measures children were forced to follow when at school this past year, they were made to regularly cover their hands in sanitizer.
Is all this really what we want? I can’t imagine the physical pain and psychological torture patients and loved ones are enduring, knowing that treatable cancer is spreading and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Or that patients with heart conditions will just have to hang in there until the powers that be decide there is no ICU crisis.
It’s a very twisted reality we live in, where cancer surgery and operations needed to stay alive are now deemed surgeries that will just have to wait. It doesn’t need to be this way – and the ultimate irony is that it’s being done in the name of ‘public safety’.
Friends, we are not clear of the storm yet. Hospital ICUs in some parts of the province are still under immense pressure and we need to ensure the sacrifices Ontarians have made aren’t wasted.
It’s April 2021 and we’re still being fed the same “stay home, save lives” line of 2020. But lockdowns are based on dodgy data and exaggerations, as well as causing more harm than they supposedly prevent.
As of today, Ontario is once again locked down. The last lockdown of two months was lifted only a month ago.
The province has endured the longest lockdowns in the country, thanks to politicians and medical officers pushing selective statistics.
The “Stay-at-Home” order (sounds so much nicer than lockdown!) requires people to imprison themselves again, except for “essential purposes” (exempt, of course, are Canadian politicians, who have repeatedly violated their own exhortations).
This latest draconian lockdown again impacts nearly every aspect of Ontarians’ ability to live their lives
It means: closed businesses; increasing poverty, loneliness, and depression; increased domestic abuse, a rise in suicides and self-harm; and utter media hysteria (actually, the media hysteria and fear mongering has not ceased since the announcement of a pandemic one year ago).
A petition to end Ontario’s lockdown of small businesses notes:
“There are over 440,000 small businesses in Ontario.
“Less than a week ago [state premier] Doug Ford told restaurants they would be allowed to operate outdoor dining even in grey zones; this caused restaurant owners to spend thousands of dollars on these spaces only to find out that this would not be the case in this current closure.
This level of carelessness and lack of foresight could be the demise of many locally owned restaurants.”
Alarmism and exaggerated ICU data
Premier Doug Ford, in his address yesterday, spoke of case rates, hospitalizations, and ICU occupancy “increasing rapidly, threatening to overwhelm the healthcare system.”
But, as I’ve written before, the whole concept of “cases rising” is meaningless: “Cases are determined by Covid-19 tests, which have proved to be unreliable and inaccurate, giving false positives and creating a false picture of reality. This faulty testing is exacerbating the media hype over ‘rising cases.’”
And according to a long-time employee at the Ottawa General hospital I corresponded with: “I work in a large hospital and I pass through the Covid-19 ICU unit every day. And it’s never been overflowing or too busy.”
Or, as a columnist for the Toronto Sun noted: “Toronto’s top doc said that data was showing younger people in ICUs. Asked about the data, she changed her tweet to say she was ‘hearing’ of younger Toronto ICU patients. Big difference between data showing and you hearing anecdotally.”
Or, as an Ontario MPP noted: “The @OntHospitalAssn keeps fear mongering about ICU capacity. But Critical Care Services Ontario ICU data for Apr 3 reveals: Toronto 375 of 496 beds taken (76%) Central: 398 of 513 (78%) Ontario: 1852 of 2418 (77%) The question to the OHA is why?”
In fact, every year in flu season, we’ve had reports of overcrowding in hospitals, hospitals bursting at seams. This never caused us to shut down our economy and lock down our citizens.
Finally, more and more journalists are asking for proof of the claims bandied about by the Fords and media.
Even Naomi Wolf, not your average “conspiracy theorist” or “right winger” (as those opposed to brutal lockdowns are often described by dinosaur media) tweeted, “How are Canadians still being told such gigantic lies? The whole ‘lockdown equals public safety’ mythology is fully deceased.”
Vested interests in vaccines?
While ordinary Canadians suffer tremendously under lockdowns, Canada’s unelected medical tyrants, the Medical Officers of Health (MOH) are doing quite well, earning $200,000 – $300,000, and more.
In addition to pushing for this latest lockdown, Ontario MOHs went the extra mile and called for “fewer businesses to be deemed essential and more operations shut down.”
Because a year-plus of lockdowns destroying small businesses’ ability to survive just wasn’t enough….
Some of these MOHs may even have financial links to the rollout of vaccines.
In his press conference yesterday, much of Premier Ford’s focus was on pushing jabs.
Ford promised, “better days are ahead of us,” followed by more calls for Ontarians to get jabbed with vaccines made faster than ever before which, technically, will not even be out of the clinical trials stage till next year at the earliest.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is being suspended by countries around the world for causing blood clotting, which could lead to death.
In spite of this, Ontario continues to push it. As of April first, Canada has bought around 24 million doses. In addition to its AstraZeneca purchases, Canada agreed to purchase at least 20 million doses of Pfizer’s hurried vaccine.
In March, the media reported that Toronto’s MOH, Eileen de Villa, is married to Dr Richard Choi, a cardiologist and lecturer at Unity Health Toronto, who lists Pfizer and AstraZeneca among his ‘Relationships with financial interests.’ Under de Villa’s leadership, “Toronto Public Health has been used as a tool to counter any ‘misinformation’ about vaccination,” and was allegedly “behind a call to ban vaccine exemptions because of religious or philosophical beliefs.”
Another article on the de Villa-Choi conflict of interest noted: “It’s not a good look when you lock down your city when you don’t have to and your husband has financial interests with AstraZeneca and Pfizer.”
In mid-March, Premier Ford said he isn’t making the decisions, the chief medical officers are. He also said it would essentially be political suicide to go against them.
“To be frank, there’s no politician in the country who’s going to disagree with their chief medical officer. They’re just not going to do it. They might as well throw a rope around their neck and jump off a bridge.”
Doug @fordnation admits he & other politicians (are cowards who) toe the line because going against a chief medical officer would be suicidal.
Barbara Yaffe, Dec 2020:
“I don't know why I bring all these papers, I never look at them. I just say whatever THEY write down for me" pic.twitter.com/dmMh9DxVQ1
Last December, Toronto’s Associate MOH, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, and Chief MOH, Dr. David Williams, admitted they are just reading a script, “I just say what they write down for me.” And laughed about it.
So, we have unelected medical officers running the show, essentially forcing government decisions on lockdowns and related issues. And as a Toronto lawyer opposed to lockdowns noted, “local Councils are legally powerless to stop” these unaccountable MOHs. How wonderfully democratic.
Liberal democracy run by a bunch of TV doctors, compliant media, and unelected, unaccountable Medical Officers of Health whom local Councils are legally powerless to stop.
This is why we have courts and tribunals – where this exercise will hopefully have its conclusion.
There is definitely a will and momentum to resist the brutal lockdown measures affecting all but the fat cats flouting them. With a new round of bullying by unelected medical officers, I hope the resistance to tyranny grows.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview given to Channel One’s Bolshaya Igra (Great Game) talk show, Moscow, April 1, 2021
Vyacheslav Nikonov: The word “war” has been heard increasingly more often lately. US and NATO politicians, even more so the Ukrainian military, have no trouble saying it. Do you have more reasons to be concerned now than ever before?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes and no. On the one hand, the confrontation has hit bottom. On the other, deep down, there’s still hope that we are adults and understand the risks associated with escalating tensions further. However, our Western colleagues introduced the word “war” into the diplomatic and international usage. “The hybrid war unleashed by Russia” is a very popular description of what the West perceives as the main event in international life. I still believe that good judgment will prevail.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: Recently, the United States has ratcheted the degree of confrontation up to never-before-seen proportions. President Joe Biden said President Vladimir Putin is a “killer.” We have recalled Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov.
Sergey Lavrov: He was invited for consultations.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: Hence, the question: How do we go about our relations now? How long will this pause last? When will Mr Antonov return to Washington?
Sergey Lavrov: What we heard President Biden say in his interview with ABC is outrageous and unprecedented. However, one should always see the real actions behind the rhetoric, and they began long before this interview back during the Barack Obama administration. They continued under the Trump administration, despite the fact that the 45th US President publicly spoke in favour of maintaining good relations with Russia, with which he was willing to “get along,” but was not allowed to do so. I’m talking about the consistent degradation of the deterrent infrastructure in the military-political and strategic spheres.
The ABM Treaty has long since been dropped. President Putin has more than once mentioned how, in response to his remark that George W. Bush was making a mistake and there was no need to aggravate relations, the then US President said that it was not directed against Russia. Allegedly, we can take any steps that we deem necessary in response to the US withdrawing from the ABM Treaty. Allegedly, the Americans will not take these actions as directed against them, either. But then they started establishing anti-missile systems in Europe which is the third missile defence position area. It was announced that it was built exclusively with Iran in mind. Our attempts to agree on a transparency format received support during the visit to Moscow by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, but were later rejected. We now have a missile defence area in Europe. Nobody is saying that this is against Iran now. This is clearly being positioned as a global project designed to contain Russia and China. The same processes are underway in the Asia-Pacific region. No one is trying to pretend that this is being done against North Korea.
This is a global system designed to back US claims to absolute dominance, including in the military-strategic and nuclear spheres.
Dimitri Simes can also share his assessment of what is said and written in the United States on that account. A steadfast course has now been taken towards deploying intermediate and shorter-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region.
The INF Treaty was discarded by the Americans on far-fetched pretexts. This was not our choice. In his special messages, President Vladimir Putin suggested agreeing, on a voluntary basis and even in the absence of the INF Treaty, on a mutual moratorium with corresponding verification measures in the Kaliningrad Region, where the Americans suspected our Iskander missiles of violating restrictions imposed by the now defunct treaty, and at US bases in Poland and Romania, where the MK-41 units are promoted by the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, as dual-purpose equipment.
To reiterate, this rhetoric is outrageous and unacceptable. However, President Putin has reacted to it diplomatically and politely. Unfortunately, there was no response to our offer to talk live and to dot the dottable letters in the Russian and English alphabets. All of that has long since gone hand-in-hand with a material build-up in the confrontational infrastructure, which also includes the reckless eastward advance of NATO military facilities, the transformation of a rotational presence into a permanent presence on our borders, in the Baltic States, in Norway, and Poland. So everything is much more serious than mere rhetoric.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: When will Ambassador Antonov return to Washington?
Sergey Lavrov: It’s up to President Putin to decide. Ambassador Antonov is currently holding consultations at the Foreign Ministry. He has met with the members of the committees on international affairs at the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly. He has had conversations at the Presidential Executive Office as well.
