Month: September 2023

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has laid out a plan for the bloc to reach whopping $5 billion in weapons transfers to Ukraine annually for the next four years.

At a meeting of EU defense ministers in Spain this week, Borrell has been urging member states to contribute toward reaching this target, which also includes an EU-sponsored training program with its own ultra-ambitious goal of training some 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers by year’s end.

He said in statements issued Wednesday that the EU mission “has already trained 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers — some of them here, in Toledo, thanks to the Spanish army.”

It “will reach the objective, which was programmed for the end of the year, at the end of October, [when] we will have reached the 30,000 soldiers trained by this mission,” he detailed, before unveiling a new target: “I proposed to the ministers to raise the objective of the mission to 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained by the end of the year.”

All of this comes at a moment of near universal acknowledgement in the West that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is currently failing or at least stalled and disappointing. And because of this, there are growing calls even from within establishment sources – such as RAND Corporation – that serious diplomacy and ceasefire negotiations should be given a chance.

But Borrell’s immense funding and training goals for Ukraine are already being hampered by the longtime thorn in the side of EU technocrats – namely, Viktor Orban’s Hungary:

The EU has been unable to release €500 million in ‘European Peace Facility’ funding for Ukraine, due to opposition from one of the members, the bloc’s foreign policy commissioner Josep Borrell told reporters on Thursday. The country was later identified as Hungary.

“I have to regret that the 8th tranche of the European Peace Facility (EPF) is still blocked,” Borrell said after an EU ministerial meeting in Toledo, Spain. “I hope we will be able to unblock [it] in the next [few] weeks. But this is a problem that is still pending to be solved.”

Hungary has at this point blocked the EPF funds for months. Budapest has explained that this is in large part due to Kiev’s own efforts to punish a major Hungarian bank.

Ukrainian media has itself highlighted the following in the continued standoff between the EU and the Orban government: 

• Hungary opposes the allocation of the next tranche of €500 million from the European Peace Fund to EU member states due to Ukraine’s inclusion of the Hungarian OTP Bank in the list of “war sponsors”.

• Hungary has already blocked the allocation of this tranche by EU member states several times, referring to the same problem.

• The European Peace Fund, established in 2021, is an extra-budgetary instrument of the EU aimed at improving the EU’s ability to prevent conflicts and build peace. EU countries receive compensation for military assistance delivered to Ukraine from this fund.

• In July, Hungary opposed the EU’s attempt to create a long-term fund of up to €20 billion to support the Ukrainian army.

Borrell has by end of this week signaled that most EU members are on board in terms of the massive commitment for new Ukraine aid and training, but clearly things are set up for a long-haul fight with Hungary amid threats and counter-threats.

Tucker Carlson asks Viktor Orbán what his next move would be in the war in Ukraine if he were in charge of NATO:

“Peace, immediately. Call back Trump. That’s the only way out.” pic.twitter.com/o8cR5OTtNX

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 29, 2023

Meanwhile, in a wide-ranging new interview this week with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, PM Orban explained why the more money-more weapons approach is a losing proposition, and that the West needs to pursue peace at all cost. “The Russians are far stronger, far more numerous than the Ukrainians,” the Hungarian leader told Carlson. “Call back Trump. … Trump is the man who can save the Western world.”

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

Gazprom has accounted for more than half of the rise in China’s natural gas imports so far this year, Alexey Miller, the chief executive officer of the Russian gas giant, said on Thursday.

Russia’s state gas giant has relied on more natural gas exports to China as sales to Europe have plummeted since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Natural gas demand in Europe has dropped this year for a second consecutive year, the executive says in a Telegram post by Gazprom cited by Reuters.

“At the same time, we see that the Chinese gas market is growing. China’s gas imports have increased over the eight months of this year. And more than half of the increase in these supplies imported to the Chinese market was provided by Gazprom,” Miller was quoted as saying.

Gazprom supplies natural gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline. Deliveries in 2022 stood at 15 billion cubic meters, while total flows for the whole of this year are expected to rise to 22 billion cubic meters.

Early this year, reports had it that Russia had increased the export capacity of its pipeline to China to over 60 million cubic meters daily.

China has become a more or less first-priority destination for the Russian state gas major after the breakup with Europe.

The Power of Siberia was one of the biggest projects recently completed by Gazprom and the first conduit for Russian gas to China. Now, there’s talk about Power of Siberia 2, which Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said last year would serve as a sort of replacement for the defunct Nord Stream 2 in Gazprom’s export growth strategy.

