theduran--2020-04-20--And so, it’s Biden

And so, it’s Biden

Submitted by InfoBrics , authored by William Stroock , author of military fiction… Last week the socialist pest from Vermont , Senator Bernie Sanders , formally endorsed former vice president Biden in an awkward livestream in which the two septuagenarians told one another how wonderful they are and how awful Trump is .
As of this writing , masses of Sanders ’ supporters , the Bernie Bros , refuse to accept the endorsement and vow to fight on against the Democrat Party Establishment .
Polls indicate that a significant number of Bernie Bros , perhaps as many as 10 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There followed the coup-de-tat .
Showing great political courage , Barrack Obama waited till Biden had won the primaries to endorse his vice president .
Three years after leaving office , Obama still looks old and tired .
He watches powerlessly as Trump wipes away his legacy .
Trump withdrew the United States from Obama ’ s ‘ Iran Deal ’ .
With the noxious individual mandate repealed by congress , Obamacare is dying a slow death .
The man who offered ‘ Hope ’ and ‘ Change ’ is a spent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ center for the hard-left , while even his most ardent supporters wonder to what his eight years in office amounted .
After 18 months of campaigning , former vice president Joe Biden is the undisputed victor of the 2020 Democrat Party primary .
The Democrat Presidential Primary began with such high hopes and had a slew of interesting and intersectional candidates .
None of the young rising stars proved to be up to the task of defeating a 77-year-old white man who has been in politics for 50 years .
Former Congressman Robert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charismatic , Kennedyesque , the nostalgists in the Dem media exclaimed .
But with O ’ Rourke it seemed that there was no there-there .
In 2018 , he failed to unseat the unpopular Senator Ted Cruz .
On the campaign trail he spoke in platitudes only , his arms flailing about wildly as he did so .
O ’ Rourke came off like a Generation-X cliché , a man in arrested development , stuck permanently in the mid-1990s .
New Jersey Senator Corey Booker ( for whom we voted ) looked like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a college football player at Stanford and Rhodes Scholar .
Booker was mayor of the state ’ s largest city , Newark , before being elected to the senate .
But in committee hearings , Booker had this weird way of yelling at Trump officials so that his eyes seemed nearly to pop out of his head .
Booker is the son of an IBM executive , and didn ’ t really have strong appeal among African American voters , while affluent white liberals preferred candidates more like them .
California Senator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , twice a minority , one could say , giving her impressive intersectional credentials .
Harris portrayed herself as a progressive but tough on crime prosecutor and attorney general .
After eviscerating Joe Biden over his 1970s era opposition to Forced Busing , Harris was briefly the frontrunner .
At the next debate , Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took Harris ’ strength and turned it against her , ‘ She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Which opened a path to the nomination for Elizabeth Warren .
The septuagenarian and senator from Massachusetts had all the right progressive stances and stole Sanders ’ issues in a bid to win over the Bernie Bros. For decades , Warren lied about her Cherokee heritage ( she has none ) to advance her career .
On the stump she has the bearing and voice of a middle school librarian , making her almost as unlikable as Hilary Clinton , no easy feat .
There were at least a dozen also-rans none @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nomination , all but a few of them utterly forgettable and forgotten .
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appealed to nobody .
Pete Buttigieg , mayor of Indiana ’ s fourth largest city , tried to be the white , gay Obama .
Late in the race came former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg .
He campaigned for three months , spent a billion dollars and then dropped out just in time to disappear for the Wuhan Coronavirus crisis .
Warren is at least coherent .
Not so , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him .
On the campaign trail , Biden will tell you what bills he voted for , pieces of legislation he co- and the senators with whom he wrote them .
The man ’ s work goes all the way back to the Nixon Administration .
On his podcasts and livestreams from his home study in Wilmington , Delaware , Biden will sure as heck tell you what needs to be done during the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic and how he ’ s going to do it .
Last week he harkened back to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has vague memories , “ You know , there ’ s a , uh — during World War II , you know , Roosevelt came up with a thing that uh , you know was totally different than a , than the , you know he called it you know the , World War II , he had the war… the war production board , ” he told us .
And so , after eighteen months of campaigning and a couple dozen candidates , the Democrat Party has chosen Joe Biden .

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Submitted by InfoBrics, authored by William Stroock, author of military fiction…
Last week the socialist pest from Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders, formally endorsed former vice president Biden in an awkward livestream in which the two septuagenarians told one another how wonderful they are and how awful Trump is. As of this writing, masses of Sanders’ supporters, the Bernie Bros, refuse to accept the endorsement and vow to fight on against the Democrat Party Establishment. Polls indicate that a significant number of Bernie Bros, perhaps as many as 10 percent, would vote for Trump before Biden.
There followed the coup-de-tat. Showing great political courage, Barrack Obama waited till Biden had won the primaries to endorse his vice president. Three years after leaving office, Obama still looks old and tired. He watches powerlessly as Trump wipes away his legacy. Trump withdrew the United States from Obama’s ‘Iran Deal’. With the noxious individual mandate repealed by congress, Obamacare is dying a slow death. The man who offered ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ is a spent force now, too close to the center for the hard-left, while even his most ardent supporters wonder to what his eight years in office amounted.
After 18 months of campaigning, former vice president Joe Biden is the undisputed victor of the 2020 Democrat Party primary. The Democrat Presidential Primary began with such high hopes and had a slew of interesting and intersectional candidates. None of the young rising stars proved to be up to the task of defeating a 77-year-old white man who has been in politics for 50 years.
Former Congressman Robert Francis O’Rourke was young and charismatic, Kennedyesque, the nostalgists in the Dem media exclaimed. But with O’Rourke it seemed that there was no there-there. In 2018, he failed to unseat the unpopular Senator Ted Cruz. On the campaign trail he spoke in platitudes only, his arms flailing about wildly as he did so. O’Rourke came off like a Generation-X cliché, a man in arrested development, stuck permanently in the mid-1990s.
New Jersey Senator Corey Booker (for whom we voted) looked like a strong candidate on paper. He was a college football player at Stanford and Rhodes Scholar. Booker was mayor of the state’s largest city, Newark, before being elected to the senate. But in committee hearings, Booker had this weird way of yelling at Trump officials so that his eyes seemed nearly to pop out of his head. Booker is the son of an IBM executive, and didn’t really have strong appeal among African American voters, while affluent white liberals preferred candidates more like them.
California Senator Kamala Harris is both female and black, twice a minority, one could say, giving her impressive intersectional credentials. Harris portrayed herself as a progressive but tough on crime prosecutor and attorney general. After eviscerating Joe Biden over his 1970s era opposition to Forced Busing, Harris was briefly the frontrunner. At the next debate, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took Harris’ strength and turned it against her, ‘She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,’ Gabbard said. Harris never recovered.
Which opened a path to the nomination for Elizabeth Warren. The septuagenarian and senator from Massachusetts had all the right progressive stances and stole Sanders’ issues in a bid to win over the Bernie Bros. For decades, Warren lied about her Cherokee heritage (she has none) to advance her career. On the stump she has the bearing and voice of a middle school librarian, making her almost as unlikable as Hilary Clinton, no easy feat.
There were at least a dozen also-rans none of whom had any hope of winning the nomination, all but a few of them utterly forgettable and forgotten. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appealed to nobody. Pete Buttigieg, mayor of Indiana’s fourth largest city, tried to be the white, gay Obama. Late in the race came former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. He campaigned for three months, spent a billion dollars and then dropped out just in time to disappear for the Wuhan Coronavirus crisis. Warren is at least coherent.
Not so, Sleepy Joe, as the president calls him. On the campaign trail, Biden will tell you what bills he voted for, pieces of legislation he co- and the senators with whom he wrote them. The man’s work goes all the way back to the Nixon Administration. On his podcasts and livestreams from his home study in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden will sure as heck tell you what needs to be done during the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic and how he’s going to do it. Last week he harkened back to the Roosevelt Administration, of which he has vague memories, “You know, there’s a, uh — during World War II, you know, Roosevelt came up with a thing that uh, you know was totally different than a, than the, you know he called it you know the, World War II, he had the war… the war production board,” he told us. And so, after eighteen months of campaigning and a couple dozen candidates, the Democrat Party has chosen Joe Biden.
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theduran--2020-04-20--Dr. Fauci, Gates, Clinton and billions to be made in vaccines (Video)

