Month: December 2023

It’s such an open secret and so much of a ‘given’ assumption that it can just be casually written straight into the New York Times headline at this point…

Nuclear missile program you say? (What nuclear program—nothing to see here… or the country’s worst kept secret.) Militant Rocket Hit Base Linked to Israeli Nuclear Missile Program…

“A rocket most likely fired by Hamas militants during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel struck an Israeli military base where, experts say, many of the country’s nuclear-capable missiles are based, according to a visual analysis of the attack’s aftermath by The New York Times.”

The report details the highly dangerous episode, noting that while no missiles or warheads were directly hit, a large fire was sparked and nearly spread to storage facilities that contained “sensitive weaponry” at the Sdot Micha military base in central Israel.

One weapons expert was cited as saying there may be up to 25 to 50 nuclear-capable Jericho missiles at the base where the fire raged. However, the nuclear warheads themselves are likely stored at a separate base, according to the analyst. But clearly the base in central Israel was directly targeted by Hamas, or also possibly Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – which worked in concert.

The Times concludes that what happened on Oct.7 was even scarier in terms of the potential for a bigger catastrophic event than previously believed:

“But the targeting of one of the most sensitive military locations in Israel shows that the scope of the Oct. 7 attacks may have been even greater than previously known — and that rockets can penetrate the airspace around Israel’s closely guarded strategic weapons.”

This strongly suggests that on Oct.7 there was an ultra-risky moment that Israel’s strategic nuclear arsenal came under direct fire (again, the arsenal that’s not supposed to exist). 

The dangerous near-miss seems akin to the highly volatile and long-running standoff between Russian and Ukraine forces at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

But in the case of Hamas, it’s a ragtag low-tech group of Islamists that apparently came very close to devastating a highly sensitive facility.

Below: the visual investigation compiled by the Times showing a large scorched area in the aftermath of the missile strike…

Hamas Nearly Hit Israeli Nukes, NYT reports.

▪️A rocket most likely fired by Hamas militants during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel struck an Israeli military base where, experts say, many of the country’s nuclear-capable missiles are based, according to a visual analysis of the… pic.twitter.com/oRjeQFKIqD

— EHA News (@eha_news) December 4, 2023

The fresh Monday report noted, “The Times first identified the fire caused by the attack on Sdot Micha using public NASA satellite imagery for detecting wildfires. There has not been a fire — from any cause — of similar magnitude at the base since at least 2004.”

Now, about two months out from the devastating Hamas terror raids of Oct.7, more and more shocking details from that day have been revealed which increasingly confirms the significant planning and sophistication of the multi-pronged attack. More and more pressure and public outrage has been directed at the Netanyahu government and military establishment for the unprecedented intelligence failures.

This has also included that revelation that “Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show,” as a separate NYT report detailed. “But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.”

By Ven Ram, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist

Front-end Treasuries have rallied big in the past month, but labor market data will pose a key test for traders this week.

Yes, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell did reiterate on Friday that the central bank is prepared to tighten policy further, but was just jawboning against the recent loosening of financial conditions rather than a statement of real intent given the clear disinflationary momentum we have seen of late.

The two-year Treasury yield, which was hovering around 5% before softer-than-inflation readings for October, has since shed some 40 basis points. While the decline has made the maturity look rather rich on the curve, some optimism is justified by comments from Governor Christopher Waller who became the first Fed official to explicitly open the door to rate cuts.

As I see it, the two-year maturity has a subjective 60% probability of entrenching its richness, even if the security may only consolidate its gains between now and the year-end. A crucial first test will come as soon as this week, with ADP employment numbers due on Wednesday and non-farm payrolls data for November on Friday. Curiously, the median forecasts on both expect an improvement from prior numbers, but yet another print that shows employers expanded their payrolls for an umpteenth successive time in this cycle isn’t likely to tell the Fed anything that it doesn’t already know about the resilience of the labor market.

Instead, look at the jobless rate, where the number is forecast to stay unchanged at 3.9%. A reading lower than that will puncture the current rally in rates, for that would pretty much rule out any enthusiasm for the sooner-rather-than-later rate cuts that traders have firmly positioned themselves for. The Fed reckons that a print higher than 4% will be required to bring the labor market back into balance. An acceleration in hourly earnings will also sully the bullish mood in the Treasury markets.