This year, Gazprom’s exports to Europe have slumped and dragged the gas giant’s profits down this year compared to 2022. Gazprom has reported a massive drop in its first-half net profit as deliveries to Europe plunged compared to 2022, when Russia was still supplying pipeline gas to its European customers for most of the first half of last year.

It has been almost 3 months since the launch of Ukraine’s long anticipated counter-offensive which many “experts” claimed would be the fatal blow that would remove Russian forces from the country altogether.  The initial action gained little; around 90 square miles of territory in June and a handful of villages, and at great cost.  There are no accurate casualty reports for Ukraine, which is by design, but estimates suggest that the nation’s military has doubled its number of dead since the counter offensive began.

Official numbers from the DoD claim that Ukraine has lost over 100,000 troops since the beginning of the conflict (almost double the amount of US dead during the entirety of the Vietnam War).  Other estimates are far higher. 

Foreign fighters back from the front lines report a mismanaged and chaotic Ukrainian military using ill conceived tactics.  Some say that the units they were assigned to have lost 80% or more of their men in recent months.  Ukraine military leadership has also been misusing their fleet of tanks and armored vehicles from NATO, sending them ‘straight into mine fields’ in some cases.  As volunteers note, the Ukrainians were given training on how to operate the vehicles, but no training on how to use them effectively in a fight.

There is also a flurry of reports suggesting that friendly fire has been doing significant damage, so much so that “mercenaries” have taken to covering themselves in reflective blue or yellow tape so that they aren’t mistaken for Russian troops. 

This disorganization seems to be far removed from the precision shown by Ukraine in their 2022 offensive, which forced Russia to reposition a large number of forces and give up over 3000 square miles of territory.  Numerous successful strikes on Russian armored columns were widely publicized, all with a suspicious level of expertise employed by Ukraine.  Yet, by 2023 their momentum was stopped cold.  They were tied up in Bakhmut where they lost thousands of soldiers.  And now, Ukraine’s hyped up counter action has been effectively dragged down to a crawl.  

You wouldn’t know it by reading sensationalized western media reports and propaganda, but Ukraine is losing, badly.  So what happened?  What changed since the end of 2022?

One potential explanation is the sheer number of foreign fighters joining with Ukraine last year that are now gone.  While the data on volunteers is limited, multiple sources claim at least 20,000 mercenaries (many with prior combat experience) joined with Ukraine in 2022.  Then, there are the covert operatives – At least one General out of the UK let slip that Royal Marine units were in fact deployed on high risk operations in Ukraine, and

Sources also indicate that US special operations teams have been stationed out of the US embassy in Kyiv since the beginning of the war.  Though officials claim that the soldiers do not go to the front lines and stay near the embassy (which begs the question – what’s the point of having them there?).  The presence of highly trained western covert ops troops in Ukraine would help explain the far more effective offensive in 2022.

Almost all foreign fighters are inducted into the “International Legion of Defense of Ukraine”, with units of foreign fighters formally falling under Ukraine’s regular armed forces and reporting to Ukrainian commanders.  It is a method for circumventing international rules on mercenaries, though the Kremlin says that foreign troops will still not be given protection under prisoner of war status.

Heavy casualties, high odds of friendly fire and lack of protection under the Geneva Convention are likely causes for the abrupt decline in foreign mercenaries in Ukraine in 2023.  Official numbers plunged from 20,000 soldiers in 2022 to as low as 1500 this year, even after Kyiv offered honorary citizenship to any foreigners willing to fight for them.  As is the case in most wars, usually a handful of fighters do most of the heavy lifting with the rest engaging in support roles.  But is Ukraine relying almost entirely on veteran fighters from Europe and the US to do their dirty work?

Recent losses and disorganization in tandem with the decline in overseas volunteers indicate that this may be the case. 

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

The new era opened with the strategic tour de force inbuilt in the creation of BRICS 11 involves the make-or-break issue of setting up a new international economic/financial strategy.

Right at the heart of fervent discussions are the merits of designing a new BRICS currency.

Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr., a former IMF director who was deeply involved with BRICS from 2007 to 2015, has noted how a reserve currency discussion among the original five members was already too difficult. With 11, even more so.

A currency has to be issued by a sovereign government. The indispensable Michael Hudson has cut to the chase to focus on what President Putin stressed in the summit in Johannesburg: what is needed is a means of settlement among Central Banks to keep in check the imbalances of trade and investment in their balance of payments.