It is important for us to analyse the current state of our relations, which did not get to this point overnight, and are not just because of this interview, but have been going this way for years now. The fact that inappropriate language was used during President Biden’s interview with ABC shows the urgency of conducting a comprehensive analysis. This does not mean that we have just been observers and have not drawn any conclusions over the past years. But now the time has come for generalisations.
Dimitri Simes: Now that I am in Moscow, after a year in Washington, I see a striking contrast between statements by the leaders of the two countries. I think you will agree that when officials in Washington talk about relations with Russia, their pattern is simple and understandable: “Russia is an opponent.” Sometimes, Congressmen are more abrupt and call it “an enemy.” However, political leaders from the administration still call it “an opponent.” They allow cooperation with Russia on some issues that are important to the US, but generally it is emphasised that militarily Russia is “the number one opponent,” while politically it is not just a country with objectionable views but a state that “tries to spread authoritarian regimes throughout the world,” that “opposes democracy” and “undermines the foundations of the US as such.”
When I listen to you and President of Russia Vladimir Putin, I have the impression that in Moscow the picture is more complicated and has more nuances. Do you think the US is Russia’s opponent today?
Sergey Lavrov: I will not go into analysing the lexicon of “opponent,” “enemy,” “competitor” or “rival.” All these words are juggled in both official and unofficial statements. I read the other day that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that for all the differences with Russia and China, the US does not have anything against these countries. As for what the US is doing, it is simply “promoting democracy” and “upholding human rights.” I don’t know how seriously one can take this description of US policy towards Moscow and Beijing. However, if they are promoting democracy, practice must justify theory.
George W. Bush announced that democracy was established in Iraq in May 2003. Aboard an aircraft carrier, he declared that Iraq’s liberation from its totalitarian regime was completed and democracy was established in the country. There is no point in elaborating. It is enough to mention the toll of the US-unleashed war – hundreds of thousands of people. We should also remember that the “rule” of the notorious Paul Bremer resulted in the birth of ISIS, which was rapidly joined by members of the Baath Party, employees of Saddam Hussein’s secret services, who had lost their jobs. They simply needed to provide for their families. ISIS emerged not because of ideological differences. Relying on US mistakes, the radicals actively used this fact. This is what democracy in Iraq is all about.
“Democracy” in Libya was established by bombs, strikes and the murder of Muammar Gaddafi which was accompanied by Hillary Clinton’s cry of admiration. This is the result: Libya is a black hole; refugee flows bound for the north are creating problems for the EU that does not know what to do about them; illegal arms and terrorists are being smuggled through Libya to the south, bringing suffering to the Sahara-Sahel Region.
I do not wish to describe what the Americans feel towards the Russian Federation. If their statements about us being their “opponent,” “enemy,” “rival” or “competitor” are based on the desire to accuse us of the consequences of their reckless policy, we can hardly have a serious conversation with them.
Dmitri Simes: When officials in Washington, the Joseph Biden administration or Congress, call Russia an opponent and emphasise this, I think they would not agree that it is simply rhetoric. Nor would they agree that it is designed solely for domestic consumption. The Biden administration is saying that the US did not have a consistent policy towards Russia and that former US President Donald Trump let Russia “do everything the Russian Government of Vladimir Putin wanted.” Now a new sheriff has come in and is willing to talk in a way he sees fit without paying much attention to how Moscow will interpret it; and if Moscow doesn’t like it, this is good. This is being done not to evoke discontent, of course, but to show that Russia is finally realising that it cannot behave like this anymore. Is there any chance that this new Biden administration policy will compel Russia to show some new flexibility?
Sergey Lavrov: The policy you mentioned, which is promoted in the forms we are now seeing, has no chance to succeed. This is nothing new: Joseph Biden has come in, started using sanctions against Russia, toughening rhetoric and in general exerting pressure all along the line. This has been going on for many years. The sanctions started with the Barack Obama administration and, historically, even earlier. Like many other restrictions, they have simply become hypertrophied and ideology-based starting in 2013, before the events in Ukraine.
Dimitri Simes: They will tell you, and you know this better than I do, that this policy has not been pursued sufficiently consistently, that it was not energetic enough, and that now they and their NATO allies will get down to dealing with Russia seriously so as to show us that we must change our behaviour fundamentally not just when it comes to foreign policy but also our domestic policy.
Sergey Lavrov: Dimitri, you are an experienced person, you know the United States better than Vyacheslav Nikonov or I do. What else can they do to us? Which of the analysts has decided to prove the practicability of any further pressure on Russia? How well do they know history? This question is for you.
Dimitri Simes: Mr Minister, you probably know that I am not a fervent supporter of the policy of the Biden administration.
Sergey Lavrov: I am asking you as an observer and an independent expert.
Dimitri Simes: In my opinion, the Biden administration still has a sufficient set of tools it can apply against Russia, including new sanctions, the promotion of NATO infrastructure in Europe, a more “harmonised” pressure on Russia together with its allies, the advance of the US policy not closer to the traditional Old Europe (I am referring to Britain and especially to France and Germany) but to Poland, and lastly, the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine. It is now believed in Washington that it is very important to show Russia that its current policy in Ukraine has no future and that unless Russia changes its behaviour it “will pay a price.”
Sergey Lavrov: My views on the current developments range from an exercise in absurdity to a dangerous play with matches. You may know that it has become trendy to use examples from ordinary life to describe current developments. All of us played outdoors when we were children. Kids of different ages and with different kinds of family upbringing played in the same places. In fact, we all lived as one big family then. There were two or three bad boys on every street; they humiliated other kids, disciplined them, forced them to clean their boots and took their money, the few kopecks our mothers gave us to buy a pie or breakfast at school. Two, three or four years later, these small kids grew up and could fight back. We don’t even have to grow up. We do not want confrontation.
President Putin has said more than once, including after President Biden’s infamous interview with ABC that we are ready to work with the United States in the interests of our people and the interests of international security. If the United States is willing to endanger the interests of global stability and global – and so far peaceful – coexistence, I don’t think it will find many allies for this endeavour. It is true that the EU has quickly towed the line and pledged allegiance. I regard the statements made during the virtual EU summit with Joe Biden as unprecedented. I don’t remember ever hearing such oaths of allegiance before. The things they said publicly revealed their absolute ignorance of the history of the creation of the UN and many other events. I am sure that serious politicians – there are still some left in the United States – can see not just futility but also the absurdity of this policy. As far as I know, the other day 27 political organisations in the United States publicly urged the Biden administration to change the rhetoric and the essence of the US approach to relations with Russia.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: This is unlikely to happen. I believe that your example with “tough guys” on every street is too mild. The United States has gone beyond the pale, let alone the street ethics, which have always been respected. We can see this happening in Ukraine. President Biden is one of those who created modern Ukraine, the Ukrainian policy and the war in Donbass. As I see it, he takes the situation very personally, and he will try to keep it in its current tense state. How dangerous is the situation in Ukraine in light of the ongoing US arms deliveries, the decisions adopted in the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday, and the statements made by the Ukrainian military, who are openly speaking about a war? Where do we stand on the Ukrainian front?
Sergey Lavrov: There is much speculation about the documents that the Rada passed and that President Zelensky signed. To what extent does this reflect real politics? Is it consistent with the objective of resolving President Zelensky’s domestic problem of declining ratings? I’m not sure what this is: a bluff or concrete plans. According to the information published in the media, the military, for the most part, is aware of the damage that any action to unleash a hot conflict might bring.
I very much hope this will not be fomented by the politicians, who, in turn, will be fomented by the US-led West. Once again, we see the truth as stated by many analysts and political scientists, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, being reaffirmed. They look at Ukraine from a geopolitical perspective: as a country that is close to Russia, Ukraine makes Russia a great state; without Ukraine, Russia does not have global significance. I leave this on the conscience of those who profess these ideas, their fairness and ability to appreciate modern Russia. Like President Vladimir Putin said not long ago; but these words are still relevant, – those who try to unleash a new war in Donbass will destroy Ukraine.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: The US and Western diplomacy have definitely accomplished one thing: they put Russia and China in one boat. Indeed, we have already become strategic partners in deeds not just in words. You have just come back from China. You go there more often than once a year, for sure. During this trip, was there anything new that you sensed from Chinese leadership, which has recently come under unprecedented and rude attacks from the Americans? How strong are the bonds that are being established between Russia and China? How high is the bar that we can or have already reached in our relationship?
Sergey Lavrov: Like Russians, the Chinese are a proud nation. They may be more patient historically. The Chinese nation’s national and genetic code is all about being focused on a historical future. They are never limited to 4 or 5- year electoral cycles. They look further: “a big journey begins with a small step” and many other maxims coined by Chinese leaders go to show that they appreciate a goal that is not just on the horizon, but beyond the horizon. This also applies to reunifying Chinese lands – incrementally and without haste, but purposefully and persistently. Those who are talking with China and Russia without due respect or look down on us, or insult us are worthless politicians and strategists. If they do this to show how tough they are for the next parliamentary election in a couple of years, so be it.
Winston Churchill famously said that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” A big debate is underway about which one is more effective. The coronavirus infection has taken the debate up a notch. To what extent the Western democracies have shown themselves capable of opposing this absolute evil and to what extent countries with a centralised, strong and “authoritarian” government have been successful. History will be the judge. We should wait to see the results.
We want to cooperate; we have never accused anyone of anything, or mounted a media campaign against anyone, even though we are being accused of doing this. As soon as President Putin announced the creation of a vaccine, he proposed establishing international cooperation. You do remember what was being said about Sputnik V. At first, they said that it was not true, and then that this was propaganda and the only purpose was to promote Russia’s political interests in the world. We can see the ripple effect of this. On March 30, Vladimir Putin held talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. We sensed a more realistic commitment to cooperate rather than try to engage in “vaccine discrimination” or “vaccine propaganda.”
Getting back to the heart of the matter, by and large, no one should be rude to other people. But what we see instead is a dialogue with a condescending tone towards great civilisations like Russia and China. We are being told what to do. If we want to say something, we are asked to “leave them alone.” This was the case in Anchorage when the discussion came to human rights. Antony Blinken said that there were many violations in the United States, but the undercurrent was clear – they would sort it out themselves and are already doing so. However, in Xinjiang Uygur, Hong Kong and Tibet, to name a few, things should be approached differently. It’s not just about a lack of diplomatic skills. It runs much deeper. In China, I sensed that this patient nation, which always upholds its interests and shows a willingness to find a compromise, was put in a stalemate. The other day, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson made a relevant comment. I don’t remember that ever happening before.