As world leaders gathered over the weekend for the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, they faced an uncomfortable reality check from the conference president Sultan Al Jaber, who stated, “there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C,” warning that their fossil-fuel policies would “take the world back into caves.”

Nevertheless, no lesser mind than Vice President Kamala Harris pledged another $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund at the summit, seeking to help developing countries adapt to the “climate crisis” as well as decreasing fossil fuel production, according to CNN.

The cult-like worship of (and escalation of) these policies is what led to tonight’s discussion between Tucker Carlson and Michael Shellenberger, author of the must-read “Apocalypse Never”, highlighting the increasingly obvious disconnect between global elites and the general public – most specifically in the context of environmental policies.

“We know that the pillars of civilization are cheap energy, meritocracy, Law and Order, and free speech and all four of those pillars are currently under attack,” warns Shellenberger in his typically erudite and fact-based manner.

The hypocrisy is simply Orwellian.

As Shellenberger recently wrote on his Public substack, flying on private jets to a climate conference to announce plans to make energy even more expensive for working people is bread-and-circuses, except there’s no bread, and the circus consists of rich people celebrating their wealth, morality, and superiority.

Carlson begins by pointing out that the drastic climate change policies are “fundamentally nonsense,” asking Shellenberger just how long this “posturing” of environmentalism can go on:

“We’re watching people push an Orthodoxy at increasing volume with increasing hysteria and with increasingly severe penalties for disagreeing…what is that?”

Shellenberger replies:

“Global Elites used to pretend to care about people but they’re not even pretending anymore…”

Adding that that cheap energy was “currently under attack,” explaining how it directly affects “modern civilization”:

“you start with cheap energy, but you can’t maintain modern civilization without cheap energy.”

He argues that “environmentalism used to have a kind of utopian positive side – that’s all gone.”

Sadly, but clearly, the two highlight the fact that financial interests are behind the push for renewable energy sources, claiming that oligarchs and political figures are promoting expensive and inefficient energy sources to control energy markets.

This is particularly clear from the detrimental influence of the ESG movement on the oil and gas industry.

Simply put, the current environmentalist movement has become nihilistic and anti-human.

“So,” the journalist continues, “the attack on cheap energy is truly an attack on modern civilization and it should frighten us and we should be aware to, and alive to it.“

Shellenberger concludes with perhaps the most poignant thought of the whole discussion:

“What gives me hope is that I think it’s finally becoming obvious to people that it’s a scam…

…and that the people that are pushing this really hate civilization, or at least they hate civilization for others.

They want it only for themselves and that they’re in the grip of a really dogmatic cult philosophy.

I mean, I think it’s fair to call it a death cult at this point, when you’re stifling energy supplies that are necessary to keep people alive…

I don’t know what else to call it other than an anti-human death cult.”

Carlson replies:

“that’s right. It’s not environmentalism. It’s the snarling face of tyranny.”

Watch the full interview below:

Ep. 44 Another half-demented 80-year-old yelling about things he doesn’t understand. These are our leaders. They don’t care about our future because they don’t have one of their own. pic.twitter.com/iylpXALJjZ

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 4, 2023

 

Authored by Maryanne Demasi via The Brownstone Institute,

The recent findings of DNA fragments in the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines has led many to question why the FDA, which is responsible for monitoring the quality and safety of the vaccines, has failed to sound the alarm.

For years, the FDA has known about the risk posed by residual DNA in vaccines. Its own guidance to industry states:

“Residual DNA might be a risk to your final product because of oncogenic and/or infectivity potential. There are several potential mechanisms by which residual DNA could be oncogenic, including the integration and expression of encoded oncogenes or insertional mutagenesis following DNA integration.”

Put simply, the FDA acknowledges the possibility that fragments of DNA left over by the manufacturing process can be incorporated into a patient’s own DNA, to potentially cause cancer.

FDA and WHO guidelines consider the amount of residual DNA in a single dose of traditional vaccine should not exceed 10 ng (one billionth of a gram).

But this limit – used for traditional vaccines – is unlikely to be relevant to the mRNA vaccines whose lipid nanoparticles can penetrate inside cells to deliver the mRNA efficiently.

A recent preprint paper by Speicher et al analysed batches of the monovalent and bivalent mRNA vaccines in Canada.