That implies no BRICS supra-national gold backed currency.

Prof. Hudson has observed that, “nobody uses gold as a currency. You don’t go to the grocery store or you don’t buy stocks and bonds or even houses with gold. You’re not going to be able to do it with anything like a BRICS currency within the future.”

So the possible “BRICS currency” on a – distant? – future will be “only a narrow currency that only governments can spend for each other, and it’s created on a computer. It’s not anything that you can hold in your pocket to spend.”

You Can’t Pay for Your Coffee with This

Michael Kumhof, a senior advisor for the Bank of England, adds a few more elements:

“A currency does not need to be issued by a single state, instead its issuance can be delegated by a group of states to a common institution, see the ECB [European Central Bank]. And while that currency would be unlikely to be used by people to buy a coffee (although who knows, given enough time), it could be used by corporations for invoicing in cross-border trade.”

Kumhof projects a different future:

“Imagine if 50-100 countries joined BRICS, some of them with pretty small, marginal currencies. They might appreciate being able to invoice and settle in a strong common currency rather than only having a choice between USD and, say, RMB. Not to mention the fact that if the Chinese want to keep some of their capital controls (good idea for now, I think), the RMB could not really fully replace the USD in such transactions. A BRICS currency would not be subject to such restrictions. This BRICS bank would buy up bonds of member countries according to some quota, and then issue a common currency against it, with all its gains and losses shared by member governments. That could create an arbitrarily large amount of liquidity (and firepower for BRICS) without requiring any debt to do so, in fact massively reducing debt while doing so. And of course I agree that this would need to be supplemented by a bancor-type arrangement to clear cross-country imbalances.”

What’s certain for now is that at the heart of what’s coming next will be an enhanced role for the New Development Bank (NDB), the BRICS bank, headquartered in Shanghai and now presided by former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

Sergey Glazyev, the Minister of Macroeconomics at the Eurasia Economic Commission, an arm of the EAEU, has been very critical of the NDB, explaining how the bank statutes are linked to the US dollar; and that’s the reason why the bank is now semi-paralyzed, afraid of secondary US sanctions.

That brings to the fore another issue stressed by Kumhof: the BRICS-IMF connection. Kumhof observes, “it seems to me that the NDB is basically a World Bank, while I have heard very little about the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, which at one point was mentioned as a sort of embryonic BRICS-IMF.”

What China Really Wants

This analysis , which caught Glazyev’s attention, delves on why the BRICS will not be able to become a competitor to reserve currencies – especially the US dollar and the euro – and launch full-fledged dedollarization right away.

The gist of the argument is that only China “can claim to create a reserve currency”, as “the scale, depth of diversification and level of development of the Chinese economy are sufficient to compete with the US and the Eurozone.”

The problem, according to the analysis, is that “reserve status cannot arise under conditions of restrictions on capital flows.”

That brings us to the restricted convertible yuan, as there are “limits for foreign exchange that vary by region and investment destinations”; limits on “repatriation of capital through dividends and interest”; “industry capital withdrawal quotas for sensitive industries”; and “strict requirements for registration of foreign companies”, among other issues.

So the analysis in fact boils down to raw capitalism:

“There are no competitors to the dollar and euro in the international capital market and none are expected in the near future, because in order for the yuan to come out of the shadows China must liberalize financial policy and remove restrictions on capital control.”

So “any breakdown of the existing world order in the currency market should be viewed exclusively through the focus of China.”

But the thing is Beijing is not interested in having the yuan assuming the role of a world reserve currency. And neither were the BRICS, even before BRICS 11.

The Chinese focus is increasing yuan trading and cash and settlement operations (roughly 4.5-5% of global turnover as of this month).

In the next stage there will be more cross-border funding (as in yuan loans) and more attraction of international capital in yuan-denominated financial instruments. We’re not there yet.

The analysis is correct to identify China’s priorities as “expanding the yuan’s presence in the external market and resetting internal entropy through decentralization and international spread of the yuan money supply.”

The analysis is also not off the mark when it concludes that the yuan is not a competitor to the US dollar or the euro: “They are in different dimensions, at different stages of development and with a different development trajectory.”

So what’s bound to happen next is “more pronounced yuanization among neutral countries, where China will take subordinate and dependent countries into its orbit, expanding its influence.”

