Craig Murray
Well, it is nice to be free again, though as I said on release, I shall never really feel free while Julian is still imprisoned and while Scotland is still part of an imperialist United Kingdom. I expect most of you have seen my release, but for those who have not:
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Headquarters of NHS England. (Lad, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)By Stewart Player and Bob Gill
Special to Consortium News
One of the recent roles of the Parliamentary Healthcare Committee has been to reassure the British public that any claims regarding the ‘Americanization’ of the National Health Service (NHS) were wildly overstated, “creating a climate that risks blocking the joining up of services in the interests of patients.”
In fact, the penetration of the healthcare system by the giant U.S. insurer UnitedHealth reveals the opposite to be true, with the full extent of its influence capable of surprising even seasoned NHS watchers.
By Pepe Escobar
American hysteria over the “imminent” Russian invasion of Ukraine has exploded every geopolitical Stupid-o-Meter in sight – and that’s quite an accomplishment.
What a mess. Sections of the U.S. Deep State are in open revolt against the combo that remote controls Crash Test Dummy, who impersonates POTUS. The neocon-neoliberal axis is itching for a war – but has no idea how to sell it to an immensely fractured public opinion.
This year, Good Law Project has exposed cronyism right at the heart of Government. It’s perhaps not surprising that those who benefit from these cozy arrangements are trying to derail us.
The Government has told blatant lies, threatened to refer me to my professional regulator, briefed the media against us and shoved enormous bills for legal costs our way. And they’re not the only ones trying to stop us.
Iran’s Dy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani (C) with diplomatic adviser to UAE President Anwar Gargash (L) and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalifa Almara, Abu Dhabi, Nov. 16, 2021The terrible secret about Faustian deals is that they need a Mephistopheles to nurture them. That said, Goethe’s Mephisto is very different from the crude devil of medieval legend. Goethe sketches him as a cultivated, witty, and cynical exponent of materialism and nihilism who preaches a sophisticated doctrine of philosophical negation.
Weddings. Hospitals. Refugee camps. Aid workers. All have become the target of lethal strikes this year due to the spreading use of drones by a growing number of states. Here we detail six particular strikes and, below, reflect on what they show about the reality of drone warfare today.
(Brian Berletic – NEO) – The very first “Summit for Democracy” will be held in early December 2021. Organized by the United States, it will include “leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector,” all unilaterally picked by the United States who, by implication, has unilaterally declared itself arbiter of which nations are deemed “democratic” and by process of counting the uninvited, those deemed “undemocratic.”
US-sponsored opposition movements in nations left uninvited took the opportunity to portray the summit as validation for some and a “slap in the face” to others.
TruePublica Editor: Make no mistake, the principles of democracy are being dismantled in Britain. I have written many articles making that very point.
The phrase ‘liquid graveyard’, often applied to the Mediterranean, is now applicable to the English Channel, where the 43 boat-related deaths in the last 18 months are the result of Europe’s increasingly militarised border regime. The latest of these avoidable deaths occurred on 24 November, when seventeen men, seven women (one pregnant) and 3 children, thought to be Iraqi or Iranian Kurds, drowned trying to cross the Channel. Each of these deaths is a tragedy to the families of those seeking safety or trying to join loved ones here. All could be avoided by a humane policy which allowed asylum seekers access to travel facilities. Cracking down on unauthorised journeys through more pushbacks, criminalisation and ‘off-shoring’, as the government proposes in the Nationality and Borders Bill, won’t stop the deaths – it will drive people into taking more dangerous journeys, costing more lives. The IRR spoke to the Morning Star about this latest tragedy and for more on the borders bill, read IRR Vice-Chair Frances Webber’s comments to the New Statesman in their analysis of plans to remove citizenship without notice.
“The Black Agenda”
Glen Ford
Black politics are key to recognizing the most important social dynamics of the United States. Over the past forty years, no commentator has been as deeply insightful about the paradoxes and personalities of Black American public life as the late journalist and radio host Glen Ford.
In this stunning overview, Ford draws from his work for Black Agenda Report, one of the most incisive and perceptive publications of the progressive left, to examine competing struggles for class power and identity in the Black movement.
Likbez (USSR), Tatar Literacy Club, 1935.Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
Almost every single child on the planet (over 80% of them) had their education disrupted by the pandemic, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural (UNESCO) agency. Though this finding is startling, it was certainly necessary to close schools as the infectious COVID-19 virus tore through society. What has been the impact of that decision on education? In 2017 – before the pandemic – at least 840 million people had no access to electricity, which meant that, for many children, online education was impossible. A third of the global population (2.6 billion people) has no access to the internet, which – even if they had electricity – makes online education impossible. If we go deeper, we find that the rates of those who do not have access to the gadgets necessary for online learning – such as computers and smartphones – are even more dire, with two billion people lacking both. To have physical schools closed, therefore, has resulted in hundreds of millions of children around the world missing school for nearly two years.
The New York Times has falsely claimed that the Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai accused her former lover of sexual assault. She did not do that.
In her post on the Chinese website Weibo (English translation) Peng Shuai only lamented that the relation with her old lover had come to an end. She did not accuse him of anything that could be considered an assault. The NYT made that up.
[In other words, the ‘vaccine’ don’t work as advertised! The ‘vaccinated’ are infecting those who are also ‘vaccinated’ as well as those of us who have not been ‘vaccinated’, excepting of course, all those who have already contracted the virus and/or have natual immunity. B]
Open AccessPublished: November 19, 2021DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100272
High COVID-19 vaccination rates were expected to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in populations by reducing the number of possible sources for transmission and thereby to reduce the burden of COVID-19 disease. Recent data, however, indicate that the epidemiological relevance of COVID-19 vaccinated individuals is increasing. In the UK it was described that secondary attack rates among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases was similar to household contacts exposed to unvaccinated index cases (25% for vaccinated vs 23% for unvaccinated). 12 of 31 infections in fully vaccinated household contacts (39%) arose from fully vaccinated epidemiologically linked index cases. Peak viral load did not differ by vaccination status or variant type [
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On Wednesday, November 24, MintPress News Editor in Chief Mnar Adley sat down to speak with Camila Saab, the wife of imprisoned Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. Saab was on a diplomatic mission to Iran in June 2020, where he was tasked with securing deals for food, medicine and personal protective equipment. His plane stopped off in Cabo Verde — a group of islands off the west coast of Africa — for a routine refuelling. He would never finish his journey, as, on orders from the United States government, local authorities stormed the vehicle, forcing him off the plane — an event that would begin his 18-month detention. “I never imagined that Cabo Verde was going to kidnap a diplomat,” said the Italian-born former model and mother of two.
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On the latest episode of The Hill’s “Rising,” journalist and political commentator Kim Iversen discussed the new Omicron variant and COVID vaccine hesitancy in South Africa, where COVID spread and hospitalizations are low.
Is the panic surrounding the Omicron variant overblown? That’s the question journalist and political commentator Kim Iversen asked on the latest episode of The Hill’s “Rising.”
Examining new infections in Germany, researchers found that the rate of cases among fully vaccinated individuals aged 60 and older has risen from 16.9% in July to 58.9% in October.
Dear friends,
It has been an extraordinary, and very testing, few weeks.
President Vladimir Putin remarked on Sino-Russian partnership at ‘Russia Calling! Investment Forum’, Moscow, Nov 30, 2021The Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times has disclosed, citing [a] high-level “source”, that Beijing had no intentions to invite US and Western politicians to the 2022 Winter Olympics on February 4-20. This followed the US President Joe Biden’s innuendo that he’s considering a diplomatic boycott of the Games.