With regard to whether we are being pushed into the arms of China or China is being pushed into our arms, everyone remembers Henry Kissinger’s words that the United States should have relations with China which are better than relations between China and Russia, and vice versa. He saw this historical process and knew which way it could go. Many are writing now that the United States is committing a huge strategic mistake making efforts against Russia and China at a time, thereby catalysing our rapprochement. Moscow and Beijing are not allying against anyone. During my visit to China, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and I adopted a Joint Statement on Certain Issues of Global Governance in Modern Conditions, where we emphasised the unacceptability of violating international law or substituting it by some secretly drafted rules, of interference in other countries’ internal affairs and, overall, everything that contradicts the UN Charter. There are no threats there. The documents signed by the leaders of Russia and China always emphasise the fact that bilateral strategic interaction and multifaceted partnership are not directed against anyone, but focus exclusively on the interests of our peoples and countries. They build on a clear-cut and objective foundation of overlapping interests. We look for a balance of interests, and there are many areas where it has been achieved and is being used for the benefit of all of us.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: Have you noticed any change in China’s position? It is clear that Beijing is in a very tight situation. How far is China willing to go in its confrontation with the United States? It is obvious that they are now responding harshly. Sanctions are being introduced against Beijing, so it responds with tough counter-sanctions, and not only against the United States, but also against its allies, who are also joining the sanctions. Europe has joined this confrontation. Are we prepared to synchronise our policies with China, for example, our counter-sanctions, as we did with Belarus? Do we have a common strategy to counter the increasing pressure from the so-called alliance of democracies?
Sergey Lavrov: There is a general strategy, and I just mentioned it. Along with the Statement signed during my visit to China, a comprehensive Leaders’ Statement was adopted last year. Now we are preparing the next document, which will be signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Treaty on Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation. Our strategic treaty will be renewed.
These documents spell out our line of conduct. We are not planning, and will not plan, any schemes to retaliate for what they are doing to us. I do not think that we will synchronise our responses to any new sanction acts against China and Russia.
Our level of cooperation continues to grow qualitatively.
You mentioned military alliances. There is popular speculation out there that Russia and China might conclude a military alliance. First, one of the documents signed at the highest level underscored that our relations are not a military alliance, and we are not pursuing this goal. We regard NATO as an example of a military alliance in the traditional sense, and we know that we do not need such an alliance. NATO clearly breathed a sigh of relief after the Biden administration replaced Donald Trump. Everyone was happy to again have someone to tell them what to do. Emmanuel Macron still occasionally tries to vainly mention the EU’s strategic autonomy initiative, but no one else in Europe even wants to discuss it. It’s over, the boss is here.
That kind of alliance is a Cold War alliance. I would prefer thinking in terms of the modern era where multi-polarity is growing. In this sense, our relationship with China is completely different from that of a traditional military alliance. Maybe in a certain sense, it is an even closer bond.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: The “alliance of democracies” will be created. This is obvious although fewer people in Russia still believe that it’s about democracy. In its election, its attitude towards freedom of the media and opportunities to express opposing views, the US has made it very clear that it has big problems with democracy. Europe also gives examples that compel us to doubt its efforts to promote a strong democratic project. After all, it still holds a position as a player under a big boss.
Vladimir Putin had a conversation with Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel via videoconference on March 30 of this year. Without Vladimir Zelensky, by the way. This is the Normandy format minus Ukraine, which resulted in a bitter response from Kiev.
They discussed a broad range of issues. Meanwhile, you have said more than once that our relations with the EU are frozen or absent altogether. Do you mean that we stay in contact or that contact is possible with individual EU members but not with the EU as a whole?
Sergey Lavrov: This is exactly the case, and this was also mentioned during the March 30 talks, and during Vladimir Putin’s conversation with President of the European Council Charles Michel. We are surprised that this assessment offends the EU. This is simply an objective fact.
It took years to develop relations between Moscow and the EU. By the time the state coup in Ukraine took place these relations included: summits twice a year; annual meetings of all members of the Russian Government with all members of the European Commission; about 17 sectoral dialogues on different issues, from energy to human rights; and four common spaces based on Russia-EU summit resolutions, each of which had its own roadmap.
We were holding talks on visa-free travel. It is indicative that the EU broke them off back in 2013, long before the crisis in Ukraine. As some of our colleagues told us, when it came to a decision on signing the proposed agreement, the aggressive Russophobic minority adamantly opposed it: Russia cannot receive visa-free travel status with the EU before Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova do. This is the entire background. What the EU did after that, braking all channels of systematic dialogue was a burst of emotion. They took it out on us because the putschists insulted the West by throwing out the document signed by Yanukovich and the opposition the day before, this despite the fact that Germany, France and Poland had endorsed this document. The first actions of the new authorities were to remove the Russian language from daily life and to expel Russians from Crimea. When Russian-speakers and Russians in Ukraine opposed this and asked to be left alone, a so-called “anti-terrorist operation” was launched against them.
In effect, the EU imposed sanctions on us and broke off all communication channels because we raised our voice in defence of Russian citizens and ethnic Russians in Ukraine, Donbass and Crimea. We try to discuss issues with them when they start making claims against us. They probably understand this; I hope they are still seasoned politicians. But if they understand this but don’t want to consider it in their practical policy, it means that they are being charged with Russophobia or cannot do anything about the aggressive Russophobic minority in the EU.
Dimitri Simes: I believe when we talk about the EU, it’s important to look at what the EU is and to what extent it has changed compared to what it used to be and what it was supposed to be when it was founded. The EU was primarily designed as an organisation for economic cooperation.
No political component was even envisioned at the start. It was about the EU contributing to European economic integration. The possibility was even mentioned of Russia playing some associated role in that process. But then they said the EU should also have some common values. At first, the idea was that those common values were the cement of the EU itself. Then a new idea emerged in Warsaw that it would be nice for those European values (since they are actually universal) to spread to other regions, as well as for Russia to respect them, or even to obey them. When I look at the EU’s approach to Ukraine, the conflict in Donbass and the demands to return Crimea to Kiev, it seems to me that the EU is becoming a missionary organisation. When you deal with crusaders, trying to reckon with them or appealing to their logic and conscience is probably useless. Do you not think that the EU has journeyed to a place where there are limited opportunities for partnership and great potential for confrontation? Or am I being too pessimistic?
Sergey Lavrov: No, I agree with you, absolutely. This is a missionary style – lecturing others while projecting superiority. It is important to see this tendency, as it has repeatedly brought Europe to trouble.
This is actually the case. Established as the Coal and Steel Community, then the European Economic Community – if you look at the EU now, look at their values, they are already attacking their own members like Poland and Hungary, just because these countries have somewhat different cultural and religious traditions. You said it originated in Poland. I actually forget who started this…
Dimitri Simes: I first heard it from Polish delegates at a conference.
Sergey Lavrov: Now Poland itself is facing the consequences of its ideas, only not outside the EU, but within the organisation.
When anyone tries to impose any values on Russia, related, as they believe, to democracy and human rights, we have this very specific response: all universal values are contained in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights that everyone signed. Any values invented now, which they try to impose on us or other countries, are not universal. They have not been agreed upon by the entire international community. Even inside the EU, look at those street protests! A couple of years ago, they had protests in France in defence of the traditional family, the concepts of “mother,” “father,” and “children.” This lies deep. Playing with traditional values is dangerous.
As to the EU once inviting Russia as an associate member, we never agreed to sign an association document. Now the same is being done with regard to the Eastern Partnership countries – Armenia, Ukraine, and Moldova. As for Russia’s relations with the EU, which Brussels destroyed, only one thing remained – the basic document on the terms of trade and investment. It was indeed the subject of negotiation between the Brussels Commission and the Russian Federation. This is a document that remains valid. We cooperate with individual countries, but not with the EU, because those were the terms agreed upon, and their practical implementation is going through bilateral channels. The only thing the EU is doing in this respect now is imposing sanctions and banning its members from fulfilling some parts of this agreement because they want to “punish Russia.” That’s it, there are no other ties.
We are being told that we are deliberately derailing our relations (although the facts are simply outrageous), trying to shift our ties with Europe to bilateral channels, wanting to “split up” the European Union. We don’t want to split anyone up. We always say that we are interested in a strong and independent European Union. But if the EU chooses a non-independent position in the international arena, as we just discussed, this is their right. We cannot do anything about it. We have always supported its independence and unity. But in the current situation, where Brussels broke off all relations, when certain European countries reach out to us (we have not tried to lure anyone) with proposals to talk, to visit any of the sides and discuss some promising projects in bilateral relations, how can we refuse our partners? It is quite unfair (even a shame) to try to present such meetings as part of a strategy to split up the EU. They have enough problems of their own that split them up.
Dimitri Simes: This is a philosophical issue in Russia’s relations with the EU. When the EU has imposed anti-China sanctions, China made a tough response. This was an unpleasant surprise for the EU and caused indignation. Meanwhile, Brussels does not expect such a response from Russia in the firm belief that Russia has no economic levers to oppose the EU. To my knowledge, Russia has not imposed any serious sanctions on the EU.
This is an interesting situation. Russia supplies Europe with 33 percent of its gas. The figures for oil are about the same. I think during all this time Russia has proved convincingly that it won’t use energy for political leverage in Europe. Understandably, Russia has been interested in this, especially when it comes to the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. It seems to me that certain people in Europe have forgotten that if Russia does not do something, it doesn’t mean that it cannot do it, or won’t be compelled to do it if the EU’s pressure on Russia crosses a line. Do you think this is possible in theory? Or does Russia completely rule out such actions?
Sergey Lavrov: You are saying (metaphorically) that they either have not read (which is most likely) or have forgotten the epic about Ilya Muromets who slept on the stove while nobody paid attention? This is not a threat. We will never use energy supplies or our oil and gas routes in Europe to this end. This is a position of principle regardless of anything else.
Dimitri Simes: Even of you are disconnected from SWIFT and everything else?
Sergey Lavrov: We will not do that. This is a position of principle for President of Russia Vladimir Putin. We will not create a situation where we force EU citizens “freeze.” We will never do this. We have nothing in common with Kiev that shut down water supplies to Crimea and takes delight in it. This is a disgraceful position in the world arena. Frequently accusing us of using energy as an instrument of influence, as a weapon, the West keeps silence on what Kiev is doing with water supplies to Crimea. I believe the provision of basic needs on which the daily life of common citizens depends, should never be an object of sanctions.
Dimitri Simes: In this case, what do you mean by referring to “the phenomenon” of Ilya Muromets?