We’re not Gonna Take it Anymore

Michael Hudson’s vision is way more sophisticated, and goes way beyond the internationalization of the yuan or the need for a BRICS currency. He touches the heart of the problem for the Global South/Global Majority/Global Globe:

“The Global South countries have an economic catheter into their monetary bloodstream, draining their balance-of-payments surpluses to pay the post-colonial (or perhaps we should say neo-colonial) burden of dollarized ‘dependency arrears’ from being blocked from balancing their foreign trade and investment.”

He adds, “if countries have to keep paying their export earnings and new borrowing (such as Argentina’s borrowing of yuan from China) to pay the IMF and other dollar holders (often their own domestic kleptocratic elite), then how can they accumulate yuan, rubles, rupees, rials and other Global South currencies? For this to occur they have to say, ‘Now that we have kicked out the French colonialists and U.S. NGOs, we have to annul the bills they are holding for making us pay for the warped investment and trade patterns that have been forced upon us since World War II.”

It goes without saying imperial forces, even in their current disarray, will accept that over their dead bodies. Still, Prof. Hudson is relentless when denouncing how the IMF and the World Bank “pushed resource allocation away from domestic food production to export-crop production, and away from import substitution to import dependency – all capped by privatization sell-offs of basic infrastructure to foreigners to impose monopoly pricing and capital flight instead of providing basic services at subsidized prices to make their economies more competitive, as the U.S. and Europe were doing with their own economies.”

That, as Prof. Hudson stresses, is where the political discussion should focus on. Call it a direct message to the BRICS 11. And that is way more relevant than speculating about a far and away BRICS currency.

Authored by Conor Freeman via The Liberarian Institute,

Two fifty-year old documents related to the coup in Chile were released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department last week. The democratically elected, left wing government of President Salvador Allende was overthrown in 1973 by the Chilean military, with covert CIA backing. A US-supported dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet was subsequently installed.

President Richard Nixon’s daily briefs related to the coup on September 8th as well as the 11th – the day the Chilean military seized control of the government – were released. This declassification followed repeated calls for increased transparency by progressive members of Congress, human rights groups, and Santiago.

Nixon and then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger strongly opposed the leftist Allende government and attempted to prevent its rule. George Washington University’s National Security Archive issued a statement which says “[the documents] contained information that went to President Nixon as a military takeover that he and [Kissinger] had encouraged for three years came to fruition.”

Nixon’s daily brief for September 8, 1973 reads “a number of reports have been received… indicating the possibility of an early military coup… Navy men plotting to overthrow the government now claim army and air force support.”

The document – written three days before the coup – continues with a discussion of how a fascist paramilitary group “has been blocking roads and provoking clashes with the national police, adding to the tension caused by continuing strikes and opposition political moves. President Allende earlier this week said he believed the armed forces will ask for his resignation if he does not change his economic and political policies.”

On September 11th, Nixon’s daily brief said “Plans by navy officers to trigger military action against the Allende government are supported by some key army units… The navy is also counting on help from the air force and national police.”

After Allende’s initial refusal to resign, tanks opened fire, Air Force aircraft launched rocket attacks and bombed the presidential palace. Troops stormed in and Allende shot himself.

“What followed [the coup] was a vicious, decades-long reign of terror and repression during which tens of thousands of Chileans were killed, tortured, or disappeared by the Pinochet regime, which continued to receive support from the CIA,” as Common Dreams’ Jake Johnson has written.

Indeed, in 2000, the CIA conceded that “many of Pinochet’s officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses… Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or [US] military.”

The Coup In Chile: CIA Releases Top Secret 9/11/1973 President’s Daily Brief

– The two PDBs are among the most historically iconic of missing records on the September 11, 1973, military coup https://t.co/gZUFjmdYJP

— NatlSecurityArchive (@NSArchive) August 26, 2023

Peter Kornbluh, a Chile specialist for National Security Archive, said “I’m happy that the Freedom of Information Act, together with some positive diplomacy by the Chilean government, broke a secrecy barrier that has kept us from knowing this history for 50 years.” He added that he hopes the White House will soon be “releasing all the [US records on Chile relating to the coup and its aftermath] that, inexplicably, remain secret after all this time.”

As the Los Angeles Times noted, the US government “favored Pinochet, who for most of his 17 years of rule had good economic and military ties with Washington as he repressed many of his own people.”