The Duran ’ s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris take a look the head of NIAID , Dr Anthony Fauci , and his deep connections ( and massive conflict of interest ) to oligarch , elite globalists including Bill Gates , George Soros , Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi .
Subscribe to The Duran on YouTube – Find us on BitChute .
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Via The New Eastern Outlook : Arguably , no one has been more active in promoting and funding research on vaccines aimed at dealing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation .
From sponsoring a simulation of a coronavirus global pandemic , just weeks before the Wuhan outbreak was announced , to funding numerous corporate efforts to come up with a novel vaccine for the apparently novel virus , the Gates presence is there .
What does it actually entail ?
We must admit that at the very least Bill Gates is prophetic .
He has claimed for years that a global killer pandemic will come and that we are not prepared for it .
On March 18 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ epidemics in Vancouver .
That day he wrote on his blog , “ I just gave a brief talk on a subject that I ’ ve been learning a lot about lately—epidemics .
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a tragedy—as I write this , more than 10,000 people have died.
” Gates then added , “ As awful as this epidemic has been , the next one could be much worse .
The world is simply not prepared to deal with a disease—an especially virulent flu , for example—that infects large @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all the things that could kill 10 million people or more , by far the most likely is an epidemic.
” That same year , 2015 , Bill Gates wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine titled , “ The Next Epidemic : Lessons from Ebola.
” There he spoke of a special class of drugs that “ involves giving patients a set of particular RNA-based constructs that enables them to produce specific proteins ( including antibodies ) .Although this is a very new area , it is promising because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could be designed and put into large-scale manufacture fairly rapidly .
More basic research as well as the progress of companies like Moderna and CureVac could eventually make this approach a key tool for stopping epidemics.
” Moderna and CureVac both today receive funds from the Gates Foundation and are leading the race to develop an approved COVID-19 vaccine based on mRNA .
A global flu-like pandemic in fact is something that Gates and his well-endowed foundation have spent years preparing for .
In 2017 during the Davos World Economic Forum , Gates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations , together with the governments of Norway , India , Japan , and Germany , along with the Wellcome Trust of the UK .
Its stated purpose is to “ accelerate the development of vaccines we ’ ll need to contain outbreaks ” of future epidemics .
He noted at the time that “ One promising area of vaccine development research is using advances in genomics to map the DNA and RNA of pathogens and make vaccines.
” We will return to that .
By 2019 Bill Gates and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their pandemic scenarios .
He made a Netflix video which made an eerie imaginary scenario .
The video , part of the “ Explained ” series , imagined a wet market in China where live and dead animals are stacked and a highly deadly virus erupts that spreads globally .
Gates appears as an expert in the video to warn , “ If you think of anything that could come along that would kill millions of people , a pandemic is our greatest risk.
” He said if nothing was done to better @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come when the world would look back and wish it had invested more into potential vaccines .
That was weeks before the world heard about bats and a live wet market in Wuhan China .
In October , 2019 the Gates Foundation teamed up with the World Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security to enact what they called a “ fictional ” scenario simulation involving some of the world ’ s leading figures in public health .
It was titled Event 201 .
As their website describes it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person , leading to a severe pandemic .
The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS , but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms.
” In the Event 201 scenario the disease originates at a pig farm in Brazil , spreading through low-income regions and ultimately explodes into an epidemic .
The disease is carried by air travel to Portugal , the USA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no country can control it .
The scenario posits no possible vaccine being available in the first year .
“ Since the whole human population is susceptible , during the initial months of the pandemic , the cumulative number of cases increases exponentially , doubling every week.
” The scenario then ends after 18 months when the fictional coronavirus has caused 65 million deaths .
“ The pandemic is beginning to slow due to the decreasing number of susceptible people .
The pandemic will continue at some rate until there is an effective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global population has been exposed.
” As interesting as the prescient Gates-Johns Hopkins Event 201 fictional scenario of October , 2019 may be , the list of panelists who were invited to participate in the imaginary global response is equally interesting .
Among the selected “ players ” as they were called , was George Fu Gao .
Notably , Prof. Gao is director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention since 2017 .
His specialization includes research on “ influenza virus interspecies transmission ( host jump ) … He is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the relationship between influenza virus and migratory birds or live poultry markets and the bat-derived virus ecology and molecular biology.
” Bat-derived virus ecology… Prof. Gao was joined among others at the panel by the former Deputy Director of the CIA during the Obama term , Avril Haines .
She also served as Obama ’ s Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor .
Another of the players at the Gates event was Rear Admiral Stephen C. Redd , Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( CDC ) .
The same CDC is at the center of a huge scandal for not having adequate functioning tests available for testing cases of COVID-19 in the USA .
Their preparedness was anything but laudable .
Rounding out the group was Adrian Thomas , the Vice President of scandal-ridden Johnson & Johnson , the giant medical and pharmaceutical company .
Thomas is responsible for pandemic preparedness at J & J including developing vaccines for Ebola , Dengue Fever , HIV .
And there was Martin Knuchel , Head of Crisis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lufthansa Group Airlines .
Lufthansa has been one of the major airlines dramatically cutting flights during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis .
All this shows that Bill Gates has had a remarkable preoccupation with the possibility of a global pandemic outbreak he said could be even larger than the alleged deaths from the mysterious 1918 Spanish Flu , and has been warning for at least the past five years or more .
What the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also has been involved in is funding development of new vaccines using bleeding-edge CRISPR gene-editing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is backing vaccine development on every front .
Inovio Pharmaceuticals of Pennsylvania received $ 9 million from the Gates-backed CEPI , Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations , to develop a vaccine , INO-4800 , which is about to test on humans in April , a suspiciously rapid time frame .
In addition Gates Foundation just gave the company an added $ 5 million to develop a proprietary smart device for intradermal delivery of the new vaccine .
In addition Gates Foundation monies via CEPI are financing development of a radical new vaccine method @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are co-funding the Cambridge , Massachusetts biotech company , Moderna Inc. , to develop a vaccine against the Wuhan novel coronavirus , now called SARS-CoV-2 .
Moderna ’ s other partner is the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ( NIAID ) , a part of the National Institutes of Health ( NIH ) .
Head of NIAID is Dr Anthony Fauci , the person at the center of the Trump Administration virus emergency response .
Notable about the Fauci-Gates Moderna coronavirus vaccine , mRNA-1273 , is that it has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not years , and on February 24 went directly to Fauci ’ s NIH for tests on human guinea pigs , not on mice as normal .
Moderna ’ s chief medical adviser , Tal Zaks , argued , “ I don ’ t think proving this in an animal model is on the critical path to getting this to a clinical trial.
” Another notable admission by Moderna on its website is the legal disclaimer , “ Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements : …These risks , uncertainties , and other factors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that there has never been a commercial product utilizing mRNA technology approved for use.
” In other words , completely unproven for human health and safety .
Another biotech company working with unproven mRNA technology to develop a vaccine for the COVID-19 is a German company , CureVac .
Since 2015 CureVac has received money from the Gates Foundation to develop its own mRNA technology .
In January the Gates-backed CEPI granted more than $ 8 million to develop a mRNA vaccine for the novel coronavirus .
Add to this the fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such as CEPI constitute the largest funders of the public-private entity known as WHO , and that its current director , Tedros Adhanom , the first WHO director in history not a medical doctor , worked for years on HIV with the Gates Foundation when Tedros was a government minister in Ethiopia , and we see that there is practically no area of the current coronavirus pandemic where the footprints of the omnipresent Gates are not to be found .
If that is to the good of mankind or grounds to be worried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer , he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics , exclusively for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook .
”