Sergey Lavrov: It is possible to respond in different ways. We have always warned that we will be ready to respond. We will respond to any malicious actions against us but not necessarily in a symmetric manner. By the way, speaking about the impact of the sanctions on civilians, look what is taking place in Syria under the Caesar Act. My colleagues in Europe and, incidentally, in the region, whisper that they are horrified by the way this act has eliminated any opportunity to do business with Syria. The goal is clear – to stifle the Syrians to make them revolt and overthrow Bashar al-Assad.
Now a few words about our and China’s responses to the European sanctions. After all, China also avoided suspending economic activity. It simply imposed sanctions on a number of individuals and companies that held certain anti-China positions. We are doing basically the same.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: As we know, Ilya Muromets did not shut down oil and gas supplies. He used other methods that were often symmetrical. I think we also have a solid set of instruments.
Don’t we exaggerate the importance of the EU in the modern world? It has an identity and there are European values. I know this since I have dealt with European MPs and experts for many years.
However, I have the impression that there are two main values: the first one is the euro and the second is LGBT and 60 more letters that describe this notion linked with sexual identity, their presence, absence, or mix.
The EU is undergoing a crisis – Brexit. Britain has left the EU. The economic crisis is very bad. Probably, in Europe it is worse than elsewhere. The economy has dropped by up to 10 percent in many countries. The vaccine-related crisis has shown that Europe cannot counter the virus and adopt a common policy. These problems are emerging at all levels. It cannot draft a common economic policy, migration rules, and so on. Maybe, we are really paying too much attention to Europe? Maybe we can act without looking back at this “falling” structure?
Sergey Lavrov: But where are we paying too much attention to Europe? We have a very simple position that President of Russia Vladimir Putin has set forth many times: we do not feel hurt. As we know, hurt people get the short end of the stick, or as we say in Russia, hurt people are made to carry water, something we are short of in Crimea. We will always be willing to revive our relations, practically to raise them from the ashes, but to do this we must know what the EU is interested in. We will not knock on a locked door. They are well aware of our proposals, just as the Americans know our proposals on strategic stability, cyber security and many other things. We have said to all of them: “Our friends and colleagues, we are ready for this. We understand that you will have some reciprocal ideas but we have not yet heard them. As soon as you are ready, let’s sit down and discuss them, seeking a balance of interests.” Meanwhile, now we are being accused of neglecting policy on the EU, so I don’t think we are courting this alliance or exaggerating its importance. It determines its place in the world itself. We have already talked about this today.
As for European values, we have many ongoing debates. Some people need European price tags more than European values. They want to travel there for shopping, recreation, buy some property and return home. As I said, our common values lie in our history, the mutual influence of our cultures, literature, art and music. They are great.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: As for modern European culture and art, have they really…
Sergey Lavrov: I am referring to our historical roots.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: Because I think today’s Europe is pretty empty in terms of culture.
Sergey Lavrov: There are some funny songs; we can listen to them in the car sometimes.
Dimitri Simes: Speaking of relations with the United States, I would like to ask you a personal question because you lived and worked there for a long time when you were Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Of course, you have also been dealing with the US as the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation. I lived in the US for almost 50 years.
Sergey Lavrov: Why past tense?
Dimitri Simes: I am now in Moscow. When I look at the United States today, I have the impression that it is undergoing a cultural revolution. I think that if many people in the Joseph Biden administration or the Democrats in Congress are told this, they would not feel offended in any way. They will say that a cultural revolution is long overdue, that it is finally necessary to eradicate racism, give equal and not-so-equal prevailing opportunities to sexual orientation minorities because they were also discriminated against and to develop a true democracy that requires that all those who want to vote can vote. In practice, this means that millions of people will have an opportunity to vote without necessarily being US citizens at all. This is why the Democrats emphatically oppose a ban on voting on Sundays. As you know, there was never any voting in the US on Sundays. Sunday is called God’s day. The Democrats wanted Sunday elections so that buses could go to Afro-American churches and take people to the polling stations.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: Why take them by bus? They can vote by mail.
Dimitri Simes: Both options are available.
Sergey Lavrov: Why not put a ballot box right in a church?
Dimitri Simes: Exactly. Do you believe the United States is, in many respects, evolving into a different country and that this is not necessarily an irreversible process, though a momentous one? Also, would you agree that this process is not a purely American internal matter because it goes hand in hand with the emergence of a new revolutionary ideology that requires that American values spread around the world and that these American models should not be resisted as they are now in Russia and China? Can this lead to an existential conflict?
Sergey Lavrov: We will talk about this but, first, let me finish what I was saying about European culture. Here is, in my view, a telling illustration of the state of European culture today. If we talk about revolutions, including a cultural revolution, the Eurovision contest speaks volumes. What they are doing now to the Belarusians is repulsive. This is sheer censorship that goes like this: since we – nobody knows who exactly, some anonymous individuals – fancy that we heard some innuendoes in your song, we will not allow you to take part in the contest unless you have another song. But then the same fate befalls another Belarusian song. What does this have in common with art, culture or democracy?
As for a cultural revolution in the United States, I do feel that processes which deserve to be described like this are unfolding there. Everyone probably wants to eradicate racism and, as for us, we have never had any doubt regarding this. We were trailblazers behind the movement to secure equal rights for all people, regardless of the colour of their skin. However, we should beware that we do not slip into another extreme, the one we have observed during the Black Lives Matter events, and into aggression against white people, white US citizens.
The other day we marked an international day designated to increase awareness of this issue and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking at a General Assembly meeting, said that the previous year had been a year of the most serious and numerous manifestations of white supremacy. I have asked to be given the full text of his speech, as I want to understand what specifically he had in mind. If this is about having a sense of a trend you talked about and the willingness to follow this trend, it is lamentable. This is still the United Nations Organisation and not a venue for promoting US concepts, some US trends.
As for why they need this, yes, they want to spread this to the rest of the world. They have a huge potential to achieve this goal. Hollywood has also started to change its rules, so that everything reflects the diversity of contemporary society, which is also a form of censorship, art control and the way of imposing some artificial restrictions and requirements on others. I have seen black actors perform in Shakespeare’s comedies. The only thing I do not know is when a white actor will play Othello. You see, this is nothing less than absurdity. Political correctness reduced to absurdity will lead to no good.
The other tool is social networks and internet platforms, as well as servers located in the United States. The US flatly refuses to discuss ways of either making internet governance more democratic or establishing common rules regulating social networks for the sake of avoiding the recurrence of the situation with TikTok and other social networks we encountered during the recent events in Russia, including the spread of abominable information, like personal abuse, pedophilia and many other things. We have already approached TikTok and other social networks about the need to establish elementary rules of respect and propriety but the Americans are unwilling to make these types of rules universal.
In Anchorage, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken lectured the Chinese on human rights, ethnic minorities and democracy in China. Indeed, Mr Blinken said they [in the US] also had to address certain issues in this field but they would do it on their own. During talks with the Americans – the same goes for the Europeans – as soon as you start offering to discuss ways of democratising international relations or the supremacy of law on an international scale, they invariably get away from the subject. They want to replace international law with their own rules, which have nothing in common with the supremacy of law globally, on a universal scale. I already talked about large-scale rallies in France in defence of traditional family values. It appears that to secure the rights of one group of people, the rights of another group have to be infringed upon. That is, promoting these values around the world is not an end in itself, but rather a tool for ensuring their dominance.
Dimitri Simes: Richard Nixon once told Nikita Khrushchev that there would be no true harmony or true partnership between the Soviet Union and America unless the Soviet Union stops spreading its ideology. And that was a big problem in the Brezhnev era, I must say, because they discussed a détente while at the same time supporting a continued international class struggle. As I see it, Leonid Brezhnev was doing it without much conviction. But now, things have turned the other way around. Now the collective West is eager to proliferate its ideology and values. And they seem to be doing so with far greater conviction and perseverance than the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev ever tried. Does this pose a risk of collision?
Sergey Lavrov: Under Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union saw no threat to its existence. One can argue whether that stance was far-sighted enough, but that is how it was. Today’s West senses a threat to its dominance. It is a fact. So all those wiggling moves, including the invention of some ‘rules’ – as in the rules-based international order, something the West has come up with to replace the UN Charter – they reflect precisely this tendency.
I agree that we have swapped positions, or rather the Soviet Union and the modern West have. I don’t think this will offend anyone since this is not a big secret. I spoke with Rex Tillerson when he was US Secretary of State. He is a thoughtful and experienced politician and diplomat. It was good to work with him. We disagreed on most things, but we always wanted to continue the dialogue to bring our positions just a little bit closer at least. When he first told me they were concerned about Russia’s interference in some elections, I said they had not proved anything to us yet, and all we heard was accusations. When they began to accuse us of interfering in their elections, we repeatedly proposed using the special channel we had for exchanging information about threats to information networks and organisations. They refused. We had repeatedly offered dialogue even before that, when Barack Obama was president, from October 2016 until Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. They always refused.
I pointed out to Tillerson that they had in fact directly stipulated in legislation that the US State Department should spend $20 million a year to support Russian civil society and promote democracy. That was not even a suspicion on our part as they did it openly (for example, the Ukraine Support Act). There was nothing to prove – they just announced that they would interfere. He told me that was totally different. I asked him why, and he said because we promoted authoritarianism, and they spread democracy. That was it.
Dimitri Simes: And he said it with sincere conviction, didn’t he?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: Mr Lavrov, naturally, this policy leads to a drastic polarisation. The polarisation of international relations is a dangerous thing. We remember the early 19th century, and the early 20th century. It always ended in wars. The Americans, losing their global dominance, will create (they have already announced this) a new ‘alliance of democracies.’ I mean create American and pro-American alliances, compelling everyone else to make their choice. This polarisation will increase. What will this mean for the world and for the alliances where Russia is a member? I mean BRICS (which I think they will try to split up), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). How far can this go? How dangerous is it?
Sergey Lavrov: This is a deliberate policy and an extension of the agenda we are talking about – about the United States promoting democracy and spreading benefit. The Americans and Europe are very active (but the Americans are especially active) in Central Asia. They are trying to create their own formats such as C5+1. Russia is also part of a 5+1 format in Central Asia, in addition to the SCO, CIS, EAEU and CSTO – one that involves the foreign ministers of five Central Asian countries and your humble servant. That format is useful. True, the volume of economic ties that the US and the EU are now building with Central Asia is still incomparable with our economic interpenetration, but they are pursuing an unambiguous goal to weaken our ties with our allies and strategic partners in every possible way.