Throughout Latin America, during the Cold War, the CIA was involved in overthrowing governments, while fueling a series of proxy wars and civil wars, as well as waging terror campaigns against others. To this day, the US maintains a more than 60-year old embargo on Cuba as well as a notorious torture prison at Guantanamo Bay.

During recent years, the US has supported coups against governments in Venezuela and Bolivia. The US currently imposes sanctions on Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. In Venezuela, Washington’s economic war led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths between 2017 and 2018 as a result of vital medicines being deprived.

Additionally, among GOP presidential candidates, there is substantial support for a potential military invasion of Mexico to ostensibly counter drug trafficking.

According to the Leafly Cannabis Harvest Report 2022, marijuana was the sixth most valuable wholesale crop in the United States last year at a $5 billion worth, trailing only corn, soybeans, hay, wheat and cotton.

The calculation includes only crops in states where state-sanctioned sales of legal weed are already up and running and exclude production in medical marijuana-only states.

Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that 2022 saw a cannabis harvest of 2,834 metric tons, up 24 percent from 2021.

You will find more infographics at Statista

While the count of states having legalized marijuana stands at 23, only 15 had at the time of the release of the report come as far as opening state-licensed retail stores, mainly due to a flurry of legalization since 2021 affecting nine states. The 15 states where dispensaries are open are tied to more than 13,000 active and legal cannabis farms, according to Leafly.

You will find more infographics at Statista

California had the biggest share in the harvest, producing marijuana at a wholesale value of $1 billion, followed by Colorado at $687 million, Michigan at $551 million and Oregon at $500 million.

At wholesale crop values of between $124 million and $362 million, marijuana was also the number one cash crop in New Jersey, Alaska and Massachusetts.

In its report, Leafly criticized that despite its prominent role, marijuana crops are not included in statistics by the USDA and are not generally considered agricultural products, which leads to marijuana farmers paying higher taxes, being ineligible for disaster relief and often have trouble finding adequate financial services.

Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

We hate to say we told you so, but it’s official. The Justice Department announced a new rule to amend ATF regulations and expand the definition of a firearms dealer to include those who sell even a single firearm. 

The original rumors of the rule suggested anyone who sold five or more firearms could have to register as an FFL and conduct background checks, however the official released version says selling even ONE FIREARM without a license would be illegal.🤯 pic.twitter.com/U1s9SUFm2q

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 31, 2023

While earlier versions of the rule leaked to the public via the Biden administration’s allies in the corporate media hinted at a target of about five firearms sold without a license before requiring an individual to register as an FFL, the published rule seems more restrictive. Those who have sold or even “offer to engage” in a single transaction could be prosecuted for unlicensed activities.

That’s not all. The rule is also full of unclear language that gives ATF wiggle room to prosecute gun owners as they please. Examples of actions that ATF could use to define activity as operating as an unlicensed dealer are listed, but ATF notes that the list of examples is not exhaustive. This creates a system where gun owners must prove they are not dealers to be able to sell a firearm legally.

Just in case you thought the ATF was going to be clear and concise on this rule, think again!

Here are four pages of what you CAN’T do and then a catch all sentence that says it is “not exhaustive.”🙄

Well. We’re exhaustED. pic.twitter.com/1dUexIsY8Y

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 31, 2023

We can’t stress this enough: this ATF Rule is a direct result of Republican–backed gun control. Specifically, it’s called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, or the Cornyn-Murphy compromise. GOA and our grassroots membership warned Sen. Cornyn and his colleagues that the act could be used in this exact manner; unfortunately, our warnings fell on deaf ears, and the gun control bill became law last year.

And, of course, the rule itself isn’t about safety. It’s about building the ATF’s illegal firearm registry. With a massive digital registry of out-of-business records that GOA has covered in-depth, this rule only expands on who is subject to information collection on their firearms purchases.

Oops! @giffords_org said the quiet part out loud!🙄

This rule isn’t about “safety.” It’s about knowing who has what guns and building the ATF’s illegal registry. https://t.co/5z7LHP7BK1

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) August 31, 2023

Consider that on top of this new rule, Biden’s ATF has adopted a “Zero Tolerance” policy for Federal Firearms Licensees. Under this policy, gun stores can be shut down for even a single minor mistake on paperwork.

Another ATF rule. Another lawsuit. https://t.co/m5uSKw1TZZ

— Gun Owners Foundation (@GunFoundation) August 31, 2023

Gun Owners of America stands ready to oppose this new ATF rule by any means necessary.