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris take a look the head of NIAID, Dr Anthony Fauci, and his deep connections (and massive conflict of interest) to oligarch, elite globalists including Bill Gates, George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.
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Subscribe to The Duran on YouTube – Find us on BitChute.
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Via The New Eastern Outlook:
Arguably, no one has been more active in promoting and funding research on vaccines aimed at dealing with coronavirus than Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. From sponsoring a simulation of a coronavirus global pandemic, just weeks before the Wuhan outbreak was announced, to funding numerous corporate efforts to come up with a novel vaccine for the apparently novel virus, the Gates presence is there. What does it actually entail?
We must admit that at the very least Bill Gates is prophetic. He has claimed for years that a global killer pandemic will come and that we are not prepared for it. On March 18, 2015 Gates gave a TED talk on epidemics in Vancouver. That day he wrote on his blog, “I just gave a brief talk on a subject that I’ve been learning a lot about lately—epidemics. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a tragedy—as I write this, more than 10,000 people have died.” Gates then added, “As awful as this epidemic has been, the next one could be much worse. The world is simply not prepared to deal with a disease—an especially virulent flu, for example—that infects large numbers of people very quickly. Of all the things that could kill 10 million people or more, by far the most likely is an epidemic.”
That same year, 2015, Bill Gates wrote an article for the New England Journal of Medicine titled, “The Next Epidemic: Lessons from Ebola.” There he spoke of a special class of drugs that “involves giving patients a set of particular RNA-based constructs that enables them to produce specific proteins(including antibodies).Although this is a very new area, it is promising because it is possible that a safe therapy could be designed and put into large-scale manufacture fairly rapidly. More basic research as well as the progress of companies like Moderna and CureVac could eventually make this approach a key tool for stopping epidemics.” Moderna and CureVac both today receive funds from the Gates Foundation and are leading the race to develop an approved COVID-19 vaccine based on mRNA.
2017 and Founding of CEPI
A global flu-like pandemic in fact is something that Gates and his well-endowed foundation have spent years preparing for. In 2017 during the Davos World Economic Forum, Gates initiated something called CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, together with the governments of Norway, India, Japan, and Germany, along with the Wellcome Trust of the UK. Its stated purpose is to “accelerate the development of vaccines we’ll need to contain outbreaks” of future epidemics. He noted at the time that “One promising area of vaccine development research is using advances in genomics to map the DNA and RNA of pathogens and make vaccines.” We will return to that.
Event 201
By 2019 Bill Gates and the foundation were going full-tilt boogie with their pandemic scenarios. He made a Netflix video which made an eerie imaginary scenario. The video, part of the “Explained” series, imagined a wet market in China where live and dead animals are stacked and a highly deadly virus erupts that spreads globally. Gates appears as an expert in the video to warn, “If you think of anything that could come along that would kill millions of people, a pandemic is our greatest risk.” He said if nothing was done to better prepare for pandemics, the time would come when the world would look back and wish it had invested more into potential vaccines. That was weeks before the world heard about bats and a live wet market in Wuhan China.
In October, 2019 the Gates Foundation teamed up with the World Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security to enact what they called a “fictional” scenario simulation involving some of the world’s leading figures in public health. It was titled Event 201.
As their website describes it, Event 201 simulated an “outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic. The pathogen and the disease it causes are modeled largely on SARS, but it is more transmissible in the community setting by people with mild symptoms.”
In the Event 201 scenario the disease originates at a pig farm in Brazil, spreading through low-income regions and ultimately explodes into an epidemic. The disease is carried by air travel to Portugal, the USA and China and beyond to the point no country can control it. The scenario posits no possible vaccine being available in the first year. “Since the whole human population is susceptible, during the initial months of the pandemic, the cumulative number of cases increases exponentially, doubling every week.”
The scenario then ends after 18 months when the fictional coronavirus has caused 65 million deaths. “The pandemic is beginning to slow due to the decreasing number of susceptible people. The pandemic will continue at some rate until there is an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population has been exposed.”
Event 201 Players
As interesting as the prescient Gates-Johns Hopkins Event 201 fictional scenario of October, 2019 may be, the list of panelists who were invited to participate in the imaginary global response is equally interesting.
Among the selected “players” as they were called, was George Fu Gao. Notably, Prof. Gao is director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention since 2017. His specialization includes research on “influenza virus interspecies transmission (host jump)… He is also interested in virus ecology, especially the relationship between influenza virus and migratory birds or live poultry markets and the bat-derived virus ecology and molecular biology.” Bat-derived virus ecology…
Prof. Gao was joined among others at the panel by the former Deputy Director of the CIA during the Obama term, Avril Haines. She also served as Obama’s Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. Another of the players at the Gates event was Rear Admiral Stephen C. Redd, Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The same CDC is at the center of a huge scandal for not having adequate functioning tests available for testing cases of COVID-19 in the USA. Their preparedness was anything but laudable.
Rounding out the group was Adrian Thomas, the Vice President of scandal-ridden Johnson & Johnson, the giant medical and pharmaceutical company. Thomas is responsible for pandemic preparedness at J&J including developing vaccines for Ebola, Dengue Fever, HIV. And there was Martin Knuchel, Head of Crisis, Emergency & Business Continuity Management, for Lufthansa Group Airlines. Lufthansa has been one of the major airlines dramatically cutting flights during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
All this shows that Bill Gates has had a remarkable preoccupation with the possibility of a global pandemic outbreak he said could be even larger than the alleged deaths from the mysterious 1918 Spanish Flu, and has been warning for at least the past five years or more. What the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also has been involved in is funding development of new vaccines using bleeding-edge CRISPR gene-editing and other technologies.
The Coronavirus Vaccines
Gates Foundation money is backing vaccine development on every front. Inovio Pharmaceuticals of Pennsylvania received $9 million from the Gates-backed CEPI, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to develop a vaccine, INO-4800, which is about to test on humans in April, a suspiciously rapid time frame. In addition Gates Foundation just gave the company an added $5 million to develop a proprietary smart device for intradermal delivery of the new vaccine.
In addition Gates Foundation monies via CEPI are financing development of a radical new vaccine method known as messengerRNA or mRNA.
They are co-funding the Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech company, Moderna Inc., to develop a vaccine against the Wuhan novel coronavirus, now called SARS-CoV-2. Moderna’s other partner is the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Head of NIAID is Dr Anthony Fauci, the person at the center of the Trump Administration virus emergency response. Notable about the Fauci-Gates Moderna coronavirus vaccine, mRNA-1273, is that it has been rolled out in a matter of weeks, not years, and on February 24 went directly to Fauci’s NIH for tests on human guinea pigs, not on mice as normal. Moderna’s chief medical adviser, Tal Zaks, argued, “I don’t think proving this in an animal model is on the critical path to getting this to a clinical trial.”
Another notable admission by Moderna on its website is the legal disclaimer, “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: …These risks, uncertainties, and other factors include, among others: … the fact that there has never been a commercial product utilizing mRNA technology approved for use.” In other words, completely unproven for human health and safety.
Another biotech company working with unproven mRNA technology to develop a vaccine for the COVID-19 is a German company, CureVac. Since 2015 CureVac has received money from the Gates Foundation to develop its own mRNA technology. In January the Gates-backed CEPI granted more than $8 million to develop a mRNA vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
Add to this the fact that the Gates Foundation and related entities such as CEPI constitute the largest funders of the public-private entity known as WHO, and that its current director, Tedros Adhanom, the first WHO director in history not a medical doctor, worked for years on HIV with the Gates Foundation when Tedros was a government minister in Ethiopia, and we see that there is practically no area of the current coronavirus pandemic where the footprints of the omnipresent Gates are not to be found. If that is to the good of mankind or grounds to be worried, time will tell.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
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theduran--2020-04-21--Merkel Survives the Coronapocalypse, but the EU Won’t