The authors found “the presence of billions to hundreds of billions of DNA molecules per dose in these vaccines. Using fluorometry all vaccines exceed the guidelines for residual DNA set by FDA and WHO of 10 ng/dose.”

Speicher et al also reported finding fragments of DNA larger than 200 base pairs (a measure of the length of the DNA) which also exceeds FDA guidelines.

Notably, the authors commented that for the Pfizer product, the higher the level of DNA fragments found in the vaccine, the higher the rate of serious adverse events.

Some experts say the risk of genome integration in humans is very low, but a recent publication in Nature found that around 7 percent of cells are integrated when mixed with a transfection solution containing linear pieces of DNA.

Is the FDA Concerned?

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to insist that any residual DNA contamination in the Covid vaccines is not a problem and that it “stands behind its findings of quality, safety, and efficacy for the mRNA vaccines.”

“While concerns have been raised previously as theoretical issues, available scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the minute amounts of residual DNA do not cause cancer, or changes to a person’s genetic code,” added the FDA.

The FDA would not provide the “available scientific evidence” to support its claim, but it’s worth noting that the vaccines’ own product labels show that genotoxicity and carcinogenicity tests were not carried out prior to their use.

David Wiseman, a research bioscientist involved in medical product development and co-author on the study by Speicher et al said the FDA’s claim that there is no evidence of a cancer link is becoming “untenable.”

“The CDC’s own analysis on the vaccine’s safety signal in VAERS shows there could be a signal for some cancers,” said Wiseman pointing to a report he co-authored and sent to the National Academies.

In the table (highlighted in yellow), a safety signal is considered to be significant, and worthy of further investigation, if the value in the column marked PRR exceeds 2 and the value in the Chi-Square column exceeds 4.

The FDA would not confirm if it found levels of DNA that exceeded acceptable levels, nor if it was investigating further.

Instead, after months of enquiries, the FDA sent boilerplate responses to me (and other media) saying, “With over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered, no safety concerns related to residual DNA have been identified.”

In response to a list of questions about its testing and oversight, the FDA said it “does not have any additional information to provide at this time.”

Poor Manufacturing Oversight

We now know that Pfizer’s vaccine used in the clinical trials (PROCESS 1) was manufactured differently to the vaccine that was injected into the wider population (PROCESS 2).

This switch from PROCESS 1 to PROCESS 2 is what introduced the plasmid DNA impurities (see red circles), which could change the safety profile of the vaccine.

I asked the FDA if it had any human data on the comparison of the two processes.

The agency pointed me to the FDA’s EUA review memo dated 20 Nov 2020 which suggested that the testing was “ongoing.”

The three-year old document stated that “A more comprehensive comparability assessment encompassing additional lots from multiple DP manufacturing nodes is ongoing and the results will be provided to the EUA upon completion of the study.”

When I asked the FDA for access to the “ongoing” results, I was instructed to obtain the information from Pfizer, but the drug company did not respond to my enquiries.

A Freedom of Information request by Nick Hunt of the Daily Sceptic may explain why.

Pfizer promised the regulator that it would compare the safety and immunogenicity of the two processes in participants and report back by February 2021, but it seems those studies were never done.

The FOI stated:

…in October 2020 an exploratory objective was added in the C4591001 study to describe safety and immunogenicity of vaccines produced by manufacturing “Process 1” or “Process 2” in participants 16 to 55 years of age. This exploratory objective was removed and documented in protocol amendment 20 in September 2022 due to the extensive usage of vaccines manufactured via “Process 2”. Thus, this process comparison was not conducted as part of the formal documentation within the protocol amendment.[emphasis added]

Wiseman said, “Given the magnitude of the process change, from my experience in medical product development, these sorts of biological comparability studies would certainly have been expected to be undertaken by Pfizer.”

He added, “the fact that Pfizer was given a free pass indicates a significant lapse in regulatory oversight.”

Kevin McKernan, the genomics expert who made the discovery of DNA fragments in the vaccines earlier this year, says there’s “no incentive” now for Pfizer to carry out this comparative testing. 

“It’s speculation on my part, but I suspect they might’ve seen increased adverse events with the commercial batch and buried the data knowing the train had left the station at that point,” said McKernan.   