*   *   * 

We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

It appears that a new world order is emerging, with BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization offering trade alternatives to the hegemonic West. The latest example of a multi-polar world is the US being displaced by BRICS country Brazil as the world’s top corn supplier. 

The US held the crown for fifty years as the world’s top corn exporter. A new Blomberg report, citing data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), shows the five-decade reign is over:

In the 2023 harvest year, the US will account for about 23% of global corn exports, well below Brazil’s nearly 32%, US Department of Agriculture data show. Brazil is seen holding onto its lead in the 2024 planting year that begins Sept. 1, too. Only once in data going back to the Kennedy administration did America drop out of first place before: for a single year in 2013 following a devastating drought. The US corn-exporting industry has never before spent two back-to-back years in second place — until now.

It’s not corn. Brazil has also displaced American farmers in both soybean and wheat exports. Bloomberg explained more: 

Losing its lead in corn exports may feel familiar to American farmers, who in the last decade have also relinquished the top spot in both soybean and wheat exports. Soy was the first to go, with Brazil definitively taking the lead in 2013. The next year, the US lost its wheat dominance, too, with the European Union, then Russia, beginning to elbow out American farmers in the global market.

The export ag market share slide is troubling news for the domestic industry that exported $200 billion in farm products in 2022. Sliding dominance may suggest that farmer incomes may slide in the years ahead.

Stephen Nicholson, global grains and oilseeds sector strategist with Rabobank, an agricultural lender, told Reuters:

“When we look at US corn demand long term, we wonder where new demand is coming from. 

“Brazil is likely taking a bigger share of the global market, ethanol has likely peaked and animal protein is likely not going to grow fast enough.” 

The reason for the shift is a rejiggering of China’s ag trade away from the US to Brazil. China signed a deal with Brazil last year to increase gain purchases. 

“Brazil has the ability to ramp that planting area up to meet Chinese demand in a way that the United States doesn’t,” said Matthew Roberts, senior grain analyst with consultancy Terrain.

Plus, the Chinese are steering clear of US trade because lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been in a frenzy to weaponize the dollar and trade against Beijing. 

“The US reminds me of the frog being slowly boiled,” Ann Berg, an independent consultant and veteran trader who started her career at Louis Dreyfus Co. in 1974, told Bloomberg. 

Berg said, “It’s lost its dominance, but it took 40 years.”

We’ve outlined that the emergence of BRICS as an alternative to Western hegemony will cause the global economy to evolve in three phases. For more on that, read “Breaking Dollar Hegemony, BRICS Nations Are Leading The World To Hyperbitcoinization.” Also, read “A Multi-polar World Is Emerging.”

Authored by Megan Redshaw via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. government and pharmaceutical companies are investing a substantial amount to develop new mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases and cancer, fueling a lucrative mRNA platform valued at $136.2 billion.

A newly established White House program announced on Aug. 23 that it is granting a total of $25 million over three years to Emory University, Yale School of Medicine, and the University of Georgia to develop personalized therapeutic vaccines against cancers and emerging infections, similar to how COVID-19 mRNA vaccines target SARS-CoV-2. They aim to use mRNA—an essential element in COVID-19 vaccines developed to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections—to program a unique class of immune cells called dendritic cells to initiate a desired immunological response.

Pharmaceutical companies such as Moderna, BioNTech, and CureVac are conducting clinical trials using mRNA-based vaccines with advanced melanoma, ovarian, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers. The National Institutes of Health is partnering with BioNTech to develop a personalized vaccine for pancreatic cancers. In addition to COVID-19 and cancer, other mRNA-based vaccines in development target influenza, genital herpes, respiratory viruses, and shingles.

Although mRNA platforms are appealing because they reduce costs and shorten the vaccine development timeline, evidence and experience suggest the mRNA technology used for novel COVID-19 vaccines is associated with various harms and neither prevents COVID-19 nor its transmission.

Evidence Challenging Vaccine ‘Safe and Effective’ Narrative

The unprecedented rates of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination overshadow the benefits, according to researchers from Australia who say the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, whether from the virus or created from genetic code in mRNA and adenovectorDNA vaccines, is toxic and causes a wide array of diseases.

In their recently published paper published in Biomedicines titled, “‘Spikeopathy’: COVID-19 Spike Protein Is Pathogenic, from Both Virus and Vaccine mRNA,” the researchers explored peer-reviewed data countering the “safe and effective” narrative attached to new technologies used to develop mRNA and adenovectorDNA vaccines at “warp speed” to end the pandemic.