Authored by Tom Luongo via The Strategic Culture Foundation : No matter how hard I try to dig German Chancellor Angela Merkel ’ s political grave she proves more adept at staying alive than a cockroach in a woodpile .
And the recent fight amongst European Union members over “ Coronabonds ” has proven yet another escape path for her to avoid political termination .
Thanks to Merkel holding the line on debt mutualization and EU fiscal integration , which is very unpopular in Germany , her Christian Democratic Union ( CDU ) is now polling at levels it hasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general election in 2017 .
According to Europe Elects , the latest polling out of Germany has the CDU commanding around 35-37 % of German voters .
This is a party that was in shambles not two months ago after Merkel heir apparent Annagret Kramp-Karrenbauer stepped down as CDU leader , prompting a new leadership vote , which , conveniently for Merkel , has now been postponed indefinitely thanks to the COVID-19 crisis .
Some of that is the normal “ rally around the current leader ” that occurs during any crisis .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. have been strong despite the twin crises here .
Even marginal leaders like Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Italy have seen their numbers rise .
But a 15-point bump for Merkel is tremendous and it only happens in conjunction with her refusing to cave on Germany being seen bailing out southern Europe .
It may win her support domestically , but it sets up a disastrous future for the European Union .
As COVID-19 rages across Europe the two major factions within the EU have been fighting a desperate battle for its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being the fulcrum .
Now , I believe wholly that the use of lock downs and draconian measures to fight the disease have been more political than practical .
Using a public health care crisis to advance a political agenda is the height of cynicism and megalomania .
On the one side we have the Euro-integrationists , led by French President Emmanuel Macron .
On the other are the fiscal conservatives led by Merkel , who has given way to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to be the point man for Macron ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the real human tragedy in northern Italy where thousands of people have died from the toxic mix of a lack of medical infrastructure , high concentration of high-risk people and lack of knowledge of how to fight the disease .
Worse than that , the government in Italy was put together to spearhead this fight for Eurobonds since Conte was kept in power to ensure Lega ’ s Matteo Salvini didn ’ t and fight Macron and Merkel by threatening to leave the euro-zone .
Whether you believe the EU ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lack thereof , to Italy ’ s plight was motivated by malice or incompetence the result is the same .
Thousands of Italians died and weakened already weak bonds between Italy and the rest of the EU technocracy .
As I said in an article back on March 14th : So in the midst of this mess comes COVID-19 and the uncoordinated and inept response to it from the political center of Europe to date .
Only now are they coming to the conclusion they need to restrict travel , after sitting on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Italians died by the hundreds .
And do you think that ’ s engendering waves of love and affection among Italians towards Germans ?
If you do then you don ’ t know Italians… at all .
And this is your signal that this is the beginning of the real crisis .
Because while COVID-19 may have been the catalyst for the breakdown of capital markets , capital markets were simply waiting for that spark to occur .
Honestly I wasn ’ t harsh enough in my assessment of what was happening back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this crisis was being used to push forward EU integrationist plans of Macron and ECB President Christine Lagarde trying to strongarm the Germans and the Dutch into their position .
By the meeting on March 26th that plan failed .
Rutte , Merkel , Austrian Chancellor Sebastain Kurz and Norway all held their ground and the meeting would have ended in a fistfight had it not been held using social distancing rules via teleconference .
That meeting set up last week ’ s which saw Italy cave to German and Dutch intransigence .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 500 billion in new loans but no ECB bond issuance .
And the issue now is whether Conte will partake of the program or not .
His failure to act as Macron ’ s Agent of Shame to secure the EU ’ s future now puts the whole European project in jeopardy because Conte ’ s government is in serious trouble in Italy .
Moreover , this failure was likely unexpected because now even the hardest-core EU integrationists in Italy ’ s government are wondering why they are part of the EU @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t really budged with Salvini ’ s Lega holding onto around 30 % of the electorate with the Brothers of Italy holding onto recent gains in the mid-teens .
Moreover , now the question of EU membership in Italy is a coin flip .
Two different polls ( here and here ) have it well within the margin of error .
Lastly , and most importantly , Conte ’ s coalition government is split on whether to avail itself of the newly-approved loans .
Reuters reported that the divisions within the Italian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In a show of political spine not seen in over a year senior partner Five Star Movement ( M5S ) is opposed while the Eurocentric Democrats are all for it since , as of right now , there are no strings attached to the money .
Conte will have to settle the dispute before a video conference among European leaders on April 23 when Italy will be expected to make its position clear .
He tried to defuse the quarrel on Wednesday , warning in a Facebook post that the ESM “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and adding that more information was needed on the terms of any credit lines before a final decision could be taken .
Until these details are clear , discussing whether an ESM loan is in Italy ’ s interests is “ a merely abstract and schematic debate , ” Conte said .
But we all know there will be strings in the end .
If you doubt that assertion , I suggest you ask Greece how about this .
So , Conte has his work cut out for himself .
There is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get even token Eurobonds approved before Germany takes over the Presidency of the European Commission in July , where it will set the agenda on the EU ’ s next seven-year budget .
After years of kicking the can down the road to avoid a messy political upheaval , which is Merkel ’ s trademark move , nothing has changed in the EU when it comes to fixing its untenable structure .
And for this reason , as long as Angela Merkel is on the stage , there will be no European dream @ @ @ @ @ @ @ events back to the previous status quo .
She has no capacity or stomach to face the German voters nor will she allow anyone else to fully express themselves .
Her handling of Brexit negotiations was a fiasco for the EU , thankfully , and her handling of Italy today is just as inept .
With Salvini waiting in the wings , the people ready to revolt over Germany ’ s handling of the crisis and a weak coalition government put in place by Merkel to hold things together , the probability of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while Merkel may have won this latest battle in the end she may lose the war for the EU .
And , in the ultimate irony , the people of Europe may have her to thank for their deliverance from its dysfunction .

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Authored by Tom Luongo via The Strategic Culture Foundation:
No matter how hard I try to dig German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s political grave she proves more adept at staying alive than a cockroach in a woodpile. And the recent fight amongst European Union members over “Coronabonds” has proven yet another escape path for her to avoid political termination.
Thanks to Merkel holding the line on debt mutualization and EU fiscal integration, which is very unpopular in Germany, her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is now polling at levels it hasn’t enjoyed since before the last general election in 2017.
According to Europe Elects, the latest polling out of Germany has the CDU commanding around 35-37% of German voters. This is a party that was in shambles not two months ago after Merkel heir apparent Annagret Kramp-Karrenbauer stepped down as CDU leader, prompting a new leadership vote, which, conveniently for Merkel, has now been postponed indefinitely thanks to the COVID-19 crisis.
Some of that is the normal “rally around the current leader” that occurs during any crisis. President Trump’s numbers in the U.S. have been strong despite the twin crises here. Even marginal leaders like Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Italy have seen their numbers rise.
But a 15-point bump for Merkel is tremendous and it only happens in conjunction with her refusing to cave on Germany being seen bailing out southern Europe. It may win her support domestically, but it sets up a disastrous future for the European Union.
As COVID-19 rages across Europe the two major factions within the EU have been fighting a desperate battle for its future with the issue of debt mutualization being the fulcrum. Now, I believe wholly that the use of lock downs and draconian measures to fight the disease have been more political than practical. Using a public health care crisis to advance a political agenda is the height of cynicism and megalomania.
On the one side we have the Euro-integrationists, led by French President Emmanuel Macron. On the other are the fiscal conservatives led by Merkel, who has given way to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to be the point man for Macron’s derision.
Trapped in the middle is the real human tragedy in northern Italy where thousands of people have died from the toxic mix of a lack of medical infrastructure, high concentration of high-risk people and lack of knowledge of how to fight the disease.
Worse than that, the government in Italy was put together to spearhead this fight for Eurobonds since Conte was kept in power to ensure Lega’s Matteo Salvini didn’t and fight Macron and Merkel by threatening to leave the euro-zone.
Whether you believe the EU’s response, or, more accurately, lack thereof, to Italy’s plight was motivated by malice or incompetence the result is the same. Thousands of Italians died and weakened already weak bonds between Italy and the rest of the EU technocracy.
As I said in an article back on March 14th:
So in the midst of this mess comes COVID-19 and the uncoordinated and inept response to it from the political center of Europe to date. Only now are they coming to the conclusion they need to restrict travel, after sitting on their hands for a few weeks while Italians died by the hundreds.
And do you think that’s engendering waves of love and affection among Italians towards Germans?
If you do then you don’t know Italians… at all.
And this is your signal that this is the beginning of the real crisis. Because while COVID-19 may have been the catalyst for the breakdown of capital markets, capital markets were simply waiting for that spark to occur.
Honestly I wasn’t harsh enough in my assessment of what was happening back then, but it was clear that this crisis was being used to push forward EU integrationist plans of Macron and ECB President Christine Lagarde trying to strongarm the Germans and the Dutch into their position.
By the meeting on March 26th that plan failed. Rutte, Merkel, Austrian Chancellor Sebastain Kurz and Norway all held their ground and the meeting would have ended in a fistfight had it not been held using social distancing rules via teleconference.
That meeting set up last week’s which saw Italy cave to German and Dutch intransigence. Macron and Lagarde lost, securing just $500 billion in new loans but no ECB bond issuance. And the issue now is whether Conte will partake of the program or not.
His failure to act as Macron’s Agent of Shame to secure the EU’s future now puts the whole European project in jeopardy because Conte’s government is in serious trouble in Italy. Moreover, this failure was likely unexpected because now even the hardest-core EU integrationists in Italy’s government are wondering why they are part of the EU.
Meanwhile the polls in Italy haven’t really budged with Salvini’s Lega holding onto around 30% of the electorate with the Brothers of Italy holding onto recent gains in the mid-teens.
Italy, Termometro Politico poll: LEGA-ID: 31%
PD-S&D: 22%
M5S-NI: 14%
FdI-ECR: 13%
FI-EPP: 6%
IV-RE: 4% (+1)
Azione-S&D: 3%
LS-LEFT: 2%
EV-G/EFA: 2%
+E-RE: 1% (-1)
PC-NI: 1% +/- vs. 1-2 Apr. '20 Fieldwork: 8-9 April 2020
Sample size: 2,200 pic.twitter.com/QTCcUpCffP — Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) April 11, 2020
Moreover, now the question of EU membership in Italy is a coin flip. Two different polls (here and here) have it well within the margin of error.
Lastly, and most importantly, Conte’s coalition government is split on whether to avail itself of the newly-approved loans. Reuters reported that the divisions within the Italian coalition are rising and portend a split. In a show of political spine not seen in over a year senior partner Five Star Movement (M5S) is opposed while the Eurocentric Democrats are all for it since, as of right now, there are no strings attached to the money.
Conte will have to settle the dispute before a video conference among European leaders on April 23 when Italy will be expected to make its position clear.
He tried to defuse the quarrel on Wednesday, warning in a Facebook post that the ESM “risks dividing the whole of Italy,” and adding that more information was needed on the terms of any credit lines before a final decision could be taken.
Until these details are clear, discussing whether an ESM loan is in Italy’s interests is “a merely abstract and schematic debate,” Conte said.
But we all know there will be strings in the end. If you doubt that assertion, I suggest you ask Greece how about this. So, Conte has his work cut out for himself. There is real urgency now in the EU to get even token Eurobonds approved before Germany takes over the Presidency of the European Commission in July, where it will set the agenda on the EU’s next seven-year budget.
After years of kicking the can down the road to avoid a messy political upheaval, which is Merkel’s trademark move, nothing has changed in the EU when it comes to fixing its untenable structure. And for this reason, as long as Angela Merkel is on the stage, there will be no European dream.
All Merkel ever does is manipulate events back to the previous status quo. She has no capacity or stomach to face the German voters nor will she allow anyone else to fully express themselves. Her handling of Brexit negotiations was a fiasco for the EU, thankfully, and her handling of Italy today is just as inept.
With Salvini waiting in the wings, the people ready to revolt over Germany’s handling of the crisis and a weak coalition government put in place by Merkel to hold things together, the probability of Italeave occurring rises daily.
So, while Merkel may have won this latest battle in the end she may lose the war for the EU. And, in the ultimate irony, the people of Europe may have her to thank for their deliverance from its dysfunction.
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theduran--2020-04-21--Desertions in the Desert: US mercenaries at Syrian base are leaving