“There was no political will to stop vaccinating, and Pfizer probably knew the regulators would let them get away with not testing the commercial batches for the population,” he added. 

*  *  *

Republished from the author’s Substack

A new report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) shows that buy now, pay later (BNPL) adoption among young adults, particularly those with low education, is soaring. This trend is becoming increasingly prevalent in countries experiencing high inflation and where households tend to have higher debt levels. 

BNPL allows consumers to spend money they don’t have over a number of interest-free installments, which are generally unreported to credit bureaus. The overuse and poor understanding of BNPL terms can be disastrous for consumers and lead to overindebtedness. 

A surge in BNPL use was seen during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. According to Adobe Analytics, BNPL use on Cyber Monday hit a record high, up 43% from a year ago. 

While the White House celebrated record holiday sales, a closer look at the data revealed a concerning trend: an increasing number of consumers are resorting to BNPL services for big-ticket items and essential goods, such as groceries. The reliance on BNPL indicates debts could be stacking up on consumers, which could strain service debts immensely. 

BIS provided a simple breakdown of how BNPL services differ from credit cards. 

The volume of global BNPL transactions and daily active users of BNPL services continues to skyrocket. 

BNPL is the most popular in Australia, then across the West and China:

The popularity of BNPL varies widely around the globe (Graph 6). The countries with the highest adoption rates are Australia and Sweden. Other countries with significant BNPL uptake are China, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

BIS finds the average BNPL user is under 35, has a low income, and lacks education: 

Younger and tech-savvy individuals, including “Millennials” and “Generation Z,” often do not possess credit cards (PYMTS (2023)) and are generally less financially literate than older generations (Lusardi and Mitchell (2023)). Consistent with this, a survey of US BNPL services reveals that they are more often used by individuals with low-income levels and less educational attainment. 

“There is evidence from the United States that BNPL users are particularly risky,” BIS said. 

BNPL-fueled record holiday sales are nothing to cheer about as it only shows working poor consumers are adding even more leverage and insurmountable debts as Bidenomics fails. 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers argued in the Georgia election case that the charges should be thrown out because it’s a violation of his “free speech” and also noted that if he wins the 2024 presidential election, the Fulton County trial cannot go through.

During a roughly six-hour hearing in Fulton County on Dec. 1, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee asked Mr. Sadow what would happen if President Trump wins the 2024 election and if the trial hasn’t occurred yet.

“Under the Supremacy Clause and its duty to the president of the United States, this trial would not take place at all until after he left his term of office,” the former president’s attorney said in response, according to a live stream posted on the judge’s YouTube page.

It means that the former president wins the 2024 election and Judge McAfee agreed that he shouldn’t be tried until he leaves office, which would delay the trial date to at least January 20, 2029.

Responding to the claims, Fulton County prosecutor Nathan Wade said Ms. Willis “has no interest in interfering or getting involved in this presidential election” and said she is trying “to move this case forward.” He added, “Our obvious goal is, and has been, to stick to our August trial date.”

The judge did not issue any rulings from the bench during the Dec. 1 hearing. He also has not scheduled a new trial date for the case.

In a recent court filing, Ms. Willis’ office said prosecutors expect the proceedings to run until early 2025, which would run in tandem with the ending months of the 2024 presidential campaign. National polls show that President Trump is overwhelmingly the Republican favorite for president, including in key primary states.

The former president’s lawyers said the former president would prefer not to be on trial in August 2024, noting his status as the leading Republican presidential candidate.  State prosecutors previously have said they are seeking a trial date around that time, which would come about three months before the presidential election next November.

“It’s very possible at that time, that my client will be running for election for president of the United States for the Republican Party,” Mr. Sadow told the judge, saying “the preference would be that he not be on trial during the time that he is campaigning,” according to reporters in the court.

“Can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is, in some form or fashion, in a courtroom defending himself?” he asked.  “That would be the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.”

But Mr. Wade disagreed with his assertion, telling the court: “This trial does not constitute election interference. This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County.“

“I don’t think it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign,” Mr. Wade added.

Also in the hearing, his attorneys argued that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ indictment also effectively criminalizes the right to engage in political activity under the the First Amendment.