The numerous initiatives around the Afghan reconciliation and around the Indo-Pacific region envision Central Asia’s reorientation from its current vector to the South – to help rebuild Afghanistan and at the same time weaken its ties with the Russian Federation.
I could talk for a long time about the Indo-Pacific region and the Indo-Pacific concept. That multi-layered initiative is aimed at hindering China’s Belt and Road Initiative and limiting the Chinese influence in the region, creating constant irritants for that country. There have been some slips about creating an ‘Asian NATO.’ Although in the US interpretation the Indo-Pacific region is described as ‘free and open,’ the chances that positions will be worked out through an equal or open process there are slim. It is already obvious that it isn’t ‘open’. China has not been invited; rather, that country is declared a target for containment. We have not been invited either, which means the attitude to Russia is similar. I would say those are long-term trends. We are talking about this frankly with our neighbours and closest allies. I am confident that they understand all these threats. None of them even considers the possibility of anyone telling them who to talk or not talk to. It is their sovereign right to choose their partners.
The term ‘multi-vector’ has become semi-abusive, but we are not giving up the multi-vector approach. We are open to cooperation and friendship with everyone who is ready for relations based on equality, mutual respect, compromise and balance of interests. That our Western colleagues are clearly abusing this approach, especially in post-Soviet countries, is an obvious fact.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: Is it possible to avoid the actual military scenario in these circumstances? Isn’t it time to create an alliance of free countries given the role reversal that has taken place in the modern world? An alliance, perhaps, of genuine democracies that will oppose the ongoing all-out attack?
Sergey Lavrov: We will not get involved in this kind of political engineering. Russia is committed to the United Nations. When France and Germany put forward the effective multilateralism concept, we asked them what it meant. There was silence followed by joint articles written by the foreign ministers of France and Germany stating that the European Union is an example of effective multilateralism, and everyone needs to adapt to the European processes. Our question why the readily available and universal UN multilateral platform is not a good option remained unanswered. However, the answer is there, and we mentioned it more than once today. They are making up the rules that the international order is supposed to be based on.
Dimitri Simes: Mr Minister, we have taken up much of your time and we appreciate it. But we cannot let you go without asking you one more personal question. What is it like to be Russia’s Foreign Minister in this rapidly changing world?
You have worked in several completely different eras. When you were Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, it was a period of Russia’s “romantic infatuation” with the United States, though perhaps not quite on the terms that were beneficial for Russia. In the early 21st century, Russia was in search of partnerships. Well, then we got what we are witnessing now. How do you, a person who, in many ways, is the architect of this era, a witness and a participant of this process, find your work in this very complex role?
Sergey Lavrov: To put it short, I never get bored. That is if we are talking about the different eras in my career. We all lived in these eras, and we have seen these transitions. You asked me earlier whether the United States has changed. It has. A lot.
Dimitri Simes: Have you changed?
Sergey Lavrov: Probably. It’s not for me to say. A person perceives the environment as a constantly evolving process. People grow up, get smarter or dumber, but they have no way of seeing it.
Dimitri Simes: Do you think we have all become disappointed in many ways, but we have grown, too, as a result of these experiences, and, of course, in the first place, a person holding such positions as yours?
Sergey Lavrov: This is true, of course. How can this not influence the formation of a person? The personality never stops to evolve. It is something that lasts until the end of our lives. Those revolutionary developments had a strong influence on me. I believe the 9/11 attacks were the turning point in the American life. I was in Manhattan, in New York, at the time, and I felt that odour. I was having a hard time trying to make a phone call, because the phones went dead. Since then, New York has become a different city. This free city, living its own life around the clock and enjoying it, became wary and started looking over its shoulder to see if there was someone around who could hurt it.
This suspicion then spread deeply into American society. There were probably serious reasons for that. I have to commend the US intelligence services, because since then, apart from the Boston Marathon, which we had warned them about, there have been no other terrorist attacks. However, wariness and aloofness can still be felt. Perhaps, there are people who want to take advantage of this in order to do things that you just mentioned. If 11 million Americans become eligible to vote, welcome to the one-party system, Back in the USSR.
Vyacheslav Nikonov: Mr Lavrov, thank you very much for the interview. Now that we are within the historic walls of the Foreign Ministry’s Mansion on Spiridonovka, a place where history and great diplomacy were made, including the diplomacy of the great powers, I would like to wish us all the return of diplomacy. If it comes back, as President Vladimir Putin is conveying to President Joe Biden, in the form of a live-stream dialogue, then The Great Game will be at your service and at the service of the two presidents.
Sergey Lavrov: Thank you. President Biden has already said that diplomacy has returned to US foreign policy. Your dream has come true.
Israel’s covid death doubled since it started its vaccination ‘experiment.’ ‘Silent Birth’ (leida ilemet) is now common in Israel. It refers to babies dying in the womb from Covid 19 or Covid related complications. In this interview with UKC’s David Scott I look into the Israeli mass vaccination campaign, we discuss the most problematic issues some prefer to push under the carpet.
David Scott on Youtube: Israel has adopted the Covid Lockdown policies with a severity unmatched internationally. They have pushed vaccination at a rate that leaves even the United Kingdom far behind. Gilad Atzmon, joins me to discuss the effects of this policy, the statistics coming out of Israel and the questions we should be asking.
PM Netanyahu announced on Sunday that Israel is set to “purchase or produce 36 million vaccines in the next year.”
If you wonder why a nation of 9 million people that already gave half of its population two doses of the Pfizer vaccines needs 36 million vaccines, the answer is devastating: the mass vaccination campaign may help Netanyahu to secure his victory in the coming election but its long term impact on the nation’s health is ‘unknown,’ to say the least. To be slightly more realistic, it may be catastrophic. During the press conference Netanyahu admitted, “the vaccines we have, no one knows how long they last…We need to prepare for the worst scenario. The worst scenario is that we have to vaccinate (twice) every half year.” That would mean acquiring as many as 36 million vaccines, assuming that all 9 million Israelis require two doses every six months.
For one reason or another, the Israeli regime has managed to reduce a particularly healthy nation that saw very little deaths in the first Covid-19 wave (about 30 people altogether in between 1st March and 1st June) into a ‘Vaxi-Nation’: people who are dependent on a constant supply of life-sustaining mRNA substances.
Netanyahu also predicted that “the entire world will compete for those vaccines …I am again determined to bring Israel to the top of the list.” He vowed to make the Jewish state into a “vaccine empire.
The truth of the matter is that Covid-19 and the way it is being handled in Israel brings to light every problematic aspect in Jewish Diaspora life, culture and attitude which Early Zionism vowed to eradicate or at least to amend.
Zionism’s ideological forefathers promised to make Jews “people like all other people.” Zionism swore to bond the new Hebrews with nature. The early Zionist thinkers were repulsed by the Diaspora Jewish ghetto life and culture. They looked to establish a harmonious relationship between the new Israelites and their environment. This is the mantra that led the early Zionists to seek redemption through Labour and in particular by means of agricultural life.
In 2021 not much is left out of that precious search for an authentic bond with nature. The contemporary Israelites (or at least their leaders) do not trust nature or the ability of the Israeli people to bond harmoniously with their own bodies. The contemporary Israelites are actually tormented by nature and especially the viruses that come with it. Instead of searching for peaceful terms with Covid, the Israelis are recruited as ‘a nation’ to join an all-out ‘war of annihilation’ against the little menace.
In its fight against Covid-19, Israel has repeated every mistake it made throughout its short history. Instead of seeking coexistence, it aims at annihilation. Israel doesn’t just protect its elders and the vulnerable while investing in natural herd immunity, it plans to vaccinate the entire population including children and pregnant women up to four times a year. And like in their war against countless enemies, Israel fights the little Corona monster ‘by way of deception’ a.k.a mRNA inoculation. They insist on tricking the little viral menace but so far, they have only managed to trick themselves on a colossal scale. In the last 8 weeks of Pfizer mass vaccination, Israel doubled the number of Covid-19 deaths it had accumulated throughout the previous 10 months of the pandemic. It is hard to imagine a bigger blunder. Although the Israeli experiment is presented to the world as a ‘success’ by the compromised media, in Israel mainstream outlets are not convinced by the success of the Pfizer experiment, especially considering that the ‘R number’ is back at 1 and likely to rise further.
Zionist founding fathers (such as A.D Gordon, Dov Ber Borchov, Katznelson and even David Ben Gurion ) believed that transforming Diaspora Jews into authentic Israelites wasn’t just a possibility but an essential existential transition. Zionism offered the Jews a new beginning. Many Jews, including my European family and even myself, were excited by this spiritual offering. Many Jews left the Ghetto behind, they made Aliya and became agricultural workers in new collective societies known as Kibbutzim. At this stage, those Israelis who openly oppose the Pfizer/Netanyahu ‘experiment’ and are fighting authoritarian state interference with their private and intimate health affairs are probably the last real Zionists. Unlike Netanyahu, who claims to be an ardent nationalist, those Israeli dissenters insist to reconcile with nature and be people ‘like all other people.’
Zionism as an ideological ethos didn’t survive for much time. It didn’t take too long before some Jewish dissidents were brave enough to admit that Zionism didn’t solve what it identified as the ‘Jewish problem,’ it instead just moved it to a new location. The first Israelis quickly developed animosity towards the indigenous people of the land who quickly became the new Goyim du Jour. This animosity evolved in less than two generations into a conflict with the entire region that is known as the “Israeli-Arab Conflict.” While Zionism was determined to crash the Ghetto walls, Israel has surrounded itself by walls higher than any ghetto’s in Jewish history.
Yet, the Israeli Arab conflict is not exactly a local or a regional battle between two remote foes; it has quickly morphed into global chaos. It’s no coincidence that America, Britain and France have found themselves more than once fighting Zionist imperialist wars in the region. It isn’t a secret that America is invested in the conflict and practically operates on behalf of Israel as a remote subservient colony. If Herzl had a dream to diminish the influence of Jews on world politics, AIPAC in the USA, the CFI in the UK, the CRIFF in France prove the opposite. As I am writing these words Israel and its lobby are invested in pulling the world into a conflict with Iran. It isn’t hard to see that Israel is also investing a huge effort in pulling the world to follow its suicidal path in its war against Covid by means of global mass vaccination and green passport policies.
Zionism promised to make the ‘timid Diaspora Jew’ into a fearless warrior. Israel’s early military victories (1948, 1956, 1967, and even 1973) conveyed the image that such a transformation was indeed possible. But the Israeli army hasn’t won a single battle for decades. The Israelis aren’t the warriors they promised to become. On the contrary, the Israeli approach to Covid reveals that Israelis are once again as timid as their Diaspora ancestors. They are enthusiastically buying into the Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Pre-TSD) that made Jewish history into a chain of horrific disasters. The Israelis, like their Diaspora ancestors, are tormented by a phantasy of a future annihilation. They act upon it and actually make such an imaginary destructive scenario into the reality in which they live.