The last Syrian ‘ rebel ’ unit on the US payroll is dissolving by desertions .
A former senior officer in the US-backed mercenary unit Maghaweir al-Thowra ( MAT ) deserted his unit in Syria on April 14 .
Samir Ghannam al-Khidr deserted the Eastern Syrian desert along with his whole family and 26 armed men .
The convoy was subject to a video on social media , which showed 8 pickups , 1 truck , 11 small arms , including 5 M-16 rifles , 4 large-caliber machine guns , 5 grenade launchers and 6-7 thousand rounds of ammunition .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ US military property .
Al-Khidr left the illegal US base at Tanf , which is home to about 200 US soldiers , and about 100 mercenaries of MAT .
Previous desertions occurred in early April .
The official Twitter account of MAT was busily posting scenarios in English .
Their ‘ spin-doctor ’ belittled the deserter and made it seem that MAT allowed him to leave peacefully as if they packed him a lunch for the road .
The MAT is made up of various Eastern Syrian tribes .
English as a second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in all Syrian public schools , which are free of cost and are compulsory through the 9th grade .
However , the level of English would be very basic , and anyone writing English texts on Twitter , for example , would be easily recognized as a novice in the English language .
However , the level of English used to explain and defend the MAT on their official Twitter account is of the highest level , comparable to an American , for example .
Most likely , the account holder of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the MAT , but rather a member of the US Special Forces .
A US soldier was likely tasked with being the official public relations representative for MAT and sits at a laptop every day fielding complaints , accusations and commenting on charges against MAT in the news and social media .
Syrians use Arabic as their first language .
When University educated Syrians , who have more than basic English language skills , were asked to review the Twitter account postings for MAT , they all could tell that was not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ carrying a machine gun , and looking like a ‘ Hollywood-Double ’ for ISIS .
The members of MAT work for the US military , but they are not US-educated .
The illegal US base at Tanf The US Army Special Forces have trained MAT at Tanf since 2016 to fight against ISIS , which was defeated in 2017 .
It would follow that MAT should have been disbanded several years ago , except the US could see a use for them as local guards of the small contingent of US soldiers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ highway , which is a strategic trade route .
Tanf is a US military base in Syria which is illegal under international law .
There is no purpose for the base at Tanf except to thwart the free movement of goods and people on the Iraq-Syria highway .
The recent deserter , Samir Ghannam al-Khidr , has been accused of being a drug dealer and smuggler between Jordan and the illegal US base at Tanf .
He was accused last year of drug dealing and was detained but allowed to return to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not the first time drugs have made headlines in connection with the US Special Forces at Tanf .
In June 2018 , MAT was involved in a large drug bust at Tanf .
The drugs were estimated to be valued at about $ 1.4 million .
The unit captured more than 300,000 Captagon tablets .
Captagon is classified as an “ amphetamine-type stimulant ” and has been used by ISIS as it keeps the fighters awake and has a mental effect of diminishing the conscience , allowing them to be vicious killers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ throughout the Arab Gulf , such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates .
MAT may have been introduced to the value of drug dealing in an area in Syria which has no government , or police supervision .
The US base at Tanf is in a ‘ no-man ’ s-land ’ without any police , courts or judges .
The Syrian government is not present there , and the US military likely turned a blind eye to the crimes being carried out by their mercenaries MAT .
The Rukban Refugee Camp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and MAT has been used to provide security for the camp .
Thousands of refugees have been living in squalor and suffering there ; however , many have left the camp by paying bribes to MAT , to leave for the Syrian government-controlled city of Palmyra .
Abu Muhammed recalled his ordeal at Rukban after leaving and told of how MAT would sell aid items that had been donated by international relief organizations .
“ Sometimes , we received aid from the Red Crescent , but we only saw a small portion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not given for free .
The militants take the free aid and resell it to the refugees — that ’ s their business .
To get money , we had to work at the camp .
They set up a brick factory and we had to work like dogs there , ” he said , and added , “ They are all armed , they walk the camp with rifles , they have semi-military equipment and they own the place .
”