Mr. Sadow told a judge that “you take the facts as alleged in the indictment … as applied constitutionally with the First Amendment, you’ll find that it violates free speech, freedom of petitioning, all the expressions that the First Amendment is designed to protect, and therefore the indictment needs to be dismissed.”

Over the summer, Ms. Willis’ office charged President Trump and 18 others, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, with conspiracy to allegedly overturn the 2020 election results. Several co-defendants—including attorneys Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis—have pleaded guilty in return for a plea deal with prosecutors.

The remaining 15 defendants in the case, including President Trump, have pleaded not guilty. The former president, who faces charges in three other jurisdictions, has said it’s part of a wide-ranging campaign to denigrate his political chances.

Ms. Willis had also asked the judge to set a final plea date of June 21, writing that prosecutors would consider plea deals up until that date and intend to recommend the maximum penalties at any sentencing hearings after that. Judge McAfee said Dec. 1 he wasn’t sure that was necessary, that the district attorney could independently set a date after which she wouldn’t consider plea deals.

Attorney Buddy Parker, who represents lawyer and co-defendant John Eastman, told the judge his client is concerned about the possibility of a trial date being set in 2025, saying that would mean it was more than a year that his case would be pending.

“There are a number of defendants, as noted, who are not running for the presidency of the United States,” Mr. Parker said, adding that his client would like to be tried separately from President Trump because of the complications involved and would even be in favor of going to trial before August.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped a bombshell and almost unbelievable revelation, on Monday saying it has broken up a major Cuban spy operation that went on for decades at the highest levels of government.

Former US ambassador to Bolivia Manuel Rocha has been arrested at his Miami home for secretly acting as a spy for Cuba “for more than 40 years” in a development which may be without precedent. The case is being called the “highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the US government by a foreign agent.”

73-year old Rocha spent his career rising through the ranks of the State Dept and foreign service, having began as a desk officer for Honduras all the way back in November 1981, after attending Yale, Harvard, and Georgetown University.

“For decades, Rocha allegedly worked as a covert agent for Cuba and abused his position of trust in the U.S. government to advance the interests of a foreign power,” a DOJ press release stated.

The US government said he secretly represented Cuban interests while in high ranking diplomatic positions, thus he had the ability to manipulate American foreign policy toward that end.

He was finally caught after such a long career serving dual purposes when he bragged to an undercover FBI agent that he had done “decades” of work on behalf of Cuba. The DOJ detailed this as follows in the wake of his being taken into custody last Friday:

The complaint alleges that, in a series of meetings during 2022 and 2023, with an undercover agent from the FBI posing as a covert Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence representative, Rocha made repeated statements admitting his “decades” of work for Cuba, spanning “40 years.”

When the undercover told Rocha he was “a covert representative here in Miami” whose mission was “to contact you, introduce myself as your new contact, and establish a new communication plan,” Rocha answered “Yes,” and proceeded to engage in a lengthy conversation during which he described and celebrated his activity as a Cuban intelligence agent.

The DOJ has sought to make clear these activities went far beyond some mere lobbying relationship, given that in the secretly recorded conversation with Rocha, the retired ambassador referenced the US as “the enemy”: 

Throughout the meetings, Rocha behaved as a Cuban agent, consistently referring to the United States as “the enemy,” and using the term “we” to describe himself and Cuba. Rocha additionally praised Fidel Castro as the “Comandante,” and referred to his contacts in Cuban intelligence as his “Compañeros” (comrades) and to the Cuban intelligence services as the “Dirección.” Rocha described his work as a Cuban agent as “a grand slam.”

The case details also make clear that US authorities believe he was acting as an agent of Cuba from the very beginning of his service in the US State Dept in the early 1980s. If this is what Cuban intelligence could successfully do, what about Washington’s much bigger and powerful rivals?

A Cuban spy, Victor Rocha, was just caught after 40 years in the US Government.

He was an employee of the US State Department, served as a US Ambassador and even got on the National Security Council.

If Cuba has spies at this level for 40 years… imagine China, Russia and Iran. pic.twitter.com/E00expXAZl

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) December 4, 2023

Rocha reached his high ranking diplomatic positions by the late 1980s, which included the following successive roles through the 1990s and early 2000s:

• First Secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico;
• Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic;
• Department of State employee, as the Director of Inter-American Affairs on the U.S. National Security Council, with special responsibility for, among other things, Cuba;
• Deputy Principal Officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Cuba;
• Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and
• November 1999 until in or around August 2002: Ambassador to Bolivia at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia.