As far as I can tell, the Israeli Pfizer “experiment” encapsulates the total defeat of the Zionist dream. The Israelis admit to the world and more importantly, to themselves, that this promised bond with nature, authenticity and the Biblical epic narrative didn’t happen after all. If Zionism vowed to make Jews people like all other people, the Vaxi-Nation are actually people like no one else. All the rest of us must do at this stage is to make sure that this is how things stay. We must defy any attempt to make us join the ‘Vaxi-Nation’. We must invest instead in learning how to live in peace and harmony with our neighbours and more particularly with the universe.
I am not sure what you would call this. Attempting to take over a country via drug blackmail maybe. Part of the World Economic Forums Agenda is to take over land. I guess Pfizer wants into the land grab.
They really do not want the vaccine as it is dangerous anyway. As noted over the past two months.
February 27, 2021
Pharma giant Pfizer has been holding sovereign governments to ransom making bizarre demands asking for bank reserves, embassy buildings and military bases as collateral in return for COVID-19 vaccines.
The US-based company Pfizer is holding governments to ransom, interfering with their legislation, and even demanding military bases as guarantee.
Pfizer asked the Govt of Argentina to be compensated for the cost of any future civil lawsuits, reported WION.
If someone files a civil lawsuit against Pfizer in Argentina and wins that case, the government of Argentina and not Pfizer would pay the compensation.
So, Argentina’s parliament passed a new law in October 2020, but Pfizer was unhappy with its phrasing.
The law said Pfizer needs to at least pay for negligence, for its own mistakes if it happens to make any in the future.
Pfizer rejected this, after which Argentina offered to amend the law to define negligence more clearly – to include only vaccine distribution and delivery under negligence.
Pfizer was still not happy and demanded the law be amended through a new decree, which Argentina refused.
Pfizer then asked Argentina to buy an international insurance to pay for potential future cases against Pfizer, to which the country agreed.
But that was not enough, in December 2020, Pfizer again came back with more demands.
And this time Pfizer demanded Argentina’s sovereign assets as collateral. Pfizer demanded that Argentina put its bank reserves, military bases and embassy buildings at stake.
Argentina did not agree with Pfizer’s demands.
Another country Pfizer made such bizarre demands is with Brazil. Pfizer told the Govt of Brazil to create a guarantee fund, and deposit money in a foreign bank account.
On January 23, 2021 – Brazil’s Health Ministry put out a statement citing excerpts from Pfizer’s pre-contract clauses.
Here’s a list of Pfizer’s demands:
• Brazil waives the sovereignty of its assets abroad in favour of Pfizer, • that the rules of the land – be not applied on Pfizer, • that Brazil take into consideration a delay in delivery, • that Pfizer is not penalised for a delayed delivery, and • that in case of any side effects, Pfizer be exempted from all civil liability.
The government of Brazil calls these clauses abusive. The Pfizer deal with Brazil failed too.
In Israel it seems the more vaccines they give the more so Called Covid and deaths they are getting. This episode covers a lot. The World is FED UP with Covid19; Testing on Children Begins; Israel’s New Covid Pass; Owner of the Busiest No-Mask Store in FL; Cattle Rancher Exposes Our Fragile Food Supply
Yet, the English doctor Edward Jenner is celebrated for having discovered the smallpox vaccine in 1796. This is the predominant western account on the origin of the smallpox vaccination.
It is also recorded that inoculation against smallpox was already being practiced in Sichuan province by Taoist alchemists in the 10th century CE. [3] The Chinese inoculators administered dead or attenuated smallpox collected from less virulent scabs, which were inserted into the nose on a plug of cotton. Inoculation may also have been practiced much earlier by the Chinese — some sources cite dates as early as 200 BCE.
China obviously has a historical background in strengthening the immune response of people. Yet, in the western media, one seldom reads or hears about the Chinese COVID-19 vaccines. Neither were we well informed about the effectiveness of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine — that was until recently, when some western nations have been coming up short on vaccine supplies. The Canadian government has been scrambling to meet the demand for vaccines since Pfizer shipments were held up. The focus of western state and corporate media seemed clearly on procuring supplies of the Pfizer (US), Moderna (US), and AstraZeneca (UK-Sweden) vaccines. This is despite effective, but less heralded, Russian and Chinese vaccines being available and at a more affordable price. South Korea’s Arirang Newsreported Russian test results that “its second COVID-19 vaccine is 100% effective.” CBC.ca found this success problematic; it depicted a political quandary in considering a Russian vaccine: “At first dismissed and ridiculed by Western countries, Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has not only been rehabilitated; it’s emerging as a powerful tool of influence abroad for President Vladimir Putin.” France 24 concurred, hailing it as “a scientific and political victory for Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”
Would Canada refuse to consider securing vaccines from Russia to safeguard the health of Canadians to avoid granting Putin, derided by Canadian magazine Macleans as a “new Stalin,” a political victory? Why shouldn’t Russia be lauded for coming up first with a working and effective vaccine? What does it matter if the leader of that country receives recognition? Shouldn’t the national priority be obtaining the best vaccine to protect the health of citizens?
Medical data aside, western mass media has, apparently, been effective in stirring up a distrust of COVID-19 vaccines from China and Russia in comparison to western vaccines, as revealed in a YouGov poll of almost 19,000 people worldwide.
Hungary has been mildly criticized for going its own way in ordering the Russian vaccine. Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, had no qualms and defended Budapest’s decision to buy two million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.
What Americans need to understand about the race to find vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 is that in the U.S., … the production of pharmaceutical drugs is still a nearly riskless, subsidy-laden scam.
The World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus strongly criticized big pharma for profiteering and vaccine inequalities. Adhanom charged that younger, healthier adults in wealthy countries were being prioritized for vaccination against COVID-19 before older people or health care workers in poorer countries and that markets were sought to maximize profitability.
In chapter VII of the e-book The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset” (December 2020, revised January 2021), professor Michel Chossudovsky writes:
The plan to develop the Covid-19 vaccine is profit driven.
The US government had already ordered 100 million doses back in July 2020 and the EU is to purchase 300 million doses. It’s Big Money for Big Pharma, generous payoffs to corrupt politicians, at the expense of tax payers.
The objective is ultimately to make money, by vaccinating the entire planet of 7.8 billion people for SARS-CoV-2….
The Covid vaccine is a multibillion dollar Big Pharma operation which will contribute to increasing the public debt of more than 150 national governments.
Imagine, if those thousands of people stay home, reduce contact with others, they may have survived the pandemic. [4]
Chossudovsky also questions the safety of the rushed testing and the need for a vaccine given that the WHO and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) both confirmed that Covid-19 is “similar to seasonal influenza.” [5]
Some Safety Concerns about Vaccines
A report raised alarm about at least 36 people who developed a rare, lethal blood disorder, called thrombocytopenia, after receiving either of the two approved COVID-19 vaccines in the US. A Miami obstetrician, Gregory Michael, just 56, died of a brain hemorrhage just 16 days after receiving a Pfizer vaccination. His thrombocytopenia had caused his platelets to drop to virtually zero.
A Johns Hopkins University expert on blood disorders, Jerry L. Spivak, who was uninvolved in Michael’s care, said that based on Michael’s wife’s description: “I think it is a medical certainty that the vaccine was related [to Michael’s death].”
In Israel, at least three people suffered Bell’s palsy, facial paralysis, after receiving the vaccine. Data from Pfizer and Moderna vaccine trials revealed seven COVID-19 participants had experienced Bell’s palsy in the weeks following vaccination.
In Norway, at least 23 people who received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine died. According to authorities, thirteen of the fatalities were associated to the vaccine’s side effects. In addition, 10 deaths shortly following vaccination were being probed in Germany.
Regarding the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, the CDC reported the administration of over 41 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the US from 14 December 2020 through 7 February 2021. During this time, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System received 1,170 reports of death (0.003%) among people vaccinated for COVID-19. Based on the extremely low figure, the CDC advised people that “COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective” and “to get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as you are eligible.”
Yet, it seems some Europeans distrust their own government-approved Covid-19 vaccines. A black market has arisen; two doses of unapproved Chinese vaccines have reportedly sold for as high as 7,000 yuan (£800) — almost 20 times the reported usual price.
Vaccine makers, Sinopharm and Sinovac, cautioned the public not to buy the vaccines online.
Chinese Vaccines and Profit-seeking
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been magnanimous with what could be an extremely profitable property. Said Xi, “China is willing to strengthen cooperation with other countries in the research and development, production, and distribution of vaccines,”
“We will fulfill our commitments, offer help and support to other developing countries, and work hard to make vaccines a public good that citizens of all countries can use and can afford.”
Imagine that: making an in-demand product available as a “pubic good” instead of taking advantage of a seemingly dire situation to rake in huge profits. Africa, for one, is benefiting.
Back in October 2020, Fortune.com proclaimed in its headline: “World’s vaccine testing ground deems Chinese COVID candidate ‘the safest, most promising.’” The tests conducted in Brazil were large, human trials of the COVID-19 vaccines that included Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm.
São Paulo Governor João Doria said,
The first results of the clinical study conducted in Brazil prove that among all the vaccines tested in the country, CoronaVac from Chinese developer Sinovacis the safest, the one with the best and most promising rates.
On 3 February 2021, the peer-review medical journal, The Lancet, published a study by Wu et al. who spoke to the urgent need for a vaccine against COVID-19 for the elderly. Their study found that the Chinese CoronaVac, containing inactivated SARS-CoV-2, is safe and well tolerated by the elderly.
Journalist Wei Ling Chua, who follows closely how events involving China are portrayed and perceived elsewhere, asked in an email on 12 February 2021:
1) till this date, there is no report of a single death or hospitalisation after taking China vaccine
2) unlike the capitalist west, China vaccine companies did not require nations to excuse them from legal liability from side effects.
Despite, western nations acknowledging many having died soon after taking the vaccine, they all claim that after investigation the cause of death not related to vaccine. But, why does death happen so soon after taking the vaccine?
Why following administration of a Chinese vaccine are there no reports of people dying soon afterwards?
Closing Comments
This essay does not explore the necessity for vaccination against COVID-19. Indeed, there are grounds to be skeptical of the necessity for all people to be vaccinated. However, if COVID-19 is genuinely an urgent health issue, [6] then why would governments play politics with the health of their populace?