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Submitted by Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator…
The last Syrian ‘rebel’ unit on the US payroll is dissolving by desertions. A former senior officer in the US-backed mercenary unit Maghaweir al-Thowra (MAT) deserted his unit in Syria on April 14. Samir Ghannam al-Khidr deserted the Eastern Syrian desert along with his whole family and 26 armed men. The convoy was subject to a video on social media, which showed 8 pickups, 1 truck, 11 small arms, including 5 M-16 rifles, 4 large-caliber machine guns, 5 grenade launchers and 6-7 thousand rounds of ammunition. All of the vehicles and weaponry were US military property. Al-Khidr left the illegal US base at Tanf, which is home to about 200 US soldiers, and about 100 mercenaries of MAT. Previous desertions occurred in early April.
The official Twitter account of MAT was busily posting scenarios in English. Their ‘spin-doctor’ belittled the deserter and made it seem that MAT allowed him to leave peacefully as if they packed him a lunch for the road.
Textbook level English
The MAT is made up of various Eastern Syrian tribes. English as a second language is taught beginning in 4th grade in all Syrian public schools, which are free of cost and are compulsory through the 9th grade. However, the level of English would be very basic, and anyone writing English texts on Twitter, for example, would be easily recognized as a novice in the English language.
However, the level of English used to explain and defend the MAT on their official Twitter account is of the highest level, comparable to an American, for example. Most likely, the account holder of the MAT Twitter account is not a member of the MAT, but rather a member of the US Special Forces. A US soldier was likely tasked with being the official public relations representative for MAT and sits at a laptop every day fielding complaints, accusations and commenting on charges against MAT in the news and social media.
Syrians use Arabic as their first language. When University educated Syrians, who have more than basic English language skills, were asked to review the Twitter account postings for MAT, they all could tell that was not written by any Eastern Syrian tribesman, carrying a machine gun, and looking like a ‘Hollywood-Double’ for ISIS. The members of MAT work for the US military, but they are not US-educated.
The illegal US base at Tanf
The US Army Special Forces have trained MAT at Tanf since 2016 to fight against ISIS, which was defeated in 2017. It would follow that MAT should have been disbanded several years ago, except the US could see a use for them as local guards of the small contingent of US soldiers. The MAT also was guarding the Baghdad-Damascus highway, which is a strategic trade route. Tanf is a US military base in Syria which is illegal under international law. There is no purpose for the base at Tanf except to thwart the free movement of goods and people on the Iraq-Syria highway.
Drugs, smuggling, and exploiting refugees
The recent deserter, Samir Ghannam al-Khidr, has been accused of being a drug dealer and smuggler between Jordan and the illegal US base at Tanf. He was accused last year of drug dealing and was detained but allowed to return to the US base at Tanf. This is not the first time drugs have made headlines in connection with the US Special Forces at Tanf. In June 2018, MAT was involved in a large drug bust at Tanf. The drugs were estimated to be valued at about $1.4 million. The unit captured more than 300,000 Captagon tablets. Captagon is classified as an “amphetamine-type stimulant” and has been used by ISIS as it keeps the fighters awake and has a mental effect of diminishing the conscience, allowing them to be vicious killers. Captagon is also the popular illicit drug throughout the Arab Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
MAT may have been introduced to the value of drug dealing in an area in Syria which has no government, or police supervision. The US base at Tanf is in a ‘no-man’s-land’ without any police, courts or judges. The Syrian government is not present there, and the US military likely turned a blind eye to the crimes being carried out by their mercenaries MAT.
The Rukban Refugee Camp is near the base at Tanf, and MAT has been used to provide security for the camp. Thousands of refugees have been living in squalor and suffering there; however, many have left the camp by paying bribes to MAT, to leave for the Syrian government-controlled city of Palmyra. Abu Muhammed recalled his ordeal at Rukban after leaving and told of how MAT would sell aid items that had been donated by international relief organizations.
“Sometimes, we received aid from the Red Crescent, but we only saw a small portion of it, most often sold to us, not given for free. The militants take the free aid and resell it to the refugees — that’s their business. To get money, we had to work at the camp. They set up a brick factory and we had to work like dogs there,” he said, and added, “They are all armed, they walk the camp with rifles, they have semi-military equipment and they own the place.”
Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist
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theduran--2020-04-21--Iran defies American naval power

Iran defies American naval power

Submitted by InfoBrics , authored by Lucas Leiroz , research fellow in international at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro… Iran is already beginning to challenge American naval power .
The country recently reported on the development of an advanced mapping and communication network for submarines .
The network consists of a complex wireless communication system called “ Waza ” and integrates an entire national defense project : with land and sea forces inferior to those of enemy countries , such as the United States , Iran invests in its submarine power , since it has several different classes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russia decades ago and are still capable of venturing into distant waters .
However , a new and important step was taken by Tehran in its quest to fortify its maritime and underwater power .
A few days ago , Iranian Admiral Hossein Khazandi claimed that his country is seriously considering the possibility of developing nuclear submarines .
In his words : “ It would be negligent on the part of Iran not to consider the use of nuclear powered submarines [ … ] So we are thinking about it ” .
Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several submarines , from small submersibles to some capable of carrying more than 50 crew members and crossing turbulent waters .
However , they all use conventional propulsion .
Nuclear-powered submarines have better operational capabilities than conventional ones , as they do not need to refuel frequently and can operate autonomously for a longer period of time , explains the admiral .
For this reason , the strategic importance of creating nuclear powered submarines must be discussed , as it would take Iranian maritime power to a new international level .
As we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exact definition of what will happen or when Iran intends to start developing such submarines , however , it is an agenda that is gaining more and more strength among the defense sectors of the country .
The Iranian admiral said that Tehran has “ its own capacity ” to build larger vessels than the current light submarines of the Fateh class , which gives Iran greater freedom to proceed with its project , since it apparently does not depend on foreign technological aid .
A curious fact is that this discussion was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Persian Gulf through which the world became aware of Iran ’ s naval potential .
On April 15 , Iranian Revolutionary Guard military speedboats carried out a series of maneuvers against several American ships that were patrolling the region .
“ IRGC boats repeatedly passed the bow and stern of American ships at an extremely close distance and at high speed , ” says the American report , noting that some have passed within 50 meters of the bow of the expeditionary mobile ship USS Lewis B. Puller and 10 meters from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patrol ship of the Island class .
The other American ships surrounded by the naval siege were the USS Paul Hamilton guided-missile destroyer , the USS Firebolt and USS Sirocco patrol ships , and the Coast Guard ’ s USCGC Wrangell .
The Navy notes that these ships participated in operations in international waters with US Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters .
Western media reacted to Iran ’ s maneuvers with disapproval and scandal , considering it unacceptable and worthy of sanctions .
The US Navy published notes stating that the siege of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ irresponsible , disregarding international navigation standards and creating a serious risk of miscalculation , which could result in collisions .
However , little or no attention has been paid to the fact that Iran was only responding to foreign occupation in the region .
After all , what standard of international law guarantees the US patrol power in the Gulf ensuring that there will be no response from countries in the region ?
Where does Washington ’ s international police power come from ?
There is a whole context behind the siege conducted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conducting military operations in the Persian Gulf since the end of March , with the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and its attack group arriving on the waterway in early April .
The Persian Gulf has become an area of international risk , as it is located between the regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia , the latter US ally , and for much of the world ’ s maritime oil trade to pass through the waterway .
As has often been seen over the past few decades , when any regional tension @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States sends out highly equipped troops with high destructive power to “ guarantee international peace and security ” .
In fact , there is no interest in peace and security , Washington just wants to protect its interests – which specifically in this region coincide with the Saudi ones – and to that goal it sends its armed forces , but does not like it and reacts with fiery speeches when any other country also aims to guarantee its own interests , opposing to American impositions .
This time , however @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equivalent power .
Iran surrounded American vessels as a warning to Washington to immediately cease to act as a global maritime police .
Gradually , the United States is forced by its own conditions to yield to these reactions , as its strength to guarantee a hegemonic status is crumbling .
In other times , Americans would react to Iran by attacking their speedboats and conducting amphibious attack operations , but now they know that they may no longer have the strength to conduct conflicts of this magnitude , so that reacting to @ @ @ @ @ @