It has not been revealed the precise ways or moments in which he benefitted Cuba or potentially influenced US policy. Interestingly, he was posted in Cuba at various times in which Washington did not have official relations with the Castro government, which has also long been under crippling sanctions. 

One key question that will naturally arise: given the length and span of his being a Cuban spy at top echelons of the State Department, are there more foreign moles? It seems this is the likely scenario, especially given this period reaching back into the 1980s marked the tail end of the Cold War.

Authored by Isabella Rayner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Experts predict that by 2040, people will control smart devices with their thoughts due to advancements in ‘smartbrain’ technology.

A smartbrain, or Brain-Machine Interface (BMI), is a wearable or implanted device that directly links the human brain to smart devices like phones, computers, and robotic limbs.

It would allow people to navigate the internet, send texts, and adjust thermostats by merely thinking, blurring boundaries between humans and machines.

University of New South Wales (UNSW) biomedical engineering expert Mohit Shivdasani said scientists are “very close” to mind-controlled devices becoming an everyday reality rather than a science-fiction concept.

“We’re not far off from seeing someone walking around with a brain-machine interface outside of a lab,” he said.

“We have computers all around us. They are in our pockets and travelling everywhere we go, but to think of integrating that directly with the brain to use the technology … it’s pretty amazing.”

He said disabled people would particularly benefit from mind-controlled devices after a successful test on two paralysed people.

“One particular [paralysed] person was able to control a robotic arm just by thinking about it, while another person was able to move a cursor on a computer screen and read his email,” he said.

He explained that the technology worked by unblocking signals from the brain to the limbs.

“There are situations where the brain can send signals, but those signals can’t get to limbs for the person to be able to then walk for themselves. So what a brain-machine interface would do is read those thoughts and convert those thoughts to an action,” he said.

Further, he is improving smart brain bionic eyes for blind people and devices for chronic pain and inflammatory bowel disease.

He believes using smartbrains widely can significantly help people with different issues affecting their quality of life.

“I’ve had a lot of chats with blind patients. When you ask them what they want from a bionic eye, they’ll say: ‘I want to see my family,'” he explained.

“I remember one conversation with a lady, and she said: ‘I would love to be able to see the Target sign again, because when I go into the shopping centre, I want to be able to find Target really easily.”

“As an engineer, I would never have thought about that, but that could be so important.”

Future of Connected Health

UNSW PhD candidate Claire Bridges weighed in on some other benefits.

She mentioned that smartbrains help the future of connected health, like telehealth.

“With COVID, we saw a big expansion in the need for and provision of telehealth, which has been incredibly beneficial. To further expand that and improve our ability to provide health care to people who might not be able to see a clinician or undergo a test in person, we can use wearable devices,” she explained.

She said smartbrain watches, or implanted blood glucose monitors and sensors, would change how doctors communicate with patients.

“Devices like these can collect huge amounts of data as they continuously monitor the person wearing them. AI could be a big help with this, analysing these big data sets to identify relevant health information and sending it to a patient’s treating clinician,” she added.

She said doctors could then intervene in near-real time when people are unwell.

“Whether it’s inflammatory markers in the blood or hormone secretion or neurotransmitter issues, we could catch things earlier and get that early diagnosis so that we can have more effective preventative health,” she explained.

“On average, Australians spend about 11 years of their life in poor health, but with the advances we’re seeing in our biomedical technology, both in terms of physical, actual hands-on implanted treatment or drug delivery or other developing technology, we have a lot of opportunity to improve things.”

Expert Warns of Risks

However, biomedical researcher Christina Maher likened smartbrains to someone “speaking” for people, causing invasive ethical problems.

“For example, a brain-computer interface (BCI) may generate the output “I’m good” when the user intended it to be “I’m great”. These are similar, but they aren’t the same. It’s easy enough for a non-disabled person to physically correct the mistake—but for people who can only communicate through BCIs, there’s a risk of being misinterpreted,” she said.

Further, she said people can’t choose which brain signals to share with the smartbrain.

“Brain data are arguably our most private data because of what can be inferred regarding our identity and mental state,” she said.