Spike protein pathogenicity, termed “spikeopathy,” describes the ability of the spike protein to cause disease, and the researchers say it can affect many organ systems.

Researchers noted the following key problem areas:

• Spike protein toxicity (spikeopathy) from both the virus and when produced by gene codes in people vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines.
• Inflammatory properties in specific lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) used to transport mRNA.
• Long-lasting action caused by N1-methyl pseudouridine in the synthetic mRNA—also referred to as modRNA.
• Widespread distribution of mRNA and DNA codes via the LNP and viral vector carrier matrices, respectively.
• Human cells produce a foreign protein that can cause autoimmunity.

Now that vaccines utilizing mRNA technology have been available and widely distributed for several years, data show these vaccines produce foreign antigens in human tissues and increase the risk of autoimmune, neurological, cardiovascular, inflammatory disorders, and cancers, especially when the vaccine ingredients do not remain localized at the injection site. An antigen is any substance that stimulates an immune response. If the immune system encounters an antigen that is not found on the body’s own cells, it will launch an attack against that antigen.

Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data show the design of the mRNA and adenovectorDNA COVID-19 vaccines allow uncontrolled biodistribution, durability, and persistent bioavailability of the spike protein inside the body after vaccination. Pharmacokinetics is the study of how the body interacts with administered substances for the entire duration of exposure. Pharmacodynamics assesses the drug’s effect on the body more closely.

This may explain the unprecedented number of adverse events that appear to be associated with the spike protein produced by the gene-based technologies employed by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson, as well as the viral vector DNA technology used by other countries, researchers said.

mRNA Vaccines Are Gene Therapy and May Cause Harm

Gene-based COVID-19 vaccines are therapeutic products that actually fit within the FDA’s definition of gene therapy because they cause the cells of the vaccinated person to produce antigens for transmembrane expression that invokes an immune response. By design, these novel vaccine platforms risk tissue damage secondary to autoimmune responses raised against cells expressing foreign spike antigens, researchers said.

The FDA was aware of the pathogenicity of spike proteins before releasing COVID-19 vaccines to the public. In an October 2022 meeting with its vaccine advisors, the FDA presented a highly accurate list of potential adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines, including neurological, cardiovascular, and autoimmune “possible adverse events.”

React19, an organization that provides financial, emotional, and physical support to those experiencing long-term injuries from COVID-19 vaccines, provided a list of over 3,400 published papers and case reports of injuries affecting more than 20 organ systems. More than 432 peer-reviewed papers relate to papers and case reports of myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, myocardial infarction, hypertension, aortic dissection, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), tachycardia, and conduction disturbance—a problem with the electrical system that controls the heart’s rate and rhythm.

The most common group of adverse events reported following COVID-19 vaccination to both pharmacovigilance databases and Pfizer involve neurological disorders. According to the paper, neurological symptoms and cognitive decline with accelerated neurodegenerative disease are features of acute COVID-19 vaccine injuries and, to some extent, long COVID syndrome. Research suggests (pdf) LNPs transporting the mRNA to make spike proteins can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause neurotoxic effects.

Lipid Nanoparticles Are Toxic and Pro-Inflammatory

It’s not just the spike protein that can cause disease. LNPs that serve as the delivery method are also toxic and pro-inflammatory.

Research from 2018 showed even small amounts of nanoparticles taken up by the lungs can lead to cytotoxic effects. Ingested nanoparticles have been shown to affect lymph nodes, the liver, and the spleen, while when injected as a drug carrier, they can pass any barrier and translocate to the brain, ovaries, and testes, mainly after phagocytosis by macrophages, which help distribute them across the body. The effects on the reproductive system suggest lipid nanoparticles can be cytotoxic and damage DNA.

According to the authors, two components in the mRNA lipid nanoparticle complexes, ALC-0315 and ALC-0159, are concerning, as they have never been used in a medicinal product and are not registered in either the European Pharmacopoeia or in the European C&L Inventory database. A question posed to the European Parliament in December 2021 pointed out that the manufacturer of the nanoparticles specifies the nanoparticles are for research only and not for human use. The European Commission responded that the excipient in Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine “has been demonstrated to be appropriate … in compliance with the relevant EMA scientific guidelines and standards.”

Still, this could explain the root cause of numerous post-vaccination adverse events, researchers said.

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