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Submitted by InfoBrics, authored by Lucas Leiroz, research fellow in international at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro…
Iran is already beginning to challenge American naval power. The country recently reported on the development of an advanced mapping and communication network for submarines. The network consists of a complex wireless communication system called “Waza” and integrates an entire national defense project: with land and sea forces inferior to those of enemy countries, such as the United States, Iran invests in its submarine power, since it has several different classes, many of which were built by Russia decades ago and are still capable of venturing into distant waters.
However, a new and important step was taken by Tehran in its quest to fortify its maritime and underwater power. A few days ago, Iranian Admiral Hossein Khazandi claimed that his country is seriously considering the possibility of developing nuclear submarines. In his words: “It would be negligent on the part of Iran not to consider the use of nuclear powered submarines […] So we are thinking about it”. Iran already has a very well-equipped fleet of several submarines, from small submersibles to some capable of carrying more than 50 crew members and crossing turbulent waters. However, they all use conventional propulsion. Nuclear-powered submarines have better operational capabilities than conventional ones, as they do not need to refuel frequently and can operate autonomously for a longer period of time, explains the admiral. For this reason, the strategic importance of creating nuclear powered submarines must be discussed, as it would take Iranian maritime power to a new international level.
As we can see, there is still no exact definition of what will happen or when Iran intends to start developing such submarines, however, it is an agenda that is gaining more and more strength among the defense sectors of the country. The Iranian admiral said that Tehran has “its own capacity” to build larger vessels than the current light submarines of the Fateh class, which gives Iran greater freedom to proceed with its project, since it apparently does not depend on foreign technological aid.
A curious fact is that this discussion was heightened due to a recent episode in the Persian Gulf through which the world became aware of Iran’s naval potential. On April 15, Iranian Revolutionary Guard military speedboats carried out a series of maneuvers against several American ships that were patrolling the region. “IRGC boats repeatedly passed the bow and stern of American ships at an extremely close distance and at high speed,” says the American report, noting that some have passed within 50 meters of the bow of the expeditionary mobile ship USS Lewis B. Puller and 10 meters from USCGC Maui, the US Coast Guard patrol ship of the Island class. The other American ships surrounded by the naval siege were the USS Paul Hamilton guided-missile destroyer, the USS Firebolt and USS Sirocco patrol ships, and the Coast Guard’s USCGC Wrangell. The Navy notes that these ships participated in operations in international waters with US Army AH-64E Apache attack helicopters.
Western media reacted to Iran’s maneuvers with disapproval and scandal, considering it unacceptable and worthy of sanctions. The US Navy published notes stating that the siege of vessels conducted by the speedboats was extremely irresponsible, disregarding international navigation standards and creating a serious risk of miscalculation, which could result in collisions. However, little or no attention has been paid to the fact that Iran was only responding to foreign occupation in the region. After all, what standard of international law guarantees the US patrol power in the Gulf ensuring that there will be no response from countries in the region? Where does Washington’s international police power come from?
There is a whole context behind the siege conducted by Iran. The US has been conducting military operations in the Persian Gulf since the end of March, with the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and its attack group arriving on the waterway in early April. The Persian Gulf has become an area of international risk, as it is located between the regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, the latter US ally, and for much of the world’s maritime oil trade to pass through the waterway. As has often been seen over the past few decades, when any regional tension arises between two sovereign National States, the United States sends out highly equipped troops with high destructive power to “guarantee international peace and security”. In fact, there is no interest in peace and security, Washington just wants to protect its interests – which specifically in this region coincide with the Saudi ones – and to that goal it sends its armed forces, but does not like it and reacts with fiery speeches when any other country also aims to guarantee its own interests, opposing to American impositions.
This time, however, the world saw a reaction with equivalent power. Iran surrounded American vessels as a warning to Washington to immediately cease to act as a global maritime police. Gradually, the United States is forced by its own conditions to yield to these reactions, as its strength to guarantee a hegemonic status is crumbling. In other times, Americans would react to Iran by attacking their speedboats and conducting amphibious attack operations, but now they know that they may no longer have the strength to conduct conflicts of this magnitude, so that reacting to Iran would be extremely irresponsible.
Gradually, the sea becomes multipolar.
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theduran--2020-04-21--Akhmetov’s business may cause a quarrel between Ukraine and Belarus

The Ukrainian National Commission for State Regulation in the Field of Energy and Utilities adopted Resolution No .
776 “ On the actions of electricity market participants during the period of quarantine and restrictive measures related to the spread of coronavirus disease ( COVID-19 ) .
” The resolution canceled the results of previous annual auctions for the supply of electricity from countries outside the Energy Community ( such are Russia and Belarus ) .
It is also prescribed not to allow electricity from these countries for sale at monthly and daily auctions in Ukraine .
And the second document @ @ @ @ @ @ @ special duty of 65 % on imports from Russia of all types of coal except anthracite , bitumen and coking .
In fact , duties are applied to coal grades used in the production of thermal energy .
These decisions will surely please Rinat Akhmetov , who controls 80 % of Ukrainian thermal power generation .
Now he will be able to supply his coal to Ukrainian enterprises .
And probably at a higher price .
But electricity consumers are unlikely to be happy .
Electricity prices are likely to rise .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loser .
Rather , the victim .
And in this situation , it turns out to be Belarus .
In the last months of 2019 , Kiev purchased Belarusian electricity for $ 43.1 million , for January-February of this year – for $ 7.5 million .
Soon , a nuclear power plant should open in Belarus .
And the country ’ s leadership probably counted on an increase in electricity supplies to Ukraine .
Now , these prospects are practically absent .
Formally , purchases are not stopped forever .
In fact , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most stable , were terminated .
And this is not the only slap in the face that Belarus has received from Ukraine recently .
In April , Kiev joined the EU sanctions against Minsk .
They provide for an embargo on the supply of weapons / equipment that can be used for internal repression , as well as freezing of assets and a ban on entry for four citizens of Belarus .
It turns out that they are more of a political nature .
Knowing the decisive character of the President of Belarus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sure that the current situation will not remain unanswered .
The answer will be .
And what the cost of Akhmetov ’ s business for Ukraine is not yet known .

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Ukraine will purchase electricity from Akhmetov.
The Ukrainian National Commission for State Regulation in the Field of Energy and Utilities adopted Resolution No. 776 “On the actions of electricity market participants during the period of quarantine and restrictive measures related to the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19).”
The resolution canceled the results of previous annual auctions for the supply of electricity from countries outside the Energy Community (such are Russia and Belarus). It is also prescribed not to allow electricity from these countries for sale at monthly and daily auctions in Ukraine.
And the second document. This April 15 introduction of a special duty of 65% on imports from Russia of all types of coal except anthracite, bitumen and coking. In fact, duties are applied to coal grades used in the production of thermal energy.
These decisions will surely please Rinat Akhmetov, who controls 80% of Ukrainian thermal power generation. Now he will be able to supply his coal to Ukrainian enterprises. And probably at a higher price.
But electricity consumers are unlikely to be happy. Electricity prices are likely to rise.
When someone wins, there is always a loser. Rather, the victim. And in this situation, it turns out to be Belarus.
In the last months of 2019, Kiev purchased Belarusian electricity for $ 43.1 million, for January-February of this year – for $ 7.5 million. Soon, a nuclear power plant should open in Belarus. And the country’s leadership probably counted on an increase in electricity supplies to Ukraine.
Now, these prospects are practically absent. Formally, purchases are not stopped forever. In fact, the annual contracts, which are the most stable, were terminated.
And this is not the only slap in the face that Belarus has received from Ukraine recently. In April, Kiev joined the EU sanctions against Minsk. They provide for an embargo on the supply of weapons / equipment that can be used for internal repression, as well as freezing of assets and a ban on entry for four citizens of Belarus. It turns out that they are more of a political nature.
Knowing the decisive character of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, we can say for sure that the current situation will not remain unanswered. The answer will be. And what the cost of Akhmetov’s business for Ukraine is not yet known.
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theduran--2020-04-21--How to Get Rid of a POTUS