The city’s name is an eponym for Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a European elitist who never set foot on the Pacific coast. For the Ts’msyen: “Place names are usually rooted in the natural world and the land they refer to.” See Kenneth Campbell, Persistence and Change: A History of the Ts’msyen Nation (Prince Rupert, [sic] BC: First Nation Educational Council, 2005): 10. Author Kenneth Campbell commented, “By writing and saying the name name in Sm’algyax [the Ts’msyen language], both the language and the people are honored.” (p. 10)
Tom Swanky, The Great Darkening: The True Story of Canada’s “War” of Extermination on the Pacific plus The Tsilhqot’in and other First Nations Resistance (Burnaby, BC: Dragon Heart Enterprises, 2012). See also an interview with Tom Swanky.
Robert Temple, The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention (London: Prion Books, 2002): 135-137.
Israel’s biggest news outlet Ynet reported a few hours ago that in the country voluntarily making itself Pfizer’s testing ground, “75.4% of those diagnosed yesterday were under 39. Only 5.5% were over 60. “The number of critical patients dropped to 858 – the lowest since January 4. However, this number is more than double that in mid-December, just before Israel started its ‘pioneering’ experiment in mass vaccination. Ynet reports today that “In Israel 59.9% of critical patients are over 60 years old. 18.2% are aged 50 to 59. In addition, 10.8% are aged 40 to 49 and 7.5% are in their 30s. As of today, more than a third of critical patients are between 30 to 59 years old.”
The meaning of the above can hardly be denied or at least demands immediate attention. The country that leads the mass vaccination contest reports a radical shift in the nature of the pandemic. It doesn’t take a genius to suspect that there may be a correlation between the mass vaccination campaign and the growing vulnerability of younger age groups including new-born and pregnant women. The biology here is also far from being too complicated. The virus that initially preyed on the elderly and vulnerable has morphed by means of mutation and is now fit enough to attack other segments of society and particularly younger age groups.
Up to the 20th of December, the day Israel launched its mass vaccination campaign the country had logged 3,074 deaths. In less than two months of ‘successful’ mass vaccination that number almost doubled. As of writing this article, it stands on 5,526. This spectacular rise in deaths (80% in less than two months) occurred when the country was in lockdown, hence it wasn’t exactly ‘social gathering’ that helped the virus spread. The only thing that was spreading in Israel in these two months was the Pfizer vaccines and the so-called British mutant that is apparently more popular in Bnei Brak than in Kent. The inevitable question here is whether there is a connection between vaccination and mutants, but this is the one question no one is allowed to ask in Israel.
In November 2020 Israeli Health Ministry data revealed that Israel detected 400 cases coronavirus under the age of two. By February 2021, that number grew to 5,800. We are dealing with a clear rise of about 1300%, impressive indeed. Israeli Ynet reports that this kind of rise in numbers of new-born Covid-19 morbidity are reported around the world, I investigated it but didn’t manage to find any confirmation that this is indeed the case. In Britain, for instance, all I find is reports on a ‘Covid-19 baby boom’ and some concerns regarding a rise in child obesity. In fact, nobody reports on a rise of 1300% in new-born Covid-19 except Israel.
I am not in a position to determine what led Israelis to make themselves into guinea pigs for a pharma giant with a dubious safety and ethical record. The possibility must be considered that in Israel the success of a mass vaccination campaign could be Netanyahu and his party’s primary ploy ahead of the coming election. Netanyahu faces a serious legal battle, and winning the election extends far beyond politics for him. It is an existential survival battle. I believe Bibi had to choose between war with Iran and a Pfizer vaccine. He had good reason to assume that Pfizer is by far a better and more peaceful option.
Netanyahu probably gathered that a successful mass vaccination campaign would secure his victory. This was indeed a reasonable consideration on his part, and it may prove to be correct. It is worth mentioning that not one of Netanyahu’s political opponents on the evaporating Israeli Left or centre dare challenge Netanyahu’s vaccine policy. More so, not one Left-wing institution in Israel has stood up for the many Israelis reluctant to be vaccinated (currently more than 50%). Not one politician took their side and stood for their elementary rights.
Meanwhile, the government is desperate to make sure that the entire nation is vaccinated. The government won’t hesitate to introduce totalitarian measures. The Jerusalem post reported today that “a green passport will be required to enter certain places and to participate in certain activities. Only people who have been vaccinated or have recovered from coronavirus will be eligible for one. As part of the program, registered gyms, theatres, hotels, concerts and synagogues will be able to operate starting next week.” Israel already signed agreements with countries that will open their gates solely to the Israelis who carry green passport.
One may wonder why the Israeli Government is so obsessed with vaccinating the entire population, including the youth, army and other segments that aren’t necessarily high-risk. One possibility is that the Israeli government knows by now the real implications of the vaccine. Israel can’t turn a blind eye to the 1300% rise of Covid-19 cases in new-borns. They also can’t ignore that the number of Covid-19 deaths since the vaccination campaign started equals that of IDF fatalities in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a war the country is still traumatized by.
It is possible that Israeli leadership now acknowledge the fatal mistake it has made distributing the vaccine widely. It may be plausible that the only solution they could come up with is vaccinating the entire population, hoping that this may provide at least temporary protection, which may last until the March election date.
If there is any validity in my dark depiction of the Israeli reality, it is reasonable to conclude that with Bibi at the helm and Pfizer with a needle, Israelis do not really need enemies.
The expression fools rush in where angels fear to tread applies to everyone going along with experimental, high-risk, hazardous covid jabs that aren’t vaccines and don’t protect.
The public has been conned to believe otherwise, Big Media complicit with the diabolical mass deception scam.
Widespread mass-jabbing for seasonal flu-renamed covid risks mass casualties in the US and abroad.
Virtually everyone jabbed with Moderna’s DNA altering toxins suffered adverse events to some degree.
Around 5% of individuals receiving low doses and 21% of high-dose recipients suffered serious harm requiring hospitalization.
The above translates to potentially millions of casualties in the US and abroad.
According to data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from December 14 to February 4, 12,697 adverse events and 653 deaths were reported from covid jabs.
VAERS is hugely inaccurate. According to an earlier HHS study, it captures “fewer than 1% of injuries.”
The actual injury rate, including deaths is over 100-fold greater than what’s publicly reported.
Do the math. Multiply the above VAERS numbers x 100 for an accurate count of casualties and deaths from Moderna and Pfizer jabs.
After around two months of mass-jabbing, the numbers already are at catastrophic levels.
As long as the process continues unchecked, they’ll rise more exponentially than already.
If Moderna and Pfizer mRNA/DNA altering toxins continue to be mass-jabbed throughout 2021 into the following year, millions of Americans may be seriously harmed.
Hundreds of thousands may die, the elderly with weakened immune systems most vulnerable.
What’s already known is alarming. What’s yet to be learned may reveal catastrophically large numbers of people harmed from mass-jabbing for seasonal flu-renamed covid.
Through February 10, nearly 45 million Americans received one or two jabs.
Nearly 800 cases of potentially lethal anaphylaxis were reported, the true number surely much higher.
One dose can cause serious harm. Two or more doses increase the chance exponentially, including the risk of death.
No just cause exists for jabbing anyone when safe and effective treatments exist when used as directed.
Instead of promoting the latter over the former, Big Media are complicit with Pharma and US dark forces in pushing what risks serious harm at the expense of preserving and protecting health and well-being.
What’s been going on in the US and West since early last year is the most diabolical plot against public health and ordinary people overall in modern memory.
Mass covid-jabbing provides no immunity, no protection from illness, just potential serious harm to health and well-being.
To preserve what’s too precious to lose, choose safe and effective meds to treat seasonal flu-renamed covid as needed, ones I’ve written about many times.
Shun harmful to health mass-jabbing for covid that risks serious adverse events and no protection.
Since last year’s seasonal flu-renamed covid season — what shows up annually — we’ve been lied to by Big Government in cahoots with Big Pharma and Big Media.
What’s going on is a diabolical plot against public health, the rule of law, and nations safe and fit to live in.
All of the above are under assault by US-led Western dark forces, monied interests, and their media press agents.
Since mass-vaxxing in the West began for so-called covid last December, thousands of adverse events, including hundreds of deaths, were officially reported by the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
Through January 29, it reported 11,249 adverse events — including over 500 deaths, scores of permanently disabled individuals, and hundreds more whose lives are endangered.
Through late January, about 35 million people in the US were vaxxed against covid once or twice with Pfizer’s or Moderna’s hazardous, unapproved, experimental vaccines.
According to an earlier HHS report, VAERS is deeply flawed and worthless.
It captures fewer than 1% of injuries (and deaths) from vaxxing.
Actual numbers near-and-longer-term from vaxxing are more than 100x greater than what VAERS reports.
Do the math: Multiply official CDC reported numbers of adverse events (including deaths) x 100.
It reveals the catastrophic scale of harm so far from covid vaxxing in the US alone.
If it continues unchecked, millions of Americans and countless others abroad may become seriously harmed or die from hazardous to health/unneeded covid vaccines.
What’s going on is the greatest high crime against humanity in modern memory
The ugly reality is officially concealed — establishment media complicit with the diabolical plot against human health.
For months, they’ve been heavily pushing what no one wanting their health protected and preserved should touch.
There’s nothing remotely safe or beneficial about hazardous to health covid vaccines, just the opposite.
Staying well, avoiding injury or death — near-or-longer-term — demands not permitting its toxins to be jabbed into our bodies.
The alternative risks serious irreversible harm or worse.
Joseph Mercola reported about Dr. Vladimir Zelenko “near-100% success rate in treating (seasonal flu-renamed) covid patients” since last March.
He used safe, effective, low-cost hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin and zinc sulfate for five days.
After treating about 3,000 patients with this protocol, three high-risk ones alone died, the others cured, their health restored.
As Mercola and other experts stressed, we’ve been consistently lied to about HCQ since early last year — a campaign to push hazardous to health covid vaccines to avoid, not use.
Most often for younger people with normal immune systems, no treatment is needed.
When I was around aged-50, I had seasonal flu.
It knocked me out for a few days, drained my energy, killed my appetite, and prevented me from pursing daily activities.
Symptoms lasted around 72 hours. I took no meds or sought medical treatment, just hunkered down at home and rested.
I fully recovered with no adverse after-effects to this day.
Aware of the symptoms from personal experience and considerable writing about them, if affected again the same or in a similar way, I’ll have one of my doctors prescribe the above protocol straightaway.
Under no circumstances will I permit toxins from covid vaccines to be jabbed into my body.