“Yet private BCI companies may not need to inform users about what data are used to train algorithms.”

She said ethical challenges raise questions about what is best for people and society.

“For instance, should individuals in the military be equipped with neuroenhancing devices so they can better serve their country and protect themselves on the front lines, or would that compromise their individual identity and privacy? And which legislation should capture neurorights: data protection law, health law, consumer law, or criminal law?”

Nevertheless, she said smartbrains are unlikely to launch people into a dystopian world, in part due to computer limits.

“After all, there’s a leap between a BCI sending a short text and interpreting one’s entire stream of consciousness … making this leap largely comes down to how well we can train algorithms, which requires more data and computing power,” she explained.

Neuroscientist Andrew Jackson added society has nothing to fear yet.

“When it segues into talk of enhancement—the idea that we might be able to, for instance, write new memories into our brain or upload our memories onto a hard drive or into the cloud—we know a lot less about how those brain systems work,” he told ABC News.

He explained the human body is still a lot more capable than machinery.

At the moment, he said, the benefits of using a brain-machine interface are “still nothing like the sophistication of a normally functioning nervous system.”

“I think we have to be realistic,” he said.

Israel has signaled it is prepared to take the war on Hamas far beyond the confines of Gaza and the West Bank. Fresh words by the country’s defense minister have invoked “our Munich” in relation to planned efforts to hunt down notable Hamas operatives abroad. 

“The cabinet has set us a goal, in street talk, to eliminate Hamas. This is our Munich. We will do this everywhere, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Qatar,” said Ronen Bar, who is the head of Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet. 

He emphasized, “It will take a few years but we will be there to do it.” Israel has long been known to conduct aggressive and high risk assassination campaigns abroad, especially in Iran of late.

The words have outraged Turkey in particular, given it was named in Bar’s comments. On Monday Turkish Intelligence warned of “serious consequences” if Israeli agents try to seek Hamas members abroad, or especially on Turkish soil.

The most famous targeted assassination covert op was in response to the 1972 killings of 11 Israeli Olympic team members. Terrorists belonging to the Palestinian Black September had launched an unprecedented attack on the Munich games. Some eight members of the radical group had breached the Olympic compound and entered the two apartments used by the Israeli team, after which they began executing athletes amid a hostage standoff.

From there began a process on the part of Israeli intelligence to hunt down the Munich killers over a period of several years and spanning different countries. Israeli intelligence had dubbed the covert operation – details of which only became known decades later – as the “Wrath of God”.

According to a recounting of how the risky Munich response came together…

The clandestine programme was spearheaded by then Mossad chief Zvi Zamir, prime minister Golda Meir and her counterterrorism adviser Aharon Yariv, said historian Michael Bar-Zohar.

Initially, “after Munich, Golda Meir didn’t know what to do”, Bar-Zohar said. The two security chiefs, both with “the air of university professors”, met Meir, the Israeli historian said. “They were timid, well-dressed, and said one thing: ‘Now we must destroy Black September’.”

The trio, aware it would be nigh impossible to hunt down all members of Black September, instead devised a strategy of “smashing the head of the serpent” by killing the group’s leadership, said Bar-Zohar.

“Golda really hesitated,” he said. “Should she authorize assassinations throughout Europe and the Middle East?

“She said ‘yes’.”

Over the next few months, the heads of Black September and their allies from the Palestine Liberation Organization began to die in mysterious circumstances in Rome, Paris and Cyprus.

But Oct.7 was clearly many times worse that the Munich Olympic massacre, with some 1,200 Israelis – most of them civilians – killed. Around 240 hostages were taken, and currently 137 are still captive in Gaza, among them small children, after last week’s truce and prisoner swap deal collapsed.

Much of Hamas’ political leadership lives abroad, making decisions for the militant group from afar – and often from within the safety of Muslim countries. One famous operation in the recent past was known as the “Dubai job”. A high-ranking and founding Hamas member had been killed at his hotel by a group of Mossad assassins dressed as if they were playing tennis.

But the operation was somewhat of a fiasco given how widely the CCTV footage was publicized in the aftermath. Author Ronen Bergman has detailed this and other clandestine killings in his book Rise and Kill First: the Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations. Many targeted killings have also taken place against Iran, where Iranian nuclear scientists have especially been in the crosshairs of late.