How to Get Rid of a POTUS

Authored by ‘ John Quincy Adams ’ via The Strategic Culture Foundation : In the Soviet Union there was an expression “ The Organs of State Security ” or “ Organs ” for short .
Their supposed power in the USSR was one of the things that separated them from what we used to call “ the free world ” .
Not so much any more – the American Organs came very close to getting rid of the so-called Most Powerful Man in The World .
They made only one mistake ; they probably won ’ t next time .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is over , or at least this iteration is .
This was not a normal impeachment , it was an attempt by the Deep State , the Organs of State Security , the Blob , the Borg – later we will learn what its members call it – to remove a president of the United States .
After some false starts , it succeeded at every step except the very last one .
But , as they say , practice makes perfect and the Organs have learned from their mistake .
Note that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Organs have failed to block a challenger , a Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard for example , who might question the status quo .
But , in 2016 they failed and , to the amazement of the wise ones , Trump won the election .
His remarks about getting along with Russia showed that he might wander off the path The Organs had laid out .
The Organs got to work .
They first stirred up opinion that he was so unfit for office that getting rid of him would be laudable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Not so difficult given the small number of “ news ” media owners in the USA well trained to take their lead from “ anonymous sources in the intelligence community ” and not so difficult because the losers were so bitter .
He was -phobic – islamo- , trans- , homo- .
He was -ist – rac- , sex- , class- .
Limited mental abilities , psychological instability , personal deficiencies , incapable , dangerous .
An entire theory of incapacity was built on a typo .
Each attempt faded and was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Logan Act – nobody remembers the details , but the stink remains .
But these produced no effective actions .
There are only two ways to get rid of an American president if you are unwilling to wait until the next election – murder or impeachment .
Media hysteria creates an atmosphere but it doesn ’ t get anything done .
It ’ s an experiment – this fails , that fails , try something else .
So the Organs moved to another idea – treason as grounds for impeachment .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 17 intelligence agencies ” agreed that he was the nominee of a hostile foreign power .
Three years on an inquiry intended to provoke him , but he resisted the provocations and , eventually the inquiry had to admit it found nothing .
But the accusation is always there – enemies of the Organs , Tulsi Gabbard , Bernie Sanders , Jill Stein are accused of being puppets of the foreign power .
Trump talks a lot and , sooner or later , will say something the Organs can seize on and twist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call to a subservient foreign leader provided the opportunity and The Organs of State Security took it .
One operative became a “ whistleblower ” – he didn ’ t overhear the phonecall , didn ’ t know what it said but did know that a fellow operative was “ visibly shaken “ .
Another operative actually said it out loud In the Spring of 2019 , I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency .
This narrative was harmful to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine ’ s prospects , this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine .
Read that again because it ’ s an important stage in the History of the Decline and Fall of America .
“ Inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency ” .
That ’ s what they think should make foreign policy , not transient presidents ( never mind Art 2 Sec 2 ) .
This is the moment when even the dullest should have understood that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Organs do exist and its operatives call it The Interagency .
The president is already unpopular , many think he must be removed and now The Interagency says he is a traitor .
The opposing party stages a show in which “ witnesses ” from The Interagency testify that he is a traitor because he says or will say , does or will do something that violates “ the consensus views of The Interagency ” .
Like trade Alaska to Russia for support .
The House brings bills of impeachment charging that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Interagency told us so ) and obstruction of justice ( many members are ex-prosecutors and built their careers on plea bargains and obstruction of justice charges ; that charge is an automatic reflex . )
But the plot failed in the Senate .
The Interagency must be wondering what would have happened had it produced , at the right time , compromising information on 20 or 30 senators .
We recapitulate .
Should someone who threatens The Interagency manage the improbable feat of climbing over the obstacles and becoming president , The Interagency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obedient media scribes , quoting “ people familiar with the matter “ , throw all the accusations they can find or imagine .
Details will be forgotten but surely , with such clouds of smoke , there must be some fire somewhere .
Easier still if members of The Interagency become TV pundits themselves .
• Gather all the compromising information The Interagency has – the NSA keeps everything – on Congressmen and be prepared to deploy it .
Easier still if members of The Interagency become members themselves .
• Wait for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against The Interagency Consensus .
• Use the compromising information in the House to start an inquiry which listens to testimony from Interagency operatives that the POTUS has violated The Interagency consensus and threatened national security • The House charges him with 1 ) endangering national security and 2 ) obstruction of justice .
• Use the compromising information to get enough Senators to vote to remove .
• Repeat as necessary until every candidate understands who really runs things .
And that ’ s how how do it .
And The Interagency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 30 Senators , confronted with evidence of sexual or financial peccadilloes ( or , these days , -isms or -phobias ) , could have been “ persuaded ” to do the right thing .
And so , as Adams foresaw two centuries ago , step by step , America , having bound “ an imperial diadem ” to her forehead , has ceased to be “ the ruler of her own spirit ” .
The Interagency – built up for the pursuit of monsters – very nearly ate the government .
It failed @ @ @ @ @ @ @

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Authored by ‘John Quincy Adams’ via The Strategic Culture Foundation:
In the Soviet Union there was an expression “The Organs of State Security” or “Organs” for short. Their supposed power in the USSR was one of the things that separated them from what we used to call “the free world”. Not so much any more – the American Organs came very close to getting rid of the so-called Most Powerful Man in The World. They made only one mistake; they probably won’t next time.
The impeachment of US President Donald Trump is over, or at least this iteration is. This was not a normal impeachment, it was an attempt by the Deep State, the Organs of State Security, the Blob, the Borg – later we will learn what its members call it – to remove a president of the United States. After some false starts, it succeeded at every step except the very last one. But, as they say, practice makes perfect and the Organs have learned from their mistake.
Note that such a removal only becomes necessary when the Organs have failed to block a challenger, a Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard for example, who might question the status quo. But, in 2016 they failed and, to the amazement of the wise ones, Trump won the election. His remarks about getting along with Russia showed that he might wander off the path The Organs had laid out. The Organs got to work. They first stirred up opinion that he was so unfit for office that getting rid of him would be laudable, no matter how it was done. Not so difficult given the small number of “news” media owners in the USA well trained to take their lead from “anonymous sources in the intelligence community” and not so difficult because the losers were so bitter. He was -phobic – islamo-, trans-, homo-. He was -ist – rac-, sex-, class-. Limited mental abilities, psychological instability, personal deficiencies,incapable, dangerous. An entire theory of incapacity was built on a typo. Each attempt faded and was forgotten – faithless Electors, 25th Amendment, Logan Act – nobody remembers the details, but the stink remains.
But these produced no effective actions. There are only two ways to get rid of an American president if you are unwilling to wait until the next election – murder or impeachment. Media hysteria creates an atmosphere but it doesn’t get anything done.
It’s an experiment – this fails, that fails, try something else. So the Organs moved to another idea – treason as grounds for impeachment. The seeds had been planted – “All 17 intelligence agencies” agreed that he was the nominee of a hostile foreign power. Three years on an inquiry intended to provoke him, but he resisted the provocations and, eventually the inquiry had to admit it found nothing. But the accusation is always there – enemies of the Organs, Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein are accused of being puppets of the foreign power.
Trump talks a lot and, sooner or later, will say something the Organs can seize on and twist. And he did. A phone call to a subservient foreign leader provided the opportunity and The Organs of State Security took it. One operative became a “whistleblower” – he didn’t overhear the phonecall, didn’t know what it said but did know that a fellow operative was “visibly shaken“. Another operative actually said it out loud
In the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. This narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.
Read that again because it’s an important stage in the History of the Decline and Fall of America. “Inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency”. That’s what they think should make foreign policy, not transient presidents (never mind Art 2 Sec 2). This is the moment when even the dullest should have understood that yes there is a Deep State, the Organs do exist and its operatives call it The Interagency.
The president is already unpopular, many think he must be removed and now The Interagency says he is a traitor. The opposing party stages a show in which “witnesses” from The Interagency testify that he is a traitor because he says or will say, does or will do something that violates “the consensus views of The Interagency”. Like trade Alaska to Russia for support. The House brings bills of impeachment charging that he has weakened national security (The Interagency told us so) and obstruction of justice (many members are ex-prosecutors and built their careers on plea bargains and obstruction of justice charges; that charge is an automatic reflex.)
But the plot failed in the Senate. The Interagency must be wondering what would have happened had it produced, at the right time, compromising information on 20 or 30 senators.
We recapitulate. Should someone who threatens The Interagency manage the improbable feat of climbing over the obstacles and becoming president, The Interagency will
Start a campaign at which obedient media scribes, quoting “people familiar with the matter“, throw all the accusations they can find or imagine. Details will be forgotten but surely, with such clouds of smoke, there must be some fire somewhere. Easier still if members of The Interagency become TV pundits themselves. Gather all the compromising information The Interagency has – the NSA keeps everything – on Congressmen and be prepared to deploy it. Easier still if members of The Interagency become members themselves. Wait for some event in which the POTUS goes against The Interagency Consensus. Use the compromising information in the House to start an inquiry which listens to testimony from Interagency operatives that the POTUS has violated The Interagency consensus and threatened national security The House charges him with 1) endangering national security and 2) obstruction of justice. Use the compromising information to get enough Senators to vote to remove. Repeat as necessary until every candidate understands who really runs things.
And that’s how how do it.
And The Interagency nearly pulled it off – 20 or 30 Senators, confronted with evidence of sexual or financial peccadilloes (or, these days, -isms or -phobias), could have been “persuaded” to do the right thing.
And so, as Adams foresaw two centuries ago, step by step, America, having bound “an imperial diadem” to her forehead, has ceased to be “the ruler of her own spirit”. The Interagency – built up for the pursuit of monsters – very nearly ate the government. It failed only at the very last step.
Read Later Add to Favourites Add to Collection Report