Nor should anyone else!
At my age, the same as baseball great Hank Aaron’s when he likely died from covid vaxxing, I’d greatly risk a similar fate if vaxxed.
Like hundreds, maybe thousands, of other doctors worldwide, Zelenko had “remarkable results” with the above protocol treatment for seasonal flu-renamed covid, stressing:
It “prevents progression of disease and patients get better.”
It works this way nearly always for people of all ages.
For his candor, social media censored him.
Twitter banned him as part of an ongoing state-sponsored war on truth-telling in the US and West.
Effectiveness of the above protocol has been known for years, Zelenko explained.
Before scamster Fauci sold his soul to Big Government and Big Pharma for self-serving interests, he called HCQ a miracle drug, a dream treatment, Zelenko explained, adding:
Epidemiologists George Fareed and Harvey Risch “show(ed) that it’s absolutely statistically proven that HCQ used in the prehospital setting is absolutely effective.”
“It’s impossible for it to be a mistake.”
Ivermectin for treating seasonal flu-renamed covid is also safe and effective.
Pre-2020, the notion of treating seasonal flu/influenza by vaxxing wasn’t mentioned by Big Governments or their Big Media press agents in the West — because the illness is effectively treated other ways.
Heavily promoting covid vaccines today is part of a mass deception campaign against human health.
According to noted Dr. Lee Merritt, covid vaccines are “weaponized medicine.”
This report sounds like science fiction, but it comes from a credentialed source and is posted on a respected website. If correct, the only possible conclusion is that a police state is being institutionalized throughout the Western world and perhaps all of the world. If correct, the report certainly validates my conclusion that the digital revolution is the worst disaster ever to befall humanity, and it validates my conclusion that no Western government represents the people. PCR
Implanted “Vaccine Package” ID: Germany’s Parliament Has Ratified GAVI’s Digital “Agenda ID2020”
Alarming News. In Germany the Parliament (Bundestag) ratified on 29 January 2021, the implementation of Agenda ID2020.
This is a centralized general electronic data collection of every citizen to which every government agency, police – and possibly also the private sector would have access.
It covers all that is known about an individual citizen, now up to 200 points of in formation and possibly more as time goes on, from your bank account to your shopping habits, health records (vaccination records, of course), your political inclinations, and probably even your dating habits and other entries into your private sphere.
Agenda ID2020 was designed by Bill Gates as part of the “vaccination package”. It is backed by the Rockefeller Foundation, Accenture, the WEF and GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, now simply called the Vaccine Alliance), also a Gates creation (2001), with HQ in Geneva, Switzerland.
GAVI is located next door to the WHO. GAVI is called a public private partnership.
The public part being WHO, plus a number of developing countries.
The private partners are, of course a series of pharmaceutical companies, i. e. Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co. … and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The German extra-governmental Corona Commission, consisting of hundreds of medical doctors, virologists, immunologists, university professors – and lawyers, including Dr. Reiner Füllmich, co-founder of the Commission, has special concerns that the current Corona-Vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), may include nano-particles that could be accessible to electro-magnetic radiation, i. e. 5G and the subsequent 6G.
This is precisely what was foreseen in the design of Agenda ID2020, in which Bill Gates and GAVI had a major role, and in which case the ID2020 might be vaccine-implanted and be remote-accessible by EM-geared computers, robots or algorithms (see, in German “Wirkungsweise und Gefahren der aktuellen Corona-Impfungen in Deutschland mittels mit Nanopartikeln umhüllter mRNA-Impfstoffe – Corona Ausschuss Germany 37th Conference” (31 January 2021).
The adoption of Agenda ID2020 still has to be approved by the German Federal Council, but there is little chance the Council will reject it.
Agenda 2020 in Switzerland
Similarly, in Switzerland, Agenda ID2020 – an all-electronic ID – linking everything to everything of each individual citizen will come to a popular vote on 7 March 2021.
And that’s not all, the Swiss government wants to outsource management of Agenda ID 2020 to the private sector — unbelievable!!! – You imagine a bank or insurance company dealing (and selling) your data!!!! — Just imagine what will happen with your personal information – unthinkable.
In the longer-run – who knows how long – as foreseen by Bill Gates, the properties for an electronic ID – i. e. an electromagnetic field (EMF) – will be implanted in your body, either along with a vaccine – maybe it’s already happening with the covid jabs, or separately in the form of injectable nano-chips.
Early trials were carried out mid-last year in school classes of remote villages in Bangladesh.
With the complacent Swiss being what they are, it is very possible if not likely that the government’s proposal will be accepted on 7 March. Then what?
Is this the beginning of adopting the all-digitized Agenda ID2020 throughout Europe, the world?
Or – maybe other EU countries have already quietly and secretly – no questions asked – envisaged inserting the Agenda ID2020 in their Constitution.
For more details of Agenda ID 2020 – see below.
The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic: The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020”
Once every citizen on the planet – according to Bill Gates – about 7 billion-plus will be ID-chipped, the control of a small globalist elite will be close to total.
With an electromagnetic field and with 5G / 6G EM-waves allowing inputs and access of data in your body – the control of each individual is almost complete. The “almost” refers to the planned access to your brainwaves.
This is supposed to be happening through a Brain Computer Interface (BCI), called Neurolink(https://neuralink.com/) – developed by Elon Musk. (see video)
It presents an interface of electronic waves with the human brain which, by then, will have been converted into an electromagnetic field (EMF), so that it can receive digital commands that will influence our behavior, or can be turned off – RIP – as may be is most convenient for the Global Cabal.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes:From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
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America’s Frontline Doctors (AFD) are in the vanguard of supporting medicine the way it should be practiced over politicized science.
At a time when Big Government in cahoots with Big Pharma and Big Media are hellbent for mass-vaxxing everyone everywhere with hazardous to health covid vaccines, AFD is actively involved in combatting their diabolical scheme with scientific truth-telling.
It provides “honest healthcare solutions” at a time of state-sponsored mass deception.
AFD: “The doctor-patient relationship is being threatened” today, notably in the West.
“(Q)uality patient care is under fire like never before.”
“Powerful interests are undermining the effective practice of medicine with politicized science and biased information.”
“Now more than ever, patients need access to independent, evidence-based information to make the best decisions for their healthcare.”
“Doctors must have the independence to care for their patients without interference from government, media and the medical establishment.”
AFD and likeminded medical professionals are on the frontlines of practicing medicine as it should be.
They reject politicized (voodoo) economic agendas “at the expense of science and quality healthcare solutions” — prioritizing the following:
Providing science-based facts about seasonal flu-renamed covid.
“Protecting physician independence from government overreach.”
Combatting “covid” with “science-based” practices that don’t compromise constitutional rights.
“Fighting medical cancel culture and media censorship.”
“Advancing healthcare policies that protect the physician-patient relationship.”
Treating “covid” with safe, effective, low-cost drugs known to work when used as directed.
Avoiding experimental, inadequately tested, hazardous to health “covid” vaccines that don’t protect and risk enormous harm.
Everyone is entitled to accurate information on how best to protect and preserve their health and well-being.
Government in cahoots with Pharma and establishment media long ago lost credibility.
Their enemies of ordinary people, exploiting them to benefit privileged interests at their expense.
AFD reject shutdowns, quarantines, and other practices not backed by scientific evidence.
They’re committed to maintain the sanctity of doctor-patient relationships — to benefit health by safe and effective practices that work and do no harm.
Emergency care physician Simone Gold MD founded AFD.
She was fired after appearing with other truth-telling physicians who explain what works in treating seasonal flu-renamed covid and what to avoid — namely toxic vaccines.
Last August, she tweeted the following:
“I was defamed by the media, censored by social media companies, terminated from employment, and viciously attacked, all for advocating for the right of physicians to prescribe what they believe is best for their patients.”
When used as directed, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) combined with either azithromycin or doxycycline and zinc are highly effective in treating and curing “covid” — what government and Pharma in cahoots with establishment media want suppressed.
Doctors using this protocol — or ivermectin — understand their effectiveness and recommend them.
Dr. Stella Immanuel treated hundreds of “covid” infected patients with the above protocol, earlier saying:
“Any study that says hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work is fake science.”
“…I want them to show me how it doesn’t work.”
“How is it going to work for 350 patients for me, and they are all alive, and then somebody says it doesn’t work?”
“These so-called (establishment media promoted) studies (are) fake science.”
She, Gold, and AFD members debunked what they called a “massive disinformation campaign” against safe and effective HCQ in favor of hazardous to human health mass-vaxxing.
Immanuel had 100% success in treating 350 “covid” patients with the HCQ protocol.
She slammed politicians (and media) for trying to prevent doctors from being doctors, free to treat patients with medications known to work.
After going viral, truth-telling AFD video information was suppressed by You Tube, Facebook, Twitter and Google — to support hazardous to health mass-vaxxing.
AFD stressed the following:
People should never be pressured to comply with taking an experimental vaccine.
“This is becoming a very real danger.”
“The coercion can be implemented by government legislation or through policy directives by large private and public corporations, including airlines, employers, schools, and other institutions.”
“This type of assault on your medical privacy is invasive, aggressive, and unethical.”
The group supports a Vaccine Bill of Rights (VBOR), urging its adoption by all 50 US states.
It prohibits mandatory vaxxing for covid, vaccine passports, digital IDs, and other practices that compromise health, well-being, and fundamental rights of everyone.
Its principles state the following:
“No persons will be mandated, coerced, forced or pressured to take a COVID-19 vaccine.”
“No physician or nurse shall be asked by their employer to promote a COVID-19 vaccine.”
“All persons reserve the right, at all times, to determine what is in their own best medical interest without threat to their livelihood or freedom of movement.”
“All persons must be given access to independent information to help them determine what is in their own best medical interest, including the risk of death based upon age/condition from contracting COVID-19 naturally.”
“This information must include information from sources that are independent of a conflict of interest such as a government, political or commercial entity.”
“Such information can be included but cannot be the sole source of information.”
“The elderly are additionally entitled to a knowledgeable, independent advocate with medical training to help them determine their own medical interest.”
“Private businesses operating within the jurisdiction have no legal authority to require or mandate or coerce medication or experimental medication for any persons.”
The survival rate for seasonal flu-renamed covid is “99.7.”
The vast majority of individuals succumbing to the illness are elderly with weakened immune systems.
There’s no science-based justification for anyone anywhere to be vaxxed for “covid” when the HCQ protocol or ivermectin work safely and effectively in treating the illness.
Heavily promoted vaccines DO NOT protect and risk serious harm to health that for some is deadly.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 